Le Silence de la Mer

par Vercors (Jean Bruller) 1942

Published covertly in Nazi-occupied France, this was a publication for the French people, a sort of “guide for la Resistance” to this country still dazed from the invasion.  There were underground publications of newspapers but Vercors approached a publisher to do this larger project.  It is a short story, only 50 pages, but still very good and with psychological depth.

The story enfolds as two lower soldiers examine the narrator’s house.  Several comings and goings later a soldier tells the man and his niece that there will be an officer staying in their house.  When they meet him he is actually fluent in French and very polite.  Still, neither the niece nor the narrator utter a word or even acknowledge him.  This was the start of an unspoken agreement that they would continue their lives as usual as if he had never came.

One night there is a snowy-rain outside.  The officer does not come in like he usually does, but after a while they hear his uneven steps in the hallway and he enters wearing civilian clothes.  He warms himself by the fire and begins talking to them about himself.  This is the beginning of a long, thoroughly one-sided dialogue that happens every night, where he tells them about his dreams, his loves and his philosophies.  It turns out he is a composer who has loved France from afar for his whole life.  He believes that the invasion will begin a great union between France and Germany and that the war will cause “the sun to rise over Europe.”  He regards the niece as a metaphor for France.  The silence in the house exists always.

After a time, he has the opportunity to go to Paris to witness what he thinks will be the marriage/union between the two countries.  But, when he returns he no longer comes to see them.  Finally he comes, this time in a uniform and utterly changed.  In Paris they laughed at him and his idealism.  They said there was no union between France and Germany; they were going to conquer the beast and suck out its soul like venom.  They planned to destroy everything that the officer loved.  But worst of all, these words came from a fellow artist, a poet who he had studied and traveled with since they were young, someone he saw as a brother.

When he comes to explain this to the narrator and his niece, he is a soldier once more and a broken man.  The reader can see from his involuntary movements how he tries to hold in all of his emotions and grief.  He has asked to be reassigned to Russia, a hell, but one easier than the one he is in now.  As he leaves he says Adieu while looking at the niece and waits in the doorway for her response.  His France breaks the silence and acknowledges him as a human being with a responding Adieu.  He’s gone the next morning and the sun is paler in the sky.

Very excellent book that should be read for its quality and to enjoy in the intricacies of its symbolism and character interactions, as well as for its greater message.

The second [introduction] by Brown, explores the eloquent symbolism of silence, its politics, its aesthetics and the sensory and kinetic codes through which it is constructed, tending though to hint that the key to intelligibility lies in the biography of the author.

Michael Kelly, University of Southampton, French History Journal

(If you want to read this in English, Michael Kelly also recommends Put out the light; a translation by Cyril Connolly, London, Macillan, 1944.)

The film (2004) is very loosely based on the book.  In the film the emphasis is totally on the relationship between the niece and the officer and it has switched narrators from hearing the thoughts of the uncle to following the niece around all day.  It tries to encompass too much of the situation in France, deviating from the story line for long periods of time.

Brave New World

by Alduous Huxley

A vision of our future world from Huxley’s view in the 1930’s when the helicopter was a striking new invention and Ford was changing the world with his mass production lines.  After a big disaster the world has been condensed and formed into nine World States, each with a supreme leader.  People are no longer born but are grown in conveyor-belt style, and specially engineered to fill their regimented social roles.

The reader follows some characters on the top of the scale, the Alphas, Bernard and Hutch.  One struggles to fit into his social role and the other fits easily but longs for forbidden poetry.  They both push the limits of their society and get entangled with a savage from one of the wild tribes left in southwestern America.  Their struggles carry them to the top of society and end in disappointing, exhilarating, and utterly devastating ways.

Good book to read, just to be aware of it, and for it’s good points about society and good descriptive scenes.  Some things are ludicrous, like the fact that this world structure would work, and the parts where John the Savage can argue eloquently and fully understand the depths of Shakespeare from seeing the book some while he was a child.

This book was among the ranks of Wuthering Heights, Frankenstein, Hamlet, Macbeth, and Gulliver’s Travels that we covered in AP English my senior year.   Personally, I wanted to cover more books.   What about Slaughterhouse Five?  Middlemarch?  In Cold Blood?  Grapes of Wrath?  Invisible Man?  Catch-22?  The Things They Carried?  Of Mice and Men?  Heart of Darkness?  David Copperfield?  Come on, let’s read people!

I did enjoy Wuthering Heights and Hamlet, but I think Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland would be a better substitute for Gulliver’s Travels.  I’ve heard Brave New World and 1984 compared a lot, as Orual said in a conversation about AP books on College Confidential: “I recommend Brave New World over 1984, but it depends on whether you’d prefer to read about how things we like destroy us or about how things we hate destroy us.”

The Great Gatsby

by F. Scott Fitzgerald

It was lovely, I really enjoyed it.  One thing though, reading this book was like living in a haze.  Maybe Fitzgerald was trying to capture the ambience of the flapper 20’s, or maybe that was how these silly characters’ minds worked.

“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness…” These people live the decadent life of the roaring twenties that many of the writers of this era were criticizing. The mindless, indulgent, irresponsible life style where consequence is just an afterthought, homework-online.com

I encountered this story first when I saw the movie last year.  Looking back I would say that the film starring Robert Redford was a wonderful rendition of this book.  And I think seeing the movie first made the book better; it was easier to visualize the period clothing, parties, and attitudes.

> You can read the whole book online thanks to eBooks@Adelaide.

{From Amazon Review:  In 1922, F. Scott Fitzgerald announced his decision to write “something new–something extraordinary and beautiful and simple + intricately patterned.” That extraordinary, beautiful, intricately patterned, and above all, simple novel became The Great Gatsby, arguably Fitzgerald’s finest work and certainly the book for which he is best known. A portrait of the Jazz Age in all of its decadence and excess, Gatsby captured the spirit of the author’s generation and earned itself a permanent place in American mythology. Self-made, self-invented millionaire Jay Gatsby embodies some of Fitzgerald’s–and his country’s–most abiding obsessions: money, ambition, greed, and the promise of new beginnings. “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter–tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther…. And one fine morning–” Gatsby’s rise to glory and eventual fall from grace becomes a kind of cautionary tale about the American Dream.

It’s also a love story, of sorts, the narrative of Gatsby’s quixotic passion for Daisy Buchanan. The pair meet five years before the novel begins, when Daisy is a legendary young Louisville beauty and Gatsby an impoverished officer. They fall in love, but while Gatsby serves overseas, Daisy marries the brutal, bullying, but extremely rich Tom Buchanan. After the war, Gatsby devotes himself blindly to the pursuit of wealth by whatever means–and to the pursuit of Daisy, which amounts to the same thing. “Her voice is full of money,” Gatsby says admiringly, in one of the novel’s more famous descriptions. His millions made, Gatsby buys a mansion across Long Island Sound from Daisy’s patrician East Egg address, throws lavish parties, and waits for her to appear. When she does, events unfold with all the tragic inevitability of a Greek drama, with detached, cynical neighbor Nick Carraway acting as chorus throughout. Spare, elegantly plotted, and written in crystalline prose, The Great Gatsby is as perfectly satisfying as the best kind of poem.}

Wuthering Heights

by Emily Brontë

Another classic to cross-off of the NEA’s Big Read: Top 100 list!  I liked this book, especially when I got farther into the story.  The novel is framed by the premise of a new tenant learning the turbulent history of two families on the moors, the Earnshaws and Lintons.  It covers three generations, so it is helpful to have a family tree for reference.  Some books include a family tree or you can find one on the internet.  This timeline is also very helpful.

The love between Cathy and Hareton at the end was so wonderful.  When the love was realized, they were so happy together and made their surroundings blossom again.  And probably my favorite part was when Nelly confronted Heathcliff about his new mood, and he explained how he had the means right before him to completely destroy the two families forever, but couldn’t.  He looked into the young lovers’ faces and just let them be happy.  He still looked like a demon when he died but that choice to not wreck the two young people redeems him a lot in my eyes.

Critics of the time thought this to be a horrible book, and one even said, “We rise from the perusal of Wuthering Heights as if we had come fresh from a pest-house. Read Jane Eyre is our advice, but burn Wuthering Heights…”  (Reader’s Guide to WH)  I am inclined to believe quite the opposite; I’ve never read Jane Eyre but from movies and my sister’s interpretation I think Wuthering Heights is far more interesting, less depressing, and more thrilling.

This is my favorite book from AP Lit & Comp.  Some study questions that could be turned into essays:

• What role does Joseph play in the novel?
• Compare the marriages of Catherine (senior) and Isabella.
• How did Nelly alter the image of Heathcliff through her narration?

Love’s Labour’s Lost

The ladies have their bows and their game-faces on.

by William Shakespeare

After reading Romeo & Juliet, Macbeth, Hamlet, and Twelfth Night in English class, I can say that I truly enjoy Shakespeare.  I always loved attending the Nebraska Shakespeare Festival, a masterful production of two Shakespeare plays every summer, but until reading enough Shakespeare to get used to the prose did the words jump off the page and into imagination.  I could understand the lines in a faster manner and consequently get in to the story and experience  plot flow.  When understanding happened, I could also appreciate the word play more fully. Of which no play has more than Love’s Labour’s Lost.

“Love’s Labour’s is often thought of as Shakespeare’s most flamboyantly intellectual play. It abounds in sophisticated wordplay, puns, and literary allusions and is filled with clever pastiches of contemporary poetic forms. It is often assumed that it was written for performance at the Inns of Court, whose students would have been most likely to appreciate its style. This style is the principal reason why it has never been among Shakespeare’s most popular plays; the pedantic humour makes it extremely inaccessible to contemporary theatregoers.”

When reading one can revel in the lyrical quality of this play.  Sometimes the individual characters start talking and I forget what their prose means in context; that the things they’re saying are actually quite silly in the real world, and that the characters are delusional fools.

I did a research paper on this play and proposed that Love’s Labour’s Lost is a parody on courtly love.  Next on my Shakespeare list is definitely Taming of the Shrew, which I hear is quite good.

Twelfth Night, Act I

Already in AP English we have read Macbeth and Hamlet, now we’re reading our final Shakespeare play, Twelfth Night.  This one seems easier to understand, maybe because it’s a comedy, or maybe it’s because of the old adage, “The more Shakespeare you read the easier it gets.”

The test is tomorrow, so to review I will type up the summaries provided by our “Folger Library” books before each scene.

Act I, Scene i
At his court, Orsino, sick with love for the Lady Olivia, learns from his messenger that she is grieving for her dead brother and refuses to be seen for seven years.

Act I, Scene ii
On the Adriatic seacoast, Viola, who has been saved from a shipwreck in which her brother may have drowned, hears about Orsino and Olivia.  She wishes to join Olivia’s household, but is told that Olivia will admit no one into her presence.  Viola decides to disguise herself as a boy so that she can join Orsino’s male retinue.

Act I, Scene iii
At the estate of Lady Olivia, Sir Toby Belch, Olivia’s kinsman, has brought in Sir Andrew Aguecheek to be her suitor.  Maria, Olivia’s lady-in-waiting, says that Andrew is a fool, and Andrew himself doubts his ability to win Olivia, but Toby encourages him to woo her.

Act I, Scene iv
At Orsino’s court, Viola, disguised as a page and calling herself Cesario, has gained the trust of  Orsino, who decides to send her to woo Olivia for him.  Viola confides to the audience that she loves Orsino herself.

Act I, Scene v
Viola, in her disguise as Cesario, appears at Olivia’s estate.  Olivia allows Cesario to speak with her privately about Orsino’s love.  As Cesario presents Orsino’s love-suit, Olivia falls in love with Cesario.  She sends her steward, Malvolio, after Cesario with a ring.

Once again, these summaries are courtesy of Folger Libraries.

The Tragedy of Macbeth

 

Art by princendymion on deviantArt

by William Shakespeare

 

A short synopsis found on eNotes.com:

 “On the level of human evil, Shakespeare’s Scottish tragedy is about Macbeth’s bloody rise to power, including the murder of the Scottish king, Duncan, and the guilt-ridden pathology of evil deeds generating still more evil deeds. As an integral part of this thematic web is the play’s most memorable character, Lady Macbeth. Like her husband, Lady Macbeth’s ambition for power leads her into an unnatural, phantasmagoric realm of witchcraft, insomnia and madness. But while Macbeth responds to the prophecies of the play’s famous trio of witches, Lady Macbeth goes even further by figuratively transforming herself into an unnatural, desexualized evil spirit. The current trend of critical opinion is toward an upward reevaluation of Lady Macbeth, who is said to be rehumanized by her insanity and her suicide. Much of this reappraisal of Lady Macbeth has taken place in discussions of her ironically strong marriage to Macbeth, a union that rests on loving bonds but undergoes disintegration as the tragedy unfolds.”

This is Shakespeare’s shortest play, written for the attention span of King James.  It is loosely based on historical events.
      Watch out for Act 3 Scene 5, it is believed that that scene was added at a later date and not written by Shakespeare.  You can see that the lines are shorter, the very small part is almost superfluous to the surrounding plot, and it just doesn’t have the feel of the illustrious playwright.

Snow Falling on Cedars

by David Guterson

Very good read.  This is maybe only the second novel I’ve read revolving around a trial (To Kill A Mockingbird being the other).  I’ve read that this book was influenced by Harper Lee’s.

It is easy to see that the author knows his subject matter from the vibrant descriptions of the island where the story takes place.  I was in Washington in the summer of 2007 and got to see San Juan island, which allowed me to visualize and enjoy this book so much better.

The main theme is the necessity of individual moral action despite the indifference of nature and circumstance.  The characters deal with loss and racism, they have to find ways to move on.

Guterson leaves us with a powerful message:  “he understood this, too: accident ruled every corner of the universe except the chambers of the human heart.”

There is a movie version, I wonder if it is worth watching?  www.snowfallingoncedars.com

Click here for a summary via SparkNotes: http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/cedars/summary.html

Girl with a Pearl Earring

by Tracy Chevalier

One of the recommended summer reads, this book was very interesting.  Set in 1664 in the Netherlands, it is a valuable look at life during that period.  Tracy Chevalier hypothesized the circumstances under which the painting, sometimes called the Dutch Mona Lisa, was created.  While the domestic obsession annoyed me, the setting was fascinating.

This according to ReadingGroupGuides.com: “The novel centers on Griet, the daughter of a Delft tile painter who lost his sight in a kiln accident. In order to bring income to her struggling family, Griet must work as a maid for a more financially sound family. When Jan Vermeer and his wife approve of Griet as a maid for their growing Catholic household, she leaves home and quickly enters adult life. The Vermeer household, with its five children, grandmother and long-time servant, is ready to make Griet’s working life difficult. Though her help is sorely needed, her beauty and innocence are both coveted and resented. Vermeer’s wife Catharina, long banished from her husband’s studio for her clumsiness and lack of genuine interest in art, is immediately wary of Griet, a visually talented girl who exhibits signs of artistic promise. Taneke, the faithful servant to the grandmother, proves her protective loyalty by keeping a close eye on Griet’s every move.

The artist himself, however, holds another view entirely of the young maid. Recognizing Griet’s talents, Vermeer takes her on as his studio assistant and surreptitiously teaches her to grind paints and develop color palettes in the remote attic. Though reluctant to overstep her boundaries in the cagey Vermeer household, Griet is overjoyed both to work with her intriguing master and to lend some breath to her natural inclinations—colors and composition—neither of which she had ever been able to develop. Together, Vermeer and Griet conceal the apprenticeship from the family until Vermeer’s unscrupulous patron demands that the lovely maid be the subject of his next commissioned work. Vermeer must paint Griet—an awkward, charged situation for them both.

Chevalier’s account of the artistic process—from the grinding of paints to the inclusion and removal of background objects—lay at the core of the novel. Her inventive portrayal of this tumultuous time, when Protestantism began to dominate Catholicism and the growing bourgeoisie took the place of the Church as patrons of the arts, draws the reader into a lively, if little known, time and place in history.“

Amazing site detailing the painting and historical context:
http://girl-with-a-pearl-earring.20m.com/

SAT Book List

SAT Book List

I’m a college-bound almost-senior, so my next and final SAT on October 4th is weighing heavily on my mind. For all you other 2400 hopefuls out there, here is a list of good books to read in preparation. Of course as I read them they will appear on this blog with a review and a yay/nay for enjoyment/helpfulness. In the meantime, enjoy.

Analyses
A Brief History of Time — Stephen Hawking
QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter — Richard P. Feynman
The Mismeasure of Man — Stephen Jay Gould
The Lives of a Cell — Lewis Thomas
The Republic — Plato
Democracy in America — Alexis DeTocqueville
Civilization and Its Discontents — Sigmond Freud
The Language Instinct — Steven Pinker
How the Mind Works — Steven Pinker
(Seen in a review from Amazon.com: “If How the Mind Works were a rock show, tickets would be scalped for $100.”)
A People’s History of the US — Howard Zinn
Freakonomics — Stephen Levitt & Steven Dubner

Narratives
Crime and Punishment — Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Metamorphosis & Other Stories — Franz Kafka
Narratives of the Life of Frederick Douglas
Life of Pi — Yann Martel
The Color Purple — Alice Walker
Atlas Shrugged — Ayn Rand
Frankenstein — Mary Shelley
Pride and Prejudice — Jane Austen
Baby, It’s Cold Inside — S. J. Perelman
Best American Short Stories of the Century — John Updike
Growing Up — Russell Baker
The Wall — John Hersey
Candide — Voltaire
Macbeth — William Shakespeare
The Painted Bird — Jerzy Kosinski
One Hundred Years of Solitude — Gabriel García Márquez

Arguments
The Chomsky Reader — Chomsky
The World is Flat — Friedman
Drift and Mastery — Lippmann
The Best American Essays — Atwan
Walden — Thoreau
Lanterns & Lances — Thurber
> plus other media:
The Op-Ed pages of the New York Times
The Nation
Scientific American
Essays in Harper’s, Atlantic Monthly, and the New Yorker
Sunday Magazine

More ways to prepare:
Talk to smart adults and friends with good vocabularies
Read college-level books
Watch documentaries
Listen to National Public Radio
~ try out new words on your own
~ get a dictionary with pronunciation and etymology

And lastly, don’t forget to practice writing essays. You only have 25 minutes to ‘present and support a point of view on a specific issue’ as well as you can.

Go to the College Board site for even more info:
http://www.collegeboard.com/