This story was somewhat disappointing because of its familiarity. The hero blamed for a crime he didn’t commit; discovering the real murderer; exacting revenge against that murderer; the tale of youths falling in love; learning why Merrin was killed in the first place, the subplots in “Horns” are fairly conventional, aside from Ig suddenly developing devil-like abilities. Even the execution, while skillfully handled, was largely formulaic right down to the flashbacks, foreshadowing and other well-used plot devices.
Creatively, I loved the idea of the hero using abilities usually associated with evil, especially the ‘horns’ which caused people to confess their darkest urges—their worst and most shameful impulses—and asking permission to commit more. The only problem I had with this concept is that I felt the abilities that Ig develops and the many references Joe makes to Satan over the course of the novel were a bit too cliché like being able to learn all of a person’s guilty secrets upon skin contact, commanding snakes, wielding a pitchfork as a weapon, ‘luck of the devil’, 666, the gift of tongues, “The Devil Inside”, Asmodeus, ‘devil in a blue dress’, and so on. Comparatively, while “Horns” is another well-written and entertaining novel, I felt it lacked the surprise twists and jaw-dropping moments. Nevertheless, I immensely enjoyed reading “Horns” and believe the novel will only add to Joe Hill's growing legacy...
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
The Stranger by: Albert Camus
The Stranger by Albert Camus is a super short novel, but its substance is heavy. The main character, Meursault, unsympathetically attends his mother’s funeral, begins an immoral relationship with a female co-worker the next day, becomes involved in his debauched neighbor’s problems, and ends up murdering a man without reasonable motive. The Stranger is appealing, specifically because it highlights philosophical ideas that express why we are where we are today as a society. As much as I appreciated the opportunity to read The Stranger, I completely disagree with this philosophy. To begin, Meursault is honest about the way he views everything; I value that. But he does not seem human: he is without emotion or empathy; is animalistic in his thoughts; and is disconnected from people. I wondered if he was not a little mentally challenged or childlike. I suppose his story would be acceptable if my speculations were true; but the problem is that this is his attitude. He does not judge between what is right and what is evil. He thinks society ineptly seeks logical meaning behind man’s behavior and purpose; yet, he thinks there is no explanation for either. Society cannot know if there is truly a purpose to life; therefore, there is no reason to care. Man is like nature, and nature does not care either.
Friday, March 21, 2014
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Li Mu Bai is a legendary martial artist whose attempts to find enlightenment have left him disillusioned. He gives away his famous sword, the Green Destiny, to signal a move into a new, nonviolent life. His courier is Shu Lien, another well-known fighter who’s been pining away for him for years. Shu Lien becomes friendly with the aristocratic young Jen, who is secretly a superior swords woman, the lover of the desert bandit Lo, and a disciple of the vicious middle-aged female criminal Jade Fox. From this setup, the film details the theft of the Green Destiny, the romantic and political intrigues that ensue, and the major characters’ life quests: Jen for love and power, Li Mui Bai for peace, Shu Lien for Li Mui Bai, Jade Fox for revenge against all men, and Lo for Jen.
The film has a elegant look that works in its favor to transport the viewer to its setting of ancient China. But this rich pictorialism has a down side: Lee (Director) seems to be so in love with his compositions and conceits that the film slows to a crawl in some sequences. A particular offender in this regard is a seemingly endless diversion in the desert, where the love affair between Lo the bandit and Jen the captured lady begins. Lee exploits the bleak beauty of this setting (shot in the Gobi desert and the Taklamakan Plateau north of Tibet) but eventually loses the viewer in the interminable love scenes.
More successful — indeed, the film’s major draw — are the stunningly executed fight scenes. Crouching Tiger keeps all the details clear, giving full play to these skilled performers’ leaps and thrusts and always interspering high-angle shots for context. Michelle Yeoh executes her typical stunningly economical moves, while Cheng Pei Pei is her opposite, relying more on brute strength and raw power to conquer her enemies. Most impressive is Zhang Ziyi. Her dazzling gymnastics put her immediately in the company of legendary predecessors in the field like Angela Mao Ying.
THE FORCE THAT THROUGH THE GREEN FUSE DRIVES THE FLOWER, Dylan Thomas
THEME: The poem is mostly talking about life, death, and the way time connects the two. Nature and humanity are also compared and contrasted a good deal.
Stanza 1: Time is the "force that through the green fuse drives the flower", but time doesn't just nudge or push the flower into the open--it forces it. Time is aggressive in this poem. Also, the flower's middle is a "green fuse"--not a stem, stalk, or tube, but a fuse as if it were a stick of dynamite. Time also "blasts the roots of trees", which could mean that it makes them grow or that time sends tree roots slamming through the dirt like shrapnel. Time destroys by pushing life along at such a pace that the living things are worn out and broken by the pace of their development--at the end of stanza 1, the speaker tries to talk to a "crooked rose"and mentions how his own youth is "bent".
Stanza 2: Time moves the waters, too, in the same rough way that it produces plant growth. The water doesn't flow on its own power over the rocks; it is driven right through the rocks. The running water is compared to the speaker's own blood flow, but the same force of time that makes water and blood burst along their paths, also dries river beds and solidifies human veins. The speaker feels time draining him like a vampire, like it drains the mountain springs.
Stanza 3: For the first time, the speaker address the role of the Divine in the processes of Time. Unfortunately, though the divine presence can heal destruction, it also brings about death eventually. I'll be honest and admit that I have no idea what "the hangman's lime" line means. Obviously it's something to do with death, but if you Google "the hangman's lime" you'll find Wesleyan's poetry magazine, and if you try to do other hanging-related web searches, you get disturbing results. So. Draw your own conclusions on that one.
Stanza 4: This stanza is a puzzler, because while time is leaching "at the fountainhead" of something--life?--love is dripping something and easing it's own sores with fallen blood. The blood of life. Time drains Life, and Love is satisfied by the bits of Life that fall upon it.
Final Couplet: Well, we've got lovey words like "lover" and "sheet" in these two lines, but both romantic images are directly tied to death. The lover is in a tomb and the sheet seems to be a funeral shroud that the speaker envisions for himself. What a devastating poem. It's absolutely beautiful, but it doesn't offer hope about the future. Death is eminent. Time will drive you, force you, and explode you in a direction you don't want to go--straight toward the grave.
Stanza 1: Time is the "force that through the green fuse drives the flower", but time doesn't just nudge or push the flower into the open--it forces it. Time is aggressive in this poem. Also, the flower's middle is a "green fuse"--not a stem, stalk, or tube, but a fuse as if it were a stick of dynamite. Time also "blasts the roots of trees", which could mean that it makes them grow or that time sends tree roots slamming through the dirt like shrapnel. Time destroys by pushing life along at such a pace that the living things are worn out and broken by the pace of their development--at the end of stanza 1, the speaker tries to talk to a "crooked rose"and mentions how his own youth is "bent".
Stanza 2: Time moves the waters, too, in the same rough way that it produces plant growth. The water doesn't flow on its own power over the rocks; it is driven right through the rocks. The running water is compared to the speaker's own blood flow, but the same force of time that makes water and blood burst along their paths, also dries river beds and solidifies human veins. The speaker feels time draining him like a vampire, like it drains the mountain springs.
Stanza 3: For the first time, the speaker address the role of the Divine in the processes of Time. Unfortunately, though the divine presence can heal destruction, it also brings about death eventually. I'll be honest and admit that I have no idea what "the hangman's lime" line means. Obviously it's something to do with death, but if you Google "the hangman's lime" you'll find Wesleyan's poetry magazine, and if you try to do other hanging-related web searches, you get disturbing results. So. Draw your own conclusions on that one.
Stanza 4: This stanza is a puzzler, because while time is leaching "at the fountainhead" of something--life?--love is dripping something and easing it's own sores with fallen blood. The blood of life. Time drains Life, and Love is satisfied by the bits of Life that fall upon it.
Final Couplet: Well, we've got lovey words like "lover" and "sheet" in these two lines, but both romantic images are directly tied to death. The lover is in a tomb and the sheet seems to be a funeral shroud that the speaker envisions for himself. What a devastating poem. It's absolutely beautiful, but it doesn't offer hope about the future. Death is eminent. Time will drive you, force you, and explode you in a direction you don't want to go--straight toward the grave.
Civilian and Soldier ~Wole Soyinka
The basic theme of ‘Civilian and Soldier’ is war. The poem itself captures a crucial moment in war when a civilian is brutally shot by a soldier. It explores the dilemma of a soldier trying to shoot a civilian. The civilian, who is the narrator, imagines the soldier’s brutality–his willingness or unwillingness to carry out the order of his superiors and kill the civilian.
-lines 1-6
In this first stanza the confrontation between the civilian and the soldier is established. The civilian went on to imagine the instructions the soldier must have gotten, his confusion as to his function as a soldier. This hesitation to shoot can be liberally (and rightly) predicated upon the fact that the soldier may also have civilian relatives. At the point where the soldier ‘brought the gun to bear’ on the civilian, the civilian reiterates the central dilemma of war–the pointlessness of the senseless killings.
-lines 19-27
Here the civilian states a strange thing: he says that if given the same opportunity as the soldier, he would make his life better (‘But I will shoot you clean and fair’), by feeding him and giving him many other good things. War is a strange business: sometimes civilians helps soldiers, feed them, nurse the wounded ones back to health while the war rages; later on, the same soldiers whom the civilians fed may be the very ones to shoot them in the battlefield. Now shouldn’t you ask yourself: what is war really about? For Soyinka, the man dies all who refuse to protest in the face of tyranny.
Love After Love Derek Walcott
After a harsh, emotionally exhausting breakup, everyone’s question is always the same: “When will I stop feeling like hell?” The answer is as follows: whenever you learn to love yourself. People come and people leave; the trick to remaining happy is knowing yourself and understanding your heart. Derek Walcott made me remember countless high school dramas and social encounters that leave the heart throbbing and screaming for help. But truly, there comes a time in everyone’s life, man or woman, when we have to realize that the only time to really feel love again is when we learn to love the person we are.”Each will smile at the other’s welcome,” states, when you realize that the person looking back at you in the mirror is actually not such a failure at love and life after all, you will then welcome the confidence and security that follow. What is life without tears and mumbled curse words for those who have shown us how little we care for ourselves? Through every fight and disagreement, every pointless argument, we find out who we are. As humans, we learn over time to adapt to situations and stay away from those which may bring us pain, but why is it that people always revisit the opportunity of loving again? Because we have to feel something to live; and often, feeling something means learning from ourselves everyday. When Walcott states that you should “take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, and the desperate notes;” he means to show you that you must delete all those things in your life that bring back the person you were, and adapt to the person you want to be.
Monday, January 6, 2014
The Godfather by Mario Puzo
Not for the first time, I committed the sin of seeing the film before reading the book. I doubt I’m alone in having seen Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather before reading Mario Puzo’s wonderful novel. The adaptation is impeccable with scenes and dialogue lifted effortlessly from the pages of Puzo’s book, which adds a lot more depth to the story of the Corleone family with the eventual fall of Vito Corleone and the rise of his son, Michael, as head of the family. One or two elements seemed needless but the overall story is a delightful read as we live with the Corleone family through one of the biggest crises in their history, and look at how they strive to bounce back mercilessly against the rival families in New York. A fast-paced, relentless and great read.
DIARY OF A YOUNG GIRL – ANNE FRANK
It’s seems an injustice to give Anne Frank’s diary anything other than five stars. This intimate, sometimes funny, but very often moving account of her many months spent hiding in Amsterdam from the Nazis, is both tragic and fascinating. Anne is thirteen when she begins her diary and as the time passes we can see the change in her as adolescence is left behind and she begins her journey to womanhood, talking about periods and her growing fondness for Peter, the son of another family that is hiding with the Franks. There is something of a cold chill when you read that final diary entry in August 1944, when Anne, her family and the others in hiding were discovered and taken to concentration camps. It’s a tragedy for everyone that perished in the Holocaust but it leaves a bitter taste to learn that Anne died mere weeks before the camp she was in was liberated. Her legacy is without question and it is a thoroughly deserved one.
Sunday, December 15, 2013
Book vs. Movie: Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
Catching Fire is my favorite of the trilogy. It’s a lot like The Hunger Games, yet different enough that it didn’t feel the same. I enjoyed being with my favorite characters from the first book and enjoyed meeting the new characters. I also loved the interaction between Katniss and Peeta; it seemed more genuine, even if it was conflicted. The new arena for the Quarter Quell was so imaginative and had such interesting obstacles. I enjoyed seeing the seeds of rebellion, the bravery of the citizens, and how all of that affected the districts and the Capitol and the emotion it caused. And, of course, the ending! Catching Fire is the The Empire Strikes Back of the The Hunger Games trilogy. Cliffhanger, no closure, everything left in peril. The wait for Mockingjay was excruciating.
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
TOP 10 RULES OF BEING HUMAN
- What you make of your life is up to you.
- Find a passion, form relationships and don't be afraid to get out there.
- You will receive a body. You may like or hate your genetics. What you do with it is up to you.
- Always use protection.
- Don't do drugs.
- Too much of anything is bad for you.
- Work hard, Play hard.
- Help as many people as you can.
- Never put anyone down. Instead put yourself up.
- Everyone one day will die and be forgotten. Act and behave in a way that will make life fun and interesting.
Friday, October 18, 2013
Find Me by Romily Bernard *
What a pleasant surprise this book was! After seeing quite a few not so favorable reviews. I was pretty nervous when I picked it up for myself.
Wicket Tate hasn’t had the healthiest upbringing. Her father was heavy into meth dealing and scamming and her mother committed suicide when she saw it was her only way to get away from him. Now, Wick is with a wealthy foster family and finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Trouble is, old habits die hard. She has built up walls to not trust anyone and is using her hacking skills to make money on the side to ensure a good future for her and her sister, Lily. When she walks out of her house to find someone has left the diary of her old friend Tessa (who just committed suicide) on her front porch things start to get really dark. Tessa speaks of a man in her diary, she speaks of a relationship that started out as infatuation and quickly became unhealthy and abusive. Once Wicket realizes this man’s next target is Lily she throws herself fully into finding out who he is.
I loved Wicket! She was sassy, incredibly smart and not afraid to be brutally honest when the time called for it. What I loved about her was that even when she started falling for Griff she saw herself for the cliche that she was becoming and constantly made fun of herself. I ended up finding myself letting out a quick laugh here and there which created a really good balance in a very serious story. Griff was someone that I really liked throughout the story as well. He wasn’t your typical nice guy, he had his dark side too and ended up being someone who knew how to take Wicket. I also came to really like Wick’s friend Lauren. She wasn’t in the novel much but when she was, she was someone that also brought the laughs in her dialogue with those around her. All of these people together became a cast of characters that were well developed in their own way which had me actually caring about their well-being in the novel.
The mystery was one that I found myself fully invested in. In the end my very first suspect was the culprit but I was constantly second guessing my assumption throughout the novel because it did such a great job of planting seeds of doubt without being too obviousIt was really fun to wade my way through the twists and turns that Bernard expertly weaved into this novel. If you are looking for a fun, quick mystery I definitely think Find Me is the perfect place to look.
It by Stephen King
This is the book that started my love of Stephen King books. I was fifteen, a sophomore in high school. We taking those boring standardized tests. A friend of mine finished reading this and tossed me his copy and said read it. I had never read a King book before but I figured what the heck. I devoured this book and promptly reread it immediately after finishing the first time. It was so good. I have since read it several times and I need to read it again. The movie, of course, didn't live up to the book. Other notable King titles that are great when you want a scare are Needful Things, Bag of Bones, and The Shining.
HORDE by: Ann Aguirre
Horde concludes the Razorland trilogy in a frenzy of claws and teeth, but in between the deep lacerations and the brutal blows delivered to our hearts Ms. Aguirre beautifully infuses the warmth of friendship and first love, filling each emotional slice and tear the Freaks make with just enough light to fight off their darkness. Horde takes us on more of a journey than the previous two books, Deuce and Fade constantly in motion as they seek to build an army capable of meeting the Freaks head on, but instead of being a slow build to a final epic battle, we’re given a more painfully realistic setup wherein minor and major battles (both mental and physical) are fought throughout to keep our breath escaping our lips in short pants. The pacing is beautifully executed, blood and death chilling our blood while love and family heats it again, leaving us exhausted and emotionally depleted by the end, but also so very hopeful.
Deuce has been an extraordinary young woman from the beginning, her mental and physical toughness accompanied by a sweet vulnerability when it comes to dealing with relationships and feelings of any kind. In Horde she’s at the top of her game as a fighter and leader, but the true beauty of her lies in her weaknesses just as much as it does her strengths, and the devoted effort she makes to be both emotionally and physically demonstrative to those she cares for is as much a joy to experience as her battlefield successes. In the darkness of the underground enclave she was a warrior only–her life dedicated to a single purpose–but the woman at the end of Horde is a striking combination qualities, too large and full of life to fit in any one neatly labeled box.
Fade has our hearts in a vise for a good portion of this book, the lingering effects of the abuse he endured in Outpost present and accounted for, and we can’t help but flinch or wince with him whenever someone makes physical contact. He’s been such a force to be reckoned with in these books that it’s a special kind of torture to see him brought so low, but through his obvious pain the fire that’s always burned so brightly in him shines, and we have the pleasure of watching him fight his way free of the fears paralyzing his mind to find Deuce waiting patiently for him on the other side. The two of them together are an extraordinary and unforgettable pair, one destined for the favorites shelf to be read and enjoyed again and again.
Overall, Horde is an emotionally-charged and action-packed finale, showing us with more than just Deuce how one person can inspire change and rewrite what was sure to be a dark and bleak history, both humbling us and sparking in us a renewed desire to bring forth our own change, however small it may seem in the grand scheme of things.
Deuce has been an extraordinary young woman from the beginning, her mental and physical toughness accompanied by a sweet vulnerability when it comes to dealing with relationships and feelings of any kind. In Horde she’s at the top of her game as a fighter and leader, but the true beauty of her lies in her weaknesses just as much as it does her strengths, and the devoted effort she makes to be both emotionally and physically demonstrative to those she cares for is as much a joy to experience as her battlefield successes. In the darkness of the underground enclave she was a warrior only–her life dedicated to a single purpose–but the woman at the end of Horde is a striking combination qualities, too large and full of life to fit in any one neatly labeled box.
Fade has our hearts in a vise for a good portion of this book, the lingering effects of the abuse he endured in Outpost present and accounted for, and we can’t help but flinch or wince with him whenever someone makes physical contact. He’s been such a force to be reckoned with in these books that it’s a special kind of torture to see him brought so low, but through his obvious pain the fire that’s always burned so brightly in him shines, and we have the pleasure of watching him fight his way free of the fears paralyzing his mind to find Deuce waiting patiently for him on the other side. The two of them together are an extraordinary and unforgettable pair, one destined for the favorites shelf to be read and enjoyed again and again.
Overall, Horde is an emotionally-charged and action-packed finale, showing us with more than just Deuce how one person can inspire change and rewrite what was sure to be a dark and bleak history, both humbling us and sparking in us a renewed desire to bring forth our own change, however small it may seem in the grand scheme of things.
Shadows by: Paula Weston
For months now I've been hearing about what a great book Shadows by Paula Weston. I finally decided to give in to all those positive reviews one weekend and I was blown away by how much I ended up loving Shadows.
Shadows presents us to a cast of characters that are extremely well-developed. Gaby, the protagonist, lost her twin brother Jude in a brutal accident. When Rafa, a boy who appeared in her nightmares comes to town, her life is thrown upside down. She is propelled into a world of angels. I loved Gaby as a main character. She started off as a naive character, but by the end of the book, she had overcome her fears and had become one of the most kick-ass characters I've ever come across. At the start of the story, Gaby was battling with the intense grief that came with the loss of her twin. This grief soon turned into confusion as Rafa came into her life telling her that her memories have been wiped away. Her emotions felt genuine and almost tangible. I loved having this book written in her POV because she was such a great main character. Gaby was also the sort of girl who didn't mince her words and I loved her brutal honesty. Gaby's growth into this level-headed, strong character was one of the highlights of Shadows for me. What I liked about the author's portrayal of this main character was that she wasn't flawless. She made mistakes along the way, but she was the kind of young woman who knew how to learn from her mistakes.
Rafa, the love interest, was another favorite character of mine in this book. He was one cocky, arrogant boy, but not to the point of rude. From time to time, he allowed his sweet and caring side to appear and it was a treat for me as a reader. Rafa was such an intriguing character and I just wanted to peel off the layers of mystery that surrounded him and to get to know him better. Slowly, over the course of the book, the author did help the readers unravel his character and it was an absolute delight. Rafa also had this charm to his character that made me want to constantly swoon over him. There is still a lot more to learn about his personality and I can't wait for more of him in the next installments of the series. Shadows also had a fantastic set of secondary characters who immediately grappled at my heart, especially Gaby's best friend, Maggie and Jason. The author made sure that the main character and the love interest weren't the only ones who were well fleshed-out. She didn't leave the secondary characters to the side and I could tell from their distinct personalities.
Shadows is one of my favorite books that I've read this year. I need the next book right away!
Shadows presents us to a cast of characters that are extremely well-developed. Gaby, the protagonist, lost her twin brother Jude in a brutal accident. When Rafa, a boy who appeared in her nightmares comes to town, her life is thrown upside down. She is propelled into a world of angels. I loved Gaby as a main character. She started off as a naive character, but by the end of the book, she had overcome her fears and had become one of the most kick-ass characters I've ever come across. At the start of the story, Gaby was battling with the intense grief that came with the loss of her twin. This grief soon turned into confusion as Rafa came into her life telling her that her memories have been wiped away. Her emotions felt genuine and almost tangible. I loved having this book written in her POV because she was such a great main character. Gaby was also the sort of girl who didn't mince her words and I loved her brutal honesty. Gaby's growth into this level-headed, strong character was one of the highlights of Shadows for me. What I liked about the author's portrayal of this main character was that she wasn't flawless. She made mistakes along the way, but she was the kind of young woman who knew how to learn from her mistakes.
Rafa, the love interest, was another favorite character of mine in this book. He was one cocky, arrogant boy, but not to the point of rude. From time to time, he allowed his sweet and caring side to appear and it was a treat for me as a reader. Rafa was such an intriguing character and I just wanted to peel off the layers of mystery that surrounded him and to get to know him better. Slowly, over the course of the book, the author did help the readers unravel his character and it was an absolute delight. Rafa also had this charm to his character that made me want to constantly swoon over him. There is still a lot more to learn about his personality and I can't wait for more of him in the next installments of the series. Shadows also had a fantastic set of secondary characters who immediately grappled at my heart, especially Gaby's best friend, Maggie and Jason. The author made sure that the main character and the love interest weren't the only ones who were well fleshed-out. She didn't leave the secondary characters to the side and I could tell from their distinct personalities.
Shadows is one of my favorite books that I've read this year. I need the next book right away!
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