Burning Down The House!

When I first heard of this book, I was somewhat skeptic. He seemed to be just another Science Fiction writer talking about a deranged future. Well, this book proved me wrong. Instantly his metaphors and the way the words just spilled off of the book so smoothly like a water fall I found myself intranced in this other dimension. Honestly, Mildred would have to be a character I favored. Despite how it depicted her, I think she had more depth to her then just some ditzy trophy wife, oh Millie won't you please come back to Bradbury and tell him more about you! Also Beaty, his character entranced me. Talk about playing with fire, he knew what he was saying to Guy would get him killed, but he didn't care. He wanted to be burned, he wanted to die.
The way that Bradbury depicts their world, which sort of is an alternate universe, made me wonder how drastically technology controlls our world today. If my phone isn't at my hip, then my iPod is. It's pure madness I say! Also how Clarisse says that she fears her peers because they kill for a thrill, is not so far fetched from today. Go to any electronic store today and you can pick up the latest "shoot em" video game, which is similar to when Guy almost got killed when those kids just wanted to kill to kill. This novel, it opened my eyes. Is this where our society is going to end up? Wake up people, one day our generation is going to rule the population. Our elders lit the match, but are we going to put it out? Do we even want to?

I Want A Close Up Of The Cat Now!

Every once in a while, you come across an author that just get's it right, and Ray Bradbury just get's it right. The way he writes, the way his characters come to him and demand to be written about is how writing should always be done. He said that his love for reading and writing started early age. On one particular trip to the carnival, a man called the Electrical Man pointed to him and told him to live forever. Then later when he was at a funeral for his favorite uncle he decided to runaway from death and run towards life, and now because of his ground breaking books, Ray Bradbury will live forever. It is humorous how he wrote F451 in the basement of a libray, oh how beautiful the irony of life is. Bradbury says that he is Clairrise, that he was that little boy eagerly devouring book after book and loving life. When he was fifteen he discovered the dangerous of burning books when Hitler burned books. He realized that without the ability to read, you can't live in society.
Funny how some of the aspects in his book exist today. In the fifties it was unheard of people having TV's the size of walls or children killing other children, but now that is reality. Go to any celebrities house and they'll have a wall devoted to top of the chart HD flat screen TV, turn on the news and a new story about another school shooting will pop up. I'm not saying that Bradbury to blame for the world we live in, I'm just saying his predictions were very accurate. There is the slight possibility though that he did influence us, who's to know that an engineer didn't read his book then create the first flat screen TV? All Bradbury really did actually is warn us, warn us of a possibly reality that if we take technology to far, that possible will become real.

Star Trek

In 1966 if you sat down and watched an episode of "Star Trek", as many Americans did, the things they did on screen were so far fetched it was hard to fathom any of those devices actually existing. Fast forward over fourty years into the future, and the unthinkable now exists. When the captain asks to be beamed up, all he does is pull out a little gadget that flips open and he can communicate through, know what that is? A little thing called a cell phone. When they spoke to the leader of the other nation, he was on a screen and that's how they were communication. Today you could do that too, just buy a computer camera and there you go. It is very true that science fiction writers are the best inventors. In Farhenheit 451 they have tv's covering an entire wall, and that is very much possible today.
When Star Trek came out, it was during a time of war, civil rights movements, women rights, and so much more. They way they dressed and some of the plots of Star Trek pushed the bounderies that America was accustomed to. The two main girls of that episode had very revealing clothes, similar to that of the Romans and Greeks. Also the plot had to deal with again ethocentrism. The cloud people thought they were better then the minors and that the minors were not entilted to the same rights as they did. In the real world, men considered women the "lesser race" and did not deserve the privalages that men had. Trust was also a strong theme. In previous decades people did not have to worry about locking there doors or were taught to be distrustful towards other, but the sixites really changed all of that. The show depicted how people had become so untrustworthy that they will act foolish just to protect themselves from getting hurt. Who would've thought a science fiction show would have deeper meanings to it?

Violence, Always The Answer?

The character Jean Louis Finch, or Scout is what you would like to call well, a spit fire. She's less of a lover and more of a fighter, examples being that she has been in many fights before and had won many of her fights. Scout tends to say things without thinking, and those things tend to get her into trouble. Her father although taught her to speak her mind and voice her opinions which today is a great virtue but then not so much.
Her short temper shows that she has somewhat a lack of self control but it also shows that she is not one for long drawn out discussions, she wants the problem fixed now short and simple. Scout is also very innocent and Atticus likes to keep it that way, he does not want her tainted by the harsh reality of life.

The Super Suicide Society of the Summer Session

This book was the best way to end the summer reading, it was witty and serious in all the right places. I think that John Knowles did an exceptional job at depicting the lives of young men during a very scary uncertain time in their lives. What happened to Finny, was like a slap in the face sort of. He is the definition of the saying "The good die young." Finny and Gene's friendship was unconventional, throughout the first couple chapters Gene is convinced Finny is competing with him and trying to ruin him, when actually it was Gene who ruined Finny. Gene would have to be my favorite character, something about him made him relatable. Almost all of us have had a friend who we do love, but deep down loath. Even if some of us won't openly admit it, you know it's true.
In this book, I believe that one of the main theme's is coming of age. It introduces the characters when they're just leaving young boy hood, and entering adult hood, a scary and uncertain place already but with the added pressure of the war, it was horrifying. Although he was the character I least liked, Brinker did have a very good point when he said "Left out! He and his crowd are responsible for it! And we're going to fight for it!" It seems as though even today, most of the time the people who actually started the war, aren't the ones who are bleeding, dying, and being mentally scarred for life. Speaking of being scarred for life, my heart went out to Leper. It was sad the sort of effect the war was actually having on people. When he was describing what happened to him to Gene, it was uncomfortable to actually read, and I was not surprised by the way that Gene responded. I'm pretty sure that's how a lot of people would've reacted, who wants to hear that quite possibly in a couple months it could be you having a Section Eight discharge?
The one part of the book that left me unsure, was Finny's feelings towards Gene in the end. Gene was the cause of his accident, the reason why he was robbed of everything he held near and dear. The tree, that at the beginning were jumping off of and the one that pretty much killed Finny sort of symbolized the war. Some made the jump safely in the water, like Gene. Some were to scared to even try, like Leper. Some, it just wasn't in the cards for them to survive, like Finny. What happened to Finny was a tragic loss, and at the end I thought the doctor was going to cry. I'm not surprised Gene didn't cry, most likely Finny wouldn't have wanted him to cry. If you think about it, Knowles showed the four type of people the world have through Leper, Brinker, Gene and Finny. Overall, this was a good novel, and I liked more then the others.

I don't know if it's just me who noticed this, but does anyone else find it sort of funny that the last book we read was by Nathaniel Hawthorne and in the book we just read, The Crucible, there was a judge named Hathorne, who just happens to be his relative? If I was related to one of those judges, I woud've changed my name too. Personally, hands down this is the best book I've read all summer. This is a book that I love to hate, it drives me crazy how easy they are to place blame! For example, Mrs. Putman she blames her stillborn'son Rebecca saying she murdered her children. But out of all of the accusers, the one I hated the most would have to be Parris' niece Abigail. She was a vindictive little witch, no pun intended. Abigail enjoyed watching others suffer on her behalf, and I was floored when they still took her word to be true even when Parris made it clear at the end that she robbed him blind and left! Although there is a character in this book who I positively hate, there is not a character that I favor the most. If anything it would have to be both the Proctors. They stood strong til the end, and I admire them both deeply.

The girl who started it all out technically was Parris' slave Tituba. In the play it says that she is from Barbados, but actually her ethnicity is quite debatable, some believe her to be Indian, others actually think she was Spanish. Also another thing is the real Sarah Good never admitted to being a witch. I think that one of the greatest themes of this book is just human nature. Think about today, most people would rather hear a juicy rumor then the truth which is very plain and boring, which is what happened back then. Turn on your TV, politicians today are trying to ruin each others names by saying untrue things about each other to try to gain our votes. In the play, one man claimed a women practiced witch craft only for the fact that years before he bought a pig from her and died. The Putmans did it out of jealousy of Rebecca's good fortune with her children and their want to get more land.

It is disgusting, the Salem Witch Trials. So many people died. And for what? Their neighbors ignorance, their belief that everything is the Devil's doing. Parris annoyed me so much in the third act, he was like chicken little, "The sky is falling, the sky is falling!" "He's come to corrupt the court! He's come to corrupt the court!" I felt like reaching into the play and duct taping his mouth shut, just like the Girls. How can you call mocking someone witch craft? If that is witch craft then everyone has practiced witch craft at like the age five. Their claims, there was no substantial evidence! No one had a fair trial, they believed what they wanted to believe. The sad thing is, things like this has happened many times in history, ever heard of a little thing called The Holocaust? It is so sad how many poor souls were tortured, but the people who condemned them most likely got what they deserved. Sarah Wood's words "God will give you blood to drink" to the man who condemned her and guess what? God gave him blood to drink.

The Scarlet Letter

When I saw that we had to read "The Scarlet Letter", I was slightly scared because I was aware of how hard that book was. Now after reading it I can see it is probably one of the hardest books I have read. The language is drastically different then the language that we speak today, so at times I had to read a passage over and over again just to understand it. My favorite character in this book would have to be young Pearl. She was compared to an elf, whom tend to be mischievous if somewhat evil little creatures. People said she was a demon and in the chapter before Dimmesdale died, a women stated that perhaps satan himself was her father. Pearl is, not necessarily wise but more mature beyond her years. Demanding her mother tell her of her origin shocked me, at such a young age I did not think she would ask those sort of questions especially considering they are in Puritan times.

One of the major themes in this book is sin, one sin is what created these long chain of events. It is Dimmesdale's sin that eventually killed him, his fear of god. That's something else I realized was big in that time, they feared god and his wrath. They saw things in holier lights, for example when they see that meataor and believe it to stand for angel symbolizing the governors entrance into heaven. It sort of confused me when Chillingworth's character took on the appearance of evil, because was his demeanor changing or was there really that drastic changes in his appearances? Both Dimmesdale's and Chillingworth's death's are somewhat ironic. Dimmesdale is supposed to be a man of god and he goes against one of the ten commandments and dies due to his guilt over committing such a crime. While Chillingworth's search for revenge ends up killing him, which proves that when you seek revenge, dig two graves, one for your enemy and one for yourself.

The one part of the book that I found interesting was when Hester and Pearl were in the forest and Pearl remarked that the sunshine avoided Hester because it was afraid of the A on her breast, then how when Hester took off her A she was practically bathed in sunshine. I didn't know exactly why Pearl would've been afraid to go to her mother when Hester removed the A, which further complicates Pearl's character in my eyes because at times she can act like a normal child other times she acts so much more mature. Hester's grave next to Dimmesdale's grave was unexpected, but befitting. The letter A ended up taking a life of it's own, and became a legend. It's interesting how easily a town will turn it's back on one person for one mistake.

The Great Gatsby

When I first started "The Great Gatsby," I thought it was very drawn out, somewhat of a bore. I really liked Nick, he has kind of a dead pan sort of humor but he was very relateable. The only point where I didn't particularily like him was when he went with Tom into the city to see his mistress. I don't think I would've been able to look at the women who was causing Daisy to be sad. Daisy was an interesting child, the thing she said about how she hopes her daughter is a fool made me think that's really all men expected and wanted women to be at that time. To survive and somewhat live a happy life, you just needed to keep your head down and let your husband do as he pleases, ignorant bliss.
The setting is really important, I do like how the author describes it. Especially at the end, that was very good imagery. The character I didn't like very much was Tom. He was very hypocritical, he thought it was fine for him to have a mistress while Daisy had to remain faithful. I found his mistress very dull, thinking that he was going to leave his wife, which men never do and never will do. I like the relationship that Jordan and Gatsby have
I was so shocked when Gatsby died, it upset me. It was a very dumb death, to be killed by the husband of the mistress of your love's husband? That was way to soap opera for me and I didn't like it. I honestly expected him to drown himself, but his death was stupid. Although it did give a good message at the end, saying you may have money and popularity, but at the end of the day if you don't have anyone to hold you it's pretty pointless. Over all I thought the book had it's witty moments, but quiet boring.

Grapes of Wrath

"Grapes of Wrath" was like a breath of fresh air after reading Huck. This book made us remember some of America's darkest days. Right off the bat I enjoyed this book, the way the author wrote made me feel as though I was there with them while they watched their homes being ripped from them. The book ended in a very ironic way. With the rain coming and ruining everything while in the beginning the rain would've saved everything. The coldness and cruelty of the bankers and land owners and when the other migrants were prepared to sell out their friends for their own benefit showed how America was slowly turning into a country where you could only look out for your own well-fare and not burden yourself with other people's suffering.

One quote that really stood out to me was at the end of chapter twenty-five "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage," although I am not entirely sure what the ending means, I hope someone can clear that up for me. The character that I liked was Grandpa. He was stubborn and hard headed, but a true family man, I was sad that he had to die although maybe it was best he didn't feel the hardness of life in California. The Joad's dealt with many disappointments in their lives but a admire them for not giving up.

Although she was far from perfect, at times she seemed difficult, Ma was a character I admired. Sometimes she came off as mean, but she was scared. Scared for her family, scared of the sketchy future, and scared for her life. Ma honestly was the glue of the family, I deeply respect her. It really bugs me when people think they're better then other people because of something as petty like where you're from. It's not like the migrants wanted to go to California, what else were they supposed to do? Be run over by tractors or starved to death? I wish those people could walk a few miles in the farmers shoes, see how it feels to have everything that mattered to you stripped from you by the bank then forced to work hard labor for barely enough money to live of. This book was something I'm really glad we read, it literally gives me chills to think that my grandparents were only a couple years younger then me when this was happening.