Currently, I'm reading a book. A very good book. (Well, in my opinion.) The title of this book is The Monsters of Templeton, by Lauren Groff. In this novel, Willie Upton returns to her suburbean home town of Templeton, New York, from an archeology mission in Alaska, the same day a horrific yet beautiful beast surfaces on Templeton's Lake Glimmerglass. Willie doesn't return to "recharge," and she certainly doesn't return home because she adores her home town. She returns because 29 year old Willie Upton is pregnant with her married professors child. Scandalous, I know. Not only this, but she attempts to slaughter her professors wife in a Bush Plane. However, this isn't really relevant. At least not yet. It's all just leading up to her returning to Templeton.
I believe that this gigantic monster that floated, dead, onto the glimmering glassy surface of Lake Glimmerglass is more than just an amusing side story. Granted, it hasn't been giving VERY much attention by my placement on page 83. However, every author writes what they write for a reason. Willie's life is screwed up, big time. Her professor impregnated her, she has to leave her exciting, door-opening expedition because she could be charged for attempt of murder. She comes home to find her hippie mother has gone church-crazy. Her best friend, home in San Franscisco, is ill and out of work, due to her lupus. And now, for the big guns. She found out her father is not, in fact, a random hippie her mother met in Chicago. He IS, however, a well-respected man with a family in her very town. As you can see, Willie Upton's life is all over the place.
Based on these facts, this is my theory. The monster, emerged from water, represents a calm, pure, peaceful aspect that just isn't present in Willie's life. It is desperately, desperately wanted. When the dead monster was the center of attention, before it was dragged from it's home/death site, and after it was discovered, Willie touched it. She placed her hands on it's huge, cold scales. And when she did? She felt a nostalgic, pure sense of serenity. She had a memory of being in the water. Now I don't know why the author choice this for the symbol, but I'll find out.
Message in a Bottle. Ugh. I hated it. I hated it, but at the same time, I felt compelled to read it to the end. (So I did.) Message in a Bottle is about Theresa Osborne, a divorced, 30-something-year-old woman, with a 12 year old son. Theresa was walking on the beach of cape cod, away from the chaos of her life in Boston, when she comes across a bottle. Based on the title, I'm sure you can guess that yes! there was a message in this bottle.
After taking this beautiful, emotion-stirring, passionate blah blah blah letter out of the bottle and reads it, she shows it to her best friend/boss, who basically forces her to publish it in her column about parenting. (However, I have no idea how a love letter relates to parenting.) The author of this letter, Garret, seems to be writing to his dead wife, her girlfriend or love one named Catherine. For Theresa, it was love at first read. Determined to be with him, she and her friend track him down in North Carolina and away she goes. "Oh, of course her must love me because he has loved before," was basically what I got from Theresa.
They meet, fall in love, have a long distance relationship, break up. Over the course of the months they are together, she never tells him that she already he was. Tragically, in the end, he dies.
Why do I hate it so much?
I'm really not sure. Maybe it's the fact that the genre of romance has been worn out. But I don't really think so. Maybe it's the weird, boring relationship between them. Wait. I just figured it out. It's simple really. It's just that it bores the hell out of me, and exasperates me so much! I'm exasperated right now writing this, just thinking about this annoying book that makes me want to throw it across the room every time i pick it up!
What annoys me so much is got to be the cheesy thoughts, the boring relationship, the annoying supposedly beautiful chemistry between them that's actually so so so corny and way over used! I honestly just can't take it any more. No more romance books, please. All Garret and Theresa think about is, " Oh, there so wonderful, they make me so happy, do I love them? Oh god, I just don't now!" All the do is go out to eat and hang around the house. They hardly knew each other when they first fell in love, but ( as the summer breeze ruffled there hair, and sweet air was around them- ugh) it was love .
I don't know why this annoys me so much, but it does. To an unbelievable extent. I truly don't think this is what real loving relationships are like but if this is an accurate portrayal, then thanks, author, for showing me I never want to be in one.
Recently, I started the Bell Jar. From what I can tell, the main character us a young girl who has an exciting internship in New York City for the summer. She's from the suburbs Boston, and could use this glamorous change. He name is Esther Greenwood.
Although I'm not very far into the book, I'm just having trouble figuring out Esther. I guess this is part of the intrigue of the book and, if it is, it's working. I'm really enjoying what I have started, and I've hardly started anything. So anyway, I'm having trouble figuring out Esther.
She's not the typical character. I have noticed that in most books I read, female characters are portrayed in two different ways. Either they are very girly and are interested in boys, makeup, clothing and popularity, or their way to cool to care about those silly things. They are in to being themselves, and are high above those "fake" girls.
To be honest, this kind of makes me angry. Although this isn't true for every book with a teenage girl or young female adult, it is true for many. These are not the only types of girls in existence. Authors, look around. Notice that each and every persons unique, and the kinds of people that there are in the world vary so much it's impossible to pin down! So why does it look like, from my side of the book, that that's not true in the novelists world?
So far, Esther doesn't fit into either of these two categories. I should think this is good, and I do. But I'm also kind of mad at myself for being surprised by this. I'm being convinced that there's a limit to how many kinds of people exist. But at the same time, I ask myself, how can I be convinced? How can I be convinced when there are so many different people, even in my own classroom?
Esther Greenwood likes parties. She liked to beautify herself, and likes working on her magazine, and she likes nice adventures and her housemates. However, she's more than this. She's herself, and she's not afraid to like who she likes, and she just honestly can't get excited about her new adventure.
I can get this worked up, and can tell this much in only the 7th page. This is going to be a good book.
Last night at about 11:30, I flipped to the last page of The Wedding. To my disappointment, the book was finished. Finit. Fin.
This book is about Wilson Lewis and his desperation to save his marriage to Jane Calhoun. Next to the ideal marriage of Jane's parents, Jalson's marriage seems loveless. After raising 3 children together and being married for 30 years, their marriage has turned awkward and as if somethings missing. They seem to be more like friends than spouses, and all conversations are familiar and have been recited already. So when Wilson forgets his 30th anniversary to his wife Jane, he knew he was at his last chance.
This story is told through Wilson's eyes, and all through out the story, he mentions he mentions one thing. One thing over and over, this one surprise to his wife he works on an entire year to present to her on their 31st anniversary. But what I really enjoyed about Nicholas Sparks writing? He makes it a surprise for the reader.
What the author does is mention this surprise every so often but then quickly covers it up and distracts you with the plans for the wedding of Jalson's daughter Anna. She came in one saturday evening and announced she was getting married to her boyfriend Keith... The next saturday. Quickly, her parents got engaged in making wedding plans. This week happened to be their anniversary week, and their child's wedding happened to be on the day of their anniversary.
What you don't realize is the importance of their anniversary and Wilson's special surprise in this wedding.
I would have never expected the surprise Jane gets that saturday, the supposed day of her daughters wedding. However, what leaves her shocked also leaves the reader shocked. Through out the week, her and Wilson have been growing closer and closer. And on saturday, the big surprise Wilson, his family and friends have all been keeping a secret comes out. The wedding? It's not Anna's. It's Jalson's. They're renewing their vows, and it finally gives Jane confidence in her marriage.
The fact that this secret of the pages doesn't come out until the very end really is a great writing technique. It leaves you so you have to read the book. You just have to know how their marriage turns out in the end, and what the great surprise is. The suspense kills you, so you have to read and read until finally, you are satisfied with the answer.
http://ferny-nandez.blogspot.com/
In this blog, Isabelle Fernandez talks about It's Kind of a Funny Story. Or, to be more specific, the idea that it brings up. She talks about how she only likes the book because the end of the ending, the last page even, makes everything else better. She relates this to Shakespeare's play, All's Well that Ends Well. At the very end, she questions the reality in this theory. Sure for movies and sometimes books, everything is forgiven and the happiness is restored in the ending, but not in true life.
One reason I like this post is the following: Half way through reading It's Kind of a Funny Story, I stopped. I got bored with it, and put it back on the shelf. Maybe I should've continued? If the god part is at the end, it's like I just missed a finally leaving train after waiting for it forever! Isabelle has me tempted to go pick it up again, just to see what happens on the last page.
Another reason I like this blog post, is because of the relation to Shakespeare. Isabelle Fernandez says that just the title of this play brings up the question of whether a great end to a story makes up for the bad beginning. In my opinion, it can in stories. It does all the time, and the stories are still generally good. But not in reality. Isabelle says that it happens in reality, but "doesn't erase the unhappy event entirely."
I agree.
When a person is unlucky, and has a tough life and gets a good break? That's an all's well that ends well.
When two people are fighting, and make up? That's an all's well that ends well.
When the quality of anything increases, that's an all's well that ends well.
But In reality, these should be called..... all's Well that ends well... then ends badly.
Most times, Isabelle is right. Just because it may seem like everything is okay, that previous events probably aren't totally made up or. They needed to be made up for for a reason, and they can't just magically be made all better.
In conclusion, I just totally agree with Isabelle Fernandez.
Something mentioned that plays a huge part of the book? Philosophy. Martin Dean, Harry West, and I believe Jasper Dean have all been referred to as philosophers, because they are. This is the author's, Steve Toltz, way if saying "hey, I'm a philosopher." By expressing it through his characters. All three of these characters produce critical views based of both fact and things they just assume.
Martin Dean is by far the most pessimistic. He'll observe things he doesn't like and is not afraid to just talk about what he thinks. Bu he's not usually mean about it, just blunt. A lot of the time he's honestly trying to help- although he often spirals into confusing tangents when he gives speeches, if you get them they're really helpful and informing. He gives constructive criticism, and it works, if you just follow his suggestions. You see, Martin likes things that are hard to solve, and complicated. He likes them, because he can solve them.
Jasper Dean, Martins son, is much different. Jasper is one who likes more simplicity in his situations. He never understands his fathers speeches, but he still is a philosopher. I think that if you have philosophical thoughts, and have mounds of though and opinion, you just don't share them, they can still count as a philosopher.
Last, there's Harry West. He has complex, real thoughts of what to do in order to succeed. Even though his thoughts leads him into negative things like murder and crime, he still thinks optimistically. You can tell him anything, and he would go on rants explaining the pro's and con's of that theory.
I think you can conclude that Steve Toltz does express his many opinions through his characters, especially Martin, Jasper, and Harry.
A fraction of the whole is a very complex book. It's like many small stories, forced into one complicated long novel. It includes murder, and hospitals, mental asylums, parisian bars, suicide, and lots, LOTS of philosophy. But even though it includes all of this, the characters are still very-well described and the author makes you feel like you can predict them, but they always surprise you.
For one Martin, the main characters dad, (although the books about him almost as much as his son) doesn't seem to express any visible emotion. His brother died. After murdering dozens of people, he gets burnt up in fire, miserably in prison. His parents die, in the same fire as his brother. His role model and close friend jumps off a bridge in the midst of an argument with Martin. A close friend had a heart attack and died, and after giving birth to their son, his wife kills herself by jumping on a boat and exploding herself. This all seems very overwhelming for the reader. But Martin didn't lose a tear.
That is, he didn't lose a tear then. But once his baby son grew into a boy, and they live miserably and without meaning, all the tears he never used catch up. When he's on the brink of cracking full-blown into his insanity, it's waterfalls. Every night and day he's crying, crying, crying. He attempts (weakly) to hide it from his son, Jasper, and fools himself into thinking he's happy. But that's really not the way to live. It would be horrible to not really be happy, but just pretend to be for the sake of not having to face your problems. But what are his problems?
Why is he crying now? What, he couldn't waste his tears on the tragic deaths of loved ones, but when his life is in the ruins he cries? I don't think so. This makes him come off as conceited, and really he's not at all. He doesn't think much of himself, and he knows his life is messed up, so I believe ha has the right to cry. But I think his tears mean more than sadness. They represent an ending.
After each death, he knew there was more to his life. He was still young when those happened, but even though his life sucked, he knew there were places to visit, people to meet, and things to do. And he could be happy again. But after Anouk comes into Martin and Jaspers life years later, criticizing everything about them, he knew he had to change his life. But he couldn't. He hit rock bottom, and he knew it.
