BOOKS! <33333333333
Ahhhh, I'm on such a hard-literature binge it's sort of ridiculous, but I have to run around here and proclaim my undying love for a few books for a minute because JOY OF ALL JOYS, they are so amazingly fantabulous they make my heart sing with glee! *feasts upon them*
Angela's Ashes is by far one of the best memoirs I've ever read in my entire life. It's sweet and poignant and every blessed time I finish a chapter I'm sobbing and aching for Frank McCourt, because holy shit did his life suck. 0.o The memoir is remarkable, because he tells it all in present tense, and he sounds so very child-like that you can almost hear the four-year-old with a New York accent talking to you in the back of your mind. ('I wonder why Dad is telling Oliver a Cuchulain story. He knows the Cuchulain stories are mine, but when I look at Oliver I don't mind. His cheeks are bright red, he's staring into the dead fire, and you can see he has no interest in Cuchulain.' - p. 68) And he paints the other characters so well--desperate, broken Mother and drunken, tired Father and the perfect little brother and the Irish family. *sobs and clings to the book* I am wonderfully happy that this is on my reading list for school, and I'm really glad I decided to read it because it's way different from Teacher Man, the memoir he wrote about teaching English, essentially, in the New York ghetto, that I read this summer, but it's still fantabulous and amazing and I LOVE IT SO VERY MUCH. <3
*cringes at all those run-on sentences*
I need to have a moment of John Steinbeck appreciation, because I just re-read East of Eden, and it really says something that I can read that book three times in the course of a year and still be amazed and enthralled by how good a writer he is. He's the best character author I've ever read, plain and simple. And while I love his other books, (Travels With Charlie, The Grapes of Wrath, and Of Mice and Men tend to be my other favorites by Mr. Steinbeck), East of Eden, for me, is simply the ultimate. His characters! I mean, it's a huge honkin' book, but Holy God, it rocks so unbelievably hard. Every time you start to get sort of tired of a character, he leaps to another one, and you sit there completely baffled for a few chapters and then he ties them all together and shows you everything and oh my god, it's absolutely amazing. *_* Lurrrrvvvveeeee. <3333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333 In fact, I can't even say how good it is. This paragraph sums up my complete and total love and adoration for it:
'And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about. I can understand why a system built on a pattern must try to destroy the free mind, for that is one thing which can by inspection destroy such a system. Surely I can understand this, and I hate it and I will fight against it to preserve the one thing that separates us from uncreative beasts. If the glory can be killed, we are all lost.' (p. 131)
... And then it talks about Adam and Cathy, who are, I believe, the best characters in the entire book. <3
Ayn Rand. Do I need to say anything more? Ayn Rand amazes me, plain and simple. I want to squish her with thought-provoking, futuristic love. *beams and hugs her books*
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde! WOW. Why did I wait so long to read that?! It's phenomenal. *hugs it* It's like... like... that book reminds me of Poe, and if you know me at all, you know how completely and utterly obsessed with Poe I am.
The Things They Carried. I have to say, I'm guilty of forgetting about this book sometimes when I talk about collections of personal short stories that I love, because I'm usually inclined to go on and on about David Sedaris and quote David Sedaris and talk about how wonderful it is to listen to him talk and then eventually move on to how I need his new book ASAP, or perhaps the latest Ray Bradbury short I read, because I bought his huge anthology of doom with my own money and only allow myself five a month. ^^ But I really do adore this book. David Sedaris stands out to me more, I think, because he's just hilarious. His books are really, endlessly enjoyable and laugh-out-loud funny and occasionally just completely haunting ("A Plague of Tics" from Naked just makes you shiver with it's unabashed honesty, as does "Ashes" from the same collection. Sadly, I did not need to look up the names for either short story... I just know them by heart... pathetic much? Yes? Well, I'm obsessed, so suck it.), but Tim O'Brien is just... wow. A fantastic writer. "The Man I Killed" is haunting and emotional and moving, and it's all about the guilt and horror and shock and sorrow O'Brien feels after killing someone in the war, not-in-combat. And yet he never once says how he's feeling. He describes the man and Kiowa talks to him, and you know exactly what he's feeling. It's deep and thoughtful and terribly sad, but just amazing. You totally get a feel for what he means, even though most of us have no idea what it's like to look down at the person you killed. There's also a wonderful story called "Speaking of Courage", and that didn't hit as hard as the "Notes" afterwards. ("There was no suicide note, no message of any kind. 'Norman was a quiet boy,' his mother wrote, 'and I don't suppose he wanted to bother anybody.'" ((p.160))) BLLAAAHHHH, I love this book. ^.^
Ehehehe... this is long, so I'm going to stop. But YES, THOSE BOOKS ARE MY GODS. <3333333333333333333333333
*goes off to re-read The Things They Carried*
Angela's Ashes is by far one of the best memoirs I've ever read in my entire life. It's sweet and poignant and every blessed time I finish a chapter I'm sobbing and aching for Frank McCourt, because holy shit did his life suck. 0.o The memoir is remarkable, because he tells it all in present tense, and he sounds so very child-like that you can almost hear the four-year-old with a New York accent talking to you in the back of your mind. ('I wonder why Dad is telling Oliver a Cuchulain story. He knows the Cuchulain stories are mine, but when I look at Oliver I don't mind. His cheeks are bright red, he's staring into the dead fire, and you can see he has no interest in Cuchulain.' - p. 68) And he paints the other characters so well--desperate, broken Mother and drunken, tired Father and the perfect little brother and the Irish family. *sobs and clings to the book* I am wonderfully happy that this is on my reading list for school, and I'm really glad I decided to read it because it's way different from Teacher Man, the memoir he wrote about teaching English, essentially, in the New York ghetto, that I read this summer, but it's still fantabulous and amazing and I LOVE IT SO VERY MUCH. <3
*cringes at all those run-on sentences*
I need to have a moment of John Steinbeck appreciation, because I just re-read East of Eden, and it really says something that I can read that book three times in the course of a year and still be amazed and enthralled by how good a writer he is. He's the best character author I've ever read, plain and simple. And while I love his other books, (Travels With Charlie, The Grapes of Wrath, and Of Mice and Men tend to be my other favorites by Mr. Steinbeck), East of Eden, for me, is simply the ultimate. His characters! I mean, it's a huge honkin' book, but Holy God, it rocks so unbelievably hard. Every time you start to get sort of tired of a character, he leaps to another one, and you sit there completely baffled for a few chapters and then he ties them all together and shows you everything and oh my god, it's absolutely amazing. *_* Lurrrrvvvveeeee. <3333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333 In fact, I can't even say how good it is. This paragraph sums up my complete and total love and adoration for it:
'And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about. I can understand why a system built on a pattern must try to destroy the free mind, for that is one thing which can by inspection destroy such a system. Surely I can understand this, and I hate it and I will fight against it to preserve the one thing that separates us from uncreative beasts. If the glory can be killed, we are all lost.' (p. 131)
... And then it talks about Adam and Cathy, who are, I believe, the best characters in the entire book. <3
Ayn Rand. Do I need to say anything more? Ayn Rand amazes me, plain and simple. I want to squish her with thought-provoking, futuristic love. *beams and hugs her books*
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde! WOW. Why did I wait so long to read that?! It's phenomenal. *hugs it* It's like... like... that book reminds me of Poe, and if you know me at all, you know how completely and utterly obsessed with Poe I am.
The Things They Carried. I have to say, I'm guilty of forgetting about this book sometimes when I talk about collections of personal short stories that I love, because I'm usually inclined to go on and on about David Sedaris and quote David Sedaris and talk about how wonderful it is to listen to him talk and then eventually move on to how I need his new book ASAP, or perhaps the latest Ray Bradbury short I read, because I bought his huge anthology of doom with my own money and only allow myself five a month. ^^ But I really do adore this book. David Sedaris stands out to me more, I think, because he's just hilarious. His books are really, endlessly enjoyable and laugh-out-loud funny and occasionally just completely haunting ("A Plague of Tics" from Naked just makes you shiver with it's unabashed honesty, as does "Ashes" from the same collection. Sadly, I did not need to look up the names for either short story... I just know them by heart... pathetic much? Yes? Well, I'm obsessed, so suck it.), but Tim O'Brien is just... wow. A fantastic writer. "The Man I Killed" is haunting and emotional and moving, and it's all about the guilt and horror and shock and sorrow O'Brien feels after killing someone in the war, not-in-combat. And yet he never once says how he's feeling. He describes the man and Kiowa talks to him, and you know exactly what he's feeling. It's deep and thoughtful and terribly sad, but just amazing. You totally get a feel for what he means, even though most of us have no idea what it's like to look down at the person you killed. There's also a wonderful story called "Speaking of Courage", and that didn't hit as hard as the "Notes" afterwards. ("There was no suicide note, no message of any kind. 'Norman was a quiet boy,' his mother wrote, 'and I don't suppose he wanted to bother anybody.'" ((p.160))) BLLAAAHHHH, I love this book. ^.^
Ehehehe... this is long, so I'm going to stop. But YES, THOSE BOOKS ARE MY GODS. <3333333333333333333333333
*goes off to re-read The Things They Carried*