The Farming of Bones #2

This book is really boring. So far, Amabelle's boyfriend's friend, Joel, was killed by Amabelle's master. The master was on his way to see the birth of his twin children, driving in a car way too fast. He rounded a corner and hit Joel so hard the Joel flew into a ravine many feet away. Rather than stop and see if Joel was OK, the master sped on until he got to his house. Joel died instantly, but his friends and family were furious at the master, who never even took the time to see who he had hit. The master's father felt bad about it, though, and he went to Joel's funeral. This just goes to show the cruelty that a rich man in the Dominican Republic can inflict on others with no negative repercussions for himself. If a poor man had done the same to a rich man, the poor man surely would have been killed. But if a rich man commits murder, then nothing happens besides the family and friends mourning silently. But besides that, nothing really interesting has happened. The book has a lot of "pillow talk" between Amabelle and Sebastian. They talk a lot about their lives before they met each other, but its overly sappy, filled with talk of how they were destined to meet and stuff like that. I really don't know what is going to happen next; there isn't really much of a story-line, but I hope it's something that radically changes things. At some point the Haitians are supposed to be prosecuted by the Dominicans, but that hasn't happened yet. I think Se bastion and Amabelle will get separated and have to find each other again, which is bound to be predictable.

The Farming of Bones (By Edwidge Danticat 1998)

This is the book that I have to read for my Spanish V class, even though it is written in English. The story takes place in the Dominican Republic and is about a young woman, Amabelle, who is a native of Haiti, but works in the home of a wealthy family in the Dominican Republic. She is in love with a man, Sebastian, who works in the sugar cane fields, which the author refers to as "the farming of bones." So far, a concrete plot has not yet presented itself; I don't know what the point of the book is. The summary states that the story is about Haitians being prosecuted in the DR, but none of that has happened yet. Amabelle's parents died when she was eight, leaving her orphaned in Haiti. The author has not yet said how Amabelle came to the DR, but I assume that it was to find work. Like in "A Mayan Life," the outsiders of the country are not looked at fondly. Haitians really only work as servants to the people in the DR and are viewed as lowly and unimportant. Books like "A Mayan Life" and "The Farming of Bones" educate the reader about other civil rights problems. In school, we have only really been taught about the Civil Rights Movement in America, but not about the discrimination that takes place in other countries. Reading these books gives the reader a new understanding about social issues in Spanish Countries.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly #2

I will only be able to do 2 posts on this book; I just got assigned to read a book from the Dominican Republic in my Spanish class, so next week I will start blogging about that and, if there is enough time in the year, I will come back to this book.

The whole concept of "Locked In Syndrome" is terrible. Day after day, Bauby is visited by mourners, coming to console him on his tragic accident. I can imagine how awkward it would be to visit someone in Bauby's condition, someone who could not respond to anything you said. You couldn't even read facial cues or body language to glean his emotions. It would be like talking to yourself, except you would have the knowledge that you weren't. It would still be the same person in that hospital bed that you knew before the accident happened, the same mind functioning the same way, but how could you ever have a normal conversation again? You couldn't, unless you patiently dictated every letter, which would then destroy the air of casual banter that your old conversations used to have. Bauby's chapters are very short, little vignettes that do not necessarily connect. So far, he has described his daily routines and feelings towards the accident. He has not said much about his past life or family. In the movie, his ex wife, children, and girlfriend visit him. The girlfriend is in utter shock, but reasonably so. Slowly, Bauby's relationship with his wife starts to re-bloom, which really shows how the cliche that "love can conquer anything" is true. Inside, Bauby is in utter torment; he longs so much to perform the simple tasks he once took for granted, such as swallowing his food and bathing himself. Reading about the despair and embarrassment that Bauby feels really makes you think about the simple things in life that can be taken away so easily. There are little things we don't even notice, like the ability moving an eyeball, but when taken away, can cause so much pain.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Jean Dominique Bauby 1997)

I saw the movie "the Diving Bell and the Butterfly" a while ago and thought it was fantastic. The book, a memoir, was originally written in French by a man, Jean Dominique Bauby, who suffered a massive stroke and was then diagnosed with "Locked In Syndrome," where the person is fully capable of thinking, but unable to move his or her body. To me, and based on how Bauby describes it, this condition sounds like utter hell, the only part of his body that Bauby can move is his left eyelid, which is his only means of communication. Amazingly, Bauby was able to write his book by a special method in which someone, a hired assistant, slowly repeated the alphabet to Bauby. He then blinked when she said the letter he wanted to write. So letter by letter, the entire book was dictated from Bauby's still functioning mind. Bauby's book is quite short, a little over a hundred pages, but that is understandable given the circumstances under which he wrote the book. He had to memorize every paragraph and do all of the editing in his head before he could rely it to his assistant. I do not think I could do this; I would forget what words I wanted to say and get frustrated by how long the process took. Bauby and his assistant spent hours upon hours repeating the same process over and over again. The fact that Bauby was even able to write this book is a grand accomplishment that I suspect few people would be able to do under the same circumstances.

Uglies #6

Finally, the plot has become more exciting and less predictable. Throughout the entire book, I really thought that Zane, Tally's boyfriend, would become a Special along with Tally. Because of Zane's brain damage, which happened in the second book because of a cure for the lesions gone wrong, he had poor motor skills. Tally though that if she could make Zane seem like a rebel, a trait which the Specials all posses, the Special committee would turn him into a Special as well and cure his brain damage. To make Zane seem like a rebel, Tally broke into the town's armory and lead Zane, along with some other Pretties, to the New Smoke. Her plan was to then call the Specials and say that Zane broke into the armory and found the Smoke all by himself. This plan was not so great to begin with, but it turned disastrous. The specials thought that the neighboring town, where the smoke coincidentally was, had attacked their armory and declared war. The smoke was attacked with the strongest weapons that the specials had, destroying the city. Zane had been in the hospital when this had happened, while the doctors searched for a cure for him. The doctors were forced to evacuate the building and left Zane behind, where, without the attendance of the doctors, he lost all of his cognition. The doctors had to then, when they returned, take Zane off of life support in order to use the machines for other patients. This is a great ending to the book because it was literally the last thing I was expecting to happen. Based on the previous book's predictability, I assumed this book would end with a similar ending, one where Zane and Tally lived happily ever after as super-human crime fighters. Zane's death sort of saved the book from being boring, even though it was sad.

Uglies #5

"Specials" is getting a bit tedious to read. The three books in the series seem to have very parallel story lines. In "Uglies" Tally is ambivalent as to weather or not she should reveal the "Smoke" to New Pretty Town and goes on a long journey to get to the "Smoke". In "Pretties" Tally does pretty much the same thing with a few minor changes, such as the addition of her boyfriend and the fact that she's pretty. But in the end, the plot of "Pretties" mirrors the plot of "Uglies". Tally, again, goes through a long journey to get the smoke and then has mixed emotions when she gets there. In "Specials" Tally is, obviously, a Special. So her perspective has drastically changed; she looks at the world with a much more critical eye. She has nearly superhuman strength and speed, and is terrifyingly beautiful. But, nevertheless, Tally, again, goes on a long journey to the "Smoke" and then has mixed feelings about it when she gets there! I would like these books so much more if some new things happened. Sure, there are new characters and new experiences for Tally, such as meeting a tribe of people living like "pre-rusties", her boyfriend's brain being eating by nanos, and robbing a heavily armed armory, but fundamentally, all of these books are too similar to keep the reader excited about the story line. Don't get me wrong, I like the books and they are fun to read, but after a while, they get a little old.

Uglies #4

My Spring Break has been uneventful, so I have been reading a lot. Because of this, I finished "Pretties" and have now moved onto "Specials," the third book in the series by Westerfeld that came out in 2006.

In this book, Tally has become a Special, a scary sort of police officer that keeps Pretty Town in order and possesses super-human skills. Right now, she is on the hunt, chasing down her old friends from the Smoke, a rebel party who do not believe in becoming pretty. As a sequel to "Pretties," this book is all right so far. "Uglies" is definitely the best book in the series; the other two books are too predictable. From the beginning of "Pretties," the reader knew that Tally would successfully cure herself of the brain lesions. In "Specials," based on the books predictable plot line, I foresee Tally going back to the smoke and having internal conflicts as to whether or not she should turn her old friends Pretty. I am actually getting kind of tired of these books, probably because I read them all in one week, but also because the plot line, besides being predictable, is also cliche; it is full of teen melodrama found in basically every teen book, movie, and TV series. For example, Tally first falls in love with David, a leader of the Smoke who has vowed to stay ugly. But then once Tally becomes pretty, she finds a new boyfriend, Zane, who is pretty as well. As Tally journeys back to the Smoke, she realizes that she still has feelings for David, even though he is ugly and she is in love with Zane. This sort of teen angst situation is fine once in a while, but Westerfeld puts his characters in all too many cliche situations, which makes his books a bit boring and annoying at times. But overall, I still like the books; it is easy to lose yourself in cliche plot lines even though they are unoriginal.

Uglies #3

I actually finished the book "Uglies" in about three days, so I have moved onto "Pretties", the second book in the series that is also by Scott Westerfeld and came out in 2005. Because the books are both in the same series, I am going to count them as one book and blog about both.

In "Pretties," Tally, the main character, is finally turned pretty. We learned in "Uglies" that when someone gets the operation that turns people pretty, brain lesions that cloud thinking come along with it. Tally and her friends try out a cure, created by an ex-doctor that is part of the rebellion against pretty society, that hopefully erases the problematic brain scars. This book is so easy to read, maybe too easy. I found it in the Teen section at the book store, which usually has books centered towards younger teenagers, so the books are usually not that good. The plot is enticing but lacks depth, I think. The author should be emphasizing his story's plausibility for the future of our society. I think his books condemns our fixation on beauty and how that obsession can lead to a society where beauty is the only thing that matters, but it is kind of hard to tell. Instead of driving this point home, the author doesn't really mention it at all. Although he frequently refers to the "Rusties," a nickname for our current society, and how we nearly destroyed Earth with all of our pollutants, he never explains how society become the way it is in the book; how our obsession with beauty today sparked the creation of a society where beauty is the sole desire. It would have been a great opportunity to directly condemn our current society. I think it is because this books is aimed towards younger people, people who may not care so much about the societal implications of the book, and only want the juicy storyline. I wish this book was written as a more adult book; the whole story line is a great idea and is very imaginative, but I wish it had more implications about our present-day society.

Uglies #2

The main purpose of this book is to emphasize how American culture revolves around looks. In the book, the main goal of every person is to become beautiful, which, at age sixteen, everyone eventually becomes. Today, Americans go to similar lengths, though maybe not as drastic, in order to feel beautiful. The characters, termed "uglies", who have not yet had the operation that turns them beautiful, have no hope of ever feeling beautiful until after the operation; they have accepted themselves as naturally ugly only because society tells them so. All the people that we deem to be attractive now would be considered ugly in the book because they, for the most part, look similar to the way they were meant to look. The society depicted in "Uglies" is not so different than our society now in America, and perhaps, in a distant future, we could become even more similar. In the book, people have surgery to become beautiful, a surgery in which all of their skin in sanded away and plastic bones are put into their faces in order to reshape them. This is exactly what plastic surgery does, although the technology is more antiquated and the results are not as drastic. But in the future, if our technology keeps evolving at the rate that it is now, it is plausible to say that a procedure similar to the one in "Uglies" would be invented, one that will completely change the way someone looks. This book describes a possible future for American Society. And, honestly, one that doesn't sound so terrible. It is bad to have a society that revolves around looks, like America has right now. But in "Uglies," no one is left out when it comes to beauty, everyone is on the same playing field. As opposed to America now, where there are many different levels of beauty, the highest of which only some can obtain and others are criticised for not obtaining. The though of automatically being beautiful no matter what you looked like before the operation sounds kind of nice, even though it is a very superficial thing to say. It would be fair, and people would be happier. But then there are the people that do not want to be beautiful, like Tally's friend Shay, which is admirable; they want to be "themselves" and not what the surgeons decide to make them look like. I can understand that too.

Uglies (By Scott Westerfeld 2005)

I know that this was one of the options for our summer reading books, but I didn't read it so I think it's OK that I am blogging about it now.

So far, I really enjoy this book. I have been wanting to read it for a while because people keep telling me how good it is. It would have been a good book to read over the summer because it really connects with the themes that we were writing about at the beginning of the year, about utopias and distopias. "Uglies" kind of reminds me of a mixture of "1984" and "Brave New World". "1984" because they have similar technology, the telescreens are like the interface rings. Also, both protagonists in the two books go against societal norms; Tally doesn't become pretty, or so far at least, and Winston does not love Big Brother. One difference, though, is that in "1984," the people are forced to work long hours in harsh conditions. In "Uglies," the pretties just have parties all the time and focus on luxuries. The book is similar to "Brave New World" because both focus on superficial things; "Uglies" on beauty and "BNW" on just material items in general. It is interesting how in "BNW," society puts everyone into different social classes based on their predetermined physical and mental skill, but in "Uglies" society puts everyone in the same class with the same level of beauty. So in the end, really no one is pretty anymore unless they are compared to the young uglies.

A Mayan Life #6

In the beginning passage of the book, Gaspar describes the rituals that take place for birth of a baby, in this case Lwin. According to Mayan custom, the parents must go find godparents for their child and have many parties celebrating the child's birth. Also, the mother must participate in a ceremonial sweat bath after the child is born and the child's umbilical chord must be buried in a special place. The author's descriptions in the beginning of the book lead the reader to anticipate a similar situation at its end, except one that has to do with death instead of birth. It is fitting for a book that begins with life to end with death. This is evident in Gaspar's book. It begins with the birth of Lwin, and ends with his death. As he lies in the same bed that he was born in, withered with age and ready to die, Lwin's many grandchildren stand over him. He looks over to the patch of earth where is umbilical chord was buried so many years ago. He begins to flash back to his childhood, seeing his cruel school teacher in front of him. Lwin begs her not to beat him with her ruler as he slips further and further into delirium. Finally, he dies and the book is ended. Gaspar's book had so much to do with the hardships of the life of a Maya that really, the only fitting ending would be the death of a Maya. A Maya who had a long, hard life, who fought against racial oppression, and got an education even when others said it was impossible. Although Lwin never fully separated himself from Mayan culture like I predicted, he did separate himself from the other Mayans by the fact that he was aware of the oppression that the Hispanics forced upon them; he was aware of his own intelligence and capabilities when other Mayans were not.

A Mayan Life #5

The defining moment for Lwin is when he, in the eighth grade, walks home from school in a torrential downpour with his friend. The walk is four miles long and neither of the boys have proper raincoats are shoes. Their school work gets soaked and they wade through ankle high mud just to get home. As Lwin and his friend talk, they discuss their schooling and their mean, outrageous teacher. Lwin has a short monologue in which he brilliantly states how it is completely unfair for the Mayan students; they have to walk eight miles a day in any sort of weather, can barely understand the lessons in school, have the burdens of helping their family make money to keep from starving, and are in poor health because of all the physical labour they have to do, which affects their astuteness in school. Lwin's monologue is exactly the opposite sort of thing that one would expect, based on the stereotypes enforced by the Hispanics, a Mayan to say. Lwin's understanding of the situation is astounding; he is very intelligent, yet his teachers and classmates are not able to see that because of the language barrier and predetermined stereotypes. This moment is defining for Lwin because he shows his true colors, his true intelligence and intellectual capabilities, even though the world tells him that he's stupid and worthless. Lwin may now realize his potential and go on through school to earn diplomas and degrees. I really hope he does; he's already come so far. He is only the second Mayan to have ever graduated from the eight grade.

A Mayan Life #4

How is Lwin like the boy in "A Bilingual Childhood"?

Many instances throughout the book, Gaspar inserts quotes from different characters in the book. These quotes are from older versions of the characters as they look back on the situations that the book describes. For example, Gaspar writes, "'For me,' Lwin said, 'school and family were two worlds, two life styles and two self-concepts.' " This statement by Lwin brings to mind the passage we read in class, "A Bilingual Childhood;" Lwin is going through the near exact same thing as the child in that story did. Lwin goes to a school where they speak a language that he doesn't know, Spanish. His parnts wanted him to get an education, for they just lost alot of land becasue they signed a contract that outlined things they cuold not read. At school, all the kids think Lwin is strange because he never speaks, the teachers think he is stupid because he never understands what is going on because of the language barrier, and everyone makes derogatory comments to Lwin because of his heritage. Lwin's family life is very different from his school life; at home, he abides by Mayan customs and speaks freely and confidently, but at school, he is ashamed of his Mayan ancestry and rarely speaks. Lwin is Still having trouble with learning the Spanish language, but he is picking up simple words very quickly. Much like in "Bilingual Childhood," Lwin is becoming a different boy, one who is educated and influenced by Spanish, rather than Mayan, society. I suspect that soon, Lwin will begin to break the close bonds he has with his family, and, like the boy in "Bilingual Childhood," become a more permanent member of Spanish society, doing things that other Mayans would never do, like go on to college and get a good paying job.

A Mayan Life #3

The author's relationship with the book's material is hard to pin down. He obviously has pride for his people and country; he describes the landscapes as beautiful and the people as polite and hardworking. But, as Mekel works in the fincas, a place where there are hard working conditions, little food, and death everywhere, the author's diction is loaded with words that imply hatred and disgust; he uses words like "vile" and "infested." The conditions in the fincas are so bad that Malaria sweeps amongst the people like the common cold; so many people have the disease that the one doctor present hardly tries to cure it any more. Gaspar must also feel sadness towards his book's material; so much pain and suffering is inflicted on his people and homeland. Mekel witnesses the deaths of small children, with their parents sobbing over their small bodies. The Mayans are so impoverished that starvation and disease are daily occurrences. While Mekel is off doing his work in the fincas, trying to earn his family some money, his wife and son are back home, harvesting crops. Mekel's son, Lwin, is described with much affection by the author. Gaspar chronicles Lwin's growth from a small child to a man, all the while boasting of Lwin's strength, wit, and intelligence. The author's attitude toward Mekel's family is very loving; his descriptions of Mekel's wife, Lotahx, paint her as a hard working woman willing to sacrifice her comfort and time for the sake of her family. Gaspar's emotion towards his book's material is loving towards the people of Mekel's hometown and family, but hateful towards the fincas.

A Mayan Life #2

The author does not state his purpose overtly, but one can guess that his purpose is not just to tell a little story about one family in the mountains of Guatemala. Gaspar is the only Mayan to have ever published a book; his story does not just represent the one single storyline that he writes, but all the lives of the Mayan population; all of their hardships and triumphs. So many people rely on Gaspar to tell their own stories; to inform the rest of the world about what being a Maya really means. I am only about half way through the book, and I am already learning new things about the Mayan population, causing previously believed stereotypes to be shattered. For example, it is widely thought that both Mayans and Hispanics have had few disputes. Upon reading this book, I have learned that, much like the discrimination against African Americans in America, the Mayans are discriminated against by Hispanics in many countries. Mayans are looked upon as stupid, worthless, and poor by many Hispanics. I had no idea that this was going on, and many other Americans probably don't either. In short, Gaspar's purpose is to inform the world about the hardships of the Maya, while also sharing the heartfelt story of a single family.

A Mayan Life (By Gaspar Pedro Gonzales 1995)

How does the English translation affect the language?

In the back of the book, where there is a mini-biography of Gaspar, it is written that Gaspar is the only Mayan to ever have published a book. His story, "A Mayan Life," chronicles the life of Lwin and his father Mekel as they live in the poor city of Cuchamatan in the mountains of Guatemala. Mekel is forced to work under brutal conditions in labor camps in order to provide money for his son and wife. This book is very interesting; it details the lives of modern day Mayans, something that has never been done from the point of view of a native Mayan before. Originally, written in Spanish, the book was translated into English a few years after it was published. I assume that in Spanish, the diction and flow of the sentences are much better than they are in English. The sentences are very choppy in places and the dialogue does not sound natural. Whoever translated this book did not do a very good job. For example, a line of dialogue reads, "Those are the ones who take their small children to the fincas and don't come back with them. They take them only to bury them." The translator could have done a better job with making these sentences flow better; maybe by saying "they take their small children to the fincas and don't come back with them...etc." I wish I was better at understanding Spanish so I could read the Spanish addition of the book and the original words that Gaspar had written. Thankfully, though, these awkward sentences don't take away any of the book's meaning, so the story line is still very understandable.

Origins#6

I chose to read this book because I thought it would offer me a good way to learn more about astronomy and physics. I expected the book to be more difficult to understand than it actually is. Towards the end of the book, the author's write about the search for life on other planets and the ways in which new galaxies can be formed. These topics are very interesting, yet I still found it hard to push myself into reading this book. As I read, the subject matter was pretty much what I expected, but I did expect to be more confused as I read farther; the subject matter getting more complex as the book progressed. To my delight, I found this not to be true. There were a couple chapters where I just had no idea what the book was talking about; there was a section about the universal constant that made absolutely no sense. But all in all, the subject matter was very interesting. I find that if a book is overly complicated, I stop trying to understand the content; I just let my eyes skim over the words without really understanding them. I let myself do this a few times within the complicated chapters, but overall, I was usually engaged with the book's content and was actively trying to understand it.

Origins #5

Why is this book so boring now?

This always seems to happen whenever I read a science book; I get excited at the beginning and read a lot, but then near the middle, I get bored and crave a book with an actual storyline. Unfortunately, I find myself in a similar situation right now. I'm getting bored, even though I like the subject, simply because it takes too much energy to try and understand the subject matter after a long day of trying to understand other things at school. So I find myself payinging less attention to what I'm reading, consequently getting confused, and wanting to stop reading even more. I have probably started at least three other books about astronomy, one also written by Tyson, and have found myself fizzled out near the middle, unable to finish the book. But I will persevere; I will finish this book by blog #6. The book's content is written so well, that I feel bad about getting bored while reading it. My boredom really has nothing to do with the writing or content itself, just me not exerting enough energy to try and understand the subject. At the end of the day, it's so much easier to read a mindless book with an easy story line that you can get lost in. With "Origins" that is just not possible, and I am now paying the price for picking a book with no story line to blog about and to finish reading in 3 weeks. It's really hard to find topics to blog about when reading a book like this; most topics revolve around character and plot development, while this book has neither.

Origins #4

One concept in this book that I just could not wrap my head around was cosmic microwave background radiation, or CBR. I have heard it mentioned many times before in other science texts, but I have never really understood what it is. "Origins" actually does not do a very a good job of explaining what this concept is. The book's lack of information is probably due to the authors simply assuming that the reader already knows what the CBR is. Although the authors explain all other concepts beautifully, they could use some work in their explanation of the CBR. Many things in the past two chapters I have read have depended on the reader understanding this concept; the CBR tells scientists many things about the Big Bang and other such things. So I decided to just look the CBR up on the Internet to supplement the information in the book. I found that cosmic microwave background radiation is just microwaves in space that astronomers are able to see through special telescopes. The Big Bang theory says that when the universe was still very dense and hot, there was an abundance of plasma that caused the universe to look opaque. As the universe cooled, the plasma cooled as well, emitting thermal radiation. Because atoms cannot absorb this thermal radiation, it has stuck around until modern times.

Origins #3

The authors definitely have a friendly relationship with the audience. As implied in my other posts, Tyson and Goldsmith do a very good job of keeping the language light, friendly, and easy to understand, while the actual content is scientific and very educational. The authors bring up extremely interesting topics, though it might not seem that way to anyone not interested in science. One example is the properties of dark matter; the most common form of matter in the universe but also something that scientists no nearly nothing about. The authors describe, in very friendly language, how the only reason that astronomers are able to detect dark matter is through its gravitational pull. If not for dark matter, each galaxy in the universe would have only one sixth of the gravitational pull that it does. Scientists are able to calculate this number by finding the average speed traveled by all the stars in each galaxy. Any object in a galaxy needs to maintain a certain speed based on the gravitational pull of the galaxy; all objects need to maintain a speed that will allow them to not be sucked into the center of the galaxy or cause them to fly out of the galaxy. So scientists use this average speed to estimate the gravitational pull of a galaxy. When first finding the gravitational pull, it does not match up with the amount of "normal" matter in each galaxy; it is the gravitational pull of a galaxy with six times the amount of "normal" matter. So then dark matter comes into the equation; it makes up for the amount of missing matter that gives the galaxy its high gravitational pull.
I'm sorry if that was cinfusing, but the authors do a much better job of explaining it in the book. This information about dark matter is just some of the many compliated concepts that the book makes easy to understand.

Origins #2

The intended audience of "Origins" is , luckily, not one that is well versed in physics and astronomy terminology. While not making it sound like the reader is completely clueless, the authors discuss the laws of physics and how they apply to the creation of the Universe using scientific language, but still managing to keep it understandable. The audience does need some knowledge of science, at least the high school classes. Having not finished high school myself, the book can get a little confusing and I am forced to accept that I can't understand some parts of the science lingo, but overall, I feel very confident in my understanding of the book. The description of the Big Bang is especially understandable; I was finally able to put all those hours of studying AP chemistry to work. The book often makes references to higher levels of science; things that only a person with a PHD in physics would know, like the subtle nuances of quarks in the Quark-Lepton period of the Universe after the Big Bang. But understanding these references are not imperative to understanding the gist of the passage. The authors expertly make the book for both people highly educated in science and those with hardly any education on the subject by including information that interest both. So really, to revise myself, the intended audience of the book is both people with extensive education on the subject and people who may not have as much knowledge on the subject.

Origins #1 By Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Donald Goldsmith (2004)

This book is very scientific, so it is a hard read, but still very interesting. DeGrasse and Tyson wrote this book to explain "fourteen billion years of cosmic evolution." So as you can see, the book is about the creation of the cosmos from the Big Bang and how space has evolved since then. As far as I can tell, the book never discusses the controversial topic of human evolution; it focuses only on the cosmos. So far, although I still haven't passed the explanation of the Big Bang, the authors are doing a very good job of achieving their purpose. Unlike other science books that I have started but have never brought myself to finish, "Origins" does a good job of putting complicated explanations into layman's terms. The authors also do a good job of keeping these terms not so dummed down that readers feel insulted by the book's implications of the reader's stupidity. The writing is not boring either; not at all like a text book. The authors keep the material interesting and humerus, while also very educational.

the Glass Castle #6

At the end of the book, Walls is a grown woman again. Her father has a heart attack and suddenly dies. In a flashback written earlier in the book, Walls and her father are sitting outise at night on Walls' birthday. He asks her which star she wants as a present. She points to the brightest one she can see, which turns out to be Venus. Even though it's not a star, he says that he will give Walls Venus anyway. After her father dies, Walls, as her grown self, is looking out into the night sky. She sees "Venus on the horizon, up over the dark water, glowing steadily". This brings the life of her father to a final close. Although he was a drunk and never provided well for his family, he was still her father and Walls decides to remember the good in him, rather than the bad. The very end of the book describes how Walls lives in a big cumfy house with her husband and leads a life where there is no starvation or lack of heat. She invites her family over for Thanksgiving. Her mother, who is homeless, still has her crazy, capriciuos personality. Her siblings feel malice towards their parents, for seeing how easily their lives became better after they got jobs and started families, they don't understand how their parents could have failed so miserably at raising and providing for them. In all, this was a very satisfying ending. It was very bitter sweet, what with the death of Walls' father but also her good and happy life ahead of her. All the hardships of dealing with homelessness, poverty, and bad parenting lead to Walls forging a life of her own where she is successful and rich. Although a true happy ending would have involved a reconciliation with her parents, this ending fits the book, and Walls' life, better. Walls' book is filled with unhapy and dissapointing episodes on the large scale. But in every chapter, it was the little things that could cheer Walls and her siblings up, like making up games to turn a bad situation into a good one. In the end, it was only these little things that could be looked on with fondeness. All the big things, such as the children's relationships with their parents, were left untouched and unreconciled.

The Glass Castle #5

Although I would expect the opposite, Walls seems to have a friendly relationship with the content in her book. She describes events that would terrify or gross any normal person out as exciting adventures. Such as when Walls tells of how her family's house was so infested by cockroaches that the bugs crawled freely on the walls in large clumps. Every night, she and her siblings would go on roach killing tirades, which didn't take much effort because you could put your foot down anywhere and it would land on a roach. Walls reflects on nights like this with a fondness for the fun she had, instead of the expected disgust, for killing roaches is definitely not my idea of fun. Also, Walls describes how her parents kept all the windows and doors of their house open during the night. Although they intended for this to help air circulation, on more than one occasion a homeless or drunk person wandered in. To me, this sounds absolutely ridiculous. Why would you leave all of the entrances to your house open, knowing that any sort of person could get inside and steal all of your stuff or harm your family? But nevertheless, the doors and windows stayed open. If I were sleeping in that house, I would be terrified of burglars or scary people sneaking into my room during the night. But for some reason, the idea of someone ever harming the Walls' family never entered their minds. That is, until the creepy neighborhood pervert deciding to drop in and try to rape Walls while she was sleeping! Even then, after Walls and her brother had chased the pervert into the street, the doors and windows continued to stay open and Walls continued to sleep peacefully for the nights afterwards. Walls never had any tone of resentment or fear as she recounts this episode. To her, it seems, that the situation only brought on a new and exciting hobby, going pervert hunting.

The Glass Castle #4

Why is Walls' mother so helpless?

As the story progresses, it becomes more and more evident that Walls' mom, whose actual name is not revealed, is completely pathetic. She can't seem to do anything by herself; she can't even spell. This is sad. She tries to instill intelligence and independance in her children, when she can't do the same for herself. As the story goes, she gets a job teaching her oldest child's class at school. These kids can't be more than ten years old, but the mother proves to be completely incompetant. She employs the help of her daughter, whose class she is teaching, to help her with lesson plans and to keep the other children obedient. The mother even beat her daughter, who had done nothing wrong, with a spoon in front of the entire class just so she wouldn't have to beat any of the other students. The mother is so easily confused that she spelled Halloween, "Halowene". Her main goal is to be an artist, but she is not able to sell any of her paintings. One would think that she wouold be upet by her obvious lack of capabilities, but she remains ignorantly blissful to this fact, causing other people to pick up the slack for her. I don't know why Walls' mother is so helpless, one would think that years fending for herself and her family would give her some common sense, but apparantley not. It is a feat within itself that Walls turned out the way she did with such bad parenting. She somehow recieved a good education in the end to turn out to be a bestselling author. Seeing her parents' failure at success may have caused Walls to realize their mistakes and make better decisions for herself.

The Glass Castle #3

Why does Walls use repetition?

Many times within the book, Walls repeats the phrase "us kids." She uses this whenever she talks about herself along with her brother and sisters. The book is oozing with Wall's early childhood misconceptions and ignorance. By using just this one phrase, Walls is able to clump all of the children together in one category, while leaving the adults in another. This amplifies the contrast she sees between the parents and children. Her parents are very different from the other members of the family and from one another. They are both very unique, her mother is extroverted and spunky, while her father is more quiet and reserved. Walls spends a lot of time contrasting her two parents, but she does not do the same for describing the children. It seems that from her point of view, all the children are very alike and do not posses very identifiable trait differences. By repeating the phrase "us kids" she is implying that the children act almost as one unit, that identifying them as separate people would be useless. I can only speculate as to why Walls chose to do this. It seems that she would do the opposite and place more description into herself and her siblings, but I think she does this to emphasize the impact that both parents have on her life. She begins the book with a description of her parents when Walls is an adult. So perhaps she is trying to contrast the parents she knows from her childhood and the parents that she knows as an adult.

The Glass Castle #2

The first passage in the book is from the author's adult life. She describes how both of her parents are now homeless, while she is married to a wealthy man in Manhattan. Unfortunately, her parents roam the streets of Manhattan with grime covered clothes and faces. She passes them frequently and promptly attempts to hide out of embarassment of being seen with them. This exerpt from her adult life, with the rest of the book being written about her childhood, gives the reader a glimpse into what the future will hold for the book's characters. Although not even halfway through the book, that first chapter allows the reader to anticiapte what the ending might hold. I anticiapte that Walls will end the book with a similaer situation to how it started. Except now, she will be able to confront both her parents and talk with them freely. Her parents have shaped the person that Walls is today, so I predict that she will agknowlege that fact and come to peace with her parents' homeless existance.

The Glass Castle (By Jeannette Walls 2005) #1

It's and interesting story how I came to begin reading this book. My family's neighbors, over the Christmas break, asked us if some of their family members could stay in our house for a couple of nights while we were out of town. We tentatively said yes, hoping that our house would not be destroyed or ransacked by these strangers. When we came back from our vacation, we found the house in tact. As I came into my bedroom, "The Glass Castle" was sitting on my bed with a postcard stuck inside from the author. She wrote that she had stayed in my room and was giving me her book, a memoir of her life, as a sign of gratitude. I know that story didn't really have anything to do with the actual book, but knowing that this woman slept in my bed and used my bathroom gives me a feeling of being much closer to her and her story than I would have if it was any other book.
So now to the actual assignment.
In her book, Walls tells the story of her crazy childhood with two very strange parents. So far, her family is constantly on the move, never staying in one town for more than a few weeks. Although not directly stated, I can glean that their situation is due to unpaid taxes and other such crimes. The book is written from Wall's point of view, who at the moment is only four. So she does not fully understand what is going on. Her father tells her exciting stories about how they are on the run from the FBI and the Mafia, which her four year old self believes. But the reader can understand that this is not true and must try to make her own assumptions. Wall's choice to tell the story from a young child's point of view causes the reader to have a very restricted idea of what is going on. Walls does not know what issues her parents are going through, so neither does the reader. Her mother and father's parenting styles are unorthodox to say the least. They believe in not nurturing children, but to let them fend for themselves. Having had a childhood opposite to that myself, reading Walls' thoughts as a child is strange. To her, her parents are doing her a favor, and making her grow stronger. After a while, when she is still four, she doesn't even seem to notice when blood is pouring from scrapes on her knees. Reading the book from her perspective shows that while she was young, she was much older mentally and more capable of dealing with pain than other four year olds.

Wicked #6

Now that I have finished the book, I think that the ending was very unsatisfactory. In the end, like in the movie, Dorothy throws water on the Elphpaba, or the Wicked Witch of the West. This causes Elphaba's death. It was never clearly stated that the water made her melt, but I am assuming that that is what happened. I found it interesting, though, that in the book Dorothy throws water on the Witch in an attempt to put out a fire that had started on her robes. In the movie, however, Dorothy throws the water in order to kill the Witch, though I might be remembering that wrong. The book really plays up Dorothy's innocence, and with that, her ignorance of cruelties in the world. Another interesting anomaly is that in the Broadway play, Fiyero, Elphaba's lover, does not die. He is transformed into the scarecrow by a spell performed by Elphaba in order to save his life after he has been brutally beaten. In the book, Fiyero is beaten, but Elphaba is not there to help and it is assumed that he dies. When Elphaba comes across Dorothy and her trio of friends, she plays with the idea of the scarecrow being Fiyiero in disguise, but she soon thinks nothing of it. Also in the play, Elphaba does not die. She falls down a trap door when Dorothy throws water on her, sneeks out, and joins Fiyero the scarecrow as they walk into the sunset. The play's ending is defenitely happier than the book or movie's.
The ending was so unsatisfying because nothing was really resolved. The Wizard of Oz, who Elphaba was trying to rid of power, was still in power; Elphaba never found out why Glinda had enchanted the ruby slippers to stay on Dorothy's feet; Elphaba was never able to save her friend Nor from the Wizard's imprisonment or find out what had happened to the rest of Nor's family; and Elphaba never found out what happened to her long lost lover, Fiyero. These were all big questions within the book, and some of them were never even addressed in the slightest. The Witch's death was very untimely to say the least.
But overall, I really enjoyed this book and found it provided very interesting insight into the book "The Wizard of Oz", the movie, and the play.

Wicked #5

The defining moment for Elphaba is when she and Glinda sneak off to the Emerald City to see the Wizard. When they are there, Elphaba tries to persuade the Wizard to stop the segregation against Animals, animals who can speak and posses human intelligence. The Wizard had been passing laws that restricted the rights of Animals, such as taking away their right to hold jobs and use public transportation. Elphaba confronts the Wizard about this and tells him that his decisions are wrong. The Wizard gets very angry and Glinda tries to make Elphaba leave and apologize to the Wizard. Up until then, Glinda and Elphaba had been close friends, but this one moment shows the beginning of there separation. Glinda goes on to become a wealthy public figure, while Elphaba, still fighting for what she believes in, becomes poor and alone. Elphaba's fight with the wizard was the defining moment of her new life, for afterwards, she drops out of school and disappears for many years, all the while working undercover to try and assassinate the Wizard and his minions. Glinda and Elphaba's differences are the main factors controlling how their lives unfold, and that one moment with the wizard was necessary to show Elphaba what she was meant to use her life for, fighting the Wizard for Animal rights and a ridding Oz of his and other's rule.

Wicked #4

Throughout the entire book, Elphaba has a strong aversion to water, saying that it burns her skin. I believe that this is a metaphor for her aversion to being baptised. Elphaba's Family is extremely religious. Her father is a holy man who preaches about the Unnamed God, and her sister grows up to be a follower of the Unnamed God, going on long rants about morality and religion to anyone who will listen (she eventually becomes a religious leader for all of Munchkinland). Elphaba always questioned religion and claimed that there was no Unnamed God, though not speaking of this to her family. Her aversion to water is her aversion to religion and her family forcing religion onto her. Because water is the symbol of baptism, the first step in becoming a religious person, Elphaba feels a biological fear and hatred towards it.

"Wicked" by Gregory Maguire Post #3

In the first passage of the book, there are many foreshadows to how the book's story will unfold. For example, when Elphaba's mother is pregnant with her, she says that she "Is only a host for the parasite" (Maguire 6). This leads the reader to believe that the baby is not welcome to its parents; that the baby must have something wrong with it. As the reader soon finds out, there is something wrong with the baby, for she is green and has teeth shaped like daggers. This theme of Elphaba never fitting in with her surroundings is present throughout the entire book; such as when she goes to high school and has few friends and is made fun of, and when she lives on her own and takes a vow of silence for two years, causing herself to be astranged from everyone. From her beginging, Elphaba was never meant to fit in.