Ohohoh, won't you carry me home? It's the last time in my life that I'll ever try.

So, at that awesome bookstore that was an avalanche waiting to happen I bought The Dharma Bums and Big Sur. I just recently finished them both, and I figured it would make more sense to do a double feature.... Brad and Janet. So, since I read them in order, (they're both a part of the 'Duluoz Legend') I'll post them in order too. Incidentally, I'm posting them in order of favorites too.

So, oops, I should've mentioned both of these are by Jack Kerouac. So, of course, both books are about his travels and life, and for the most part I believe they stick to the truth, but I wouldn't be surprised if he made parts of the accounts fictional. In both books. In Big Sur, I sincerely hope some scenes were fictional. But you'll see when I get there.

First, fun fact!: The Dharma Bums was the first Kerouac book I've ever read. Like I said, I like it a lot more than Big Sur. It's much brighter than Big Sur (Big Sur is also very upsetting) and there are some darker spots but blah blah blah let's get this show on the road.

Hahaha, I didn't even mean to do that. I am so funny.

Okay, so my first quote comes right before chapter eight, at which point Jack is in the Californian town of Bridgeport. "Bridgeport is a sleepy town, curiously New England-like, on that plain." Not really anything, I just thought it was kind of funny because there is in fact a town in New England known as Bridgeport right here in CT. I guess that's not too surprising, I just thought it was sort of funny.

"'You can't live in this world but there's nowhere else to go,' laughs Coughlin." Truth. As for the characters in these books, Coughlin and Cody and Billie etc, all names have been changed. I forget who Coughlin was in real life, though I'm sure it's listed in the introduction, but I hate reading introductions. Especially for Kerouac books, all they really seem to do is depress me before I've even started. The only introductions I enjoy in general are Kurt Vonnegut ones, because his don't drag like a twenty pound sack of potatoes. But where was I? Oh yeah. In the beginning of Big Sur, Jack has a note that said he will one day combine all the books in the 'Duluoz Legend' where he will change all names to uniformity and such, because his editors suggested they be changed from book to book. That's not really having much to do with the quote, but I just thought it was worth noting. AND IT'S TOO LATE YOU JUST READ THAT ALLLLL.

Okay okay okay. This coming quote I love. This, among others, were one of the things that made me drop my jaw and love this book and Kerouac. "'But I don't like all this Jesus stuff she's talking about.' 'What's wrong with Jesus? Didn't Jesus speak of Heaven? Isn't Heaven Buddha's nirvana?' 'According to your own interpretation, Smith.'" Yes, yes, yes! What Smith said, Heaven=nirvana, is just what I believed previous to reading this. Well, not exactly, but the fact that all religions had the same roots and the similarities that could be drawn meant they were exactly the same, just people saw them differently, but why didn't anyone else realize they were all the same deep down? But I was so stupid, because that was just my interpretation! That doesn't mean it's the truth! I was being the big jerk! High five, Jack Kerouac! Thank you!

"I've got my full rucksack and it's spring, I'm going Southwest to the dry land...'" / "The day's get longer and the nights smell green. I guess it's not surprising but it's spring and I should leave"--Modest Mouse ('World at Large') Ohh. So that's why I kept on listening to that song over and over while I read this book the first time. The mystery's been solved, gang! Oh, and because of all that stuff I wrote about in that essay, Robby D. PLEASE DO NOT RETROACTIVELY FAIL ME. THANK YOU.

Ah, I like this one too. Ray gets picked up hitchhiking by a couple and explains to them about Buddhism and reincarnation and such during the drive: "'You mean other chance to come back and try again?' asked the poor little Mexican... 'That's what they say.' 'Well goddammit next time I be born I hope I ain't who I am now.'"

"...Then I'd find something like a dead crow in the deer park and think 'That's a pretty sensitive sight for human eyes, and all of it comes out of sex.'" Sex is death, death is sex, happiness is sadness, sadness is happiness, et cetera. (Think: The Lion King.) Later on: "'Bad karma automatically produces good karma.'" And vice versa. Reading that and realizing that practically knocked me off my feet. I think I would have read Big Sur either way, being on the list and all, but that quote basically set up my love for him. Sure, someone else said it, but it's here.

"...I knew that shack and that mountain would understand what that meant, and turned and went on down the trail back to this world."

Too bad blogger freaks out about emoti-hearts and -cons....

And, I noticed a little wink. If you have this http://therilla.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/dharma_bums.jpg copy, you get the little flaps with the pictures. I halt from calling them 'comics', but... Anyway. Obviously, Ray, the main character, is supposed to be Jack himself. So there's a scene in the book which is drawn in that front flap, which is Alvah, Ray and someone else talking about poems. Alvah quotes what he believes are one of the poems Ray wrote in Mexico--which really is one of Jack's poems from Mexico City Blues--but Ray gets haughty and shouts "That's not it!!!" I don't know if that scene was meant to be a wink or what, but now that I get it makes me chuckle a little. I got so excited when I read the quoted poem in Mexico City Blues, too. One of the few things I got excited for in that book, too.

Anyway, this is what made me love Kerouac, so it must be pretty damned good, huh? I mean, if you're a stickler for grammar and punctuation and such you're going to start off a little annoyed, but it gets easier after no time. Might I suggest you don't just read this to pass the time during, say, jury duty (Dilbert read a book once while on jury duty, so it must be what people really do) or on a plane or in a plane terminal with screaming children, yelling people, or just general loudness, disarray, and hubbub commencing. Read it in a quiet place where you know you won't be disturbed. This sounds corny and totally teacher-ish, but I guess that's a good thing for me, but dedicate yourself to this book. Hold on, Jackii had a great quote for this sort of thing...
"The best moments in reading are when you come across something--a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things--that you'd thought special, particular to you. And here it is, set down by someone else, a person you'd never met, maybe even someone long dead. And it's as if a hand has come out, and taken yours"--The History Boys
Yeah, that's the one. This book was that for me. Basically the whole thing was that for me. I love this book.

Anyways, to change the mood, onto Big Sur, which I ripped into with great gusto after having read The Dharma Bums. Ehh. Written three of four books later, at this point, Jack's life has taken a turn for the worse and he's sinking in his alcoholism. So the flavor is a lot different, and I spend the whole book biting my lip and looking concerned.

In the very first of the book, Jack complains about his popularity--how "pathetic" groups of teenagers and reporters are breaking into his home or meeting him on the street in the hopes of him taking a liking to him and such, and obviously, because they like his books and want to emulate his lifestyle. He attributes this madness to On the Road, but from what it says here and in Desolation Angels I'd like to think it was The Dharma Bums that really did it. You see, Desolation Angels came before The Dharma Bums, and in it he mentions fans coming to see him, and he's a little annoyed, but his annoyance hasn't reached its peak--and in this book, not only is he fed up but he's desperate to get the hell out of there and escape this pulsing mass. Reason #2 is because one of the very last straws that broke the camels back were a bunch of, again, "pathetic"-looking teenagers wearing coats they painted 'Dharma Bums' on the backs of. (Desolation Angels, The Dharma Bums, Big Sur, in case you were getting confused. Trust me, I know I'm not the clearest writer.)

Ah, another one of Jack's catalysts are the constant death of animals in this book. Fed up with his fans, he escapes to a shack by the sea. There is a mouse there, and at first he's disturbed by it, but he decides "my days of killing mice are over" and starts leaving out a little plate of cheese and chocolate for the mouse sharing the shack with him. Before he leaves he leaves a case of rat poison open on the top shelf, in the hopes that to another tenant it will look like he did keep the rodent problem in check, but while thinking 'his' mouse won't be able to reach it. Of course, his mouse does, and when he finds the body of a mouse in the area he knows it's his mouse, and beats himself up for it. Later on, there's an incident involving a little otter... and this, I don't remember, but the poor thing is found dead, and again Jack considered it 'his' and blames himself for its death. I want to say he accidentally killed some other animal too, on accident, but I can't remember what it is if there was one. So, you know, he's just sinking deeper into depression, thinking that all he can do is destroy. Along with this, early in the book his mother writes him to tell him his cat Tyke has died, whom Jack viewed almost like a baby brother, and of course he loved Tyke dearly. So he is just not in for good times here.

"I felt completely nude of all poor protective devices like thoughts about life or meditations under trees and the 'ultimate' and all that shit, in fact the other pitiful devices of making supper or saying 'What do I do now next? chop wood?'--I see myself as just doomed, pitiful--An awful realization that I have been fooling myself all my life thinking there was a next thing to do to keep the show going and actually I'm just a sick clown and so is everybody else--All all of it, pitiful as it is, not even really any kind of commonsense animate effort to ease the soul in this horrible sinister condition (of mortal hopelessness)..." And he goes onto describe how sad and depressed he must have looked, staring at the sea and realizing all this. What has he realized? Basically, everything he has believed in, be it Buddhism or Catholicism, is really nothing, because you'll still die. That all of these things exist so you don't have to think about the inevitable and you'll feel safe and happy forever. But whatever you do, whatever you believe, you're still "doomed, pitiful." Yikes. Another reason why I didn't like this so much. It's depressing reading about a man who's losing his faith, especially in first person like this. The books follows his life, and it's like a funnel, as it goes on it gets more depressing and you go down and down deeper and he's sinking into the madness and his end. And you can feel it. It's not an easy thing to read.

"It's as familiar as an old face in an old photograph..." I like that opening sentence, but I'm not a fan of where it goes. Read the book!

"'What are we gonna do with our lives?'--'Oh,' he says, 'I dunno, just watch em I guess'..." That's the point, I think. I guess.

Okay! Scenes that I hope to be falsified, even though in my heart of hearts I know there's no way. On and off towards the end of the book, Jack has an on-and-off sexual affair with a woman named Billie. She has a four-year-old son, and the father of the boy isn't in the picture. Now, the thing is--the first night they're having sex and the little boy doesn't want to go to bed or had a nightmare or whatever, so he runs to his mom's bed--to find the two of them, you know, entangled. So Jack is like we have to stop Billie, this isn't good for him to see this, et cetera, but Billie pulls him into it and forces him to continue and finish, while the poor kid is stunned and "drooling long slavers of spit" which was perhaps what disturbed me the most. So later, Billie is cuddling up to Jack, and trying to sit in his lap and stuff, and the poor kid is begging his mother not to do it--obviously, the kid has been weirded out by this which anyone could have predicted. The third time, Jack and Billie are having sex again, and again, the boy hears it or whatever and comes in, and tries to pull on her arm and whatnot begging her to stop please. And this time, Jack Kerouac is the one who gets fed off--he pushes the kid away and screams at him "stop what?" and to shut up and go away and such. That. That is just awful, and it makes me want to hate him--honestly, the two books are almost written by different people. It is impossible for both books to exist for me at the same time and thinking they're by the same guy. Nope. And that poor kid! Christ, every time I read that part or think of it, I just want to sock Kerouac a good hard one across the jaw.

And okay, if I've said it once, I've said it a million times--I don't understand poetry. But, there is one line that I think I get at least, from the poems included in the back. Regardless of my understanding either way, this line stuck with me. I don't know why, but it did: "We'll jelly you, jellied man." I don't know. It did is all I know.


Oh, and I watched The Others the other (ahahahaha) day. What a good movie! I don't know what other movies Nicole Kidman's been in, but she's won my respect as an amazing actress. As for the movie itself, I kind of knew the twist end (it's on a t-shirt I own) but still, I wanted to see how it got there, and I was most pleased. It's a new take on your average ghost story that I'm surprised hasn't been snapped up more often. This is only the second time I've seen this.... motif around. (Proper use of the word, Emma?)
Anyways, to properly describe it and my love for the storyline itself, here it comes: SPOILER ALERT.
The story is this lady (Kidman) and her two children are living in their home, presumably after the war (2) or just after. The father has died on tour of duty, but the kids don't know this. So, out of nowhere, these three work hands come out of nowhere offering help, and since all the old work left Kidman accepts them into her home. Okay, that's just prelims. I don't really want to spend to much time summarizing what you could easily Wikipedia or google. Anyways, what I really like is the twist. See, constantly there is thumping. Strange noises, voices, apparitions. Kidman sees a strange old lady in her daughter's clothing. The daughter constantly sees a boy she refers to as 'Victor'. Kidman comes to the conclusion that the place must be haunted.
Twist? She is dead. She is the ghost in the house. Noises, the people she saw, strange movements--that was all from the people who had moved in. The old lady in her daughter's clothing? Oh man, I love this part: The daughter had possessed the old lady in the 'modern' world (which was really only a few years or even months later, now that I think of it). The house had changed, which you see for a split second from the view of the 'modern' people who moved in and are conducting a seance. Kidman was bumping into a the table the people sat around and the people in the chairs. Think The Sixth Sense, when Bruce realizes he can't open the door because of the table he couldn't see. But it's a ghost's story from the ghost's view, and I love that idea. I fell in love with that because of a short story which I believe was called 'The Ghost in the Summer Kitchen'. It's in one of Bruce Coville's anthologies, I believe it's Bruce Coville's Book of Spine Tinglers, the first one, but I can't say for sure. The story has that same idea, and although it took me quite a few reads to understand and realize that our narrator is the ghost (and there are a few other things I still don't really understand in the story) when I figured it out, I got quite a delicious frisson. Like I said, it's so new and unexplored, and such a fresh area to explore and write about. I'm surprised these two have been the only things regarding such an idea--I mean, that I've found.
If you search for the story on google by the way, you can get a link to the google book preview. Personally, I prefer Bruce Coville's print of it, but whatever.
What I was expecting was actually quite similar to a story in another one of Coville's anthologies called 'The Frogmen'. The twist is that the people terrified so of the 'frogmen' are people kept in some sort of study reserve akin to The Village. The 'frogmen' are humans in wetsuits and masks and goggles and such. I thought Kidman in the kids were going to be trapped for study like that, and they were trying to steal the children to study and tear and rend. Anyways....

I found a poster at a college I visited that's a 'BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU' poster. I really wish I had gotten that, creepy as it was...

Tried reading Wuthering Heights. Even worse than Jane Eyre, I put it down after seventy or eighty pages. No idea what the hell was going on, except for a scene in the very first chapter when a girl mistakes a pile of dead bunnies for a litter of kittens. (Who leaves piles of dead rabbits in fancy chairs in the parlor anyway?) Whoever published the Bronte sisters' books need to be beaten. What are you waiting for? Go travel back in time and beat them up! Now.

Also, although the date is from a few days ago, I am just finishing this post on September first. In this time, I've finished a Neil Gaiman book, American Gods and I've begun Stardust, which I'm worried is going to be the book the crappy-looking movie of the same name was based on. Okay, so I didn't see it, but that three-minute trailer was even more confusing than Australia's trailer, and we know how great that movie was. Actually, was that even a movie? Or am I just imagining if Castle in the Sky was filmed with real people? Well, if I'm not imagining things, that was the reason why I passed it up--the star is really a girl! And what was that? Oh, pirates. AND INSTEAD OF ROBOTS THERE ARE FAERIES AHHHHHH.

Oh yeah, and that book store in Salem: 215 Essex Street, Salem, Mass. The 'Derby Square Book Store', and trust me, you'll know it when you see it.

Who watches the Watchmen?

I finally got Watchmen back from Jackii, so I can write a review on the best comic ever! (Well... you know... there's always Hellsing...)
But first: at the mall today, they had an old-fashioned metal lunchbox with Rorschach on the front. I thought it was kind of funny, so for whatever reason, I opened it--there was a thermos with him on it on the inside too! Awesome!

(Watchmen is a what-if deal if masked heroes from the '40's were real and fighting crime--it was briefly brought back in the mid-sixties, and the story is set in the eighties after the 'masked vigilantes' were outlawed--the story centers around those ex-heroes. Do I really need this here? Does anyone honestly not know about Watchmen?)

Anyways, let me say this. People love the V for Vendetta comic. (I bring this up because Alan Moore created them both.) Frankly, it left me a little cold. The movie, I could get behind, but the book... uh, why'd I buy that again? Cleaning out my room, it just apparently disappeared, and to be honest, I'm not heartbroken. But this... If someone stole my Watchmen comic I'd be pissed. This is a work of art. Everything exists for the story, for juxtaposition, nothing is just hanging there. Down to posters and tags on walls, what's playing on the TV (the clearest example is when [SPOILER!] Dreiberg and Laurie are having sex and the commercial of Veidt is playing in the background) what people are even doing, items in the room--it is all intertwined. To work everything so well and so finely is amazing, even if Alan Moore is a little... kooky. Honestly, while you read it try your best to pay attention to everything--and trust me, that's impossible. Fourteen times later, and you're still noticing new things. For one thing, I finally kind of understand that subplot with the missing author.

Anyways, I'm going to be the jerk who is like, "of course the book was better!" It really was. For one thing, there is not enough Rorschach. You get zero of his back story, which is some serious BS, because to be honest, he's my favorite. The Black Freighter is completely cut out. I don't think Hollis was murdered? And, of course, the squid is gone. But, to be fair, you'd have to be God Himself to make a movie level up at all to the book. God help 'em, the directors tried. Especially with trying to show how Jon views time. (Wonder if the Slaughterhouse-Five movie did it any better, or even attempted to?) I don't agree with--well, a lot of what was shuffled, but let's be honest, it would really be impossible, unless you enjoy movies that are even longer than Gone With the Wind. (Should that be in quotation marks or something?) And, as much as I love this, by hour seven I'd be ready to shoot myself. There's only so much you can take of anything, and the film seems too, for lack of a better word, gaudy, to be able to be coped with for hardly longer than the three it is already. I was ready to jump out by the last half hour. Vidro was getting annoyed because I kept on jiggling my legs and squirming around in my chair in efforts to stave off insanity. Okay, okay, don't add the squid or whatever, just film Rorschach's back story and give it to me. Oh, wait, do change the scene where he kills the guy who stole a little girl and fed her to his dogs. That scene was unnecessary to change.

Problems With Character Changes in Movie
Dreiberg--He was not fat enough. This is honestly the number one complaint among fans. Where was his pot belly? BS, guys.
Veidt--Instead of having Ken-doll good looks, he looked like an odd little Swedish man. You know who he reminds me of? That white-haired guy in the Venture Brothers, the one with the New York accent and wears the white shirt, and he's basically always the short guy with the eye patch? Yeaaah. Definitely. The phrase 'odd bird' comes to mind. Also, his outfit change really annoyed me. I don't know why, but I got PO'd like hell.
Rorschach--Not ugly enough. Everything else was fine, but he just wasn't ugly enough. And, as upset as the end with him made me when I read the book; no matter how hard I tried, I just didn't care in the movie.

Oh, and now that I think of it, the Hiroshima Lovers. Man, I was trying to be fair, but now I just can't stop...

Anyways, things in the book.

If I were to write everything worth mentioning, I'd basically be rewriting the book only without the part where it's good.
Well, the book opens with the murder of Edward Blake, aka The Comedian, ex-'hero'. Anyways. "'Jeez, y'know, that felt good. There don't seem to be many laughs around these days.' 'Well, what do you expect? The Comedian is dead.'" It's not particularly important, but there are a hundred and a million little lines like that that just stick--to me, at least. This isn't Journalism class. I don't have to be objective. : ) Be glad I'm only cutting it down to a few...

"'Somebody has to do it, don't you see? Somebody has to save the world...'" Ah, the line that unintentionally inspired Veidt to do what he did. Again, aside from that, I just like the line. Somebody does have to, but who knows if they exist. Who knows if it can be.

Oh, the scene where Eddie Blake breaks into Moloch's house drunk. You know how up there I said you still notice and realize new things every time you read it, no matter how many times you read it? I get this now. I don't think this was brought up in the movie either, though at this point the only things I remember are how weird Veidt looked and that scene where they shoot the hippie girl in the opening. Oh, and when they implied the Comedian killed JFK. But anyways, warning, book spoiler ahead: Maybe I'm stupid not to have realized this sooner, but Eddie discovered the 'squid'--that's why he got drunk. That's why he was killed. Like, I got that Veidt killed him because he swam onto his secret island or whatever, but it never occurred to me that Veidt killed Eddie because Eddie found out about the squid and what it was for.

"'Was offered Swedish love and French love... but not American love. American love; like Coke in green glass bottles... They don't make it anymore.'" From Rorschach's journal, the love offered is, of course, from prostitutes. There's something I find very poignant about this line from his journal. It's sad, and maybe it's true. But. The very last lines of his journal on that page, too: "'Nothing is hopeless. Not while there's life.'" Sometimes I wonder if Rorschach is really sociopath, which he is must likely to be written off as, or just someone with an iron grip on their emotions. Because sociopaths can imitate feelings, and when he's just Kovacks, he doesn't even try--he's as wooden as the maple tree in the front yard. Cold as ice. Well, not always--when his 'face' is taken away, he becomes enraged and desperate--and as Rorschach, he's obviously feeling hope, and it's hard to imagine someone being deficit of every single emotion... Then, at the end, he is the most upset of them all. And I guess it's obvious he feels he doesn't really exist without his 'face'... So maybe he can only really be human at times when he distances himself most from humanity. Uhm, does that make sense, really? I'm trying my best, here. Man. Now I have 'Shores of California' stuck in my head.

"'Blake understood. Treated it like a joke, but he understood. He saw the cracks in society, saw the little men in masks trying to hold it together... He saw the true face of the twentieth century and chose to become a reflection, a parody of it. No one else saw the joke. That's why he was lonely.'" "'He suits the climate here: The madness, the pointless butchery... As I come to understand Vietnam and what it implies about the human condition, I also realize that few humans will permit themselves such an understanding. Blake's different. He understands perfectly... and he doesn't care.'"

Ah, how Jon views time. I believe I alluded to this in my post about Slaughterhouse-Five. If not, it is exactly how the Tralfamadorians in that book view time. Everything is happening at the very same second forever and ever amen. Forever and ever is really just one second in eternity's great clock, really. Eternity is really that one second though, I guess, so all that proved really was that I suck at metaphors, huh? Uhm but yeah. The reason why that view so sticks with me is because of that British guy in Boston that first told that view of time to me--he said it was from the book Conversations With God. I've been meaning to read it since last October, but I always forget about it when I go to the library or B&N or where ever. So whenever books mention this, I always get excited. So far? Two. Two books have this theory. Haha.

"'I sat on the bed. I looked at the Rorschach blot. I tried to pretend it looked like a spreading tree, shadows pooled beneath it, but it didn't. It looked more like a dead cat I once found, the fat, glistening grubs writhing blindly, squirming over each other, frantically tunneling away from the light. But even that is avoiding the real horror. The horror is this: in the end, it is simply a picture of empty meaningless blackness. We are alone. There is nothing else.'" The Rorschach test becomes a metaphor for death for Rorschach's psychologist. Unsettling, upsetting, alone, but even more so that Kovacs is correct, in this strange way. Sick?

And, actually, as I reread the included pages after that chapter, the short essay entitled 'My Parents', 'written' by Kovacs, I found an interesting point--which, by the way, may lead into a spoiler, so you have been warned--Rorschach likes President Truman, and praises him highly at the very beginning of the book. Kovacs's mother told him as a child (it is written here) that she threw his Father out because he loved Truman, and she did not. But he ends this essay talking about Truman, saying "He dropped the atom bomb on Japan and saved millions of lives because if he hadn't of, then there would have been a lot more war than there was and more people would have been killed. I think it was a good thing to drop the atomic bomb on Japan.'" Ah? And keep in mind the ending of the book--so upset and in such despair that he had Jon kill him. I think maybe it's an idea that you can think and say you follow, but deep in your heart you know if it happens you could never believe in it, or put your entire stock in it, or when it does happen you hate it and are disgusted by it even. You know? Maybe?

"'"End of the world" does the concept no justice. The world's present would end. Its future, immeasurably vaster, would also vanish. Even our past would be cancelled. Our struggle from the primal ooze, every childbirth, every personal sacrifice rendered meaningless, leading only to dust, tossed on the void-winds. Save for Richard Nixon, whose name adorns a plaque on the moon, no human vestige would remain. Ruins become sand, sand blows away... All our richness and color and beauty would be lost... as if had never been.'"If I could count the times this sentiment has been spoken of, going all the way back to Animorphs... Well, it is truth. I guess this really would be of the 'no truer words have ever been spoken' category. It could also be considered end of time, I guess, since time and free will appear to be entirely human inventions. Oh dear, I've gone and depressed Emma...

"I did it thirty-five minutes ago."

....

"I did it. I did it!"
This scene described and the scene when the squid 'lands' and the aftermath is what sold me. Mookie talked quite extensively about it in a panel of his I attended at my second Connecticon... I think it was something like "Making memorable heroes and villains"? But yes. As sick as it is, those scenes were what drew me.

"'Not even in the face of Armageddon. Never compromise.'" Poor Rorschach.

"'Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends.'"

The end makes me nervous, as I believe it was intended to do. Whenever I read a comic I find myself adopting patterns of speech and thought, and I guess it's true again. Guess.

Anyways, this is a damned good book. Much better than the V for Vendetta comic. Better than most 'real' books. Five out of five, Alan Moore's a genius.

I'll be on my best behavior, taking shots for Mother Nature

Okay, so, Slaughterhouse Five: I reread it because it was on the reading list for my school. But honestly, what was Marky Mark thinking when he put this on here? You have certain questions to answer, and they're all something along the lines of "how did the character change by the end of the book? What is an important event that causes the turning point of the book?" et cetera. But you can't do that for Slaughterhouse Five because it jumps around like Invisible Monsters. Actually, none of these books on the list really fit well to those questions. Figures, the one year we get books that don't belong in the pail we get a crappy set to answer to and I can't even get the extra credit. (Seriously, I've read like half this list... and you know what, I bet it's just the books I did read that don't fit. My luck.) Man, why can't we read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay like the UConn class kids? That would be a fun book to do this, or really any other project, on.

Anyways, this book isn't nearly my favorite of Kurt's. It's a good introduction to him, I guess, and had I read it first I might like it more, but the first I read was Breakfast of Champions, and as you know by now, I consider that to be basically the cream of the crop. Well... after Galapagos. Anyways. It's right in the middle of the range, with Galapagos right in front and Hocus Pocus at the other hand. I guess you'd say it's mediocre, but that sounds too mean. Well, I guess it's the truth, though.... Ah, I don't know. Think what you want about them, I'm not God.

Well, first: this confused me when I read this book the first time, but this book is the "famous book about the war".

A major point in the book is not only that Billy is unstuck in time, it's the way Tralfamadorians view time: Everything is happening at once. The past, present, and future do not exist: time is not one precise moment after another it simply is. I guess it's kind of like believing in predestination, only everything you have done and will do (well, is being done) is preordained, down to the very last millisecond. If you have read Watchmen, think of how Doctor Manhattan views time. It's like that. I guess it's also basically saying 'sucks to free will'. Wait, this quote may help: "When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in bad condition in that particular moment, but that same person is just fine in plenty of other moments." Which, with that mind, the argument could be that when someone thinks of a memory, they are for a moment viewing time as it really is, occurring all at once. Or something? I'll stop now. I could talk myself blue in the face about this, really. This is a theory I hold in high regard because when I first learned about it (not from this book or any other, a random British guy in Boston told me about it) my jaw almost disengaged and dropped at my feet. It was so novel it shocked me right into minor enlightenment, there. Anyways, I digress...

"Among the the things Billy Pilgrim could not change were the past, present, and future." Yeah, so basically it's a big middle finger to the idea of free will... Okay, yeah, and later Billy talks to a T who talks about all these papers on planets he's studied and planets he's visited and such, and basically he says that "Only on Earth is there any talk of free will". And on one level, if free will is just an illusion, it's kind of a relief, I guess. No one can really be blamed for sins, and everyone goes to heaven? Well, not even that, because if this theory is true, one, it'd make a cool Twilight Zone, two, there would be no heaven and hell because no one would be dead, not really.

And, Kurt Vonnegut made his own observation on the New Testament, mainly on the story of Jesus. An alien studies the Bible but doesn't like this area of the New Testament. He "supposed that the intent of the Gospels was to teach people, among other things, to be merciful, even to the lowest of the low. But the Gospels actually taught this: Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn't well connected. So it goes." Yeah, I see this one. Pilate had him crucified and oops, he's burning in Hell. (Wait, actually, that doesn't make sense. Pilate was necessary for Jesus to be martyred and ascend to heaven... Pilate was the good guy? Wait, that makes Judas technically a good guy too! Hey!) Wait, wait, now I've lost my train of thought. Uh. Crap. But yeah, I guess Judas was kind of a hero or at the very least a good guy, cause he was the catalyst in Jesus's death and it was necessary for Jesus to die... man! Don't demonize Judas, guys. He was working in God's plan! Destiny, guys. I mean, don't be giving him out high fives and stuff, but he couldn't help it. No free will. God planned this one. (If I was Jesus I'd be really angry about that one.)

Huh. I guess there wasn't much to respond to. Which I guess is good, because my last two posts are longer than a giraffe's neck.

Unzip my body, take my heart out...

So that last post was actually finished on the 20th, for the record.

Anyways, here comes the other two books I finished while away: Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk and Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut.

First, Invisible Monsters. I have to lead a book club discussion so I guess I'll just type my reaction in form of the questions I wrote for people to respond to, and this way we can all see how much I suck at this. PS. If you didn't read the book, you will be extraordinarily lost.

1. Just to recap: Why did Shannon do it? Would you have done it too? Did you think it was a stupid thing to do?
Shannon wanted out on the fashion model life. She wanted the "opposite of a miracle", like her brother. "Rip yourself open, sew yourself shut." (Favorite line. Ever.) I wouldn't have had the balls to do it. And was it stupid... hell, it's braver than most anyone could do. I guess it's stupid, because she actively wrecked herself, but in doing so she lived for real.

2. Liked the style it was written, what with all the jumping around? It isn't that weird, actually. For all the flip flops and sudden changes, it flows better than most straightforward books.

3. "No matter how careful you are, there's going to be the sense you missed something, the collapsed feeling under your skin that you didn't experience it at all. There's that fallen heart feeling that you rushed right through the moments where you should've been paying attention." (page 22) Did you end the book with that feeling? Any questions on what you felt you missed? The first time, and even the second time, yes. But number seven, you pretty much have it all by that point. No questions.

4. What do you think the main idea of the book was? The only way to really live is to destroy yourself (short from killing yourself). Only when you fall that far can you really ever know yourself and say you've lived.

5. I believe that the main idea of the book was the "Rip yourself open, sew yourself shut" sort of deal. Destroy yourself and by doing so, you can truly exist. Do you agree? Indeed, I do.

6. Any particular quotes you favored? Why? Care to discuss? "Rip yourself open, sew yourself shut." I think I've quite exhausted that. And, I'm paraphrasing a quote: "If being born makes your parents God, then puberty makes you Satan for wanting something better." It's true. "Your birth is a mistake you'll spend your whole life trying to correct." "Jump into disaster with both feet." That one's my yearbook quote. The second one. (They allow two, right?)

7. Who was your favorite character? I honestly don't have a favorite. Manus, while drugged up on premarin and vicodin and stuff delivered the most 'Chuck-bombs' (revelations by way of Chuck Palahniuk) so I guess you could say I loved him for that... and maybe him the most... but not really. I didn't really have a number one.

8. Least favorite? Shannon's parents piss me off. They're goddamn spineless cowardly half-baked idiots.

9. Any strong reactions to Shannon's parents? I WOULD ENJOY BEATING THEM WITH TIRE IRONS.

10. If you were Shannon, would you have let Sean back in the house? I'd like to say I would, but keep in mind, Shannon hated her brother. So if I was her... probably not? I doubt she would've known that ignoring him that one time would have been forever... well, a long time at least. So no, if I was her I probably wouldn't have let him back in. Acting as me, however, I would have.

11. Did you like the ending? Indeed.

12. Did you like the book itself? Favorite Palahniuk : )

Have I writ a review on this already? I feel like I have. In any case, it's my absolute number one Palahniuk book annnd yeah. I can't really think at this moment, but here are my favorite scenes because I love you?
(When she first meets Brandy) "Those Burning Blueberry eyes look right at me the way no eyes have all summer. 'Your perception is all fucked up,' Brandy says. 'All you can talk about is trash that's already happened.' She says, 'You can't base your life in the past or the present.' Brandy says, 'You have to tell me about your future.'"

This next one includes the quote you've read so many times in the last post you'd probably beat me if you read it again. Onto the next!

This is my absolute favorite scene, and I love it so much I am willing to give myself carpal tunnel trying to type it:
"According to Seth, the future ended in 1962 at the Seattle World's Fair. This was everything we should've inherited: the whole man on the moon within this decade--asbestos is our miracle friend--nuclear-powered and fossil-fueled world of the Space Age where you could go up to visit the Jetsons' flying saucer apartment building and then ride the monorail downtown for fun pillbox hat fashions at the Bon Marche. All this hope and science and research and glamour left here in ruins. The Space Needle. The Science Center with its lacy domes and hanging light globes. The Monorail streaking along covered in brushed aluminum. This is how our lives were supposed to turn out. Go there. Take the trip, Seth says. It will break your heart because the Jetsons with their robot maid, Rosie, and their flying-saucer cars and toasters beds that spit you out in the morning, it's like the Jetsons have sublet the Space Needle to the Flintstones. 'You know,' says Seth, 'Fred and Wilma. The garbage disposal that's really a pig that lives under the sink. All their furniture made out of bones and rocks and tiger-skin lampshades. Wilma vacuums with a baby elephant and fluffs the rocks. They named their baby "Pebbles".' Here was our future of cheese-food and aerosol propellants, Styrofoam and Club Med on the moon, roast beef served in a toothpaste tube. 'Tang,' says Seth, 'you know, breakfast with the astronauts. And now people come here wearing sandals thy made themselves out of leather. They name their kids Zilpah and Zebulum out of the Old Testament. Lentils are a big deal.' Seth sniffs and drags a hand across the tears in his eyes. It's the Estrace is all. He must be getting premenstrual. 'The folks who go to the Space Needle now,' Seth says, 'they have lentils soaking at home and they're walking around the ruins of the future the way barbarians did when they found Grecian ruins and told themselves God must've built them.'"

Yup, all of that build up for that. It's a great scene. It's a great book. Go read ittttttttt.


I'll do Slaughterhouse Five tomorrow. I'm exhausted!

(edit: added picture)
I put the book on its belly for the first time and was so put out by actually seeing the two covers side by side I had to record it:
Weird, huh? I actually saw a funny poster once that had the picture, and at the bottom (when the picture was to the big-nosed lady) and it said something like 'Before beer: no way' or something, and then when you turned it so it looked like the attractive woman it said something like 'after five: definitely!'

YOG-SOTHOTH RULES

Well, I was going to reread Desperation by Stephen King, but my copy appears to have disappeared, which is a Thad Beaumont annoying, considering it's my favorite and all. (Get it? Thad Beaumont? Thad? Tad? Ohohoho. Comedy gold.) But I ended up rereading Needful Things, which is a close second, so it's all good. Unless I can't find my copy of Desperation ever, cause then I'm gonna be angry.
Needful Things is the 'last Castle Rock story' because EVERYTHING EXPLODES. But, it starts out with familiar setting of Castle Rock, with a new shop opening called 'Needful Things'. The shop has the greatest desires of each individual heart, for a relatively cheap... fiscal price. And an incredibly expensive different price, as well. Pretty soon chaos erupts and blah blah blah. Look, it's good!

First: There's a story Stephen King wrote that could be considered the introduction to this called 'The Sun Dog', which was the very first Stephen King thing I read after finishing this the first time. I don't remember the anthology it was in. (Four Past Midnight, maybe?)

Very early in the book, a character named Brian refers to some famous face as a 'stud-muffin'. HAHA. I'm sorry, it was too funny not to mention.

The dead baby (trust me, you'll get this if you read the book) is named Kelton. I--I was wondering where that name came from when I named a character in a story of mine that. I--I forgot. Jeez. That is one thing you don't want a name to be associated with... (Which is unfortunate, because it is a really cool name.)

If I recall, in the book that The Secret Window was based on, Thad often heard or thought he saw sparrows right before his alter ego or whatever it was (it's been two or three years since I've read it, so cut me some slack) would appear. Alan appears to occasionally view sparrows when anxiety about his dead wife overtakes him, and Entragian (or just Tak in general, I guess) seems to have a thing about birds: "My mind is full of blackbirds", or something like that because I haven't found my copy of Desperation yet. (pout) Anyways, what I'm trying to say is, birds recur a lot. Maybe they're Stephen King's version of favored symbolism? If that's the case, it's the kind of symbolism that doesn't suck, Nathaniel Hawthorne. Just sayin', is all.

You're probably wondering about the title, I guess. At one point a junky goes out to this (almost) abandoned shack, and someone (cough, Mr Gaunt, cough cough) has spray-painted it onto the wall. High five, Stephen King. For some reason, before I read this, I never thought, well, anyone else was a fan of HP Lovecraft (everyone knows Cthulhu the Internet sensation, but what about his creator? Poor Lovecraft) but it makes sense. Sooo because he actually knows who HP Lovecraft is and enough to make a reference to his lesser-known creation.... high five!?

"'I'm afraid I've got some bad news about your double-murder.' 'Oh, so all at once it's my double murder.'" I'm pretty sure I died laughing at this. Can't you just hear Alan Pangborn getting all haughty about that? Like a girl on a soap opera? Hehe.

Stephen King also seems to have a fixation on Simple Simon, too. I've read a few where Simple Simon is mentioned, the only other times that stands alone really is in this story... I think it's in Four Past Midnight as well... There's like this librarian, who's really this larval entity that feeds off children--I'm pretty sure that story was the reason why I got rid of that book. At one point they find the larval she-beast as what she really is, still looking somewhat human, but altogether inhuman, with these wizened wrinkles in her face that are somehow only 2-D and a proboscis. Ick. But Simple Simon is in there too, and like the reaction Alan has to the poster of him in Needful Things, whoever it is in that story sees it and is absolutely terrified. Huh. Curious.

Ah, the one sentence in this book that I absolutely hate: "State police cars and news vehicles were thrown end over end through the air like Corgi toys". For some reason, this really annoys me, and I'm not entirely sure why--maybe it feels to personal to me. Like, he's the omnipotent narrator, but he's suddenly being personal and you're aware that you're not getting the story from an omnipotent narrator, it's Stephen King. Or maybe that's just me. (In case you didn't know, he's referring to a Pembroke Welsh Corgi, a kind of dog. My favorite kind, actually. Cowboy Bebop fans, it's the kind of dog Ein is. As of the writing of Everything's Eventual, he still had one--there's a picture of him and it in the back flap of the hardcover copy of Desperation.) But whatever it is, it just really bothers me.

The first time I read the ending with Alan Pangborn and such I absolutely hated it. However, every time I reread it (I think this #3) I like it more. It grows on you.

Okay, so I didn't really do much deep review and react to this, but cut me some slack, here. The book is good, and it's more than a cheap thrill. It's kind of like a mystery, except where you basically know the answers beforehand (unless this is your first Stephen King book, and even then, you'll probably pick it up pretty quickly). Dramatic irony! Delicious! (It's what killed Romeo and Juliet!) It looks large and threatening but it's about 500 pages shorter than It and reads about 500 times faster. It's gory, but not as nasty as Desperation, not by a long shot. Of course, it's got some awkwardly sexual moments, but again, not as bad as the scene in the junkyard in It. I wouldn't really call it horror or a thriller, either. It's not really scary, and I wasn't terrified after reading it. ('Salem's Lot, anyone?)

Anyways, over the past four days I also finished Everything's Eventual, Slaughterhouse-Five, and Invisible Monsters, and I've begun to reread The Dharma Bums. But, since I've just come back from Maine (from right next door to Bangor, actually) I feel it appropriate to respond to Everything's Eventual now and save the other two for tomorrow or something.

Everything's Eventual is a collection of fourteen of Stephen King's short...er stories. I quite enjoy it, and you can tell. My softcover Stephen King books always look like they've had the crap beaten out of them, and this is definitely the worst of the lot. Though soft covers bother me, the fact that it's only $7.99 is quite an amazing deal. (While in Maine I came upon a new copy in a bookstore and almost died--I forgot my copy had ever looked quite so not like a car ran over it.) I mean, the hardcover is probably like... $26? Damn. Anyways. Shall we continue?

Autopsy Room Four: The first story. It's half based off an old Hitchcock show and half King's life. It turns on the simple panic, and inadvertently makes you hate The Rolling Stones a little. It's a good one to read, but it's hardly meaty. One thing I wonder is that a note at the end, King mentions he dated Katie Arlen for four months from November 94-February 95. Uh... Wasn't he married?

The Man in the Black Suit: Favorite. Most def, my favorite. The ambiguous (kind of) ending scares me. Basically, an old man is recounting a memory of his early childhood, hardly yet ten or so, and it's a normal day of fishing for him... Until he meets the Devil in forest. Okay, I made it sound melodramatic, but it gives me the shivers. I think makes my skin crawl is more accurate actually, especially if you have a mind like me and it runs away before you can stop it at the end. In the note afterwards King says 'Young Goodman Brown' by Nathaniel Hawthorne is his favorite of Hawthorne's, and he wrote this story as a homage to it. THIS IS WAY BETTER! 'Young Goodman Brown' could have been amazing, but Hawthorne ended with the 'it was just a dream' ending. Screw you, Hawthorne.

All That You Love Will Be Carried Away: : ( That is the best way to sum up my reaction. It makes me sad. Which is no doubt what King intended. On a side note, I would like to try and find those graffiti websites... (Of course, I spent the entire trip mentally noting graffiti I saw)

The Death of Jack Hamilton: Effk this story. You lose, Stephen King, you stole fizzy lifting drinks! You bumped into the ceiling which now has to be washed and sterilized, so you get nothing! You lose! Good day, sir!

In the Deathroom: It's not really my style at all, but I can't see any faults. A guy gets the crap interrogated out of him.

The Little Sisters of Eluria: Again, it's not really my style--I never really got interested enough in the Dark Tower series to bother with it, but because it's a sort of prelude to the series, I even knew what was going on, which was nice. I enjoyed reading it, and although it didn't spark an interest in the rest of the series, I can dig it. In the intro, King mentions The Talisman, a book of his which I guess semi-intertwines with that series as well. (Should I really be surprised?) That was a pretty good book.

Everything's Eventual: Awesome, awesome, awesome! (Fun fact: Sankofite is someone's user name on Xanga! Really! Google it!) This one is a bait-and-switch, or whatever the proper english term would be. You spent 2/3s of the story smiling and nodding with the main character, because of course you bond with your narrator and then you gt slapped. Oh, oh right! You're killing people! Boy is my face red. Anyways:
There's a reference to the 'shining' in this one! Well, I think it is. And, according to Wikipedia, there's a Dark Tower reference.

LT's Theory of Pets: I didn't really get this one the first few times through, but when I read it and it finally hit me I sat down and cried. Not a heavy cry, but you know, an oh god! sort of deal. That slaps you in the face at the end, too. I can imagine not many people being fond of this one, but I thought it was pretty okay.

The Road Virus Heads North: This is a story that scares me, too. I avoid reading this one before I walk Dante for the night, if possible. Man. Man. It's good, it's scary good, and this is the one you want to tell if you want to give someone the shivers. And while I'm in my creepy basement with the garage door I'd rather not think about it thank you. I'd say you weaker-stomached folk may want to avoid it, but scary is different for different people. But don't say I didn't warn you.

Lunch at the Gotham Cafe: The maitre d makes me think of the crazy chef in Ctrl-Alt-Del (the webcomic) so I find it hard to be scared of him. The soon to be ex husband makes me nervous--at the end, you just know there's going to be an unpretty sequel which only your imagination can carry away, if your mind is like mine and runs away with it at first ambiguous chance.
I don't get the 'snooti' joke. Someone please explain?
Oh god, just seeing that end typed out makes me nervous. You just know what'll happen next.
Oh, and you should be warned: This is the violent and gory one of the book. Very much so.

That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French: This is good, but it makes you want to claw your scalp off. Not only because of the freaky imagery, but because it's so repetitive (and I mean that in a good way, if you can believe that) and the very way it's designed just drives you nuts.

1408: I didn't see this movie, and I can't imagine how well this movie could possibly be. Does it have the same unsettling nature? I guess it would rely more on shocks and freaky stuff like that. Hmm, Joe gave it a 7/10. One of these days I'll get around to watching it, then, I guess, but not in this millenia. Well, I read a brief overview of the movie and I'm already hating the changes, haha.
But! I digress: It's a top here. It's also a mindeff in textual form, and some lines have stayed in my head and will pop up unexpectedly and give me the cold sweats. For example, today, when we crossed back into CT the line "My brother was actually eaten by wolves on the Connecticut Turnpike" popped into my head. Yikes. Stephen King's got a penchant for writing crazy people, definitely.
(Then again, maybe I will see the movie. Cusack in a Hawaiin shirt! Yes.)

Riding the Bullet: "Fun is fun and done is done." Maybe the best thing ever to take from a Stephen King story.
This is your basic campfire story. (I think King actually describes it as that in the intro) But, I'm sure you've heard the scary story of a man running into a ghoulie or ghostie or long-legged beastie and having to pretend everything's normal or else he gets scarfed. Or something worse. In this case, it's a dead man picking up a hitchhiker. (Trust me, I didn't ruin anything.) I liked this one because it actually has... well, at the risk of sounding like the loser 40-year-old english teacher who you know will never get married because she's such a damned loser... a 'message'. Or, at least, something worth taking away. I'm not sure if 'tender' is the best way to describe it, maybe 'deep', or something. But altogether, it really has a different flavor, and I like it.
The very last page, those bottommost two paragraphs (if you have the softcover, who knows what it's like in the hardcover) is the best example of that.... Oh, hell. If you read it, don't complain to me about a spoiler.
"'Why did you even bother? What was the goddamn point?' Still no answer, and why would there be? You wait in line, that's all. You wait in line beneath the moon and make your wishes by its infected light. You wait in line and listen to them screaming--they pay to be terrified, and on the Bullet they always get their money's worth. Maybe when it's your turn you ride; maybe you run. Either way it comes to the same, I think. There ought to be more to it, but there's really not--fun is fun and done is done. Take your button and get out of here."
It's better in the book.

Luckey Quarter: This story always makes me feel bad for hotel/motel cleaning ladies. Of course, in Maine, it was practically the exact same, down to the card's contents. You know, except for names and area and stuff, but the main things. So, I stuck an extra five in the card along with the two Jenna's mom stuck in. I don't know if that comes out to a good tip, but I hope so. Anyways. The wistful sad and dead end feeling--fantasy vs. reality... well. I don't know. It's another story that's not really meaty, but enjoyable.

Man, fun fact! This is my third day adding to this post! (Really!)

Fun Fact 2: We stopped in Salem on the way up and walked into an awesome bookstore. Observe: There's another picture too... I don't know how to rotate pictures on blogger, but enjoy it either way:
Hey, if you look closely there's a copy of Desperation! (Now I'm just being mocked here...)
Actually, you probably can't see it on so small a print. But still. They actually had a copy of The Regulators there, which is 'Richard Bachmann's' partner to Desperation. It's the only time I've ever seen the copy in my life, and I'm kicking myself for not getting it. But at the same time, look at all those books stacked up. Both copies were stacked under other Stephen King hardcovers. You know... It. Dreamcatcher. 'Salem's Lot (Crap, I should've bought that too. Dammit). Rose Madder. What I'm trying to say, if I had been fool enough to go after either copies, even the one that was only under four books, everyone would have died. Which is a shame, though I guess I never thought to look under 'Richard Bachmann' anywhere except at the library. (No dice, of course, but there was one that Stephen King had written the forward to, ha-ha.) But, I saw Thinner finally printed under his name, so... (I love the fact that in it the main character thinks his situation is like "something out of a Stephen King novel". That sort of thing just won't be the same.) Actually, my copy is "Stephen King writing as Richard Bachmann" so it must have been printed after Desperation at least, but it looks too... actually, that's still like 13 or so years, right? I guess it makes sense then. (Maybe I should just check the date in the book, huh?) I guess I'll be rereading Thinner next then.... anything to put off reading Wuthering Heights....
As for the store itself, I bought Big Sur there and it has the address of the place on a bookmark tucked inside. I'll give it to you when I finish that, alright? It really is a cool place, just... just be very careful. Tiptoe past the leaning tower of hardcover Stephen King or god help you. Be careful around the Crichton books, too. And James Patterson. Not because there's a stack of his books that will fall and kill you, he just sucks.

Anyways, remember that copy of War and Peace I so love? I finally took pictures: they don't really do the great quality justice, but still.
Look at that! Gorgeous. (That's my KNEE, Emma. Geez.) And, a pretty junky picture of the gold page protectors:
Awesome. It's no original or old copy, but the fact that there was actual work put into this book's quality is nice. I think even if I hated it, I would have kept it, just because.

Whooo. God, I'm glad I finally finished this thing. Now, to The Office!

You're face to face with the man who sold the world

I just got back from wandering around North Haven--Did you know EB games doesn't take DVDs anymore? What the hell, man. And Barnes and Noble e-mails that say there are sales are lies. LIES.

Anyway, I finished Doctor Zhivago too. I decided not to write about it for my school project, though it would be sublimely easy: You're supposed to write about how the main character changes. In the beginning, he's nine years old. In the end (spoiler!) he's dead. But! It was a pretty good book. Like I said, Pasternak is a very eloquent fellow, and can make even arbitrary things sound and seem quite majestic and beautiful.

One thing that always surprised me a little is how the underclasses are referred to as peasants, even into the 1930's. The word brings an image of Medieval beggars, and very easily it's my imagery to fault, but it's so strange that even in a 'modern' age they should still be known as peasants, and still living in villages that, to description, sound very much like Medieval villages. Odd.

"'Rome was a flea market of borrowed gods and conquered peoples, a bargain basement on two floors, earth and heaven, a mass of filth convoluted in a triple knot as in an intestinal obstruction.'" Oh snap! Rome got served! I just picked this because Rome is considered the 'ideal' civilization and not only was it hit pretty hard on the head... well, look, that's actually a pretty good unromantic view of Rome. Really. And, I guess eloquence doesn't always mean beautiful. For the record.

"All the strong are dominated by the weak and ignoble."

Man, I can never read books about the military again. There's a long section where a general is trying to get his troops, you know, pumped by giving this long speech about how great the country is and how you must fight for it, even if you're your parents' only child. And all I could think of were lines from Catch-22 criticizing war, and patriotism. In Language and Comp we learned about logical fallacies--one of which was 'flag-waving' or using patriotism so your target group will agree with you. And, you know what? Not to belittle anything or offend anyone, but it is a logical fallacy. Really, it doesn't make any sense. "'What is a country?'" Huh, I wish I could include the whole quote, but it appears Wikiquote sucks. Just--just pay attention to the Sacrilegious Old Man when you get to him.

"'And about that deaf-mute, we're fed up hearing about him. Everybody goes on and on about the deaf-mute. And what have you got against him? Just that he was dumb all that time and then he suddenly started to talk and didn't ask your permission? As if that were so marvelous!'" I am not sure why I should favor so this passage.

"...an unshared happiness is not happiness..." I believe it was in Doctor Zhivago Christopher Johnson McCandless wrote this, and I guess it must have been around here. Maybe not, but I'd expect it to be in affirmation: "HAPPINESS ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED".

"Everyday life struggled on, by force of habit, limping and shuffling." There's something about that "by force of habit" I like. This bit works well on its own, and also if you continue the quote around the whole paragraph-- "Everyday life struggled on, by force of habit, limping and shuffling. But the doctor saw life as it was. It was clear to him that it was under sentence. He looked upon himself and his milieu as doomed. Ordeals were ahead, perhaps death. Their days were counted and running out before his eyes." I--I'm morid, a--aren't I?

"'It has something of Pushkin's uncompromising clarity and Tolstoy's unwavering faithfulness to the facts.'" Both Russian authors, obviously. I've never read Pushkin, but I find it kind of funny that Tolstoy should be described in such a way--War and Peace, at the time of its publication (I don't know if it still is, though, I only read reviews that were printed the same year of its publication) was criticized heavily for unfaithfulness to facts, and that Tolstoy was making up his own facts for "his conveniance" and the story's conveniance. A criticism that stands out is the fact that Napoleon randomly spoke Russian and then would go back to French. I mean, there was more, it was a long review, but that's the biggest point. I remember being like "Well, duh, it's a Russian novel..." but, you know. Maybe this is sarcasm here, but I don't know Pushkin, so I can't be sure.

"Near him, touching him, were hell, dissolution, corruption, death, and equally near him were the spring and Mary Magdalene and life. And it was time to awake. Time to wake up and get up. Time to arise, time for the resurrection."

"'Look at all these stations. The trees aren't cut, the fences are intact. And these markets! These women! Think how wonderful! Somewhere life is still going on, some people are happy. Not everyone is wretched. This justifies everything.'" Nothing is universal. Not everywhere is wretched, no matter how wretched one place may be. Vice versa, no matter how pleasant and wonderful one place is, there is a wretched and raggedy counterpart.

"But was this the way to win back lost love? For that you had to move mountains!" This was noted because of the fact that it reminded me of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Just the way the sentences are structured reminded me of each other--Because the interenet hates me, I shall paraphrase. "But even the X could not create a woman from clay. For that, you needed a rib." I like the sentence itself, but I like this one too, and paired together, I am quite enamored.

Okay, so background on the next one: Zhivago sees his love for the first time in quite a while, and they are quite unfamiliar to each other: "This was the only form of intimacy that still remained between them. And how distant, cold, and compellingly attractive was this women to whom he had sacrificed all he had, whom he had preferred to everything, and comparision with whom everything seemed to him worthless!" --->"Once you have loved someone this much
you doubt it could fade despite how much you'd like it too" (Fade Together, Franz Ferdinand) Well, for the record, they do suddenly fall back into each other's arms briefly. But I guess it's shocking, seeing someone so dear and beloved suddenly so distant. I hardly ever wonder about old friends in that manner, and I... I don't really have an old boyfriend to wonder that about. But. That commentary--it just grabbed me.

"'It isn't just that I don't love him--I despise him.' 'Can you know yourself as well as that? Human nature, and particularly woman's '"[HAHAHA!] "'is so mysterious and so full of contradictions. Perhaps there is something in your loathing that keeps you in subjection to him more than any man whom you love of your own free will, without compulsion.'" I am under the deepest belief that hate really is quite similar to love, a different type of love under a different name. Because really, say you have made an enemy of a classmate: you are constantly on the lookout for them, and when you see them, your heart skips a beat, you get excited and emotional. You react strongly upon seeing them. If the hate is deep enough, you are constantly talking about them, even if it's in ill terms--it is still constant. If it's deep enough, you are constantly thinking of them and such. And... oh man. I just totally lost my train of thought. Oh, damn. Well, my point was going to be--I think--that that's very similar to affection, right? And as lost as you are when you lose a significant other or some such, that's how someone losing an enemy must feel--why do you think people are so slow to apologize? They'd like to hold onto their object of hate, to the point of needing as desperately as a lonely person clings to love.

"'Just like something out of Jules Verne.'" Uh, so, how's about being my best friend? Any name-dropper of Jules Verne is a friend of mine!

All right, up next is the end, which is one of the most detached upsetting endings I've ever read:
"One day Larisa Feodorovna went out and did not come back. She must have been arrested in the street at that time. She vanished without a trace and probably died somewhere, forgotten as a nameless number on a list that afterwards got mislaid, in one of the innumerable mixed or women's concentration camps in the north."

...

So, I skipped the poetry at the end. So it's possible I've missed some major messages or something deep, but I've never had it much for poetry. I just don't really understand it. I mean, sometimes things jump out at me, but most of the time I just don't have a head for it. I wouldn't know if it was any good or not had I been interested enough to read it, in any case.

Anyways, the book itself: It's an enjoyable book. I can't imagine carrying it around and it meaning as much to be me as it did to Christopher Johnson McCandless, but it's certainly a book I would be proud to have on my self. I'm not quite sure if it would go in my classics shelf (which technically doesn't even exist at the moment) but it would certainly have a place on my bookshelf.

Wonder if he'll ever know: he's in the best-selling show: 'Is There Life on Mars?'

Over the course of the last few comments (right now, four) on my last post I realized something: We have not invented any new lingo (proving my own point) in, like, 40 years. Maybe 30. But still? When did cool start getting used as a synonym for awesome? Probably in the seventies! No, according to dictionary.com? The 1930's. The 1930's! You know what else happened in 1930? The dust bowl. The dust bowl. And... uh... 'rad'. Fifties. 'Dynamite'. 'Da bomb'. Okay, that was probably like nineties. But really. Come on, get off your butts kids of America. We need slang, so I can sound antiquated because I talk like the Victorian era and 1930's had a child. A child who was only a way of speaking. My way of speaking. Though the Victorian era speaking thing may be because of my Victorian era fetish, but really, we don't need to get into that right now Oscar Wilde.
Anyways. Make some new slang. And nothing that blows (nineties! Bart Simpson!), okay? Run it by me first. I have crowned myself 'Official Chairman of choosing new lingo including something to replace lingo'. (Everyone applauds)

Anyways, the other day I was stuck in my basement so all I could do was pick up a book nearby.... and since I've been bashing Stephen King so much, that book was Carrie. Everyone knows this plot, at least I think so, and remember, on average my brain is set at least 40 years behind everyone else's. But Carrie is basically this psychic girl whose powers are triggered by the advent of her period (no one remembers this from the movie? That was like the scene. And the pig blood scene. I've never actually seen the movie, but my dad assures me what I just typed is the unvarnished truth) is what triggers her abilities to flower, and her mom's a religious nutcase and she's the butt of the school. And then, like every other Stephen King book, everyone dies in a huge explosion. Would you like me to list his books where this has happened? I can't. It would destroy my bandwidth. And then it would explode, and I'd die. In a fiery explosion. Needful Things. 'Salem's Lot. Desperation. Oh what was that? I seemed to cough textually in italicized format just now. But no matter! Let's continue:
My first criticize comes when Stephen King describes a woman as a "typical Ms. California", she "wears bright print shifts", "her hair is black-streaked blond", she's a member of the "California Sun 'n Fun Crowd", et cetera. But then he compares her to Jack Kerouac--"When she talks about Carrie White her face takes on an odd, pinched look that is more like Lovecraft out of Arkham than Kerouac out of Southern Cal." Uhm, Stephen King? Jack Kerouac isn't a "typical Ms. California". In fact, I would go so far to say as he is nothing like what King described the woman to be? I mean, I guess Kerouac is known pretty exclusively for his CA travels, but in this case there are two types of Californians.... People who'd emulate Kerouac, and what you usually think of when you think of a person from CA. Did I just call Stephen King out? I'm not entirely sure. But if I did... I'm right. Come on. Man. (I decided it, by the way, so--LOGICAL FALLACY! That's right, I just called it on myself. Dayum.)
And there was a part I really liked. Stephen King usually has at least one meaningful thing from every book worth quoting in seriousness, and here we go: "'Kids don't know what they're doing. Kids don't even know their reactions really, actually, hurt other people. They have no, uh, empathy. Dig?'...'But hardly anybody ever finds out that their actions really, actually, hurt other people! People don't get better, they just get smarter. When you get smarter you don't stop pulling the wings off flies, you just think of better reasons for doing it.'" Props to him.
Ah, yes, is Carrie the Angel with the Flaming Sword? Is she His Right Hand? Punishing the children who abused her? Was she punishing her mother, or setting her spirit free to Heaven? Well, that explosion must have seemed like Judgment Day. I can believe she is an Angel with a Flaming Sword, but whether she is Michael or one of Satan's I can't judge. I can see her as a sort of martyr, constantly being crucified and such (that scene with her on the stage, was I the only one who thought of The Scarlet Letter?) but her being an agent of God.... Well, I was raised on Sunday School Jesus. The idea of Jesus being so bloody and violent just doesn't sit well with me. It just feels awkward. I don't know. I'm just going to take the book as a brainless thriller, nothing more. I enjoyed it, so why sour the pot? No thanks.

Also, regarding the title? I guess that is a TV show now. Is it any good? The theme song better be that song, or I'm calling a party foul (90's) right here and now. I'd watch it right now if I wasn't too busy not doing anything productive. And if it was on....