How do you read literature like a professor? Let me tell you!

The latest read was a little difficult. "How to Read Literature Like a Professor" by Thomas C. Foster. First I have to admit something. I think British people are smarter than Americans. They just sound better! So rather than having the very American Morgan Freeman narrate this book in my head it was....

Michael Caine! I mean, just compare the two in this clip. Morgan Freeman talks with better jargon but Michael Caine just sounds smarter!

Now to the point. This book was not easy to read. It was not fast. It has taken me almost a month to read it. But it was definitely worth it. Because now I know how to read like a professor! No, seriously, I do! This book was like a personal journey into the mind of a real intellectual. And let me tell you, there is a lot going on in there! This book covered everything from the meaning of quests and communion, to Shakespearean and Biblical references, to the importance of religion and irony. If there was one thing I realized it is this...there is so much to read and learn!

Foster made a point that I liked a lot. He said that there is really only one story out there. And that story is everything. Literally, the story is about everything. So any story that is written or has been written is about this one "everything" story. Such a fascinating concept!

So if you like British people narrating things in your head, people telling you everything you don't know, and becoming highly motivated to read pretty much every book in the world, then this is a good read for you! Until next time, happy readings!

My first favorite book

Today I was reorganizing my books because they just weren't fitting on my shelves anymore and I found something that made me quite excited.

My favorite book when I was in first grade was "Buddy The First Seeing Eye Dog." It was at a fourth grade level...I was pretty proud of myself. This was one of the first books that I ever remember reading and truly loving. I think I read it more times than I could count, which is a lot because I could count pretty high! I like to think that this book was what really got me into reading. Of course other factors were involved, but this is one of the earliest memories I have of reading and loving it.

But I guess it helped me to love dogs too!

New background, new post, new topic!

In celebration of finding a new background, I thought a new post was in order as well. The only problem is I haven't finished any books since my last post (although I am working on a few). So I thought I'd mix it up with some poetry! Yes! Poetry is, as Robert Frost said, "a way of taking life by the throat." One of my top five favorite poets is e.e. cummings. I can just imagine the shock on your faces in the thought that I made a spelling mistake although it wouldn't be my first. His name is not capitalized and as you read his poetry, as I do hope you will, you may see why. Allow me to expose you to him if you have not been already. This poem, although not my favorite by him, simply speaks for itself.

you shall above all things be glad and young.

For if you're young,whatever life you wear

it will become you;and if you are glad

whatever's living will yourself become.

Girlboys may nothing more than boygirls need:

i can entirely her only love

whose any mystery makes every man's

flesh put space on;and his mind take off time

that you should ever think,may god forbid

and (in his mercy) your true lover spare:

for that way knowledge lies,the foetal grave

called progress,and negation's dead undoom.

I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing

than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance

This poem does not have a title because, like Emily Dickinson, cummings did not title most of his poems so they are primarily known by their first line. To be perfectly honest, I'm not entirely sure what this poem means. With the first reading of a cummings' poem you have to read it with the thought of "art for art's sake" even if that is not what he intended. Only after several, several readings and careful study of the punctuation and word form can one even come within an inch of grasping what cummings really meant. For now I'd just like to focus on the final lines.

"I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing

than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance"

I've thought about this a little lately and have drawn a conclusion. Unfortunately it's one of those thoughts that just doesn't make sense when I try to say it. But I feel I might as well try. I kind of see it this way. Imagine a room full of experts who know one topic so well that any of them could teach you perfectly. Now imagine a room full of artists that are busy creating beautiful works in a variety of mediums. Would it be more difficult to stop the artists from creating or to find just one of the experts to teach you? Or rather, which would be more painful?

If you liked this poem, even a little bit, I would recommend you read two of his more famous poems "anyone lived in a pretty how town" and "in Just-" as well as my personal favorite "since feeling is first"

"Night"

My latest read was "Night" by Elie Wiesel. A little background on the book and its author:

• It was originally published in 1958 in French
• In 1986 Wiesel won the Nobel Peace Prize
• It is considered to be a part of the memoir genre
• His original memoir was written in Yiddish and was over 900 pages long
• It is part of a trilogy with the second and third books titled "Dawn" and "Day"

I'm not sure about all the different publications but the copy I read had a foreword written by Wiesel. (Side note: Always. ALWAYS. Always read the foreword. The author is trying to tell something important to the reader but you won't know what it is unless you read the foreword!) I'm not sure about the entire publication and translation history of "Night" but Wiesel's foreword gave a huge amount of insight into how difficult it was for him to write his story. My copy was published by "Hill and Wang" and is the entire trilogy.

It's hard to find things to say about this book. I'm afraid that something I say will either not do it justice or in a way "disrespect" the grave subject. But here is my attempt to say something worth saying.

This book didn't really do anything to make the Holocaust "more real" for me. I've learned about all the physical torture these people went through so that wasn't especially new for me. What did become real was the psychological and mental torment that they were put up to. There was a big build up to the whole point, which I saw as being that by the end he and the other prisoners were living for a piece of bread. They didn't live for family, for themselves, or the joy of being alive. They lived for something that you and I wouldn't even call a snack. What would you have to go through to live for a bread crust and nothing else? What would your mind and soul have endured?

In Wiesel's preface he said that he wasn't sure if he wrote his book to prevent madness or "to go mad in order to understand the nature of madness." At first I though he meant the madness it would take to cause a holocaust. Maybe that is what he meant. But I understand it to mean that only madness can understand what madness feels like, what it brings upon a man, and how unforgettable of a feeling it truly is.

"Gatsby? What Gatsby?"

"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one...just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had..."

Oh F. Scott Fitzgerald, so wise for being so young. Did you know he was 29 when his most famous work, "The Great Gatsby" was published? And he was first published at the ripe old age of 24. Kind of makes you wonder if he ate literary Wheaties for breakfast, doesn't it?

All joking aside, I have to say, I love this book. Yes, I did read it in high school and I loved it then too, like most of my peers. It was one of the few understandable books that we read our junior year. I decided that if I read it again now I would probably get more out of it than when I read it 3 years ago. And if I read it 3 years down the road I would, once again, comprehend something else. One major aspect I realized this time: If you don't read the entire novel with the first few pages in mind, you are missing so much about how the narrator sees his fellow characters and how you as the reader are intended to see them. The quote above was taken from the second paragraph of the first page. It is the idea that Nick Carraway, the narrator, lives by his whole life...until he meets Gatsby.

One theme that struck me more than in high school was the importance of eyes. I remember my teacher saying something about how important Doctor Eckleburg's sign was. But now I can see (oh haha, a pun!) that there is a major emphasis on eyes . When a character is described there is always a description of the eyes included. All of this builds up to the scene in which Wilson proclaims that the "all seeing eyes" in the sign are those of God. It should also be noted that the novel is written with a first person narrator. Coincidence? There are no coincidences in literature.

There's more to be said than I could possibly say in one post (obviously since books upon books have been written on just this one novel). If you read it keep in mind the importance of social classes and roles, the prominence of wealth, locations of the characters (Nick tries to escape the west but still lives in West Egg, etc), and all those fun things that make reading a novel just oh so exciting!