I can't rate this one because (A) it's Tolstoy and (B) it's one of the shortest books I've ever read that left me a mess, probably because reading aboI can't rate this one because (A) it's Tolstoy and (B) it's one of the shortest books I've ever read that left me a mess, probably because reading about death, dying, regrets and the meaning of life was not the smartest decision at the moment. Its huge impact, however, is an attestation to Tolstoy's exquisite pen and astonishing depiction of human nature. ...more
Random Thoughts on Sense and Sensibility (because I'm too scatterbrained to write a full review)
‣ While my favorite character was by far Elinor, thRandom Thoughts on Sense and Sensibility (because I'm too scatterbrained to write a full review)
‣ While my favorite character was by far Elinor, the embodiment of sense, the calm, collected, gentle soul who didn't let her pain dictate her actions and wouldn't burden her loved ones with her struggles, I came to realize that I'm more like Marianne, the advocate of fathomless sensitivity, the silly, stubborn, hopeless romantic basking in emotions, magnifying the sorrow, believing that when one's devastated she must do everything in her power to remain devastated, to abstain from seeking a reprieve and instead enhance the emotional distress until she feels nothing else. It was a terrible realization.
‣ At first, Sense and Sensibility was a little difficult to get into; I mostly blame the BBC series that kept me company back in March, when sleep was a goal but sadly not an option, because it was very accurate and most scenes were pretty vivid in my mind, thus diminishing the eagerness to continue reading. However, we're talking about Jane Austen. The sarcastic and romantic author of her generation, whose characterizations are pure gold and her society a perfect escape. Of course she sucked me in.
‣ In all honesty, I was rather mad that Willoughby was partially humanized. He was a rascal and a scoundrel, and while I do tend to fall for people like him in other novels (in my defense, it depends on the context, but oh well, judge me all you like, you have done the same) I wanted to make him my punchbag (I do detect some violent tendencies on my behalf, I am aware).
‣ The whole plot was actually saucy. Scandalous affairs, secret engagements, illegitimate children and meddling, so much meddling, and gossip, they were a pleasant flavor for my taste buds.
‣ Willoughby is the bad boy we all fantasize of taming, but not many of us are lucky enough to have a Colonel Brandon waiting on the corner. Poor Colonel was so stable and trustworthy, he didn't deserve the way he was treated by the mindless youths.
‣ I nearly had an apoplexy every time I read about how old and senile a man in his mid-thirties is. Why don't you shoot me instead? It would sting less.
‣ You can keep telling me that Edward is plain, but Dan Stevens is not and that's all I'm going to say about it.
This story is now buried in my molecules. I can’t remove it even if I try, if I cut my heart open with a scalpel and dig deep, deepA true masterpiece.
This story is now buried in my molecules. I can’t remove it even if I try, if I cut my heart open with a scalpel and dig deep, deep, deep. The blood pouring will still hum and whisper Elizabeth Gaskell’s words, will sing about Thornton’s passion, Margaret’s strength, about love and social war and loss and pain and faith.
❝ Take care. If you do not speak – I shall claim you as my own in some strange presumptuous way. Send me away at once, if I must go; – Margaret! –❞
Raised in the ways of English aristocracy, despite her family’s rather poor finances, Margaret Hale was content with her life, her beloved Helstone with its fragrant roses and green trees, helping her father’s fold. But when her father decided to leave the Church and move to the industrial North, Margaret found herself between dirty, uneducated workers and tacky, rude mill owners, in the throes of Industrial Revolution. Mr. John Thornton, the mill owner who became regular visitor of her house due to the unlikely friendship that blossomed between him and her father, became her personal nemesis, representing the lust for money and the lack of finesse. Amidst strikes, illnesses and terrible losses, Margaret will see her life falling apart, shaping and reshaping according to the whims of fate. The question is, what kind of person will she be in the end?
Many compare North and South to Pride and Prejudice and, at first glance, the similarities are there. Margaret is the embodiment of prejudice and pride when it comes to Mr. Thornton and his profession, with her stern refusal to actually open her eyes and see him. But the core of North and South is something different altogether. It is intense, not only as regards the passionate love story, but also as regards the heavy element of class antagonism, social mobility and fight. I struggle to find the words that will express the impact of this book on my very soul. It is turbulence, a maelstrom that cleansed my mind from thoughts about the present, and filled my senses with wild emotions. I suppose this is how falling in love feels like. Ever since I finished it, every time I think about it, my heart swells, like it can’t contain my strong, bottomless affection; I let out such affection with tiny, shallow breaths; my head is constantly buzzing, never leaving the dirty streets and the heavy smoke of Milton; a sweet shiver jolts my body and my eyes sting when I recall all the reasons it is embedded in my veins. It is the passion, in heavy silences, in heated arguments, in awkward pauses, in the beast of jealousy that devours Mr. Thornton’s insides and the snake of Margaret’s prejudice.
❝ He shrank from hearing Margaret's very name mentioned; he, while he blamed her – while he was jealous of her – while he renounced her – he loved her sorely, in spite of himself.❞
It is the love, of a rejected lover, a father, a mother, a son, a brother, a sister, a daughter, a friend.
❝ Margaret was not a ready lover, but where she loved she loved passionately, and with no small degree of jealousy.❞
It is the faith, along with the pertinent doubts, struggles, hesitation, acceptance, cowardice and strength.
❝ Margaret the Churchwoman, her father the Dissenter, Higgins the Infidel, knelt down together. It did them no harm.❞
It is Margaret’s resilience, the humble habit of swallowing her pain, taming her agony and being the rock of her family. I can’t count the times I was furious at her parents for burdening her with the problems that were theirs to deal with. Her father for his inability to make decisions, and her mother for not appreciating her efforts. Margaret was a force to be reckoned with, a combination of thunder and soft waves, a scream in the dark and the chirp of a bird during a sunny day. We should all learn something from Ms. Margaret Hale.
❝ I know you despise me; allow me to say, it is because you do not understand me.❞
It is the social and political aspect. The clash between industrial North and agricultural South. The disgust of the aristocrat towards the nouveau riche. The contempt of the merchant against the soft, indolent aristocrat. The lack of understanding that caused all the suffering. The arguments in favor of the labor movement and the strikes, of people despairing, trying to feed their families, and the arguments in favor of the employer’s right to use the money of the business he built through trials, blood and sweat the way he sees fit. I dangled between the two sides, admiring their tenacity, their belief in the righteousness of their cause. I mourned the losses holding Bessy’s hand and wept at Thornton’s anguish. In the end, North and South is a hymn to humankind. And since Elizabeth Gaskell masterfully depicts the beliefs of both sides of every clash, it is impossible to pick one. So, you take the side of love. The love of an ignorant young woman for a sick girl. Of a mother for her disgraced son. Of a proud man for the woman who can’t hide her distaste of him.
❝ I wanted to see the place where Margaret grew to what she is, even at the worst time of all, when I had no hope of ever calling her mine. ❞
A poem, a lament, a lullaby, a war song, North and South is a literary phenomenon, a sublime novel, a poignant and spirited story which deserves its place amongst classics. ...more
“Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.”
I am not really into classics. I always preferred the fantasy genre,
“Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.”
I am not really into classics. I always preferred the fantasy genre, due to an innate escapism, a vivid imagination and a constant longing for magic. But as you may tell, I didn't cast spells while reading On the Road. I didn't climb the dark wizard's tower, nor heard prophecies whispered in the dark. I set my sword aside for a while, and hushed my heart's desire to experience passionate romances. After a dear friend's raving about Jack Kerouac, I succumbed to peer pressure. And I am rather glad that I did.
“I was surprised, as always, by how easy the act of leaving was, and how good it felt. The world was suddenly rich with possibility.”
If you must know one thing about On the Road, is that it doesn't stand out because of its mind-blowing plot. In fact, it is not a plot-driven novel at all. You follow Jack Kerouac's travels throughout America and Mexico, and that's it. What captivates you is his writing style, a writing style the likes of which I had never encountered. You'll notice a plethora of contradictions: it can be lyrical and so beautiful it makes you hold your breath, and want to absorb every detail, every smell and sound and feeling, and then you'll come across so many traces of oral speech, that you're certain you're listening to a conversation full of curse words and half-finished sentences right next to you; you can sense Kerouac's admiration towards his country and at the same time his bitterness and disappointment; you can feel his loneliness to your marrow, and then the camaraderie that keeps him going. You will find your lips curling into a smile, but then a heaviness will settle on your chest, a near sadness because you see those people searching for something, anything, and when they find it, it slips from their fingers. You contemplate your own morality and mortality, question the meaning of ideals when life is too short and full of misery. When the road lies ahead full of possibilities, and you're lost and bound and torn.
“Because he had no place he could stay in without getting tired of it and because there was nowhere to go but everywhere, keep rolling under the stars...”
When you read On the Road, at first you're a little judgmental towards the characters. But as the story progresses, you are envious of their carelessness, their crazy and wild abandon, their desire to live even when they don't know what they live for. You don't read it for the plot, but you read it for its moments, its vigorous, bright and mesmerising moments, mornings eating apple-pie with ice-cream, dirty streets in an alcohol frenzy, a young man on the top of a mountain with the world at his feet, a mexican brothel shaking by the sounds of mambo, cold nights drinking scotch under a crystal clear sky. In the end, it all comes to one thing: we are the sum of the people we meet. Some of them are destined to change us, draw us to them like moths to the flame. Other pass by like fleeting stars, or constitute a constant and reassuring presence. But all of them, without exception, are pieces of the puzzle of our existence.
“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!”
The first time I read this book was for my English class,I had to write two essays about the main characters and my opinion on them,and they were not The first time I read this book was for my English class,I had to write two essays about the main characters and my opinion on them,and they were not very flattering.In fact,I hated both Cathy and Heathcliff,and I guess that's the reason they belong together.They made each other miserable,they wanted to cause pain,they doomed their children,they fought and yet,they were driven by such passion and love that are hard to find.The second time I read it,I knew better;the scene where Heathcliff begs Catherine to haunt him because he can't face the world without her is one of the most emotional and powerful scenes in the history of literature,that left me shivering.Don't get me wrong,I still hate them,and that's why a gave this book 5 stars;two people I hate managed to touch my soul with their tragic love,because Heathcliff was Catherine's disaster and salvation and vice versa.Their love was the redemption for their sins....more
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