Time Trouble

Alrite. so I finally finished The Time Traveller's wife, and its started to becomes really interesting near the end. When I first started reading it, it kinda dragged on, then everything started to happen. Henry actually tried to rid his diease of time travelling by asking a genelogist to inspect him, so he can control his destinations when he is travelling. Him and Clare have a child together, only then Henry finds out that he passes when his daughter is only 5. The younger version of Henry still sees his child and Clare, but throughout the whole book Clare is waiting for her husband. At the end of the book Clare sees him for the last time, he was 45 and she was 83.

Innocence changes

I really like stories like this, it seems like a innocent child romance, but it actually has some depth put into it, which makes it seem more real. You get to watch these kids grow into the people they will be. Juli is such a free spirit, even though we do not see this right away as Bryce describes her in the first chapter. I really enjoyed her character. and Bryce starts developing an inner depth in himself as he grows older that represents a real struggle for the individual's own self awareness. Children are not the only people in this book that learned things, either, so do adults. And if you read it, you'll come to see things differently, yourself. Like, should you be honest or should you be polite? And what do appearances have to do with reality?

Flipping Reversed Roles!

I have to say that I absolutely FLIPPED for this book. The characters, Bryce and Juli come to life in the novel. Well they may be a bit over the top, but their hearts are in the right place. Now Bryce starts to like the annoying girl Juli, whom he has hated for countless years. Juli reaches a new state of mind when thinking of Bryce too, she stops liking him. Now the roles are flipped again, but what will happen this time? Juli cannot forget about her sycamore tree which she loved, and Bryce ignored her, and threw away the eggs Juli gave him. Now Byce cannot foget about Juli adn her passion for everything that she loves. This just reminds me of elementary days and how people can change and mature from their younger years and figure out that people are not always as amazing or as bad as they may have seemed

Deppilf (read to understand)

Actually it's Flipped, the story of two kids grwoing up from the second grade to the end of grade eight. This is a story I used to read over and over again when I was younger. Bryce, a blonde boy with blue eyes moves across the street from his worst nightmare, Juli. Not only is she annoying and living behind him as a shadow, she just does not know how to take a hint. Then in every other chapter we see the novel's viewpoint from Juli's point of view. She thinks Bryce has dreamy blue eyes, and one day he will have the courage to come up to her and give her a first kiss. Well from his point of view that will never happen and he did absolutely everything to avoid her. But she thinks that he is just to shy to talk to the exciting self that is Juli, but the reader knows that this was not the case. Grade eight comes, and suddenly things get flipped.

A Strange Man

Things get more complicated by the fact that many, probably most, of Henry's ventures in time are more unexpected. Henry turns out to be known to the Chicago police as a odd man who likes to walk around in alleys with no clothing on. His co-workers in The Newberry Library think of him as a strange guy who occasionally disappears but usually leaves a pile of clothing behind. Henry learns to steal clothing form clothes lines, pick pockets, defend himself from attackers, and break into any sort of locked building. He gets pretty good at this, and actually ends up teaching his young self (whom he occasionally visits) how to do these things. That's how far I have gotten in the novel, but things seem to be getting more and more difficult.

An Untimely Encounter

Luckily for Henry, all this travelling in time takes him to a meadow in the woods just out of sight of the Michigan home of this cute, smart, little girl named Clare. This is a meadow in which Clare likes to play alone. The first time the strange 30 something year old naked man appears out of nowhere in the meadow, she is young enough to not be put off. These encounters had a bit of a relationship to develop. Eventually, they fall in love (actually, she falls in love with him, he is already married to her). Since he always travels around in time, he has figured out most of the times he will arrive in the meadow. Accordingly Clare has a list of dates and times, and makes sure there is a stash of clothing, food, and drink for her him.

Controlling Time?

Henry meets his wife Clare Abshire, when he is 28 years old, in 1991. She is a few years younger. They get married and are very much in love until one of them eventually dies. Now this may sound kind of boring, but there's more. He is from a humble background consisting of two artist parents, and she is of a very wealthy background with a father who is a lawyer and a neurotic mother. Her family lives in Michigan, in a big house in a wealthy space. The actual interesting part is that Henry has an unusual disorder that causes him to occasionally travel in time. It is hard for him to know when the time travel will happen, he cannot stop it or control it, though he learns that certain things make it less or more likely to happen. He gets a bit sick, dizzy, then suddenly he is somewhere else and, and at some other time with nothing, no clothing, no possessions, only his intelligence.

Two Different Goals

On the one hand, he was moved by his own troubled childhood to vow that he would be a good father to his children. On the other hand, a flashy red Ferrari caught his eye one day, encouraging him to adopt the goal of becoming a stock broker in order to earn enough money to buy his own Ferrari. The two goals aren’t incompatible, but Gardner doesn’t mention any tension he may have felt between his selfless love for his son and his more superficial financial goals. Never giving in to despair, Gardner made an huge transformation from being part of the city's invisible poor boy to being a powerful figure in its financial district. More than a memoir of Gardner's financial success, this is the story of a man who breaks his own family's cycle of men abandoning their children.

Underpriviledged

Chris Gardner went from an underpriviledged childhood to become a wealthy stock broker and entrepreneur, and managed to deal with single fatherhood before it was culturally accepted. His memoir, Pursuit of Happyness, spends a lot of time telling that difficult childhood and his change to the military and to time spent working in medicine. The story got more interesting, when Gardner is living in San Francisco determined to raise his son and succeed as a stockbroker, even though he never went to college.

A True Pursuit

An inspiring true life story was the novel of the Pursuit of Happiness, which depicted the story of Chris Gardner. Chris Gardner’s life story is impressive. Despite having never gone to college, and after a period of being homeless, he became a huge successful stockbroker and wrote his memoir, Pursuit of Happyness. It’s not surprising that Hollywood turned his story into a film starring Will Smith. He dealt with an abusive stepfather, and a poor upbringing. Pursuit of Happyness tracks this unforgetful, poor to rich story, including his unhappy childhood and his adult progression through a few different careers.

Lovely Movie

This week I just found out that the novel Lovely Bones will be made into a feature film. It was supposed to be released in March 2008, but due to complications, it was rescheduled to December 2009. My friends and I will be seeing it, hoping that it meets the standards that the best-selling novel did. Peter Jackson directed the film, since he did a terrific job on the Lord of the Ring Trilogy novels, everyone will be expecting this movie to have the same impact. Saoirse Ronan stars as Susie Salmon, and Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz as her parents.

The Impact of the Truth

If there was anything that was different in The Da Vinci Code, the effect would not have been as influence. What made the book so captivating was the partial truth to it. Without it, people would have just seen it as another book left on the shelf. The reason it was a successful novel was not because Dan Brown knew the whole truth about the secret in Mona Lisa's smile. It was because he knew how to make his readers think, and knew what they could possibly think of. He is a skillful exploiter of the truth. Preparing the book with interesting facts, readers start to believe everything the author says.

Confusion from the Author

Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, a fictional novel, was written in a factual means. Brown took controversial topics like religion and myth and created a literary masterpiece. The author used actual organizations, places, and even some actual names. He also created fictional characters and places, but made no attempt to allow them to appear. Although the facts used in this book was misinterpreted, it played an important role in distracting the reader's attention away from their own thoughts and onto those of the author.

A Historical Story

The Da Vinci Code was different than books that I usually take the time to read. I was lucky enough to have the version of the novel that had pictures and explanations of the historical objects used in the story. If I did not have that, I would have lost with all these Parisian artifacts. All the mysteries and the solutions that come from it are so suspenseful that I did not want to stop reading. There were stories and myths on religion predominately.

A Puzzling Story

Another interesting novel to read was the Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. The main character, Robert Langdon is the professor of religious symbology at Harvard University. He tries to attempt to solve the murder of the renowned curator Jacques Sauniere of the Louvre museum in France. Near the curator’s body was a perplexing code found. The curator’s granddaughter and Langdon attempt to decipher the strange riddles and are surprised to find a path of clues hidden by the efforts of the artist, Leonardo Da Vinci. Brain teaser and number puzzles were involved. The last, most thought-provoking challenge was finding the Holy Grail.

Lovely Bones Reflection

Novels like this make the reader think about someone who actually suffered through trauma like this. It is sad to think that no matter when one reads this novel there will probably be a child missing in the news and a family trying to adjust to the new horror in their lives. I researched information on the author, Alice Sebold and she was brutally raped as an 18 year old. The inspiration for the story came from her personal experience. It is not that The Lovely Bones makes light of this kind of tragedy, but it does bring some healthy insight into the role of death in our lives.

Personal Opinion of Lovely Bones

It was Susie’s insight from heaven that made me love reading this novel, since it was a different approach to a novel. She sees how her murderer lives, and how her family coped without her. But it's watching her family and friends as they begin to heal where the heart of the story lies. She's there when her father realizes that the immortality that should have come with bearing three children was not as assured as he thought; and he reacts by pouring his love into the living. Since Susie was only 14 years old, I expected another kind of tone to this novel. But Susie Salmon is not sad, angry, or bitter. Instead she is a mix of curiosity and hope about the people still on Earth. The Lovely Bones is about Susie watching her family and friends heal and finding their way back to being connected with one another. It is about restoration of a family after it is devastated.

A Huge Impact

The death of Susie Salmon surprisingly impacted almost everyone close to her, even a couple people who were not. Her mother leaves her father, after he kept assuming that the murderer was their neighbour, George Harvey (who is the murderer). Her father tries to catch Harvey but was crippled in the process. Susie's sister and brother are driven into emotional retreat, becoming very distant from their previously peaceful family. Ruth Connors, an unpopular girl in Susie’s class, is also impacted by Susie’s death. She is the last person Susie touches as her spirit leaves Earth. As a result, Ruth becomes obsessed with death and even begins seeing the dead on Earth. Everything and everyone important in this young girl’s life changed solely because they were traumatized from her death.

1st Summer Book

This summer I read an interesting and thought-provoking novel called Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. The main character and narrator of the story is a girl named Susan Salmon, who was raped and killed at the young age of fourteen. Susan tells her story from her view in heaven, where she sees her friends and family living down on Earth. She sees how her family and friends changed significantly mostly from her death, and she even sees her own murderer living down below.

To Kill a Mockingbird.. and why we read it

To Kill a Mockingbird was a novel that almost everyone in Canada and possibly, North America, already read. I thought it was a good idea to reference it since we all should have read in school. The Library of Congress says that this book was the must-read book of all time. Not to criticize it, but maybe it received this recognition because every English teacher shoved the hidden literary devices down our throat during essay time. This was a good read for me, only because it was easy thinking of themes and overall essay ideas to write about. That’s probably why they made us read it, so much to look into…