Don't let my literature teacher hear about this-- I mean, that iReally do love the books we've been discussing in her class. Many of them are texts iWould not have picked up on my own initiative and iSuppose that's why I think exposing students to literature on some level of education is important. It opens doors, helps us to empathize and (most importantly) it can be an enjoyable experience.
However, the novel iWant to write about right now isn't something one would enjoy in the conventional sense of enjoyment. "Beloved" by Toni Morrison is set in Kentucky, 1800s... sometime towards the close of Slavery in the States. Our main characters are former slaves; the chronology of this story darts madly between the past and the present, sometimes forcing flashes of a reluctant history into our minds and sometimes painfully clawing its way into our tear ducts. It is not an easy story but it is one that everyone should read, iThink.
On that note-- although iHighly recommend this to y'all, it would be best if you knew a little about Slavery in the 1800s. A spot of knowledge may be all you need to deepen the meaning of a book. Ladies. You will cry. iCried. Morrison dedicates her work to "Sixty Million and more" and if you don't catch the meaning of that, I'll tell you: she wrote her novel for the sixty million people who died in the name of Slavery. Sixty million very real people. Keep that stored somewhere in the back of your head if you ever decide to dive into Beloved.
iAm sorry if you did not like my assaulting you with details of the Tragedy... may iSuppose that details of the Metaphysical will make up for so depressing a sin? "A Passage to India" by E.M. Forster focuses on a group of Indians and Englishmen living in Colonial India. But the novel is about so much more than that-- and while I am bursting to tell you what these things are, I'm afraid that the only person who could do such themes justice is the author himself. All I can really say with a clean conscience is that you ought to screw your head on before reading it but don't go over each page with a critical eye. Try to enjoy the book as you would enjoy a hot, stagnant afternoon. At leisure and with a mind willing to appreciate anything that breaks monotony. Oh. And please don't murder me if you don't like it. iGather that my classmates did not quite enjoy Forster's approach to the abstract; and what can I say? Some things cannot be grasped by the human mind, much less the written word.
As for the Nutcases in Gowns. All I can say is that iWill never, ever again switch to the MTV channel to cure my late night boredom. Watching Super Sweet Sixteen is like watching the world consume itself. I'm disappointed in the lack of class young women handle themselves with nowadays and disgusted by the media's exploitation of their inelegant personalities. I know that television doesn't neccesarily represent the general society (there's a horrifying thought) but it forces our eyes to stare into a very bleak future. I'm afraid that we've sold out, my friends. To whom I do not know-- the very moguls we claim to hate? iProbably sound kinda condascending as I reproach people from the little throne I've set up here in my blog. That doesn't make what I'm saying any less true, though. Obnoxious maybe. But these are, as a poet once said, "truths that lie too deep for taint."
Write you later. Go read something.
- the illiterate Blogger -
