Finally...The final post on the final book

The last one, the last blog post of this school year.

So, to wrap it up...

Slowly over the course of the year, by switching between this series and other books, I have read The Giver series. Recently, I've been reading Son. I have to say, it's way better than I thought it would be. After reading Gathering Blue, I was a smidgen unimpressed with the series. Yet, this book seems to make up for it and top off this exciting quartet by Lois Lowry.  It takes place in the same black and white and non-emotional and controlled and utterly nondescript village that Jonas (from the 1st book) came from. 

Imagine this...

You are about to have a baby. Yet, you're blindfolded. It's supposed to be an easy process. All is going well. Then you hear the doctors say something is wrong. They put you under anesthesia. You wake up having little recollection of what happened. Next thing you know, you are reassigned jobs to work at the fish hatchery and you will never know what went on that day.

 Like, wow. 

Pretty sure that doesn't happen on your average day. This is the story of Claire. She had a son and he now stays at the the nursery until he is to be assigned to a family. The only thing she knows about him is that he is infant #36. When she gets the chance, she visits him and no one seems to suspect a thing. For some reason, she wants to see him, and where she come from, people don't yearn for anything. In the book, Claire thinks to herself, "Yes, she had always been content. Everyone was, in the community...Claire realized. She had never yearned for anything before. But now...she felt a yearning constantly, desperately, to fill the emptiness inside her." (Lowry 46). 

Unlike other people in the village, Claire wants to feel real happiness. Yeah, sure, some people could be happy, but they never long for anything. To me, personally, that just sounds terrible. 

Well, so far, I really enjoy the book. It's suspenseful and really keeps the reader engaged. It has an interesting plot, and being the last book, it finishes up this series and sums up all the books. Hopefully, and most likely, I will have finally finished this series after drawing it out for such a long period of time.

Finally starting The Count of Monte Cristo

          It has definitely been a busy week. A very busy week.

Meaning I didn't read very much,

          Sooooooo...This blog is being written after only reading, like, a few pages. Anyway, as a refresher, the book I am reading is The Count of Monte Cristo. It is about a man who becomes imprisoned for a crime he didn't do and then he goes to seek revenge on his enemies.

The book is a little more hard to understand than I had expected. I'm pretty sure that it's written in the third person. What I think makes it harder to understand is that multiple characters are being introduced all at once.

All these names and descriptions and characteristics and dialogue all being introduced at once.

In addition, it's only been 2 pages and it already is confusing. Hopefully it will all make sense soon.

I guess that sometimes multiple thoughts and information can be a good thing. It helps to give the reader a more well rounded understanding of the entire setting. At one point in the book, it talks about what the crew of the ship thinks, and then mentions what a specific character thinks. It is easier to present more information this way. At least, that is my opinion. A lot of times, I actually enjoy reading third person books. Well, this was definitely a short blog, but, there wasn't really much for me to blog about. Yet it is testing week so maybe I;ll have some time to read then.

The Count of Monte Cristo

       When my mother first handed me this book, I immediately didn't want to read it. The book was very old looking, and missing the cover. So, I laid it on my book shelf and forgot about it.

Until now.

I was looking for a book to read, and she reminded me of this book which I had displaced from my mind. She then began going into great detail about the book and how I would never be able to sleep again as long as the book stayed unfinished. It was apparently that good. Instantly I became intrigued.

The Count of Monte Cristo ("Cristo" not "Crisco" which is what I thought it said) is about a man ,imprisoned for a crime that he did not do. He then escapes from the prison and seeks revenge on his enemies. According to the back of then book, ...his carefully wrought revenge has held millions of readers spellbound for more than a hundred years." 

Including my mother (hence the part where she said "I would never sleep again until it was finished").

So now I'm givin' it a shot.

My 2nd and 3rd grade teacher always said that the 1st page of a book can tell the reader a lot. And the 1st page of this book already has me curious as to what is going to happen. The book says, "The vague anxiety hovering over the crowd affected one man so much he could not wait until the ship entered the harbor; he leaped into a small boat and ordered the boatman to row him out to meet the Pharaon." (Dumas 1). Why he's doing that? I don't know. What's making him so anxious? I don't know. What's going to happen next? No idea. I guess I'll just have to keep reading to find out.

I've only read the 1st page, I'll be able to sleep tonight because I haven't gotten far enough, but this is going to be one. Good. Book

Finishing Gathering Blue

       Okey dokey... This blog post is extremely late but better now than never right?

2 books down.

I have already read The Giver and I have just finished Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry. Leaving only The Messenger and Son left to read to finish up this series.

At first, the book Gathering Blue seemed a little slow and not very exciting. But as the book went on, it got a lot more interesting. This book doesn't really tie into The Giver very much, but now that I've started reading the third book, The Messenger, it makes so so so much more sense. The characters' interactions and stories begin to tie into each other; Jonas from The Giver shows up the third book. Because I have only just started The Messenger, the book hasn't exactly explained how Jonas got to where he is now, but it for sure does continue his story. Except it doesn't pick where The Giver left off, it jumps ahead a couple years.

I really like the third book better than the second. As I already said, the second book is slower. This one is more suspenseful, and is just, well...more interesting.

In the second book, the main character's (Kira) supposedly dead father is introduced and the third book shows his story, along with the story of a friend of Kira's.

I actually enjoy the way Lois Lowry has written this story line. It's intriguing and it allows to see all of the character's story connect with each other. Whereas in other books, one character's story is told, then it finishes, then another is told...etc. This particular way the story was written makes the reader have to read the whole series to know what happened to another. And I'm almost done!

2 books to go...

Columnist Packet Follow-Up

       The columns that I read were.. pretty interesting. And while all were good, I did enjoy the column "What will Kate Middleton's wedding dress look like?". I thought it was odd (well, maybe not odd but it was a little odd to me) how crazy and detailed people can get about a wedding dress. Okay, yeah sure it can be a big deal, but in my opinion, Kate's search for a dress is just an up scaled version of every other soon to be married woman. Which is why it was strange to see people get soooo excited about the dress. I also liked some of the language they used in this column, It was very artistic. One example is, "There has been a smidge of speculation in the vast blogosphere of fashion that Middleton might turn to someone like Oscar de la Renta or Vera Wang." I think what made this language and diction so fun to read is that I thought it really showed author's voice within the piece. They used fun, made-up words like, "smidge" and "blogosphere". 

       I felt like there is a lot of author's voice used in all columns. I guess that's what kind of makes it a column and opinionated. If you can really hear the author's voice, you can understand their tone and point of view towards a particular subject. Which is why I also really liked the column, "A ruff and ready playmate". I also found this one humorous and consistently used good voice. Such as when it said, "I suddenly experience a sensation of humid warmth...my right arm has disappeared up to the elbow inside the mouth of a dog...I am not alarmed... how a large, friendly dog says: 'Greetings! You have a pleasing salty taste!'"

       This one was also my favorite because it was really funny. And like me, most people (I'm assuming) like to read things that are comical and don't put us to sleep. 

Theme handout

Censorship diminishes individual thought

Timeline:

1. Montag met Clarisse and she changed the way he thinks. She made him more curious about the society.
2. After they burned the old lady and her house Montag started to question the procedure that the firefighters use. Also while Montag was in the house, he took a book from her house.
3. Montag pretended to be sick from the nervousness from stealing the book. He planned on involving Mildred with his crime. He had a change of heart towards Beatty.
4. Montag decided to go to Faber after numerous events in which he found a bible and exposed himself to Mildred, and wanted someone to help him in his new way of thinking.
5. Montag returned home to find Mrs. Bowles and Mrs. Phelps at his house. They angered him when they talked lightly about their husbands which caused him to recite Dover Beach despite Faber telling him otherwise causing Bowles and Phelps to storm off distraught and Mildred cursing him.
6. After the reciting of the poem, the call for a burning was actually for Montag’s house. At that time Montag and Beatty confront each other, causing Beatty to take out the device Faber used to communicate. The two fought until it came to gruesome end in which Montag burned Beatty before the hound came, for that is what is Beatty wished.
7. After this incident, Montag had officially became a convict. He had planted a book into one of his colleague’s home and had made the run for it after he learned that the hound was nothing but accurate. When Montag finally made it to the forest he had noticed a fire in a way in which he never had before and met the intellectuals/book people, who had noticed who Montag was and welcomed him. Shortly after meeting they were met with the site of the city’s aftermath from being bombed.

• The theme helps us understand the censorship that affects their everyday thoughts and opinions on society and law.

• Censorship still occurs today because children’s programs are censored of adult content.

Quotes:

“Are you happy?” she said. “Am I what?” he cried. But she was gone…” (Bradbury 8)

“Then he began to read in a low, stumbling voice that grew firmer as he progressed from line to line and his voice went out across the desert into the whiteness, and around the three sitting women there in the great hot emptiness.” (Bradbury 97).

“And then he was a shrieking blaze, a jumping, sprawling gibbering manikin, no longer human or known, all writhing flame on the lawn as Montag shot one continuous pulse of liquid fire on him...Beatty flopped over and over and over, and at last twisted in on himself like a charred wax doll and lay silent.” (Bradbury 113).

Fahrenheit 451 continuation

       The words of Montag still echoed in Mrs. Bowles' head, "Go home and think of your first husband divorced, and your second husband killed in a jet and your third husband blowing his brains out, and your children who hate your guts! Go home and think how it all happened and what did you ever do to stop it?". How dare he openly criticize her like that? Never again would she go back over to that house. It was all nonsense; probably something found in one of those ridiculous books. She wouldn't believe it. Yet as much as she tried to ignore the harsh criticism, she couldn't help but think to herself that what he said was true. No! No, It's not. She hopped in her car and drove fast, at least 100 miles per hour hoping to clear and forget that any of it happened.


       Mrs. Bowles walked grumpily into her house. She did  have very nice things and was living a happy life which couldn't be better; no matter what Montag said about life being better before this lovely society. No books just meant all the less confusion. Ugh. Why she was worrying? Her children would be home soon. And she was sure they didn't hate her...did they? Mrs. Bowles shook her head and turned on the program in the parlor. It was the same program she had began to watch at Mildred's. She glanced in the fridge. Her delicious cookies where sitting on a plate. She never let the children eat them because they were her special cookies that she couldn't afford to share. Maybe she would give them some. They would like that, yes. And she could give them some when they came home, yes! That's what she would do She would be very nice and give them her cookies. Then they wouldn't hate her! But, they don't so they will just be extra happy. She would at least prove that one thing Montag said was wrong.


       Her children walked in the door blanked face, almost expressionless. When they came into the kitchen, they seemed almost surprised to see their mother with a caked and forced smile, holding out the plate of cookies as an offering. They had a look of hatred and disgust on their faces. Why had she never noticed it before? Did they really hate her that much? NO. She wouldn't believe it, she wouldn't believe anything Montag has said. Mrs. Bowles seemed almost nervous while waiting for their approval. "Hi darlings!" she managed to choke out. "How about some of my cookies while watching the program, hm?"
"Okayyyy...uh thanks?" they all mumbled, very skeptical. They glanced at her with a small appreciation and then headed into the parlor. Her smile fell. It was going to take a lot to win them over. She didn't even know where to begin. She didn't have her own children's' liking, she had multiple failed marriages... maybe she wasn't so happy. She had been putting on a good face for so long, that she actually started to believe it herself. She wasn't happy. She had never been happy. Montag was right. Now if she could just remember what the book had said...