'The Fishing-Boat Picture'

The short story I read today was 'The Fishing-Boat Picture' by Alan Sillitoe. Out of all the contemporary British short stories I've read lately this one is probably my favorite. It wasn't too long or short, and was fairly easy to understand. However, there's still a lot to get out of the story, and a lot of different ways of interpreting it. 

These are some of the main things that I got out of the story:

Regret.

A HUGE theme I found in the short story was regret. You can especially notice it towards the end of the story. Harry - the narrator - regrets letting his wife, Kathy, leave him those so many years ago. You also get the vibe from Kathy and her weekly visits to Harry that she regrets leaving him, and running off with another man.

The last three paragraphs of the short story are also very important to note. It's all Harry reflecting on his life and what purpose it had. Especially the last paragraph:

"Then optimism rides out of the darkness like a knight in armor. If you lover her ...(of course I bloody-well did)...then yo both did the only thing possible it i was to be remembered as love. Now didn't you? Knight in armor goes back into blackness. Yes, I cry, but neither of us did anything about it, and that's the trouble."

This is a feeing that almost everyone can relate to; that bitter regret when you realize what you once had is gone and there is nothing you can do now to get it/them/whatever it is back. 

The Picture Itself.

What does the fishing-boat picture represent in the story? It's sure talked a lot about towards about halfway to the end of the story. 

In my own opinion, I think it's a representation of Harry's and Kathy's relationship. For one, they obviously don't communicate well. After all, Harry gives the picture to Kathy who sells it. HARry then buys it back, and Kathy ends up selling it again. None of which was actually communicated between them. This illustrates their lack of communication in their own relationship.

I also feel like the painting represents their old relationship. I really liked the quote Harry says, 

"I don't think she wanted the picture especially to sell and get money, or to hand in her own house; only to have the pleasure of pawning it, to have someone else buy it so that it wouldn't belong to either of us anymore."

I think that says a lot about what the picture represents: their relationship, how it used to be. All of us in life go through experiences that we would rather not remember, or be shown visual representations of, and that's the way it is with this picture. It reminds them - Kathy especially - of what they used to have how they both make big mistakes.

I really enjoyed this story, and I think it makes a lot of claims about humans and the regret we feel so often. I'll hopefully end up reading another short story similar to this one. 

'Psychopolis': Thoughts

The second short contemporary British story I read was 'Psychopolis' by Ian McEwan. This one was longer than the last one, but still very interesting. All of the events that take place in the story are fairly bizarre and absurd, and I believe that that is part of the author's claim. I mainly noticed a lot about the events, the characters, and the relationships between the characters in the story. I claim that through these ideas, the author illustrates how complex and absurd life can be, and how everyone deals with it differently. 

First, the events. Well, it starts out with Mary (a main character) wanting to be tied up by the narrator for an entire weekend. Bizarre. They then go on to be a sort of 'friends' and 'lovers' throughout the story. This illustrates that total out of the ordinary events that take place in the narrator's life. He has just moved to Los Angeles and is trying to get a grasp on everything when one of the very first things to happen is being asked to tie up a woman for the weekend. This is a bit of an extreme way to illustrate the complexities that occur in life, but effective nonetheless.

Another bizarre event is Terence's encounter with Sylvia. He is madly in love with her, and after finally going out on a date with her and professing his love, he says he'll do anything for her. So what does she ask him to do? Pee, in his pants, right in the middle of the restaurant. Totally bizarre. To make matters worse her parents then come over and Terence has to make small talk with them. This, again, is completely absurd, but it illustrates an idea quite nicely:

One, humans are sometimes completely irrational and will do anything to get what they want. 

Two, we all have the ability to deceive and take advantage of others when we want to.

Three, life can be completely bizarre and weird, and all any of us can do is try to make the best of it. Which is what the narrator has to do. 

As for the characters, first you've got Mary. She's the feminist woman who asked to be tied up by the narrator. Completely contradictory desires. 

You also have George and Terence who can't seem to relate to the narrator or his desires and observations on life. 

And then of course theres Sylvie, the one who messed with Terence. 

Not only are each of these characters pretty odd on their own, their relationships with each other (as has already been mentioned) are also very absurd. 

Through these events and characters, I believe McEwan portrays how life is completely out of our control and all of us are trying to just make sense of our lives and everything that is happening. 

Overall, I enjoyed the story and really appreciated it.

'A Family Man': Overview Thoughts

So now I'm starting to read some short stories from Contemporary British authors, and I started with 'A Family Man' by V. S. Pritchett. It was a fairly short short story, only nine pages. But I actually really liked it. 

I did some research on the short story, but before I write about what I learned there I'm going to write about some themes/ideas I got out of the short story:

1. Deceit and Rationalization: This story illustrates very clearly the rationalization and self deception humans take part in so often. The two main characters are Bernice Foster and Mrs. Clark. Bernice is having an affair with Mrs. Clark's husband, and one day, when Mrs. Clark comes to Bernice's home to confront her she lies, more than she ever has in her entire life.

          Bernice claims that she grew up being told that all forms of lying were a sin, and she had never lied that much in her entire life. At first she feels bad about this lying - and rationalization that what she's doing isn't that bad - but as the story goes on she continues to lie, even unnecessarily. 

         This deceit leads Mrs. Clark to feel BAD about confronting Bernice in the way she did. She begins to doubt herself more than her husband. I personally believe that Mrs. Clark still knew the truth about what was actually happening, but she couldn't come to the conclusion. It would be too painful for her. 

          This rationalization and deceit (towards themselves and outward towards others) is a huge, if not THE, main point in the story. Through this short story I believe Pritchett illustrates a very harsh reality which will hit most of us very close to home. 

       2. Most often, humans want what they can't have. And once they get that thing, they don't want it anymore: I don't believe this theme is quite as prevalent as the above theme, but it is still worth noting. When Bernice Foster realizes that Mrs. Clark isn't nearly as beautiful as she thought she was (or as Mr. Clark described her to be), she begins to lose interest in Mr. Clark and wonder why she is with him. This illustrates that humans often times do things just for the admiration/notice of others. Bernice Foster also knew from the beginning that Mr. Clark was married, yet that didn't stop her from being with him. In fact, I would venture to say that it even made him more desirable to her. 

I believe there are many things that a reader could get out of this short story, however those are the two main themes I noticed from it. It was very well written, and I enjoyed reading it. 

Now, the next story. 

The Alchemist: Finishing Thoughts

I have officially finished The Alchemist! It was really good, but it wasn't quite what I was expecting. I wasn't expecting it to be so, inspiring? Or at least, trying to be inspiring. And it was quite a deal more religious than I ever expected it to be. Which was interesting to me. I liked it because it was different than what I was expecting. Here are some of the main things that stood out to me in the novel:

-Personification. SO much personification. Of the wind, the desert, the sun, 

everything. In my own opinion, it wasn't too much personification, but 

anymore and it might have been. It added a nice effect, and emphasized 

the inspirational parts.

-Existentialism. I don't know if this is quite the right word to describe it, 

but that's kind of the feeling I got. Santiago was trying to be so in tune with 

everything around him, and paying so much attention to nature and the desert

 and what the world was trying to tell him. It reminded me of some of Ralph 

Waldo Emerson's work.

-Values and Ideals. I do believe it contains some good, important values

that need to be taught and put into action more so than they are being

currently. For example:

"It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting."

The value in this quote, is that we all have dreams. And we should all strive to achieve them! There is nothing wrong with going after your dreams. In fact, I think there is something admirable about it. Dream big. (Being an education major, I hope to be able to instill this in my future students.)

"When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too."

With this quote, love, obviously is a big one. It's important to learn how to love, and to be loved in return. When we love, something in us changes. And when someone loves us back, even more changes. If we can learn to love, and better ourselves, then everything else will become better too.

"There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure."

This is pretty similar to the first quote there, but it's a big one! We shouldn't fear failure! It reminds me of another quote, the only failure is in not trying. Go after your dreams! Even if you fail, at least you tried and learned a few things along the way. 

"The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times."

The Alchemist seemed to me to just reiterate a commonly held belief, that the joy is in the journey, not the destination. If Santiago hadn't of gone through all the trials and struggles he did to fulfill his "personal legend" then he wouldn't have learned and grown so much on the way. Which, I would argue, was the most important part. It wasn't in him reaching the Pyramids, although that was technically his goal. I think the point of his journey was to become the person he was meant to be by the time he arrived at the Pyramids. I would also argue that Santiago didn't realize that till pretty late on in his story.

I think this can DEFINITELY relate to all of our lives. I claim that Paulo Coelho is making a religious claim through this book, that God knows us. He is fully aware of our goals, and what we need to do to get there. And, like with Santiago, He is fully aware of who we need to be, and what we need to go through to become that person.

It would be extremely hard for me to read this book and not have some religious insights from it. Of course, that could be simply because I'm a religious person. But I do believe that that is one claim Coelho is making with this book. 

I'm still curious as to why this book did not succeed when first published. I need to research it still. It could just be the timing, but I'm curious. 

Overall, I'm grateful I read the book. It was inspiring, if nothing else. I hope to be able to go after my dreams as much as Santiago did. I also hope to be as in tune with my surroundings as he is. 

And to finish off The Alchemist...

The Book Thief: Last Thoughts

This will most likely be my last post on The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. Not because there isn't more I could say about it, because there most definitely is. I could go on about that book forever. But because I have other books to read, thoughts to have, and papers to write, I need to move on. 

(On a side note, I'm jamming out to KISS right now because I'm going to be Gene Simmons for Halloween. I'm pretty excited about it...but anyways.)

Well, I finished reading The Book Thief a couple weeks ago, but it took me a little while to finally write the paper. I had given myself such a broad topic that I didn't even know where to begin. So finally I just started thinking about why I loved the novel so much. In large part it as because it took me out of my world and into another one that I had no idea about. It also gave a fresh, new look on a lot of hard things in life, such as death and trials. Once I came up with that idea I was able to write the paper. I ended it at nine pages, but trust me, I could have kept going. 

(If you're interested in reading that paper, email me.)

I also FINALLY watched the movie of it yesterday, and I sobbed. About as much as I did while reading the book, and writing the paper. It is just so heartbreaking!

My main conclusions after reading the book and watching the movie:

-Although I think they did a really good job on the 

movie, I prefer the book. I think it's deeper, and 

you get more of Death's perspective in there. They

tried with the movie, but it's hard to do. I was

impressed that they did so well with the movie, 

but if I had to pick...

the book would win.-

I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Book Thief, as well as writing about. I will definitely read it again and again. And for those of you who happen to be interested, here are some of my main thoughts I wrote about in my paper:

“Through the point of view in which The Book Thief is written, as well as the characterization of death, Papa, Liesel, and Ilsa Hermann, and the depiction of relationships through the book, the reader is plunged into Liesel’s world and experiences a new view on Death, and how the hard times in life don’t dictate our happiness. Whether the reader likes it or not, through reading the Book Thief, they will experience Liesel’s life, both the joy and the heartbreak.”

and

“Death is portrayed as having a conscious throughout the novel, which makes it more relatable to the readers of the story. Similarly, the other characters throughout the story are also all too familiar with Death. Zusak’s characterization of Death throughout the Book Thief parallels the way the characters view him, as an old friend they can’t seem to escape. And Death can’t seem to escape them either. The very last line of the novel is Death stating, “I am haunted by humans,” (page 550).  Neither party cares to run into the other again, yet there is no choice, and neither has the power to change that.”

And on that note...I'm off to write some about The Alchemist.

The Alchemist: First Thoughts

I started reading The Alchemist last night (I wasn't feeling writing my Book Thief paper yet, so I just started another book) and so far I like it. It's interesting, and I know I like it, but other than that I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. 

I read for about an hour and finished Part One of the book, and I'm definitely intrigued to know what finally happens to Santiago. 

All the religious references/allusions are interesting to me, too. For example, the old man's name is literally "Melchezidek." And he tells a story about Abraham. There is also lots of talk about God, and Melchezidek having to take a little pride in himself. I'm interested to see how this plays into the rest of the book. 

Another side note, when The Alchemist was first published in Brazil, it did NOT do well. In fact, that's probably an understatement. I think the author wrote that it sold 1 copy in 6 months, and then the exact same person bought the second copy later. Then finally it got some interest from an American, and later some good buzz from publisher's in the U.S.

Why did it not do well in Brazil? Was it just the timing, or something about the book that the people there just weren't feeling. I'm curious.

Maybe as I keep reading it will start to make more sense. One can hope, at least. 

Another thing that struck me about the book so far was how full of good one lined quotes it is! If you're interested, here are some of the best ones (in my own personal opinion.)

       

  

I'm excited to keep reading. I can't imagine it will take me that long to read, considering it's not super long and I've already made it through Part One.