So, at 1 am when I'm really not at all tired and am looking through some old things and stumble across this old blog, what better to do than write a new post? It only took me the better part of two years.
And, now that I'm looking at this blog with fresh, not tired eyes, I think maybe I should put some of the fangirling in a little more proportion to the actual books. So, a quick summary of the last year or so:
I survived my first (and probably my only) year of AP English last year, which was the first time I'd been challenged since PATH. I took AP Literature and Composition and we read quite a few short stories and poems, as well as The Awakening by Kate Chopin, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen, Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, and Othello by William Shakespeare. We also had to do quarterly novel projects on novels of literary merit of our choice (I read Hemmingway's A Farewell to Arms, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, and Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut).
The Awakening was really short and didn't seem to have much of a plot, but my inner feminist loved it. So much. It was definetly a political book meant for interpretation and really can't masquerade as anything but that. I think libraries realized that when they banned it back in the days after its publication (1899).
Dickens was a trial for me. Parts of it I don't remember well because I would binge read while I had pnuemonia, and I usually had to force it down like I force down fish at dinner. But I kept up and was able to interpret t pretty well, although having seen the BBC miniseries before I read it helped so much. I just really hate Pip's character after a while (who doesn't?) and having Prettyboy in my head helped so much.
Ibsen's play was wonderful. I loved it. I want to read it again and again. We read it in class, but I loved it so much that I sat down on a Friday night, completely in Jenni-time, and just read the play. Maybe I love it so much because Nora gives me hope for one day escaping my father's tyranny...
Death of a Salesman was just okay. I didn't feel that strongly about it, positively or negatively. Kinda like how most of the characters view life. Meh. Bleh. Summer.
Othello was better than Romeo and Juliet like how my essays now are better than my awkward little sixth-grade-cookie-cutter essays that really said nothing worth knowing or even hearing. Iago is possibly my favorite villain ever, right up there with Bellatrix Lestrange and Moriarty (or Irene Adler, if you consider her a villain). He's just so great up until he goes crazy at Emilia. That's crossing a line. She was pretty great in that scene, and I proudly wrote an essay about her...even if I really had no idea what I was supposed to do for said essay. It worked. He's clever, she's not a bro, get new spouses, everyone's happy. But this is Shakespeare; Happy is something his final cuts tend to lack.
My novels for my novel projects were all amazing and I would recommend every single one of them. Hemmingway was classic (and he just loves irony). Huxley had a brilliant utopia/dystopia, and it makes the list of reasons why my life rocks (I don't live there). Ishiguro was similar, only I liked his story and style a lot more and he made me cry. A lot. Vonnegut was hilarious, but then I felt really bad for laughing because it shouldn't have been funny but it was. So it goes. ;)
I finished The Mortal Instruments just in time for the movies to come out, unfortunately. I don't think this movie is going to be any good. It makes me want to cry...especially with the second Percy Jackson movie coming out in the same month. Does Hollywood really not know when enough is enough?
That was a stupid question.
Aaaannd I'm reading Game of Thrones right now, which I vote to rename The Real Housewives of Middle-Earth. There's enough symbolism and foreshadowing that it would probably be harder to tell who's gonna die and how if I read it on Wikipedia. There's also the added bonus that pretty much everyone is going to die, because, like Queen Cersei says, "In the game of thrones, you win or you die." *ominous music* I don't think this will be a TV Show I'll be watching with my parents, however. Or while they're in the house. Or maybe even the country.
In the meantime, I'm also catching up on the new series of Dr. Who (you may have noticed bu the title, which is very true, btw). Thanks very much to my bunkmate from Blue Lake this year who pretty much forced me to. I hope you're proud, Erin. I hope you're proud. So far, I've had some major Doomsday feels/cries and I don't know if I can let 10 go. Or 11, especially now that I know the clock is nearing 12. Good luck, Peter Capaldi. Good luck.
And now it's time for my favorite part- Quotes!
"You were fantastic. And you know what? So was I." -9th Doctor, Dr. Who
Allons-y!
--Jenni
No comments:
Post a Comment