Top Five

Book Review-Final Exam

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen takes the mysterious world of the 1930’s American circus and brings it to life. The characters and scenes Gruen writes are as real as words on paper can be. She makes simple words, inked onto simple paper leap from the page and wrap the audience up, sucking them into a historical vortex; taking them from their average lives to something much more.

                Starting with a bang Jacob Jankowski’s perfectly mapped out life is twisted in a knot when his parents are killed in a car accident. Desperate to escape the fragrant, powdery church women, bankruptcy and inevitable homelessness, Jacob hops a train. And not just any train, but the train of the Benzini Brothers Greatest Show on Earth…a traveling circus. With arms tucked tightly against their chests, the crew is far from welcoming. A few of the older crew men make an effort to accommodate Jacob, while some don’t, and thus Gruen begins her daunting task of creating a cloud of sympathy over even some of the meanest of characters.

                Seemingly entirely cruel and sniveling, August Rosenbluth is written to be a menace. A crew chomping wife beater, in charge of the same animals he brutally beats into submission. As cruel as the afore mentioned man is, Gruen somehow manages to place him a sympathetic bubble. She has the audience despising his guts one minute and cooing at his feet the next. “How could Marlena just walk away from him? He bought her such a pretty necklace. I think he must love her.”  They claim. How confused were we as the audience. What to do with our emotions when such an immense character conflict arises. Who do we side with? When the movie came out, the choice of actors made that decision a touch easier.

                In the book, Jacob is portrayed as early twenties, a kind and sweet hearted ginger. When the movie made its first appearance on the big screen, Jacob came along a little older, a little more challenging, and a whole lot more attractive. Gruen does an excellent job contrasting Jacob and August, the two main characters. Jacob is given the job of cleaning up the mess his counter makes of the circus’ animals. One hurts them, one heals them. The foil is uncanny. A confusing element, often brought up throughout the book, is who loves Marlena more. While August is her husband, providing for her in the most expensive ways, it seems to lean more in Jacob’s direction. He may be a dirt poor scoundrel but he, well Gruen, certainly has the right frame of mind:

"We lean against the wall in silence, still holding hands. After about an hour she falls asleep, sliding down until her head rests on my shoulder. I remain awake, every fiber of my body aware of her proximity."

While characters are great, you can’t have a book made entirely of characters, especially not entirely of human characters. The setting is one of the more important elements of a great novel. Does it feel real, somewhere you can climb into and out of while you read? Is it a dynamic place, a colorful world, somewhere you actually want to spend time in? For Sara Gruen’s novel, Water for Elephants, all of that is a big fat yes.  The setting she creates is unlike a lukewarm soft drink where you’ll drink it because it’s there and it’s not awful and you’re thirsty, but it’s not really a great quencher. Water for elephants is like a cold Gatorade on a hot summer day after you’ve been mowing the lawn under the sun. Her playful animal characters tie all the loose ends. They are magnetic, holding the book together. The connect Jacob and Marlena, August and the show, Jacob and the show, and hold the show itself together. These fuzzy characters provide the book with enough symbolism to fill a high-school English class, and enough unconditional love to fill your Grandma’s living room.  

My Links

http://saragruen.com/
Water for Elephant's author website
http://www.suzannecollinsbooks.com/
Hunger Games author website
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1659337/
Movie info/pictures for Perks of Being a Wallflower
http://www.calgaryherald.com/entertainment/Hunger+Games+Harry+Potter+multiple+trophies+Movie+Awards/6725420/story.html
Books to Movies awards
http://www.bigstonegap.org/ourtown/trigiani.htm
Big Stone Gap author website

Where is the Line?

I think that the story should be mostly true in order to be called a memoir. I don’t think that it has to be totally true to be a good book though. While it may not be a memoir, a made up story can still be good. A Million Little Pieces may have been mostly a lie or a little bit a lie or however much a lie, but in the end it’s a good book and that’s why readers kept reading it. It’s a hard industry and James Frey did what he had to do to get his book out there.  I don’t think the genre labels are as important as everyone makes them.

It is okay if a book is partially in one category and partially in another. We have all seen iTunes attempt to classify music as rock, alternative, etc. and a lot of the time I’m thinking…ehh that’s not really what I was thinking.  What books are classified as are just names, a good book is a good book.

If we have to give genres labels I would agree that memoirs should be true. Obviously no one wants to read a conversation like:

Mark leaned over and said, “hey”,  then I said, “hey”, then he said, “how’s your wife”, and I said, “Oh she’s good, and Karen?”, on and on. That would be a terrible book. No one’s life is interesting enough to be completely and accurately documented and sold for millions of dollars around the world.

Readicide

I don’t think that schools should stop teaching the classics. It isn’t WHAT we read; it’s what we have to do while reading it. Analyzing every aspect of the book and finding themes and elements that aren’t even there is what kills reading. I could lie in bed and read Jane Eyre for a few hours. It wasn’t my favorite but it was a totally tolerable book. However, since I didn’t want to make notes and highlight the living crap out of it, I avoided reading it all together. Then it became a pattern to just avoid reading the books so I wouldn’t have to active read. When my second tri teacher started checking our active reading I developed a new system. I would not read the book, but put a clean post it on every other page, highlight any random sentence and then go back through and write the “meaning” of that sentence on the post it. It proved to be an effective system, however I wasn’t actually reading.

I like to read the classics in school though. Otherwise I would never read them and there are a lot of them that I really like. I loved To Kill a Mockingbird and I liked Color of Water and Romeo and Juliet. They were all good stories but I didn’t even finish the first two because they give us so much to do and analyze in so little an amount of time. I always wanted to go back and finish them but we would have already moved on to the next book so I never got around to it.

There definitely is a difference between literary and commercial. Literary is more fancy and creative whereas commercial just tells a story. I think that literary book authors should get credit for being talented writers but if the commercial book sells, those writers deserve the money. I think commercial writers get a really bad rap.

A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read - Mark Twain

Trailer

The Help

BOOK 2, The Help Some challenges the filmakers would have include casting, making the movie authentic to the time period, and filming a movie with such controversial issues. In order to make the right casting, you would have to choose people that can do a great southern accent, specific to Mississippi. I think it would probably be best to find actors and actresses from Missippi to get the most authentic accent. It's also hard to adapt a movie from a different time period because you have to get the details right. I think the most important part is that they have a good wardrobe and make the houses appropriate to the time because that is what people will focus on the most. It would be essential to keep the scenes that focus on how Mrs. Leefolt is a bad mother. It really characterizes her and the other women of that time that hired help. The scene where she smacks Mae Mobley would be the most important. Another important scene would be when Ms. Skeeter asks if Aibileen would change things. That sets the stage for what will happen between them throughout the book. The last important scene is where they discuss the issue of the bathroom for the help. That also sets the stage and sort of fuels the fire for Ms. Skeeter and Aibileen to change things. I would cut some of the parts that are purely descriptionary and don't add to the plot. The scene where it discusses the garden that Aibileen gets from her neighbor and the scene or scenes where Aibileen spends time with Mae Mobely that where nothing really happens. It's important to make sure a relationship is built between the two, but film time shouldn't be wasted on uneventful things.

Why I Read

I read because I love stories. I think it’s so interesting to hear all of the creative ideas that authors come up with. Even when I just hear a summary about a book I get interested. There are so many creative possibilities for stories that you could never get bored reading. Not all of the stories created are super interesting but it’s cool to just hear the idea.

I love to think that when I am reading I’m basically getting to know the author more personally. They thought up this idea that you are reading and put it into their own thought up words. Every author has their own style of writing and trying out each author’s writing style is fun for me. I love people so when I read a book and I’m getting to know a person better, it makes me happy. Another reason I read is because there are so many good books. People who say they don’t like to read just haven’t found books to appeal to them. If you think you are too manly to read then there are books that have blood and violence and action. If you think you’re too cool to read there are books with characters modeled after people just like you. There is always a book for everyone, no matter what your story is. I like that aspect of reading. It’s something everyone can fit into. I’m not a bookworm or anything but there is are days when I find a really good book, and it’s usually an easy read like Harry Potter or Hunger Games, and I just read the whole day. Then I may go a week or more without even picking up a book. I don’t think that makes me a bad reader, just more of a specific type of reader. I’m kind of a bandwagon reader. But when I am on the bandwagon, I get super on the bandwagon. I guess I don’t really have a specific reason why I enjoy reading. I’m not great at organizing my thoughts. But it’s pretty simple that I like to read because books are good. And sometimes they’re not.

Capitol World

Capitol World My idea is to have a Capitol World, just like they do Harry Potter World. It could look all futuristic like the one in the book does and have a really fast train around the city. People could ride the train; visit the districts, sort of like Epcot only for Hunger Games. The workers would be dressed in colorful clothes and weird and crazy makeup/hairstyles. The workers would reenact the scenes of interviews that happened in the book like when Katniss is first doing her interview in front of the crowd. They would also have parades where they reenact the parade from the “girl on fire” scene. An actor meant to play Katniss would stand up in the dress worn in the movie. Many of the Movie stars would come to the park, signing autographs, meeting with fans, and acting out scenes of the movie. Guests would stay in the hotel that Katniss and Peeta stayed in in the book when they were waiting to start the Games. They would use similar technology like the shower with many buttons and the instant room service. To keep things from getting repetitive the park would give Caesar, the TV host, a television show to put on live at the park every day. On his TV show he would create fake Capitol drama, give updates on the districts and have fun segments that promote more audience interaction. Another idea is to create other thrill rides for the park that are related to the actual games themselves. They would have realistic simulators of the games. In one it could be an IMAX theater where the screens show fireballs coming at you in 3D or giant dogs running towards you and the audience is supposed to react like the tributes would and run or duck, etc. That comes from the book when Katniss gets attacked by the Capitol’s dogs and fire. They would even make a real forest/lake area for kids to go around and explore. It would be a scary simulation so it would probably cater more towards the older kids. The forest would be filled with actors playing the tributes, obviously they wouldn’t kill you but they could still make it scary. One actor would try to “kill” the others, use props such as fake knives, fake blood, etc. and fight each other, putting on a thrilling show for the audience. Quotes: “…a woman with aqua hair and gold tattoos above her eyebrows …” pg. 61 (What the workers and actors will model themselves after) “…she pipes in her silly capitol accent.” pg. 61 (How they will model their speech) “What must it be like, I wonder, to live in a world where food appears at the press of a button?” pg. 65 (How to design the Hotel) I think this idea would be good because it would attract a lot of different people. People would bring their smaller kids for the train rides and other amusement rides and adults/older children would enjoy staying in the hotel and seeing the parade, making the book come alive. It will keep people interested in the books because it’s like an ongoing amusement park that you can always come back to. You won’t get bored with it because there will be real people talking with the Capitol accent and entertaining you with activities that are related to the Hunger Games. It doesn’t always have to be direct scenes from the book, as long as it is something they might do, like the TV show. Something indirect that they could do would be to create a Capitol Zoo. They would have a zoo filled with animals, some mentioned in the book like Mockingjays, Tracker Jackers, and the dogs. They could also create other animals that would have come from the Capitol but weren’t really mentioned in the book. If you only used things from the book(s) people would get bored and not want to come back.

Future of Books

March 22, 2012

When I think of a book, I think of a paper or cardboard bound stack of papers with a story printed on neat black inked letters inside. But in these times that's not necessarily what a book is. Book are online, able to be downloaded (legally and illegally) and read on an electronic reading device. To me, a book will always be the cardboard bound papers with the neat black inked letters that fills the shelves in my den. I don't have any problem with "E-Books", but I think they shouldn't be called that. Something, instead, like "E-Stories". Because when you buy an "E-Book" you aren't getting a book, you are getting a story. The story is still the same story it would be inside the cardboard, typed in the fresh black ink...in the most technical sense. However, the BOOK itself no longer exsists. A book needs pages. It needs to give readers the satisfaction of getting further and further as you read more and more. The struggle of trying to pry open a stiff spined book and grasp the first 3 or so pages when you start and the last 3 or so when you end. Books need to smells. They need to smell like the basement it's been living in, or the old man's house you bought it from for $.25 at a garage sale. Even if it just smells like fresh paper straight from the Barnes & Noble press, a book needs a smell. I dare everyone with a kindle to right now sniff the front screen and I can almost guarantee it's not going to be anything special. I agree with Tom Piazza when he says that everything becomes 2-dimensional and flat. The screen traps the stories behind it, opposed to unleashing them in your room and allowing you to get lost.

 I made up like 95% of what I just wrote because it sounded good. It doesn't make a huge difference to me. Although I loved the thing about grasping at pages in a stiff spined book, and like everyone, I do appreciate a good book-smell, I don't think the kindle kills the story. A book and a kindle are the same dimensions, if you want to get lost in the book, you can, no matter the medium. I do agree with Victor LaValle when he says it's very Old Testament way of thinking but there is a line. Obviously my 2004 copy of Magic Tree House isn't my most prized possession, but a copy of Jane Eyre, however dull it may be, that was one of the first ever copied and printed with the pretty gold edges and the fancy leather cover is going to be more treasurable. I liked the part LaValle wrote about "Other melodramatic nonsense". That's all this issue is. I'm sure that Charlie Sheen, Steve Carrell, and Hilary Swank would be just fine posing for their tasteful library posters clutching a kindle in their hands. Publishers and authors just don't appreciate the pay cuts.