Book Club 2010, Session 5

1. Caught in a Still Place by Jonathan Lerner

Review: To be perfectly honest, I still haven't the faintest clue what this book is about. Apparently some sort of plague came and destroyed most of the population of the world except for in this one little place. Then its inhabitants have to survive, and mostly they just walk around without clothes, make out, and have melodramatic conversations. Then the book just ends. I caught on to a few themes on the importance of teaching the future generations the right things, but other than that, it was just kind of a quick little pointless book.

Quotations: "Spending time with kids generally gives me the creeps."

"'How do you feel?'

'Fine. Like I'm standing at the bottom of a stairway and I don't know where it goes. But getting ready to go up.'"

2) The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

Review: I'm not entirely certain what I should say about this one. It was great to be sure, but it was a little on the scandalous side. However, it's easy to read and the writing style is quite nice. I loved the parts I could relate to, and overall it was just a precious book.

Quotes: "So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be."

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"We accept the love we think we deserve."

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"I just listened to the music, and breathed in the day, and remembered things. Things like walking around the neighborhood and looking at the houses and the lawns and the colorful trees and having that be enough."

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"Maybe these are my glory days, and I'm not even realizing it."

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"Maybe it's good to put things in perspective, but sometimes, I think that the only perspective is to really be there. Because it's okay to feel things. And be who you are about them."

3. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Review: This book is by far one of the quirkiest books I've ever read. It's extremely funny in kind of a British comedy meets science fiction meets The Office way. Reading this piece of literature was also pleasurable because the voice in my head read it in a British accent the entire time. So great.

Quotations: "'You know,' said Arthur, 'it's at times like this, when I'm trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse, and about to do of asphyxiation in a deep space, that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me when I was young.'

'Why, what did she tell you?'

'I don't know, I didn't listen.'

'Oh.' Ford carried on humming.

'This is terrific,' Arthur thought to himself, 'Nelson's Column has gone, McDonald's has gone, all that's left is me and the words Mostly Harmless. Any second now all that will be left is Mostly Harmless. And yesterday the planet seemed to be going so well.'"

My Thoughts on Loneliness

I think we all exist in cages. I believe we are all alone in many ways, but we are alone... together. It isn't that we can't relate to each other or communicate or interact with one another, it's just something keeps us from truly being together. Even after the most intensely honest conversations that make me think, "Wow, I'm not alone," I still leave and go my own way. I'm still alone in ways. I'm not magically conjoined to the other person after we pour our hearts out. I'm not saying we should give up on relationships out of despair and isolate ourselves. There is a difference between isolation and solitude. Solitude is refreshing, whereas isolation is exhausting. Solitude is enjoyable, whereas isolation is miserable. In the words of Paul Tillich, “Language... has created the word 'loneliness' to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word 'solitude' to express the glory of being alone.”

Being a Christian doesn't mean that our cages are broken, but perhaps someone joins us and unites with us, someone who won't abandon us. Even though sometimes we can't feel Him, I believe He's always there. I believe this because He didn't abandon us at the crucifixion -the one time everyone would've understood if He had just left us- and He isn't leaving us now. Ultimately I think Jesus is the only one who understands us, at least on that unknowable, unexplainable level on which our deepest thoughts and most indescribable emotions lie. I think when we get to heaven our cages will melt away and we will all float around like little fireflies, dancing and laughing and enjoying our freedom. Until them I'm going to appreciate the separation. After all, we would probably hurt each other a lot more if we were free on this planet.

We just have to deal with some things on our own. Sometimes to articulate our thoughts is to take away the beauty and magic of them.

Have you ever noticed that it's always the people who say they'll always be there for you are the ones who aren't really there at all? Or maybe we just notice it more when they aren't there because they actually verbalized a promise of their presence. Or maybe we just put a lot of pressure on them and it hurts when they don't do something that is, in fact, impossible.

I think it's good to come to terms with our "aloneness," with our cages, and with ourselves. Relationships can be so wonderful, but we tend to disappoint each other and we just have to accept that. That is all.

What happens when you spend your free time reading the dictionary...

I do not claim to be the smartest or most grammatically correct person who ever lived. I frequently mess up words and forget where commas go and say things like, "That's the place where..." However, I have spent a good deal of time reading the dictionary and perusing doctorgrammar.com, so I feel like I can speak with some authority on these two matters.

1) Alumni.

This one is a pretty big deal lately because lots of people are graduating. I would just like to point out that you alone are not an alumni. Alumni is plural. You are either an alumnus or an alumna. So to all the people with the "I can't believe I'm an alumni" Facebook status I would just like to say this: don't believe it because you're not.

2) Newfoundland

It is not New-fownd-laynd, it is New-fun-lund. Just because we are from the south does not mean we can pronounce it like hillbillies.

Well, I hope this post was enlightening.

Much Love,

Marissa

Spring Fever

Hello friends!

So...days like today make me genuinely miss homeschooling (and I've used the word "genuinely" at least 4 times today...weird...). We have 16 days of school left. And I'm really trying to keep chill about the end of the year. I really am. You know, school comes, school goes, it's expensive, I don't want to be unappreciative, I should try hard. Thoughts like that. However, most of my college and homeschool friends are just living free and easy, just chillin', ya know. And I'm crammed in itsy bitsy classrooms allll day. Now don't get me wrong, I don't think my pursuit of knowledge should end on the last day of school, but I'm ready to be able to read whatever I want and have my own schedule and learn what I want to learn. And it doesn't help that everyone is being super-dramatic. I mean, really kids, you need to learn what is your business and what is not. And then it doesn't help that my competitive nature very much so displays itself in academics, and lately I have been consistently realizing how dumb I am and how smart pretty much everyone else is. I swear, some people are just born smart and some people are just not. I most definitely fall into the latter category. So right now I should really be disciplined and go study or something, but man, I just want to do anything but that. And of course all these frustrations have reminded me of all the things I hate about the school system in general. But that is another post for another time.

And oh man, this time of year just makes me so much more restless than usual. But I will not make the same mistake as last year and read Searching for God Knows What. An entire book dedicated to one man's journey up the west coast. Great thing to read this time of year.

Well, I am off to attempt to study. I will get through this. After all, school comes, school goes.

Much Love,

Marissa Lanae

P.S. I'm sorry for starting almost every sentence with "And" or "But." Haha.

Book Club 2010, Session 4

This whole post is dedicated to the one book I read in April. The name of it is Walden, and it is by Henry David Thoreau. It's honestly an incredible book. Thoreau is incredibly deep, brilliant, and detailed (though sometimes a bit too detailed, just saying). Thoreau is really funny without meaning to be; the whole 19th century style/wording just makes me laugh. I recommend this one.

Well, that's all for my review. Now for the quotes. Sorry there are so many; I can't help that he's brilliant and quote-worthy.

"By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool's life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before."

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"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things."

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"What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new."

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"We are made to exaggerate the importance of what work we do; and yet how much is not done by us! How vigilant we are! determined not to live by faith if we can avoid it; all the day long on the alert, at night we unwillingly say our prayers and commit ourselves to uncertainties. So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as can be drawn radii from a centre. All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant."

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"To be a philosopher is... to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve the problems of life, not only theoretically. but practically. They make shift to live merely by conformity, practically as their fathers did, and are in no sense the progenitors of a nobler race of men. But why do men degenerate ever?What makes families run out? What is the nature of the luxury which enervates and destroys nations? Are we sure that there is none of it in our own lives? The philosopher is in advance of his age even in the outward form of his life. He is not fed, sheltered, clothed, warmed, like his contemporaries. How can a man be a philosopher and not maintain his vital heat by better methods than other men?"

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"In the long run men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high."

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"No doubt another may also think for me; but it is not therefore desirable that he should do so to the exclusion of my thinking for myself."

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"I desire that there may be as many different persons in the world as possible; but I would have each one be very careful to find out and pursue his own way, and not his father's or his mother's or his neighbor's instead."

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"The devil finds employment for the idle."

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"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strikes in vain to relieve. It is the pious slave-breeder devoting the proceeds of every tenth slave to buy a Sunday's liberty for the rest. You boast of spending a tenth part of your income in charity, maybe you should spend the nine tenths so, and done with it."

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"Philanthropy is almost the only virtue which is sufficiently appreciated by mankind. Nay, it is greatly overrated; and it is our selfishness which overrates it... I would not subtract anything from the praise that is due yo philanthropy, but merely demand justice for all who by their lives and works are a blessing to mankind. His goodness must not be a partial and transitory act, but a constant superfluity, which costs nothing and of which he is unconscious. This is a charity that hides a multitude of sins. The philanthropist too often surrounds mankind with the remembrance of his own cast-off griefs as an atmosphere, and calls it sympathy. We should impart our courage, and not our despair, our health and ease, and not our disease, and take care that this does not spread by contagion. I never knew, and never shall know, a worse man than myself."

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"Rescue the drowning and tie your shoestrings. Take your time, and set about some free labor."

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"There is nowhere recorded a simple and irrepressible satisfaction with the gift of life. All health and success does me good, however far off and withdrawn it may appear; all disease and failure helps to make me sad and does me evil, however much sympathy it may have with me or I with it. If, then, we would indeed restore mankind by truly Indian, botanic, magnetic, or natural means, let us first be as simple and well as Nature ourselves, dispel the clouds which hang over our own brows, and take up a little life into our pores... endeavor to become one of the worthies of the world."

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Oh man, I could go on and on, but I don't want to spoil the book for you. Go read it! :)