Tangerine and The Ways A Book Can Affect You

Do you ever have those weird thoughts that pop up sometimes, randomly triggered by something in your everyday life? I don't know, maybe you don't, but I do.

To backtrack a bit, the other day a fifth grader checked out a book called Tangerine. Strangely, the cover and title seemed vaguely familiar to me. I realized that at some point in the past I must have read it. My memory of the book slowly returned, although all I could remember at that point was that it was weird.

The fifth grader returned it, so I checked it out and am now in the midst of reading it. I'm only a few pages in, but I've come across a pattern. I've realized that a ton of those weird thoughts that pop up when randomly triggered came from this book that I read who knows how many years ago (when I was in elementary school, at least).

First of all, there's this part in Tangerine where the MC Paul is talking about his damaged vision, and how his teachers and parents use him as example, because the rumour is that he damaged his eyes from looking straight into the sun. "Teachers and other adults always seemed to value me as an example. I was the living proof that you shouldn't look at an ecplise or you'll go blind; that you shouldn't play in an abandoned refrigerator or you'll suffocate; that you shouldn't go swimming right after you eat or you'll get stomach cramps and drown." I recall that every time someone said to wait to swim after you eat I thought of this book.

Secondly,  in the book the school has portable classrooms. Ever since I read Tangerine, the thought and idea of portable classrooms kept coming back to me.

It's a really odd experience rereading a book you'd almost completely forgotten about, but that has affected you in so many ways and that you remember so well. Other than the memories, I don't remember anything particulary special about Tangerine (although I'm not done rereading yet so I guess I still could remember something). I almost feel like this book haunts me or something.

It's fascinating, the ways a book can affect you, isn't it?

(P.S. I know I'm not doing very well with my blog-every-Monday promise. But at least I'm still posting this week!)

Cliff-hanger Endings: Are They Really That Bad?

Hey guys! In order to make up for my silence over the last while, I thought I'd just give you a short update on what's going on, and then I'll start my post. So, I'm actually in the midst of exams right now so I am taking lots of time studying and writing those (normally my exams would be in June, but because of the kind of courses I'm taking, they're in May). I'm also getting ready for wrapping up school completely and graduating high school in only twoish months! Eek. :D Let's see... I'm also trying to prepare a short story to enter in a local writing contest. I hope to start some fun new blog stuff after I'm done more of my exams, so you have that to look forward to. I have a few ideas up my sleeve. ;)

Anyway, I wanted to talk about endings. The two books that my English class most recently read were A Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence and A Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. Neither of them had very satisfying endings. A Stone Angel ends with the two words "And then..." and that's where the novel ends. The story ending of A Handmaid's Tale ends with the main character being taken away, and whether to safety or to her death the reader doesn't know. Then the last line of the epilogue-like ending is a university professor asking his students "Are there are any questions?" which is funny because, um, YES.

A lot of the students in my class complained loudly about how these endings were horrible, you don't get to find out anything, it wasn't wrapped up nicely at all, etc, etc. Then they write the entire book off as awful because you don't get to find out anything - and what's the point of reading a book that doesn't answer any questions it raises?

Well, that's a discussion for another day. But are these somewhat cliff-hanger endings really that bad? I feel like they are very effective, and they make you think. That is what I like about these endings - they force you to think. If there is anything that makes me love a book, it is that it makes me think. That's part of the reason why I loved Jellicoe Road so much. The intertwined and complicated plots required a whole lot of thinking to figure them out.

I think this is also why those "20 years later" epilogues sometimes really bug me, such as the one in Harry Potter or Rules of Attraction by Simone Elkeles. I feel like they shut down any opportunity for the reader's mind to wander and wonder further about the characters and story. Basically, it shut downs any opportunity for the reader to think about the book.

Yes, endings need to wrap up loose ends and whatnot. But I think they also need to be left at least somewhat open-ended to allow the reader to think and wonder.

So, I want to know what you think about all this... Do you like books that make you think? Do you like endings that wrap up completely, or that are left open? What books have made you think the most?

Are We Missing the Point of The Hunger Games?

So. Maybe I'm just crazy, or maybe I'm just looking waaay too deep into things like I always seem to do. But, I don't know, I get kind of annoyed when I see tons of stuff about "Team Gale" or "Team Peeta" or just in general the obsession over the supposed romance present in The Hunger Games. I can't help but think that, by focusing so much on the romance, we're missing the point.

The first time I read The Hunger Games, I was horrified. It was horrifying to think about kids being forced to kill each other. That same feeling came back when I was watching the movie last night. Is it not sick that all these people from the Capitol are cheering, laughing, being sucked into the TV story of the Games when these kids are going in there to kill each other?? How can you not be thinking that there's something really wrong with this society,  where the main entertainment is an annual war between kids?

Source

There's a John Green quote, that's referring to the difference between lying and writing fiction, that I like. It highlights something about fiction that I like (and that I don't think my non-fiction loving father will ever understand).

"...The other big difference, I would argue, is that lies are attempts to hide the truth by willfully denying facts. Fiction, on the other hand, is an attempt to reveal the truth by ignoring facts."  (Source)

Fiction can be used to reveal the truth. I think different types of books do this in different ways. Contemporary novels, for example, can reveal truths about people and individuals. Dystopian novels have such potential in this area, I think. They have the potential to awaken people to the realities of our world today.

Yes, The Hunger Games is fiction. But today's society's obsession with entertainment and reality TV is real. Violence and war in this day is very, very real. Heck, even kids killing each other is a reality in some places around the world. Lots of dystopian fiction shows us things about our world by extremizing them, or even just incorporating realities into fiction. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, Feed by M.T. Anderson, and others.

It just makes me really frustrated. How can you read books like The Hunger Games and not think beyond the romance?? How can you not ask questions like "how far-fetched is that, really? Could it happen? How different are we really from the crazy entertainment-addicted Capitol citizens?" and then answering them with things like "You know, maybe it can happen. Maybe it is happening. Maybe we're not that different."

The Hunger Games is so, so much more than the romance, or the stupid "love triangle". Dystopians should, I think, make us wake up to harsh realties in our own reality, our own society, our world today. They should make us think. Every book should make us think. But I think (whoa, lots of thinking... haha) that the relationship in The Hunger Games, or any book, should not be our focal point.

What do you think? Are we missing the point of The Hunger Games?

Would I Be Less Impressed? I Think Not

I actually wrote this post a few weeks ago so some of the information is a little bit outdated... but I decided that I liked it so now I'm posting it. :)

I had the scariest dream EVER the other night... I was dreaming that I went into the living room late at night to get a book from the bookshelf where we keep the library books that we get out, and my library books WEREN'T THERE. And I was like, OH NO I took all the library books back and I WASN'T DONE ALL OF THEM!!!! And there were some really good books in there that I wanted to read, too!! What a nightmare... thankfully, I woke up, and all my library books were still there. YAY!

OK, anyways... my book-related nightmares are not the subject of this post. Actually, I wanted to talk about a question that YA author Elana Johnson asked last week . She was talking about all her online acheivements when she asked: would you be less impressed? 

The pressing question is this: Would you be less impressed? I honestly want to know. In this wide world of blogging, have we allowed ourselves to get carried away? Have we somehow deluded ourselves that our blog matters? That we can't write good books without blogging? That people will be disappointed in an author if they don't have a blog/Facebook/twitter?

Are we less impressed by the author who doesn't have an online presence?

So I think somehow this is backwards... if anything, why would I be impressed by an author's online presence? An author is not a blogger, nor a Facebooker, nor a twitterer. An author is someone who writes books. If anything, I should be impressed by the author's writing.

Before I joined the online writing community, I had absolutely no idea so many authors had blogs and websites and such. I read books, I read LOTS of books. And if I so  happened to fall in love with a book, then I would want to devour everything I could about that book, or more. If that meant scouring the earth for another book by the same author, so be  it (uh... actually, I still do this...) and usually I would do this by looking at an author's website, but pretty much the only thing I would click there is the "BOOKS" link, and then subsequently put all the books available by the author in my library on hold. To be honest, the author as a person didn't really matter to me - just the author as a writer.

If an author wants to impress me, they should put all their efforts into practising writing, honing their craft, trying to be the best they can be so their writing shines and when I'm done their book I sit back and go "ahhhh" in contentment.

I have an example for you... so, I read these books by this author, Megan Whalen Turner. The books were The Thief, Queen of Attolia and King of Attolia. I was seriously blown away by this woman's ability. Her writing was so clever and amazing and surprising and utterly perfect my jaw was dropped in awe after each new book in the series. I didn't find her online. Even after I read her books, I didn't find that she had much of an online presence. Was I less impressed? No, because that's not what mattered.

I think I shall use math to make my point:
Loving book leads to finding online presence > online presence leads to picking up book

I know there are lot of people who are online and find books that way (honestly I add more books to my TBR list from review blogs than books of authors whose blogs I follow) but there are a lot of people who find books other ways, too.

So, to answer the question: "would I be less impressed" the answer would be, I wouldn't even care if I never saw you online. As long as you give me a good book to read. ;)

What do you think? Would you be less impressed?

On Reading A Book With No Baggage

Guess what? Today you get to do an activity!! Yay!! So, what I want you to do is either get up and walk around or just look at the stuff around you. As your eyes wander over the many items that surround your computer or desk or whatever, try to leave all your judgments and past experiences behind. Try to not think of anything but that object that you are looking at.

It's kind of hard, isn't it, to not bring our past experiences and judgments and thoughts to the experiences of our present. Our brain is always churning out thoughts and judgments and reminders and it attaches meaning to objects based on different things that we've experienced in our lives.

So I was thinking about this the other day in relation to reading a book. When I read a book, I bring all my past experiences and judgments of previous books and stories I have read and wrote to the forefront when I am reading a book, and that then affects my experience of that book.

Maybe because I've read way too many cheesy romance novels, I just can't get into this romance novel even though it's not too cheesy. Or something along those lines.

But then I thought: what if we DIDN'T lug along those thoughts from our past to the experiences of our present? What if we could just enjoy the book we are reading AS IS, without comparing or contrasting or measuring up or any of that stuff?

Would we be able to enjoy the book more, see things that we'd never be able to see otherwise? Or are those judgments based on our past just part of how we read?

Hmm...



Bring the suitcase? Or trash it?



How People Think

This afternoon, as I was getting my haircut a chair over from me a woman was getting her hair dyed and cut. And, as happens so often, she was talking (to her hairdresser; not to me) and I was listening. (Listening! Not eavesdropping *ahem*, well.) I listened to her talk about various things like buying a house, or going out for dinner tonight and just by listening to a few random snippets of conversation I learned quite about this woman. For one, that she does or has lived in a condo in Toronto and is now looking for a house in Winnipeg. I also learned that she is a widow, and has kids that are grown and have kids of their own.

I was thinking about this -the interesting things you can learn about a stranger just by listening, and people's stories - when all of a sudden....

Flashback!

To... last night, me, my brother, my sister, my mom and my dad all standing (or lying down or sitting) around my parent's room and chatting at 10:30 PM about various things. Well, at first my mother and father were arguing, basically about who was right or who was wrong and it was all very amusing. Then it became even more amusing when my dad started reminiscing about the days when they were first married and they (my mom and dad) were working out their relationship, and how to deal with things, and Dad said that it helped him extremely to think of their relationship in terms of graphs.

Just by that, you can probably get a fairly decent picture of my dad in all his glorious nerdiness (today he and my cousin spent the day testing their cameras through various nerdy setups). Then he went on to say how he often thinks of things in terms of math, or science, and it helps him understand things.

This, I thought, was a very interesting concept: That different people think in terms of different things, favouring their interests.

I also wondered: what do I think in terms of?

And, in a lot of instances, I think in terms of... stories. :) Yup. Or really, what if questions that turn into stories. For example, once when I took the recycling out to the curb on a cold day in winter I noted that cold air really clears your head.

All of a sudden my brain was saying: what if someone really loved that feeling of being clear-headed? And they knew they could get it from the cold? And they were slightly crazy? And so they loved that feeling so much that they froze themselves to death....

My family thought I was, um, crazy.

What do you think in terms of? Math? Science? Stories?