Posts Tagged "literature"

a modern classic

bookI’ve heard about “The Great Gatsby” before but I never had the chance to read it until recently. I discovered a new copy of the book in my brother-in-law’s bookshelf. He’s supposed to write a literary analysis on it for his English subject. When I asked him if I could borrow the book, he gave it to me willingly and told me that it looks like he didn’t spend money on the book for nothing after all because there is somebody who likes to read it. He later confessed that he based his literary analysis on a translated summary of the story he found in the internet.

I could understand why he did that because after reading the book, I can tell that it is not an easy read for 15-year old non native English speakers. I, myself, had the difficulty reading it to the very end. I don’t know why. I suppose I’m not for these kinds of reads. I was, of course, able to follow the story but I just know that this literary piece has more to it than the story itself and I am not the kind to probe into the meanings of the things in between the lines. In short, I don’t over analyze. When I read a book, I am all for the story and the experience I get while reading it.

“The Great Gatsby” is a modern classic. I’ve read it. I think the story is very interesting but I’ll leave it to the intellectuals to discuss it.

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the twilight saga

tsWhen Twilight came out, I didn’t bother to read it. To me it was like… teenage vampire story—sooo Buffy. I liked Buffy a lot but I sort of grew out of it and all teenage vampire stories after Buffy were, in my opinion, unoriginal. By the time Twilight came out, I thought that fantasy novels about vampires were behind me so even if it was a big hit, I stayed away from it. Then the movie “New Moon” came out.  Out of curiosity fueled by Lamielle’s eagerness for and constant talk of it, I hauled my husband to watch it with me and I have to say that it is by far the most dragging movie I’ve ever seen. It was like every scene lingers so long to kill air time. The whole time, I was like….common’, let’s move on to the next scene already!!!

I was so disappointed after watching the movie but I later realized that my disappointment is groundless. What did I expect? I didn’t know anything about it. I didn’t read the books. I didn’t even watch the first movie, Twilight. So what I did was, I bought all four books and read them all in the span of six days. After reading the first book I thought about how other people could compare it to Harry Potter!?! I mean, it lacked the richness that HP has. Too few characters, too few conflicts, too few everything…

But I continued reading until I’m done with all the books  not only because I want to get the value for what I spent on them but also because I found some things likeable. The plot is not as fascinating as HP (which is of course not comparable to The Lord of the Rings) but a lot of lines were so well written. I noticed that as the story progresses, the author gets better with how she writes. She added some interesting characters and some interesting twists too. Some of these addition were too much and some were too late that they didn’t make sense anymore.

Overall, I am not so impressed with the plot but I’d give the author, Stephenie Meyer, the thumbs up for being able to write like that—vivid descriptions of the scenes and emotions. I don’t know if I’ll read the Twilight saga again (like I did with HP)…I am not holding my breath for it but I’ll keep them in my collection.

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Waves

Rolling waters to my feet
Oh please stop! Don’t be a tease.
Romance the sand, woo the land
But don’t seduce me, d’you understand?

I know you are so clear so blue
A real treasure to anyone’s view.
But though you are all these and more,
The sun is not, he gives me sore.

He only not darkens my skin,
He also burns it and make it sting.
So alluring Waves, now you know
Why I can only watch you come and go.

Vienna Lopez
18.03.09
Banana Island

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