Thursday, April 29, 2004

Bouncing Subjects
Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate,
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice

~Robert Frost

I don't know why I like that poem so much...it's not exactly cheerfull. It did give me something to post, though.

Recently, in history/english class, I have been reading a book called "Defying Hitler: A Memoir". It's by a man named Sebastion Haffner, a German. He was alive during both World Wars, and was one of the silent majority who hated everything the Nazis stood for. In the book, he was talking about and trying to explain the mentality that has to be present for an entire nation to be so misled. It's a good book, even if I still don't understand how the Nazis happened.

Another book I've been reading lately is "Little Women", by Louisa May Alcott. I do NOT like that book. I LOATHE that book. And it's not that it's too girly or anything like that, because "Anne of Green Gables" is girly, and it's one of my favorite books. I think it's just the unrelenting CHEERFULLNESS that pervades the entire book...it's unrealistic, and that's why I dislike it. Anne Shirley is always unrealistically cheerful too, but she KNOWS that she is, and that's the POINT!! Why couldn't I have volunteered to read "Anne of Green Gables" again, instead of "Little Women"?!?

A good book is "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury. I like Ray Bradbury, because his words are like poetry, even though he writes in prose, and he gets just the right mixture of wonder, nostalgia and scariness. "Fahrenheit 451" is about a time in the not-so-distant future, where books are outlawed, and how one man discovers why. It's in the same genre as "1984", "Animal Farm" and "Brave New World", but I like it better because it ends on a positive note. And, just in case you were wondering, 451 degrees F is the temperature at which book paper burns, and that's how they destroy books. Well, my father is breathing down my neck...he wants his computer back...TTFN!

~Ozy J.
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