Evening Concert, Saint-Chapelle Response

Saint-Chapelle: Paris, France

After Ana did her poetry response on Evening Concert, Sainte-Chapelle, I was inspired. I started thinking about this poem, and the more I read it, the more I fell in love with it. Ana opened my eyes to look at this poem and read it with a different, analytical perspective. I don’t think the person in the poem is someone who just went into the Saint-Chapelle and heard the music, but rather, he or she was in the orchestra itself. My reasoning for this lies in the third line, “we rustled into place.” I could imagine this very well; the musicians rustling their music and getting into place—it creates an imagery that makes this poem seem very realistic. Also, he refers to the violins as “his” a lot. In the line “our violins were cased in thin but solid sheets of lead” I think he’s saying that the music is so strong it cannot be contained in regular sheets of music—that it’s so vivid it takes a form so strong hardly anything can keep it together. Also in this line of, “until our beating hearts…” I relate to this line in a personal way; when I play my violin, it sometimes feels as if my heartbeat aligns with the beat of the music.

      I loved absolutely loved how John Updike used Vivaldi in his poem: he is one of my favorite composers. I picture The Four Seasons (Vivaldi’s most famous piece) playing in the background while all the colors of the cathedral light up the atmosphere. It’s convenient to know the background knowledge to this poem—like that Vivaldi has a smoother; more connected style, whereas Brahms has a short, staccato and frantic touch to his music. Overall, I feel like this poem read very smoothly, and I loved it.

The Heart of Darkness

I’m going to be completely honest and say that I was not looking forward to reading The Heart of Darkness. At all. But when I finally sat down and started reading, it wasn't so bad--even if it gave me the most trouble out of the three books. I did not understand what was going on in the first few pages—I’ll admit, I may have been a bit distracted, but eventually, I caught on to the fact that Marlow was telling a story to Conrad. A narrator within a narrator? Clever-- but kind of confusing. After I figured that out, the book started looking up, and my understanding for it increased as well.

To start off, I liked that Marlow was relatively open-minded. He seemed to be knowledgeable about the world, and I guess that makes sense seeing as though he is a sailor. Though it was horrible that he had to witness the brutality in the Congo, it was necessary to make him the person he is. By him being open-minded, he had more of an impact on the book itself, and it made him a more reliable character. I hate seeing the cruelty in men; not only because it makes me sick to my stomach, but because it isn’t completely fiction. There has been and still is cruelty in mankind. When Marlow first meets the natives, I could imagine the sadness within their hearts; I could just picture them tied to each other by the neck with a look of hopelessness that their life would ever be good and fair again. The idea of this majestic island contrasting with the brutality of man was an effective way of writing made by Joseph Conrad. It gave the feel of the island being suitable for the white man, but it was a complete opposite experience for the natives. The imagery I obtained from these contrasting ideas made me think of the book as more realistic, and by doing so, it had more of an impact on me. Kurtz was someone whom I pictured really well. I give him credit for being as clever as he was. He was a great leader; he was a very talented person in general. And I didn’t imagine the famous line, “The horror! The horror!” to come out of his mouth. I feel pretty cool knowing what that line is from now. :)

For this book, I annotated it by looking more at Joseph Conrad’s style. His writing was very elegant and the transitions flowed fairly nicely. Like I mentioned before, his use of contrasting ideas made the book that much more interesting to read. It wasn’t an easy read by any means, but I feel that by focusing on Joseph Conrad’s writing style, it made me get a better understanding if the book. I couldn’t help but compare his writing style to that of Hosseini. I liked Hosseini’s writing style a lot more, but I noticed that both writers were big in the foreshadowing department; also, both Conrad and Hosseini used contrasting ideas in their writing. Conrad used it for the big and majestic island compared to the evil within man, and Hosseini used this writing style to compare Hassan with Amir--it was pretty cool to see the similarities. :)

The Great Gatsby

Maybe it’s just me, but I felt like this book had no actual plot. Perhaps I’m missing a huge part, or I’m not picking up on the symbolic arrangements in the book, but it seemed like an easy and somewhat boring read. I felt like Fitzgerald did not build up to the excitement of the climax of the book, and when the actual ‘climax’ happened, per say, it ended just as quickly as it started. I felt as if one moment Gatsby was in no way connected to Daisy besides through Nick, and then all of a sudden it turns out they've known eachother for years. It felt like I didn’t know much about Gatsby until after he died, which made me a little sad because he was one of the semi decent people in the book.

It was hard to imagine this book taking place in the 1920's, so when it talked about how it was okay for a man to have a 'mistress,' that took some getting used to for me. I wish I could connect more to Gatsby or Nick, and then perhaps I could connect more to the story itself. I did, however, feel bad for Gatsby when no one came to his funeral. And also It was sad how Nick called person after person and still no one showed up to show their respects towards Gatsby. Gatsby seemed like a relatively nice guy, so it was strange that no one came. Wolfheim had said he did not want to get tangled up in those kinds of affairs, but for the others, I couldn't figure out why they didn't go. It was also sad how Gatsby did so much for Daisy. He was determined to go into the Army and earn a lot of money to solely impress her. He went through so much trouble to 'woo' her and to spend time with her, only to get shot in the end--because of her.

For this book, I used the interact with the book annotation because I knew that I needed to try and connect with the storyline as much as I could to pick up on the little things. It actually helped me stay focused and it helped me transition through the scenes a lot smoother. I would read this book during my off time at work and several people who would see the book would ask me how I liked it. I told them that it was okay, but person after person would tell me to stop reading it—that it was a “waste of time.” I didn't think it was necessarily a waste of time, and it didn’t seem so bad while I was reading it, but once I finished it, I was apathetic about Fitzgerald's story. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t love it.

The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner was the first book I read out of the three, and let me begin by saying that I have the upmost respect for Khaled Hosseini for writing such a great piece of literature. When the lengthy novel arrived at my doorstep, I somewhat dreaded the fact of having to take time out of my summer schedule to sit down and actually begin reading and annotating the book. Fortunately, to my surprise, I found myself having difficulty setting the book down; it was such an engrossing piece of fiction. The eloquence Hosseini demonstrated in his writing was remarkable. There were sections in which I found myself smiling how perfectly Hosseini explained what he had to say. “Every woman needed a husband. Even if he did silence the song in her.” I read this sentence over multiple times baffled by how in one line, Hosseini described the relationship between Soraya’s mother and father—and how it made sense to me.

 I loved the way Hosseini described Hassan and Amir’s relationship. It was so precious, and after reading the alley part, I hated Amir. I hated him for ruining such a strong friendship. I hated him for being a coward, for being dishonest, and for being greedy. Hassan never deserved any of that. Hassan was loyal, honest, and selfless. I felt pain for Hassan. I wanted nothing more than for Hassan to have the life he’s always dreamed of and for Amir to have to live with redemption. Sadly, in the end, that’s not how it turned out. I was heartbroken when Amir found out Hassan had been shot and that his only son had become an orphan. It was sad, but Hosseini did an excellent job in using contrasting ideas to describe the main characters. I believe that his purpose for this was to show that no matter how different these two were, in the end, they were still connected through blood. It made Hassan and Amir’s relationship seem stronger, and made the reader empathize with the novel even more.

There have been few books in which I have actually cried while reading them, and I thought for sure that The Kite Runner would add to that list—but it didn’t. Rather, I found a sort of emptiness within me. It was a mix of sadness, sympathy, and satisfaction all dealt into one emotion. I didn’t want the book to end the way it did, but at the same time, I wouldn’t have wanted it to end any other way. It made no sense, and that takes serious talent from the author. Amir finally deserved the silence he had that night in the alley, and he got it from the only person who would’ve truly impacted him--Hassan’s son, his own nephew. Amir needed to be punished for his actions to finally rid of the guilt he’s had to live with for so long. It was hard for me to sympathize with Amir-- The last line; however, did cause me to slightly change my opinion of Amir. “For you a thousand times over.” I loved it: It was simple. It was perfect.