jamface

The book was so good. I wish I hadn’t put it off for so long. I love reading fiction written by authors with real life cred. My heart is warmed.

Finished this one. I really liked the narrator, Nick. His neutral air reminds me of Mersault from The Stranger and also of Brett. I really liked Jordan too. She was the only girl with a head on her shoulders.

Generally though I thought it was a little boring until the end. Maybe I only think the ends of books are exciting because I had to read through all the slow stuff to get to it, so it’s entertaining by comparison.

I read Animal Farm on the bus from Toronto to Philly. I was impressed as it’s the first book since the Magic Treehouse series that I finished in one day. Of course, it’s only 94 pages so I might as well have been reading a Magic Treehouse book.

I don’t have much to say about it other than to reiterate my deepening love for George Orwell. Truly a man after my own heart.

oh man. one, coming of age is homoerotic no matter how you spin it. two, the socialization of boys is truly disturbing. three, i wonder how this story would play out with an island of girls. i doubt we will ever know. four, jesus. and also, this book is a case and point for why patriarchy has ruined the world.

life story by tennessee williams

i sort of thought this guy was a nerd after i read the glass menagerie, but now i’m pretty sure he is cool. awesomely cool.

thanks, brett.

anyone lived in a little how town, also.

this poem rocks. this guy has been screwing with the english language since way before it was cool.

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

i know everybody knows this, but i stumbled upon it again while i was googling a show called ‘outrageous fortune’ and i remembered how awesome it is. so read it again. i had half of it memorized, which makes me feel fancy.

i recently finished the first book in Gulliver’s Travels. a lot of the satire went over my head because i’m not up on my 18th century english history. cliff notes helped a lot with this one.

the best part, i think, is how all the little people used to break their eggs on the big side. but then the lilliputians declared that it was illegal on pain of death to break your egg on any end other than the small one, which led to a great schism from which constant war and mass murder arise. the lilliputians and the Big-Endians just can’t get along. i think it’s pretty clever for some obvious reasons.

i just finished the stranger by albert camus. i read it in high school and remember really liking it, but i didn’t remember the second half. this book is so bloody brilliant.

the first half is all parisian. meursault reminds me of brett, if brett lived in paris. i actually found his men’s warehouse receipt inside the book. the whole thing seems so real and genuine because the language is so awesomely straight forward.

the second half reminds me why i like existentialism. and it also reminds me of 1984, particularly the part where meursault thinks, “the condemned man was forced into a kind of moral collaboration.” man, 1984 is good too.