Below is the list of books I've read and not liked:
1. Lord of the Flies
2. The Hobbit
3. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
4. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
5. Out
6. 1984
7. The Red Badge of Courage
8. Hundred Years of Solitude
9. Ramayana
10. The Joy Luck Club
11. Kitchen God's Wife
12. China Boy
13. Black Boy
14. The Plague
15. Raisin in the Sun
16. Nectar in a Sieve
17. Twelfth Night
18. The Alchemist
19. Waiting for Godot
20. Outsiders
21. My Side of the Mountain
22. A Wrinkle in Time
For Lord of the Flies, Out, Nectar in a Sieve, and Raisin in the Sun, there were brief moments when I was engaged in the books. But the interest didn't last nearly as long as I had hoped. To be fair, though, my auditory skills and my desire to enjoy them were underdeveloped back then. I was completely uninterested and bored out of my mind when reading Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 1984, Kitchen God's Wife, and most of all, The Red Badge of Courage. I've tried re-reading these books a number of times because I was exposed to them at too early of an age when I wasn't at the maturity to appreciate such material, beginning in the sixth grade! How can you expect modern children to be receptive to those types of reading at such an age?!?! These books set place in an entirely different time, isolated from the world I'm exposed to and am a part of. For Hundred Years of Solitude, I didn't find the writing style to be unbearable, but it wasn't very captivating, either. This is the kind of book where the contents should wow you and because it didn't do it for me, it was more of a chore. I found the characters easy to follow, the life imaginable or as imaginable as can be for an outside observer. It just didn't grab me. The same can be said about The Alchemist. I was able to read The Alchemist within a few hours and had a vivid image in my mind, but I couldn't relate to it. Similarly to Hundred Years of Solitude, Ramayana was easy to visualize and I was able to keep up with the dynamic structure and character contrasts, but I wasn't able to quickly read through it. While I was reading it, I was attentive. But I wasn't necessarily enjoying how all the characters connected, which is probably why at the end I didn't find the experience productive. I saw the connections, but I didn't feel it as a reader. The Joy Luck Club, Kitchen God's Wife, China Boy, Black Boy, and The Plague all have a bleak and struggling identity, which I wasn't receptive to. The first four have a cultural influence. I could almost appreciate the dynamic and depths that the authors' went into; I just didn't feel it considering the subjective, perhaps. The Plague, on the other hand, possesses a mundanely depressive tone lacking dimensions in my opinion. I doubt I can ever appreciate a book that flat. Diversity has always been important to me. Raisin in the Sun and Nectar in a Sieve came closer to me than the other cultural books, but it didn't quite do it for me. At this point I feel that Japanese, Chinese, and Southern cultural fiction is of no interest for me, but maybe I should explore Indian and African literature. I think I evolved as a reader and enjoyed the last two books, not so much because of the difference in cultural exposure but the writing style was more appealing to me, too. Twelfth Night was a huge accomplishment for me because I feared that I would have difficulty adapting to the language usage, but I conquered. Still, I don't think I quite understood Shakespeare's emotional intent because the play was nothing the way I expected it to be. I found the whole charade to be insulting and callous, not dryly humorous. The story didn't amuse me. But I believed it strengthened my focus as a reader. Waiting for Godot isn't the kind of book I imagine too many people enjoying reading. It's more of a book you read so that you can explicate it. I enjoyed analyzing the literature more than reading it. In fact, that holds true for the following books: Lord of the Flies, Out, Hundred Years of Solitude, Ramayana, Joy Luck Club, Twelfth Night, and The Alchemist. The Outsiders, My Side of the Mountain, and A Wrinkle in Time were tolerable, but it was nothing meaningful. I truly believe that I'm understanding the material because I analyze it in group discussions, even debates, and written expressions with success. I suppose that interpretation is also subjective, but my performance really isn't the point.
Books I Have Enjoyed:
1) What Your Doctor Won't (Or Can't) Tell You
2) The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
3) The Kiss
4) Personal Finance for Dummies
5) Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion
6) The Lingerie Handbook
7) A Child Called "It"
8) Maupassant's Selected Short Stories (In the Spring)
9) The Craft
10) The Modern Girl's Guide to Life
11) The Witches
12) The Lingerie Handbook
I really enjoy productive books because I can make more connections with it, bond with the information, be shocked. I find reality to be far more startling than the contents of a vivid imagination. What Your Doctor Won't (or Can't) Tell You did just that. The horrors that are going on in the medical industry strips away your faith in humanity, lose respect for people in the medical community, and fills your soul with fear and distrust. It exposes us to the reality that even doctors can make horrifying mistakes and demonstrate their capacity for chronic ignorance and stupidity, even more so than the rest of us because of their opportunities. It's the kind of material that stimulates other thoughts in my mind such as society's misguided willingness to excuse and sometimes conceal these atrocious errors. I liked The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat for the same reason why I enjoyed the first book, how enlightening it is. I learn something from it, gain new knowledge, benefit from it; I change from it. What I once believed, what I thought I knew, is a thing of the past after receiving such insights. Personal Finance for Dummies, is admittedly a dry topic, but I enjoyed it because of the consequential advantages from utilizing the information. If it were financially-related, I wouldn't have added it to the list, though.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Sunday, August 3, 2008
My Challenges
For as long as I can remember, I've had difficulty enjoying literature the way most people do. I feel that I've put in the effort and am desperately trying to be open to the material, but it's high time I be honest with myself. It's the only way I can ever hope to make progress. I have a lot of criticisms for why I don't enjoy a lot of fiction books. When I was younger, I felt like when the author was painting an image of the environment, mostly, and the characters to make the readers feel like we can see what's happening, as though we're there, my concentration would wear thin. I found it distracting and couldn't connect with it. I was so confused by that outcome because I have a vivid imagination. My auditory skills were weak then. That may have played a role. I lacked the discipline to focus my attention required to perceive the accumulative image. I was unable to appreciate the message because I wasn't putting in the effort to listen. Or that's my theory, anyways. I do find that when I read, I have a visual depiction in the back of my mind somewhere that was lacking in the past. It makes the book more real, but it doesn't necessarily make it enjoyable.
Additionally, my receptivity is largely influenced by the grammatical structure and speech of the written material. I'm an American, and when I read, I generally read with ease and fluency. But when the speech is grammatically choppy to portray a foreign character or depict speech with historical accuracy in other parts of the world, I find myself having great difficulty absorbing the contents. Allow me to elaborate. Reading Shakespeare's Twelve Night, didn't turn out to be the treacherous task I feared it would be. Although the speech is ordered and presented differently from modern English, I was able to adapt to it. It was distinct enough that it didn't conflict with how I speak. Ellen Foster, on the other hand, proved to be an immense challenge. As I read silently or aloud, I would unintentionally add words that weren't present to make it grammatically correct. This clashed with reality, and I often found myself stuck in a perpetual stutter, unable to move forward until the distinctions were acknowledged. These intrusive disruptions kept me at an isolated distance. Truthfully, I found the contents to be rather boring and unmoving. So I imagine I wouldn't have liked this book either way, but the grammatical inaccuracies undeniably contributed to my disliking. Books that have Southern characters conflict with me. I almost feel guilty admitting this, as though I'm being prejudice. In a way I am. It's nothing personal, and I mean no offense by it. But it is what it is. When speech is similar enough to how I speak, I find the flow very disruptive.
Cultural and historical settings may have more of a significant impact than I've originally perceived. I don't enjoy historical fiction very much, mostly because I can't relate to it. I used to consider historical literature to be of no interest to me. But now I suspect that it's a precise historical context I'm seeking. When I read the Japanese translated literature, Out, I was disappointed by how much I loathed reading it. It was the Winner of Japan's Top Mystery Award. I have no idea if that award is prestigious or generic and unimportant, but readers have praised this book, conveying that they've read no book like this. I believed it was the Japanese influence American readers appreciated and found refreshing. Being Japanese, I thought I'd be able to appreciate the perversion and sadistically oppressive tone. I am, after all, more engaged in Japanese drama than I am American ones. Instead, I found the character's logical extreme and chronic hypocrisy to be infuriating, suffocating, irrational, and incessant. I found a lot of the pages replaying the same depiction over and over again. If the women in that story weren't so disingenuous and falsely loyal, they wouldn't be so unhappy and whiny was what I kept thinking. Culturally I can understand the misplaced obligation, but it's still frustrating to me. I found the characters to be described in a crude and judgmental tone, which I found mildly offensive. The male scums weren't nearly as scrutinized. I couldn't blind myself to the blatantly contrasting treatment of depiction. Over analysis and biases had clearly interfered, so if you're neutral, you might be able to enjoy it. But I'm not. I wish I was, but I can't change who I am, nor would I want to. The characters were bluntly colored, although briefly expressed were far more memorable than the never ending bland and mundane portrayal of the Japanese homes and jobs the characters held.
I can't seem to appreciate bleak story lines. I find them so stagnant. In the beginning of the book, everything is crummy. In the end, it's still crummy. I need more fluctuations, transitions, and depth. Perhaps the depths lie within the predictable normality, and I'm not keen enough to notice it. If that's the case, it's unfortunate. But that means I can't enjoy books like those. This is how I felt when I read The Plague. The mildly depressing and weakly persistent tone made me regret my hardened dedication and discipline. I would have much rather done something more entertaining, but the idea of unfinished books fills me with vast inadequacies I was unwilling to face. If the complaints had more drama and flair or slight variations within its similarities, I may have felt differently. I didn't perceive the continual bleakness to be an evolving plot. I found the writing to be bland. It didn't do anything for me.
While content is important to me, I believe the writer's ability to tell a story has a huge impact on me. No matter how great a plot is, if it's poorly expressed, I don't have the tenacity to be actively engaged. I don't believe that I have to relate to the story. I suspect, though, that the writing should be vibrant and lively but not over-dramatic.
Additionally, my receptivity is largely influenced by the grammatical structure and speech of the written material. I'm an American, and when I read, I generally read with ease and fluency. But when the speech is grammatically choppy to portray a foreign character or depict speech with historical accuracy in other parts of the world, I find myself having great difficulty absorbing the contents. Allow me to elaborate. Reading Shakespeare's Twelve Night, didn't turn out to be the treacherous task I feared it would be. Although the speech is ordered and presented differently from modern English, I was able to adapt to it. It was distinct enough that it didn't conflict with how I speak. Ellen Foster, on the other hand, proved to be an immense challenge. As I read silently or aloud, I would unintentionally add words that weren't present to make it grammatically correct. This clashed with reality, and I often found myself stuck in a perpetual stutter, unable to move forward until the distinctions were acknowledged. These intrusive disruptions kept me at an isolated distance. Truthfully, I found the contents to be rather boring and unmoving. So I imagine I wouldn't have liked this book either way, but the grammatical inaccuracies undeniably contributed to my disliking. Books that have Southern characters conflict with me. I almost feel guilty admitting this, as though I'm being prejudice. In a way I am. It's nothing personal, and I mean no offense by it. But it is what it is. When speech is similar enough to how I speak, I find the flow very disruptive.
Cultural and historical settings may have more of a significant impact than I've originally perceived. I don't enjoy historical fiction very much, mostly because I can't relate to it. I used to consider historical literature to be of no interest to me. But now I suspect that it's a precise historical context I'm seeking. When I read the Japanese translated literature, Out, I was disappointed by how much I loathed reading it. It was the Winner of Japan's Top Mystery Award. I have no idea if that award is prestigious or generic and unimportant, but readers have praised this book, conveying that they've read no book like this. I believed it was the Japanese influence American readers appreciated and found refreshing. Being Japanese, I thought I'd be able to appreciate the perversion and sadistically oppressive tone. I am, after all, more engaged in Japanese drama than I am American ones. Instead, I found the character's logical extreme and chronic hypocrisy to be infuriating, suffocating, irrational, and incessant. I found a lot of the pages replaying the same depiction over and over again. If the women in that story weren't so disingenuous and falsely loyal, they wouldn't be so unhappy and whiny was what I kept thinking. Culturally I can understand the misplaced obligation, but it's still frustrating to me. I found the characters to be described in a crude and judgmental tone, which I found mildly offensive. The male scums weren't nearly as scrutinized. I couldn't blind myself to the blatantly contrasting treatment of depiction. Over analysis and biases had clearly interfered, so if you're neutral, you might be able to enjoy it. But I'm not. I wish I was, but I can't change who I am, nor would I want to. The characters were bluntly colored, although briefly expressed were far more memorable than the never ending bland and mundane portrayal of the Japanese homes and jobs the characters held.
I can't seem to appreciate bleak story lines. I find them so stagnant. In the beginning of the book, everything is crummy. In the end, it's still crummy. I need more fluctuations, transitions, and depth. Perhaps the depths lie within the predictable normality, and I'm not keen enough to notice it. If that's the case, it's unfortunate. But that means I can't enjoy books like those. This is how I felt when I read The Plague. The mildly depressing and weakly persistent tone made me regret my hardened dedication and discipline. I would have much rather done something more entertaining, but the idea of unfinished books fills me with vast inadequacies I was unwilling to face. If the complaints had more drama and flair or slight variations within its similarities, I may have felt differently. I didn't perceive the continual bleakness to be an evolving plot. I found the writing to be bland. It didn't do anything for me.
While content is important to me, I believe the writer's ability to tell a story has a huge impact on me. No matter how great a plot is, if it's poorly expressed, I don't have the tenacity to be actively engaged. I don't believe that I have to relate to the story. I suspect, though, that the writing should be vibrant and lively but not over-dramatic.
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
When we transcend beyond views of segregation and inequality, while acknowledging the uniqueness in all of us will we be able to see the keen intelligence and fully appreciate the human mind, both spiritually and physically, the way this author does. He manages to approach things with an open and eager mind, granting him profound discoveries of remarkable gifts in the most vegetative individuals. His ability to see his hidden treasures in the seemingly hopeless reveals to us how unobservant and unaware we really are. This book not only leaves you with a sense of awe and admiration for his patients but has the ability to restore your faith in humanity and reminds us of the remarkable creatures we truly are. It makes you re-examine your perspective and realize that there's always more than what meets the eye, no matter how bleak. If someone can see the glimmer of light in such darkness and make it so apparent, it makes us realize how flawed our viewpoints are. It's not only an inspirational read. It's also educational, not just about the complexities of our biological makeup but of ourselves.
This book is inspiring, profound, and the most intellectually innovative that I've read. It makes you re-examine everything. It expands your viewpoint and perspective beyond realms and concepts outside our standard thinking. You enter into an abstract reality most of us don't consider or even realize exists for a myriad of reasons. After reading this book, I curiously daydreamed if a time will ever come for me when I can see such beauty, hope, alternative realities, real and imagined, as Oliver Sacks does. With such a bright mind, I suspect Sacks' discoveries will be endless. To be able to see so much in select individuals society deduces as inept is not only refreshing but the epitome of a perceptive and keen mind.
Details about the actual book will shortly be added.
This book is inspiring, profound, and the most intellectually innovative that I've read. It makes you re-examine everything. It expands your viewpoint and perspective beyond realms and concepts outside our standard thinking. You enter into an abstract reality most of us don't consider or even realize exists for a myriad of reasons. After reading this book, I curiously daydreamed if a time will ever come for me when I can see such beauty, hope, alternative realities, real and imagined, as Oliver Sacks does. With such a bright mind, I suspect Sacks' discoveries will be endless. To be able to see so much in select individuals society deduces as inept is not only refreshing but the epitome of a perceptive and keen mind.
Details about the actual book will shortly be added.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)