AWKWARD ZOMBIE

Wish I had more time to read this semester. Finished "The Internet is a playground" not too long ago- not a conventional book by any means but I was laughing out loud with almost every 'article' featured, so I'd recommended it.

Have a new HP Lovecraft collection to start on once I get more time. It's almost more fun reading about the author himself though- watched a documentary about him- really fascinating. And is it just me or is finding his Cthulhu Mythos stories strangely difficult for them being his most popular works?

started reading my conan books again

daisies YOU ROBERT JORDON I CANT GET TO SLEEP NOW BECAUSE OF YOUR FETHING BOOKS

I think the biggest book in this house is my huge-booty Lovecraft collection, which contains every story he ever published

I love it so much

Anne McCaffrey is dead. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/no ... sfeed=true

Oh my God noooooo D:

I didn't read many of her books but I found what I read interesting.

I pretty much grew up on her books. Acorna series, Rowan series, Pegasus in Flight/Space, Restoree, Ship Who Sang, and several others.

John Green read the first two chapters of his book that comes out in January on his youtube channel.

Blargh so excited.

Finished reading "The Awakening" by Kate Chopin for a class. Kind of boring, even if it was exploring a controversial issue for the time. And the ending was more of a sighing moment than depressing. "She committed suicide. Why? Oh well, book's over, let's write that essay."

Going to be finishing "White Noise" by Don Delillo tomorrow in preparation for that essay.

She killed herself because it was the best way to preserve her control over her own life. The ocean was a symbol of her independence from her husband and she encompassed herself in it in a final permanent gesture so that she wouldn't have to live trapped in a world where everyone was trying to force her to live for others.

Except by committing suicide she gave up that control by ending her life. She had already been fighting and being her own person. The only thing she couldn't do was be with Robert. And honestly? Committing suicide over love never endears me to a character. It's the main reason I hate Romeo and Juliet so much.

But it was her choice to end her life rather than to live it in a society that would never allow her to be herself. She made the decision to sacrifice to preserve her ideal. I think that when Robert left, she realized that she couldn't fight the entire world. Even the man that she loved couldn't agree with her when it mattered because of the societal pressure. It seemed to me that the suicide wasn't truly about love at all, but her hopelessness in facing a lifetime of oppression that would most likely break her and compromise what she stood for. Rather than confronting a future where she gives up her values, she wanted to die practicing what she stood for.

She gave up. And to me, that's the unforgivable sin of a story. The protagonist fights against impossible odds, struggles with his/her own morality and beliefs and determination to never compromise them, and stands defiant to the last breath. The instant they give up, everything they did becomes worthless because, in the end, they ran away.

It leaves me as the reader feeling betrayed by the story. I read to see the eventual triumph, no matter how small. To end a story with their own self-destruction for no good reason is taking the time I put into the story and burning it to ash. Worthless.

I view it differently. Rather than the character's actions and whether the outcome appears to be emotionally satisfying, I think it's more important to focus on what the book is trying to state. To me, the way Edna's hand was forced to suicide stands to show that the author believed that this was the inevitable outcome of an independent woman in a society that wanted to take her identity away from her. Even though she was so confident in her goals and wouldn't back down, Edna couldn't have a moral victory without a serious sacrifice. Considering the audience of the time, it would have been pretty obvious to them that a woman like Edna wouldn't have a pop flyin' ending in their society. I don't think the point of the story was to lead up to Edna's success, but rather to point to the conditions that were present at the time and show how even a strong character couldn't make it against the opinion of society.

I believe that Edna's death is meant to leave you disappointed to some extent, because it was a very difficult issue to confront at the time. There's no clear cut victory. Edna won her freedom by killing herself, but if she had to die is the freedom worth it? Why couldn't she have found a pop flyin' ending? In the end it leaves you feeling betrayed because you were invested in the character and her growth and you were waiting to see where she was going, which is a very good thing for strengthening the emotional impact the story leaves. You wanted to see her win even if it was something small. If you don't feel satisfied at the end of it, the story leaves you troubled about the death of a character that couldn't reach fulfillment and the causes leading up to it. And if the makes you think about the current state of society through its story, I think it's a great success.

Writing isn't a science, sure, and people are going to think through the story a lot of different ways, but I think that the author made a pretty strong attempt at communicating her point through the book. That's what matters to me.

But that's not what the author believed, which is what confuses me. Kate Chopin was an independent woman in the 1890's and lived her life fighting. She flirted with men, did what she wanted, and was scorned for it, but never gave up. She died of a brain hemorrhage, not suicide. Ten years after her death she was recognized as one of the leading writers of her time. She won. That's a story I can get behind.

She didn't necessarily intend for the message of one story to match her own ideals.