The History of Love

For the last blog post of quarter 2, I am going to blog about a novel I just started reading! The book is, The history of Love by Nicole Krauss. I found this book because one of my friends had mentioned how much she loved it, and coincidentally the next day I saw this book in another one of my friends houses, and they let me borrow it. So. Without really knowing anything about the book you can somewhat assume it is going to be about love, which I find is a subject which is easily relatable. The story begins by focusing on one man, Leo Gursky, who does not seem to much of anything, and is on the road “out of life.” Leo talks about how he has began to do things like go try on shoes he doesn’t need, or just walk around the grocery store, simply because he is lonely and is eager to make human connection. As the novel continues Leo begins to reminisce on his life. We find out he grew up very far away as a Jew in Poland, and he was once a writer. He made his way to America when everyone in his town was killed but him. I am still a bit puzzled as to how this story is going to turn in to something that has to do with love, but what I have read is actually pretty interesting. I hope this book is as good as my friend made it sound!

LAST WINTERBREAK BLOG POST

Although I am reading Mansfield park I have yet to finish New Moon, I am not worried about it because it is actually a pretty quick read. I enjoyed reading the section I just did because the reader is finally shown the side of Bella that for so long was hidden because of the absence of Edward. It is a bit curious as to why Bella seems to be so happy around Jacob. It doesn’t seem like there would be a love interest… this is because he is younger than her and I’m pretty sure Bella is suspicious that he is a werewolf. Bella is seeing Jacob because he is helping her fix a motorcycle so she can ride it. Riding a motorcycle is something that Bella usually wouldn’t do, but now that Edward is gone she decides to take a risk! Also Bella begins to once again talk to her friends from school. For me it would be SO weird to have one of my friends not talk to me for around like 5 months, and then out of the blue just become friendly again. Honestly how would you react to someone like that? It ends up that the boys definitely welcome her back easily, but the girls are soon to follow. One thing I am worried about is Bella riding the motorcycle. She is purposely hurting herself so she can hear “that voice.” We don’t know who the voice is, but my guess is that it is somehow Edward speaking to her… But if it was Edward then why would she be purposely hurting herself? I don’t know Bella is acting very strange but hopefully the underlying reason will come out soon!

Winter break blog post!

For this blog post I have continued to read Mansfield park. On the first page of my book, there is a page titled, “From the Pages of Mansfield Park,” and it has some quotes from throughout the storyline. For this blog I am going to reflect on the quotes which I have read already in the book(if that makes sense).
The first quote in the book is ‘ Give a girl an education, and introduce her properly into the world, and ten to one but she has the means of settling well, without further expense to anyone(pg. 6).’
As I went to find this quote in context I couldn’t find it on the page marked! I think it was Mrs. Norris talking to Sir Thomas about Fanny coming to lives with them though. To me this quote greatly reflects on the era in which the book was written. Education was one of the most important things to wealthy people, second to being “proper” and “making a name for yourself.” Personally I think it would be hard to live during this time because you always seem to have your life planned out. This quote does make me feel a bit sorry for Fanny. This is because Mrs. Norris and Sir Thomas are kind of treating her like a burden, “without further expense to anyone,” words like that must be used, because Fanny is putting expense on people to raise. But she is very lucky for her family who wants her to turn out well.

New blog for Quarter 2!

I am still reading New Moon, but since it was break I decided to read something else for fun because I had the time. This past year I was given all of the Jane Austen books, and it is in my interest to eventually read all of them, although I have only read Pride and Prejudice. I decided to begin reading Mansfield park. The underlying issue of this book is the issue of Money and Marriage. For some reason I thought it would be interesting. One thing about reading a Jane Austen book as that sometimes it is a bit difficult to get through them. One thing is that a lot of the language used is sometimes a bit hard to follow, afterall the book was written a long time ago. But I have encountered a lot of the vocab words which we have studied in class. So far in the novel I have learned of the main character Fanny who goes to live with her more fortunate aunt and uncle so she may have a better education. When she first arrives she is very heartbroken. She misses her family and her friends and is not very grateful for her new life. She soon meets someone named Edmund who helps guide her and cheer her up, while making her more comfortable in her home. I have one prediction about Edmund, that prediction being that I think Fanny and Edmund will eventually fall in love… it seems that they have a connection that could eventually turn into something. I do enjoy reading love stories and I hope this turns out to be a good one!