1943

1943 was an interesting poem. It was somewhat of a narrative poem because it told a story of a soldier going from the life he knew at home to war, specifically War World II. It mostly transitioned from one setting to the next, telling something about the soldier's lives before the war and then a detail about the war. In the first two couplets of the poem the theme was mostly about Dominick Esposito and in the last three couplets the theme was about milk.
The author created Dominick Esposito as an example of how Dominick's life transitioned from his normal life as a boxer to a solder in World War II. He especially described his life in the war with the line, "and ten months later Dom died in the third wave at Tarawa."
We considered milk another theme because it was frequently mentioned in the last three couplets.
As for the structure of the poem it was made up of entirely couplets and had no rhyme scheme. We considered the poem both an ode because it was written about a dignified subject and an elegy because it wt mourned the loss of the solder's previous lives before they went to war.
The last line of the poem, "with frostbitten feet as white as milk.", was the climax of the poem. It tied in the author's reference to a soldier's previous Mamore of getting milk delivered to his home in Connecticut. then in the winter how the milk froze and, "lifted the cardboard lids of glass bottles." The words before the last line, "-what could we do?-", builds up to the climax line because it is the soldier seeing the deaths of his fellow soldiers, how they got frostbitten feet, and thinking that he could do nothing but continue on with his tasks and think of better times from his life before the war.

What an amazing book...

This is the second time I've read The Kite Runner and I loved it even more than the first time. I love the detailed way Hosseini writes, it really draws you in and he creates the entire scene for his readers. He created personalities for his characters and built relationships between them so well it made his characters come to life. Throughout most of the book he kept adding these memories from Amir's childhood that really developed how Amir wanted his father's affection and love and Hassan's undying loyalty and love for Amir. It really tugged at your emotions and drew you in to the book.

I never noticed this the first time I read this book but it has a lot of foreshadowing which I really liked because it made so much more sense reading it again and I knew what was going to happen. I also noticed that when Hosseini really appealed to his reader's pathos he would use short, uncomplicated sentences to amplify his point.

As for the story of the book I really enjoyed how Hosseini took you through the stages of Amir's life. In the beginning after all of Amir's attempts to win his father's attention and affection and when he finally get's it he cannot even enjoy it because of his guilt for sacrificing Hassan is such an interesting perspective. Many times in life people are in situations where they would do anything to attain that one thing and in the end it's not even worth it. Hosseini puts life lessons like these in the book that catch his reader's attention because although it may not be the exact same scenario as Amir his readers can still relate to it. I gurantee there are many people who have wanted something so bad they would do anything for it, or they have had power over some one else and used that power in a cruel way and in the end Amir finds redemption which isn't exactly a happy ending but more of a, it's finally over or Amir finally found some peace. It seems like in most of the stages of Amir's life he is going through a life lesson or just a scenario that other people might have gone through.

The GREAT Gatsby

The Great Gatsby was an interesting book. Reading it from Nick's perspective was interesting because it was like he was more of an on looker than a main character. I do not ever remember the author describing how Nick was feeling or his inner thoughts, he was just describing what was happening around Nick.
This book also reminded me of the movie Crash, all these random events that tie things and people together and then it all comes together in the end.
For annotating I attempted to make a glossary of words I didn't understand. I would underline the words and come back to them and put them in the glossary but I think like I mentioned in my post about Heart of Darkness that looking up the words immediately and writing the meaning of the word in the margin works best for me. Not only does looking up the word tells me the meaning but writing it down kind of helps it really sink in to my brain.
I tried highlighting certain things that I thought were important but I think writing important things on a separate piece of paper is better so I can quickly look through the notes instead of rifling through the book trying to find something.
Another things I tried was summaries in the margin which did not really work all that well for me. I think the reason being that after I read something it's hard to come up with a summary on the spot. I think it's better if I let it sit with me for a little bit before I attempt to make a good summary.
Mostly this book reminded me of a soap opera, it wasn't exactly one of my favorite books but it was interesting none the less.

Finally got around to it...

For the summer reading I started with Heart of Darkness.

As for my style of annotation, there wasn't a lot of consistency throughout the book. I tried writing notes in a separate notebook of things I found significant or words I didn't understand (there were plenty of those). I wrote down the page numbers the words and comments came from so if I need a reference it would be easy to find.

Writing down the words I didn't understand in a separate notebook didn't really help. I think the best way for me to deal with words I don't understand is to look them up immediately after I read them and write the meaning in the margin of the book.

On the other hand writing down lines or words that stuck out to me really helped. It reminded me of some things I read in the book and helped me make connections or think about the author's purpose of the line or the tone they were trying to set. I think writing the comments in a separate notebook helped me so much because I could look back over them quickly and it reminded me of a certain part in the book.

For example, from page four, I wrote down, "They were men enough to face the darkness", as well as, "your strength is just and accident arising from the weakness of others". These lines really stuck out to me and when I was reading back over my notes before I decided to finally get around to posting something, I read those lines again and it reminded me of how people went crazy after so long in the Belgian Congo and all the imperialism taking place and the struggles with the boat and the natives, etc. Reading books for me is like riding a bicycle, if I like the book I never forget it, and reading over my notes is like getting back on the bicycle, once I get going, it all comes back to me.