Weigh in Wednesday (5): Poetry Vs. Prose

It’s the fifth Weigh in Wednesday weekly meme of Lauren that I have been joining so far, and I think this week’s topic offers the easiest choice for me. I never like poetry, so my choice is 100% on prose. Poetry is beautiful, but I just love to read the flowing of words that build the interpretation in prose, rather than enjoying the poetry rhymes before going back again to find the meaning J. Anyway, I’m a more logical person than romantic one, so I prefer literature with deep meanings than only a flowery words.

So, which side of you, poetry or prose? Let me know your thoughts…

And if you love memes, please check out my weekly meme : Character Thursday

The Color Purple, Between Post-Modernism and Contemporary: A Classics Challenge May

Although it is not clearly stated in the book, I believe that The Color Purple is first set around 1910 or 1920, and stretched to the beginning of civil rights movements, around 1950s. However, I prefer to put this work of Alice Walker by the values she brought at the time she wrote this novel, rather than the time setting. So, although the original time set is within the first half of 20^th century, I think the best place to put this book is between the post-modernism and contemporary literary movement. Post-modernism is a historical period that began in the 1940s, a style of literature, philosophy, art, and architecture, or the situation of Western society in a late capitalist or post-capitalist age. Social issues as writers align with feminist & ethnic groups, are among this movement.

At the time Walker wrote The Color Purple, America has been struggling with both African-American racism and men-women discrimination and gender minority. The Color Purple is also the sign of African-American literature rising. Besides Alice Walker, Maya Angelou and Zora Neale Hurston were among the female authors that brought up the same values as The Color Purple. Their works shows the hardships of African-American women.

The story of Celie (female protagonist of this book), her hard times under the dominancy of his step father and husband, and the story of African people under the white people power truly reflect the focus of the post-modernism movement, especially the rising of African-American. As a woman, these issues are quite intriguing and emotional, so I might read other similar works, such as Maya Angelou’s I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings in the future.

Celie on The Color Purple: Character Thursday (13)

Character Thursday is a weekly meme that requires you to post on every Thursday, your character choice from the book you are reading or you have finished with. It can be the protagonist or the antagonist, characters that you love the most or hate the most. You can pick any book of any genre as you like. Please feel free to grab the button below and paste it in your post. Last but not least, please add URL of your post in the linky at the bottom of this post.

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This week I pick a wonderful female character:

Celie

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Being a poor and uneducated African-American woman in 1910-1940s, Celie had been struggling in her life as a female in the domination of males. First abused and raped by her step father, and then abused and treated badly by her husband, a Mr. _______, yet Celie survived. At first she put her hopes on to God, through series of letters addressed to God, which became sort of her diary. After being separated from her younger sister Nettie, Celie did not have anyone to share her love. So, when a female singer with an independent mind named Shug Avery came into her life, she fell in love with her in no time, despite the fact that Shug is Mr. ______’s lover. From then on, it is Shug who became like a mother to Celie.

I think Celie loves Shug not only because Shug was a compassionate person to Celie, but because in Shug, Celie saw a person (or a woman) she’d like to become: assertive, independent, brave, sensual and attractive. One reason why Celie wasn’t quite jealous when Shug and Mr. _____ slept together under her nose, was because Celie never loved or even hated her husband.

Thanks to Shug, Celie learned not only passively accepted what men done to her, but to fight back. Her first attempt was by leaving Mr. _____ and moved to live with Shug in a new city. At the new place, Shug planted thr idea to build a business of producing pants to Celie. This was the first sign of her new life. When later on she came back, she was a different woman, stronger and braver. She was no more just a housemaid to Mr. ________, she was a companion. She can sit and talk equally to men. This only shows that friendships between females are very important, and often has a great impact on a woman’s life.

Besides Celie’s personal character swift, it is also interesting to see the change in her relationship with God. Although at first she has a strong devotion and can talk to God in her letters, in a certain point of her great disappointment, she run away from Him. This was when she began to address her letters to Nettie. However, when things finally got better for Celie, she returned to God in her final letter. It’s so typically us, human. We looked for Him in our difficult times to look for hopes, but we weren’t patience enough to wait till the hope come, and just runaway from Him.

I love Celie, the main character of The Color Purple. She is not a heroine who’s done heroic acts, she is just like most of us with all her weaknesses. Yet, she can survived through hard times, thank to God (yes, even when she runaway from God, God still took care of her through her dear friends: Shug, Sofia and Nettie).

Whoopi Goldberg, I think, is a perfect choice to perform Celie

So, who’s your Character Thursday of this week?

Weigh in Wednesday (4): Novellas vs Anthologies

Before weighing, this is the definition of both stuffs we are discussing today for Lauren’s weekly meme:

A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel.

An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts. In genre fiction anthology is used to categorize collections of shorter works such as short stories and short novels, usually collected into a single volume for publication.

[source: Wikipedia]

Actually both novella and anthology are not my first choices of fiction, I love novel for a long reading and offering complex stories or deeper meaning. However, if I must choose one, then I’ll pick novella. At least novella consists of one single story, and sometimes being short does not mean it is going to be light. Two novellas that I have read so far are both classics works: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens and Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. I don’t quite like John Steinbeck, but A Christmas Carol is certainly a good book and worth reading despite its shortness (only 100 something pages). With novellas, I think, I just eager to read more. It’s like when you just found a beautiful places, but you know that you only have ten minutes to stay. Only that? But I want more…! That’s what I feel with short novel or novella.

And how about anthology? Well, stories in anthology are certainly much shorter than novella. But again, sometimes you’d find a gripping short story despite of its shortness. For example, short stories of Edgar Allan Poe. He is so genius, that in that very short a story, he could send chill to your bone! For this kind of short stories, I certainly don’t want more! LOL… However, I kinda like anthology IF ONLY it’s a compilation of works from ONE author. I dislike anthology from several or many different authors, even though they have one same theme. Authors, especially great ones, have their own specific style, and when you try to combine several authors like that, the uniqueness will fade away.

So, in short, I prefer novella than anthology. And I won’t ever read an anthology of more than one author. What about you? Are you with novella or anthology side?...

And if you love memes, please check out my weekly meme : Character Thursday

The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes

[conclusion in English is in the bottom of this post] Buku ini berisi kumpulan cerita pendek kasus-kasus kecil yang ditangani Sherlock Holmes, yang dicatat dan dituliskan oleh rekannya, Dr. Watson. Ke 12 kisah ini dipilih Watson karena keunikannya, dan sebagian besar merupakan kasus yang nampaknya rumit, padahal pemecahannya sedeana saja. Kasus-kasusnya bervariasi, dari saat Watson masih berbagi apartemen dengan Holmes di Baker Street hingga saat Watson sudah menikah dan menempati rumah sendiri namun masih sering menemani Holmes dalam penyelidikannya.

Yang paling menarik mungkin adalah kasus pertama, A Scandal in Bohemia. Klien Holmes adalah seorang Pangeran penerus tahta kerajaan Bohemia yang pernah menjalin hubungan asmara dengan artis opera cantik bernama Irene Adler. Sekarang ia ingin mendapatkan kembali foto mereka berdua yang kini disembunyikan Irene, yang dikhawatirkan akan menjadi skandal bila terungkap. Kasus ini menjadi sangat menarik karena di sini Holmes berhadapan dengan musuh yang seimbang, yakni Irene Adler. Irene bukan hanya cantik namun juga cerdik, dan menurut Watson hanya Irene-lah wanita yang pernah memberikan pengaruh dalam hidup Holmes, meski mungkin bukan dalam hal romansa namun lebih kepada kecerdikannya yang dikagumi Holmes. Selanjutnya Holmes beberapa kali menyinggung tentang Irene dengan menyebutnya sebagai 'wanita itu'.

Sedangkan kasus yang akan membuat anda paling jantungan mungkin adalah The Adventure of The Specled Band, yang mengisahkan sebuah keluarga dengan ayah dan dua anak perempuan tirinya. Si ayah pernah berkelana ke Asia, dan kini hidup terisolir. Saat anak gadis sulungnya akan menikah, terjadi sebuah tragedi. Si gadis meninggal padahal tak mungkin ada orang lain masuk ke kamarnya. Yang lebih aneh lagi adalah dua kata yang diteriakkannya sebelum menghembuskan napas yang terakhir: speckled band! Apa maksudnya? Sebuah teka-teki yang membutuhkan keahlian analisis dan deduksi setaraf seorang Sherlock Holmes untuk memecahkannya. Yang jelas ketegangan pada detik-detik menunggu 'speckled band' itu benar-benar memacu adrenalin!

Selain itu ada kasus yang melibatkan pembalasan dendam Ku Klux Klan yang lumayan mengerikan. Kasus ini menonjol karena Holmes harus berpacu dengan waktu untuk menghindarkan kematian calon korban berikutnya. Kengerian tiap kali kita mendengar atau membaca tentang sepak terjang KKK ini lumayan terasa di sini.

Meski keahlian Holmes sangat mengagumkan, namun kurasa Conan Doyle kurang menunjukkan sisi manusiawi Holmes di buku ini. Seperti yang ditulis Watson tentang Holmes, yang ia ibaratkan sebagai sebuah mesin,

“He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position.”

Conclusion:

Being the only short stories collection of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle which was included in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, of course The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes has been quite intriguing for me.

Overall, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is varied from boring cases, to an exotic case (A Scandal in Bohemia), and suspenseful ones. I can get to know better about Holmes (by personal character and by his methods) from this book, however I still feel the lack of emotional tight in it. Perhaps it’s because this book is a collection of short stories, or perhaps Conan Doyle has written (through Watson) the stories in a formal and descriptive style, that it feels like I'm reading a report, instead of stories.

After reading this book, I can’t but compare Holmes with the works of Agatha Christie. Christie was more focus on characters who are involved in the cases. It is how the conflicts were built, as if we were involved emotionally inside the scene. Then from there, the detectives build their analysis. In Doyle’s works, he often uses narratives (most of them were narrated by Watson, although there are several which were narrated by Holmes himself, and the rest by third persons). I guess that's what makes Holmes stories seems dry and emotionless, despite the greatness of the deduction made ​​by the master of reasoner and 'father' of the next generations of detective stories, Sherlock Holmes. Good, but emotionless.

Three pipes for The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, are the special gift I’d like to give to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for his 153^rd  birthday which is today, May 22^nd, 2012. Happy birthday Sir, we are thanking you for bringing such a famous detective and great cases to our literary world for over a century!

Title: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Author: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Fomat: e-book

Publisher: Project Gutenberg

The Color Purple’s Cover

Discussing covers of books with a strong value is always interesting. The copy I read belongs to my friend, however I love this cover more than any other covers of The Color Purple.

From the time I started reading this book, I have been curious why Alice Parker picked ‘purple’ as her book title. What does the color represent? What does it symbolize? This is my little research has resulted:

In the meaning of colors, purple and violet represent the future, the imagination and dreams, while spiritually calming the emotions. They inspire and enhance psychic ability and spiritual enlightenment, while, at the same time, keeping us grounded. [source: Empower Yourself With Color Psychology]

It makes sense, considering the value that Alice Walker brought in this novel. I myself prefer to think that the color purple speaks about two main themes: spiritual connection between Celie and God, and the spirit of freedom.

So, from the above thoughts, I think this certain cover speaks a lot about the book. First, there is a portrait of a black woman’s bare legs, standing at the porch. The lack of shoes and the body language of the woman already brought the sense of poverty and powerless. The grayish color of the portrait only added a sense of hopeless to the scene. However, there are also three purple flowers, as if from the helpless ground the flowers had grown to bring a new brighter and more colorful scene to the world. The purple flowers represent the new hope of happiness that awaits Celie at the end of her long waiting.

What do you think?

Weekend Quote (2): The Color Purple

For this weekend, I am sharing a quote from a wonderful and inspiring book: The Color Purple by Alice Walker. It contains letters written by Celie, a poor African-American woman who were struggling in male’s and whites’ dominant world in America of the 1930’s. In one of the letters, Celie—with her limited skill of language—wrote this simple but deeply touching sentence:

“Never mine, never mine, long as I can spell G-O-D I got somebody along” ~Cellie

That is what Celie told her little sister Nettie, who worried about how Celie would do after she left. Although she is not well educated, Celie has a strong faith to God, why with the impossible situation like what she faced at that time, she wouldn’t make it without her faith. With his father abused her, her mother died, her husband didn’t love her, and her babies were separated from her, who will love her? It’s only to God she can address all her sorrows. It is to God either that Celie addressed most of her letters. And that quote showed us that in the loneliness of life, we will never walk alone, God will walk with us, we will ‘get somebody along’ just as Celie felt.

So, what’s your favorite quote of this weekend? Share with us in Weekend Quote meme:

The idea is to pick a quote from a book or author you read, like, or hate, and write your comment about it. You can post the “Weekend Quote” article every weekend (Saturday or Sunday), or at any weekend suits you best.

Here are the rules:

• You have to pick one quote and comment about it. It may be the reason why you agree or don't agree with it, or why it is interesting for you. I can also be your experience that reminds you of that quote. Feel free to use your imagination. :D
• Please put the picture of “Weekend Quote” on either your blog sidebar or everytime you post the quote. (It helps people to know what we are doing).
• Please give a link back to Listra’s blog at your post.