Weekend Quote 8: Gone With The Wind

Since I’m still reading Gone With The Wind, I hope I’m not boring you with another post about this book :)… I found this piece of quote from Part four. The Civil War has been over, yet the worst would still come. In this Part four I begin to see what Mitchell wanted to speak through her book. It was about the changing era that was following the war. In the middle of the uncertainty of the future, Mitchell showed us through her characters and their dialogues, that one must be brave to move along. One must not regret over the ideal life he once had, and dreams for living the same ideal in the future. One must work hard—although it is far from his ideal—to survive and to face the future.

This particular quote showed that spirit,

“It’s a poor person and a poor nation that sits down and cries because life isn’t precisely what they expected it to be.”

I think it helps us too right here, right now. The world is changing rapidly, and we know that the ideal life has long gone, so we must go on living, never dream about the past, but do our best for the future.

This Weekend Quote is hosted by Half-Filled Attic. Feel free to join. You can:

• Give the context of the quote
• Give your opinion whether you agree or disagree with it
• Share your experience related to the quote
• Share similar quotes you remember
• Or anything else. Just have fun with the quote.

Gone With The Wind Read Along: GIVEAWAY!

It’s already the last week of September. How did you all get going with Gone With The Wind? You can check the Update Posts page to see how others have progressed. Meanwhile, I want to remind you that every update posts you entered in the Update Posts page will be regarded as entries for my giveaway.

This giveaway is eligible for everyone who joins Gone With The Wind Read Along. The winner would be picked from Update Posts entries that you have entered during the read along. I have picked five authors from early 20^th century (just as Margaret Mitchell), whose books are offered for the prize:

Agatha Christie

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Ernest Hemingway

Virginia Woolf

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

• One winner can choose 1 (one) title from one of those authors from Amazon (for US residents) or from The Book Depository (for non US residents) at max. $10.
• Leave a comment mentioning how to contact you if you win (email/blog/twitter), and the book you’d like to have (you can change it later if you win; I’m just curious).
• I will pick and announce the winner on November 8^th 2012, so make sure you have added your update posts in the linky before that. Note: review post did not counted, as Bzee will host another giveaway for review posts at the end of this read along.
• The winner will have 48 hours to respond or I will pick a new winner.

Good luck!

Jack Merridew in Lord of The Flies

Jack Merrydew was the main antagonist in Lord of The Flies. He arrived at the isolated island as the head of a group of choir boys.

“Inside the floating cloak he was tall, thin, and bony; and his hair was red beneath the black cap. His face was crumpled and freckled, and ugly without silliness. Out of this face stared two light blue eyes, frustrated now, and turning, or ready to turn, to anger.”

From the beginning we could see that Jack was a leader. While all the other boys—in fear and without adult supervision—wandered confusedly around the island after the plane crash, Jack had managed to assemble his group orderly. All the boys listened to him, obeyed him. However, from the beginning also, I have sensed vaguely a kind of wicked passion in this boy. From above quote, Jack was pictured as being ‘frustrated and was going to be angry’, while it was still at the beginning, nothing had yet happened.

Without any reasonable reason, Jack already hated Piggy from the first time Piggy was involved in the conversation. In a harsh manner Jack howled Piggy to ‘shut up’ and called him Fatty. I could not understand, even now, why Jack hated Piggy so much from the beginning (and persisted till the end), while Piggy did nothing to him. Was it because Jack has a superior sense in him, that the shyness of Piggy was unbearable to him? I think so, and I think it is the same reason of most bullying cases everywhere.

[before] Jack - the head of choir boys

In his superiority, Jack never thought that there would be anyone else who was more capable than he to become the chief of the boys; there was there another sense of dominating, of controlling others, in spite of his leadership qualities. And when it turned out that the boys (except the choir boys) elected Ralph to be Chief, the rage was germinating in him.

I admit it that if you scrap his wicked qualities, Jack was actually a better leader than Ralph. Unlike Ralph who often confused and could not focus his mind, Jack was self-possessed, always knew what to do, and could make a quick decision when needed. Unfortunately, the rage that began to germinate in him, soon transformed him into a devil. I think, it’s all began when he failed to be chief. He needed to prove others that he was more capable than Ralph. He boasted that he could hunt and killed pigs easily, but when they really met a pig, Jack could not kill it.

“You cut a pig’s throat to let the blood out, otherwise you can’t eat the meat.” [Jack]

“Why didn’t you—?” [Ralph I guess...]

They knew very well why he hadn’t; because of the enormity of the knife descending and cutting into living flesh; because of the unbearable blood.

Next time there would be no mercy. He [Jack] looked around fiercely, daring them to contradict.

That scene reflected the point when ‘evil’ took over ‘kind’ in men’s soul. It was when Jack’s pride conquered him, that he dismissed his own conscience. Jack has surrendered to the evil’s hand… And after that Jack rapidly transformed into a barbarian. When you have let the evil overpower the kind in your soul, it is very difficult to have your conscience back. Things got worse because Jack had the leadership in him. Soon enough he gained other boys respect to join him by providing food and freedom, while Ralph kept prating about ‘keep the fire’ and ‘build a shelter’.

[After] Jack (right) - the head of a barbarian tribe
(left) is Ralph

In the end, it is not the skill of leadership that matters in a leader, but the conscience (and the persistency to keep it). Jack gained respect from others, obeyed by others, but to what point? He only led them to savagery. No, I would not proud of a chief like Jack.

That is my Character Thursday of this week, an analysis of book character of my choice, who is yours?... Just put your post URL in the linky below. Do you like to join us in discussing characters from books you read? See the details of Character Thursday first.

Part 3 of Gone With The Wind

Part 3 brought me to the worst of the war. Now the South suffered terrible lost from the Yankees. And when Scarlett has begun to enjoy her life once again, when she once again regained the life she have had enjoyed, Atlanta was suddenly in the big risk of being under siege by the Yankees. Most of the neighbours—so did Aunt Pitty—fled away to other cities, but what could Scarlett do with Melanie, whose laboring time was nearly approaching? Her first instinct was to leave everything and sought protection in her home, Tara. However, Ashley’s pleading at Christmas holiday kept haunting her, for she could not bear the thought that Ashley would be disappointed because Scarlett did not keep her promise. How selfish was this woman!

So, Scarlett stayed, alone with Prissy and the pregnant Melanie. And just when the situation was growing more frantically, when the doctor was busy with hundreds of wounded soldiers, and everybody took care of their own businesses, Melanie started to feel the laboring pain. There was only Scarlett and Prissy—the little slave—at home, and they just have to do everything they could to help delivering the baby. That was Scarlett’s turning point, I think, because from then on life would never become easy for her; and that event showed her real qualities: strong and brave.

Now Scarlett, in an urgent desire to flee to Tara, forced Rhett to find a carriage to bring her, Wade, Melanie and the baby, and Prissy. Rhett did it, brought the group out of the danger of Yankee’s capture, but abandoned them half way because he wanted to take part in the war. Scarlett hated Rhett for that, and with all her might she finally succeeded in bringing her group to Tara. Only to find everything was different from what she has looked forward to. Ellen was dead, and Gerald was ‘no longer himself’ after the shocks. And now…Scarlett did not have anyone else in this world to come to when she was in trouble. Now Tara belonged to her, and suddenly the burden had fallen on her shoulders.

Tara suffered terribly during those days, and every time, when Scarlett thought the worst was over, came another trial for Tara. Here both Scarlett’s and Melanie’s characters developed. The selfish Scarlett became harder; and her spoilt and childish manner was replaced with a firm business manner that she must hold to get respect from the blacks. On the other hand, Melanie showed her courage and strong determination despite her weaker physical health. I was a bit entertained to see the two women at Tara could now work hand in hand to protect and to provide life for all of them. Although, here and there Scarlett’s wicked thoughts often emerged towards Melanie, who she considered as just another mouth to feed. Oh Scarlett….what kind of heart did you possessed? I can tolerate selfishness, childishness, or other one’s bad habits, but not a cruelty. I can’t imagine how a well bred young woman (with Ellen always taught her to pray Rosary) could have such an iron heart? And I don’t understand either why Margaret Mitchell should create such an annoying character to be her main heroine! >,<

Anyway, Part 3 was topped with the arrival of two men from the war. The first one was Will Benteen, a wounded soldier who was rehabilitated at Tara (under the mercy of Melanie, but with a grudge from Scarlett—at least at first). However after having been recovered, Will was proved to be very valuable for Scarlett, for now she had someone (and a male too) to share the hardship of managing both the plantation and the house hold of Tara. The second one was…Ashley, who has been released from prison after the war—finally—came to an end. And this was where Part 3 was ended, left us with more curiosity of what will happen next in Part 4.

Let’s Read Plays Sign Up Post

Let’s Read Plays is a yearlong event of reading classics plays. From November 2012 to October 2013 we will read classics plays (as many as you wish) throughout the year, at least twelve plays for twelve month. Why plays? Well, for me, it’s to encourage myself to enjoy classics plays. I am an Indonesian reader, and here we never study literature either in school or in college. I read only one Shakespeare in my life (which I couldn’t really enjoy), and I think I should give him another try. So, when The Classics Club offered its members to host Shakespeare’s event, I volunteered to host—not only Shakespeare—but a yearlong classics plays event. Dessy, another blogger from Indonesia who share the same interest in plays [especially Oscar Wilde’s :) ], would be my co-host.

So….this would be our biggest challenge for a year! Two Indonesian readers whose first languages are not English, and who never studied English literature, would host the event for twelve month. But here we are…. :), we love challenge, we (try to) love plays, and most of all we love to read. So, here is the event…

Let’s Read Plays

We will read plays from Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, other authors and also Greek plays. As the host, Dessy and I have created a schedule with themes to read for every month (scroll down to the end of this post). For example, for the first month we will read Shakespeare’s tragedy, you can pick as many titles as you wish (at least 1) from Shakespeare’s tragedy collections, read and post the review(s). One or two of the months will be freebie month, when you can read any theme you want. Here is the complete list of the plays, we are gathering as many as possible titles for our reference, but you are free to add your own titles if it’s not included in the list, as long as it fits the theme.

There will be giveaway(s) along or at the end of the event, and there would also meme(s) related to plays or Shakespeare we will have during the event (might come with giveaways too!). If you are interested to participate in any ways (games, quizzes, giveaways, guest posts or anything) please let me know by filling this form. so that we can discuss it. We are looking forward to your active participation because this would be a yearlong event, and it will be good if we can have many different activities and hosts to bring more fun to the event!

You can sign up from today, just leave a comment with your name, blog name and URL! So come…let’s read plays!

List of Participants:
1. Bzee
2. Patty
3. Ao Bibliophile
4. Listra
5. Melissa (Avid Reader)
6. Melisa
7. Joon Ann
8. Risa
9. Arenel
10. Michelle
11. Rachel
12. A.S. Dewi
13. Helvry
14. severalfourmany
15. Katie
16. Sary
17. Hobby Buku

Signing Up after 15 Nov '12:
18. Althesia
19. Annette

20. Darjeeling
21. Ann
22. Cynthia

Ralph in Lord of The Flies

Ralph was the main protagonist of Lord of The Flies—an allegory about civilization vs barbarian written by William Golding. Ralph (12 or 13 years old) was one of the biguns (group of the bigger boys according to their ages) who was voted as Chief by the other boys when they found themselves trapped in an isolated island without any adult’s presence. Ralph was an ordinary boy with a fair hair before arriving at the island with a slight teenage indifference. He treated Piggy—a fat boy with asthma and thick glasses—like what boys usually treats a weak boy. Everytime Piggy said anything about his asthma, Ralph would answer spontaneously “sucks to your ass-mar”. He never wanted to know Piggy’s name, but when Piggy told him a secret about the humiliating nickname people often called him (Piggy), Ralph laughed hard at him. And despite of Piggy’s plead not to tell other boys about his nickname, Ralph cried that name out loud to everyone.

At first Ralph enjoyed the freedom he accidently found in an island where no grown-ups would tell him what to do. The adventurous spirit overwhelmed him, and he believed his father would come in no time to rescue him. Before that…it’s time to fun! But when you have reached the end of the story, you would find the very different person of Ralph. What have had changed him? And to what kind of character he would transform?

I think Piggy had a big influence in Ralph’s transformation. I imagined Ralph as an attractive boy, not only fair hair but I think he was rather handsome too. He has a self confident in him, that boys like Piggy would like to befriend him. No wonder the others voted him to be their Chief, partly because he seemed to know what he spoke of, but partly because he was the one who had found the big conch with which Ralph—following Piggy’s advice—called the others for an assembly. You can see that it’s actually Piggy who had the most common sense and intellectuality among them all, but Ralph had what we called charisma.

“There was a stillness about Ralph as he sat that marked him out; there was his size, and attractive appearance; and most obscurely, yet most powerfully; there was the conch. The being that had blown that, had sat waiting for them on the platform with the delicate thing balanced on his knees, was se apart.”

After suddenly being made a Chief, Ralph seemed to adapt quite soon, he learned how to make a speech and gain attention from others. However, further along the story, you’d find out that he had not the natural leadership. He often confused and lacked of confidence when trouble comes. If it was not because of Piggy who always supported him, he wouldn’t be that strong. That is his weakness, the lack of focus.

This a slide show of Ralph in “Lord of The Flies” 1990 movie (Balthazar Getty played as Ralph)

  

But what I love most of Ralph is his kindness, bravery, and of course his strong persistence to keep his common sense and conscience. After Ralph felt that Jack has opposed him, he gradually turned to Piggy’s friendship. I think he saw the same way of thinking with Piggy, and at last he admitted that Piggy was the cleverest of them all. Later on Ralph was Piggy’s protector, both of them depended each others. When Jack and the ‘tribe’ stole Piggy’s spectacles—without which Piggy was almost blind—and Piggy wanted to come to Jack’s to ask for it to be returned—while at that time Jack & his gang has transformed to a frightening tribe of barbarians—Ralph decided to go with Piggy. He even stood alone to ask Jack to return Piggy’s spectacles. Ralph the indifferent has transformed to Ralph the kind-hearted. Sorrows often pull out the real qualities of men…or boys.. :)

**spoiler alert** The last chapter showed how Ralph struggled to keep his common sense. At one point, among his loneliness, pain and fear, Ralph was tempted to join the tribe. He was questioning himself about why he must stick to the ‘kind’ side when the evil side promises a more comfortable life. He answered it himself: “Cos I had some sense.” **spoiler ends**

That’s what I love Ralph most for, he had the persistence to keep his conscience, no matter what the consequences were.

That is my Character Thursday of this week, an analysis of book character of my choice, who is yours?... Just put your post URL in the linky below. Do you like to join us in discussing characters from books you read? See the details of Character Thursday first.

Robinson Crusoe

[conclusion in English is at the bottom of this post]

361 tahun lalu, tepat pada tanggal 1 September 1651 seorang pria Inggris bernama Robinson Crusoe memulai pelayarannya yang pertama. Crusoe adalah putra sebuah keluarga pedagang menengah di Inggris. Ia tak memiliki bakat berdagang, namun kepalanya selalu dipenuhi impian untuk bertualang ke laut. Mengabaikan nasihat ayahnya, ia pun memutuskan untuk ikut dalam sebuah pelayaran. Tak lama kemudian terbukti itu keputusan yang salah, namun bukannya belajar dari pengalaman, Crusoe malah terlibat dalam pelayaran-pelayaran berikutnya—yang kadang berhasil memberinya keuntungan dari berdagang, namun kadang memberinya kemalangan seperti menjadi budak orang Moor (orang kulit hitam).

Bahkan ketika ia akhirnya berhasil memiliki perkebunan yang cukup sukses di Brazil, hasratnya untuk melaut lagi-lagi mengalahkan akal sehatnya. Maka tepat delapan tahun setelah pelayaran pertamanya yang gagal, Crusoe kembali melaut pada 1 September 1659. Pelayaran kali ini benar-benar membawa celaka, karena kapal mereka karam dalam sebuah badai, dan hanya menyisakan Crusoe seorang diri terdampar di pulau terpencil dan tak berpenghuni. Sendirian. Di tengah ancaman kanibalisme di perairan Karibia di abad 17.

Itulah inti kisah ini, yakni pergulatan hidup Crusoe selama dua puluh delapan tahun tinggal di pulau itu. Bagaimana ia bertahan hidup dengan memanfaatkan segala sesuatu yang ia ambil dari kapalnya sebelum karam, bagaimana ia membuat dengan tangannya sendiri segala kebutuhannya, mulai dari rumah, meja kursi, kuali, keranjang anyaman hingga piring-cangkir, termasuk segala alat bertukang yang ia butuhkan, hingga kano atau perahu; dan bagaimana ia bergantung pada alam.

Namun yang jauh lebih penting adalah bagaimana Crusoe bergulat dengan jiwanya sendiri menghadapi segala ketakutan, keputus-asaan, serta kesepian di sepanjang hidupnya di pulau, tanpa siapapun yang dapat ia ajak berdiskusi. Di tengah pergulatan itu, ia pun akhirnya mampu melihat Tangan Tuhan yang bekerja dalam setiap langkah hidupnya. Betapa, jauh dari sengsara, Tuhan justru telah menyediakan segala kebutuhannya dan melindunginya, serta terlebih-lebih memberikan kesempatan pada Crusoe untuk tetap hidup—ketika semua temannya mati dalam badai yang tak memungkinkan manusia untuk selamat. Dan untuk tujuan apakah semuanya itu dilakukan Tuhan? Di titik inilah pertobatan Crusoe terjadi. Bukan pertobatan yang gampang, melainkan melalui serangkaian pergulatan yang keras dalam jiwanya.

Defoe membuat Robinson Crusoe ini dalam bentuk semacam jurnal yang ditulis oleh Crusoe sendiri. Dengan sendirinya, bahasa Inggris yang dipakai adalah bahasa sehari-hari yang bisa anda bayangkan dipakai seorang pelaut dalam menulis jurnalnya, yang jauh dari sempurna dalam sintaksisnya. Karena itu, kalau anda menemui kalimat-kalimat yang agak aneh, kesalahan mungkin bukan terletak pada penerjemahan, karena versi aslinya memang tidak tertulis dengan sempurna. Inilah letak kehebatan Defoe, yang membuat anda berpikir buku ini adalah jurnal sungguhan, bukannya kisah fiksi.

Yang paling menarik bagiku adalah bagaimana Defoe bermonolog dalam jurnalnya, terutama pada bagian apa yang ia rasakan dan pikirkan. Bagian ini terasa sungguh hidup sehingga membuat pembaca seolah bisa melihat pergolakan emosi Crusoe yang sungguh…benar-benar melelahkan untuk diikuti, namun membuat kita menyadari betapa sulitnya manusia untuk melalui proses pertobatan; betapa panjang, rumit dan sabar Tuhan menuntun Crusoe pada keselamatan.

Yang jelas Robinson Crusoe mengajarkan pada kita untuk dapat mensyukuri apapun yang terjadi pada kita, bahwa justru saat kita merasa kita sedang dibawa pada kehancuran, pada saat itulah Tuhan sebenarnya tengah mengarahkan kita pada keselamatan. Seperti yang terefleksikan dalam quote ini:

“Begitu kecilnya kita melihat ke depan di dunia, dan begitu banyaknya alasan yang kita miliki untuk bergantung dengan gembira pada Sang Pencipta dunia. Dia tidak meninggalkan makhluknya sangat kekurangan, tapi dalam kondisi terburuk mereka selalu punya sesuatu untuk disyukuri dan kadang lebih dekat ke keselamatan dibanding apa yang mereka bayangkan, tidak, bahkan dibawa pada keselamatan dengan cara yang menurut mereka akan membawa kehancuran bagi mereka.”

Empat bintang bagi Robinson Crusoe yang bukan saja menyediakan kisah petualangan menarik, seru, tegang, namun mampu membawa kita pada sebuah refleksi yang mendalam pula.

Judul: Robinson Crusoe

Penulis: Daniel Defoe

Penerjemah: Maria Renny

Penerbit: Bentang Pustaka

Terbit: April 2007

Tebal: 385 hlm.

Conclusion:

How lucky I am that I saw o (delaisse)’s post about reading Robinson Crusoe on the 361^st celebration of Crusoe’s adventure, on September 1^st 2012. The book (Indonesian translation) has been on my TBR list for…perhaps a year, but I haven’t got the mood to read it. I was afraid because this book was not written in good English, so what if I could not get the meaning and couldn’t enjoy it? Reading with a friend gives me encouragement, and the moment is so perfect, so I began flipping the first pages of Robinson Crusoe, and…hey…I like it!

I think most of you already know what this book is about—or even have read it, so I won’t bother to write about the story. What impressed me is how Defoe wrote it as a sailor’s journal. He wrote in detail about how he built the cave, how he brought things from the wrecked ship, how he managed and prepared his foods, and all these stuffs—such, that if one day someone might fell in the same faith as Crusoe, he could have survived if he had learned this book before.

The best part of this book is Crusoe’s repentance process. It was a long, tedious and emotional—yet interesting—process through everything that had happened during his stay on the island. I was moved to read about how God brought Crusoe to realization that all of those happened to him were a Great Design of God; from the corn seed which cultivated on the particular soil, to the discovery of worn out Bible Crusoe had grabbed from the wrecked ship’s cabin. But more interestingly, was how Crusoe seemed to forget (too quickly) all these realizations when something bad happened (and this happened more than once). It seemed that Defoe took us to witness God’s tremendous patience towards stubborn sinners. All of these soul struggling monologs are worth to read!

I granted this book four stars, for I was a little disappointed with the ending. Actually I like Crusoe’s struggle on the island more than the adventures after he was saved. And after following Crusoe for twenty eight years, I was wondering how Crusoe seemed to be easily left the island just like that. I imagined that he should have been quite emotional when the time came to ‘say good bye’ to his home. Of course it was far from being called home, but the island could be assumed to be his island, he built the ‘houses’ himself, worked the corn plantation as well as the mini farm with his own hands; in short he has created a miniature of a country. And that had happened for twenty eight years, half of his life! But I did not see anything emotional from Crusoe when he left. Well… I was a little emotional at this part, just as how I got emotional every time I must move from an old house to a new one. I think a little hint of emotion would satisfy me more.

The adventures after he returned to civilization (fighting the wolves) seemed a bit anti-climax. The adventures were heart-pounding, but it washed away my previous emotional bond with the island and the divine experiences, which I think was the ‘heart’ of this story. More over, I wish Defoe closed the story at the ending, instead of hang it for a sequel to come. So now I’m just wondering, is Moll Flanders worth to read after this?...anyone?