God in the valleys

The Shack by William P. Young is a compelling story of one man and his search for God through the 'The Great Sadness'. Young aptly uses one character to symbolize the entirety of the human race and its quest to find One to ease the pain of the most awfullest of life's experiences.

The climax of the story is in the first few chapters. Mack, a father of five, takes his youngest three children camping. On their last day of vacation the two oldest of the three children take a canoe out on the lake and end up tipping it. Mack rescues the children and all seems ok. Mack then realizes his youngest child, Missy, is missing. It is discovered that she has been kidnapped by a serial killer, a man whose victims have never been found. The trail of the kidnapper is found and eventually leads the police and Mac to a remote shack. Inside the shack Missy's red dress, the dress she was wearing when she was kidnapped, is found in a pool of blood.

"Three grown men, arms locked in some special grace of solidarity, walking togehter, each one toward his own worst nightmare."..."Mack immediately saw what he had come to identify and, turning, crumpled into the arms of his two friends and began to weep uncontrollably. On the floor by the fireplace lay Missy's torn and blood-soaked red dress."

This was the climax of the story because, like Mack, the reader falls into a 'Great Sadness' after the trauma of losing a child to such violent circumstances. Losing a child, especially to circumstances like that, is the most horrific experience a perent could be asked to go through. Young skillfully weaves his story so that the reader can actually feel the fall into depression and the fog that clouds the mind after such a traumatic event. After the early climax Young slowly, and with incredible imagination and insight into the needs of humans, brings the reader up out of the 'Great Sadness' to a point where they can meet God and see him(or her in this case) for what he really is. A living, loving God who uses the evilness of humans and their sins for his greater purpose.

Young's fresh twist on storytelling, using an early climax to plunge the reader into the story and then bring them slowly back to hope, is not only ingenius but so very lifelike. Reality is often a crisis than occurs out of nowhere and then the slow recovery from that crisis. Young captures reality to its fullest.

A life lesson

Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel full of social injustice and racial prejudice. While one might think that is the extent of the depth of the novel that is far from the truth. Harper Lee uses social injustice and racial prejudice to show the reader that our differences are not what matters, it is how we react to those differences that is important.

The first example Lee uses is that of Dill Harris. He is a boy who comes to live beside Jem and Scout, two of the main characters, for the summer. Dill is an odd boy. He tells 'stories', is very small for his age, and is just generally weird. At first Jem and Scout don't know what to think of him however after taking the time to get to know him they discover what a wonderful friend and playmate Dill is. Lee uses Dill as a small first lesson in the unimportance of differences.

The next example she uses is that of the African American community. One man in particular, Tom Robinson, seems to represent everything that community stands for, at least in the eyes of the townspeople. Tom is accused of raping a white woman and stands trial over a three year period. Jem and Scout's father, Atticus Finch, defends Tom and proves in court that it could not possibly have been Tom who perpetrated the crime. Despite the compelling evidence in Tom's favour, the all white jury finds Tom guilty and sentences him to die.

"A jury never looks at a defendant it has convicted, and when this jury came in, not one of them looked at Tom Robinson." ...."I shut my eyes. Judge Taylor was polling the jury: 'Guilty...guilty...guilty...guilty...'"

This example is the most obvious one that Lee uses of the intolerance of people to those who are different.

The third example Lee uses is that of the children, Jem and Scout, and the mysterious 'Boo' Radley. Mr. Radley is the town recluse who has been inside for 15 years. The children know nothing concrete about him. The rumours surrounding Mr. Radley that circulate around the town however have led the children to fear and dislike him. He is as diametrically different to everyone else as one could get. Or so they think. At the end of the book both Jem and Scout change thier minds about the importance of differences. Boo Radley ends up saving Jem and Scout from a knife weilding drunken excuse for a human, Mr. Ewell, the father of the girl whom Tom Robinson was accused of raping. The children realize that Boo is different from them, those differences are nothing to fear.

Harper Lee does a wonderful job teaching the importance of looking at a person, not their differences, while using social injustice and racial prejudice as the moral stepping stones of her lesson.

Hawthorne's Descriptive Settings

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter makes wonderful use of setting as a method of relaying mood and significance of a particular scene to the reader. There are two particular examples of this that contrast each other beautifully and fully convey the meaning that Hawthorne has put into the story.
The first setting is the town of Boston. Describing a building in the town Hawthorne writes

“Before this ugly edifice, and between it and the wheel-track of the street, was grass-plot, much overgrown with burdock, pigweed, apple-peru, and such unsightly vegetation, which evidently found something congenial in the soil that had so early borne the black flower of civilized society…”

The setting of Boston is portrayed as bleak, drab, and somewhat menacing in its structure and form. There seem to be no redeeming qualities about the town. This bleakness helps to create a contrast with another setting in the book.
The other setting that needs to be examined is that of the forest. Throughout the book there has been a huge stigma placed on the forest. The only people who go into the forest are those who are friends of the devil. This is especially embodied in the character of Mistress Hibbins who is suspected of being a witch. Speaking to Hester Prynne, the main character of the book, Mistress Hibbins calls “Wilt thou go with us tonight? There will be merry company in the forest; and I well-nigh promise the Black Man that comely Hester Prynne should make one.” The stigma surrounding the forest and the desolate way Hawthorne has described the setting of Boston make the reality of the forest setting all the more joyful.
“

All at once, as with a sudden smile of heaven, forth burst the sunshine, pouring a very flood into the obscure forest, gladdening each green leaf, transmuting the yellow fallen ones to gold, and gleaming adown the grey trunks of the solemn trees. The objects that had made a shadow hitherto, embodied the brightness now. The course of the little brook might be traced by its merry gleam afar into the wood’s heart of mystery, which had become a mystery of joy.”

The forest signifies the point in the story that hope finally emerges for two very significant characters. That its setting is described so drastically different than that of the Puritan Boston aids the reader in realizing the significance of the scene and the joy that the characters feel in the moment.
Nathaniel Hawthorne used descriptive settings to enhance the mood and import of particular scenes throughout his book The Scarlet Letter.

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter shame is the dominant theme. Every central character wears their shame in a different way.

Hester Prynne, the main character, has to wear a visible symbol of her shame. The Puritan society in which she lives passed judgement on her for having an affair. Hester was not caught in the act however she did become pregnant and since her husband was presumed lost at sea she had no valid reason for being with child. As punishment Hester had to stand before the people of Boston on a raised platform for hours while her fellow townsmen and women stared at her with scorn and disgust. After the public shaming Hester is forced to wear an embroidered scarlet letter over her heart for the rest of her life. Hester’s shame is very public and for several years she is the social pariah of Boston. However in the ensuing years Hester and her daughter Pearl live an upright, virtuous, and morally sound life and regain the respect of the society in which they live. Hester’s scarlet letter transfigures from a symbol of immorality and sin to a badge of virtue and honour.

The Reverend Dimmesdale, the young minister in the village of Boston, wears his shame very differently from Hester. His shame, the secret that he has hidden for years, is very private. He, a leader in God’s church and a paradigm of holiness, is the other guilty party in Hester’s affair. Hester would not name Mr. Dimmesdale when she was caught thinking that she could spare him the shame of public opinion. Instead the good Reverend suffers more than Hester ever did. He becomes increasingly ill over the course of the book, constantly clutching at his heart. In the final pages Reverend Dimmesdale confesses his part in the affair from the same platform on which Hester stood seven years before. At the end of his confession he rips open his shirt to reveal a scarlet ‘A’ imprinted on his skin over his heart. Unlike Hester, whose scarlet letter was a symbol which could be removed should she leave the Puritan society, Mr. Dimmesdale’s shame was etched into his very being and, after poisoning his very soul, manifested itself physically.

The third character whose shame is visible throughout the book is that of Roger Chillingworth. Mr. Chillingworth arrives in Boston at the time of Hester’s public shaming. After she is returned to the prison he visits Hester and it is revealed that he is her husband, long thought to be dead. As they discuss her infidelity Chillingworth acknowledges his part in her shame in that, though he was indeed shipwrecked years before, he could have sent word to her much sooner. Chillingworth also feels Hester’s shame because she is his wife. He therefore extracts a promise from her not to reveal his true identity to anyone. He also promises Hester that, although she will tell no one who her partner is in the affair, he will find out who he is. I believe that at this point Chillingworth turned his shame and guilt to the pursuit of revenge. As the book progresses Mr. Chillingworth’s appearance becomes more and more evil as his shame and guilt, which is transformed into the drive for revenge, converts his appearance from that of a cultivated intellect to that of a hellish fiend.

Hawthorne is masterful at portraying the different facets of shame in The Scarlet Letter. He does so in a descriptive and realistic way that forces the reader to confront the brutal aspects of this intense human emotion and leaves the reader pondering the after-effects of shame from one small action or decision.

The distinguished Mr. Churchill

The Wicked Wit of Winston Churchill, compiled by Dominique Enright, is a collection of quotes and anecdotes not only from Churchill himself, but from other people about Churchill. While there is no discernable plot to this book the character formation of Mr. Churchill that occurs is outstanding. I read this book twice, once in a humorous mood and once in a somewhat cynical mood, and each time I came away with a different perspective on Mr. Churchill’s personality and character.

I do not believe that I could simply convey in my own words what Mr. Churchill’s most prominent characteristics are because, as previously stated, I came away with different perspectives of the same man from the same book. To that end I have selected some of the quotes from the book that I feel accurately portrays the Churchill that the author was trying to depict.

‘If I valued the honourable gentleman’s opinion I might get angry,’ WSC responded calmly when an Ulster Member shouted ‘Contemptible’ during an Irish Home Rule debate in the House.

‘Politics is like waking up in the morning. You never know whose head you’ll find on the pillow.’

Churchill could not resist puns, even when the circumstances perhaps did not call for levity. When on a tour of Africa in 1907, he was informed by a Colonial Governor that venereal disease was spreading at an alarming rate among the ‘natives’. ‘Ah, Pox Britannica!’ Churchill diagnosed.

On the same journey, after a march of over a hundred miles, Churchill turned to his Private Secretary Eddie Marsh and said, ‘So fari – so goodi!’

‘The whipped jackal, who, to save his own skin, has made of Italy a vassal state of Hitler’s Empire, is frisking up by the side of the German tiger with yelps not only of appetite – that could be understood – but even of triumph.’ (The jackal in this speech to the House in April 1941 is Mussolini. In November 1942 Mussolini transmogrified slightly: ‘The hyena in his nature broke all bounds of decency and even common sense.’)

A BBC broadcaster described once sitting next to Churchill as he gave a speech, keeping his audience hanging on to his every word. The broadcaster noticed, however, that what appeared to be notes in Churchill’s hand was only a laundry slip, and he later remarked upon this to Churchill. ‘Yes,’ said WSC. ‘It gives confidence to my audience.’

Margot Asquith, Herbert Asquith’s second wife, found his (WSC) vanity a bit much at times, and is said on one occasion to have exclaimed: ‘He would kill his own mother just so that he could use her skin to make a drum to beat his own praises.’

WSC on Joseph Chamberlain (father of Neville Chamberlain) ‘Mr. Chamberlain loves the working man; he loves to see him work.’

WSC on Arthur Balfour (Prime Minister 1902-6) ‘If you wanted nothing done, Arthur Balfour was the best man for the task. There was no equal to him.’

‘It is a fine thing to be honest, but it is also very important to be right.’

WSC on Neville Chamberlain (PM 1937-40) ‘You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour and you will have war.’

‘Eating my words has never given me indigestion.’

‘I am not usually accused even by my friends of a modest or retiring disposition.’

‘I do not resent criticism, even when, for the sake of emphasis, it parts for the time with reality.’

‘I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is ready for the ordeal of meeting me is another matter.’ (Churchill on his seventy-fifth birthday)

‘Of course I’m an egoist. Where do you get if you aren’t?’

It is said that at the Yalta conference in 1945, Roosevelt having made a fulsome tribute to the Soviet leader, Churchill was persuaded by an aide to follow suit (objecting the while: ‘But they do not want peace’). Getting to his feet, he proposed a toast to ‘Premier Stalin, whose conduct of foreign policy manifests a desire for peace.’ Then, in a whispered aside out of the interpreter’s hearing: ‘A piece of Poland, a piece of Czechoslovakia, a piece of Romania....’

...Churchill visited Richmond, Virginia, where a sculpture of him was being unveiled. A magnificently Rubenesque lady came up to him and cooed enthusiastically at him: ‘Mr Churchill, I want you to know I got up at dawn and drove a hundred miles for the unveiling of your bust.’ Looking upon her generous endowments, WSC answered, ‘Madam, I want you to know that I would happily reciprocate the honour.’

Another story has it that while visiting a parachute factory, Churchill absentmindedly took out a cigar. Immediately, the fire officer came running up: ‘Sir, sir, you mustn’t smoke!’ he cried out. ‘Oh, don’t worry, dear boy,’ came the reply. ‘I don’t inhale.’

‘Too often the strong silent man is silent because he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong only because he has remained silent.’

‘A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.’

‘Virtuous motives, trammelled by inertia and timidity, are no match for armed and resolute wickedness.’

Even on the most serious of occasions, Churchill could not resist little jokes, and when he arrived on the Normandy beachhead on D-Day –plus-6 (12 June 1944) to meet Montgomery, he sent Roosevelt a postcard: ‘Wish you were here.’

Winston Churchill was a politician whose political savvy was unmatched. He was in office through two world wars, one of which he held the position of Prime Minister. He led the world through the Second World War, at times kicking and screaming, never compromising his personal values and the values of his country.

Whatever one might feel about Mr. Churchill’s character and personality, I believe that no one could deny that he was the greatest and most fascinating world leaders of the 20th century.

Hemingway + Fish = Agony

I was so wrong. The last E. Hemingway book that I read, The Nick Adams Stories, was the better of the Hemingway novels I undertook to read. My latest foray into mind numbing, plotless, imagery smothered nothingness was with the novel Islands in the Stream. I felt confident that Mr. Hemingway could only get better as a writer. Oh how I was wrong.
The plot was about......hmmmm...was there a plot? The character! Yes I'm sure there is something redeeming that I learned about the character in the first 150 pages. Oh wait. There wasn't.
And then there was a fish. A forty page long fish. A forty page long fish with a cycle of events that seemed to be on repeat. Oh the agony of it!
Needless to say I did not finish this book. I have not seen torture as a course requirement in the syllabus for English Lit, so I can not bring myself to pick up its most hated pages and again submit myself to mind numbing anguish and pain.
If anyone would like to relieve me of the agony of having this, or any, Hemingway novel in my house you need only ask and it is yours!

Ernest Hemingway.........pppfffffffffttttttttttt(this is a raspberry)

The Nick Adams Stories by Ernest Hemingway. A collection of stories about nothing. Stories that flit randomly throughout time. Stories about nothing and.....nothing. Unless the stories are meant to be about nothing. In which case these are everything. And nothing.
There must have been some literary genius in the past that warrents peoples affections for Mr. Hemingway. This book, however, is not it. There was no plot. The characters were, for the most part, undefined. You learn everything and nothing about everyone and no one. There was some beautiful imagery throughout the book. That is its only redeeming quality. However,that is not enough to sustain a reader through countless pages of nothingness!
This was probably by far the most frustrating book I have ever read.