The Awakening - 2nd Half

I really would have liked to know what happened to Robert in the end of the book, after Edna seemingly drowns. I think I can relate more to Robert than I ever could to Edna. Robert cares about her, but at the same time he is responsible enough to leave because he knows that Edna could never be his (in body, although she apparently already is his in mind or spirit or whatever) and he doesn't want to create unnecessary difficulty in her life because (unlike Edna herself) he understands that she has certain duties to her husband and her children. Really, I can't understand Edna's character at all - she always seems to be looking beyond this life for something else, which I can't understand and I have no idea what she could be looking for, unless that thing is freedom. Speaking of which, I'm a feminist, and I do believe in the social equality and freedom of women, but I don't think Edna's relationship with Robert (or Alcee What's-His-Name...Arobin) has anything to do with equality or freedom, but more that she's just bored with her life as it is and wants some excitement.

The book reminds me of a Bollywood movie (Bollywood is Hindi cinema - come from "Hollywood" and "Bombay") called "Bewafaa", which literally means "Unfaithful". Like in the book, there is a woman who is married, has two kids (technically they're her stepdaughters since she married her sister's window by her parents' urging, gross), and a husband, but she was already in love with some other guy before she was forced to marry her current husband. Later, of course, since Hindi cinema is all about romance and predictable twists (well, not always, but there are several movies with plots that are completely predictable), she meets the guy she was initially in love with and has an affair with him since her husband is immersed in his work and she has nothing going for her in her life, but then, unexpectedly (not for a Bollywood movie), she feels bad for cheating on her husband, who, in turn, has come to respect her as a person and is planning on devoting more time to her, and she leaves the guy she was in love with to take care of her stepdaughters and her husband (I don't know if she actually told him about the other guy or not since I didn't actually see the movie - Bollywood movies usually tend to be over two hours long, some up to three, and I wasn't willing to sit through a box office failure for that long) and then there's a happy ending! Sheesh, no wonder that movie was a flop. Anyway, the point of my whole rambling on is that it ends on an entirely different note than the book, and I wonder why Edna couldn't do the same (move on with her own family, that kind of thing) other than the fact that the book would have been significantly less powerful if she had, although she could get Leonce to see her as his equal...or not, since he's a skunkbag. And I'm not supposed to say that about anyone, but I'm not counting it here because Leonce isn't real...unless Kate Chopin based his character on a real guy in her life, in which case, they're both jerks. I'm guessing it wouldn't have been socially acceptable and Edna would be suppressed by everyone around her, which makes more sense.

The Awakening - First Half

I can't say I can relate to Edna since 1. I'm not married and 2. I'm not married to a guy I don't love and crushing on a guy who just left for Mexico. Speaking of Robert, did he leave because Madam Ratignolle told him to keep his distance from Edna or because he feels like he's falling for Edna and needs to stay away from her? And I don't understand how swimming "awakened" Edna's spirit - or was it Robert who awakened her, and not really the swimming? Where does the swimming come in then and why did Kate Chopin make it swimming? Why not badminton? Or archery? Or tennis or something? Why'd it have to be swimming? What's so significant about it? Quite frankly, this book is confusing me a bit, and I never thought I would see the day when a book written in modernized English confused me. If Kate Chopin is as amazing as the critics on the back of my copy write, then I can only see it because she manages to confuse the reader despite simple use of language (excluding the French phrases, which I would never understand in a hundred million years).

House on Mango Street - 2nd Half

I would definitely consider this book both a feminist work and a coming-of-age story. Sandra Cisneros realistically captures the opression of the women in Esperanza's life - they're all trapped, and always by men. For example, Sally was trapped by her father and she married to escape, but then she was trapped again by her husband. What I don't understand is how all those women could just sit around and let themselves be pushed around. In their place...well, I wouldn't be in their place because I wouldn't be half as submissive. I'm a total feminist, and I don't like to be controlled by anyone else. I can't help but feel that if women like Esperanza (the great-grandmother, not the 12 year old protagonist), Sally, and Minerva (the woman who cries and writes poems at night, page 84 - interesting bit of info - Minerva was the Roman goddess of Wisdom, unfortunately this Minerva doesn't seem too wise) actually put up a fight and pressed for equality and their own rights, they wouldn't be treated like property instead of like people and wouldn't need stronger women like Esperanza to escape and then come back to help them all because they'd do it themselves. Other than the fact that I'm seriously miffed by all these women and their typical - and realistic - weakness, I did like the book a lot.

House on Mango Street - 1st Half

I like how Sandra Cisneros made the narrative just like a kid's, so it's not that hard to relate to Esperanza, even though with the clouds and names part I got a little confused for a couple of paragraphs with all the names (I thought a bunch of different people were coming in her yard and insulting her over and over again, until I realized it was just Lucy and Rachel while Esperanza was thinking of names for the clouds). It amazes me how much I can relate to Esperanza. Where I'm from, my name is pronounced differently too, and I prefer the way my family says it because it sounds sweeter to me, softer. Also, I have younger siblings (a brother and a sister) and in some ways we're totally alike (I'm convinced my eight year-old sister's sole mission in life is to replace me in the future, only she'll be tall AND smart while I think I got the short end of the stick there, literally), but in other ways, we have nothing in common and I wonder how we come from the same gene pool.

Montana 1948 - Part 2

I really liked the book, which surprised me because I didn't expect to like it. I think I can relate to David and anyone can really because he was a kid while all this was happening, and while he understood how bad it was that his uncle was molesting Indian women, he also retained childlike innocence by believing that Frank Hayden's suicide would solve all the problems and fix everything in his family when life is not that simple and everything that had happened had stressed his parents' relationship, strained the already difficult relationship between Wesley and his father, and made it difficult for them to continue living in Bentrock where no one else (except for the undertaker) knew the whole story. I especially liked the ending, "For an instant I thought I felt the wood still vibrating from my father's blow" because I could interpret it as: even though many years had passed, what happened in the summer of 1948 continued to affect David and his family as if it all had happened recently.

Montana 1848 - Part 1

Is the year in the title really significant to the book? I'm having a huge problem remembering it, for some reason I keep thinking it's 1945 instead of 1948... Anyway, confusion aside, I really like the book so far, and I can completely relate to Davy: parents always want to shield you from the bad things in life, but they don't seem to realize that you have to grow up and face those things someday. When I was younger, the only way I ever found out anything that was going on was by eavesdropping, like Davy, because my parents never told me about anything (maybe they had a good reason, since I used to be such a blabbermouth, but still, the concept is the same...), even if it was really important. Even now, I'm not told everything (which I really hate when I find out at the last minute that we have to go somewhere and it interferes with my carefully planned out schedule) and I wouldn't even know when my parents were planning to go for a business trip until the day before they were going unless I paid attention when my Mom was talking to a friend who was also going on the trip. I'm sure I feel the same way Davy does when I say that I wish my parents would trust me more.

Catcher in the Rye - 2nd Half

I didn't get it before why Holden would keep saying how something was when it didn't seem so bad to me, or why he'd call someone a phony just because he didn't seem to like them, but now I think I'm getting more of an idea. Like when Mr. Spencer and a lady (who, apparently in Holden's opinion, is too old to be working) say "good luck", it irritates him because he thinks it's depressing. I guess it kind of was, since both times he was leaving somewhere and starting over, and didn't seem to have any expectations that it would work out. But what I really didn't understand before why practically everyone was a phony to Holden (I just thought that either 1. he was just jealous or 2. he had no idea what he was talking about), but now that I think about it, I can relate to him there. Like, whenever someone asks a question like "How are you?" or "Are you okay?", no one ever says "I'm not doing so well" or "No, I'm not okay" either because the asker doesn't seem to care at all, or it's just that those questions are useless and no one answers them after really thinking about the answer first, so the answer is always the same, "I'm good" or "I'm okay (even if I did just hit my head on something, really, I'm okay)". That kind of thing has always bothered me a bit too, especially when I'm talking to a friend and they don't seem to be telling the truth when I ask them that kind of question.

And I have to agree with Holden when he says "Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody". If you start telling someone something, then you have to remember it and think about it, and then you begin to wish to have that time back and you end up missing people you weren't even sure you liked - it's better to not talk about all that and focus on the future, because the past is already gone.