2. Why did I choose to read this, when I most plainly thought you, the reader of this assignment, was going to think me crazy/creepy? There are a few reasons. The primary was an academic interest. I like history. I love history. I eat, sleep, and… well, you get the point. This was an area of history neglected in anything I had read so far on World War II. I learned of this book in history class, having gone into the WWII unit already thinking I knew all the course-work. I sat up and was attentive when my teacher, Mr. McCusker, told us the tale of the city of Nanking, which brings me to the second reason I read this book. Mr. McCuskershowed us this very book, and then promptly told us that it was too horrific for any of us. I then promptly responded with…… The Rape of Nanking (otherwise known as ‘please don’t think I’m a weirdo, this was a history novel’)
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4. Ahhh… internet meems. Half (maybe less) of you got that, and I’m fine with that. Back to the book, and my reaction to reading it. I actually really liked this book. It told a very touching, human tale of horror and survival. The hero of the story, for example, is not an American, or even a Chinese person. No, the hero is a Nazi, named John Rabe, a diplomat who was horrified at what he saw and immediately used his high status as a Nazi to stop numerous rapes and beating, while the Japanese could not touch him while wearing, ironically, the same armband that was worn by mass murderers and truly evil men. One of the other more interesting parts of the novel was the chapters on the modern Japanese reaction to this. Now, if you are Japanese, the following might be offensive. I was incredibly despised with the Japanese education system’s blatant attempts to pretend that the Rape never happened. One truly sick, awful example is that one Japanese historian, Katsuichi Honda wrote a series of articles on how the Japanese government was incredibly wrong for not even teaching about the Rape. Soon after, his home was being attacked by mobs, and the government stripped him of every award they could, thereafter never giving another to Honda, ever. There were, of course, terrible photos of piles and piles of corpses. I won’t share those photos, because even though those pictures will be a great medium for sharing the purpose of the novel, some things aren’t worth an ‘A’. Instead, enjoy this crummy picture of the cover of the novel and the author.
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6. I read Ernest Hemmingway’s masterpiece of romantic literature, For Whom the Bell Tolls, as my second book for Summer Reading, and, in all honesty, I probably would have put the book down if I had the choice. It was art in literary form, to be sure, and I loved his recounting of the Spanish Civil War, but that doesn’t make up for just how much I hated the main characters. The two lovers of this tale are Robert Jordan and Maria, and they make Belle and Edward look like nuns. Half the novel are private conversations between Robert Jordan and Maria, talking about how after the war is over, they are going to Madrid, then on to America. I actually liked Robert Jordan. You now may be confused as to my message about the book. I liked the individual characters Robert Jordan and Maria. Robert showed bravery and other traits of the hero, making him easily my favorite character. Maria shows naiveté to the twenty-third degree in the beginning of the book , but as the book progresses, we see that the naiveté is just a way of dealing with the horror of being in a war, and she is clinging to the dream of running away to the safe haven of Madrid. What I don’t like, and this is my chief problem and why I said I did not like Robert Jordan and Maria is Hemmingway’s overly sappy dialogue between the young lovers. Put simply, I think it reeks, and badly. To show my feelings about this, I will put a picture of Stan Lee and a cat in a top hat on the next page, to signify two things that are awesome, but when put in the same room, make you become filled with the sudden desire to slap someone. For Whom the Bell Tolls (Written by classic novel master… wait, what kind of name is ‘Ernest’?)
8. Okay, so the last two book talks have been less than serious at times, but before I get to Huck Finn, I’d like to say a few words about the South. Maybe you’ve been down there, and maybe you haven’t, but I know a lot of students have a few presumptions against the South. Before you deny this, please think about your history classes in Elementary school, particularly about the Civil War. You may again deny that any bias was put into your precious childhood, and if that is true, congratulations, we’re still going to go with the biased teacher situation, just to make a point. My point, if you haven’t guessed yet, is that most kids from the North have presumptions about the South, and vice versa. The south is a very slow paced place, where you know your neighbor, whether you want to or not, you treat your neighbor with respect, regardless of what you feel about him privately. It’s a hot place, where people go through several shirts a day, and lakes aren’t used as nice little pieces of scenery, they’re used as swimming holes. It’s a place where you can run wild for miles of rural playground, and be completely alone, something of a feat in the 21st century. Now, for those of you who thought this was an irrelevant tangent, enter The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, regarded as one of the best contemporary American novel written. Ever. I agree with this. It paints an idyllic childhood, mixed with some serious themes that paint a beautiful picture of life in the South. You wander for an hour, maybe two, fight a what might have been a deadly water moccasin, and call it an adventure. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (insert witticism here)
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10. Back to the novel. I wanted to illustrate to you how the setting to Huck Finn is so important, because I know some people will get bored and eventually put down the book because of the slow pace. Well that’s just how things happen in the South. Slowly. The characters, too, paint a very good portrait of the South. I keep referring to ‘painting’, and the ‘portrait’ of the South because that, in a twisted way, is what it is. Mark Twain attempts to show people the hypocrisy of their ‘civilized’ ways. He tries to cover the racism and the lies and cons with a pretty picture of the South, much like I did with the imagery on the previous two slides. But if you look closer, a lot of times not far under the surface is the real America, made fun of for your reading pleasure.
