30 Day Meme; Day 4
Dec. 4th, 2009 06:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
samatethecookieI feel a little under the weather today. I've been sleeping on and off all day--I slept eight hours last night, then took a nap for four and a half hours--and my throat is starting to hurt. I see a lot of floaters in my eyes, too. Oh and the cramps I should've had a few days ago? They were delayed, but they finally arrived today. I think it's because I consciously I told myself "mmkay no more school stress now I can relax" and ... yeah, now I don't feel good. @_@; I'm sick and in pain today.)
Anyways, have another meme for the day.
Day 04 → Your favourite book
I like a lot of books, but my favorites right now are "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky and "Written On The Body" by Jeanette Winterson.
Stephen Chbosky's "Perks of Being a Wallflower" is about a adolescent boy, Charlie, who is a socially awkward and depressed teenager. The novel follows his first years of high school as he begins to send a series of detailed letters to someone, whose identity remains anonymous. As the summary on Wikipedia explain, the story explores introversion, teenage sexuality, abuse, and adolescence.
I think the reason why this book is one of my favorites is because I can relate to Charlie. I can't completely relate to him, but I sympathize with his introverted nature and his confusion about life. I read the book right after I got out of high school, and I found myself relating to everything the character was saying. I kept seeing a lot of myself in Charlie. Yes, the letters are a little painful to read, because he is a socially awkward person, and it's obvious, but that's the point. I'll include a few quotes.
If you like these quotes, I suggest picking it up and giving it a try.
"Written On The Body" by Jeanette Winterson is a recent favorite of mine. It's a love story that was written with the intention to avoid the cliches. It's a story about the narrator--whose gender and name are unknown throughout the story--who has a tendency to sleep with married women. The bad habit takes a different turn once the narrator meets a married woman named Louis and falls deeply in love with her. Take my word for it when I say the novel is much more interesting than it sounds, and there's a twist halfway through the book.
I have to say, I love this book because I'm slowly falling in love with Winterson's prose. She's a wonderful writer. If you don't believe me, have a few of my quotes!
Anyways, have another meme for the day.
Day 04 → Your favourite book
I like a lot of books, but my favorites right now are "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky and "Written On The Body" by Jeanette Winterson.
Stephen Chbosky's "Perks of Being a Wallflower" is about a adolescent boy, Charlie, who is a socially awkward and depressed teenager. The novel follows his first years of high school as he begins to send a series of detailed letters to someone, whose identity remains anonymous. As the summary on Wikipedia explain, the story explores introversion, teenage sexuality, abuse, and adolescence.
I think the reason why this book is one of my favorites is because I can relate to Charlie. I can't completely relate to him, but I sympathize with his introverted nature and his confusion about life. I read the book right after I got out of high school, and I found myself relating to everything the character was saying. I kept seeing a lot of myself in Charlie. Yes, the letters are a little painful to read, because he is a socially awkward person, and it's obvious, but that's the point. I'll include a few quotes.
I walked over to the hill where we used to go and sled. There were a lot of little kids there. I watched them flying. Doing jumps and having races. And I thought that all those little kids are going to grow up someday. And all of those little kids are going to do the things that we do. And they will all kiss someone someday. But for now, sledding is enough. I think it would be great if sledding were always enough, but it isn't.
I look at people holding hands in the hallways, and I try to think about how it all works. At school dances, I sit in the background, and I tap my toe, and I wonder how many couples will dance to "their song." In the hallways, I see the girls wearing the guys' jacket, and I think about the idea of property. And I wonder if anyone is really happy. I hope they are. I really hope they are.
We accept the love we think we deserve.
If I ever have kids, and they are upset, I won't tell them that people are starving in China or anything like that because it wouldn't change the fact that they were upset. And even if somebody else has it much worse, that doesn't really change the fact that you have what you have. Good and bad.
If you like these quotes, I suggest picking it up and giving it a try.
"Written On The Body" by Jeanette Winterson is a recent favorite of mine. It's a love story that was written with the intention to avoid the cliches. It's a story about the narrator--whose gender and name are unknown throughout the story--who has a tendency to sleep with married women. The bad habit takes a different turn once the narrator meets a married woman named Louis and falls deeply in love with her. Take my word for it when I say the novel is much more interesting than it sounds, and there's a twist halfway through the book.
I have to say, I love this book because I'm slowly falling in love with Winterson's prose. She's a wonderful writer. If you don't believe me, have a few of my quotes!
In bereavement books they tell you to sleep with a pillow pulled down beside you. Not quite a Dutch wife, that is a bolster held between the legs in the tropics to soak up the sweat, not quite a Dutch wife. 'The pillow will comfort you in the long unbroken hours. If you sleep you will unconsciously benefit from its presence. If you wake the bed will seem less large and lonely.' Who writes these books? Do they really think, those quite concerned counsellors, that two feet of linen-bound stuffing will assuage a broken heart? I don't want a pillow, I want your moving breathing flesh. I want you to hold my hand in the dark, I want to roll on to you and push myself into you. When I turn in the night the bed is continent-broad. There is endless white space where you won't be. I travel it inch by inch but you're not there. It's not a game, you're not going to leap out and surprise me. The bed is empty. I'm in it but the bed is empty.
Why is it that the most unoriginal thing we can say to one another is still the thing we long to hear? 'I love you' is always a quotation. You did not say it first and neither did I, yet when you say it and when I say it we speak like savages who have found three words and worship them.
Love demands expression. It will not stay still, stay silent, be good, be modest, be seen and not heard, no. It will break out in tongues of praise, the high note that smashes the glass and spills the liquid.
'Explore me' you said and I collected my ropes, flasks and maps, expecting to be back home soon. I dropped into the mass of you and I cannot find the way out. Sometimes I think I'm free, coughed up like Jonah from the whale, but then I turn a corner and recognise myself again. Myself in your skin, myself lodged in your bones, myself floating in the cavities that decorate every surgeon's wall. That is how I know you. You are what I know.
Louise, in this single bed, between these garish sheets, I will find a map as likely as any treasure hunt. I will explore you and mine you and you will redraw me according to your will. We shall cross one another's boundaries and make ourselves one nation. Scoop me in your hands for I am good soil.
