Rose

That's a point of pride with us.  And you'll eventually pay for your room and board, although we like to think the prices here are very reasonable.  She smiled that brief, preening smile again.  "You should be aware that the accommodations are a long way from fancy.  Most of the second floor has been turned into a dormitory.

How many women are like Rose?

This is the question that came up in my mind as I started reading the book, as I started reading about Rose.

She couldn't get out.  The worse part is she didn't want to get out.  Out of the house that she knew very well, out of the life that she's been living for the past fourteen years.  Her reason is simple.  But is this the same reason they all have?

All the women like her?

Fear Is a Strange Thing

She would rather be the one who was persecuted than the one who did the persecuting.  Both had a terrible price to pay, but she would rather endure the humiliation and fear than grow numb to what it was to be human.

Fear is a strange thing.  It strips off masks… In some people it brings out the lowest instincts, while others become more compassionate.  Both have to do with survival.  But the choice is ours.

Your friend whom you will trust with your life suddenly becomes a stranger.  You start doubting whether just a simple thing you say will be used against you.

Trudi lives through these times.  Actually, at some points, I even forget all about Trudi.  Consumed by what is happening around her, I often forget about Trudi's condition.  I often forget about Trudi's problems, her hopes, her fears, her dreams.  But then again, how can you hope?  How can you dream?  When all you have to worry about is the fear.  The fear for your life, the fear for your friends, and the fear of the war and what it was doing to all of them, to their town, to their country.

But even so….

She felt dizzy longing for peace, a longing as powerful as the passion with which she used to will her body would grow as consuming as the passion that had fueled her revenge on the boys who'd humiliated her.  And what she wanted more than anything that moment was for all the differences between people to matter no more - differences in size and race and belief - differences that had become justification for destruction.

Goodness? Goodness!

I was surfing the tv last night during prime time and not a thing caught my interest... until the animated Disney version of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame."

I think I mentioned when I was reading this book about two months ago that I am kind of intrigued as to how this kind of story will be made into a movie by Disney Pictures.  And I was glad that I saw it yesterday.  So, I tuned in and started to watch.  The part that I came upon was when Quasimodo and Esmeralda were talking and later on, Quasimodo took Esmeralda to a 'trip' around Notre Dame.  More later,  one of the men [didn't know who] was almost begging Quasimodo to let him down.

Quasimodo and Esmeralda talking and taking a trip around Paris?  How can they talk in the first place?  How can Quasimodo understand Esmeralda?

As I read through the last parts of the story in the book, the thought of this being a Disney movie always come upon me.   How can you make an ending to such a story?  And how can you turn it into an animated movie having such a plot, such an ending?

I didn't finish the movie.  All because I know that it would be totally different from the original story.  All I know is that they tried to circle the story around the goodness of Quasimodo; whitewashing everything to make it look good on the eyes of child; on the eyes of those who haven't read the story.  But if they wanted something to bank on the goodness of Quasimodo, I think they could come up with someone else in the likeness of Quasimodo with their army of artistic imaginative people.

Goodness!

No One

At this point in her life, Trudi is starting to realize the good things of her being different.

One thing is that she can decide to be something that was not allowed to girls her age.  She is starting to feel that, after all, being not the same as everyone else will put her in situations that she's not required to because she's different.

But still, there is something that she wanted to do so badly.  Something inside her that desires more than the conveniences of being different.

At some points in reading the story, I could almost feel for Trudi.  And there are some points that it feels like I have had enough of everything that has been happening to her.  Every pain, every sacrifice, every lost friend, lost love.  But the will to go on reading is stronger.  I want her to realize that there is more to life than being different, that there is more to life than being normal, and, that there is more to life than being how everybody is supposed to be.

I look forward to the time to see Trudi triumphed against all that she dreaded; against all the pain she felt.  I look forward to seeing Trudi see what else is there for her and not what she's been looking for all the time.  I'd love to see her see the other side of her that is waiting to be acknowledged, recognized and reinvented.

I want Trudi to know what Pia meant when she said:

"No one but you can change that."

As if I can change her fate.

As if I can turn her life around as I turn the pages.

Violated

Her secret place was hers only.  There, she can do what she wanted, she can be what she wanted to be, learn things she ought to know, think calmly.  There, she is the normal person that she is, that she always thinks she is.  But this is just a secret to herself.  A secret that only happens in her own secret world.

On that day that her secret place was violated, she should have listened to that mist of cloud that she saw as a bad sign.  But we people always choose to learn the hard way.  She went on until the four boys decided to go for a game they call water fart.

Trudi thought that hiding behind the big rock would give her the chance to know their secrets that these four boys might be keeping in her secret place.  But she was wrong.  Instead, they found her and then it was her turn.  Small as she is, she does not have the strength of even one of them.  Overpowered, obviously, she couldn't do anything.

They took her away from her secret world.  Inside the barn of one of these boys, they began to touch her, violate her.  Touch her in a way that was even worse than what normally happens to normal people - normal women.  You wouldn't believe it, but how Trudi wished they did touch her the way they would touch a normal girl.  That way she would have been just like any other normal victims.  The way normal women get violated.

All of them did except Georg.  Yes, her friend Georg was one of them.  Although he did not touch her, he didn't do anything to stop them from violating Trudi.  Because if he did so, that would not be normal.  He would not be normal; thus, he would not fit in.

After all these, she went back to her secret place - her secret world.  The place that was witness to what was bound to happen.  There, she threw four stones.  One for each boy who did this to her.  She vowed to take revenge, and I think she couldn't care less how long it took.

Between The Lines:

In real life, she knew it was not that easy to tell whether the villains were, and even if you could identify them, they were not total villains.  No one was entirely all of one thing.  Cowards could be courageous in some matters, and love was not always declared and might not be pure love, but mixed in with hate and fear and powerful wish for revenge - like what she felt for Georg Weiler, who went to great efforts not to glance in her direction, even if both of them stood in front of their houses.

On Being a Freak

If you lost something you'd once had - a limb, say, or an eye  - people didn't treat you like a freak; they remembered you the way you had been.  But if you were born without arms or sight, you were a freak.  If your body didn't look like the bodies of others, you were a freak. And if you lived in a freak's body long enough, though you didn't feel like a freak inside - what could you do than to make sure your body wouldn't turn all of you into a freak?

Just Like Them

She stopped wherever other kids played hopscotch or ball, wishing they'd understand that, inside she was just like them.

On Friendship

The first sin he become proficient in was lying.  It became a necessity.  But he would never tell a lie to Trudi.  Not even after he'd grow up and marry Helga Stumm and lie to her.  He'd never tell a lie to his first friend, the only one who accepted his difference so much easier than his own, though he would come to betray her in other ways.

On Having

Georg was lucky when it comes to rolling the tiny balls into the hale he'd scooped into the damp soil between the two sets of steps, but he was just as generous in letting Trudi borrow marbles from him if she lost hers.  To keep playing was far more important to him than winning.

We All Pay

We all pay.

Gertrud told Leo.

But Leo did not understand.  He probably never will.  And it was Trudi who eventually knew why.  Hegi's style of revealing the story behind Emil and Gertrud is very unique.  The kind of thing that required the character a good imagination and the kind that requires the reader a better one.  It took me to reading, repeating it a few times in order for me to get the whole thing; to get what she's trying to say.  But, still, it feels like there is still something missing; something I am still missing.

The secret.

We all have secrets to tell.  We all hold secrets told by others.  Trudi held a secret at a very young age.  I wonder if she's too young to hold on to this one.  Because sometimes it feels like a secret becomes a burden, even to an adult.... too much to bear.  Sometimes, it felt like this becomes an even more burden to a child.  A guilt formed for knowing the story because they become part of the story, part of the sin.  A pain for being a child and not being able to do something about it, or rather, not being allowed to do something about it.

Only you were there.  Unless you told.

Her mother says.

And now it breeds more fear.

Sometimes it's better not to know.

Different

The agony of being different.

Trudi is different and she's in agony.

Aren't we all different from one another?

But she's indeed different.

But, I say, how different can we be to be considered different and be in agony?

The Good, The Bad and The Gypsy

The occasions made me a little busy though I should have been busier if not for the operation.  So, this means less time to read and more time with a lot of other things.  But I get to finish the book just a while ago.  I am kind of affected by the way things went on the last book.

This is in fact one of the most tragic books I have read by far.  This means that from the books I have read this year alone, and all those books I have read since I can remember.  I thought this was something fairy-tale-ish, since the thought that comes to me whenever I hear the title is those drawings made by Walt Disney.  Right now, I am still wondering what is the movie all about, considering what I have just read.

I am kinda sad because Quasimodo's life was never happy.  As it said in the book:

He mused on the wretched lot that providence had meted out to him - how woman, and the joys of love, were destined to pass under his eye without his ever being more than a witness to the happiness of others.

Everyone in that town sees him as a monster.  But with his actions, he never was to me.  Claude Frollo, on the other hand, was the good in the story.  Or, was he really?

Now, who really is the good?  Who is the bad?

The twist is that they both fell in love.  I was really quite surprised by the way each of them handled their emotions.  Not to mention the actions they took just to be closed to the one they love.

The mystery of the pink shoe was revealed but I must say that I had the idea of what this was all about at some point in the story.

The good, the bad and the gypsy all died.  Something that makes me wonder how the Walt Disney people presented this in the story, if they ever did at all.

As with Victor Hugo's style, I find it that, sometimes, due to the profoundness of the though of one of his characters, I feel that it was almost totally detached from the story.  That it looks far too perfect to be a part of the story and that it can be distinguished as the thought of the writer himself, and not the ordinary common character.

Some quotes:

I would rather be the head of the fly than the tail of a lion.

For, though one believes in nothing, there are moments in life when one accepts the religion of the temple nearest at hand.

It's often our best friends who make us fall.

There are two sides to every human act.  One man gets praised for what another gets blamed for.

Memory is the tormentor of jealousy.

The Cake And The Little Pink Shoes

I am now halfway through the story, but I tell you, this is the first time that I really got engaged with the story.  To tell you the truth, earlier today I almost went through my unread books, thinking of stopping reading The Hunchback and switch to a new one.  But I held on, because I really know want to know what the whole story is all about.

The temptation to stop started when Victor started talking about the streets of Paris and the architecture.  As I have written on my previous post, I think he overdid talking about the architecture of the country and how architecture was killed by printing.  You might find this a little disconnected as I had but if you want to know why printing killed architecture, I suggest you read the book.

Perseverance got me through.  But I must admit that even if he talked a lot about Paris and its architecture, there were a lot of things that I didn't grasp.  I was looking forward for the story.  I AM looking forward to the story.

The Story of the Cake is a chapter somewhere in the middle of the story.  I was actually confused as to its connection with Quasimodo or Esmeralda or Gringo.  But I think my determination to finish the story held on.  The chapter was a little bit off-beat somehow, but I believe there would be a connection and it would be explained later on.  The cake touched me less than the pair of little pink shoes.  Paquette was in recluse, with the pink little shoes, and was offered the cake.  She refused the cake, asking for black bread; refused the cloak, asked for a sack; refused the hippocras, asking for water instead.

Now, I have another thing to think about...  Because little Agnes has been introduced, I wonder if her story will be finished, or will it just be left that way?  Not to think that I am thinking if this is really about Quasimodo and Esmeralda, or is it really about Esmeralda and Gringoire, or is it really about Gringoire and Quasimodo?  Yes, I haven't read nor watch anything about The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.  Earlier today, I was also actually tempted to just watch the movie.  But I held on... to finishing the book.

The next chapter would be "A Tear for a Drop of Water."  Would this be the reason why Paquette refused the hipocrass?  Will this give at least a lead as to what happened to Agnes?

I only have to go on to find out.

Quasi

A hundred or so days, several books. 

I am finally back in my home country, for good.  I had an operation which will make me stay at home at least for about three months.  A good opportunity to dwell on books.  I have read several since "The Godfather." "Three Cups of Tea" by David Oliver Relin and Greg Mortansen,"Stardust" by Neil Gaiman, "Bag of Bones" by Stephen King, "The Great Gatsby" F. Scott Fitzgerald, " 'Tis " by Frank Mc Court.  I couldn't post entries because access to the internet here is not as easy as when I was still in Dubai.  But finally, I managed to have an internet connection which will enable me to post regularly again.  With regard to the other books I mentioned,  I will just try t make something like I did with "Blaze" in the days to come.

Currently, I am reading Victor Hugo's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." I began as soon as I could after being discharged from the hospital.  Four days at the hospital didn't give me an opportunity to read.  But somehow, I started as soon as I am home and could spare a few hours each day.

As far as I have gone, I have only caught a few parts of the story.  After about a third of the book's pages, it's like much has been revealed about Paris and architecture more than the story itself.  Victor Hugo tends to sidetrack away from the story most of the time.  I've read so much about the changes of Paris' architecture and how architecture was the expression of one's genius at some point in history.

Though this really bored me, I chose to persevere and go on.  I, then, tried focusing in his style and what he's trying to say so that I can go far.  If I didn't do this, I was on point of giving up and getting another book.  He seems to want to discuss Architecture very much and how it transformed the face of Paris.  He wrote so much about the streets and houses and churches and cathedrals in so much detail.  Not that this is irrelevant.  But I just find it too much away from the story.  Though I know this might be very insightful if you are looking for something about Paris' architectural history [at least from the way I see it.]

Just to quote one of the phrases I like, the story began on "the day of the king and the feast of the fools."

And... some of my favorite quotes:

If  I exist, can this be? 

If this be so, do I exist?

Time is the architect, the nation is the builder.

He armed himself with the weapons that had wounded him.

It was, however, these same bells that had made him deaf; but a mother often loves best of all the child who has made her suffer most.

Medicine is the daughter of dreams.

Isolation magnifies everything.

Family Business

After having gone through some stories about little women, building schools and fairy tales, the latest on my bedside is about the Don.  I admit that what led me to read the book is the game I play on Facebook [which is where I am almost always at these days] called Mafia Wars.  I wanted to learn more about the Mafia because I felt like there is more to the game than just clicking the mouse endlessly until your power is not enough for any of the jobs to do.

So, the book started with several people having gone through some acts that brought pain which led them to seek the help of the godfather.  I guess we can all say that this is revenge..

What is it with revenge?

I couldn't blame these people for seeking justice oustide the law.  They have suffered.  But as one tweet quote said:

Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.
- Confucius

I'm going to find out if it's all worth it.

A Few Good Books

Since I went on hibernation, I didn't stop reading.  But I stopped posting.  There were a few good books I have read since "Night Shift" and I should say they are all good.  But I wasn't able to post updates, reactions, views on these books.

However, I tried to prepare my summaries for them.  Only thing I am thinking right now is where to actually put it.  Should I put it on pages or just as another regular posting? I wanted "Blaze" to be on a page since I didn't have much postings about it.  So, I guess I'll go for the page.

They will be posted during the weekend.

Broken Shifts

Alright.

I've had it.

I couldn't finish with David Baldacci's First Family.  I just lost interest, that's all.  I couldn't say that there were a lot of substories within the stories of the story because with Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Idiot, there were a lot of them, too.  It's just that I couldn't find anything to look forward to and couldn't care less what happened to the president's nephew.  I couldn't also say that the story is common these days, but I felt like murder and abduction are being committed at least once in a day and it's all in the news.

So, I decided to start with another.

It was hard because  have several books in line.  I have been wanting to read The Godfather and it got a little more intense when I started playing Mafia Wars on Face Book.  But this good friend of mine was able to borrow Stephen King's Night Shift from her husband's accommodation's library so I couldn't put it off because of the due date.

I started about a few days ago...

Then stopped.

Because it's really scary.

I didn't know if it's the story, or the way SK has written it (wonderful!) or is it my age that's affecting me.  They say that one acquires a lot of fears as one ages.  So, it might be true with me after all.  I tried to determine what is it that scares me.  If it was the story, I have been reading SK's books and there are a lot as scary or even scarier but it didn't affect me during my youth.  It might be my age.  I get scared that I might have nightmares as I did with Duma Key.  Or it might wake me in the middle of the night thinking about the story.  Or it might keep me awake at night because I think about the story.

Whatever it is.

I must face my fear.  [to quote one passage from the book, Dune]

I like the way Jerusalem's Lot is written.  I thought at first it wouldn't be effective for me, but again, I was wrong.  I began to like it that it is written as letters to someone.  The first time I have encountered such a 'format' of the story.

This is a book of 20 stories.  I might read it alternatively with The Godfather.  But it will all depend how scary they would get for me.

Dear Bones,
How good it was to step into the cold...

I like the 'hooker' REALLY!  They call the beginning sentence as 'hookers.'

First Family, Fourth Reader

I am the third fourth reader of this book, assuming that the owner finished it - which I hope he/she did - before my room mate found it somewhere.

*Image cropped from Shelfari

The wife was next but she didn't get too long.  She had commented that she didn't like the alternating chapters between the events.  I do not have a problem with this.  Blaze was written in such a way that past and present were alternately presented which actually made perfect sense to me... It was like revealing secrets as it affect the story.

So this is the story about a president's family.  I am pretty sure that this was written before Obama won.  But I am not sure if it was started before even rumors came out that he would run for office.  But whichever is the case, I just brought it up because the president in the story happened to be black.

Willa, the president's nephew, was abducted by Quarry.  The intent and relation of the abduction is not yet revealed so far but the private investigators - Michelle and Sean - hired by the First Lady herself do have their theories that actually involved Willa's father.

The line of relationship between Quarry and Tuck (Willa's father) is not yet presented - that is, if there is any.

I have read two books by David Baldacci years before.  The first was Simple Truth, and then, much later, Wish You Well.  I didn't get to finish Wish You Well.  I just lost interest, that's it.  I was only half-way through the book and I couldn't pick up the sense of continuing any further.

This one though, is something I am engaged so far.  I hope my hopes wouldn't wither.

What You Want?

Another book came in today.

My friends know that I love reading so they let me know if they have a book that they can lend me. Last night, a friend brought me "Night Shift" which is actually an old book by Stephen King. Yeah, they know, too, that I am into SK's books. So, to give me a background of what the book's all about, I read the introduction, not by SK but by someone named John D. Macdonald.

And here I quote him ( his reaction when people say: they want to write):

If you want to write, you write.

The only way to learn to write is by writing. And that would not be a useful approach to brain surgery.

Stephen King always wanted to write and he writes.

So he wrote 'Carrie' and 'Salem's Lot' and "The Shining,' and the good short stories you can read in this book, and a stupendous number of other stories and books and fragments and poems and essays and other unclassifiable things, most of them too wrteched to ever publish.

Because that is the way it is done.

Because there is no other way to do it. Not one other way.

Compulsive diligence is almost enough. But not quite. You have to have a taste for words. Gluttony. You have to want to roll in them. You have to read millions of them written by other people.

You read everyting with grinding envy or a weary contempt.

You save he most contempt for the people who conceal ineptitude with long words, Germanic sentence structure, obstrusive symbols, and no sense of story, pace, pr character.

Then you have to start knowing yourself so well that you begin to know other people. A piece of us is in every person we can meet.

A damn good piece of advice for me!

Blaze

If it was his childhood, then Blaze's father was to blame.  If it was the life he lived after his fall, would it be his fault?

Blaze had a very difficult life.  But meeting George changed it all.  Although it did change, it wasn't from difficult to easy.  It was just from being alone in a difficult life to having someone share his already difficult life.  But hard as it is, he at least felt he belonged or let's just say, he had someone to watch over him; at his dumbest times, which is actually most of the time.

When George died, it never was the same... again.  Although George is still very much present with him.  Yeah, something like a ghost.  But ghost or not, Blaze wanted to fulfill George's dream - to get inside the Gerard's house, and probably even get into their nerves.

And Blaze did.

I thought he was tough.

But later on...

As most of us are, he had a soft spot.  So soft that it became the culprit of his doom.

He fell in love.

Those blue eyes, the soft skin, that cute grin, the smile, those [two] teeth.

He didn't want to let go now.  Not this time, not ever.  Not after all those he loved left him alone - alone and scared.

Although this time, he wasn't scared anymore.

He fought - and fought hard.

But he never saw those blue eyes again.

===============
My Rating:  ****

Image copied from Wikipedia