The Ramblings of Elyse

It has certainly been awhile since I have done a quality post... Ok, I've never done one of those, but a post about books!

My latest book?
The Picture of Dorian Gray. Another Penguin classic. How awesome are Penguin classics? $10!

Love it!

So, I started reading this. The Preface is awesome, brilliant, it is one of the greatest things I've ever read.
I had high expectations of this book, plus, you know, it's a classic, I was afraid that I knew the "twist" that it would ruin the book.

Yeah, not really an issue, that whole reveal is on the back cover.
Good work Elyse!

I was mainly left cold by the book, and then one day I had lunch with a friend of mine. A friend who in her spare time doubles as an English Teacher, who told me it was brilliant and suck it up and keep reading it. There was more discussion about Oscar Wilde and all that.

But man, the ending?
Brilliant!

I was reading on the bus yesterday and when it was my stop, I had the last two pages to go and it was just damn, so one I got my lift, I stopped to read those last two pages and man, excellent.

Probably, why it's the classic.

Plus, the thing that I didn't get is that because Dorian was a pretty, pretty man (ok, they use the word beautiful, but I prefer the word pretty. It's a West Side Story thing) it meant that he had a pretty, pretty soul.
The entire concept is that sin becomes written on the outside, so thus external beauty is indicative of the purity and what not of the soul.
Thus, all the sin ends up on the face of the portrait. But he does end up unscathed.

All the rumours and what not still existed around him, so even though he's looks went unscathed, nothing else did.

In the end, no matter how much Oscar Wilde makes the claim in the preface that there is art for only art's sake, but in the end, Dorian is a pretty evil dude. The basis of his thinking seems to be upon finding out about the portrait bearing the wear of his actions is to go and be all evil.
And in the end, he meets his end. He breaks, breaks down and then more or less kills himself.

So dude does no good and dies in the end with no one caring about his demise.
That is a moral tale. That is not art for art's sake.

Good book.

Next on the list:
Catcher in the Rye.

I've been told I may be past the prime to get the most out of it, but we'll see.

Also on my book pile:
Catch 22
Lolita
Junky


Anyone with some recommendations for me?

It has been a while.
Quite a while?

So, for anyone who reads here and only here, I did finish the infamous photo challenge, the photos are on my Facebook, they are awesome.

I tend to rant a lot about books here.
I've read lots of books recently, it's hard to keep them all track. I should because I'm slightly interested to see who books I'll get through by the end of the year and I kind of want to get into triple digits.

That fricken Secret History is ruining my odds!

Then again, do the Chronicles of Narnia count as one book or seven? They were in the one volume.
I'd like to count them as seven, but they aren't very long.

It's very perplexing.

I have nothing interesting to say.
Good times. Great classic hits.

Really?

No.
Though, true to my word, I promised I would write about the book I just finished reading. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess.
I use the word "just" loosely, because I actually finished yesterday on the train at around Harris Park, which I meant I had half an hour of train trip left as well as the waiting time since I was going out for Ness' birthday and got there early and had to wait 20 minutes for the train afterwards.
Not that any of that information is important, in fact it is really quite useless but that is half the fun.

So! A Clockwork Orange. It is interesting because until I saw that book in the bookshop last week I didn't even know it was a book, I just knew it was a movie. Quite an infamous one at that made in the '70s by Stanley Kubrick.
It isn't a long book, one could hardly call it a novel. The word used is Novella which is just a cool word. 150 pages. I could have read it in the one day but I have started using my morning train trips for sleep. Sweet, sweet sleep.

There was an introduction, that was nice of them. It was interesting, it spoke a fair bit about Anthony Burgess' thoughts on the book which as it seems to go had to be with that he would be remembered mainly for this book (Which in reality was more of being remembered as the dude that gave Kubrick the source material) as opposed to his other better written books. I believe it is George Orwell who thought the same about Nineteen Eighty Four, or was it just a book that he felt should have never been published. I don't remember the details. Perhaps I should before I start my rambling, oh well ,suck it up.

It isn't an easy read, so while it is a short book I didn't fly through it as I sometimes do.
It is big on the slang and really big on the slang. It is in the first person and told through the eyes of the Protagonist, Alex, and it's basically the inner monologue, which is always cool but difficult to understand because EVERYTHING is in slang based partly on rhyming slang and Slavic words, I'm not all that familiar with Russian either.
Eventually, I caught on to what everything meant, sometimes it was a bit confusing.

I'm quite fond of my book vs movie comparisons, which is hard to say because I've never seen the movie but has quite the reputation.
The book is split into three parts, each part has 7 chapters. Which is significant in itself because my mad maths skillz says that is 21, the legal age in England for a long time or maybe just for the time it is set. Each part also starts with the same line. Just to create that symmetry.
The 7th Chapter of the third part is not published with the American version, the movie is based on the American version, thus the last chapter is not in the film. The last chapter is an interesting one.

Oh, I guess I should move onto some joyful commentary, why? Because it is my blog and I'll write what I want to.
The joys of conditioning!
Which is what it is about. The human body and mind is a wonderful thing, the whole concept of tolerance and building up tolerances. I honestly believe the human body could adjust to being hit by a bus, if one were to survive the first hit.
Now, Pavlov's Bell. That's what it is about! That is the prime example of condition. Actually, it might be called Pavlov's Dog and Pavlov's Bell is a song. Either way, it is the same thing.
Pavlov was a dude who condition his dog because each time he rang a bell, he would feed his dog. Eventually, he would take away the food but when he rang the bell all the reactions were there to get ready for the food.
That is such a poor man's explanation, but people, this is what wikipedia is for!

Alex is basically an arsehole. He is the antihero of the piece. Even though he is the youngest in the gang, a fact you don't find out til towards the end, he is the leader and tends to initiate many of the plots and one of the more disturbing things is the gang rape of a woman, while her husband was held back. You find out later in the book that she died not long after that. Disturbing. Very, very disturbing and that scene is pretty why I wouldn't be able to watch the movie.

So yeah, eventually he is put in gaol and in the process is involved for killing one of his cell mates. He is then reprogrammed so that he can't do anything violent at all and just the thought of it makes him sick, that is the conditioning and it is done with violent films with some music underscoring it which ruins his favourite music for him.
It comes down to the by removing choice, how does that remove the humanity.
It is a lot like a conversation we were having at Antioch the other day, but not doing bad, you aren't necessarily doing good. They are not mutually exclusive things.
You can also do good and bad. Sometimes with the same action!
Good and bad can coexist.
But by removing the bad, what else does it remove?
What are the consequences?

In the end, all Alex wants to do is kill himself and he is driven to it by people that understand how the conditioning worked. Ultimately, Alex is a pawn in the political game and because he is an arsehole to everyone, he has no consequence for anyone and so his life really is just to further various government schemes.
At the end of the 20th chapter, he has the ability to commit violence again. That is where the movie ends.
It is in the 21st chapter where he realises that he doesn't get his thrills from that anymore and that it would be time for him to grow up.
The biggest thing for me in that chapter is his name, all through out the book he is called "Young Alex" because well, he is young. He is 15 at the beginning of the book. In the last chapter he is referred to "Old Alex". It's a small thing really, but the significance is huge, especially since the first and last chapter are quite similar in the tone. They are book ends.

But it doesn't end on a happy note, the basic thing is, that is what growing up is, you fuck up and you keep fucking up and regardless of what you are told that won't change anything.
Eventually, you'll reach the tipping point on which growing up begins.
Not really a happy note if you look at all that had happened for that to occur.

Hmm...
It's interesting.
It's all about the nature of society. I find it fascinating.

On a side note: I think my spelling is getting better.

Hi, my name is Elyse and I spend way too much on public transport.
What does that mean?

That I spend a large percentage of my day reading, up to three hours a day. That's quite a chunk of time, in fact it is a 12th of my day, factoring in the fact I sleep for 8 hours. That is roughly a 5th of my waking hours.
Ok, it doesn't bother me, sometimes I enjoying working out the maths. Each to their own, is it not?

Interesting, spellcheck doesn't recognise "doesn't". It's freaking me out now.
If that's not a word, it is now. Take that dictionary!

The point of the mentioning of the train?
I spend a lot of time on trains, I read while on the train.
At the moment I am going through the classics or what are considered the great novels. I've just completed Lord of the Flies by William Golding.

My first experience with this novel comes from the episode of the Simpsons where they rip off the plot or as they call it "Parody". It was very distracting as I started reading it the line "Go banana" was in my head, it was amusing at first but then I wanted to get further into it. Later I was forced to watch it in Legal Studies. I watched the first half and was absent when the class watched the second half, well physically absent for the second half, mentally absent the first half. That is all in the past and I got over legal studies by dropping it the moment I could.

I had seen the title thrown around a lot and in my quest at the library I came across the novel and added it to my pile. Not all my pile is in the classics, I like to mix it up.
I read fast and that combined with my copious amounts of time on Public transport allows me to get through books very quickly. Last week I finished a book in one day, that did kind of freak me out but what can ya do?

Anyway! Lord of the Flies!
Thoughts and what not.
I liked the concept of the Lord of the Flies and what happens when the rules of society are thrown out, different rules form!
People like to think they are above animals in many ways, but ultimately, we are go in the pack. A pack directed by consciousness and thought as opposed to purely on instinct. That's what happened. There are leaders and there are followers and it is the strong that set the rules.
Those who fight for equally in the world are the downtrodden, who don't want equally they want to better themselves and want to be better than someone.
I think if we were taken out of this world and placed in a location free of rules we'd create them and there will be leaders and followers, because social animals fall into packs.

I'm fascinated by social commentaries. Fascinated!
I loved the entire tribe thing and how the discontent arose and all that went with it. The pack mentality was chilling, when they killed Simon. That was hardcore. Pack mentality is a scary thing.
The majority generally don't cause too much trouble, but when the masses are pissed off, that is when trouble happens. That is the nature of revolution! The French Revolution and the Russian Revolution, though probably more of the Russian Revolution of 1905, which was suppressed by the Army. It was in 1917 when the army wouldn't fight because that the Tsar had no other choice but to abdicate.

I'm a little disappointed in the ending. It seemed very sudden. Ralph is fighting for his life and then all of a sudden he runs into a naval dude and that's what stops the warring?
I think that the group would have taken out the lone naval officer. I got the impression that there was only one navy guy, it's a matter of numbers and passion. Numbers and passion will generally beat training.
I'd also like to know that once Jack faced defeat and going back to the place of not being the Chief and how that would be affected. He would be going back to nothing and that's not even dealing with the fact that he directly responsible for the death of two innocents. There others also have to deal with that, then again, what is worse those who issue the orders of death or those who follow them and actually take the life?
It's a life for a life in some ways, if the ordered don't carry through with it than the chance of them losing their life is quite high. Most people the sense of self preservation is higher than the morals against murder.
It's not right, but it's instinct and we can only overcome instinct so many times.

I had no closure, I'm really curious to know what will happen in the aftermath. Was there a sequel and how would the sequel work. If it would work at all. Not all sequels do. Though, it depends on intentions, most sequels in terms of film are made not for the sake of the story but because there is money to be made.
The resolution was that they were rescued, but I don't think they are saved.
They lost their innocence in a way that most people will go their lives without losing.
I'm also curious to know how long they were on the island for, it was enough for the short boys hair to grow enough to require being tied back.

It was interesting on how the title could be, in my limited knowledge of Lord of the Flies, I figured it was the title that the leader of the boys assumed that title to lord it over them. Not quite. It was interesting that it wasn't that, but I do enjoy the depiction of madness from the view of the character going mad and how there is a sense of logic even if isn't the logic associated with sanity.

Apparently, I don't seem like a reader.
I've never gotten how some can make a judgement like that. I also look like a meat pie person.
For the record, I don't like meat pies.

This concludes my thoughts of the day.
Whether, I'll write again depends on what books I next stumble on in the library.

I'll take requests and recommendations.