Inspire..

As I was reading I found 2 quotes ( or opinions) that really stuck out in my mind. For me they were very memorable and I really liked them:

1.  `` A survivor, Elie Wiesel, has written: `` Novelists made free use of ( the Holocaust) in their work... In so doing they cheapened (it), drained it of its substance. The Holocaust was now a hot topic, fashionable, guaranteed to gain attention and to achieve instant success...``

• this statement shows the novelty that the survivors of the Holocaust think that the public takes to the things that happened. Personally I think that this statement is very powerful and it shows a lot as to what the survivors think of the general public and the Holocaust. The events of the Holocaust were very horrific but they also can make very many marketable things such as blockbuster movies. The survivor that is mentioned (Elie Wiesel) can more than likely remember the events of those years to great detail. The media seems to put a negative spin on the things of the past

2.     
" You have come to a concentration camp, not a sanatorium, and there is only one way out-   
           up the  chimney." He said, "Anyone who don't like this can try hanging himself on the wires. If 
          there are Jews in this group, you have no right to live more than two weeks." 

• this quote shows the reference to the crematoriums that are in the concentration camps and the things that the Nazi's thought the Jews were thinking. The Nazi's thought that if someone was to try to escape the concentration camps then it would be through the gas chambers and then only their soul would make it through the chimney. The Nazi commander that is speaking is implying that no matter how hard you try to get out of the concentration camps and try to escape you wont make it out. This makes me think of the sign at the entrance of Auschwitz, "Arbeit Macht Frei" that translates to work will set you free. This sign is an iconic one and demonstrates the serious nature of the camp when it was being used. This can be linked to the oven that was used at Auschwitz called "Krema I" and the sentence can show that the bodies that were burned here would never escape.

Both sentences that I used had a very big impact on me and they demonstrated the things that happened at the concentration camps. It is also a comparison as to what the Nazi commander thinks compared to what a survivor thinks of the Holocaust.  

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

As I read more and more into the book I think of the many images that I visualize and associate with the Holocaust. Obviously for Sophie the Holocaust is a major part of her life, she had first hand experience with it. She came out of the concentration camps weighting  `` Thirty-eight. Thirty- eight kilos.`` (69) This is the equivalent to eighty-five pounds. The images that she must have seen are just brutal and cannot be expressed in words. But look and think for yourself what they mean to you.

Words cannot describe what happened at the concentration camps in reality and for Sophie Zawistowska in the novel Sophie`s Choice

Critical Article Summary

Critical Article Summary 1: 

"William Styron's Sophie's Choice: Poland, the South, and the Tragedy of Suicide" 
Critic: Bertram Wyatt-Brown 
Source: Southern Literary Journal 34, no. 1 (fall 2001): 56-67.

In this critical article the themes of depression and suicide are examined in Sophie`s Choice. As I read the book the things that Mr.Wyatt-Brown report on make sense to me as well. This article outlines the 2 themes that are outlined in the book. This article takes both the books that are mentioned in the article (including Sophie`s Choice) and the life experiences of Styron. A lot of the things that are discussed have to do with the life of Stryon. Throughout this article the depression and tragedy aspect of the book are reviewed. Some specifics include the lingering thoughts of depression on Sophie because of the concentration camps. A lot of the characters that are fabricated in Sophie`s Choice have a personal effect on Styron and shows the effects of Styron`s ``personal distress``. The article summaries the themes very well and from many different perspectives. 

It Was Nice to Meet You

So far in the book many characters have been introduced and many have been the focus of the story. The following are characters that have been mentioned so far:

Stingo

• main character
• born in Virginia
• mother is dead, grew up with his father
• from his childhood, he received the nickname Stinky because of his inability to care about hygiene ( he was later "shamed" into becoming clean)
• became a writer - worked for McGraw Hill
• was a member of the military during World War II
• lives on his own in a University Residence Club in the Manhattan area, New York City
• loses his job at McGraw Hill and loses money very quick
• his father "bails" him out and sends him money to help him survive
• past generations of his family (grandparents) have been a part of the slavery movement
• Stingo's grandmother would tell him stories about the slaves that she had at one point, they were named Artiste, Drusillia, and Lucinda
• he then moves in Yetta Zimmerman's house in Brooklyn
•  it is here in this new house the Stingo meets all the other characters in the book

Nearby Neighbors of Stingo

• the wife becomes a sexual interest to Stingo
• he recalls that he had had sex with this particular female interest in the garden, that he can see from his house
• from the description in the book this couple seems to be somewhat materialistic and of high prestige. (Eg. Abercrombie and Fitch references, "over groomed Afghan hound")
• later in the chapters the female neighbor is named Mavis Hunnicutt 

"The Weasel"

• boss of Stingo at McGraw Hill
• Stingo does not take a liking to him
• Stingo says that both him and the "Weasel" took an immediate dislike to each other
• from the south like Stingo

Yetta Zimmermann

• Stingo associates her with a Buddha
• she is widowed by her husband Sol
• description of Yetta: "...squat and expansive, sixty or thereabouts, with a slightly mongoloid cast to her cheerful features that gave her the look of a gleaming Buddha" (35)

Morris Fink

• the first person in the book that Stingo meets
• tells Stingo about Nathan and Sophie
• explains to Stingo the history of the people that live in the house

Sophie Zawistowska

• young character
• the "love interest" of Nathan 
• she was once in a concentration camp liberated by the Russians
• she is Polish with a bit of German and French
• her parents are not both from Poland
• her mother is from Lodz and her father is from Lublin
• they met while at school in Austria
• her receives  a lot of verbal abuse from Nathan, he will call her a " Anti-Semitic Polish pig" (87)
• she does not know what love really is and she is always being either verbally or physically abused by Nathan
• the potential new lover of Stingo
• Stingo takes a slight interest to Sophie and helps her when Nathan leaves one night

Nathan Landau

• love interest of Sophie
• verbally and physically abusive to Sophie
• vindictive 
• rude
• has very sudden mood swings
• he does not think before he speaks, he then later will regret what he says
• he is always in a conflict 
• very domineering
• takes advantage of Sophie
• racist 
• offensive

Side Note: The Soviet Union liberated Auschwitz in World War II. In the book there is reference to the ``Russians liberated that camp she was in`` (69), this is said by Nathan Landau.
YouTube video-Auschwitz haunts Soviet veteran

Change Has Come...

I think that the change of setting is important in the story because it shows the change in the plot. The change of the setting brought on many different emotions and feelings for the main character, Stingo.
Through the change of setting, the main character meet two other characters that through the next chapters. Stingo met both Sophie Zawistowska and Nathan Landau, that both live in the same house as Stingo. The two characters that are introduced are in a relationship that is very abusive. The relationship is filled with many mixed emotions and changes from one minute to the next. Theses characters that we now meet are a large part of the storyline and Sophie becomes friends with Stingo. Nathan Landau seems to be very fake and made up. He reminds me of the attribute that many people give to someone of a snake. He seems very sly and that he will make his way into any situation if he can. He is always yelling at Sophie from what Stingo hears and sees, but she always seems to come back to him and does not want to let him go. I think that this will be one of the main highlights of the book and these events will start to move the plot along even further.

Survey of Author's and Secondary Sources

1.   Author: William Styron                                                Title: Sophie's Choice
2.  What made me interested in the author:                                                                                What made me interested in this author was not the author itself. The summary of the book caught my eye at first, as I read more about the book it became a choice for my novel study. William Styron seems to have very complex and developed ways of writing, as well as vocabulary. He presents a challenge to me right off the pages and makes me think of what is being said. The ideas that he brings forth are very  weel thought out and true to the times.  
3. Background: 
• Date of Birth: January 11th, 1925
• Place of Birth: Newport News, Virginia, United States
• William attended Davidson College and then went to York University, where he soon left to be a service in the Marines
• Returned to Duke in 1945 after the war, he then became interested in writing short stories
• Some other major pieces of writing that he is known for are: Lie Down in Darkness,The Long March, The Confessions of Nat Turner, and this book 
• William wrote to with the intent of the major themes of war, slavery and madness
• William took a job at McGraw Hill where he felt that copying manuscripts drained his creativity, he was fired sometime later because of reading the New York Post and he would not wear a hat
• After these turn of events, with the encouragement and financial help, William was able to publish Lie Down in Darkness
• For the success of his first achievement and book, William won the  Prix de Rome of the Academy of Arts and Letters.
• William married Rose Burgunder in 1953, whom he met in Europe
• Sophie's Choice was made into a blockbuster movie in 1982, starring Meryl Streep
• William has also written a play that ran at Yale, among other things
• There are some critics that see his works as religious
• Retrieved from:  http://www.bookrags.com/biography/william-styron/
4. Other Published Works:

•  Lie in the Darkness- 1952
• The Long March-1956
• Set This House on Fire- 1960
• The Confessions of Nat Turner- 1967
• Clap Shack- 1972 (a play)

  5. Influence on the Author

• World War II
• William Blackburn was a great role model and figure in his life
• Bout with depression
• Salvation- a religious salvation

6. Themes Favored:

• slavery
• war 
• madness

7. Other Author's Compared to...

• Compared to playwrights such as Ralph Ellison and John Updike for his playwright skills

8. Critical Source #1

• Bertram ,Wyatt-Brown. ""William Styron's Sophie's Choice: Poland, the South, and the Tragedy of Suicide"." Gale Literary Databases- Contemporary Literary Criticism . Southern Literary Journal 34 , N/A. Web. 17 Oct 2010. <http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/GLD/hits?r=d&origSearch=true&o=DataType&n=10&l=d&c=5&locID=stc23378&secondary=false&u=CLC&t=KW&s=3&NA=William+Styron&TI=Sophie%27s+Choice>. 

 Critical Source #2

• Barbabra ,Tepa ,Lupack. ""Sophie's Choice, Pakula's Choices"." Gale Literary Databases- Contemporary Lierary Criticism. Bowling Green State University , 1994. Web. 17 Oct 2010. <http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/GLD/hits?r=d&origSearch=true&o=DataType&n=10&l=d&c=5&locID=stc23378&secondary=false&u=CLC&t=KW&s=3&NA=William+Styron&TI=Sophie%27s+Choice>.  

• In this critic's essay I personally liked the fact that the author included the criticism between the movie and the book. As well as the other books that William Styron has written

Critical Link #3
Franz, Link. ""Auschwitz and the Literary Imagination: William Styron's Sophie's Choice"." Gale Literary Databases- Contemporary Lierary Criticism. Jewish Life and Suffering as Mirrored in English and American Literature, 133-43. (Gale Literary Databases), 1987. Web. 17 Oct 2010. <http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/GLD/hits?r=d&origSearch=true&o=DataType&n=10&l=d&c=5&locID=stc23378&secondary=false&u=CLC&t=KW&s=3&NA=William+Styron&TI=Sophie%27s+Choice>.  

• In this essay the historical element of Auschwitz was used and I personally thought that it added to the overall theme and explained the critics thinking a lot better in regards to the book. 

• The pictures at the top are of a World War II automatic rifle and of the late William Stryon

Left in the Dark

The following are some words that I had to look up. I was not sure what  they meant and they were used in the story so I stopped, made a note of them and looked them up.

Syllabic: based on the specific number of syllables that are distressed by stresses and quantities
Brusqueness: direct in manner, blunt, rough
Arcane:understood by few, secert
Mortuary: pertaining to the burial of the dead
Purveyed: to supply furnish or provide as a profession or service
Verdigris: a blue or green hue color that forms on copper, bronze or brass when they are exposed to the atmosphere for long periods of time
Sartorial: pertaining to workman of trade, style if dress

I included the visuals in this post because it reminds me of the descriptions that the book offers in one particular part of the book. In the first few pages of the book the main character describes in detail his experiences with food and his daily life. Because he described the event so clearly I could picture a feather like this one and an omelette like the one below. The following passage described it perfectly and vividly.

``How vividly there still lingers on my plate the suety aftertaste of the Salisbury steak at Bickford`s, or Riker`s western omelette, in which one night, nearly swooning, I found a greenish, almost incorprel feather and a tiny embryonic beak.`` (Styron, 13)

This passage could really get me to picture what he was saying and what he was really seeing. The word choice that the author gave was very descriptive.








Or the next passage that I read a few lines down was a good description of sarcasm and humor, along with the fact that it was still be descriptive of food.

``Or the gristle embedded like an impacted tumor int he lamb chops at the Athens Chop House, the chops themselves tasting of old sheep, the mashed potatoes glutinous, rancid, plainly reconstituted with Greek cunning from dehydrated government surplus filched from some warehouse.`` (Styron,13) I have put these images because this is what I think of when i read the passage.

The Book and I

Welcome to my blog! My name is Emily Jones and I am 17 years old. I am currently attending Governor Simcoe Secondary School in my last year of grade 12. I have blonde hair, blue eyes and am not very tall. I enjoy recreational sports such as soccer, field hockey and rowing. I have a part-time job at Dairy Queen at which i am a shift leader. I also enjoy many things in my spare time such as; scrapbooking, reading, hanging out with my friends,shopping, and listening to music. I enjoy listening to music as much as possible. i like listening to bands such as Maroon 5, Theory of a Deadman, Nickelback, Drake, Three Days Grace and many others. I also enjoy traveling and going to new places. I have been very fortunate to be able to travel to places all over the world such as; Florida, Pennsylvania, San Francisco, Montreal, Chicago, Cuba, Barbados, Georgia, New York City, Paris, Holland, Belgium, and soon going to Mexico. I only hope as I get older I get to visit more places around the world. I would love to go to Africa one day!

The book that I chose to read for my ISU is Sophie`s Choice by William Styron. I chose to read this book because I enjoy the historical aspects of the book. I enjoy learning about World War I and II. The history behind it and the impact on our society today really interests me. The storyline looked like it would be a really good book and would turn out to be a page turner. The front of the book did not look to intriguing but the summary that i found online proved the opposite. I am hoping that the book will be an easy read and that i will not want to put it down. The New York Times Book Review raves that the book is

A passionate,courageous book... It is a thriller of the highest order, all the more thrilling for the fact that the dark, gloomy secrets we are unearthing one by one...may be authentic secrets of history and our own human nature - The New York Times Book Review.

The book seemed to have nothing but good reviews from various sites, so I thought that it would be a good choice for my 12U ISU. I hope that I am proven right and that this book really is as good as i anticipate! 

Sophie`s Choice- Piece by Piece

1. The book that i chose to do was Sophie`s Choice by William Styron. The book was published in January of 1992 and there are 562 pages. 
2. I chose to read this book because of the historical element and the insightful summary that most of the websites gave. The websites that I read had many very powerful points as to what the book was about. if the book is as good as these websites have outlined, then i think i will have read a book that i would read over and over and again. I think that this book will be very interesting and worth my while.
3. So far i think that the book is a bit boring and is focused on the topic of critiquing books a bit too much. This section of the book seems to drag on and on and it is a bit lengthy. As i keep reading a bit farther than the narrator`s job, the book is a bit more interesting. You get to start understanding and getting to know what the main characters home and personal life is and i think that it is starting to pick up.
4. I have not had much time to sit and read large chunks of the chapters, so I have read the first 15 pages of the first chapter. In my opinion the first few paragraphs make or break a new book. I am slowly reading the book so that I can take in every detail and comprehend what I am reading. 
5. So far we learn that the main character works for a publishing company called McGraw Hill and that he previews manuscripts that new authors send in. He works for $0.90 an hour and does not seem to like his job very much. He seems to be very hard on the author`s and does not publish very many books because he just does not see the spark. He lives by himself and lives in a very small apartment smack dab in the middle of a fake stereotype. The author says that he is lonely and only has one window in his whole apartment, that when he looks out he sees the picture perfect couple next door. He says in the beginning that apartments in Manhattan are expensive, so he had to live in Brooklyn. So far the author seems very tired and irritable. He sets the mood as very standoffish and he could be irritated very easily. He has a sense of feeling sorry for himself and that he just does not want to be lonely anymore. I have noticed that he pays close attention to the couple next door, which he describes the wife as ``astonishingly well-proportioned blonde wife``, he seems to admire this women more than sexually and this could potentially be fore-shadowing
6. I think that the author is trying to show themes of relationships and that they can develop in even the most crooked and awkward of situations. I think that he is trying to say that no matter what a relationship has to start somewhere and that you never know what the future holds. 
7. Secondary sources that I have found are the ones of materialism, like Abercrombie and Fitch. This to the author symbolizes something that is perfect and high class. The reader is supposed to identify what this brand is and it should be something that sticks out to them. The brand Abercrombie and Fitch has then clearly been out for a while and in this time frame represents a definite meaning for the reader and the main character alike. You as a reader are also supposed to recognize the publishing company McGraw Hill. If this is the same publisher as today then it is the same publisher that makes textbooks at schools. From what the author says a very well known and credited firm.
8. The passage in the book that speaks to me so far is the passage that the main character writes about Gundar Firkin`s manuscripts. He goes on to say that this is the longest response he had put out to any other review. To me in this section shows a different side to the main character. It shows a very caring and sensitive side to the author. It shows that the main character really does take into consideration the feeling and the things that new author`s have to say. It could simply be the fact that he feels a connection to the author or he felt sympathy for him. But for me this passage really symbolized a different side to the main character simply because of the way that he wrote this passage. He took the time to write about this one and did not shove it along to get it out of his face like he did the rest of the manuscripts. I liked this passage because it showed the caring and sensitive side to a hotshot reviewer.