Much Ado About Nothing

dear Rhiannon,

I really like your story,
it just seems to describe the humdrum of schoolday life so well,because the day you chose to describe was not a good day,not a bad day,just a day.It’s those days that make up the majority of the days in our lives.You also have a very distinctive voice in you’re writing,a voice that says things like you think them.I really like the first part,because all of us have those thoughts in our head first thing in the morning.I also like the way you describe lunch because it’s so true’fifteen chairs around a table that’s supposed to have eight”.You did an exellent job of capturing that day.

Lately i have been on a bit of an ancient Greek kick.I am not talking about the classical age of Greece,with Athens and sparta and the panthenon.Rather before that,almost pre-history,around 12000 BC.TheTrojan war happened then and it was bloody,and long and,it’s basically an ancient world war,because most of the known world(Greece,the middle east,and Africa)where involved to some extent.All you need to know about the Trjan war can be summed up like this: It was over a women,Helen,doubly married to Menelaus ,King of Sparta and Paris,prince of Troy.Fighting between the generals(Agamemnon,the leader,and Achilles the best fighter)almost cost the spartans and their allies the war, and guile saved them and won the war(the Trojan war.)That in a nutshell is the trojan war.Now the Odyssey is not about the Trojan war exactly, it’s about the aftermath of the Trojan war and the struggle of Odyseus to get home and his wife,Penelpe to keep her suitor from marrying her.In the olden days if someone was dead,then the eligeable bachelors would compete and win the hand of the widow.Now,the only problem is that Odyseus isn’t dead,but no one knows this.Odyseus is tying to get home but is shipwreacked on the island of Circe,a shape shifter,he then stays with her for a year,then goes to the underworld to consult a sage on how to get home. He then goes on and get’s trapped in a cycolps’s lair,manages to blind him using a stick,he gets to the Lastrygonians who try to eat him and then he eats the sun god’s sheep,ends up in Calypso’s lair for a decade.He finally get’s home.He weeds out and kills all the suitors with Athena’s help.This book has many Feminnist points in it,for example,Penelope keeps things together on the home front using wit,cunning and a lot of luck.Athena prods things along and controls everyhing like a pupeteer would.These powerful women populate the Odyssey .This book is about the far reaching effects of war,as well as Men, Women and their roles in Society and challenging those roles.This book is wonderful,yet a little gorey for my taste, as Bronze age Greeks where just a tad bloodthirsty,so be prepared to be grossed out,but just keep reading,it’s worth it.                                                                                                                                                                                           

Our assignment was to write about something that we really care about.One of the things that really maters to me is good books,and because i have plenty in my repitoire ,each week will feature a different book.This week’s book is THE BOOK THEIF.It is a story of an acordion,some books,world war two,nazi germany and quite a lot of theivery.It is a book about a girl growing up in nazi Germany with her stepparents,the Hubermann’s.It is narrated by death,wich i think symbolises that she was never far from death,and that death was all around her.One of the things death talks about are the colors of the sky when someone dies,and how it looked.Death would focus on the colors,so as to not focus on the people,as the people make his job harder and more complicated.One girl,Liesel Merminger caught his attention though.That was because he had to pick up her dead brother on the train to their new foster family.They bury the boy and Liesel steals a book,”the grave digger’s handbook” and keeps it even though she’s currently illiterate. She moves in with the Hubermann’s and immediatly becomes fond of Hans,her dad and is learning how to live with Rosa,her mom,a short laydy with a high temper.One of Rosa’s defining charateristic’s is her swearing.She calls all girl saumsech’s and boy’s saukerl’s(swear words.)It is so ofter that the one time she didn’t call Liesel that it made her wiorry.Another character we meet is Rudy Steiner,middle of five and obsessed with Jesse Owens,at a time when that was not tolerated in nazi Germany.He has a crush on Liesel and is always asking for a kiss after he does something for her.She refuses every time,but one.Another character we meet is a jew.And a fistfighter.And an author,but i’ll get to that later.His father saved Hans’s  life once during The Great War (world war one)and he promised The son that if he ever needed anything he could come to Hans.So,when the persecution of the Jew’s begain he turned to his only hope.Now,Liesel had nightmares about when her brother died and so Hans who always knew what to say and do helped her read the book she had stolen,and in some way that comforted her and had a soothing effect.So,every night,she would wake up from her nightmares and read witjh Hans and later with the jewish man in the basement.In a lot of ways the two where alike and became the most unlikely pair,but the power of words and of kindness brought them tougether.Because of a simple hug,she inspired him to write a book on the painter over pictures of “Mein Kampf”the book that Hans had sent the directions from his house in and the key as well.The book continues to talk about Liesel’s theiving escapades and of the situation the people where in.The end of the book isn’t so happy but it isn’t a tragedy either it’s that bittersweet that characterizes life and makes you want to laugh and cry at the same time.To me this book shows books,and reading and words at their very best,when they make up life as it really was and is,not a fairy tale but not a tragedy either.As death says,so much good,so much evil,just add water.