The Circus of Dreams, Destiny and Defiance

Magic, Mystery, Love and Clockwork—The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern is a verbal scrapbook that brings to life a fantastical story of love and destiny so unlike every other romance novel out there.

It is a book that I would easily rate with an 8.5/10.

Overview

The circus arrives without warning.

No announcements precede it, no paper notices on downtown posts and billboards, no mentions or advertisements in local newspapers. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not

Prospero the Enchanter puts his long-lost daughter Celia Bowen into a game against Mr. Alexander H’s student, an orphan named Marco Alisdair. With no known reasons and no known rules, the game is set in a circus that comes unannounced and appears only at night, owned by a rich young man, Monsieur Chandresh Lafavré. Le Cirque des Rêves is the chessboard and everyone is just another piece.

What started out as a humble NaNoWriMo submission ended up as a bestselling debut novel for Erin Morgenstern, jumpstarting her career.

Up, up, and away–Erin Morgenstern’s writing career soars into new heights with the success of her debut novel, The Night Circus

I dislike how often The Night Circus is compared to Harry Potter for the simple reason that it isn’t similar to it in any way. The Night Circus is a Shakespearean tragedy set in a small dome of fantasy travelling in the real world in the dark. It is a story of the Hunger Games, with Love is Our Resistance playing in the background. It is not a story, but a poem in paragraph form.

Wine is bottled poetry.

He wonders if the poem of the circus could ever be bottled.

The usual downside that most reviewers have pointed out about The Night Circus is that it was too slowly paced, or All-Word-No-Plot, or that it was “the most boring circus ever.” They’ve even compared it to Twilight. The difference, of course, that most people did not see was that it was the entire bottle of poetry, of every piece of imagery that was necessary, not only to make it magical, but to actively portray and paint a picture of the love shared by Celia and Marco. When one reads about the circus, about the design of the clock, or how the statues move at such a glacial pace, one could barely notice, every carefully laced detail should be read to interpret Celia and Marco’s love story. They are the circus. They were destined to be together in this way, in a way so magical and so eternal and so artistically bizarre. Every one of their tents was a love letter: The Ice Garden, the Carousel, The Labyrinth, and the Wishing Tree where each wish gets lit up by someone else’s. Compared to real circuses, yes, they do seem slow and boring. But it’s poetry, and you’re never supposed to take words for what they seem to mean at first.

The Delicious Reads Book Club meeting for their February choice The Night Circus

Writing Style

Even the sex scene was so quietly, artfully, poetically portrayed.

Trapped in silence, Marco traces apologies and adorations across Celia’s body with his tongue.

Though I have to admit, it’s not your usual popular romance story, with the witty comebacks from the charismatic young lover who tries to charm his way through a million rejections, just to get her to smile and probably rethink that offer. It barely even touches on the romance, and takes half a dozen forevers before Celia and Marco even meet. And when they do, it’s all the I Love You’s and the I Can’t Live Without You’s stock dialogues, like the badly written Legend of Korra season finale. Even though I think TNC is trying to be poetic and symbolic, but it could try to be a bit more natural and creative. In this way, what TNC really lacks isn’t plot, but character development. We look too deeply into the circus, all the tents and the cinnamon things and the spiced chocolate, but we see the characters too subdued, too quiet, that after some 400 pages in a journey with these characters, you’ll feel as if you’ve barely known them at all.

But Erin Morgenstern knows how to keep you flipping through those pages, regardless. It didn’t need to be fast-paced, witty and action packed to be interesting. Every single issue was shrouded in mystery, and our main characters don’t even know what they’re in until somewhere towards the end. And it will mostly be what gets you to continue reading: to try to uncover the mystery, when in fact, every flip of the page just adds another layer of it.

Another creative bit about the writing, after all the colorfully interwoven imagery, is the description of the attractions in the circus, used to separate chapters. Using second voice, it seems as if the reader himself steps into the scene. And, like good poetry, the ending was written to resonate with the beginning. Everything just seemed so polished and well-structured, that you can feel the amount of time and effort Morgenstern poured into the creation of this piece.

Book Covers

The artistry of the book covers is no exception. The covers come in black, gray and white with a hint of red.

Before The Night Circus even hit the market, the lucky critics who received advanced copies (like Reveurs getting free admission or something) had this stack of beautiful silver things to enjoy.

The US version showed a view of the tents of the circus with the clock above it, being held in what seems to be Tsukiko’s hand. The hardbound version is lovely, but having this transferred to paperback doesn’t seem as nice at all. Printed by Anchor Books, an imprint of RandomHouse.

The US Release Cover designed by Pei Loi Koay

Walter Sickert himself designed this poster for The Night Circus Paperback Release Party, where he performed with his band, Walter Sickert and the Broken Toys

The UK print from Vintage Books, another imprint of RH, looks much more elegant, especially in hardbound. The dust jacket is in black, with white silhouettes of Marco and Celia, which was also used for the online game.

The UK Release Cover

The book itself is in red, with a golden clock face painted on the inside.

Herr Thiessen’s Clock Face

Look at the red ribbon bookmark and the black edged pages! Book publishing as an art form–it’s definitely a good reason to buy this version as a sort of collector’s item.

The inside cover has a pattern of top hats and bowler hats.

Marco Alisdair on the inside-back flap of the dust jacket for the UK Release

I found a Spanish Release cover, but I’m uncertain on whether or not it is the official one. Most of the other translations are the same cover as the UK release but change the title.

The Spanish Release Cover?

Rejected cover by Jessica Hische, perhaps because it was in black and gold–and there was no gold in Le Cirque des Reves.

A black-and-gold cover that wasn’t able to make it out to the market, a beautiful design by Jessica Hische

A cover that didn’t make it out, by Jessica Hische

Fan Art

The Night Circus is so visually indulgent that an artist just can’t help but make something inspired by it. Here are some notable works I’ve found.

Laura Walter has a fan-made cover in a deep shade of teal.

Laura Walter redesigns Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus with deep shades of evening blue

Upcoming Film Adaptation

Summit has already claimed the rights to the movie production of this book, and I hope they won’t mess it up the same way they did Twilight. Although, there seems to be a good thing about having David Heyman as the producer, since he also produced the Harry Potter films. Writer for the screen adaptation is Moira Buffini who previously wrote for films like Jane Eyre and Byzantium. There has no official date as of yet, and no cast either, so the film can be predicted to be out by mid-2013 or early 2014.

The book is just so visual despite the fact that the circus comes in Black and White, and I think it would be perfect as a movie. Costume designs, props and set would be perfect if we could get the team of people from the 2004 Phantom of the Opera, ala Masquerade, or Moulin Rouge on board.

What I want to hear: Music

It would be incredible to have Erin Morgenstern’s personal writing playlist as an inspiration for the film’s OST, just as Summit was able to do for Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga. It would be perfect to have at least one Florence + The Machine track in there, hopefully a new one, or perhaps Spectrum. And then Andrew Bird as well as Smashing Pumpkins. Other than the music from her personal soundtrack, a bit of Muse would do some good, especially something similar to Starlight or The Resistance. (Starlight because of the sound, Resistance because of the message resonating with the film.) And Birdy. And Coldplay. And Fun. And Panic! At The Disco. These last two choices seem out of balance with the rest of the track, but when I ask myself, “what music sounds like an old French circus?” then nothing would match it better than some PATD.

Who I want to see: Cast

I have no one in mind for the cast, to be honest, except maybe Lucy Liu for Tsukiko, but that was still a no for me. I definitely want to see Chloe Moretz in red hair for Poppet. Mila Kunis would make a great Isobel. But other than that, my thoughts on casting are really useless. I’d love to know who you guys think should play it though. I do think that it’d be great to have Cirque du Soleil be in the movie.

Spoilables

Here is a comprehensive list of the characters and themes of the novel. Do not read them until you’ve finished the entire book. Also to note, a good number of the themes or the personalities of the characters are my own thoughts and observations. They’re not necessarily what Erin herself intended.

Characters

Celia Bowen

Celia is the daughter of the world-renowned magician. After her mother died, she is given to her father who uses her as a representative in the game because of her “natural talent”, inherited from her father. During her childhood, she was thought to be strange, or a child of the devil, as she would tend to break things around her without touching them whenever she was upset. She was taught to heal herself, remake things she broke, and do illusions and magic tricks. She worked as an illusionist at the Circus, and wrote letters to the Revéur Herr Thiessen. She collaborated with the engineer Mr. Barris in creating the enchanted Carousel.  She also made a vertical labyrinth of clouds, and took it upon herself to train the Murray twins. She acts very mature and motherly towards them.

Celia dislikes being treated like a child, or having to follow orders and rules that she don’t understand. She continues to struggle to gain independence, to break free from every bond she’s had, represented by the ring that was embedded into her skin. At some point, she mutters to herself, “I’m already married,” declaring her unwanted engagement with a seemingly pointless game. She compared herself to Shakespeare’s Hamlet once, saying that she was haunted by her father’s ghost. And she has plenty of Shakespeare in her stack of books in the tent.

Her style of magic makes use of illusions and redirecting energy from places, something that seems natural and inherited. Her usual acts in the circus as the illusionist include the usual dove tricks, changing the colors of her dress, destroying watches and re-making them, etc.

Celia’s Gown, by the Delicious Reads Book Club

Her character ends up as a very self-protective one, often finding herself not allowing Marco to love her. She tries to be in control of things, and tries to push away the people—especially Marco—who take away that control.

Marco Alisdair

Marco starts off as an orphan, taken by Mr. Alexander H. to represent him in the game. Marco Alisdair is not his real name, but one he used growing up, revealed only once he met Isobel. His magic is part of his studies for years, unlike Celia who was born a natural talent. His style of magic makes use of a lot of alchemic symbols and formulas which he keeps in notebooks with drawings of trees. He does not perform in the circus itself, but works for Chandresh Lefèvre, the main proprietor. Marco keeps the accounts and records, etc., and makes certain that the dinners and parties and events are organized. His contribution to the circus is the bonfire, which actually acts as a protector, shielding the people in the circus, so they won’t be overpowered by the magic and would eventually go insane. Likewise, the protector also seems to prohibit the main people in the circus from aging. He also created the Ice Garden, Celia’s favorite tent.

Personally, Marco’s favorite tent was the wishing tree.

His romantic pursuits are often without Alexander’s permission. His decisions on love seem impulsive and rushed. His usual way of courtship is by creating fantastical illusions and recreating the surroundings, which is what he did the first time he kissed Isobel in the rain, and what he continued to do for Celia. He never told Isobel that he loved her, but he never held back on telling Celia.

The Night Circus Character Designs by deirling via deviantART (click the image to visit her page)

Hector Bowen (Prospero the Enchanter)

Prospero the Enchanter was a well-known magician, a student of Mr. Alexander. He challenged him in the belief that magic cannot be learned but a special talent accessible only be a rare few. This challenge between them two was what started the centuries of games. At some point, people believed that Hector Bowen had died, but in truth, he was suspended in a state of life with no physical body in a failed attempt at gaining immortality.

Esse Quam Videri is the Bowen family motto, which means, “To be, rather than to seem.” According to Celia, Hector was “very fond of engraving it on things.”

Mr. Alexander H.

Mr. A.H—as he is often referred to in the book is the teacher of Hector Bowen, Marco Alisdair and Tsukiko. He always wears grey clothes and does not have a shadow, which was noticed only by Celia in the first chapter, and by Widget in the last. Celia also notes that it’s as if Alexander isn’t his real name, as if “it doesn’t fit.” Mr. AH—believes that magic can be learned, that it is all around and for everyone, but only very few people make an effort to notice it. He warns Marco during the game to stay away from Celia, knowing the objective of the game and that the end result would only hurt Marco, as it did Tsukiko.  Also unlike Hector, Alexander openly appreciates the value of death, a sentiment he only expresses with Widget in the last chapter.  Although he is very old, he admits that he will eventually die and does not intend on seeking immortality.

[Immortality] is a terrible thing to seek. It is not seeking anything, but avoiding the unavoidable.

Alexander also believes in the power of stories, and makes a deal with Widget that the game will end and the Circus will be passed over to the hands of Bailey Clarke.

Circus Performers

Winston Aidan Murray (Widget)

Widget was born October 13, 1886, six minutes before midnight. He has striking red hair, always wears a black suit, and carries a white kitten with him. Other than his kitten act with his sister, Widget also has his own tent called Bedtime Stories which houses various bottles that release stories when uncorked.

He has a natural psychic talent of knowing people’s past, and is tutored by Celia to develop his magical powers. His talent is attributed to the fact that he was born on the same night as the opening of the circus, and perhaps was affected by the enchanted bonfire lit by Marco. His favorite treat at the circus are the cinnamon things.

The Cinnamon Things that Widget loved so much; from the Night Circus meet-up by the Delicious Reads Book Club

Widget, as revealed later on, is apparently the narrator of the entire novel.

Fan Art: Poppet and Widget – The Night Circus by jucylucyinspired via deviantART (click the image to the original)

Penelope Aislin Murray (Poppet)

Poppet was born October 14, 1886, seven minutes after midnight (thirteen minutes apart from her twin brother). Like Widget, she has striking red hair. She wears white dresses made of scraps of different fabric, and has a black kitten. The Murray’s parents run the Big Cats attraction. Poppet ends up as Bailey Clarke’s love interest, as well as the reason he comes to join the circus. Opposite her brother, Poppet has the power of foresight, and sees blurry images of the future. She also has the ability to read the stars.

Isobel Martin

Isobel is a reader of Cartomancy, Tarot Cards. She first appears as an unnamed wanderer, and ends up kissing Marco in the rain. Through the years, she tries to aid Marco to win the game, but ends up finding out that there is nothing she could do to hold things together. Her relationship with Marco ends up as a very one-sided love story. No matter how you put it, the only way to really describe it is that Marco cheated on her. Other than Tarot Cards, Isobel also makes use of charms.

Tsukiko

The Night Circus Contortionist by Fluffball264 via deviantART

Tsukiko is a Japanese contortionist who performs at the Circus. She first appeared at the Midnight Dinners. Tsukiko becomes the main inspiration of the circus. She reveals herself later on to be one of Mr. Alexander’s student, and the one who previously won the game, or, in her words, “survived” it. She was in love with her competitor Hinata who lit a pillar of flame and stepped into it, to burn herself and let Tsukiko win. (This also means that Tsukiko is a lesbian.) On October 31, 1902, she claims to have won the game that ended “eighty-three years, six months, and twenty-one days ago. It was a cherry-blossom day.” Approximately, that would be April 20, 1819.

Original Conspirators

Chandresh Christophe Lefèvre

Owner of Le Cirque des Rêves, Chandresh is a wealthy man of great ambition. His life spanned from August 3, 1847 to February 15, 1932, dying finally at the age of 85. He was 39 when the circus first opened. His character has this keen sense of beauty and a burning love for the arts. He has a lingering restlessness whenever he does not have work to do, which, other than the burden of the magical circus, caused his emotional and psychological unrest less than a decade after the opening of the circus. In that said moment of instability, he attempts to kill Alexander with a silver knife, but misses. Instead, Herr Thiessen gets stabbed. After he hands the circus over to Bailey, he creates a museum with Poppet.

Ana Padva

Often referred to as Tante Padva or Mme. Padva, she is a retired Russian prima ballerina. She acts almost like a mother to Chandresh and the Burgess sisters. She loves fashion most of all, and appoints Lainie Burgess as the heiress to her business.

Lainie & Tara Burgess

The Burgess Sisters Lainie and Tara are socialites who love secrets and stories. They feel uncomfortable being apart from each other, one of them acting as the eyes, the other the ears during social events, making them a complete set. Tara ends up committing suicide by jumping in front of a train, after being heavily affected by the overpowering magical influences of the circus, just as she realizes the grand scheme. Lainie, however, ends up inheriting Ana Padva’s business, as Padva claims her to be reliable and responsible. Also, Lainie is the love interest of Ethan Barris, but initially refuses his proposal. Her argument was based on the fear that she was only chosen because Tara was already dead, making the choice not completely Mr. Barris’s, but just a matter of consequence.

Ethan Barris

Mr. Barris is the engineer and architect that built the circus. Aside from Isobel, he was the first among the original conspirators to know about the game, and how the circus was being used as a stage. He seems to be always busy, but he has a reserved and secretive character. He does not take sides.

Revéurs

Bailey Alden Clarke

Bailey is just a son of a humble apple farmer who ends up as the main proprietor of Le Cirques des Reves. When the circus visits Concord, Massachusetts in September of 1897 but is closed due to inclement weather, Bailey gets dared by his sister Caroline and her friends Millie and the Mackenzie brothers to check it out. There he meets Poppet, who lets him keep her glove as a souvenir. He keeps it in the hollow part of his favorite tree, for years until he sees the circus again in 1902. He finds himself in a dilemma between choosing Harvard, by recommendation of his grandmother, or staying to take over the family farm, by the strict decision of his parents. When Poppet returns for him, she asks him to join the circus as if though his presence were essential for the preservation of it. Later on, Celia and Marco are trapped in the half-matter state of the circus and can no longer keep it operating under their own power, so they ask Bailey to take over.

Assuming that the internet became available in 1990′s or 2000′s, then the ending would hint that Bailey and the rest of the circus continued to live past a hundred years.

Bailey’s Favorite Treat: Chocolate Mice

Friedrick Stefan Thiessen

Herr Thiessen (September 9, 1846-November 1, 1901) is a German clockmaker from Munich who creates the iconic timepiece that is displayed at the circus. After his first visit to the circus at Dresden, he develops overwhelming feelings about the magical performances and starts to write about them. Patrons of the circus see his articles on the news, and start writing to him. They begin to create a network of fans of the circus called the Reveurs(daydreamers). He had a great fondness for Celia and was often assumed to have a romantic relationship with her. He died by getting stabbed with a silver knife by Chandresh who was in a time of mental instability, trying to kill Alexander who dodged the attack. His and Chandresh’s names are engraved on a metal plate installed on the great clock in their memory.

Designed by Stephanya from BookPeople

Victor

Victor meets Bailey on his way to New York and is the first to introduce him to the Reveurs. He offers Bailey to stay at one of the rooms at the Parker House, and even gives him a book of clippings and circus memorabilia. He is stubborn and does not accept rejections for his offers of kindness.

Lorena

Victor’s sister who chooses out Bailey’s deep grey suit and puts a rose in his lapel. She seems very supportive of Victor and often finishes his sentence.

Elizabeth

Elizabeth seems to have a hidden romantic relationship with Victor. She makes red scarves all the time for the Reveurs and gives on to Bailey as a gift.

We lead strange lives and chase our dreams from place to place. –Elizabeth, on being a Reveur.

Analysis of Themes & Ideas

What’s in a Name?

In the first part, when Celia meets Mr. Alexander H., she asks her father if it was his real name, saying that it’s as if it doesn’t fit. Likewise, when Hector first meets his daughter, he says that it was a shame she wasn’t named Miranda. And after various attempts at calling Celia as “Miranda” it never catches on. Later on, calling the Murray twins as Poppet and Widget, the narration includes that “the nicknames stick as all nicknames do.”

So what is in a name? Does not a rose called by any other name smell just as sweet? Well it would, but if you called it a daisy, it wouldn’t feel like a daisy. It would still be a rose. The thing is, names have their own definitions—not the type like those in baby name books. Words mean what they are meant to represent, and names mean the person they are meant to identify. To use a name for a person that isn’t their name would be defying their own sense of identity, in some way.

“Why did you call that man Alexander?” Celia asks.

“That’s a silly question.”

“It’s not his name.”

“Now, how might you know that?” Hector asks his daughter, lifting her chin to face him and weighing the look in her dark eyes with his own.

Celia stares back at him, unsure how to explain. She plays over in her mind the impression of the man in his grey suit with his pale eyes and harsh features, trying to figure out why the name does not fit on him properly.

“It’s not a real name,” she says. “Not one that he’s carried with him always. It’s one he wears like his hat. So he can take it off if he wants. Like Prospero is for you.”

Destiny, Dreams, Defiance

Tarot Cards, premonition and foresight, the rings, the game, the circus, the umbrella, the bottle, the glove, the fire, the silver knife, the blood, Harvard and Apple Farms—there are so many things in The Night Circus that none of the characters could be in control of. In fact, the game wasn’t one that you play, but one you survive. Marco and Celia aren’t even players in this game, just two kings on the opposite sides of a chess board, while Hector and Alexander move them around, knocking other pieces over like worthless pawns.

She has gathered that the man in the grey suit whom her father called Alexander also has a student, and there will be some sort of game.

“Like chess?” she asks once.

“No,” her father says. “Not like chess.”

And maybe, even, that’s why the entire circus is in black and white—because it’s a chessboard. No matter how they try to end the game, they couldn’t. They could try to win or to lose for the sake of the other, but there was no way to end it. Their love for each other was the resistance that they put up, their last act of defiance. It’s the same way that Romeo and Juliet died for each other, or even how Peeta and Katniss took those berries at the end of the games.

But then, there’s Bailey. He was supposed to either go to Harvard or take over the family farm. One of those was his predefined destiny. It’s a nice thing to think that Bailey tried to go against destiny by running off with the Circus. But then, Poppet saw it happen first, that Bailey should come over to the circus so that it would continue to survive. If so, then wouldn’t joining the circus be part of Bailey’s destiny? Is there really ever an escape for it?

In the same way, Celia tried to not get Bailey involved—but he still did. And she also tried to not fall for Marco, but she still did. It was something out of her control, like her emotions and her powers. And at the end of the day, if you really think about it, nobody escaped their destiny. It’s as if defiance and rebellion are just heroic illusions, when in fact, nobody ever really gets away.

Perhaps, even, love is just another way of giving up your freedom, like when Marco and Celia bind themselves forever into the soul of the circus, or when Bailey takes the contract and stays. It’s as if the only way to truly rebel from life is to dream. Art is the purest form of defiance, it’s the escapement, the maximization of the true sense of freedom.

A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world. – Oscar Wilde, 1888.

Time

The book narrates back and forth from the beginning of Celia and Marco’s game in 1873, jumping to Bailey in 1897, and takes them together until both parts of the story meet at 1902. This, and the fact that the narration was in past tense, only meant that there was already a defined past and future, and there was no way of changing it. Peculiarly enough, Widget started telling the story in 1902 to Mr. AH–, but was able to write at the end of a time with internet, even though he wouldn’t have known about that in 1902.

“I am saying that you had a chance,” Isobel says. “A chance to be with her. A chance for everything to resolve itself in a favorable manner. I almost wanted that for you, truly, in spite of everything. I still want you to be happy. And the possibility was there.” She gives him a small, sad smile as she slides her hand into her pocket. “But the timing isn’t right.”

But likewise, it showed that destiny could be—or could have been—quite flimsy, flexible. An outcome of some event could be changed by the smallest factors, or in Isobel’s terms, the timing.

Kiko, please,” Celia says. “I need more time.”Tsukiko shakes her head.“I told you before,” she says, “time is not something I can control.

Immortality

The concept of immortality and how Hector tried to obtain it is briefly discussed directly, but in all truth, I think it’s what the entire thing was about. Celia and Marco being forever part of the circus, with their souls intertwined with its existence is their piece of immortality. And Widget’s account of the circus is the preservation of everything—Herr Thiessen lives, and so does Chandresh, and likewise every person in that circus.

Oddly enough, as the years progress, the people in the circus never seem to age. By 1902, Marco and Celia would have been at age 34 or so. And Bailey, who was born around 1886, same with the twins, lived long enough to reach the time of internet, as shown when “you” receive Bailey’s business card with the website name and his email. That would mean they all lived past a hundred years. This might mean that the circus continues to pro-long and preserve their lives, making Celia and Marco, and everyone in the circus, in their own way, immortal.

Circles

The whole of Les Cirque des Reves is formed by a series of circles. Perhaps it is tribute to the origin of the word  “circus,” deriving from the Greek kirkos meaning circle. (…) They are set within circular paths, contained within a circular fence. Looping and continuous. – Herr Friedrick Thiessen, 1892.

So is the narration, and Marco and Celia’s rings. Everything is like an orobouros and everything continues in circular motion, on and on, again and again, looping into forever, like a clock that never stops ticking.

The Fault is Kind of in the Stars, Seriously

WHAT A PAINFUL PIECE OF LITERATURE.

That really is the first thing I’d have to say about John Green’s literary scar on humanity, The Fault in Our Stars.

Overview

Hazel Grace Lancaster, or just Hazel, has cancer–not the curable “you will live if we chop off this part of your body” kind. No, it was the definitely terminal, Your Lungs are Producing Water and are Trying to Kill You Everyday sort. Hazel Grace is a known professional of Having Cancer. At one of the support group sessions she reluctantly attends, she meets a boy named Augustus Waters, an amputee and the Mayor of Cancervania–he had a You Will Live If Your Leg Was Cut Off sort of cancer. They fall in love that makes for the most tragically beautiful romance that you will ever read in your Young Adult Genre Shelf ever. EVER. Yet. Until John Green writes again.

Cover Art: John Green discussed that he wanted to stray from the usual book covers, and that he’s very thankful that his publisher respects his thoughts on these things.

My Thoughts, Exactly.

Mind you, I do mean that it stays in the Young Adult Genre Shelf. Because it is, and it should, and that’s where John Green meant for it to be because he really doesn’t care about adults. The prose is half and half enlightening insight with hilarious dialogue. His characters are every geek girl’s teenage dream. Well, minus all the cancer.

Augustus is the perfect gentleman, with a witty repertoire of responses, a love for video games and their novel adaptations, and would be dedicated enough to fall in love with your favorite novel, set up a picnic in the theme of all the things you love about said novel, and would do anything to accomplish your last dying wish.  He’s the gamer geek that defends you in combat when you really suck at it. And when you’d feel terribly sad about a swing set for no reason, he drives to your house, pronto.  He looks at life and makes a metaphor out of everything. He hates basketball and would break his own trophies.  And he’s hot, and he’s aware of it.

Our heroine? College girl, smart, well-read, liked to quote books and a constant, albeit well-mannered, downer for the people as terminally ill as her.

Defeatist?

Not even. Hazel Grace may tell you that you will eventually die and everyone will forget you, but even when she knows it will happen, she uses her life in a way that she doesn’t let death itself defeat her.

This will be among the many thoughts you will realize from the moment Hazel Grace allows you into her mind. And that is the thing that truly picks up the novel, making it something worth reading regardless of age. Everything–and I mean everything, even the hamster–is a metaphor for something, and it takes some deep thinking to really appreciate the depth of the story beyond the young romance. Even if you’re at the point when you’ve moved on from falling in love with characters like Augustus Waters, Hazel’s intelligent narrative will still keep you holding on long enough til the writer pulls out your heart and eats it.

It’s not a basic cancer novel where the writer uses “cancer” as main reason to make you cry. No, cancer here is a metaphor, like everything else in this novel. It’s a thing that plagues humanity–the thing that we want to stop but couldn’t understand: suffering. It’s everywhere, and there’s nothing we could do about it no matter how we try.

The story isn’t only a romance but a story of accepting fate while likewise defeating it—a practice of freedom—a lesson that, dear Brutus, the fault is in the stars, but don’t let it get you so down.

Painful, what good literature does to you.

Having said that, I do feel cheated sometimes. The intelligence of the novel feels like a quilt of patches, with bits and pieces of thought from other great people. And although our character Hazel shows us her own way of understanding things, there isn’t really something new that she offers. It’s effective in a way that it exposes the reader to all sorts of thought, whether or not said reader will agree with the character. But it’s not going to strike you with something completely new.

To be realistic, one must always admit the influence of those who have gone before.

- Charles Eames

It is important to say that the pieces of influence that float around in this book are fundamental to how you’ll be attached to the characters. Towards the end of it, you’ll be thinking like Hazel, and knowing much of what she knows and believes, that whatever decisions she will make in the book and the things that she will feel towards the events will deeply affect you.

And that’s where John Green succeeds: taking you by the mind, then by the heart, then twists you til you suffer an emotional cancer of your own. Especially that ending! That ending was perfect. That ending saved the entire novel.

But more than mere emotions, John Green takes you to a ride into all the philosophies of suffering that will make Gautama Buddha proud.

The Fault in Our Stars is intelligent and hilarious, truthful and insightful, but I will not hold up my ten fingers just yet. John Green’s best is yet to come.

Nine out of ten.

Planes Crashing Into Buildings: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

I wanted to be able to say: I don’t know how I could have tried harder.

Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is nothing short of a literary revelation.

Revelation, because you’d realize that up until you’ve read this book, you’ve never really read. Or at least, that’s how it feels like.

Overview

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close takes us into the mind of a young Oskar Schell, nine years of age and still grieving a year after he lost his father, Thomas Schell, in the events of 9/11. He one day finds a blue vase in his father’s untouched closet, wherein there is a key in an envelope, written “Black”. He then goes on for months to find what the key unlocks, hoping to find something of his father’s. He will have to check all the locks in New York and all the Blacks he could find–and all the months necessary to find them.

But that’s what most people think the story will be about.

I want two rolls.

Don’t get me wrong, it is. But there’s more to it.

Oskar will narrate the story of the search for the most part, but the reader will encounter a series of letters from two very fundamental people. At the first reading, you will not know who they are from and who they were addressed to, but later on in the recent-day narrative of Oskar himself, it hits you all at once. I’ve said this before about Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief. It feels like dying–all your memories flash before your very eyes at some point when everything’s about to end.

By the end of the novel, you would have felt the pain of loss some five or six times.

Review

I know this review comes off as overly enthusiastic, but I have some defense for this novel. While writing this review, I’ve come across other reviews, mostly bad ones.

But they were all written in 2005. By Americans.

I get them.

Foer felt like a hack, trying to sell a 9/11 story, taking advantage of a recent happening and riding the bandwagon of so many writers trying to evoke the emotion in readers. By 2005, Americans would have been trying very hard to get over what happened four years ago. It feels like they’ve been cheated, betrayed even, that sometime in their grief, a novelist would use that to make money.

But I’m not American, and it’s 2012. And this book deserves to be read.

ME. Alas, poor Hamlet [I take JIMMY SNYDER's face into my hand]; I knew him, Horatio!

JIMMY SNYDER. But Yorick . . . you’re only . . . a skull.

I am not an American, I didn’t lose anyone in 9/11. And if EL&IC was meant to take advantage of the emotions of 9/11 victims, then why was I so moved? Foer is doing something–and a lot of that something–right, and through this book, he has managed to put feeling where most people are numb.

And, mind you, our little hero suffers from some sort of autism.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close isn’t about 9/11. It’s about losing someone and finding yourself. It’s about a father who lost his son, and a son who lost his father, and a mother who lost her son, and a mother who is afraid of losing her son, and a boy afraid of losing a friend, and the people afraid of losing their memories of the people they’ve lost–and a woman who keeps all the memories of a husband who is still alive and well. It is a story of desperate love and love in the time of despair.

It’s about trying to make sense of the senseless.

The novel puts us through three different wars: Nazi Germany, the 9/11 terrorist attack, and the war that every person fights with himself, trying to hold on and let go.

PURPLE

Writing Technique & Analysis

Foer’s writing makes use of various typographical tricks and strays away from common fiction writing. It doesn’t take much time to realize who’s writing what, and the language is incredibly natural. The narration has its own character, and it never loses it. You can feel the nine-year-old, socially awkward child still trying to learn his bigger words, and wrongly, if not unnaturally, using the idioms his grandmother tried learning when she first came to America. “Jose!“, “Heavy boots” and “a hundred dollars” are just some of them, and you will see them everywhere. It uses language uniquely, but effectively. To some extent, even, humorously. The use of images, and red pen, and all the letters dated from 1963 to 2002–everything that Jonathan Safran Foer has poured into this novel makes for a very engaging, very compelling, very creative storytelling experience. 

If Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a gimmick, then it was a very effective gimmick, and I’d like more of it.

I’d hate to admit it, but it is a perfect hipster novel.

Hipster being the new genre of things that are popular but feel like they’re indie and/or artistic.

Or artistic things that become popular.

Book Covers/Art:

The original first print of the book from Penguin had the image of a child chasing birds. The next reprint is a red hand with the title and author written all over it using the similar typeface of the first print. This version stayed on til the reprint of the novel for the movie of the same title, featuring the face of Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn) covered with his hands, title, cast and author written in the same typeface. The movie version was designed by Anne Chalmers, using the Janson Text typeface.

The writing on the hands concept was more lasting because of it pertaining to a more major character in the book and the film–in fact, in the book, he is one of the three narrators. It represents the frustrating struggle of all three of the narrators trying to say something, and the confused use of language. Whether it was a child learning big words, a foreigner trying to learn new expressions and a man losing his ways of communication altogether–the cover perfectly fits the story’s attempt to say the things when you’re running out of paper, but the words just keep on coming. It’s about not knowing for yourself how much you love someone, and never knowing how much that person loved you.

The child chasing birds concept comes from one of the chapters, showing a point where a man starts to live his life again when he can. It’s the return of sight in a time of extended grief. It was a point of finally overcoming life to begin living it. You’ll get me when you read it.

The two covers represent two of the greatest concepts the book was trying to portray, (birds more subtle than writing on fingers) so I can’t really say which one I prefer, or which one sums up the book better. But the one that gets potential readers to come over and pick up a copy would unarguably be the writing on fingers concept.

Conclusion & Rating

Jonathan Safran Foer deserves any and all praise and awards he’s been given for this novel, including Best Book of the Year. This novel isn’t overrated; it’s misunderstood–not meant to be a piece of fiction but a piece of art. The book itself is like a gallery of thought.  It is highly creative, effectively moving, intensely artistic, and there’s just nothing quite like it.

Easily on the top of the shelf for favorite books and have-to-recommends.

I’d give it a rating of nine-over-eleven.

Harsh, misplaced pun.

Giving it a ten.

French & Forensics: Smaller and Smaller Circles by FH Batacan

Crime-fighting Jesuit priests, a Payatas dumpsite, bad coffee, good French and a persistent toothache—these are the makings of a witty, fast-paced and intelligent multi-award-winning detective novel.

Smaller and Smaller Circles takes you to Payatas, a place in Metro Manila known for its mountainous range of garbage, and the low horizon lined with galvanized iron roofs of shanties and a loving layer of industrial smoke.

Here, we meet Fr. Augustus “Gus” Saenz, SJ—a Jesuit priest who does autopsies, cool, composed, tall and handsome, likes classic rock and European music, clever with the tongue—and his once-student, now sidekick, Fr. Jerome Lucero, SJ. He is a clinical psychologist, whenever he’s not saying mass, vomiting, or honking horns at traffic jams.

Gus discovers a pattern in the recent autopsies he’s done at Payatas, and claims them to be serial killings. With the Philippines’ intelligence community weak and skeptical, Gus and Jerome have to prove a point before any more killings happen. And so the chase for the Payatas whodunit commences . . .

FH Batacan gives you a glimpse into the mind of our killer, between every other chapter.
It is sick, twisted, and I love it.

For a Filipino, this is definitely new and entirely refreshing. When Felisa H. Batacan submitted her manuscript for the Palanca awards in 1999, hers was the first of the kind in the Filipino literary scene. It claims to be successfully “popular and literary”, and record-breaking. Unlike most indie novels in the Philippines that have only one run of about a thousand copies, Smaller and Smaller Circles has been reprinted four times, making a total of 6,000 copies printed and sold.

I am a proud owner, one of the few-some thousands.

But as a novel, we have to use that big fish in a small pond metaphor to explain what it’s like.

It’s just new to the Philippines, to have a story like this and for a Manilenyo to imagine a serial killer possibly be eating turon at the same carinderia, buy 5-peso Coke at the same sari-sari store, and basically walk home through the same dark eskinita. It’s an entirely different experience from reading a Grisham novel simply because of the scenery. And it’s different from watching CSI, because you can’t just get fingerprints or DNA samples and have things done. The government here is poor and its citizens, poorer. There is no fancy technology, not even a comprehensive database. Manila is a whole different crime scene.  And definitely, it’s new in Philippine literature to have a Jesuit priest and his students defy the inefficient police system.

But it isn’t new, for the rest of the world. For one, the priest reminds me of Shiro, Rin’s father from Ao no Exorcist. But mostly, I am reminded of Sherlock Holmes, Metro Manila Edition. Gus is a smart man, backed up by a rich family. He is tall; Jerome is short. Jerome is a doctor. He likes to pick at the times when his supposedly mature and calm mentor starts to act like a child. The police system is inefficient, and they take pride when their own version of Lastrade, Atty. Ben Arcinas, is disproved. They work on their own, and have connections to get the information faster than the NBI.

It looks like fan-fiction of a well-educated Otaku. It sounds like elements of a pretty normal novel, if you’ve read enough crime, thriller and suspense fiction. And everything seems fairly plausible, however improbable.

So aside from the time that Smaller and Smaller Circles was written and published, what makes it so special that it received the highly coveted Palanca, among many other awards?

The thing is—the thing that readers don’t easily see is—it is so masterfully written. It is immensely tricky to write something like this, what with the research and required knowledge and familiarity. FH Batacan is lucky to have worked for the Philippine intelligence. And it is so short, that its length itself is a carefully crafted element. Any longer and the novel would have been boring and worn out; any shorter and it would be a short story. The novel is well-condensed, and her characters know exactly what to say and when to say them. She knows when to paint the picture of the scene, and when to focus on the movement of her people. She knows when she has to write a witty dialogue, and when she has to get to the point. She knows when things should happen, where they should happen, like a god of her own universe. Batacan just knows how to make a reader keep on going.

It’s difficult to make crime sound realistic, and crime-fighting priests even more so.

It’s difficult to write this, and what a writer would find more clever than her characters’ dialogues would be how she thought of it all up in the first place.

It’s difficult to write a thriller novel set in the slums of Manila, and yet she did.

And that is exactly what she was awarded for: her writing, masterfully crafting every detail down to the very last punctuation. Even the toothache makes sense, and the French dialogues that I wish I understood, and the homemade turon and arroz caldo. Every word used to illustrate the scene–none is out of place. It is the novel that made no mistakes.

It is the novel you would wish you could write.

Smaller and Smaller Circles is the novel you would never wish to change.

Ten out of ten.

Twentieth of August, Year Two Thousand and Ten.

My class schedules are weird. I have a class from seven-thirty to ten. I get a four-hour lunch break. Two-to-four. Six-to-nine. Professors have lives, I guessed. So the rest of us have to fit into theirs for the privilege of learning from their fountain of genius. Right? Whatever.

I just got home. But to be honest, I barely lived through six-to-nine, and I didn’t even attend two-to-four.

When my friends got to me at the cafeteria earlier today, we headed out for lunch then drove to an arts supply store in the next city. We got back at campus an hour before my next class, but theirs were about to start, so I still had time to wander around.

There was this girl from across the street. She was just standing still. She wasn’t crossing or anything. She was looking at me, straight towards me. And then she smiled. I tried to wave at her, to say hello. Maybe I’ve met here before, I thought. Maybe she knows me. And while I went through my memories to think of who she was, suddenly, she was taking a step forward. She began to cross the street, but she was still looking at me. She was walking slowly, and stopping right before a car would pass by. She didn’t even look, but she’d stop.

And she’d still look at me.

And she was taking slow, careful steps.

The street was four lanes wide. And after the third lane, she was close enough for me to just pull her out of the way, because I don’t know if she was crossing the street, or walking down the isle of her imaginary wedding.

“What is wrong with you?!”

What is wrong with me? What’s wrong with you! Have I met you before? What were you doing crossing the street so slowly like that?

“Let go of my arm!” My hand was still on her left arm, holding her, pulling her to safety, even though we’re at a sidewalk. “Let go of me! Please! Please!”

I don’t know why I wasn’t letting go. Maybe she’d leave if I did, I don’t know.

“Who are you? Do I know you?”

What?

“Why aren’t you talking? What’s wrong with you? Please let go of me.” She was struggling. “Why aren’t you talking? Please say something. Speak!”

Oh shit, she’s blind.

She’s also very talkative.

I let go of her arm, but quickly took her wrist. I kept on tugging it, dragging her along, and looking for a place to sit down.

“I don’t need your assistance! Where are you taking me?”

I get that she must have been panicking, but hold on, lady. Seriously.

“Tell me who you are!”

Jesus fucking Christ, how was I going to talk to her? I pulled up her wrist. Her hand was shut tight, so I slapped it open. Then I tried to use sign language into her palm, like Hellen Keller. I think she got the point.

“I—“ She hesitated. “I don’t understand sign language. I’m sorry.”

Okay, new plan.

“Try to spell letters into my skin.”

I think she did understand what I was trying to get at.

“I’m blind.”

I know.

I wrote the letter I into her palm. The capital letter, with the bars on the top and bottom, so she’d know it wasn’t a slash or something. “I,” she repeated. And then, “M.” And as soon as I knew she understood the things I wrote, I picked up the pace. IM MUTE, I spelled.

“I know.”

I tugged at her wrist, and she followed.

“Hey, not so fast! You’re hurting me!” I loosened my grip. SORRY, I wrote at the back of her hand. “I didn’t quite get that.” It was in cursive. “Could you write it again please?” No, it didn’t matter. We kept on walking. “Please? Write it again. Please.” She doesn’t shut up, does she? SORRY. In print this time. “Sorry. My teacher never taught me letters in cursive.” Of course he wouldn’t. Cursive letters are different with each hand that writes it. Printed letters were basically the same for everyone. SORRY. “It’s okay. It’s just that I couldn’t understand things that kept on twisting. They never spelled out anything to me.”

I had nothing to say, so I didn’t talk.

“Where are you taking me?” Where were you going anyway? “I don’t know. I was trying to escape, now I’m looking for someone.” From whom? And who? “My friend Aya was supposed to walk me to where my Daddy picks me up. I study at the university, and I have a condo unit around here but I don’t use it often. Daddy misses me easily.” I didn’t ask that, and you’re missing the point. Where will he pick you up? “My mother is dead, so there’s no one home now, and I’m the only family he has. Me and Aya. We both lost our moms, and now she’s like my sister.” Okay, I’m sorry to hear that. I still have both my parents. But where do you need me to take you? “She’s my best friend, and she used to be the maid’s daughter. The maid was my first teacher. She taught me how to read and write and speak.” I don’t see what you’re trying to get at here. “There was this time when she taught me what a dog is and what it looks like. It ran away from me whenever I tried to feel what its face was like. It was really fluffy.” Don’t you ever stop talking, ever?

I know that the world can never be shut up, ever. But please make sense.

“Could you let go of me please?”

I didn’t trust her. But I didn’t know what else to do. She stopped struggling now, anyway, so I just loosened my grip and—

She ran.

But I followed her.

For a blind girl, she was pretty fast and it seemed like she knew where to go. She went straight ahead the sidewalk, and all that were in her way cleared themselves from her path. “Excuse me! Coming through! I’m blind! Get out of my way!” She never stops talking.

“Mack!” She called out to a traffic enforcer, and he blew his whistle and waved a STOP sign towards the cars, and the girl just ran across the street. When I was about to cross, Mack let the cars pass. It was like she owned the place. How is this even possible? I waited for the cars to stop coming, and then I crossed the street like a normal person. I didn’t run anymore. What was the point? I was late for class, and I must have lost her anyway. There was no need to hurry.

Then I was in the middle of the street, crossing with others, when I saw her again. She was just there. I think it was the end of her map, because she was touching walls and posts now. I ran to her and grabbed her wrist. Listen.

“Listen! I don’t want your help.”

That’s not what I’m trying to say. AGH, HOW DO YOU TALK TO THE BLIND?

ROB. I spelled out on her arm.

“There’s nothing you can steal from me. I swear.” She started to panic, I think. “Daddy doesn’t let me handle money, and if I had to, Aya always kept it, and I don’t have a smartphone because touch screen is useless to me. Please, all I have are noteb—“

I put my hand over her mouth. Shut up.

I think it made her panic. I touched her shoulder, hoping to calm her down. Women are difficult. When they’re blind, it gets trickier.

She was about to cry.

Naturally, I’ve been to those places where parents with “differently abled” kids—I don’t like being called differently abled. I’m handicapped; I can’t speak. Something is incomplete and that’s not a problem. Nobody’s offended. What’s the big deal?—anyway, they’d let them come over, and they’d help each other out. They taught each other how to teach their kids. I remember that the blind were taught to recognize people by voice, or they’d have them touch their faces, and give it a name. Mom didn’t really need to go to that place much—it wasn’t much of a problem for me to not to talk–but it was a good thing to know I wasn’t the only one out there. And I think this information finally became a bit useful.

I pulled her wrist and took her hand. I put it on my face, and let her touch my cheeks, and the bridge on my nose. And I let her fingertips trace my lips. Then I traced ROB on her hand again. She took her free hand and traced underneath my eyes. She curled her fingers like how you would when a bird would perch on your hand. I closed my eyes, then she used the back of her fingers to feel my lashes, then down to the skin of my cheek, right to the jaw line.

I opened my eyes again, and looked at her face. She had dark hair that ended at her shoulders. She was wide-eyed, like a child or a doll, with long dark lashes. But her eyes were the color of honey, the same color her hair glowed with when the sunlight hit her just the right way. Her lips were small. Her skin was pale. Not fair white, just pale, like she’s been sick since she was born. But since she ran from me, she looked so easily tired and there were just irregular blotches of pink on her cheeks. Actually, there was a tint of jaundice in her complexion. I don’t know if she was Asian or if she was just sick. She had bruises on her arm and her wrist.

Then I realized that the bruises came from me.

And her free hand slapped me in the face.

What the hell was that for?!

“Stop looking at me!” How’d she know? “I know I look like a sick freak, okay? But you don’t have to pull me around like a dog on a leash. I’m alright by myself.”

I’m trying to help you out here, so stop being so annoying. Where do you want me to take you?

“Look, I can find Aya myself.”

Just tell me!

“Get your phone.”

I switched hands, holding her with my left to make sure she won’t leave. I used my right hand to get the phone from my pocket. I tapped her wrist with my phone. What do you need me to dial?

She gave me a number, and I put the phone to her ear.

“Daddy? Where? No. I’m with a boy. No. He kidnapped me.” Wait, what? “He’s holding me here against my will.” No, wait. Don’t say that. “He won’t let go of me. I tried to run. No, he doesn’t know my name.” What do I do? If I hung up, he’d have thought I was guilty. “Daddy wants to talk to you.”

I put the phone to my ear. Hello? “What do you want?”

I want to give you back your daughter. Where do I take her? Where are you parked? “Let go of my daughter. What do you want?”

I want you to pay for my tuition for art school so my father can come back and not work as a domestic helper in a foreign country.

I want you to find us and take your daughter.

I want to know how you could have put up with this devious little –thing. For years! I mean, look at her! Smiling like she won a game. Her lips curled in an evil, evil way. I think she secretly practiced dark magic and traded her sight for demonic powers.

“Hello?”

Yes, hello?

“Look, if you won’t give me back my daughter, I’ll—“ I hung up.

I sent him a text message.

I’m mute. Your daughter tried to cross the street. I’m trying to help her.

“Where can I find you?” Send.

08/19/2010

I live in a world that proves to be highly ideal. For one, I may have been born blind, but I had people to do things for me. Daddy made sure of it. And I had a friend who did everything with me, went to school with me and be everything I couldn’t be for me. Secondly, if I needed or wanted anything, I could just ask, and it’d be more or less there if it were possible: reprinted versions of books in braille, audiobooks of all sorts, any and all the music I wanted, tickets to any live concert. But I didn’t like to ask Daddy for plenty of things, because I knew he’d give all of them anyway. I’ve met people who have been “bratty” or “spoiled”. I’ve listened to them demand things from their parents and complain about the earth and say that everything is inadequate and there is just so much more, more, more. So they go out and ask for more, search for more, demand for more and complain more often. And I think they’re pretty happy with themselves. But I think there is no pleasure in that when you know you can have anything you asked for, anyway. There is nothing in the world that I want, and all that I want are things nobody can get a hold of, no amount of money could reach to it. The only things worth touching are things that are sacred, Dorian. Henry Wotton said that. I think that’s how it was read, I remember it was that way. But I think what’s important to know is that the only things worth wanting are the things that cannot be had. So there’s nothing I want.

When I woke up this morning, Daddy had bought me a new piece of software where I could just talk to the computer as much as I’d want, and it would type down things for me so Aya didn’t have to.

I really like talking; talking is what I mostly do.

Talking is how I fill up a vastly dark, empty world with things I like to create on my own. Things in the dark. Things that are mine.

To be honest, the world isn’t really dark. And the world isn’t empty at all. I just feel alone but I’m not, and I don’t need to see things to know that they’re there.

I don’t get why people think I see the world in black. I don’t know what black is and I don’t see it. They tried to explain that black is the color that determines the absence of light. And since I can’t detect light with my eyes, then it means I can only see in black.

But I don’t see in black.

Because light isn’t absent. Barely ever. Just because my eyes don’t work at all, ever, mean that light will ever be absent, right? There are more ways to feel the sun and the wind and fire and the rain and all of the world, there are more ways to see them than with sight. If the world was black then there would be nothing. And just because I’m blind doesn’t mean that the world is in black at all. Just because I’m blind doesn’t mean that nothing else exists, and it’s all empty. And it certainly doesn’t mean I don’t exist anymore.

Even though sometimes, that’s what it feels like.

And that’s why I talk.

I used to never like talking. I liked things to be quiet, or at least, I was okay with everything else making sounds. But all I ever wanted to do was keep quiet and listen to everything and feel everything around me. To see without eyes. I wanted to be able to see the map of the world around me without ever having to use my eyes. I never wanted to feel what darkness feels, or what black feels; I will feel color if I had to feel color, and my blindness will not hinder that.

So I liked being as still and as soundless as I could.

When I sit in the middle of the quiet—and don’t ever tell me that quiet has no middle; there is a middle in the quiet and I have been there and I have seen it; it’s there—it feels like everything exists except me. I can feel the world, my fingertips can see the grain of the wooden desk and the quiet slate of floor polish. When I touch anything, my fingers grow roots, and they branch deeper into the things I touch. I can feel their insides. I can feel the rest of the world from miles away, and the longer I stay still and in contact with everything, the farther the roots reach out. They fill up everything that’s already filled up, things like cork or the insides of paper, or the bodies of stones, or the juice inside a fruit. It feels like there are roots growing out of me, wherever there is skin, and I grow on everything.

You’re like a potato, Aya said when I told her this years back.

Mother! Kately feels like a potato!

What? She asked.

Kately feels like a potato!

But potatoes are mushy and eatable, I said. I don’t think I’d like to be eaten.

Or mushy, Aya added.

Or mushy, I agreed.

Kately, those are mashed potatoes. Her mother corrected, Real potatoes are the lumpy root crops in the farm.

When potatoes are mashed, do they stop being real?

I think they stop being potatoes, Aya said.

Why would they stop being potatoes?

Because things are themselves by what they are, because of what they are. If potatoes don’t do potato-ly things, then they aren’t potatoes.

But potatoes don’t do anything!

They grow roots on their skin and they branch out to everything they touch. Like you.

So okay, whatever. Since then I didn’t argue with Aya about being a potato. Apparently, I do potato-ly things, therefore, I am a potato. I am a potato, growing eyes out of my skin, and my eyes grow roots deep into all the things they touch, and I can see the world with my eyes. As far as I’m concerned, if I can grow eyes and branch out to the world and see everything I touch, then I’ll happily be a potato.

And right then, and every whenever I sit in the middle of all the quiet, I can grow my eyes around into the things that can be seen. I fill the small empty spaces, the gaps of the insides of things, the emptiness in between things that touch, and I fill them with my eyes. And that’s the way I see through and inside everything.

Then I listen to the wind. And I listen to the distance. And I listen to the music of noise and the music of quiet. I listen to the light, and I listen to the paint, and the wood, and the still air. There is so much musical noise in the middle of the quiet. I don’t think anyone has ever been in right in the middle of the quiet, like I have. And I know this because I’ve been there. And no-one else has ever been exactly right in the middle of the quiet, even when I’ve tried to place them there. The music of the sunlight will tell you where the middle of the quiet is. And when you’ve visited it, I hope you could tell me so I’d know that I’m not alone there.

You have to listen to the music. The music of everything. It didn’t have to be from musicians, although I loved them very much. I like Tchaikovsky because his music is like the sound of movement before your feet even touch the ground when you jump. I like David Osborne the pianist, because his music was the sound of your heart in the middle of each beat. I liked the music in coffee houses, and I think they were chosen to be played especially in coffee houses because they effectively capture and replay the music of the steam you blow across a cup of coffee. I think when they play piano in coffee houses, it’s the sound of blowing the steam across a cup of tea. And I think when singers sing slowly in coffee houses, it’s the music of people sitting on chairs before they even touch the cushion. And I think when they play piano in the lobby of hospitals, it’s the sound of a patient laying his head down on a pillow before it even touches. And music is just the sound of everything that happens before things touch.

Noise is the music of things when they collide very softly.

Loud is the music of the things that touch very rapidly and forcefully.

And all music is to be loved and to be liked, no matter who or what plays this music or sings it, because you have to listen to how it wraps you in strings of unwound notes. And everything that is hit by the music is wrapped in wires of things your ears can see. And all sound eventually covers the earth in a massive embrace of vines you can feel with the eyes in your roots.

And this is how I see around everything.

I can see in everything, and see around everything, every time I am in the very middle of the quiet. I just feel a map of roots and vines and I know that everything is just there.

Like a universal network of potatoes and vines mapping out the world with their eyes.

I’m not very good with words.

But I like talking.

I like talking because I can feel everything around me. I can see inside and through everything, I can see around everything. I can feel them with the eyes of my fingers, and I can hear them with the eyes of the sounds. I knew what the things in my room were, and I knew exactly where they are. But I can’t feel me. I can feel around me, but I can’t feel inside me. I can’t grow roots into myself.

I tried to touch my skin, and I tried to feel my cheekbones, and the empty spaces on my scalp wherever there wasn’t hair. I tried to feel my lips, and I tried to feel my arms with my lips. I tried to feel my lips with my arm. I tried to feel into my knee, I tried to hear into my palms.

I knew that around me was everything.

And I knew exactly where they were.

But I couldn’t find myself. I was lost in the middle of the quiet.

My fingers felt a body. My body felt a body. The floor must have felt a body, but I—I, the I as in me, not the I as in my body me, just the I—I couldn’t feel my body. I didn’t know where I was, even though I knew I was in the middle of the quiet. I was sure I was there. But where there? I didn’t know. I couldn’t feel myself. I couldn’t feel inside me. There was nothing in me, but everything else was around me.

There are senses in our body that are additional to the basic senses we commonly know of. Sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste are too few to experience the world with. There is the sense of gravity, sense of where things are in relation to yourself, and, among other senses, the sense that you are there. It’s called proprioception, and it’s the sense that tells you exactly where your parts are, even when all the other senses fail you. You can touch your nose with your fingertip, even if you can’t see it. I certainly could. And I knew where my finger was, and I knew it was there. And I knew where my nose was. So like all the things I could feel around me that I knew was there, I knew where my parts were, and I knew I was there.

But there’s an occurrence called a ghost leg, when a man who has been amputated sometimes can still feel his leg there. He can feel it itch. He can feel himself wiggling his missing toes. He can feel the extra weight of leg on the socket of a knee. He can feel his ankles. He can feel something and the brain believes that it is there, even when it isn’t. Even when the brain can’t see it anymore, it thinks it’s still there. And it itches.

And I believed that I was born blind because mother didn’t want me to watch her die, or see sad people and sad things.

What if I were blind because I was never even there? What if my brain just believes that I still have fingertips, that I still have a nose to touch, or ears to hear vines with? What if my brain just believes that my body is there, even when it isn’t? What if my brain just believes that it’s a brain and it can think? What if my brain just believes?

What if I was a potato that believed to have a brain?

Maybe I can’t see things because I can’t.

Maybe I can’t see things because I wasn’t anywhere at all. Maybe I wasn’t in the middle of the quiet, and maybe I wasn’t inside of me.

So I tried finding what was inside me, and where I was inside of my body. I scratched through my skin and tried to look for myself, and I tried to scratch into my chest. I tried to peel off the skin. I tried to dig into myself, and when I couldn’t anymore, I tried to squeeze myself out. I tried to squeeze myself in a tight hug; I tried to squeeze myself out from my throat. There was nothing. And there wasn’t even a black hole inside to eat me up. There was just nothing in me. I couldn’t find myself, and I thought that maybe there was nothing. Maybe I wasn’t there. Maybe everything is around me except me.

I knew where the walls were, and I tried to make the walls feel me. I tried to make my desk feel me. I tried to make the slate of thin floor polish feel that I’m there. I tried to get things to cover me in their roots, and see me. But nothing could see me, and I was nowhere in the middle of everything. And everything was in the middle of the quiet.

You are alone when there is only you, and nothing else around you.

You are lonely, when there is everything around you, but you aren’t there.

And that is why I like to talk.

Because as soon as I’d stopped moving and fidgeting and scratching, and trying to get the walls to feel that I am there, when all was still, I suddenly felt the sharp pain of citrus fire running up and down my arms and legs, where I had scratched myself. I didn’t cry. I screamed.

It was a scream that was full and the sound killed all the vines around me. It was a sound that traveled through me, inside me, around me, and burned me in the cold of my own sound. It was me, and I had found myself within my body.

And the moment I could feel myself, I could never let go of who or where I am ever again.

I could never stop talking.

I like talking, even when I’m all alone.

I talk so I don’t feel so lonely.

All I ever really wanted to have in this world was a fully empty blank space occupied only with everything. And I don’t think anyone could give that to me. So while I can’t have it, I will enjoy the pleasure of not having it. And if I will never be able to have it, then I would be happy that I have always wanted it. Because it is the only thing I could want.

I want something to want. I think the world is fairly ideal.

Unworded: It Isn’t Even a Real Word

You know when you start hearing voices in your head having a conversation, and you know you aren’t going insane (just yet)?

And you want to get to know these voices, so you let them inside of your mind and make a new universe and a story of their own.

In essence, Rob and Kate have possessed me, and have taken my fingers to blog about their lives. Right here. On my WordPress.

Robert is a mute artist, and Kate is a blind mathematician. Unworded is a story about the words you cannot say, and about the things you cannot see. It is the struggle of trying to explain a world that couldn’t be explained, a timeless test that human nature never seems to tire from.

List of chapters:

• One.
  • 1-A
  • 1-B
  • 1-C

So why did you call it unworded?

Because there are no words. Even in the first chapter, you’ll find out.

And what’s going to happen to them?

I don’t want to say just yet. But it is meant to be a philosophical experiment and a love story (at least I think that’s what I’m going for). There isn’t anything political or about society in this one. And there’s no magic. Just a hot cup of tea and two people who like invading my blog.

The setting is?

Very familiar. To be honest, I won’t really say it out loud, but it’s a bilingual country. And Rob goes to an art school right across the street from Kate’s university. It was meant to be set in Taft Avenue, because it’s easier to write about familiar things. But I knew that if I wrote it to be exactly about a certain setting, it will be constrained to the rules of what is true. I don’t aim to be factual. And this is just a practice novel, nothing serious. And not something I want to pour all my time for research. This isn’t the novel for that, just yet.

I also want to be able to “see” Rob & Kate when I get back to school, so I could imagine them there or at least think up things they could possibly blog about.

Why is the first chapter dated August 17, 2010?

They’re blogging at about the age when I was in Freshmen year. But they’re both already eighteen, and in third year, like me.

So the novel is a blog?

Yes.

In the style of a blog. But the novel isn’t a blog. And this blog is not a novel.

Where can we read it?

Right here. Check the left-hand side menu for Unworded. Every chapter will contain a blog entry by Rob & Kate.

Seventeenth of August, Year Two Thousand and Ten.

My name is Robert.

Or, hi. I’m Rob.

Actually, I don’t know how to start this thing. Words were never exactly my strength. And speaking isn’t something I do often, or at all. Don’t get me wrong. I think words are beautiful things. And I always want to say about half a thousand things. And there are just so many things, you know? So many beautiful things that I just have to say. But I can never say them. But I think words are beautiful. Do you see the curves of the letters, the spaces in between them? Sometimes, a word doesn’t have to mean anything good, or mean anything at all to be beautiful. It just needs to be a word.

I’m not making sense.

What I mean to say is that we always seem to be filled up with things to say. No one can make the world shut up, ever. There will always be words, no matter what we do. The cafeterias in every school will always be filled with chatter. I’d like to think that the purpose of human existence is to express everything, to get everything you want to let out get out of you. Expression is the most basic form of contribution to society, and man was built for other people. Life is about saying things. And the way you say them is your contribution. Some people say, “I want to reach the sky!” by learning physics and building the biggest, tallest buildings as engineers. Other people say, “I want you to understand something beautiful” and they become teachers and educators. Then there are people who say, “I want to find out things about the world we didn’t know before!” and they go on to become scientists.

But me and my people, if they could ever be my people—I like the concept of “owning” people, that certain bodies and personalities are “yours” by association—want to say, “life is everything; death is everything; everything is everything” by doing everything to show what everything means. We paint, we draw, we sculpt, we dance, we take pictures, we compose and create music, we write. They also sing and act, but I can’t because I don’t have the words.

Well, I have the words. But I can’t give them out to the world in all the ways that most people do, and I couldn’t contribute them to society or let them get out to the world like most people do, because I can’t.

I am mute.

Not by choice. I’m just really born this way. And they said that when I was born, they worried because they heard no cries. But I was moving, then they saw my tears, and heard the way I cried, which was like choking and coughing, or getting lots of air out through your throat, but without the razor thin sound of a pressured voice. And I know this sound, because I have tried to cry very loudly once before in my life. Only once. And that was the sound that I heard, so I’m guessing that was the sound they heard when they realized I was alive.

I wonder why babies don’t laugh instead when they get out of their mothers’ wombs. Everyone in the delivery room is always happy to hear a baby cry, and they’re worried if it doesn’t because it means it’s dead. Shouldn’t you be more worried to hear someone cry? And wouldn’t a baby want to laugh and be happy that hey! I’m finally out of that cramped old place. I’m tired of drinking your nutritious body juices, ma! I want to taste milk, then mushed apples until I can chew my way to the cookie jar! And these colors are pretty, and hahaha, you guys are looking at me all stupid. Hey dad, stop crying, you big softy! I’m alive! Be happy with me. Come on, laugh!

And I just really think babies should laugh instead of cry.

But of course, when you grow up, you realize that pain and tears and all that wailing are the sounds of life. Sometimes you need to feel the pain of life to know that it’s still there. Pinch yourself to know you’re not dreaming. So maybe it’s happier when we die, and laughter is the sound of a true death, because it pushes back the pain, thereby denying the proof of your existence.

But I’ve always laughed, and I loved laughing, and smiling, and showing the rest of the world that life is everything, and that everything is everything. I’ve only ever really cried once in my life, and that was the day that I knew that I wanted to become an artist.

I was five back then, and I was alone, like I usually am. I had playmates, but only for things like when we played tag out on the street. But I was mostly alone, not because I liked it, but because I couldn’t talk to kids. Some of them get used to me being quiet, but it’s difficult to just be there around people and not tell them anything. I could write things down, but in the middle of games, they’d take time. And a lot of kids can’t read very fast or all too well at age five. Because. It was age five. I can’t signal much of anything because not all kids can understand sign language, especially when their vocabulary hasn’t fully developed yet. It’s hard trying to grasp one language and learn your words, and harder to learn what they mean in another language being in a country like ours. But to learn words by the way someone moves their hands would be an additional difficulty. I couldn’t talk to other kids simply because nobody understood me. So if not for running around playing games, I’d be alone. Like I usually am.

My mother taught me to write at a very early age. She knew that I’d need them more than most people do, because most people don’t have the difficulty of expressing things like I do. She told me that while I couldn’t understand words yet, she prepared to teach me by taking sign language classes. By the time I was two, she suddenly sat me down and gave me a fat crayon. And I looked at her in inquisition.

“Mama. M-A-M-A. Mama.” She pointed at herself.

I looked at her rather weirdly, because it was weird to talk that way to your kid. And maybe I thought to myself back then that should I ever need to teach my kids how to use words, I wouldn’t do it in the same way.

“Em. MMMM.” She wrote the letter. Then she did the same for the letter A. Then she wrote them together and pronounced, “MA.” Then she wrote out MAMA and pronounced everything slowly.

And I just looked at her. What the hell are you trying to do, ma? Maybe that’s what I’d say.

And then she put a crayon in my hand, and repeated the demonstration, except with her trying to get me to write it. Then there was DAD. And after Mama and Dad, that was the time when I learned the alphabet. And on every day, she’d try to get me to write something. I’d learn a new word, I write it down with her. And if I wanted something, I had to learn the word for it and write it down. I had a lot of story books with big, colorful pictures and simple words and short sentences. We would read together, and she’d ask me to copy some of the things written down. At first, I didn’t understand what we were reading or what I was writing. But I did grow to understand them, until the books and the words became my friends. If I wanted something and I still didn’t know how to write it down, I’d look for a book that either had that word or picture, and show it to someone to get the point across.

So on this particular day when I was alone, like I usually am, I was seated with a box of crayons and a coloring book where I was coloring in a flower. I hated coloring books. I couldn’t stay in the damn lines.

I think I was trying to describe the flower I saw. I think I said it was pink, or that it had five petals, or it was pretty. But I knew those words weren’t enough. I don’t know what I wanted to say about the flower. I think I wanted to say about a billion things. Maybe more. Maybe I wanted to say that the flower was lonely, because it was too beautiful and it was very sad to be incomparably high standard from everything else. Maybe I wanted to say that the ruffled petals remind me of the edges of cabbages, and the shade of pink was like a sunset in a meadow with plenty of clouds. But I didn’t know the words. Better to say that I didn’t have the words at all.

There were no words.

“No words.” I tried to mouth them out, but like usual, there were no sounds, except the sound of breath trying to escape, and the click of the tongue when it finishes. I tried to shout it out, but nothing. I tried to describe the shape of the petals by making sounds with my fingers rubbing on the coloring book paper. Round and round, rough but soft. I tried to describe skin by the sound of skin, and rubbed my lap, then my arms. I wanted to say that the wall was big and hard. I wanted to describe the wall, so I ran up to it, and tried to scream the words big, hard wall, and to substitute for the sounds my voice couldn’t make, I banged on the wall with my fists, or my palms. I ran up against it and kept on hitting the wall with my shoulders. I wanted to describe what glass was like. I had learned the word glass only a few days before then. And I couldn’t say out loud that it was see through. I couldn’t say it was fragile because I haven’t even learned that word yet that time. But I wanted to say that it was easy to break, and that glass can cry—glass can cry but I can’t, because I can’t make the sound of crying. And I wanted to make the glass cry because that’s what it was, and that what it does, so I took the glass where my big sister’s milk had been, the one with cookie crumbs still sitting at the bottom of it—we always so easily forgot to take the dishes and the cups back to the kitchen—and I threw it to the hard wall and watched the glass shatter into tears.

There were so many sounds. So many things I wanted to say that words couldn’t keep up with me anymore.

So I kicked and flailed my arms, trying to describe what kicking is by trying to make it sound like anything. I wanted to describe air. But at age five, you only know the word “air”. And you know that it’s the thing that comes out when you stand in front of a fan. But you don’t know how to say that it was quiet or whispering or transparent or wavy or ominous or everywhere. You don’t know what to say, and I definitely didn’t back then. So I wanted to describe the air by seeing what it would do, or what sounds it would make, if I kept hitting the air. Or if I kept throwing things at it.

My sister was nine back then. She came running back to my room with a half-eaten cookie in her hand. She dropped it, and it crumbled down on the toys and other things I threw on the floor. She ran for me, took me by the wrists. I struggled, and tried to keep screaming without sound. My silent shouts turned into chokes and coughs and the sound of tears rolling down a cheek. I tried to keep kicking. I wanted to describe my sister by hitting her. I wanted to say that I wanted her to let go of me. I also wanted to say that I needed someone to hold me close. I wanted to say that the world fell apart. I wanted to say what a world falling apart would be like if it were real.

“Mom! Quickly! Get  up here!” She called out.

And mom ran over and picked me up and carried me away. For the woman to teach me words, she didn’t use them very often, and was quite soft-spoken and gentle. And she was quiet. I could watch her quietly cook or clean around the house. And she never scolded. If not for her musical laughter, you’d possibly think that she’s mute too and all of this is a genetic disorder.

But it isn’t. She used her words when they were needed.

She had me sit down at the kitchen table, where there was a colander filled with wet vegetables. Mom tried to rub my back or pat my head. She gave me a cup of water, still with the sip-lid on, and tried to calm me down. She wiped my tears. And when they didn’t come anymore, she kissed my hair and went back to peeling the strings off of the celery. She never said anything, not a “there, there” or a scolding. Maybe she knew that my pain came from the silence. Maybe she wanted to tell me that sometimes, silence is a good thing. It certainly felt that way.

I stayed by her side and watched her peel. But I kept on looking at the colander of vegetables. I wanted to say things like, green, water, leaf, crunch. I wanted to describe them further but couldn’t. Again, there were no words. And I started to cry, but now with sniffles, and a lot less violently.

She got up and carried me with her to my sister’s room.

“Vanessa sweetie, could we borrow your box of crayons, please?”

“But Robby broke his crayons!”

“And some of your drawing paper. Bring them to the kitchen for me, thank you.”

“But mom!”

But mom already turned around and walked down the stairs, still carrying me. “Thank you!” was her reply.

She sat me back down, and I waited in the sweet silence of my mother’s breath and the sound of the zip, zip, zipping celery, until I heard my sister’s footsteps add into the orchestra as she came down with her crayons and some paper.

“If you break my stuff, I will eat all your cookies!” She looked at me, put down the crayons, and walked away.

“Thank you!” Mom said, in the same comical tone she had earlier.

She didn’t tell me what to do with the crayons, so I thought I was practicing the alphabet again. I wrote down the letter A over and over again. Then again in lower case. And then at the back of the page, I didn’t know what to do, so I wrote down SORRY and showed it to my mother.

She kissed me on the forehead, and said, “Is that how you really feel?”

I nodded in reply, and looked at her quizzically. But then I looked at the paper again. And maybe, no, that wasn’t what I was trying to say. So I took a different crayon. I took a black one, and I started to draw messy circles on the page. Then I took a blue one, and scribbled waves through the thick, messy round holes. That must be what I felt like, like black holes trying to calm down with soft waves. And then I showed her.

“I forgive you. It’s going to be okay.” She gave me that reassuring smile, and I thought I’d like to see more of it. “Why were you throwing your things? How were you feeling?”

I’m feeling as if these words are inadequate, and my body is too small to contain the things I want to express. I’m feeling helpless. I want to speak! I want to say things! I want to eat a dictionary and spit out the meaning of everything! I FEEL LIKE THERE AREN’T ENOUGH COLORS IN THIS BOX. MY BOX HAD ONLY EIGHT CRAYONS. MY SISTER’S WAS TWENTY-FOUR, BUT THEY WEREN’T EVEN ENOUGH. THESE CRAYONS CAN’T SAY HOW I FEEL. I NEED MORE CRAYONS.

And when I realized what I was doing, I was already smashing all the crayons into the paper, and my mother was trying to hold me back.

And my sister just came down to get a juice box from the fridge. And then she saw me ruin her crayons.

Needless to say, nobody had a cookie that entire month. Punishment. When that month ended, it was already my sixth birthday, and my sister gave me a jar of cookies she and mom baked. And I was so happy about the cookies that I had to draw something just to say how sweet they were and how much I missed the taste. Okay, when you’re six, all you think about is, “I’m happy, thank you for the cookies. I missed eating them.” But you get what I mean.

And all the drawings, we kept on the fridge with magnets. And when the fridge was full, my bedroom wall. And when my wall was full, we took them down and kept them in books. I didn’t stop learning about words, though. I had to write every day, and learn more. And I wanted to learn more that time. So my mother bought me more books, and she bought me more crayons. And she bought me different kinds of paint. And pencils of different colors. And charcoal and ink pens and everything.

Now, I’m kind of where I want to be. I’m in art school, and I’m with people who talk a lot but get what I’m trying to say even when I don’t. It’s a nice feeling to be surrounded by people who think like me, but don’t think like me, or like anyone at all. It’s nice to be in a place where my people—people I am associated with—are not limited to words when we try to express that life is everything, death is everything and everything is everything.

So in the long and short of it all, what I really wanted to say was:

Hi, my name is Rob. I am mute. Everything is everything.

Together, We Can Conquer the Word: Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief

It’s Germany.

It’s Nazi Germany.

And the sky is the color of Jews.

In The Book Thief written by Markus Zusak in 2006 we join the voice of Death as he retells the story of the life of a girl named Liesel Meminger, the orphaned daughter of a communist. The story begins as Death first encounters Liesel Meminger stealing a book in the snow where her brother dies, right before she is transported to her new foster parents, Hans and Rosa Hubermann, at the very humble address of 33 Himmel Street.

Hans Hubermann is a kindhearted, loving, patient and level-headed man who, though simple minded, has quite a lot of luck on his side. The story takes you down to their basement where Hans keeps his paint cans and drop sheets for his day job. And down there, he teaches Liesel how to read and write. Rosa Hubermann is loud-mouthed and scornful, frustratingly strict, and surprisingly a very passionate mother. There are other characters that will enter Liesel’s life as the book takes you five years through it. But in those five years, no one could be a more consistent companion to our heroine than her school friend, Rudy Steiner, a dirty little boy who excels in academics and athletics, and is as much a good a thief as Liesel herself.

We’ll give him seven months.

And then we come for him.

And oh, how we come.

The five years starts from Liesel at age nine, and ends with Liesel at age 14, until Death meets her again. But I won’t tell you how and when. Although here, Death does not hesitate with spoilers. He will give you the details all too early. Death admits, it’s not because he’s being evil or mean, but he tells you all the events beforehand so that it wouldn’t be as painful when he has to tell the full story later on. This unique, almost non-chronological order of the narration—in fact, the unique narrator himself—effectively puts the story in such a perspective where the point-of-view itself is something new to explore. Most books written nowadays are written as if though a movie, something that so quickly and so vividly flashes through your mind. They narrate you with scenes that start and cut off like a film reel. But what The Book Thief offers you is a new friend to sit down with for story time and tea. Rather than display a show, it paints you a picture. And the narration does this because the narration itself has character—the narrator is a character. Given, he is omniscient, but he lives is own life—a life as Death himself. At first, he would seem sinister, possibly enjoying his work or embracing his unique identity as Death. But he will later on try to let you understand what it’s like to be Death, especially in the dark times of World War II in Nazi Germany. And that, in itself, is a new experience.

“When Death tells a story, you really have to listen.”

It contributes greatly to how you get attached to the characters. In fact, you won’t only be attached to the people—you’ll be attached to the setting, the entirety of Himmel street. And you’ll be attached to the words, both English and German, and you’ll learn a good number of them as you read along. At some point, you’ll feel that it’s unnecessarily lengthy for a narration, and you’ll think that there are just parts of Liesel’s mundane life that Zusak could’ve just left out because it takes too long to get to the point. But you’ll be thankful in the end. They say that when you die, your life flashes before your eyes. In the same way, when the Book Thief ends, everything comes back at you and hits you like a strong white flash of magnesium-burning light. The pain you’ll feel at the end of the story will not be the fanatical type of pain when parting with a book or a character. It will be the kind of soft, almost sincere and genuine pain, for remembering all of the memories that were never yours to begin with. And that’s usually so difficult to achieve. For something that uses language in its most unnatural manner, what with all the translations or the mesh of colloquial speech with symbolism, it gives you the most natural, and most immediate emotional impact.

The use of words in this book is just so unique and interesting, that the only flaw I could seem to point out is the struggle a reader might have to get used to it. It’s simplistic, but artistic, in such a way that if you read it like you would any normal-sounding piece of prose, then there is a lot of it that you will miss. And if you do try to slow it down and take it all in, if you’re just a casual reader, then it might need a bit of getting used to. The only difficulty I had with the text was imagining them all speak in English with a German accent, really. But if you get passed that, you’ll enjoy the change in the way things are described. Clouds like tightropes, suns that drip and cardboard lips. The words just come so naturally from Zusak.

And what with all these words? The Book Thief is powerful, not because it’s another wartime Germany survival story. But because it shows you the power of words—the power Hitler gained from using them, and the exact power that Liesel wanted to steal, to take back and return what is rightfully the people’s. That’s the reason why a plot as simple as this takes so much time to build up: because the book itself is an entire lesson, like how we get to watch Liesel learn to read for the first time. The Book Thief progresses like a school that teaches you freedom and control over your own opinions, and use your words because you have a right to do so.

The Book Thief is incredibly ambitious as a novel as most other critics have said about it. But it is an ambition that Zusak was able to reach. Over-all it is a must-have, must-read, and there is no age for it. It’s simple enough for kids to understand, and brilliantly inspired enough for adults to appreciate.

As with the book covers, most of them are just simply trying to illustrate Liesel as she reads, or the face of Death. He still comes in the black Grim Reaper costume and the scythe like how most people imagine him to be. Later on as he narrates, he’ll admit that he’s quite amused with how we see him, but he’s not like that at all. The most recent reprint cover, however, is my most favorite which I think best captures the story entirely–Dominoes. Right now, it doesn’t make sense. And when you read it through, you might not realize it. But at some point, you’ll just come back to it and realize, that the time when dominoes were falling was the time they could’ve made the decision to save someone’s life. Even one, at least. And they were playing dominoes so innocently, you really wouldn’t suspect how crucial this point of the story was. But as with all dominoes, once you tip them over, there’s no stopping what will happen. The story of Liesel Meminger is an entire domino effect of back stories and the business of people that shouldn’t have mattered to her. But it all leads to an end where everything is but a messy floor of toppled rectangular tiles.

8.5? 9? 10/10? I can’t put a number on it. The words have greater power, and I’m afraid that The Book Thief has stolen mine.

Getting to Hell: The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult

Laura Stone knows exactly how to go to hell.

But she didn’t have to; she was already there.

The Tenth Circle is Jodi Picoult’s 13^th book. And by the track record of her masterpieces, this one isn’t exactly the best. I have a bone to pick with TTC, but I also have to admire Jodi Picoult on her courage for even daring to write something so out of the border. But before we get down to that, let’s lay down some back story. And then we’ll be nit-picking around the gates of inferno later. Ergo, some minor plot spoilers! (Not saying much, but if you’d like to, scroll down to the Spoiler Free area.)

Characters. In this book, we have a seemingly typical family, Daniel Stone (comic artist) and Laura Stone (lecturer at the college), living in Bethel, Maine with their daughter Trixie. She has a wildly bad influence of a best friend, the type parents thought could be trusted since the two girls have been friends since practically forever. Trixie and Zepher are 15, freshmen in High School. Trixie just recently broke up with Jason, a junior in the same school and a well-loved hockey star within the community.

So what’s the big deal? Seems so ordinary. Zepher, being the good friend, throws a house party while her parents are away, and helps Trixie act like a proper slut I mean get Jason back and make him want her. She ends up getting raped by Jason, and now we’re all mixed in an entire back-and-forth chase alongside the trusty DA and his pet pig. Along the way we find out that their mother cheated with a man who apparently sells drugs, and gave a date-rape drug to some kids who went to Zepher’s party. At some point, Jason falls off a bridge. People thought it was suicide, and you’ll go through the story trying to find out who really pushed him off. Trixie, being one of the accused, runs off to Alaska where her father grew up.

Anyway, what I do know of Jodi Picoult’s work is that (a) she likes telling stories about families, and they may or may not include (b) court cases with children/teens involved, (c) with the attorney/lawyer having a fairly delicious back story of his own that connects well with the main issue of the family. And (d) the most important thing I know about Picoult is that she is a good storyteller with fast paced style and a voice or language that just seems so natural. It seems consistent in her style however that (e) she likes shifting points of view from person to person. In the case of TTC, frame to frame, as if the reader were watching a movie, or looking over the characters through a camera, with the film already edited, and it just cuts the scenes and jumps to the next when necessary.

Picoult loves a good family story. And though her topics aren’t exactly child friendly, the way she portrays the relationship of a father and a daughter, or the husband and wife, the working mother and the family she never got to take care of—those feelings were clear. Daniel Stone threw away every part of who he was, and every single strand of his normalcy, the life he wanted now, was embedded into the DNA of his daughter. And that was very clear with how much he would give for her safety. This was beyond just simple sense of fatherhood trying to protect one’s own flesh and blood. This went to the fact that Trixie Stone was what Daniel’s humanity fixated itself to.

So what did I dislike? The thing is, we know Jodi Picoult for a natural read. She makes story telling so effortless that it really does feel as if all the characters are alive right now, somewhere in the world, and everything is happening around you. The Tenth Circle doesn’t feel that way at all. In this novel, we see Picoult trying a little too hard to sound creative. She uses elements in Dante’s Inferno, which she admits she herself doesn’t like. And she makes use of comics, which she also admits she knows nothing of. And then she takes us all to Alaska, and uses their beliefs and culture to mold the backstory for Daniel Stone.

I’m certain we all love the fact that Picoult is trying to go beyond boundaries and explore new things for the sake of creative writing. She went to Alaska just to research on it. She hired a friend to do the comics. She did everything. But it was all too much and it’s starting to not make sense at all. All that this novel does to you is make you miss the naturally creative Jodi Picoult you knew and loved.

The good thing about it is that Picoult never wasted her research. None of those elements were unnecessary. It was Daniel’s comic that makes you understand what his character was like. And it was through the journey down to Inferno that makes you understand how those three connect as a family. Picoult opens your eyes to

“It’s a process of give and take.”

How Daniel Stone used to be a rebellious street artist who ran from a murder, fell in love and is now the softest, kindest, most level-headed father; how Laura used to be boxed in what was perceived as correct and proper, and now–how they both changed in that marriage, because of that marriage. It’s something people don’t realize that Picoult managed to point out. Love isn’t about what you get to have or what you give or do for someone else. It’s about what you share. I always tell people that love is a verb, not a noun. And the noun is only based on the verb. It’s an act, not a concept. And that act is sharing–sharing everything that you are.

There are plenty of others, but I wouldn’t spoil you any further. The Tenth Circle is not Picoult’s best, if not her personal creative plummeting down to her literary tenth circle. Regardless, even when Picoult forgets how to perfectly tell a seamless story, she never forgets how to teach a reader something new.

* The cover of the book is interesting by the way. Don’t judge the book by its cover; judge the cover by its plot. Also, Daniel Stone likes to hide letters in things he draws. Through the book, there are parts of his comic; I suggest you take a good look at all of them before you move on.