Quarks and Quitters in New Jersey Winters

An update! Surprised y'all didn't I?!?

This might be a little short and probably won't fulfill any of the other promises I made in my previous entries. Just as warning.

1. Reading schedule. I finished A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius yesterday morning. I was quite proud of myself; this has been a project of mine for the past four years. I don't know why it feels so long-- it could be that I never liked any of the characters. So, since I never had anything to look forward to, except their deaths, perhaps the book just dragged for me. Either way, I do think the book deserves every accolade it's ever gotten. Eggers takes a very creative stance with the novel in practically every way imaginable-- the table of contents, the preface, the reviews, etc. All of it's practically a joke. It's the first book I've ever seen written this way. Even the formatting of the book-- it goes from regular prose to switching scenes every paragraph, sometimes every other sentence. He has diagrams. Sometimes the book is in interview format. A NY Times Reviewer called he book "manic depressive"; I think that might be the best way to describe it.

So, I definitely recommend it to everyone. It's not my favorite, but for anyone with an interest in how much license you can take with a novel, this is definitely a great example.

Now I'm reading Atlas Shrugged, another four year project.[I have so many of these because senior year of high school, I raided my school's library/junk pile, took the books home, and read some but never finished many of them] Now, with a book that has claim to being one of the most influential books of all time after the Bible.[I think this referred to Americans only; I should come back in and cite this] Anyway, the book is from Ayn Rand, Russian immigrant, staunch anti-Communist, objectivist, etc. Currently I'm on page 340-- to give you an image of my edition, it is hardcover, small font, and over 1000 pages. As Summer can attest, I can normally inhale books with no problem. But Atlas Shrugged is definitely beyond my capabilities. Of course it's also a book that's hard to read at the same pace that I can read, say, The Da Vinci Code or Harry Potter-- there's a lot going on, all the time, and I feel like there are some subtleties to pay attention to. Reading this really makes me want to see Feminist critiques of Ayn Rand's handling of female characters. I'm sure people must have had a field-day...even I feel like I'm rattling off a thousand questions everytime she has Dagny[the protagonist, a female] do something.

Oh, there's a great excerpt that I wanted to point out. The quote is from Lillian Rearden, wife of Hank Rearden, while she's having a row with him:

"It's really very simple. If you tell a beautiful woman that she is beautiful, what have you given her? It's no more than a fact and it has cost you nothing. But if you tell an ugly woman that she is beautiful, you offer her the great homage of corrupting the concept of beauty. To love a woman for her virtues is meaningless. She's earned it, it's a payment, not a gift. But to love her for her vices is a real gift, unearned and undeserved. To love her for her vices is to defile all virtue for her sake-- and that is a real tribute of love, beause you sacrifice your conscience, your reason, your integrity and your invaluable self-esteem."

The entire exchange is very beautiful, but this monologue in particular really caught my eye. Rand has this way of alternating between very dry and mechanical language-- afterall, the book is about the train industry. But she has a very interesting way of depicting romance-- also very dry most of the time, tones of BDSM, but always beautiful written. This book will definitely be a favorite, if I ever finish it.

I made a goal in high school to read every Ayn Rand book-- so far, I've read Anthem, which was maybe 200 pages. Very good book. Anyway, I intend on sticking with this goal, but I hear The Fountainhead is just as long as Atlas Shrugged...great, haha.

2. If one more person tells me how much darker I've gotten...

Okay, so, apparently China had this evil skin-ruining effect on me. As soon as I got back to America, my mom told me how much darker I'd gotten. Okay, whatever-- my mother is always overcritical.[China also gave me slight acne-- this, I recognize] Anyway, then my aunt said the same thing. Then, my old bestfriend's sister told me the SAME thing yesterday. She then proceeded to tell me where I could find sunblock at Walgreen's.

At first I blew it off; my mom and aunt are pretty light-skinned, so I thought it was probably their high-yellow agendas coming into play, keeping the family light. But Tiana is fairly dark, or was apparently darker than me[not true anymore], and it really caught me by surprise that it was one of the first things she said after she saw me.

It has me feeling self-conscious, looking through my photos for comparison. Not as if there's anything I can do about it-- I'm not going to get skin lightening creme, so my skin'll either turn back or it'll stay. Either way, I've never really encountered stuff like this-- this complexion agenda! I already joked with my grandfather about moving away from these lightskinned folk and heading back to South Carolina with the rest of the darkies in our family, =P.

Alright, that's it. Maybe next entry I'll talk about my Tufts visit[s]! Later.