The Great Gatsby

A Tumblr person posted about his difficulty in trying to enjoy "The Great Gatsby". He had read it a couple of times, but the novel does not click for him. He asked for tips that might help him get more out of the book. He received a pretty good answer.

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The way I would recommend anyone approaching The Great Gatsby is to look at it as a warning. The characters are purposefully written to be shallow - representatives of how hollow the dream they search for is. The fact that there is a valley of ashes through which everyone passes is symbolic. It's not a text you can enjoy from the point of view of it being a good tale. But it is a good warning about searching after empty dreams. And the writing is so poetic.

-- Tumblr

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I feel that something important is missing from that. The wealthy people, the people born and steeped in it, your Tom and Daisy Buchanan and that lot. They aren't chasing dreams. They are it. The pinnacle of civilized society. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. They are shallow and brutal. Or maybe this should be taken as a statement on the whole idea of the American dream.

to edge the lawn

Jack was here to edge the lawn. I am surprised it took this long, and I was wondering if there was some friction between Jack and Pop on this point, maybe Jack thought he had done it long enough, an arrangement which perhaps started when Pop helped him with getting a new car, years ago, something like that.

I was delightfully surprised when Pop held off on getting Jack here, on the condition of my getting the cats inside first. It's not news that Pop is very fond of the cats, but I assumed that the cats were more of an afterthought when it came to Jack taking care of the lawn. I did not think Pop's sensitivity had that extended a range.

Hamlet (2,2) A Note (Madness)

To follow Hamlet at all, one has to be familiar with the idea that the Hamlet character must wade through the theme of madness, with a big question being whether this madness should be merely feigned, as a put-on antic, or genuine, a slipping away into true lunacy.

Yet, in my numerous readings, I never could see that theme convincingly manifested. Even in the few movie versions that I have watched, I never really saw it. Kenneth Branagh certainly appears fairly cool and collected throughout his major production, for example. Sure, one hears explicit mentions about him being “mad”, but the most that I could see from the character himself is just a little volatility of the passions, in the way of sarcasm and peevishness, with the occasional flare-up of violent anger, and there is that bout of angst in the “To be or not to be” soliloquy. But nothing that seemed to approach insanity, a true falling out of one’s mind.

However, going into the dialogue between Hamlet and Polonius, I can now see more room to play in this issue of Hamlet’s madness. Now that we understand that two months have passed since Hamlet talked with the ghost of his slain father, one can also better appreciate how time and emotional pressure could work its dark alchemy in the tormented and isolated mind.

In my previous readings, I always did wonder about Ophelia’s wild description of the put-off prince given to her father:

My lord, as I was sewing in my closet,
Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced;
No hat upon his head; his stockings foul'd,
Ungarter'd, and down-gyved to his ankle;
Pale as his shirt; his knees knocking each other;
And with a look so piteous in purport
As if he had been loosed out of hell
To speak of horrors,--he comes before me.

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DVD TV-shows

I have given in to the temptation to watch my DVD TV-shows during my meals, not having any new movies on the DVR to go through.

Gotta love all the media acronyms!

This mean I am going through my DVDs at a much quicker pace, and it is not like I can readily afford to buy the next set, but I am just going to roll with it.

The Scourge of Pornography?

"The Obama administration has turned a blind eye to those who wish to preserve our culture from the scourge of pornography and has refused to enforce obscenity laws. While the Obama Department of Justice seems to favor pornographers over children and families, that will change under a Santorum administration," the statement on Santorum's campaign website says.

-- Rebecca Kaplan at CBS News

Eveyone knows that America's favorite past-time is pornography, not baseball. The man has gone too far, this time. Maybe he and Republicans like him should just move to a Taliban-controlled country. They should be happier there.