A Study of Reading Habits

Philip Larkin

When getting my nose in a book
Cured most things short of school,
It was worth ruining my eyes
To know I could still keep cool,
And deal out the old right hook
To dirty dogs twice my size.

Later, with inch-thick specs,
Evil was just my lark:
Me and my coat and fangs
Had ripping times in the dark.
The women I clubbed with sex!
I broke them up like meringues.

Don't read much now: the dude
Who lets the girl down before
The hero arrives, the chap
Who's yellow and keeps the store
Seem far too familiar. Get stewed:
Books are a load of crap.

 

 

  I interpreted the first stanza as using books as an escape from life's dilemmas.  I also took from this stanza that Larkin used books to learn how to deal with problems.  The second stanza I visualized Larkin as a teenager, rather than a kid like I did in the previous stanza.  In line seven, when he says, with inch-thick specs, this goes back to line three.  Larkin read books so much throughout his childhood he needed glasses by the time he was a teenager.  The third stanza represents Larkin as an adult.  I thought it was funny because Larkin is now the opposite. He doesn't read anymore or go to books for solutions.  He got too bored of the same general themes.  In line seventeen, when he says, get stewed, I did some researching and found out it means to use drugs or alcohol as his escape, instead of books.  The last line is my favorite because you don't expect it, especially how much he loves books in the beginning.  I liked this poem because it is very humorous and different.  It's also not about death, which is a first. :)

The Snow Man

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
  

 The first line, One must have a mind of winter, I took as the mind is dead.  When I think of winter, cold and dead trees first come to my mind.  Then in lines two and three, Stevens goes on to talk about how we don't see the beauty winter contains.  In the second stanza, Stevens repeats the idea in the first stanza of how people don't apppreciate winter. In the next stanza, he talks about some reasons why somebody might not appreciate winter.  In the fourth stanza, he talks about how bare winter can be.  The last stanza I think "the listener" is being referred to as the snowman.  The last line is my favorite because I took it as even though it may appear as if there's nothing there, there is always something.

I'm taking this week off.  Hope you had a great weekend!

The Coming of Wisdom with Time

William Butler Yeats

though leaves are many, the root is one;

Through all the lying days of my youth

I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;

Now I may wither into the truth.

     Although it's a short poem, it definitely doesn't lack any meaning.  The picture of the tree (on the right) is the visual image I had while reading the poem.  I interpreted the first line as Yeats comparing himself to a tree.  As a tree grows, it loses leaves but, in time, grows new ones.  The same is comparable to a person.  As a person grows, they gain new thoughts, ideas, or wisdom.  In both cases, they are still either a tree or person, but with change.  The second and third lines are about childhood and how carefree children live.  As a child, you would go with the flow or in this case, the breeze.  In the last line, I believed Yeats is saying wisdom and truth will eventually destroy you. 

A Work of Artifice

Marge Piercy

The bonsai tree

in the attractive pot

could have grown eighty feet tall

on the side of the mountain

till split by lightning.

But a gardener

carefully pruned it.
It is nine inches high.

Every day as he

whittles back the branches
the gardener croons,

It is your nature

to be small and cozy,

domestic and weak;

how lucky, little tree,
to have a pot to grow in.
With living creatures

one must begin very early

to dwarf their growth:

the bound feet,

the crippled brain,

the hair in curlers

the hands you

love to touch.

     Marge Piercy was born March 31, 1936 in Detroit.  She lived through the depression and was deeply affected by it.  She was the first person in her family to attend college.  Her poetry often addresses feminist and social issues. 

     Bonsai is a Japanese art form using miniature trees grown in containers.  This tradition dates back thousands of years. 

     Although Piercy was clearly talking about Bonsai trees, I saw a deeper meaning in the poem.  I think that she is saying we, as people, have so much potential but it is never put to use.  The third line of the poem really stood out to me.  She says could have grown eighty feet tall, which is referring to the tree.  Her word choice is what really struck me.  Piercy uses the words could have, as in the tree had the potential to be something great and magnificent. It goes on to say how a gardener kept it at nine inches tall and from reaching its true potential.  I compared this to humans.  We are all capable of achieving great things, but we are not brought up to our full potential.  Lines 20 through 24 I didn't quite understand.  In line 20, it thought of foot binding, which was used in Chinese culture, but I'm not sure if I'm on the right path there or not...

The Great Gatsby

     Overall, I really enjoyed reading the book.  Fitzgerald's style of writing was very straightforward and relaxed, which made it a lot easier to read than "Heart of Darkness".  I also found the plot never dull or boring.
     A quick summary of the book is Nick moves to New York for the summer and there he meets his neighbor, Jay Gatsby.  Nick's cousin, Daisy Buchanan, lives in East Egg with her husband, Tom.  East Egg is where people with "old money" lives, and West Egg is for people with "new money".  Through Daisy, Nick meets Jordan Baker and they develop a relationship.  Tom is having an affair on Daisy with Myrtle Wilson.  Gatsby tells Nick that he is deeply in love with Daisy.  It's kinda one big soap opera, but with a deeper meaning behind it all.  Upon Gatsby's request, Nick sets up a reunion for Gatsby and Daisy, but that didn't turn out as anticipated.  After awhile, Tom realizes Gatsby's love for Daisy, and is furious.  He then tells Daisy that Gatsby is a criminal.  Tom then confronts Gatsby in a hotel room with Daisy there and Daisy realizes she is stuck with Tom.  Tom sends Gatsby and Daisy back to East Egg from the city to prove Gatsby can't hurt him.  On the way back, with Daisy driving the car, she hits and kills Myrtle.  Myrtle's husband, who thinks it was Gatsby that killed his wife, hunts him down and kills him.  Nick has a funeral for Gatsby, breaks up with Jordan, and leaves New York.  Pretty crazy stuff, but it kept me entertained for the most part. 
     The most interesting character to me would have to be Jay Gatsby.  I choose him because he's so mysterious and very crucial to the story.  Gatsby is the protagonist and one of the main characters in "The Great Gatsby".  Gatsby had a "false pursuit of happiness".  What I mean by that is he was throwing the parties and lived such a lavish lifestyles for all the wrong reasons.  He was only trying to win Daisy's love, and he believed if he did that then he would be happy.  I personally would disagree with him because you should find happiness within yourself, not others. 
     One of the themes that I found very interesting was the hollowness in the upper class.  I can relate this to my time period, with the moral less celebrities.  In "The Great Gatsby", Fitzgerald portrays West Egg as having gaudy taste, being vulgar, and lacking morals.   
    

Heart of Darkness

     Initially, I wasn't too impressed with Heart of Darkness, but as I kept flipping through the pages, it grew on me.  Although it still isn't my favorite book of all time, I definitely have a great appreciation for this work of literature.  Conrad's extensive use of challenging vocabulary was difficult to get accustom to at first, as well as his lengthy sentences.  I would quite often catch myself having to reread a page two or three times before I was able to decipher what Conrad's point was. 
     The first chapter was the longest to get through, especially when you consider it's just about half of the book.  It starts out with the narrator on board the Nellie on the Thames River.  This is where he meets Marlow and his story begins.   
     Throughout the book I noticed a lot of unnecessary violence and cruelty.  Conrad definitely choose a fitting title for the book.  I noticed that as Marlow's story progressed, he became more accustomed to the evil of mankind and it was starting to change him.  When Marlow was first introduced to the indecency of men at the station.  They had enslaved the natives because they were too lazy to do their own jobs.  Marlow was astonished by this and that the natives were dying everywhere around him while the white men did nothing to try and save them.  Later on in the book, after Marlow finds Kurtz, he sees the heads on sticks.  Marlow reacts to this as if it wasn't a big deal at all. 
     Conrad also uses light and dark as symbols.  On the contrary to popular usage, light doesn't resemble purity or good.  A reoccurring event in the book is the light would always bring out the darkness.  Examples of this is the white ivory, the fog, and even the white men. 
     "The horror! The horror!",  Kurtz's last words before he died.  I interpreted this as the horrors that lies within our self and there is no escape possible. 
    I definitely won't say I'm never ever going to read this book again, because someday I probably will.  It just isn't on the top of my list to reread.  The reason why I think I would read it again is because I will understand more of what's going on and be able to pick up on more symbols or foreshadowing, making it more enjoyable.