November Reading Challenge

Books Read
- Sarah's Key by: Tatiana de Rosnay 290 pages
- Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson 314 pages
--in total 2 books over 600 pages--

Sarah's Key Response

In Sarah’s Key, a huge and controversial issue was moving on; how we do it and if we can. Julia, a 45 year-old American married to a french man, thinks her husband’s particularly calm attitude toward ‘France’s Dark Days’ (the holocaust) is disgusting. She hates how the french-attitude is to move on past the war, and do little to keep the memory as a lesson.

I feel that it is necessary to move on. By that I don’t mean forgetting the past which has lessons of mistakes to never repeat in the future, but we can’t mourn for life! Life is about progression in my eyes. I don’t think it is right for anyone (much less Sarah) to wrong people because they are more interested in the future. Life keeps going, and we can’t stop because then we will never catch up, right? I mean, I know that is intense, but I think it’s true! Can we ever stop going?

I have no idea! Part of what makes me who I am is that I move-on quickly, and always feel like I need to be on the run, or else I feel like a failure. This causes a lot of stress and doubts. In a way, I feel like the world around me made me think that way. The media puts out the message that if you aren’t doing something to save some aspect of our world, you are useless. I know it’s important to ‘do something’, but I feel if we truly are meant to help the world, it shouldn’t be so forcefully pushed on us. I guess we all need the motivation, but people can’t handle all this pressure. We need to go at our own pace to be successful, I think.

Does this mean we can’t get any outside pushes? No, I don’t think so. As I frequently say, we need to accept help, including motivational get-off-your-ass help, but too much is never good. For people to look back and remember the past I guess is okay, but some may criticize and say move-on, which to some people (like Sarah) is offensive. It is true that we all go at our own paces, but there is some limit to how much you should stop and go. We can’t be bums all our life, but nobody but our own self is going to make a bum not a bum. We are who we are, and if it takes us a little or long time to move-on it’s okay, but while this ‘break/mourn’ time, we can’t just stop completely. Sure you can remember the good ‘ol days, but you still need to live your new, present days.

(did my weird code (sort-of) talk confusing you)?

Chains Response

The book Chains is about a girl, set during the Revolutionary War, working as a slave in NY to a loyalist family. Her owners, the Locktons, are cold-hearted, but Mr. Lockton’s aunt named Ms. Seymour takes pity on the girl (Isabel) and even tries to buy Isabel from the Locktons. Sadly, Mrs. Lockton wouldn’t sell Isabel out of the evil of her heart. Mrs. Lockton is so cruel, and throughout the book it seems like she knows (and is ok) with that. For example, when she secretly sells Isabel’s sister Ruth, Isabel’s only love and family left, she lies to Isabel about it, and then when Isabel finally finds out the truth, Mrs. Lockton cowers and puts the blame on Isabel, in fear that she will get angry and hurt her.

How could you live with being so mean? I know it was very common to have slaves in that time, even though it is such a corrupt system, but there is a difference between getting free labor and being cruel! It seems like no-one cared, and the ones that did were too weak to stand up for what they believed in. I just don’t understand how you could treat anyone, even an animal (as some people portrayed Africans as), with such torture. Everyone has a heart, and know what pain feels like, so why would you want to inflict it on someone else? To take out your anger, without being publicly portrayed as awful?

It is so pathetic that to get over our own anger, we need to harm and anger something else. When we do that, we are being completely selfish, even when ‘punching a pillow’ because that reminds us that pain can be solved with pain. It’s like a vicious cycle! Yes, life isn’t fair and pain means character, but isn’t there some sort of obvious limit to that? Has man-kind not made that limit, and so no-one consciously cares?

I suppose the only reason why people treat pain with pain is because it truly does satisfy your feelings, which I guess in the long run is good because then we get those angry feelings out. But what I said was true: pain is a cycle! To deal with pain, we inflict pain. How can we stop this? Slavery in America doesn’t exist anymore, but in many other countries it does! At the end of the day, we worry more about ourselves. Is that selfish, or simply smart? I’m sure that in times of need it is ok to want to get your own food before helping out a friend, but I believe karma does exist, meaning if you don’t help, no-one will help you. We can’t survive all alone in this world, and yet that is how the slaves lived. I understand wanting free labor, but Mrs.Lockton completely abused the system, wether slavery was normal in that time or not. I am a carnivore, but I try to buy free-range (or un-caged) chickens, which is a step toward breaking the cycle of cruel pain!