Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser

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Today, I'm reviewing Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser.

Summary (from Amazon.com)
An 18-year-old girl without money or connections ventures forth from her small town in search of a better life in Theodore Dreiser's revolutionary first novel. The chronicle of Carrie Meeber's rise from obscurity to fame — and the effects of her progress on the men who use her and are used in turn — aroused a storm of controversy and debate upon its debut in 1900. The author's nonjudgmental portrait of a heroine who violates the contemporary moral code outraged some critics and elated others. A century later, Dreiser's compelling plot and realistic characters continue to fascinate readers.

Review
I'm going to start out by saying that I really liked this book, though it doesn't really seem like the kind of thing I would expect myself to like.

The writing was fantastic, but took some getting used to. I'm used to reading books where the underlying messages are just that: underlying. Not so here. He regularly pauses the story to give commentary, which sometimes appears unrelated to the story, but in the end ties in somehow. He has strong opinions, and he's not afraid to tell them to you. A lot. That does mean that this book in incredibly quotable though, which makes for a different kind of reading experience. There is a lot of foreshadowing and references to later plot events in the writing, and it almost makes me want to just start at the beginning again to catch it all.

The characters in this book are what make it so great. Despite Carrie being the title character, I would argue that she doesn't feel much like the main character. Really, none of them do, but if I had to pick one person to be the official "main character," it would be Hurstwood, even though he isn't even in the first portion of the book.Carrie is young and naive, but Dreiser doesn't use her to make it look bad. In fact, she is the character with, in some ways, the best ending. That of course, it a topic that could be hotly debated (and has caused some family discussions at my house). Drouet is a very realistic character who floats along in his own little bubble. Though he is a good deal smarter than Carrie, he still underestimates her.

The plot was rather unlike most modern books I'm used to reading. While it had the major elements of a story, the pacing felt a little strange. At some times near the end, I felt like I was reading a whole different book than I had been at the beginning. Carrie's life takes  very major turn about half way through the book and at that point the whole focus changes. While the plot was good, the characters and writing take the stage here.

There was one point in the story when Hurstwood is about to make a major decision that will completely alter the course of his life. As he wavers between two options, his thoughts and emotions become more and more conflicted. What Dreiser managed to do in that scene was make Hurstwood a real person. In that scene, Hurstwood goes through a process of thoughts and emotions that was intensely relate-able. Everyone, at some point in their life, has had a moment when they debated doing something that they were not sure was right or moral.

I really love this book, if you can't tell, and I didn't even really notice that it was depressing (though other people have said it was). To me, it is a story of life, of the natural rise and fall of people, and while that certainly can be depressing, it can also be fascinating.

Who Should Read This Book
 I recommend this book to people who enjoy classic literature (this doesn't read like a modern novel). I also think that people who like Edith Wharton (a favorite author of mine) who like this too. It shows a very different perspective on the same time and place.

Homeschool Friday: Week ??

After two months off, I'm finally back with another Homeschool Friday post. I'm not actually sure what week this is now (sixteen maybe?), but I'll go through and count before next week's post. This is my second week back doing school after Christmas break, so I'll try to quickly summarize both in this post.

History
First of all, we have History. Last week, I finished reading The Song of Roland. I didn't do any writing project after I finished it, but while I read it, I did a two or three sentence summary of each stanza, meaning I now have a twenty six page summary of the poem, written by me. :) This week, I moved on to India. I read about twenty five pages out of my textbook, did one paragraph bios of six people from that time and place, and then today, I am researching and writing up summaries of the five major Indian empires from the Middle Ages.

Science and Math
Science has been the subject I've done the least of this week. I finished up a unit on volcanoes, and started one on weather and erosion. For math, I've just been continuing on with what I've been doing. I finished a chapter on polynomial equations, and started one on graphing.

Latin and Spanish
In Latin, I've been working on third declension nouns. I've done this whole book before (and the one after it), so none of what I'm doing is particularly new. I'm really focusing on memorizing vocabulary and noun endings at the moment. In Spanish, I'm working on verbs. As it turns out, the verbs are almost exactly the same in both Latin and Spanish, so this has been really easy for me so far.

Other
In other random things I'm working on, I'm trying to finish Malgudi Days before our World Lit group meets on Tuesday.

So, for the moment, this is about it. I'm going to try to get into a better posting schedule soon, which will involve posting HF posts (hopefully) every Friday. We'll see how that goes.

Life Update {Dance, Books, and DisneyWorld}

It's time for a little update on what I've been up to. The easy answer to that question is not that much.

Everything that had stopped for the holidays has started up again. Dance is going well, and I now have an extra hour a week to rehearse for a show we're taking part in in mid March. Current Events class started up again yesterday. The topic of discussion this time was Boeing vs. the Machinists union, which is a very timely and local issue. Our next World Lit book discussion is next week, and I am almost done with the book we're reading, Malgudi Days. I'll review it once I'm done with it.

In book news, I'm also reading A Clash of Kings, which I am very slowly working on, but very much enjoying. It has a different feel from A Game of Thrones, and it has a more serious tone. Once I finally finish it, I will of course write up a review. The other book I'm reading right now is the Firm, by John Grishom. So far, I'm really loving the story, and it's incredibly gripping.

If you want to keep up with what I'm reading all the time, you can see the Goodreads widget to the right, which lists all the books I'm currently reading. You can also follow me on Goodreads to keep up with my progress on the books (I try to update it every few days).

School has mostly been going well. I know I didn't put up a HF post on Friday like I said I was going to, but I'm currently working on one for this week.

The last week of February, I'm going to be in Disney World, so there probably won't be a lot going on here, but when I get back I'll try to post a bunch of pictures.

I know a lot of people are still having problems posting comments, and I haven't had time yet to really try to figure out the problem. If you have any knowledge of this, and think you might know what the problem is, please email me at readingwritinghighschool@gmail.com. Thanks!

For My IRL Friends...

Last night, I went and saw the Hobbit pt. 2 for the second time, this time with a bunch of friends (the Usual Suspects).

In December 2012, a new movie theater opened in my town, about ten minutes from my house. It is HUGE. It has sixteen theaters, including an IMAX theater, and all the theaters have stadium seating (there are no bad seats!). Since then, I have seen nine movies there (including the one last night). I have kept the tickets from all of them, and I recently realized that I had never been in the same theater twice, until last night.

For posterity, and my IRL friends who were curious, here are all the movies I've seen there, and the theater numbers.

12/20/12 - The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - Auditorium 8 (this is the IMAX one).
1/5/13 - Lincoln - Auditorium 12
5/12/13 - The Great Gatsby - Auditorium 14
5/30/13 - Star Trek Into Darkness - Auditorium 1
11/24/13 - Catching Fire - Auditorium 16
12/1/13 - Ender's Game - Auditorium 11
12/12/13 - The Book Thief - Auditorium 3
12/23/13 - The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug - Auditorium 9
1/12/14 - The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug - Auditorium 16

I know this is totally random, and most of you (or maybe all of you) don't care at all about this, but here it is.

Comments!

I don't have time to write up the book review I had planned to post today, but instead, I'm going to do a little life and blog update.

First of all, the blog post that went up last Wednesday, Some Thoughts for 2014, has rapidly grown to be my most popular post of all time. I've also gotten a lot of great responses about it, though you won't see any of them here (gah!) because of my still lingering comment issues. I really appreciate all your kind thoughts, and it encourages me that a post like that, which isn't really what I normally put up here, can get such a positive response.

Speaking of that, I would really appreciate it if you would try to comment. If it doesn't work, PLEASE let me know the details (what profile you used, exactly what happened when you tried to post it, what browser you're using, anything else that seems pertinent). You can email me at readingwritinghighschool@gmail.com, or you can message me on the blog's facebook page. I haven't been able to reproduce the issue (using Firefox, and signed in with my Google account), so I can't tell what the problem might be at the moment. Also, if you have a blogger blog, are you having this problem? Have you been able to fix it? Please let me know!

In life stuff, school's starting up, and I've got a lot to do. I'm volunteering at the library, and dancing once a week, but other than that, the buzz of activity surrounding the holidays is completely gone. While it's kind of nice not to be SO busy, I would like to find some more things to do.

One thing that I will probably be doing this winter or spring some time is Driver's Ed! I'm really excited for that.

Also, we're going to Disneyworld the last week of February, which should be a ton of fun. More about that later.

I've got to go now. Again, please try to comment, and let me know if you can't!!

Some Housekeeping

As we move forward into 2014, there are a few things that I think I should address here on the blog.

First of all: comments. I have had multiple people tell me recently that they were unable to post comments on various posts on this blog. I haven't been able to reproduce the problem, so if that happens to you, let me know either on my facebook page or by email (readingwritinghighschool@gmail.com). Let me know exactly what kind of problem you had, and I'll see if I can do anything about it.

Also, I haven't done any school updates since mid November, but those will be starting up again next Friday, January 10th. Sometime before then, I'll probably do a post about how my schedule will be different for the winter and spring.

Also coming up soon are several book reviews that I'm pretty excited about. I also plan on doing a post about the various geeky book related Christmas gifts I got this year.

That's all for today. I hope you all had a terrific holiday season!

Some Thoughts for 2014

This morning, I wrote this post, and then decided not to publish it. I thought it was too long, too strange, and too philosophical for this blog. But just now, I reread what I had written earlier, and I decided to post it anyway. Yeah, it's long, and confusing, and mainly fueled by sugar and sleep deprivation, but I kind of like it. This blog is many things, but at it's heart, it's a place for me to write. A place to write book reviews, and about my writing, and about what I'm thinking. This is the kind of thing I write, and so it belongs here. If anyone actually reads it all the way through and understands my thought process while writing it, I will be duly impressed. :)

Well, it's 2014 now. I went to a very fun party last night where I ate lots of food, talked a lot, played some poker, played a bunch of various card games (spoons, peanut butter, and more), talked books and movies and was generally nerdy, and just generally had fun with the "Usual Suspects." See my last post for more on that if you're confused.

Right now, I'm about to head out to park day to see if any other Bellingham homeschoolers bothered to come out on New Year's Day, but first I thought I'd try to find something to write about here.

I don't know about you, but when I eat too much sugar, and get too little sleep, I tend to get far too thoughtful and reflective. :)

Today, I've been thinking about something a friend said to me last night.  I was telling two friends about a project I'm thinking about taking on, and I was asking them if they were interested in helping at all. I mentioned that I thought maybe one of them could particularly help with a little writing part, and the other friend said to me, "But you're the writer."

While I didn't think anything of that comment in the moment, other than maybe he was right that it was kind of silly for me to ask people to write things for me, later I thought more about it.

The new year is often a time when people think about who they are and who they want to be. Right now, I often feel like I'm in an odd spot. When you're a teenager, you have every possibility open to you. You make choices that will affect you for the rest of your life. Right now, I'm 15 years old. I still have several years before I have to make the big decisions (college, jobs, etc.) that will change the course of my life. But I'm still at a point in my life where I can decide who I want to be, how I want to be seen, and in what direction I want my life to go.

Who you become is something you can change, but it's also a group project. There are a lot of people in my life, both kids and adults, who I think have a hand in that process. When my friend said to me last night, "You're the writer," while he probably didn't mean that much by it, it showed me part of how he sees me. When my friend's mom asked me how late the library was open on Tuesdays, fully expecting me to know the answer, that showed me part of how she sees me.

To make this even more confusing, I've been realizing that while how other people see me is important, there are sides of me that none of them have ever seen. Parts of me that I'm not sure I want them to see. There are parts of me that are unsure if I'm up to being "the writer" or the responsible person other people seem to think of me as.

But I rise to the occasion when I need to. When I need to be responsible for other people, or when I need to rise above my own fears, I can if other people expect it of me. There have been times when I'm not sure if I can keep it up. I have a reputation for being an overachiever, and for being on top of everything, but the reality isn't really always the same as the reputation. Sometime it's hard because I can't keep up with the way people think of me.

Sometimes I realize that I'm caught between who I want to be, and who I am. Where's the balance? Where do I want the balance to be? Is there even a difference?

What I'm trying to say here is that I'm realizing that how these people see me affects the person that I am, and that I have to decide if that's really the person I want to be. I have the ability right now to be anything. Do I want to be the writer? The booklover? The overachiever? Sometimes I'm not really sure.

Right now, I can decide who I want to be. I will always be "the writer." That's a title I'm proud to have. I'm thrilled to be considered a booklover, especially by my friends who are better read than I am. That's just one side of me, but it's a side I'm happy to let people see. I'm happy with who I am, but I'm also happy to think that that person isn't set in stone.

Thanks to my friend, whose comment sparked this post. If you're still reading at this point, you deserve a prize!