Beloved

By this point, I am about halfway through Beloved, and I love it so far. A lot of my friends do not, however. Many of them seem to think that Tony Morrison's difficult-to-understand writing style makes it a bad book. I agree that her writing is not easy to read. It can be a struggle sometimes to understand what she means by a passage. But I don't think this detracts from the book. Rather, I believe it adds to the power of the novel. While I occasionally have to reread a section multiple teams to gain an understanding of it, and yes, this does interrupt the flow of the reading, I like how not everything is explicitly stated. Many things have to be inferred by the reader, and one is constantly having to read in between the lines to get the subtle meaning behind phrases. But I think this is fun, and I enjoy reading literature that makes you work. Of course, this means the readings take more time, which is unfortunate for my cramped schedule, but I don't really mind that much. So you should read Beloved, because it's an excellent book.

Shostakovich

This week I am at All-State Orchestra. One of the pieces we are playing is Shostakovitch's Symphony Number 5. Today's blog post is going to be about why Shostakovitch is an uber-genius.

Dmitri Shostakovitch lived his whole life in Russia. At this time, Russia was a socialist regime ruled by Stalin. As you may have heard, Stalin was not a very friendly guy. Due to his extreme idea of nationalism, there was intense censorship across the cultural spectrum. Stalin heard some of Shostakovitch's early music and deemed it to be upsetting to Russian ideals. While this may not seem like a big deal, at this team, people that upset Russian ideals tended to dissapear rapidly with the aid of the KGB. Shostakovitch became deathly afraid of this fate, and was so paranoid that, when he finished his Symphony No. 4, he refused to let it be premiered in case Stalin did not approve. So what did Shostakovitch do? Wimp out and become a factory worker? No. He wrote one of the greatest works of art ever. Shostakovitch's Symphony No. 5 is freaking amazing. Allow me to explain why.

The whole piece has a very patriotic feel to it- the battle march sections and blaring brass seem to show a real pride in Mother Russia. However, his music goes much deeper than this. Beneath a facade of nationalism lies a sarcastic, angry, scared view of his circumstances. For example, in the first movement, there are many times when the whole orchestra stops and there are three solid individual chords. These chords are harsh and sharp. They are meant to represent the KGB knocking on Shostakovitch's door, an event which he was constantly paranoid about. Another example is the end of the fourth movement. The last two minutes of music consist of a loud brass chorale, which seems very happy and proud. However, the whole section is underscored by the entire string section playing an A. With the same rhythm. Over and over. For two minutes. This is meant to represent how this happiness that Russians supposedly feel towards their leader is strained, forced, and fake.

The reason Shostakovitch is such a bamf is because he was able to write one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever (I didn't mention the 3rd movement- absolutely stunning), and make relevant and active political commentary at the same time. A man with this talent is nothing short of a genius.

I'm attaching two links to this- one is for the fourth movement of his symphony, where you can hear the blaring A's at the end. The other link is to the second movement of his second piano concerto. I know I didn't talk about this at all, but, in my opinion, it is one of the most beautiful works ever, and I highly recommend you listening to it.

Giant Beetle Man

I just read the short story The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka. It was awesome. The story is about a man who wakes up and has been transformed into a giant beetle overnight. Though his mental facilities remain intact, he is (understandably so) treated with shock by his family. They keep him in his room, and the only member of his family that helps him is his younger sister, who gives him food and cleans his room. Over the course of the story, the man is cruelly and systematically alienated from his friends, family, and all of humanity. In the end, even his sister says that "the Monster" couldn't be her brother, as it would have left long ago to alleviate the family of his immense burden. That night, the man dies, after starving himself for weeks on end in depression. The story ends with the family being growing back together and being immensly happy and free now that the man is dead.

This is a story about alienation, and one that is extremely powerful and affecting. The story is a self-reflective work about how Kafka feels about his own life. He had a complex relationship with his sometimes-abusive father, and he was very close with his younger sister. The story goes into multiple types of alienation. Obviously, there's the physical aspect; the fact that he is concretely separate from the human race. Beyond that, there is the alienation of himself from his family. They do not realize he can understand them as he cannot speak, so they talk about him when he can hear them. They do not understand him, and they fail to recognize his positive qualities at all.

These are all feelings that many people experience in their lives. Kafka is able to take this extreme example and make it relatable and  applicable to any reader, which is a feat not easily accomplished. I would definitely recommend this short read to anyone interested in reading really awesome stuff.

The Road

I have now finished The Road for a second time. I like the ending a lot. After two hundred and fifty pages of depression and bleak outlooks, the last couple of pages finally give the reader some hope.

I have heard a couple of different interesting theories about the final section. One is that the family that takes the boy in is farming children to eat. I heard this theory before I reread the ending, and it upset me greatly. Now that I have looked at it further, however, I don't see this theory as accurate as all. First of all, the amount of resources it would take to farm children is completely unrealistic. The most benificial practice for the adults to partake in would be eating the children as soon as they are born. It takes too much time and food to grow them up to be not a whole lot more massive than they would be early in life. Also, I think the last two pages destroys this idea. The boy talks about the future, and how they see fish at one point in the mountains. If he's been kept alive for that long, it is extremely unlikely that he will be killed and eaten by the family protecting him.

Another theory I've heard is that the boy dies with the man. As the man said earlier in the book, the only dreams for men in peril are of peril. Any other kind is bad news. The boy experiences these good things at the very end, and it almost seems too good to be true. This theory states that the boy has passed away or is currently in the process of passing away, and these are his last dreams.

I don't believe in either of these theories, though they are interesting. I think the ending is much more straightforward- the boy lives happily ever after. The end.

Auditions

The next month is going to be a very stressful time for me. Though I have finished applying to all of my colleges, I chose to apply to a few music schools. These require live auditions. Differerent schools have different requirements, but most of them make you play one major and minor scale with arpeggios, an etude, 2 contrasting movements from a Bach suite, and a movement from a concerto- all memorized.

The scales are kind of self-explanatory. But the etude is interesting. An etude is a short work designed to hone a certain technique or skill. There are many different composers for etudes with hundreds of etudes between them. Choosing one for an audition is a tricky thing. I chose Kreutzer's etude #16. This one focuses on getting even trills and a reliable bow stroke. Etudes are usually not easy to memorize, but this one is particularly difficult because it is essentially the exact same measure over and over again. There is not much of a melodic line, which is very helpful for memorization.

For my Bach, I am playing the first two movements (Prelude and Allemande) from Suite no. 3, in C Major. This is actually my favorite part of the audition. Both of these movements are relatively simple on the page, but there are infinite possibilities for interpretation and expansion when you delve deeper into the music. Every single cellist and violist has their own style for playing different Bach, and an important part of growing up musically is choosing one you like the best.

The last part of my audition is the movement from a concerto. I am playing Fantasie for Viola and Orchestra by J. Hummel. This piece is split up into 3 sections. The first is similar to a heavy Mozart opera, and is slow and melodramatic. The second is more like a light Mozart Opera. It is faster and less ponderous. The last movement is very fast and is definitely for showing-off. There are tricky technical passages in this third section that are not present in the first two.

The audition process is long and difficult, but it's made a lot easier because I enjoy the pieces that I chose.

To Be Or Not To Be

Suicide is a very controversial topic. It was presented earlier this year in our reading of Hamlet, and was brought up again this week in The Road.

The Road presents two opposing perspectives on suicide. The mother kills herself, while the father chooses to try and live. The world has been destroyed by some presumably man-made apocalypse, and most people are dead. Many that aren't dead have joined Blood Cults and other such groups that brutally rape, kill, and eat people. This is not exactly an ideal scenario to be in. The mother says that she can't go on trying to survive, and she'd rather not live in such a cruel and messed-up world. The father, on the other hand, does not commit suicide. He chooses this path because of his son. He loves his son very much, and wants him to grow up and live a happy life. The thought of either killing his son or leaving his son alone is unbearable.

Some might call suicide an easy way out. I would definitely agree that it prevents a good deal of suffering and harm, both physical and emotional. However, I don't think it should be looked on (in this instance at least) with disdain. With the world in such an awful place, the question arises about whether it is better to try and survive, or whether it is simply not worth it.

I'm not suggesting I have an answer to this question, and hopefully I'll never need one. I just want to stress the fact that suicide is not as black-and-white and issue as it is often portrayed.

First Semester

AP English Literature and Composition has been one of my favorite classes this year by far. One of the parts I loved from the first semester of AP Lit was the discussion on philosophy that spanned several class periods. I have always been interested in philosophy, but I didn't know anything about existentialism, and I found it a very enthralling topic. I found the short story unit to be surprisingly fun. I didn't think I liked short stories, but this unit definitely changed my mind about that. Also, I love all of the reading that we do. I know that should kind of be a given with the whole AP "Literature" thing, but reading is one of my passions, and this class certainly fulfills that to a great extent.

I have been frustrated by something this semester, however: the outside reading essays/assignments. I love reading, and I happily read many books on my own outside of school, so the fact that reading was assigned was not a big deal to me. However, I was not a big fan of the essays that came with it. I understand that we need to practice writing, but I think we should be trusted to read our books without having to be tested over them (though I see the obvious problem with this).

We have already been informed that next semester the outside reading has changed, and I like the new format more than the last one. I still dislike the fact that we are being tested over our books by writing an essay, but I like the idea of reading books in order to answer some kind of discussion question. I very much look forward to the unit on novels next semester as well.

As a final note, I really love the blog posts idea. It can be hard to come up with good topics every week, but I like writing like this for fun on a topic of our choice. It's relaxing and a fun exercise.

This video is unrelated, but awesome. So here ya go!