Becoming a Reader

I placed a feeler question on Google + to get some ideas about my topic:

I think that reading creates wonder (obviously because we are in a class all about it)
and I also think that there are specifics that keep us coming back
ultimately turning us from a  non reader to a reader

I have looked through a lot of teaching blogs that just say 

"Get them to read"

I took this to mean you just have to read a book and then you will be hooked

which I disagree with

The Ordinary: A Launching Pad for Awe

I've started reading some memoirs as a part of my research in regard to what drives people to go in search of awe, in search of something greater than what they can see from their current circumstances.

In reading about Steve Jobs, I've learned that he was adopted as a child. Many people who have worked with Jobs claim that being adopted was the shaping moment of his personality. Del Yocam said "I think his desire for complete control of whatever he makes derives directly from his personality and the fact that he was abandoned at birth."

Jobs himself said that finding out he was adopted "made him feel more independent" but claimed that he has "never felt abandoned. I've always felt special." Later, Jobs would go on to spearhead the "Think Different" campaign, the advertising movement that ultimately changed Apple's status from "silly toys" to "the cutting edge creative computer."

But in order for someone to think differently, the majority of people have to think the same. If we all thought different, then there would be no room for individuality, for that groundbreaking moment when something supersedes what we ever thought was possible and raises our expectations to another plain. We need the ordinary to launch into the extraordinary. So shouldn't we be encouraging the ordinary folk, too? Shouldn't we be praising the mundane, the routine, and the people who just want things to stay the same?

Or does enough of that already happen on its own?

Awesome Attributes of Videogames

Looking toward my wunderkammer and coming out of my tutorial interview with Dr. Burton, I've come up with my own preliminary list of what aspects of videogames most often inspire awe. I'm following in the footsteps of +Amber Z here with her great similar post on the elements of awe.

1. Technology

The most obvious source of awe from videogames is the advanced technology. Believe it or not, "realistic graphics!" has been a marketing buzz phrase in videogames since at least the 80s, when games looked like this:

In every phase of videogames' development and (short) history, they've been specifically designed to wow people with what new "magic" computers can do. In fact, the impetus for the creation of what many call the first videogame, Spacewar!, was an attempt to find a way to get people to appreciate the giant computer systems in the basement of MIT. People didn't really understand what computer were for, but videogames helped them realize they were at least useful for something.

Storytelling

Here’s something that can bring on the awe: storytelling. 

You know when there’s a really good storyteller, and suddenly previously blah stories have power and meaning and connection? Or when you’re just wandering around thinking of nothing and you hear a good story and it captures you and changes your perspective? 

Something like that happened at the Reading Series last semester when Brian Doyle came:

http://ers.byu.edu/play.php?filepath=2013-BrianDoyle

(I would suggest starting around 9 minutes and really tuning in around 10:30 for a bit until 14:30ish to hear a good story.)

And it’s like, even if you’re not really feeling the awe, like I didn’t really as I relistened to this thing that impacted me differently last November, at least it’s a good story. Even when I was there in the moment hearing this, I wasn't really swept away, but I was kind of in awe of him and his passion and stories. 

He reads this one I’ve posted below at around 32 minutes. I think it’s better when you read it to yourself.

Sanderson, scientific magic, and how literature creates awe

Kredik Shaw, from Mistborn

         So, Brandon Sanderson is a fantasy author.  Now, growing up I wasn't a big fan of fantasy.  I was a big of science-fiction.  What's the difference between these two?  They are commonly lumped into one generic title: Science Fiction and Fantasy, but to me there are distinct differences.  Fantasy, to me, was too nerdy and geeky.  All the stories had dragons in them and all the hero's problems could be solved with a simple wave of a wand and a magic spell that was lost for centuries or something like that.  Science fiction, on the other hand, had hard and fast rules for me.  Everything crazy was a result of science and technology.  Hard Science Fiction especially drew my interests, because they could explain everything using science, from the alien's biological makeup to how gravity was formed by a spinning motion.  So Andrew, you may be asking yourself, how did someone with such a distaste of fantasy come to be a fan of the fantasy author Brandon Sanderson?

The Aw(e)-ful

I want to write my research paper about awe and terror. After I read Burke and his argument that only terror causes awe, I began to think about that a lot. Why am I awed? What brings awe to me? And what is appealling about that?

Everything that has been awing to me, I have felt a little uncomfortable about. Uncomfortable that makes me squirm in my seat. Rachmaninov, Poe, O'Connor, Picoult, surrealism. The dark side. It's raw and personal. It transcends bounds and makes me rethink everything. But why do the normal things not bring that awe to me? Why does the nice, neat, tied-up-in-a-bow art not inspire that feeling inside of me? 

Reiterating Awe

In my first few posts and some Google+ updates, I've talked about movies, music, and art inspiring awe. It seems though that there is something about nostalgia and tiers of awe that have popped up in comment discussions on these posts and updates. What does that mean?

In my tutorial meeting, Dr Burton suggesting looking at reiterating awe, or how different forms of content can revisit moments of awe. So I wrote a bit about it in my wonder journal. Then I opened up this Google+ discussion asking "Reiterating awe? Tiers of awe? Theories?" Here are the responses I got:

The Awe in Austen

I posted a question on Google+ asking what kind of awe Jane Austen had inspired in those who've read her. Here are two responses:

"She wrote depictions of everyday, ordinary activities and experiences, yet still became this phenomenon celebrated today. We've talked about the mundane, how it gets harder to find awe in the routine. Jane Austen created awe from the mundane. So it is possible to find awe in anything I suppose, mundane or grand, if you are consciously or subconsciously looking for it." -Amber

"I was always in awe of her ability to take the mundane and ordinary social interactions of her day and magnify them into these iconic stories." -Cara

This semester, I want to research Austen's literary texts as well as the cultural phenomenon surrounding her works. I had no intention to write about Austen for this class, but I experienced my own moment of awe in the form of an epiphany while reading from Wordsworth's "Preface to Lyrical Ballads." It was while reading the following two passages when I realized my love for Austen is something I could study and actually write about:

Ultimate Awe

I think we build up awe to only happen at moments of high sensory stimulation. I've decided there are moments of awe that I'm calling "ordinary awe." Things we all share like being in awe of a puppy running around in the snow without a care in the world while we are trudging home from school. How he is so warm-hearted in the cold. This type of awe equates to wonder.
But there is another type of awe, it is almost a common jealousy we all share, we look for awe in the ordinary things because we are looking for "Ultimate awe." Ultimate awe is the peak of emotion and understanding being reconciled. It is a place that is very seldom reached.
Plays and especially musicals are one way to produce "Ultimate Awe." They transform ordinary awe-inspiring things into one awe-inspiring experience. I think to experience awe you use or want to use all of the senses. Musicals can do this for us as they reproduce a heightened version of reality.  For example the song "Let it Go" in the new Disney movie "Frozen" appeals to our emotions.






We initially get lost in the moment and desire to vocalize our wants like Elsa does. We want to take off our outward facades, and be accepted for who we are. We feel a connection to her feelings because she's like us and at the same time we are in awe of her spontaneity and recklessness.

We progress to awe of how she, the song, the spectacle, has affected us. Perhaps next we stand in awe of how our emotional connection was created. And then, finally, we are in awe of what this means to us. I think this last realization is "Ultimate Awe," when the spectacle connects to the bigger outside world.
We realize this scene means more than to let ourselves go. The song relates to overcoming disabilities, emotional distress, loneliness, fear and realizing how to come into your own skin. We gain a new understanding of others and ourselves.  We gain a connection to others. and That is Ultimate Awe.
Ultimate Awe is in the spectacles of life, because what is presented to us with enough intensity leaves an impression.

Food = Awe?

There are some things in life that completely captivate me, and when they do I become a very passionate advocate about that thing.  I feel quite often that I lack passion for things.  It is quite difficult for me to find what it is that I truly love while it seems easy for others.  But when I do find it I really love it and I am hooked; sometimes I also get carried away by these passions.  I remember watching the documentary Hungry for Change, yes it is true some documentaries fall under the category of dogmatic theories but this one really changed my view on health.  I hadn’t been taking care of myself and decided I was going to try something new; so I bought a juicer and started the journey.  Now I don’t want this to sound like a testimonial, although I am sure it is sounding like that right about now, but what amazed me was how purely drinking vegetables and fruits changed my attitude.  So I got sucked into it even more.  I am happy to know that from Cara’s comment she also loves juicing.  I guess the thing that created awe was the spiritual connection I began to have with God.  I saw that in all His infinite power He would create things so common that could heal us emotionally and physically.  I began to buy books to study up on the power of vegetables and fruits, and in the end all of this directed me back to D&C 89,

10 And again, verily I say unto you, all wholesome herbs God hath ordained for the constitution, nature, and use of man—

11 Every herb in the season thereof, and every fruit in the season thereof; all these to be used with prudence and thanksgiving.

16 All grain is good for the food of man; as also the fruit of the vine; that which yieldeth fruit, whether in the ground or above the ground—

“Contains more anutrients with demonstrable anticancer properties than any other vegetable family…one of the American Cancer Society’s key dietary recommendations to reduce the risk of cancer is to include on a regular basis cruciferous vegetables”  -The Complete Book of Juicing

I find it so amazing that God knows our bodies perfectly.  While I do believe in medicine I also believe there are many ways to heal our bodies simply by using the things that God has provided for us.  I know that these moments of awe with food created a personal rejuvenation within my own soul.  And although this may seem stereotypical, this lead me to practice yoga and do other things that would allow me to further meditate and find awe in life.  Unfortunately I have been sucked back into the busy schedule of life, and maybe this is why it is so hard for me to find awe in everyday life.  I am not looking or having sincere moments of meditation.  In the end these ideas lead me to my final paper project, the power of food in literature that influences women’s lives and leads to awe.  Hmmm, and all of this started from talking about juicing vegetables and fruits. 

The First Hunger Games

Before the Hunger Games were even a stirring in the mind of Suzanne Collins, another deadly game of cat and mouse hit the scene of literature. In "The Hunger Games," humans are placed in a forest, and later jungle, paradise.  But they aren't there to just take in the view.  They are there to fight to the death.  Man against man, human against human in a fight for survival.  And for most, the odds are not always in their favor.

Now image a different book, one where our hero finds himself on a forest island.  Where our hero isn't there just to take in the sights and sounds, but in a desperate race and struggle for survival.  Sound familiar?  Well, the work I'm referring to is none other than Richard Connell's work "The Most Dangerous Game."

Pounding In My Head: A Literary Narrative

"station... faces"              "black"        "wet, black"                     "crowd...bough"

          "the apparition"                           "wet, black bough"

     "metro... petals"            "petals...wet"                                "faces... these faces"

                                             "bough. Pound"

These words are the most fulfilling words I know.  Each character counts -- from the very pieces of the title to the sounding boom of his last name.  Each element is used to its total capacity.  Every last bit of wordy juice has been squeezed into this picture til not a drop of meaning remains unused. The whole is so, so complete.

Catching Me

Wikipedia Images Creative Commons

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my military childhood was like, and how my parents were stationed in different countries from me, and all that military brat kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth... I'm not going to tell you my whole life or anything. I'll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me around freshman year of high school just before I got pretty run-down and had to start reading books to take it easy and not think about life so much.

I had people telling me all the time in high school, telling me how when they were in college it was the happiest days of their lives, and giving me a lot of advice for the future and all. Boy, did they depress me! I don't mean any of them were bad people or anything. They weren't. But you don't have to be a bad guy to depress somebody - you can be a good guy and do it. All you have to do to depress somebody is give them a lot of phony advice about the future while you're working your boring jobs that weren't your dream jobs. That's all you have to do. I don't know. Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad listening to them if they didn't look so sad. They all look so sad when they think people aren't looking. The whole time they put on a good show, tell you everything is good and all, that the world is at your door step or something. I can't explain. I just didn't like anything that people were telling me.

"You don't like anything that's happening." It made me even more depressed when I thought about that.

"Yes I do. Yes I do. Sure I do. Don't say that." Why did you say that to me?  Of course I like some things...

Delayed Awe

There are so many things in this world that we expect to grab out attention quickly. We expect TV shows to be gripping and exciting; we go, see and do hoping for a quick thrill or instant gratification. Over the many years of my life, I've learned (and I'm still learning) that often it's the things that you have to work at that are the most rewarding or have the biggest sense of awe attached to them.

This is what happened when I read The Yellow Wallpaper.

The first time I read this story, I was 17, a senior in High School, and lazy.
It was assigned reading.
I read it (kind of).
Participated in class discussion (or attempted to).
That was it.


My second encounter with this masterpiece was in college. I think probably every English major has read this story at least once in their lives, and I am no exception. This time when I was assigned to read it, I had more of an analytic approach to it, thanks to my years of experience deconstructing English literature. My professor at the time asked questions that I'd never thought of, and got me thinking about this story in a different way.

And then we moved on to another short story.

And I forgot about it.

Until.

My Girl Em

I say this all the time but....

I always tell people that I chose to teach English

because literature holds a power within us.

It is this power that always helps me come to terms 

with life,

with struggles,

with my mind's worries.

Take this for example:

The Perks of Being Infinite

January 14, 1992

Dear Friend,

----I feel like a big faker, because I've been putting my life back together, and nobody knows. It's hard to sit in my bedroom and read like I always did. So much has changed since the last time we talked. So much has changed since a moment ago.

----When I was twenty two, I read a book for fun. Except that I don't really read books for fun at all: it's always so I can remember that there are people out there who think my thoughts. And I know having real friends is a lot better than having fictional ones, but the fictional ones seem a lot more real sometimes, and books don't get married or move away or commit suicide. When I met Charlie, he was the realest person that I had ever come across--not because everyone else was uninteresting but because when you're depressed or confused or trying to figure out who you are, that is the only real thing to you, and everything else just kind of subsides into a gray blah. I think it's a defense mechanism.

Sanctuary in a Far-Off Place

I was sitting on my bed one evening in Zhongshan, China. The end-of-summer heat had driven me to a restless wakefulness even though it was getting late, and I was exhausted from a long day of teaching. My sole companion was an abridged version of Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I’d been picking at it for a few weeks, and I was only halfway through. I probably would not have cracked it open that night if I had been able to fall asleep with the rest of the world. (Even in its abridged format, The Hunchback of Notre Dame is not exactly what I’d call light reading.)

It was during one of those long, dark hours that I read this scene:

No one had yet noticed, in the gallery of the royal statues sculptured immediately above the arches of the great door, a strange spectator, who until then had been watching all that had been going on with such absolute passiveness, a neck so intently stretched, a face so deformed, that, but for his clothing, half red and half purple, he might have been mistaken for one of those stone monsters through whose mouths the long gutters of the cathedral have disgorged the rains for six hundred years. . . . All at once, just as the hangman’s assistants were about to carry out Charmolue’s phlegmatic order, he straddled the balustrade of the gallery, gripped the rope with his feet, his knees, and his hands, and slid down the facade like a raindrop rolling down a pane of glass. With the speed of a cat that has leaped from a rooftop, he darted toward the two executioners, knocked them down with two enormous fists, picked up the gypsy with one hand, as a child does a doll, and with one bound was inside the church, holding the girl above his head, and crying with a loud voice, “Sanctuary!” . . . 

“Sanctuary! Sanctuary!” repeated the crowd, and the clapping of ten thousand hands made Quasimodo’s one eye sparkle with pride and joy. . . . 

Quasimodo had stopped under the great door. His large feet seemed as solidly rooted to the floor of the church as the heavy Roman pillars. His great hairy head was sunk between his shoulders like that of a lion, which too has a mane, but no neck. He held the young girl, all palpitating, suspended in his calloused hands, like a piece of white drapery; but he carried her so carefully that he seemed afraid of bruising her or breaking her. It was as if he felt that she was something delicate, exquisite, and precious, made for hands other than his. . . . The women laughed and wept; the crowd stamped their feet enthusiastically, for at that moment Quasimodo was really beautiful. . . . 

And then there was something touching about the protection offered by a creature so deformed to one so unfortunate—one condemned to death saved by Quasimodo. Here were the two extremes of physical and social wretchedness meeting and assisting each other. . . .
At last he made [an] . . . appearance atop the tower of the great bell. There he seemed to show proudly to the whole city her whom he had saved, and his thundering voice, that voice which was heard so rarely, and which he never heard, repeated three times with frenzy, even to the clouds, “Sanctuary! Sanctuary! Sanctuary!” . . . 

“Noël! Noël!” screamed the crowd, and this immense acclamation was thundered to the opposite bank of the Seine. (344-46).

This chapter (Book VIII, Chapter 6) took me completely by surprise. It was beautiful, and I was swept up in the emotion of the scene. I even found myself crying “Santuary, Sanctuary!” with the crowd. But more than that, there was the description of Quasimodo and La Esmerelda. Hugo’s juxtaposition and intense (verging on erotic) description of two people who couldn’t be more different in appearance, but who were united in the extremity of their circumstances, was a profound image to me.

Now completely unable to sleep—the emotion of the book still pounding in my head—and curious, I decided to try to find the Disney interpretation this particular scene via YouTube. I had low expectations, only remembering bits and pieces from a childhood viewing of the film, but again, I was pleasantly surprised. The intense music and beautiful artwork of the film took the emotions of the book and expanded on them. I don’t know what it was—maybe it was the fact that it was late and I was therefore more susceptible to emotion, or the fact that the book had set me up for a feeling that the movie built on—but the combination of the book and movie pushed me into a state of speechlessness and awe. The hair on my arms stood up, and tears came to my eyes. To be honest, my reaction freaked me out a little.

Looking back, I wonder if I should have expected something like this to happen. The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a Gothic novel. The Gothic genre is often characterized by its appeal to the sublime through a depiction of extremity of feeling, setting, the supernatural, or the spectacle. Add to that the terror of impending pain and death in the text (something Burke would insist on), and you have all the makings of a transcendent or sublime experience. This scene is entirely founded on spectacle—the penance of a witch was a public event intended to be witnessed and participated in by a large crowd (including the reader); Hugo describes the descent of Quasimodo and the rescue of La Esmerelda in nearly theatrical terms; and the juxtaposition of the two characters is intended to evoke a sense of profundity in the reader. Although Disney changed much of the original story, they kept Hugo’s spectacle intact. The music adds an element that pushes the viewer into a state of awe.

Sitting on my bed that night, I didn’t fully understand why I’d felt awe. Upon further reflection of the event and the way I felt, I now realize that I’d been manipulated by the classic tropes of Gothic literature and film. Even knowing this, I still hold that moment in high regard, and look back on it as a time when a confluence of media was able to touch me. Whether I was in Zhongshan or Paris that night, it didn’t matter. I’d felt what it was to declare “sanctuary” in front of a crowd of thousands, and it was sublime.

Personal Literary Narrative

In it’s uber-short blurb on this poem, Wikipedia says that “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” is “one of Thomas's most popular and accessible poems.” That’s probably why it was so popular and accessible to me:

Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night

Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,   

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

I think I first read it in a high school English class—maybe in Mr. What’s-his-WWI-loving-name’s class my sophomore year at Carmel High, or maybe with Mrs. Gouff of did-you-know-she’s-Mormon-and-goes-to-church-with-Jane fame my senior year, in preparation for the AP Lit test at Templeton High.

I think I read it again in either Dr. Westover’s class or Dr. Eastley’s class—or both. I get them mixed up because they were both entry-level BYU English classes, I took them both before my mission, and they were both taught by young-ish male faculty members whose names contain cardinal directions. I always wish that they would put your professors’ names on your transcript.

I read it again when the title refrain—the one that makes it a go-to textbook example of a villanelle—got stuck in my head, post-mission, I think. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. I like to ponder the paradox that form frees the poet.

But it’s like, what if I want to go gentle into that good night? What if Thomas’s expressed rage and passion against death actually make death come out on top here?

I thought of it again when I was on vacation with my family in August. We took a walk to the park and that refrain was stuck in my head again—I wish I could remember why. Maybe because we were talking about death. Or maybe my brother quoted it—he’s a random Tennyson fan and has a habit using his unrealized intelligence to store disconnected facts instead of dedicating said intelligence to his law classes. More likely I quoted it. But I always seems to remember it as “do not go gently,” which sounds better to me than “do not go gentle.”

In any case, I couldn’t remember who wrote it (do not go gentle into that good night), but I could remember its exact location on the page of my Norton Anthology and that I connected it for some reason with the complicated deaths of British boys during WWI and with All’s Quiet on the Western Front (speaking of awe/terror-evoking books…).

So we looked it up on the first accessible smart-phone. Probably my sister-in-law’s. And up popped “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas. So I provided the small number of my immediate family that was not playing on the park swings at the moment and still listening to me (maybe two family members, maybe three if you count a sleeping infant) with some semi-fabricated context for the poem and a brief personal explication.

And my brother, Sam, said something like “Yeah, I get it. He’s saying we should fight until the end and not give in to death.” And I was like, “No he’s not.”

Because even though I think Sam’s partly right—after all, his perfunctory summation pretty well encompassed some much more scholarly explications of the poem—the repeated refrain isn’t the only part of this poem that gets stuck in my head. There’s something else there that’s too big for a “yeah, he’s saying ____” statement. Probably that something that we murder when we dissect. Something to do with death and literature and legacy and being remembered that you can’t put into an essay on your AP Lit exam or quite capture in any survey lit course. Something about not going gentle into that good night, but rage, raging against the dying of the light, or something else. 

The True Monster

One of the best feelings I can, experience, and have experienced, is feeling empowered after talking to someone who inspires me, watching a movie, or reading a book.  It recharges my soul and opens my eyes to the endless possibilities I can achieve while I am here on earth.  It is hard to put into words exactly how I feel, but it is a feeling that I can immediately recognize when it once again creeps into my life.

I remember coming home from my mission and not knowing what to do next; should I continue studying English or was there something else in store?  These feelings filled my mind and I did not have the slightest idea where to go next.  I decided to stay in the major and hope for the best, but quickly I felt the intensity of my decision and felt inferior compared to my classmates.  I felt this for quite a while that semester.  Half way through the semester we began reading “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley, and in an instant everything began to change.  Where I had once felt confusion and inferiority had now been replaced by enlightenment and a desire to read more.   I felt life enter into my soul once again.  I identified with both monsters in the story, and I was amazed by how language and nature changed, momentarily, the souls of Frankenstein and his creation.  One point in particular struck me, as the monster lives in complete despair and solitude he discovers language which then leads him to discover books,

I can hardly describe to you the effect of these books. As I read this story, I also felt an indescribable sensation that produced awe and a desire to learn more. They produced in me an infinity of new images and feelings that sometimes raised me to ecstasy, but more frequently sunk me into the lowest dejection…But Paradise Lost excited different and far deeper emotions.  Emotions that I had also not felt since before my mission began to come back to me.  I felt like I understood life again. I read it, as I had read the other volumes which had fallen into my hands, as a true history. It moved every feeling of wonder and awe that the picture of an omnipotent God warring with his creatures was capable of exciting. I often referred the several situations, as their similarity struck me, to my own.

The monster uses language and authorities, citing Paradise Lost,  causing both a connection and trust between he and the reader.  He recognizes the power of this great work and through the power of ethos, readers find common ground and connect even though he is not human. 

It is here in this sentence that we find hyperbole as he exaggerates in order to give greater emphasis to the power contained in books.  The words infinity and ecstasy create feelings of endless images that cause a sense of intense emotions.

They produced in me an infinity of new images and feelings that sometimes raised me to ecstasy, but more frequently sunk me into the lowest dejection

It is in these moments that I felt a connection to the monster and saw him as a human.  The monster's description of literature creates amplification, empathy and acceptance, which personally caused me to question who the real monster was.  I had let myself wander far too long not feeling and wishing to be back on my mission.  The monster also wandered, hoping for a ray of hope and companionship.  I had all of those things, yet I did not allow myself to see it.  I like, his creator, tried to ignore what reality had to bring.  I honestly felt this book speak to my soul and reignite a flame that had been missing the moment I landed back home in California.

But what interested me was Victor Frankenstein's moments of reality and humanity.  He too had escaped reality but it was in nature, during meditation that he slowly began to feel

                 I spent the following day roaming through the valley. I stood beside the sources of the Arveiron, which take their rise in a glacier,                  that with slow pace is advancing down from the summit of the hills, to barricade the valley. The abrupt sides of vast mountains                      were before me; the icy wall of the glacier overhung me; a few shattered pines were scattered around...These sublime and                          magnificent scenes afforded me the greatest consolation that I was capable of receiving. They elevated me from all littleness                  of feeling; and although they did not remove my grief, they subdued and tranquillised it. In some degree, also, they diverted my                  mind from the thoughts over which it had brooded for the last month.

 In this passage we see the use of litotes as he downplays and understates through exaggeration his feelings.  Althought extreme, I too in a sense felt this.  Although a brilliant creator he humanizes himself and shows us his imperfections.  

The intensity of these scenes in nature compared with our own selves creates the sense of awe and wonder.  The use of nature romanticizes this experience and creates a connection with the divine creator.  I took moments as I reflected on his experiences in nature to wonder about creation and my personal relationship with him.

This story changed my outlook and inspired me to go outside myself.  I found that the trees were greener than they had previously appeared and the sun shined brighter than it had before.  I believe much like the moster and his creator that our connection with the divine can create a new life within us.  No matter how different we may feel we can find hope through literature and experiencing the wonders of all God's creations.  It was in this moment that I felt a sincere desire to continue on this path of englightenment and share my experience with others. 

so i read it again

*Made possible by a little inspiration from Juliet

One summer evening (led by her) I found
A little boat tied to a willow tree
Within a rocky cave, its usual home.

the following lines of verse are the only ones i have

remembered and loved for any long period of time

(Isn't it beautiful how summer evenings lead all of us?

 They make it impossible to resist the warm air and late-setting sun)

Straight I unloosed her chain, and stepping in
Pushed from the shore. It was an act of stealth
And troubled pleasure, nor without the voice
Of mountain-echoes did my boat move on;

it was a normal day in English class:

"here is a poem--read it, talk about it"

(Stealth and troubled pleasure--the two

best descriptions for an act of thievery.
And the idea of mountain-echo voices is enchanting)

Leaving behind her still, on either side,
Small circles glittering idly in the moon,
Until they melted all into one track
Of sparkling light. 

i read it once and thought: hmm pretty, what does it mean?

(These lines are beautiful, circles

of light on a moonlit lake. Melting. Yes, I guess

now that I think about it, melting is exactly what they do)

                           But now, like one who rows,
Proud of his skill, to reach a chosen point
With an unswerving line, I fixed my view
Upon the summit of a craggy ridge,
The horizon's utmost boundary; far above
Was nothing but the stars and the grey sky.

i guess my classmates thought the same,

given their blank stares and "umms"

so i read it again

(the "but" worries me, something has changed.

He was looking back at the water, now his 
attention is on the horizon, the sky empty with stars. 

Nothing wrong with that . . . if it weren't for that pesky "but")

She was an elfin pinnace; lustily
I dipped my oars into the silent lake,
And, as I rose upon the stroke, my boat
Went heaving through the water like a swan;

it was obvious i was missing the point

this poem meant something, and

i was just confused. what's the big deal, i naively wondered

(The mood has changed. Lustily? Heaving? 
What is this rower after?I'm starting to think the boat isn't 

the only thing being stolen this summer evening. There is something

else, something bigger on this rower's agenda)

When, from behind that craggy steep till then
The horizon's bound, a huge peak, black and huge,
As if with voluntary power instinct,
Upreared its head. I struck and struck again,
And growing still in stature the grim shape
Towered up between me and the stars, and still,
For so it seemed, with purpose of its own
And measured motion like a living thing,
Strode after me. 

right here is where I lost meaning

a huge peak uprearing its head?

but mountains don't just come from nowhere and

chase down a lowly (though albeit greedy) man!

perhaps the metaphor was too much for me

(The climax, and one of the most powerful

descriptions of nature I've ever read. The unsuspecting man

delves too far into nature, and a new horizon is revealed.

Only, this peak towers and blocks the stars,
Nature in its purest form removes the comfort we seek.

She rears her huge head when someone tries
to steal a moment from her)

                          With trembling oars I turned,
And through the silent water stole my way
Back to the covert of the willow tree;
There in her mooring-place I left my bark,--
And through the meadows homeward went, in grave
And serious mood; but after I had seen
That spectacle, for many days, my brain
Worked with a dim and undetermined sense
Of unknown modes of being; o'er my thoughts
There hung a darkness, call it solitude
Or blank desertion. No familiar shapes
Remained, no pleasant images of trees,
Of sea or sky, no colours of green fields;
But huge and mighty forms, that do not live
Like living men, moved slowly through the mind
By day, and were a trouble to my dreams.

okay, i thought. i think i get this
a man steals into nature, alone
and with every purpose of conquering,
overcoming, but then some big scary thing that I still don't understand happens, leaving
him unsure, and suddenly aware
there's more to Nature than he thought
and finally my teacher said, "okay class, let's talk about a new idea: the sublime"

(Edmund Burke said, "the mind is so entirely filled 

with its object, that it cannot entertain any other, 

nor by consequence reason on that object which employs it." 
And now the words that have never really left my mind since the first time I read this: 

"huge and mighty forms, that do not live like living men, moved slowly through the mind" 

I get this, I know this. I experience this every time I breach that place of awe and transcendence. How scary it is to feel so powerless in the face of a bigger dimension, and yet, it's these experiences I remember with wonder. Sometimes Wordsworth's huge peak rears its head at me, and I am both astonished and terrified--going back to real life after that feels so unnatural. So maybe that's why this poem sticks with me; these encounters with the sublime are a part of the human experience. They are as rare as they are transformative. And each time I read Wordsworth's words, those "huge and mighty forms move slowly through" my mind once more.