Discussions

I have had very little opportunity to write on my blog this past weekend, what with my mother's laptop gone and Ryan, Bria, and Cara pretty evenly dominating the home desktop. I'll admit that I played a couple games of Battlefield Vietnam, but that didn't take much time, and I enjoyed it anyway. Actually, in the past couple weeks before this weekend, I sat down a fair number of times only to be confronted by blogger's block, or it being too late to write, or a feeling that I should be doing more important things (e.g., reorganize my Amazon wishlist : ) .

But now I have finally reached that rare (for me) state of being in which I find myself seated at an internet-accessible computer with the blogger "Create a Post" page open, and ideas fairly flowing out of my brain. I hope all you faithful checkers-of-my-blog will forgive my lengthy desertion of the blogging community and enjoy this new post, which, excepting the above writing, says the following:

Mama and Daddy went for a get-away this weekend, but we only had a net loss of one person because Bria came home from Fairwood for the free weekend. We had a pretty good time during (but by no means because of) our parents' absence. We built a snow fort, played rook, and ate pizza. I made breadsticks, which rose like a charm. They tasted good when they were fresh, but when they had cooled, they tasted a bit too buttery (in case you were wondering). In much of the rest of my free time, I read, which brings me to my next subject:

I have enjoyed literature more this year than, I think, ever before. I still haven't read a whole lot, but my excuse is now more lack of time than lack of will. I think I always had a vague, unconscious idea that anything from the nineteenth century must inevitably be boring. Of course, if I had thought about it consciously, the logical part of my brain would have put a stop to such nonsensical thinking; I had read - and enjoyed - The Christmas Carol, A Tale of Two Cities, Sherlock Holmes, The Count of Monte Cristo, and other books that were from that era. But this fall, I read Pride and Prejudice (after watching the movie) and I loved it! Jane Austen's characters were so colorful, and her writing was so witty! I decided I liked literature.

Nevertheless, I took so long in getting on to another book that Mama assigned one to me: The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I was sure I would hate it. Jane Austen is one thing, but Victor Hugo!?!?!? His sentences are sooooooo long. I procrastinated for a while, but finally I gathered up enough nerve to start it, and it wasn't nearly as bad as I had anticipated. I actually found myself enjoying it, especially in the second half. Still, its a pretty morbid story. Here's a quick summary:

A young priest (Claude), who saved a young deformed boy (Quasimodo) and raised him, falls in love with a gypsy girl (Esmerelda) but, of course, doesn't show his feelings. She falls in love with a horrible young captain (Phoebus) with no character at all, and her love is requited before said young man returns to his fiancee. He does this when Claude, out of jealousy, stabs Phoebus almost to death and Esmerelda gets the blame. She is sent to be hanged, but the hunchback Quasimodo, who is unnaturally strong due to his job as bell-ringer at Notre Dame (hence the title), saves her because she was kind to him once early in the book. She takes sanctuary in the cathedral and Quasimodo takes care of her needs. Eventually there is a wonderful fight scene between Quasimodo and a mob (which, ironically, is trying to save Esmerelda from the police), a fight scene so complete with brain bashing and rivers of molten lead, that it probably tops the one Andrea's student created! Meanwhile, the priest leads Esmerelda out through a back way, ostensibly to save her, but when she refuses to return his love he puts her into the custody of a woman who lives in a cell with no door and a window that opens to a public square (don't ask me how she got in there!). This woman hates gypsies because they stole her child, and while she keeps Esmerelda from escaping she finds out Esmerelda IS her child. (Irony, irony, irony.) The guards, meanwhile are on their way, and the mother breaks the bars of her window and hides her daughter in her cell. The police don't find her, but she hears Phoebus's voice and jumps to the window. The police hang her, the mother dies trying to stop them, Quasimodo finds out and throws Claude off the roof of the cathedral, and the book ends with a touching account of how Q.'s skeleton is found with E.'s.

It's a great book. You should read it some time.