"Tell My Story"

Nesse Godin was a short, wide woman with short, wide hair and a thin, wide smile. She always smiled, no matter what story she was telling. She loved telling stories, and had made it her occupation. After hearing her speak, I've dedicated a lot of my time to reading more and more of the story, trying to get the full scope. You see, Nesse was a holocaust survivor who I met over the summer. It was hearing her story, going to ghettos and work camps and death marches, that inspired my fascination with Holocaust literature.

As soon as I got back to school, I read Eli Weisel's Night. After that, I read Diary of A Young Girl and finally the play A Child Shall Lead Them, a beautiful play which my brother will be starring in at the Wilmington Drama League this April. The stories are all completely moving, and studying them can be a great insight into how one can make a compelling, moving storyline.

Hopelessness plays a role in all of the pieces (and in Mrs. Godin's story, which I'm lumping in with the literary pieces). Night conveyed the horrible machine that would entirely manhandle the people with such detail, I felt as though I could see an industrial machine/human burning monster before me. After death and death and manhandling and death and religious abandonment and death, the book felt as though every page was prolonging Eli's inevitable fall. The imagery and repeated, chance batterings leave a reader wondering "what on earth could happen to this poor guy next?" Hardly a good thing, considering this is non-fiction, but still a good note.

The hopelessness of Diary, much like that of Mrs. Godin's story, has more to do with context and dramatic irony. The most famous line from Anne Frank's diary is "Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart." She wrote this before being carried away and gassed. Through the entire book, she looks forward to leaving- the idea of her mortality either isn't a prevalent thought or isn't something she can admit to herself through writing. It was peaches, D Day, flirt buddy, angst and gravy through most of the book. I would never downplay the torment she must have been under, I just think that she did. Nesse Godin spoke at length about the old Jewish women, who cared for her during the death march despite being perpetually on the verge of death. Nesse was only 17, weighed 74 pounds, and needed help. They became her support group, and gave her their food in exchange for her promise to "share [their] story. We may die, but do not let this be forgotten." 

Love stories, when put against this backdrop, are just too powerful. Ann and Peter dislike one another for most of the book, but when they realize that they are all they have, they overcome it to become a downright adorable couple. Nesse, being of the marriageable age of 17, was told by her mother to walk around where everyone was resting, find the first boy of proper age, and bring him to mama. They were married that night, and still are. (Que "awwwwwwwwwwwwww!")

A great love story is the one from A Child Shall Lead Them, but that's probably just how I see it because Aidan falls in love. The play features direct quotes from journals and poetry found in ghettos, and it's just so good. It reminded me why I love theater. For two hours, my brother gets to fall in love despite being a Jew in 1940s Poland. It's such a beautiful art.

So, to bring it back, the Holocaust is an amazing piece of human history, and has inspired some really excellent pieces. That's all the message this really needs.

Of Mice And Crummy Endings Part II

Is expanding my impression of this book into two journals a blatant attempt to get more journals out of less reading? Man, I just really liked this book, and wanted to write a lot about it, and that combined with my really busy life has made it the only book I've read in a while. Get off my back.

SO, to my original point- why is Steinbeck awesome? It can't hurt that the characters he weaves into his stories and the lives they live are inherently interesting. Nothing seems more boring to me than a book about rich people. As I'm reading, all I can think is "Stop whining, you're doing fine." Oh, Jay Gatsby, your girl left you while you were away at the war? The family in The Grapes of Wrath, who lived at the same time as you, are STARVING TO DEATH. Ask me how much I care about your feeling of emptiness. Money can't buy happiness, but it can definitely make misery suck less.

Steinbeck puts everything one level beneath the outside. I respect that. He doesn't ram a moral in your face, but you also don't need a cryptology degree to figure out what's going on. The infamous Turtle Chapter of Grapes of Wrath is a perfect example. Everyone's quick to say that it was meaningless or silly, but it was an easy image to put into the head and had an obvious message. I feel the sense of accomplishment that comes from literary analysis, but I don't really have to try that hard.

I've found that Steinbeck carefully balances dialogue and description so that dialogue teaches you about the characters, while description teaches you about their situation. The world around the characters is what shapes them in every book; fate, happenstance, etc. make them who they are. This has an everyman appeal; I can place myself into the work boots of any character, and it proves that the characters are meant to be representative of everybody who undergoes the same experiences.

So, in conclusion, John Steinbeck is the best they was, the best they is, and the best they gon' be.

Of Mice and Crummy Book Endings

John Steinbeck is, by far, my favorite writer. Every piece I'd read by him was an enjoyable read with an engaging storyline, but I'd always wondered exactly what it was about Steinbeck's writing that made him so readable. To figure this out, I read his only major work I hadn't experienced before: Of Mice and Men.

Now, the important question "why is he so amazing" has to be put aside for a moment so that I can rant about the ending of the book. Throughout the entire novel, I had enjoyed the message of the importance of life and how people have value outside of their utilitarian means. A simple example of this would have been the dog at the ranch; he was old and couldn't do a single useful thing, but it was still cringe inducing to hear him die. His owner was clearly upset that his dog was being killed, even though he did finally allow it to go. I like that message. Life is pretty sweet, and anybody who wants to defend it is okay in my book.

Then, Lennie gets shot. This is a dumb ending! What is that, I says to myself. I says self, Steinbeck must be doing something or else this wouldn't be considered one of the greatest books of all time. But seriously now? What is this? Now I have to start all over trying to figure out what the novel actually means, and it means I'm going to have to validate death. This is dumb.

But wait! Maybe not! Mrs. Reilly mentioned last year that the book had something to do with being a worker during the Great Depression, which wasn't a far reach for Steinbeck. His novella The Pearl had been about the dangers of greed, so maybe that plays into it. I finally reach a conclusion that makes some sense to me.

The book isn't trying to validate death, but rather make it look disgusting and show how horribly necessary letting things go in those desperate times was. The dog was eating food and wasting space/other resources. It's useless! It must go, for the people are poor and resources scarce. Lennie was going to ruin George's life, and if not send George to prison at least keep him out of work for a long time. George couldn't afford that, and had to get rid of him, as cruel as that was. A foil to this brutality could be found in the ranch-owner's son; he was a rich kid who was living in excess, showing that the huge wealth gap was erosive to all people.

Boom.