At 11/6/06 04:42 PM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote: anyone here ever have to read the scarlet letter?

I'm doing a report on it right now. I thought it was one of the most boring books I've ever read.

Why is it that all the boring stuff becomes a classic?

Because of the message they conveyed at the time and how the characters and event, though exaggerated at time are universal messages that can be understood by anyone, anywhere.

I had to take a few classes on that shit.

Of course Hemingway > Everyone.

At 11/6/06 04:43 PM, Johnny wrote: Because of the message they conveyed at the time and how the characters and event, though exaggerated at time are universal messages that can be understood by anyone, anywhere.

I can convey a message in a much more interesting way than using big words and boring stories.

So can many people. I liked the lord of the flies cause it was interesting. Like, stuff happened other than one person being sad from a choice he/she made previously in his/her life. And you know what? That story conveyed a universal message about human nature and grief and emotions too.

At 11/6/06 04:42 PM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote: anyone here ever have to read the scarlet letter?

I'm doing a report on it right now. I thought it was one of the most boring books I've ever read.

Why is it that all the boring stuff becomes a classic?

I'm gonna read it this year or next year (makes sense, we're in the same school system.... well, state-wise anyways)

All the boring stuff becomes a classic, because to normal people classics are "boring", but to Literature-obsessed people, it's an "interesting, compelling piece of writing" that they can understand. 'Classic' authors must write in some sort of English Teacher language, because only the english teacher understands it.

But I'd have to read it for History for some reason. Go figure.

At 11/6/06 04:49 PM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote: So can many people. I liked the lord of the flies cause it was interesting. Like, stuff happened other than one person being sad from a choice he/she made previously in his/her life. And you know what? That story conveyed a universal message about human nature and grief and emotions too.

And Lord of the Flies is a classic as well. You have to remember the writing styles echoed the time periods they were written in. Most classic writers conveyed meaning with adjectives and long, drawn out sentances and stories. Many modern writers have followed the times and do just the opposite. They write with verbs and short sentances that drive to the point. Chuck Palaniuk (author of fight club) is a great example of a minimalistic writer... a modern day Hemmingway.

Sure, most books they make you read in high school such as Jane austin novels, most dickens stuff and silly plays like Oedopis rex and stories like Beowulf are yeah... kinda boring by our standards.

Its the age of ADD.

Old writers used long words and sentances to entrance the readers.
New writers or short verbs and sentance fragments.

Coincidence?

Where an old writer would say...

With long, joyful strides and a smile pasted on his face, he ran to his burgundy, 1967 Shelby.

New writers might say.

He frolicked towards his muscle car.

Same message. I think the message is what makes works of literature classic.

I'm in the midst of reading To Kill a Mockingbird, and I pretty much have to agree with GG. TKAMB is... so... boring. It has it's good points and interesting scenes, like any other book or movie, but the book in general is slow, dragged out, long, and boring.

I think personally that the reasons these books are "classics", and the reason they are in the cirriculum, is because the board of education's teachers had them read the book, and those teacher's board of education had them read that book, and so on, in a loop. So because everyone has read it, because some people originially liked it, it's become popular, therefore a classic, read by almost everyone.

But I did enjoy of Mice and Men...

At 11/6/06 05:07 PM, TrueDarkness wrote: I'm in the midst of reading To Kill a Mockingbird, and I pretty much have to agree with GG. TKAMB is... so... boring. It has it's good points and interesting scenes, like any other book or movie, but the book in general is slow, dragged out, long, and boring.

if you thought that book was boring, just wait untill you get into some of the higher level stuff.

Such as "Their eyes were watching god" and "Wide sargasso sea"
I dont even know if wide sargasso sea is something everyone has to read. It had like no plot, and was based off another book, more of an expansion of one of the minor characters in it. It sucked hard ass. I had to write a gazillion page essay on the color green and what it means in to book. Ugggggg.

But I did enjoy of Mice and Men...

i thought it was horrible

Aww, I loved To Kill a Mockingbird. It's a well written and timeless story.

But of course, Lord of the Flies was one of the most memorable from middle school. That was and still is a fantastic book.

At 11/6/06 05:12 PM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote: I had to write a gazillion page essay on the color green and what it means in to book. Ugggggg.

Haha. wtf...

But I did enjoy of Mice and Men...

i thought it was horrible

Meh, I thought it was good. Well, at least better than Mocking Bird...
But, with all the bad comes something good:
http://www.stanford.edu/~scodary/tkam.htm
^^^^ Funniest thing in the world. If you watch through, you'll see how INCREDIBLY SUPER INVOLVED it gets.

At 11/6/06 05:13 PM, Matomic wrote: Hey, a question for all you flash users:
Does your hand ever get really cold when you animating after awhile? Mine does, it really slows me down. It might be my low blood pressure. Anybody have a good solution?

Yeah, happens to me, too. S'usually when I'm sitting in a low seat, because then the blood has a harder time getting up to your hand. Just use a higher chair if you don't like it. I can deal with it though. I hate looking down at a screen

At 11/6/06 05:14 PM, jmtb02 wrote: Aww, I loved To Kill a Mockingbird. It's a well written and timeless story.

John, I have to agree with the youngins on this. I had to read tkamb and watch the movie last semester for a college course... and even though I've been out of highschool for 7 years I still have to say it bored me to tears.

Great story, don't get me wrong... just sooooooooo sloooooooowwwwwww.

And not enough explosions or drug references.

At 11/6/06 05:16 PM, TrueDarkness wrote:

At 11/6/06 05:12 PM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote: I had to write a gazillion page essay on the color green and what it means in to book. Ugggggg.

Haha. wtf...

In Jean Rhys’s classic piece of literature, Wide Sargasso Sea, the character Mr. Rochester loses his sanity near the end of his stay at Granbois. The color green played a role in the gradual decay of his sanity, and eventually caused him to lose it completely. Every time the color green was present, Mr. Rochester felt uneasy or insecure. Immediately before he lost his sanity completely, the entire sky became green as the sun was setting. Green had a negative effect on his view of Granbois, his emotions towards Antoinette, and his self-esteem. Jean Rhys specifically uses the color green to lead Mr. Rochester, a very unfortunate individual, to insanity because green represents misfortune.
Mr. Rochester’s first impression of Granbois was negatively influenced by the color green. In the beginning of his narration, he noticed extremely green hills on the road to Granbois. This was the first instance of the color green affecting Mr. Rochester’s emotions. He noted that the green hills of the foreign place where he stood were “Not only wild but menacing” (69). The green color of the hills caused him to feel uneasy and fearful of the place he was going to live before even arriving there. These initial feelings gave Mr. Rochester a negative first impression toward Granbois, which would later on help him develop feelings of loneliness and depression, eventually assisting in the loss of Mr. Rochester’s sanity. Jean Rhys chose to give Mr. Rochester a negative first impression toward Granbois because it would help push him to the point of insanity by forcing him to live in a place that he disliked. Green, which represents misfortune, was used by Rhys to begin the chain of events leading to Rochester’s insanity. Mr. Rochester had a very unfortunate time at Granbois, and this misfortune was partially influenced by the subconscious messages that the color of the hills fed into his mind.
The color green also played a role in Mr. Rochester developing negative emotions towards
Glaiel 2
his wife, Antoinette, and the servant, Christophine. The morning after Antoinette told Mr. Rochester about her dream of the rats, he “woke [that] morning in the green-yellow light, feeling uneasy as though someone were watching [him]” (84). Antoinette was the first person he saw that day. Subconsciously, Mr. Rochester’s mind made the connection between the green-yellow light of that morning and the extremely green hills that he saw on his way to Granbois, thus making Mr. Rochester feel insecure again. Seeing his wife shortly thereafter caused his mind to make another connection between green and his wife, causing negative emotions towards his wife, that would eventually cause Rochester to become insane, to pool slowly in the depths of his mind. He also began to acquire negative feelings towards Christophine because she was seen by Mr. Rochester while he was still feeling uneasy from the green-yellow light. Jean Rhys cleverly uses the color green to push Mr. Rochester closer to the point of insanity because, as mentioned earlier, green represents misfortune. The color eventually causes Mr. Rochester to believe a letter about his wife’s insanity, because he subconsciously feels unlucky about the wife he married. This causes him to, later on, push Antoinette almost completely out of his life, which causes her to become insane, exactly what he feared was going to happen.
Mr. Rochester’s self-esteem was also negatively impacted by the color green. Shortly after reading Daniel Cosway’s letter stating the truth about Antoinette, Mr. Rochester’s insecurity began to show, influenced by another green light. On the first walk where Mr. Rochester began to act and think insanely, he “stopped because the light was different. A green light. [He] had reached the forest... It [was] hostile” (104). In the green forest, jumbled thoughts were rapidly swarming through his mind, and he believed that everyone knew that Antoinette was insane and just would not tell him the truth. He was confused, and felt angry at himself for allowing himself to marry this stranger. At this point, the negative emotions that had been gradually building up inside him from the time he first saw the green hills, had grown to a point.

And so on and so forth.

I think i got a 70 or something on it. That was the last time i'll ever take AP english lol.

Oh please, I just finished reading a book called 'animal farm' anyone else read it?
It is the worst book that I have ever read. It's completely farfetched yet they try to make it realistic. eg. all the animals on the farm can talk, they call each other 'comrades' and they get a human friend who sells the eggs etc. that they produce.

At 11/6/06 05:20 PM, Vengeance wrote: Oh please, I just finished reading a book called 'animal farm' anyone else read it?
It is the worst book that I have ever read. It's completely farfetched yet they try to make it realistic. eg. all the animals on the farm can talk, they call each other 'comrades' and they get a human friend who sells the eggs etc. that they produce.

I had the option of reading it but thought the idea was completely ludacris. Hence why I didn't actually read it.

I heard it sucked hard. Most books schoolteachers assign suck, why is that? The only mildly good summer reading, book report, or whatever school book I've ever read was "Ironman" for summer reading last summer. Or, should I say, the first three days of school (I'm a procrastinator)

At 11/6/06 05:23 PM, LordTrunks wrote: I had the option of reading it but thought the idea was completely ludacris. Hence why I didn't actually read it.

Normally I don't read books that the school assigns, but I'll be doing half of my engish exam on this book so I thought I should actually read it.
I've read one good book that was assigned by the school. People may disagree that it's good, but I think it is. To Kill A Mockingbird.

At 11/6/06 05:20 PM, Vengeance wrote: Oh please, I just finished reading a book called 'animal farm' anyone else read it?
It is the worst book that I have ever read. It's completely farfetched yet they try to make it realistic. eg. all the animals on the farm can talk, they call each other 'comrades' and they get a human friend who sells the eggs etc. that they produce.

Lol. That book did suck, but of course, it's based on The Russian Revolution. That's why they called eachother "comrade". The author wanted to show a few things in the book, one being that socialism doesn't work, and that it can fool people. Napolean tricked them into thinking everything would be equal, when really he wanted all the power.

I forgot what happened at the end of the book, but that book was really boring, really...really boring. I forget who wrote it though... George.... something

Wow, you lot have it hard. For my homework set about a month ago now, supposed to be handed in last friday but we had the day off, I have to pick two music videos, and asses them, how they are targetted at there specific audience, who are the intended audience etc.

And I don't even have to do it.. it's not an assignment or anything.

I'm going to get a book out on wenesday, either Utopia by Thomas Moore or Our man in havanna by Graham Green. The first i'm not sure about.. I heard about it off the telly, wheras the other one it's recommended by my dad.

If you want a cool book to read check out 'The Beach'. It's the same narrative as the film, only alot better. They changed the film to make it more girl pleasing.

You dumbasses. Animal farm is a great book. Its one huge metaphor. Its awesome how it was pulled off too.

Hmmm, now I feel retarded after reading all thsese posts...
I got halfway through a novel in Language class before getting kicked out of advanced, dropped to regular class.
Now we just read really easy short stories.
D:

At 11/6/06 05:41 PM, Johnny wrote: You dumbasses. Animal farm is a great book. Its one huge metaphor. Its awesome how it was pulled off too.

ya I kinda liked it.

I was suprised when i found out that everyone hated it. my english teacher hated it cause the symbols were too obvious.

And i don't really remember hating TKAM either, don't remember fininding it too interesting also.

At 11/6/06 05:41 PM, Johnny wrote: You dumbasses. Animal farm is a great book. Its one huge metaphor. Its awesome how it was pulled off too.

Lol, it was boring! Yes, great concept, great metaphor, incredible writing, no doubt. But, what are you actually reading? 3 chapters a piece of talking, the animals doing work, conversing, and Napolean glorifying himself before something action-packed or exciting happens.

Chapters 1-5 were at least all those things before the attack of the farmers, or the breaking of the windmill, which I think was on chapter 7-10 or so. Like I said, maybe 3 chapters a piece before something exciting or interesting happens..

At 11/6/06 05:46 PM, Neashir wrote: Now we just read really easy short stories.
D:

My friend wrote a short novel. It's called Bowmoon, and it's pretty racist.

When I say wrote I mean drew.

At 11/6/06 05:35 PM, Mogly-PullTigerTail wrote: Wow, you lot have it hard. For my homework set about a month ago now, supposed to be handed in last friday but we had the day off, I have to pick two music videos, and asses them, how they are targetted at there specific audience, who are the intended audience etc.

pfft thats nothing, last term i had to play video games and criticize them, and they had a lounge in school with 360's on HDTV's and gamecube on a digital projector. not to mention computers with WOW (which i still havent played). and a crap load of sim and popcap games

At 11/6/06 05:48 PM, ImpotentBoy2 wrote: pfft thats nothing, last term i had to play video games and criticize them, and they had a lounge in school with 360's on HDTV's and gamecube on a digital projector. not to mention computers with WOW (which i still havent played). and a crap load of sim and popcap games

=/ This year we get to have sex of any hott and busty stripper we want, in a private stall away from the other students. They said we get to choose more than one stripper to come in the stall also. And after that they make us sandwhiches of our choice and give us prerelease movies of our choice. And you think you have it bad =[

social satire kicks ass. but it should at least be interesting and have a great concept.

the last book i read (in school) was a lesson before dying. its a pretty cool book about a guy who is sentenced to the electric chair for a crime that (i assume) he didnt do, and his lawyer's only defense is that hes black and too stupid to be capable of pre-meditated murder (takes place when ignorance like this was everywhere). his lawyer call him a pig and shit, and his mom wants him to die a man, not a pig.

so they get the main character to teach him to read and right and articulate his thoughts. but basically, his life is miserable and he cant tell him how a man should die because he doesnt even know how a man should live.

good book worth reading and not that long if that matters to you. although i may just like it because i read the worst book on earth before it "Pigs in Heaven", no comments DX

The Beach is a great book. Although you say the film was more "girl pleasing" mogly, it also had one element that I definately class as more guy pleasing :P

I never read TKAMB or Animal Farm though.

Anyone read American Psycho?

At 11/6/06 05:41 PM, Johnny wrote: You dumbasses. Animal farm is a great book. Its one huge metaphor. Its awesome how it was pulled off too.

Yes, it was a big metaphor. But it was too farfetched. The writer couldn't think of any other way for the animals to call each other other than comrade. It was repetitive and boring.

YEAH? Well, today, I took some stupid photos in the morning, that took about an hour, then I messed about in photoshop. Then I swiftly stole a hot dog. Then I watched the sixth sense, then I came home.

Here's something I was thinking about on the bus this morning, where would you lot say you are socially? How do you fit in, what do you act like etc. Are you the clown? Are you the queen bee etc, or are you the (only) nerd.

I think I may use my day off tomorrow to buy Bully :)

At 11/6/06 05:51 PM, TrueDarkness wrote: =/ This year we get to have sex of any hott and busty stripper we want

im switching majors

At 11/6/06 06:02 PM, Mogly-PullTigerTail wrote: Here's something I was thinking about on the bus this morning, where would you lot say you are socially? How do you fit in, what do you act like etc. Are you the clown? Are you the queen bee etc, or are you the (only) nerd.

i have a group of nerd friends, a group of smart people friends, a group of musician friends, a group of regular friends.

I kinda overlap a bunch of friends, i'm not the most popular kid in school and I'm not the loser who everyone picks on.

Everyone seems to know who I am though, so that counts for something.

At 11/6/06 06:01 PM, TheHappySheep wrote: The Beach is a great book. Although you say the film was more "girl pleasing" mogly, it also had one element that I definately class as more guy pleasing :P

What's that? The Francescois(sp) girl? What I meant by more girl pleasing is it's much more of a chick flick, well it is a chick flick. The book isn't so much. There's pretty blatant changes, Richard is a yank rather than being English, the shark scene was changed quite a bit I think. I don't remember the film too well, I didn't really pay attention to it the first time I saw it and the second it was just 'on'. So, yeah what were you talking about..?

Anyone read American Psycho?

Nah.. my friend has though..

I think i've seen the film of that a while ago, although don't remember. Is the film a teen-horror flick?