Response to Northern Lights Reading Assignment

So. Despite sincerely disliking the character, I chose to finish the book yesterday during our half snow day. I will however, do my best to reflect on the reading assignment actually assigned.

I found the nature, I guess, of Clarissa's mother disappearing disturbing. How does a mother simply decide at that moment, when someone relying on them to be there, that that is the moment to leave everything they've made for themselves behind? Or was it predetermined, a planned leaving? The mother seems to have psychological issues (which, to be honest, become more reasonable later in the book) and therefore no conscience. But to erase yourself out of someone's life like this- no later phone calls, no reassurance, no hints, and never once letting them know that the woman they loved is still alive, but changed all together. I guess I just can't fathom doing such a thing- to a human or animal. Anything.

Still though, despite this traumatic childhood of Clarissa, I still find her reaction to finding out her father was NOT her father is unreasonable. In fact, looking back on her mother's way of life, the chaotic instability, her strange characteristics, it almost seems likely. This goosechase around Lapland seems like a really poor way of finding her own history.

I don't want to talk about her near-loss of virginity, because it gets touched on later and the book and I'll spoil it.

Journal Entry #1- Reading Habits

I have this nasty habit of hating any and all reading that has ever been assigned by the schools I have attended. Although I try very hard not to be prejudiced against said books, they do have a general tendency to truly suck.

It started with the Giver, in seventh grade. A book that may have had potential at one point, but after reading six pages and discussing them and their most deepest meanings for several days, the book, quite frankly, made me pissed. Not one detail went undiscussed, not one character unanalyzed. Everything had a significance. I’m convinced, if thoroughly read, the Giver could have given me not only the meaning of life, but also directions on where to find the Holy Grail.
I’m passing on a few books here because they were tolerable- Fever 1897 (?), Summer of my German Soldier, Night, and a few more. These books actually allowed me to read them with entirely nodding off. Also in this category is Elle Minnow Pea, A Prayer for Owen Meany, Of Mice and Men, Romeo and Juliet-

As I sit here reviewing my book lists of over the years, I’ve decided I should shorten this original plan of giving the blow-by-blow of my greatest and worst assigned readings.

The Gook Books
• Romeo and Juliet
• Summer of My German Soldier
• Ella Minnow Pea
• Night
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• Pride and Prejudice

The Books that should be Burned
• The Giver
• Wide Sargasso Sea
• Jane Eyre
• Scarlet Letter
• Lord of the Flies
• The Great Gatsby

I’m not sure what books have to contain to make me really hate them or really like them. There is really very little I can connect or relate to in most of the books that I don’t care for, but there is plenty of that also in the books I truly enjoy. To Kill a Mockingbird was completely out of my league as far as personal connections go. I also don’t really have a reliable tendency when looking at the time of the setting is. Naturally, I can relate more to a more current novel, but Pride and Prejudice is one of my all time favorite books, so who really knows what I like?

I have a few guilty pleasures as well. I am known to read and reread hundreds of times the books I like. I do similar things with movies I really enjoy. The Harry Potter series is constantly sitting in my room, and one book will almost always contain a dog-eared page from wherever I have left off in the series. If I’m not reading Harry Potter in my leisure time, I’m probably reading the Twilight series, which is a newer habit of mine. I can be a total bookworm and spend countless hours curled up on my bed with a fuzzy blanket or comforter and waste the day away with my nose buried in the pages of my series indulgences. They are my brainless reads, my relaxing yet pretending-to-do-something-brain-stimulating enjoyments. I can always find something I missed the last [many] times through these books when I read them again, but for the most part I don’t have to concentrate or try to see the meaning behind those seemingly meaningless words- because if there is one, I probably already know it!
Anyways, that’s my reading woes in a nutshell. Hope you enjoyed!

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