1943

In the poem 1943 by Donald Hall, the wording and diction of the poem waiver from a very safe, domestic feeling to a vulnerable, independent feeling. The general gist of the poem is talking about the war. About how, when so many souls are lost in the curses of war that people can live on with normal and safe lives back at home.      I love how the poet starts with the title being 1943, giving the insinuation that the events that he is describing is about WWII, and then he immediately starts with talk of the war at home, but in the next stanza, Hall continues describing the war, but more-so from a soldiers perspective. The author waivers between perspectives in each stanza; hence, the stanza structure.
     The part of the poem that was chilling was the point of connection between these different perspectives of safe suburban life and dangerous battle life. Specifically, the last line of the poem is this point: "...with frostbitten feet as white as milk." The author describes the milk in his domestic perspective and the storming troops as his war perspective and the last line is where the connection is made.
     I mostly like this poem for the fact that it waits until the last line to break the connection of the subjects he is talking about in the preceding four stanzas, so when you realize he is connecting the two life perspectives all along, it magnifies the poems meaning ten fold.

The Kite Runner

     This book, as The Great Gatsby, wasn't an extremely challenging read, but the story complexity and development was brilliant (bravo). I this was the second book that I read, after The Great Gatsby. I made many connections from The Kite Runner to The Great Gatsby. The author wrote about similar societal restrictions as the American 20's. An example would be the right to be associated with certain people like the poor, or in The Kite Runner, Hazaras. Also in Rahim Khan's story about he was also married, it immediately made me think of the quote Daisy made that "Rich girls don't marry poor boys." This is a similar discrimination because the story was that Rahim Khan told showed that he was not allowed to marry a Hazara women, whether he loved her or not. The same goes for the "friendship" between Hassan and Amir. The pressure of the Afghan society pries them apart and essentially tells the that "a Pashtun may not be friends with an Hazara." 

     Other than the relations between the two books, The Kite Runner was a very interesting read. I loved how, as children, Hassan was the recluse in society and Amir was the acceptable one, but later in life the tables turned and all of the feelings that Amir suppressed for so long finally simmered to the surface and Hassan (although deceased) was married with a son and lived on as himself. By the end when Amir rescues Hassan's son, I sort of feel like the circumstances were very unrealistic, which ruined the reality of the book for me. The overall story was really good if that one part didn't seem like such a stretch. But romanticizing with the idea was fun. But really. This book was a fun one to read, especially after seeing the similarities between The Great Gatsby and The Kite Runner. Bravo. 

The Great Gatsby

    The Great Gatsby caught me in a fantastic way. Although F. Scott Fitzgerald doesn't write with such a complex style, his development of themes is very interesting. The way the "Lost Generation" writer unfolds his themes is almost that of a soap opera, where you feel you should be gripping for detail around ever corner and page. He precariously sets up this story of affairs with precarious placement, which at times is slightly confusing until 2+2 becomes apparent. I was especially fond of the climax of the book when everyone comes to terms with the very obvious "elephant in the room"; more specifically, the section where Tom shows up to Wilson's Garage in Jay Gatsby's car and it turns out that Mrs. Wilson is murdered with the same car. But it all happened that the murder was suggested to be Daisy, but Jay was shot. It is this kind of  precarious placement that grasps the reader in the drama of the writer.
    Moreover, Fitzgerald's intention was not a drama or intense soap opera. He depicts the images of the bourgeoisie and rich 20's as a very scandalous time and also shows the reality of what the American 20's had become. This book is almost a mockery of old-time thinking, and Fitzgerald is showing the new frontier of the 20's where parties were okay, flappers were a trend, and marrying for wealth and status wouldn't exist any longer--marriage and scandal for love became the right thing to do. Old conservative views on marriage were expiring and Fitzgerald showed this when Daisy blatantly stated that "Rich women don't marry poor boys." This was Fitzgerald's mockery of the idea of marriage and almost this whole book did. No one was happy with the idea of their marriage because it was numb; love was transparent and no longer existent.
     F. Scott Fitzgerald does a very swell job of tickling the idea of satire of old ideals in the 20's while sufficiently entangling the reader into a mess of several lives and affairs making the book into an eventful maze of interest. A soap opera.