Excerpt from Mary Shelley's book - Frankenstein

This excerpt appeared in the scene where Victor realized that the victim that he had been claimed to murder was, Henry Clerval, his best friend.

Why did I not die? More miserable than man ever was before, why did I not sink into forgetfulness and rest? Death snatches away many blooming children, the only hopes of their doting parents: how many brides and youthful lovers have been one day in the bloom of health and hope, and the next a prey for worms and the decay of the tomb! Of what materials was I made, that I could thus resist so many shocks, which, like the turning of the wheel, continually renewed the torture?

Vocab:

interment - burial, entombment, inhumation, sepulture

affright - To arouse fear in; terrify

doom - (n.) Fate, especially a tragic or ruinous one. (v.) To destine to an unhappy end.

a turnkey - (old-fashioned) a jailer

assize - a session of a court

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The Sun Also Rises Vocabulary

CHAPTER 6

semaphore

n.

1. A visual signaling apparatus with flags, lights, or mechanically moving arms, as one used on a railroad.

2. A visual system for sending information by means of two flags that are held one in each hand, using an alphabetic code based on the position of the signaler's arms.

tr. & intr.v. sem·a·phored, sem·a·phor·ing, sem·a·phores

To send (a message) or to signal by semaphore.

he's a garter snapper.'

"Hello, you bums," he said.

bum

n.

1. A tramp; a vagrant.

2. A lazy or shiftless person, especially one who seeks to live solely by the support of others.

3. An incompetent, insignificant, or obnoxious person: The batter called the pitcher a bum.

4. One who is devoted to a particular activity or milieu: a beach bum.

v. bummed, bum·ming, bums

v.intr.

1. To live by begging and scavenging from place to place. Often used with around.

2. To loaf.

v.tr.

1. To acquire by begging; cadge.

2. Slang To depress, dishearten, or dismay. Often used with out.

adj.

1. Inferior; worthless: gave me bum advice; did a bum job of fixing the car.

2. Disabled; malfunctioning: a bum shoulder.

3. Unfavorable or unfair: got a bum deal on my final grade for the course.

4. Unpleasant; lousy: had a bum time at the party.

"You mustn't misunderstand, Jake, it was absolutely platonic with the secretary."
Pla·ton·ic

adj. often platonic Transcending physical desire and tending toward the purely spiritual or ideal: platonic love.

live by the sword shall perish by the sword


CHAPTER 7
con·cierge (kô-syârzh)

n.

1. A staff member of a hotel or apartment complex who assists guests or residents, as by handling the storage of luggage, taking and delivering messages, and making reservations for tours.

2. A person, especially in France, who lives in an apartment house, attends the entrance, and serves as a janitor.

Let's not talk. Talking's all bilge.
Bilge -- Slang Stupid talk or writing; nonsense.


CHAPTER 8

"Tight, Jake. I was tight."

tight -- Slang Intoxicated; drunk.

"You're pie-eyed."
pie-eyed -- Slang Intoxicated; drunk;

taxidermist
a craftsman who stuffs and mounts the skins of animals for display


CHPATER 10

"I slept like a log."

100 BEST NOVELS (picked by TIME's critics)

The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow

All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren

American Pastoral by Philip Roth

An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

Animal Farm by George Orwell -- (I finished this book. Highly recommended!)

Appointment in Samarra by John O'Hara

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume

The Assistant by Bernard Malamud

At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien

Atonement by Ian McEwan

Beloved by Toni Morrison

The Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder

Call It Sleep by Henry Roth

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon

A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell

The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West

Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather

A Death in the Family by James Agee

The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen

Deliverance by James Dickey

Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone

Falconer by John Cheever

The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles

The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessig

Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin

Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald -- (I read this too.)

A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh

The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene

Herzog by Saul Bellow

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson

A House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul

I, Claudius by Robert Graves

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

Light in August by William Faulkner

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkein

Loving by Henry Green

Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis

The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

Money by Martin Amis

The Moviegoer by Walker Percy

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Naked Lunch by William Burroughs

Native Son by Richard Wright

Neuromancer by William Gibson

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

1984 by George Orwell

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

A Passage to India by E.M. Forster

Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion

Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth

Posession by A.S. Byatt

The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

Rabbit, Run by John Updike

Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow

The Recognitions by William Gaddis

Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

The Sot-Weed Factor by John Barth

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

The Sportswriter by Richard Ford

The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John LeCarre

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway -- (I'm halfway reading this book.)

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee -- (I read the book and watched the movie. Both are great.)

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

Ubik by Philip K. Dick

Under the Net by Iris Murdoch

Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowrey

Watchmen by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons

White Noise by Don DeLillo

White Teeth by Zadie Smith

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

The Glass Castle

Well, I have finished reading The Glass Castle – a memoir by Jeannette Walls. Before elaborating further about this book, I asked myself a question: How I came to read this book? I recalled that I have no intention to buy this book; it was an additional to another book -- Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows. In order to get free shipping from Amazon, I had to make a minimum purchase of $25. Harry Potter 7 cost $17.99, so I needed to buy another book for at least $7. I would rather spend money for buyinbooks than for shipping fees). Among the recommended books on amazon.com, The Glass Castle caught my eyes. (WHY??) The price was not the main reason I selected this book. It was the highly rated-review that influenced my decision. Now, after I finished reading the book, I want to say, "I am not regret buying and reading this book. Conversely, I am pleased I have read such a well-written memoir."

Before this book, my friend who read a dozen memoirs told me one day that she personally does not like to read memoir anymore. The reason she gave was that every memoir has the same goal – tell you about the writer. The authors will first tell the readers about their past experience (99% focused on the worst of their lives), and then the writers will tell the readers how they have overcame those difficulties and became successful. Well, I do not want to discuss and justify my friend’s statement any further.

Jeannette Wall did a good job in putting together her childhood memory into such an enthralling story. Growing up in a dysfunctional family with three siblings, Jeannette has a dishonest and destructive father and a mother that did not want the responsibility of raising a family. Jeannette and her siblings learned to take care of themselves, protected one another, and eventually found their way to New York.

Jeannette is a talented writer as well as a fantastic storyteller. I was incredibly touched by her story. After finishing her book, I could still feel the anger inside me about her irresponsible, selfish parents.(EXPAND...HOW WERE THE DISHONEST AND DESTRUCTIVE) This is a piece of great writing; I have no doubt to recommend this book to other. (WHY??)

“The Personal Touch” vs. “Thief”

“The Personal Touch” by Chet Williamson and “Thief” by Robley Wilson Jr. are two considerably different stories. One sets the scene at home and the other takes place in an airport. One is about subscription renewal and the other is about a pickpocket. However, when comparing the themes of each story, similarity arises. Invasion of privacy is the common theme of both stories. As seen, both protagonists in each story and the events of each plot reveal how intrusion happens in our everyday life.

In “The Personal Touch”, the author uses subscription renewal letters as a course to discover the protagonist Joe Priddy’s misconducts and the consequence that he must payoff. The story begins with a Snoop Magazine subscription renewal letter that Joe received. He is irritated with the message that tries to appear personal, but indeed is a computer-typed message. He replies to the subscription renewal letter in a nasty manner. In return, there is a steep bill that he needs to pay. The magazine company holds a picture of his indulgence in tasting forbidden fruit and knows the exact money that he squirrels away from his wife. Joe is unfaithful to his wife; not only has he an affair with another woman, he watches a girl undress in an apartment. By using snoop technology, he invades a girl’s privacy, and he, however, never expects that the magazine company will use the same strategy to pry into his affair. This lesson makes him learn about the feeling of a victim in an invasion case.

In Robley Wilson Jr.’s “Thief”, the story develops around a business man who is waiting in the airport for his flight to leave. In this busy place, a young black-haired woman catches his eye. He stares at that woman and his mind is filled with lascivious imaginations. The woman becomes aware of the harassment, but she ignores him. Often, a man is off his guard when temptation has arisen. At least, this theory is applicable to the protagonist in the story. When he feels the brunette jostling him from behind, he is startled at first, and then disregards it and smiles at her. He does not realize that the brunette has picked his pocket, until he cannot find his wallet. A series of events that happens in the airport makes his life a chaos (or into a chaotic): first, he has to clear his name from incrimination, and then he has to cancel and reapply for all the documents and identifications in his billfold. Paradoxically, his billfold is returned to him intact in the mail two weeks later. The best way to explain this situation is that the brunette wants to give him a lesson for the invasion he did.

Invasion of property is condemned everywhere. Sexual harassment is a kind of invasion because body is one person’s property. The actions of both married reprobates trespass beyond accepted boundaries. The final moral message that the two authors want to convey through these stories is that people get their comeuppance for transgression.

Novel: The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

Summary:

The story is set in the 1960s in Sylvan, just after the civil rights bill has been passed. A 14-year-old white girl Lily Owens is haunted by the accidental death of her mother 10 years ago. She lives with her cold, brutal, sadistic father on a peach farm. During her childhood, Rosaleen, a good-hearted and strong African American woman, is her only companion and acts as her "stand-in mother." One day in July 1964, Rosaleen goes to town to register to vote and insults three racists of the town. She is arrested, beaten up, and hospitalized. Lily decides to rescue Rosaleen and they flee to Tiburon, a town that Lily believes her mother had a connection to. In Tiburon, the black Mary labels on the honey jars lead them to Boatwright sisters named August, June, and May. August, the beekeeper, generously takes in Lily and Rosaleen. In their home, Lily recaptures the ideas of religion and racism, and also finds the long-lost maternal love. Irresistibly, she is infatuated with a young man, a black man.

My Opinion:

I like the story of this book in the way the author presents the wisdom about life:

• Prejudice is always caused by a lack of understanding. The author shows how life experience has changed Lily’s thinking towards Blacks and June’s negative impression towards Lily.
• The power of love can break the barriers between humans – Lily expresses her loves toward Rosaleen and Zach, while August shows her care for Deborah and Lily.
• Lily forgives herself for her involvement in her mother’s accidental death and also forgives her father who treats her badly.

However, I disfavor with the following:

• The story gets tedious when Lily is reluctant to come clean with August. I really dislike Lily’s character because she is too good in lying and she likes to keep everything inside of her. What’s more, I tired of her whining.
• The story about May’s suicide is oversimplified. It is inconvincibly to have so many things happened in 20 minutes – walk out from the house to the river, come out with an idea of suicide, write a note, and suicide. Furthermore, there is no indication of May’s tendency to commit suicide.
• T. Ray gives in too easily to let Lily stay in August’s place.
• The relationship between Lily and Zach is unclear at the end of the story.

There are a couple of favorite quotes from the book that I like most:

• … women made the best beekeepers because they have a special ability built into them to love creatures that sting – it comes from years of loving children and husbands.
• “…, some things don’t matter that much, Lily…. How big is that in the overall schema of life? But lifting a person’s heart – now, that matters. The whole problem with people is –”, “… the problem is they know what matters, but they don’t choose it. You know how hard that is, Lily?...”

For further detail about the book, please refer to: http://thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Secret_Life_Of_Bees/Secret_Life_Of_Bees01.html

Westerner vs. Easterner

There are very dramatic social-psychological differences between East Asians as a group and people of European culture as a group.

- East Asians live in an interdependent world in which the self is part of a larger whole;
- Westerners live in a world in which the self is a unitary free agent.

- Easterners value success and achievement in good part because they reflect well on the groups they belong to;
- Westerners value these things because they are badges of personal merit.

- Easterners value fitting in and engage in self-criticism to make sure that they do so;
- Westerners value individuality and strive to make themselves look good.

- Easterners are highly attuned to the feeling of others and interpersonal harmony;
- Westerners are more concerned with knowing themselves and are prepared to sacrifice harmony for fairness.

-Easterners are accepting of hierarchy and group control;
- Westerners are more likely to prefer equality and scope for personal action.

- Asian avoid controversy and debate;
- Westerners have faith in the rhetoric of argumentation in arenas from the law to politics to science.

(Richard E. Nisbett, 2003. The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Thinks Differently ... and Why)

Story Review: A Visit of Charity

In a technology prevailing world, most people are in favor of computing electronic mail. Many electronic mail users are probably familiar with “Eudora” – an email client. However, not many of them know that the software is actually named after a Southern writer Eudora Welty. The program is developed by Steve Dorner who was inspired by Welty’s short story “Why I love at the P.O.” Eudora Welty was one among few renowned American female writers, and she was also a successful photographer. In her 92 years, she published a number of novels, short stories, photographs, essays, and one children's book. Welty uses her gift of literacy to express sympathy with human difficulties – illness, old age, poverty, and ignorance. These can be seen in the short story “A Visit of Charity.” In the story, Welty provokes thought about selfishness, callousness, negligence, and dehumanization through an ironic tone. The title itself is rather a paradox. Charity means to show kindness, humanity, and social conscience toward people in need. Nevertheless, neither the protagonist Marian nor society possesses these values.

“A Visit of Charity” is a story about a fourteen-year-old girl, Marian, who visits two old women in a nursing home. The purpose of her visit is to earn a three-point for her score in Campfire Girl. By bringing a potted plant to the nursing home, she can earn an extra one point, or a double point is counted if she brings a bible and reads it to the old ladies. Marian brings with her a potted plant. In the nursing home, she is so shocked by the inferior environs and two cantankerous old ladies. During her brief stay, she is peculiar, and her mind cannot function properly. She loses the abilities to think, see, speak, and hear clearly. She has a strong impulse to run away from this strange place, and strange elderly women. At the end, Marian leaves a crying old woman and an imploring old woman untouched. She gets back an apple she has hidden under a tree and runs to catch the bus to go home.

The story takes place on a very cold winter day at a nursing home, where the building is described as “whitewashed brick and reflected the winter sunlight like a block of ice” and is beautified by “prickly dark shrub.” These scenes imply the absence of affection and warmth from a society towards forsaken elderly people in the nursing home. Marian is the protagonist of the story. She is a self-centered person. She is concerned about the progress of her Campfire Girl points more than anything. Her visit is clearly insincere when she tells the nurse at the desk, “I’m a Campfire Girl… I have to pay a visit to some old ladies.” When the nurse asks if she is acquainted with any persons there, she answers, “No-but-that is, any of them will do.” The potted plant is more evidence that shows Marian’s selfishness. Instead of bringing fruits or other more practical and sincere presents, Marian chooses to bring a potted plant that can earn her one extra point. However, compared to the previous campfire girl who has brought a bible during her visit, Marian is considered to have a little self-awareness for she does not choose to bring a bible that can earn more extra points for her. Welty sarcastically suggests that people who use bibles as the tools for self-gaining are indeed those who are overly preoccupied with their own benefits. Their actions fly in the face of sanctification.

Marian, however, has dehumanized the two old women unconsciously too. She associates the sound of an old lady to a sheep’s bleating and the hand of another old lady to a bird's claw. When entering the tiny dark room, she is frightened by her own creative imagination, where she is being caught in a robbers’ cave. After all, these hallucinations are caused by Marian’s lack of preparation. Welty’s description of Marian’s reactions also shows the disrespect of teenagers or society toward elder generation. Through the story, Welty dramatizes the isolation life in the nursing home. In the mid-morning, the hall is quiet and the doors are closed. This suggests that most of the residents are staying in their tiny rooms with their roommates only; no one trespasses other people boundaries. Too much furniture in the room indicates that the ladies spend plenty of time in the room, and they do not socialize with other residents in the public area in the nursing home. Therefore, it is not surprising that the two old women always argue with each other. Perhaps arguing is one of the few things if it is not the only thing they can do in a day. Also, if they are not isolated, why does Addie feel miserable on her birthday, and why does nobody help to celebrate Addie’s birthday?

After listening to Addie’s dissatisfaction about her roommate and knowing that today is Addie’s birthday, Marian seems to have experienced an epiphany. She begins to realize something about the old ladies. For the first time, she asks a question, a question that refers to Addie, not a sheep, “How old are you?” Although Addie refuses to answer the question, she indeed feels warmhearted and so she cries. Needless to say, it must have been a long time since any one was concerned about her existence. Marian’s simple question means a lot to poor Addie. Unfortunately, Marian’s epiphany is too short. She becomes untouched again to the other old woman who is imploring her for a penny. Perhaps she is just confused with feeling that she has never had before – sympathy. Finally, a red apple appears at the end of the story. It is traditionally a symbol of love or knowledge. Marian retrieves a red apple from a tree implying the ignition of love from the bottom of her heart towards elderly people. Or it also can imply the knowledge she has gained from her visit to the nursing home.

“A Visit of Charity” is a story that has a moral message to the readers. The author conveys through the story the inhumane treatment in nursing homes. The nursing home lacks amenities for elderly people. The condition of the room is comparable to a jail – small, wet, dark, and closed door. A nurse acts more like a jail guard than a compassionate professional. Welty portrays Marian as an individual person or as a whole society that is insensitive to the welfare of elderly people. People in society was used to living in their own comfort zones and neglect the inferior lives of unfortunate people. The story uses campfire girls who pay visits to the nursing home for self-benefits as a mirror of the selfishness and dehumanization of society in reality. The epiphany of Marian in the story is actually a symbolic of readers’ awareness of human difficulties.

Story Review: The Lady, or the Tiger?

Access to the online short story: The Lady, or the Tiger, by Frank R. Stockton

‘The Lady, or the Tiger?’ is an American classical short story written by Frank R. Stockton, a humorist and a writer, in year 1882. He was born Philadelphia, the seventh of thirteen children. During his life time, he published several fairy tales, humorous books, novels, and science fiction. Among many best known stories, ‘The Lady, or the Tiger?’ was Stockton's most lasting story. He used satirical writing to examine the absolute power and self-interest of leaders, the romantic relationship, passion, and trusting between lovers, the cruelty of systems, and the uncertainty of lives in a society. The story involved a jealous princess, a vindictive king, and a handsome suitor. In general, the story was written from third person’s point of view except one part where the suitor asked a question, “Which?” to the princess.

‘The Lady, or the Tiger?’ began with a description of a “semi-barbaric” king who ruled his kingdom with a heavy-hand. He enjoyed turning his wild imagination into facts. Inspired by his implacable will, he utilized an unusual form of administering justice for offenders in his kingdom. The offender could determine his own fate by selecting one of the two closed doors in the arena. He was forced by nothing and led by no one. Behind one door stood a beautiful lady hand-picked by the king and behind another door hid a ravenous tiger. If the offender picked the door with the beautiful lady behind it, he would be declared innocent and as a reward, he must marry that lady under the witness of the king, regardless of previous marital status. If the offender opened the door with the tiger behind it, then he would be deemed guilty and the tiger would tear him to pieces. The uncertain ending of the offender pleased the king and the people in the kingdom a lot, except women, who were always the victims of the system.

The king had a daughter that who was also semi-barbaric. She was the apple of his eye. One day, the king found out that the princess had taken a lover far beneath her station. He could not accept this and so he threw the suitor into prison and set a day for his trial in the arena. On the trial day, the suitor stood in the arena and looked at the princess who sat on the right side of the king. When his eyes met hers, he knew right away that the princess knew the secret behind the doors. Through telepathy, he quickly asked the princess for some indication of which door to pick. The princess was actually in quandary. If she indicated the door with the tiger, her lover would be killed on the spot. However, if she indicated the door with the lady, her lover would be forced to marry another woman, and even though he would be alive she would never be with him. Despite the dilemma, the princess responded to her lover’s question in a second. But it had been made after days and nights of deep and painful thought. The princess gave a sign to the right. Without hesitation, the suitor walked to the door on the right and opened it. At this point, the story abruptly stopped and the author left the question to the reader, “Did the tiger come out of that door, or did the lady?”

This is a great story. I like the story but not the abrupt ending, especially when the story is a cliffy. The author placed the princess, as well as the reader, in a predicament. Making a decision is hard; making a decision for a woman is even harder, as illustrated in one Chinese saying that equates the difficulty of predicting a woman’s heart as finding a needle in an ocean. If a decision must be made for the princess, I think the suitor should be led to the door with the lady behind it. But, Wait! Do not premeditate my intention; I have additional reasons to support the decision. The law forces a man to marry a lady if he did choose the right door, regardless of his previous marital status. Is there a suggestion that polygamy is legal in the kingdom? If so, the princess could marry the suitor later, regardless of the suitor’s previous marital status. At the end, the princess could save her lover and could live happily with him again.

Geography in the Age of Reconnaissance

Sipping a cup of hot coffee in a quiet café while everyone was capering with joy for the first day of 2007, I was reading an unexciting book that my husband recommended. The content of the book was dry, so I could sense I would quit reading as soon as I began. Yet I did not. The Geographical Tradition by David N. Livingstone is a renowned writing on the history and philosophy of geography, and it has become the core textbook in many universities. Having just finished the second chapter, I have already felt that my living is closely related to geography – geography is everything and everywhere. The interesting part of the book in so far is that the author claimed that geography played a leading role in the evolution of the scientific tradition, and its contributions have been to the emergence of modern science. For geography is a practical science, it has resolved a lot of questions by real-world experience.

Class Matters

Chapter 1: Shadowy Line That Still Divide

Today, in a country of all sorts are awash in luxuries, people’s status has become harder to read from their outward appearance. The contours of class have blurred; some said they have disappeared. But in fact, class is still a powerful force in American life. Education, child rearing, health, and life span are linked tightly to class. Although in America merit has replace the old system of inherited privilege, a paradox lies at the heart of this new American meritocracy is that merit is actually partly class-based. Parent with money, education, and connections cultivate in their children the habits that the meritocracy rewards.

New research on mobility – how readily people move up or down the ladder of prosperity and status – shows there is far less of it than most people believe. The mobility in America is lower than Britain, France, Canada, some Scandinavian countries. The rise in income inequality has widening the gulf between the rich and the poor. While most people think that American is the land of opportunity, they do not realize that the mobility seems to have stagnated – the have-mores are always rich; the have-nots are always poor.

Chapter 2: Health

Three New Yorkers with three different social classes (architect, utility worker, and maid) faced a single common threat – heart attack. But in the months that followed, their experiences diverged. Comparing to the maid, the architect and the utility worker spent lesser time to recuperate. Class informed everything from the circumstances of their heart attacks to the emergency care each received, the households they returned to, and the jobs they hoped to resume. In the United States, class is a potent force in health and longevity. The more education and income people have, the less likely they are to have and die of heart disease, strokes, diabetes, and many types of cancers. They are almost invariably in the best position to learn new information early, modify their behavior, take advantage of the latest treatments, and have the cost covered by insurance.

Chapter 3: Marriage

Marriage that cross class boundary is another interesting topic discussed in Class Matters. People who marry across class lines are actually moving outside their comfort zones, into the uncharted territory of partners with a different level of wealth and education, and often, a different set of assumptions about things like manners, food, and child-rearing. In cross-class marriages, one partner will usually have more money, more options, and, almost inevitably, more power in the relationship. While most of the marriages used to involve men marrying women with less education, in America, study have found, the pattern has flipped where more women marrying men with less schooling – the combination most likely to end in divorce.

Book: Class Matters

Class Matters is a book about real human being, showing the harsh inequalities in the larger society due to the class disparities. This book is a binder of the acclaimed New York Times Series on social class in America. In Class Matters, a team of New York Times reporters explores the ways in which class – defined as a combination of income, education, wealth, and occupation – influences destiny in a society. Class Matters is truly essential reading for anyone concerned about the future of their beloved family, especially their children. Although this book is mainly about American society, its implications will benefit the way we live our lives.

I would like to share my reading with those who read this blog. I will give a brief summary and comment on each of my reading. There are altogether fourteen chapters in this book. So, feel free to send me a reminder if I keep you waiting too long. I am kind of lazy sometimes.

** The complete “Class Matters” newspaper series is available at http://www.nytimes.com/class

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Recently, I read a book entitled The Great Gatsby. This is a book that highly recommended by many people, including my teacher in Short Story Class. The Great Gatsby is generally conceded to be F. Scott Fitzgerald's finest novel and one of the key books of the twentieth century. I like the story and enjoy the plot of the book. Yet, I can not grasp the gist of the story after finishing the whole book. Sigh! Why? What are the important points in this book that made it so famous? The only way to find out the answer is read another book entitled Twentieth Century Interpretations of The Great Gatsby which I am currently reading.

What I want to say in today's blog is that in the Interpretations book, there is a letter writen by Fitzgerald to his daughter two years before his death. In that letter, Fitzgerald judged his early life and marriage. As a wife of a man who is impassioned in doing research, I have a deeper thought after reading the letter. Here, I quote the paragraph from the book:

"When I was your age I lived with a great dream. The dream grew and I learned how to speak of it and make people listen. Then the dream divided one day when I decided to marry you mother after all, even though I knew she was spoiled and meant no good to me. I was sorry immediately I had married her, but being patient in those days, made the best of it and got to love her in another way. You came along and for a long time we made quite a long of happiness out of our lives. But I was a man divided -- she wanted me to work too much for her and not enough for my dream. She realized too late that work was dignity, and the only dignity, and tried to atone for it by working herself, but it was too late and she broke and is broken forever."

I do not love a man who is zealous for nothing.
~Oliver Goldsmith~