Personal Musings: Influential Quotes

With all the talk about story and it’s importance and power, I thought I’d give a few quotes from fiction that have influenced me, whether in my approach to literature, to life, or both.  Now just to be clear, I’m not ranking these; that’s not the point of this list, and I am only dealing with fiction because to include non-fiction would make the list way too long.  To be more specific, I’m only dealing with primarily printed fiction, so no movies (unless the quote in a movie is also in the book).  Finally, I will be confining one quote per author, again to keep this list a touch more concise.  So with those parameters, let’s get going.

(1)

The part of philanthropist is indeed a dangerous one; and the man who would do his neighbor good must first study how not to do him evil, and must begin by pulling the beam out of his own eye. 

-Lilith by George MacDonald (p. 67)

The influence of this quote is much more confined than the others as it was this quote that changed my mind and my reading of MacDonald.  Before, I’d read some of his work and found great teaching in his work, but the full force of his skill came in his seamless inclusion of Scripture in this quote above.  Never before had I found such a well-done insert, one so smooth, and it made me reconsider my opinions of George MacDonald and begin a more ernest investigation into MacDonald.  Since reading this quote, he has since increasingly earned my admiration.

(2)

Abbot Bernard folded his paws deep into the wide sleeves of his garb.

From a viewpoint on the threshold of Redwall Abbey’s west ramparts he watched the hot midsummer day drawing to a glorious close.

-Mariel of Redwall by Brian Jacques (p.3)

The influence of this quote is not so much in the quote itself as that it is the first lines of the first Redwall book I ever read.  Yes, I had watched the tv show before and got into the series through the show, but in reading Jacques writing in Mariel and then Martin the Warrior, I entered the world of 300+ page books.  From then on, I gobbled up every Brian Jacques book I could find, which impacted my writing style and raised the bar of what my 9-year-old self sought in her reading.  The full list of impacts Jacques books made on me I don’t even know, but whatever they are, they began with these two sentences.

(3)

Mine had been a life of shame.

I’m like the one black sheep born into a pure white flock.  Unable to enjoy the things my peers enjoyed, unable to grieve the things they grieved, unable to eat the things they ate-- being born an ignoble black sheep, I didn’t understand the things my friends found pleasent, such as love, kindness, and sympathy.  I simply dusted my dark wool in white powder and pretended I was a white sheep, too.

I’m still wearing my mask, still acting in this farce.

-Book Girl and the Suicidal Mime by Mizuki Nomura (p. 1)

Wow.  Yeah.  Sorry for the long quote, but I really needed to include it all.  This quote, first read when I was 14 and two years into a deep depression, complete with daily thoughts of suicide, stands as the first time I truly felt a book speak to me.  I had never felt so connected to words on a page as when I read those.  Not exactly a healthy first connection, but, ironically, it helped me.  It put to words something I felt but could not express.  I know that everyone says “I’m different; you just don’t understand” and all that, but no one truly does understand the feelings and impressions of someone encaged by depression.  Added onto that this quote still is a bit accurate of a description of me.  I am totally different from all my siblings: the straight-man born into a family of comedians, the first black sheep (rebellious) child, someone who literally couldn’t understand why my siblings would laugh or cry at certain things.  I have/had difficulty sympathizing with others, and was not very kind (I’m much better now).  Even with my friends, by middle school all my male friends had moved away and I hated, to a stubborn degree, discussing fashion and boys and those girly small-talk topics that always seemed to pop up among my female compadres.  In the end, I became an outsider.  For two years (14 in my family), I had lived in a state of disconnect, and finally I found a connection, something to which I could relate.  It was something I needed so desperately, and here it was in this book.  From this quote onward, I began to connect more with literature, learned better how to immerse myself into the story, to relate with the characters.  This quote, though depressing, I think helped open my door to sympathy.  And, yes, I’ve since grown beyond the quote, but it’s impact I cannot deny.

(4)

There is no such thing as coincidence in this world; there is only hitsuzen.

-Tsubasa Resevoir Chronicles/xxxHolic by CLAMP (p. 104[TSR]/19[Holic])

Okay, so this if from manga (Japanese comics).  I never said I was limiting myself to prose, only to print.  Oh man has this quote stuck with me.  With this quote, my entire though process on fate, destiny, determinism, coincidence, etc. shifted, which of course impacts how you view the rest of the world.  Till reading this quote, I hadn’t thought much about fate, but now I had to.  My philosophically-oriented mind demanded it!  I’m no sure I entirely agree with it, but it still gets me thinking even to this day.  By the way, if you don’t know what hitsuzen is, here’s a link that gives a good explanation.  Definitely worth checking out.

(5)

In other words, the basics of alchemy is the "equivalent exchange"!  That means that to obtain something, something of equal value much be lost.

-Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa (p. 26)

Again, another manga.  FMA.  Man.  You have done so many numbers on me!  I shouldn’t have read you so early into my manga journey.  You set the bar too high.  Anyway, this is another quote that really got me thinking about my view of the world.  It made me consider the concept quoted above (equivalent exchange) into life to test it.  Again, I don’t entirely agree with it, but it really got me thinking about how the world works and my own place in everything, and encouraging thought, self-examination, and investigation into the foundations of how the world operates is more than many stories could ever claim.

(6)

“So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide.  All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

-The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien (p. 82)

Yeah, you probably knew this would be here.  But it truly is one of the most powerful truths ever stated.  I first encountered this quote (or rather its slight variation) in the Peter Jackson movie; unfortunately, my young mind missed it in the excitement of my first exposure to Middle Earth.  It was only when my church’s pastor used the quote in one of his sermons that I really heard it, and it blew my mind.  The simple truth of it, the obvious yet moving reality, indeed the freedom in living with this as your mindset, I can’t properly describe it.  I can’t tell you how much I love this quote and how much it’s already influenced my thoughts and the encouragement it gives me in my daily life.  And it’s only one of Tolkien’s amazing truths.  I just wish I had the space to list them all.

(7)

All of Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis

Okay.  I’m kind of cheating, but really I don’t know of any specific quote to summarize my experience.  The truth of the matter is the whole book changed my life, specifically how I relate to others.  To give details would require a post all its own, and I’m sure no one cares about that story.  Seriously, though, I just can’t say enough about this wonderful novel.

So there are a few quotes that have influenced me through my life.  Hope it’s been fun, and see you next week for another review.


Edit: Added a link I'd forgot to put in.  Oops.

All works mentioned here belong to their respective owners.

Reviews and Recommendations: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

You know those times when you take a whole bunch of notes about something, then promptly lose those notes, and then after searching for weeks you resign yourself the the reality that you must choose one of two options: go back through the material or just work with what you can remember?  Well, this is one of these times, and I’m choosing option 2, because I really don’t want to go through Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games again.

Let me clarify.  I don’t think the book is bad.  There are elements I like that drew me in, but that doesn’t mean I want to read it again.  And why might that be?  Well, please allow me to tell you.

That which I like can be summed up in two words: concept and pacing.  I really like the concept of The Hunger Games, which, in case there are any who don’t know, goes as such.  The story follows a young teenaged girl, Katniss Everdeen, as she takes her younger sister’s place in her dystopia country’s annual battle royal, the titular Hunger Games.  The Games were instituted by the government after a certain rebellion as a method of deterring further uprisings.  Every year, two children, aged anywhere between 12-18, must be sent from each district of the country to participate, and there is only one winner.  If she ever wants to see her friends and family again, Katniss must be prepared to win the games, no matter the cost.

As I said, I like the concept.  It’s grave, intriguing, and there is immediate emotional investment by the fact that children are being pitted against each other in a life-or-death “game” treated like reality tv by the dystopian capital.  With the concept, there is also some potential social commentary and some possible conversations that could come up right from get go, and Collins delivers pretty well.  After a rocky start, the pacing carries the concept, making a high-tension narrative that keeps you turning pages right up until the end, especially due to her excellent use of cliff-hanger chapter ends.  I found myself reading almost the whole book in about two days.  However, that was after leaving the book for about six months due to a clunky beginning.

I’m going to say this now, there will be some spoiler-ish things in what follows.  I’ll try to avoid particulars, but I’m not sure slight spoilers can be avoided if I wish to give my honest thoughts on the story.  You’ve been warned.

So, yes, I began The Hunger Games and then put it down for half-a-year before picking it back up again.  As for why, well, basically everything pre-departure for the Games is why.  In the first couple chapters, the pacing is actually pretty horrendous, trying to clumsily cram waaaay too much into the first 2-3 chapters.  Also, while I understand the logic in Katniss’s willingness to sacrifice herself for her younger sister, Prim, I did not feel anything for it, despite the emotional weight it’s all supposed to have in the story.  I’m even an older sister myself who knows about the love of an older sister to her younger sisters.  However, I am not Katniss.  I am not Prim’s older sister, and I just didn’t know, still don’t know, enough about Prim to care about her, and when that familial connection is supposed to be a driving force in a character’s decision, having that emotional pull is pretty significant.  It doesn’t even take much to establish an emotional connection between characters.

Take as an example the fairytale “Beauty and the Beast.”  At the start of the story, Beauty’s father, a formerly wealthy merchant who recently met with tragedy in a business venture, hears that some of his merchandise might have survived and prepares to depart to confirm his hopes.  He asks his three daughters what gifts they desire upon his return.  The first two ask for expensive dresses and jewelry while Beauty only desires a single rose.  Well, as you probably know, the father’s trip proves unprofitable.  On his way back home, he stumbles upon an enchanted castle, where he is given hospitality from an unknown host.  When the father walks through the garden the next day, he spots a wonderful rose bush and, remembering Beauty and desiring to fulfill at least one of his child’s requests, he plucks a rose.  This angers the host, who we learn is the Beast, and the Beast only releases the father on the promise that one of his daughters will take his place.  When the father returns home, Beauty, out of love for her father, decides to go, and so begins the tale.

My summary here does not do the story justice, but I hope you can see how, through very simple ways, like character’s actions and interactions, the love between the father and Beauty gains substance.  Much like The Hunger Games, “Beauty and the Beast” begins with one family member taking the place of another, but unlike with “Beauty and the Beast,” I felt no connection between the family members, and that’s not even counting the mother, who really just exists to make Katniss seem resourceful.  All we know is that everyone loves Prim and that (apparently) she’s a wonderful person while not many people like Katniss.  And I’m supposed to care about this family?  In fewer pages than even one scene of The Hunger Games, “Beauty and the Beast” establishes a stronger and more endearing family dynamic.

And so, with no emotional tension, all the poorly done info/backstory dumping, and failed character building squeezed into the first couple chapters, I just about had enough.  Even though the first chapters are supposed to pull the audience in, I was so offset by them I didn’t want to read the rest.  The only reason I picked the book back up again was because my sister really enjoyed the series.

Well, after I picked it back up, I did find myself pleasantly surprised when the pacing righted itself soon after.  My issues do no stop with the first few chapters, though.  Another issue I had was with writing style.  Collins’s writing style in The Hunger Games was mixed with me.  On the one hand, she wrote in a way that feels pretty similar to how a person might speak.  This kept the storytelling simple and fast paced, a necessity for this type of story.  A downside, though, is that I felt the style made the book seem too much like a movie without my imagination having to do any work.  I didn’t have to think about it, and I like thinking substance in my reading.  Also, big surprise, I did not like the present tense.  “But doesn’t that make it less clear whether or not she’ll live?” you ask.  I’m going to call this out and say, “No.  Not necessarily.”  Guess what?  I’ve actually read books written in 1st-person past tense where the narrator dies at the end.  Yep.  They exist, and by playing with the expectation of “past tense=he lives” my mind was blown.  Since then, I can’t accept the whole “ambiguity” argument for present-tense, and I’ve tried to keep in mind that past-tense does not equal safety for the narrator.

Ironically, I actually ended up subconsciously reading the story in past-tense most of the time.  I would read “was” where it said “is” and substitute all indications of present-tense with past-tense conjugation.  Then every now-and-again I would come across some present-tense verb and my mind would suddenly remember “Oh!  Right, present-tense!” taking me out of the story every time.  I will admit this to be more my fault, but it still remains that, at least for me, Collins ended up writing interruptions right into her story.  Not a fan.

The last thing I’ll cover here has to do with the main character herself.  I’m going to state this plainly: I do not like Katniss.  I really don’t.  I’m not going into any details here for spoiler reasons, but Katniss is actually the last reason I was so turned off by the first few chapters and a main reason I don’t want to read the book again.  Even though I was supposed to be cheering for her, I found it hard to.  I don’t blame characters in the book for disliking Katniss; in fact, I sympathize with them.  Katniss in The Hunger Games is, in my opinion, pretty unlikable.

Going back to “Beauty and the Beast,” it again does not take much to establish characters you root for.  Beauty, with asking only for a single rose, establishes herself as a character who cares more for beauty than riches, and her father, by wanting to still bring a rose back to her, and even by his asking his daughters what gifts they desire, shows himself to be a caring and thoughtful father.  Really, it doesn’t take much.  Just a little hint of positive character traits here or there goes a long way.  However, what I remember of Katniss is “People don’t like me, I’m not an especially likable person, and I’m not charismatic.  Oh, but everyone loves Prim!”  Yeah.

My dislike for Katniss is so strong that it even delayed my picking up the second book in the series, Catching Fire.  After finishing the first book, I actually wanted to start on the sequel right away, but I didn’t have the second book with me, so I couldn’t.  About fifteen minutes later, however, all that desire had evaporated, in large part because I didn’t want to read about Katniss.  I can only hope that everyone I’ve spoken with is right and that she gets more bearable in later books.

Yes, you read right; I’m going to read the rest of the trilogy.  I’m not sure I’ll post blogs about them, though.  So many people have already reviewed this current hit trilogy that I am hesitant to join them.  My reasons for doing this review were really two fold: after finishing the first book, I realized I had enough notes to write a full review, and I wish to discuss a certain topic in my next post, which I formulated due to reading The Hunger Games, so it only seemed fitting to discuss the book as well.

So now that I’ve reviewed the book, do I recommend it?  Well… not really.  There are good things in it.  I think there’s stuff that can be dissected and discussed based on the concept, and the pacing and chapter endings edged me on in the reading.  However, all the issues that make me not want to read the story again also make me hesitant to recommend the novel.  It’s not a bad book, but it’s not a good book either.  I guess if you want to read a story that’s like a popcorn action movie with a few extra layers, this is your ticket, but that’s probably the best I can say about it.

Edit 12/6/2014: Corrected my spelling in a couple places

Collins, Suzanne.  The Hunger Games.  New York: Scholastic Press.  Print.  2008