The Castle in the Pyrenees

It was another fantastic book by Jostein Gaarder. The story was great but it didn't affect me too much. The general idea was about religious or superstitious beliefs and paraphysics. It was like making the ends meet even though it was impossible.

The main characters were Sol and Stein. Sol was a religious person who believe in the paranormal stuff, while Stein is someone who believes scientifical explanations, a rational person. They used to be together despite this great of a difference. But one day, during one of their excavations, they met with an unexplainable occurence. From then on, they started to drift apart from each other. Nevertheless, all the years they were away from each other, I believe that they are still bound together.

During one of their so-called excavations, they hit someone while driving beyond speed limits. When they returned to see if they really did hit someone, they didn't find anything in the area besides a few shards of glass and a rose-pink colored shawl. It was the same shawl that woman, who they saw earlier that day in the highway, owns. It puzzled them and believed that the white van, which passed by them in the opposite lane after hitting something or someone, took the woman's body. They were anxious the entire time waiting for the police to go after them. Days pass but no reports were aired in the radio with regards to the hit-and-run accident. The police weren't after them either.

One afternoon, while still on their excavation, they went to explore the area behind the hotel they were staying in. It was a forest-ish area and they were headed for a hut a bit farther from the hotel. Then, the woman in the same gray clothing and rose-pink shawl that they saw in the highway and they believed they had hit, appeared before them. Sol and Steinn believed that she had spoken to them but were told different things at the same time. "You are what I was; I am what you will become." and "You should have gotten speeding ticket instead." It was so much of a mystery to them but they could not explain it either.

Not after returning to their little apartment, Sol moved out and returned to her parents place. It would be impossible to live together despite all that have happened. They had no choice but to let go of each other. They didn't see each other until one day, after thirty years, they find each other standing in the balcony of the hotel they last stayed in.

Two lives interconnected by fate and disturbed by a mysterious occurence, indeed. The story was very interesting but I guess I missed some stuffs in there. There was something in it that keeps me unsettled. It was something that I probably don't want to believe in or something that I refuse to think about. Besides my personal struggles, the story was indeed amazing.

It wasn't much of a different approach as the Sophie's World. The story was organized in a correspondence-like manner. It was modern, at least, a correspondence through emails. Vita Brevis was a letter compiled in a book. I have another Jostein Gaarder book, but I haven't touched it yet. I wonder how it will be different.

Anyway...I can't say that I believe or I don't believe in the supernatural. I just don't think about it too much. Besides, as most people say, everything is possible. I also think that I have experienced a supernatural occurence myself. It was through a lucid dream and it was a figurative dream. Given that it was a dream, I am really hesitating if that was real or not. I had decided that it was real. Besides it was the night before the last day of my grandfather's wake, and the only day I attended the wake.

In the dream, I saw a white, luminuous butterfly entered our room from the house and was flying towards me. It landed in my hands since I reached for it. I clasp it and thought that 'I am too sleepy to move around so if the butterfly managed to escape, at least the powder from its wings will be evidence that I caught it in my hands, and make me believe that it wasn't a dream.' I manage to think like that so I partly convinced myself that my mind was awake at that time. When I woke up, my hands were clasping each other, the same position as I remember in my dream, should it really be a dream. However, there were no traces of powder in my hands. In the funeral, there were white butterflies hanging around. So, I made myself think that it was my grandfather's symbol or something.

Even in the dream, the moment I saw the butterfly, I already knew that it was my grandfather. I didn't even hesitate that it was a dream. However, the passing of years made me hesitate if it was a dream or not.

Well, so much of my old dream. Here are some things mentioned in the books that I find fascinating.

*  "The world isn't a mosaic of coincidences. It's all interconnected."

*  "I'm the first to admit that two people can be in close proximity even though the physical distance between them is great."

*  "There is no death. And there are no dead."

*  "Fear is infectious. Insanity is too."

*  "But why look back? It's like moving agains't the current. Wouldn't it be better to position ourselves at the other end and take part in the breakneck journey right from the beginning?"

*  "The severance between us was surgical, and there was no anaesthetic."

*  "Atheism is not believing in the glory of your own soul." - by an Indian pundit

The Story of My Life

I was never into reading biographies although they tell mostly truths about a person's life. These days though, some biographies are twisted truths or beautified realities. Why? Perhaps to let the readers imagine an excellent person instead of a struggling person.

Like I just mentioned, I am not really into reading biographies but reading diaries is a different matter. I read Anne Frank's and now, Helen Keller's short biography and compilation of letters. The biography part is mostly about her childhood years and her struggles with her studies in her special condition. She managed to attend a college for people with normal sight and hearing, and be one them. I believe that she had too great of a pressure so that she can cope with her inefficiencies. The letter part was mostly of her letters to various people and some responses from them.

Helen Keller became deaf and blind after acquiring an illness at a very young age. She had trouble communicating with others ever since, however, there were still people patient enough to understand her lack of words. Being deaf and blind at the same time prevents her from learning quickly and from communicating with others efficiently. She still has the ability to talk using her voice but it wasn't used until later in her teenage years. Her inability to distinguish sounds deprives her of her ability to produce vocal sounds as well. With proper guidance, she was able to use her voice to talk with people but I am just not too sure how she managed to receive the responses. It would either be through writing in her palm or feeling the movements of the lips of the person.

Helen Keller was given a tutor who has stayed with her ever since they met - Ms. Sullivan. I think that she was the greatest person ever mentioned in her story. Since I managed to read Ms. Keller's thoughts and perception of various things, I wanted to know Ms. Sullivan's view-point. Surely, it was difficult to learn by being deaf and blind and not knowing anything of the world. But, how much of a struggle was it to teach a deaf and blind person who knows nothing of the world? Interesting, isn't it?

Another thing I am curious about is her originality in ideas. Helen Keller cannot see or hear but I believe that her sense of touch is sharper given her condition. She learns her environment by having people describe it for her. The book is actually filled with adjectives and descriptive words and phrases - something I am not very good at. Anyway, how can her thoughts about something be original if her knowledge is basically someone else's that was imprinted to her? Well, a person can always make a mental picture of something, and it is a lot easier for people who have sight. But for a person who's sight was taken during her childhood - when she doesn't even know what a sun or a sea is - to be able to create a mental picture of something? I just cannot imagine it.

What else? I realized that well-known personalities in both science and literature today have really lived before. I mean, I would only read their names after their inventions or the titles of their masterpieces, but I really don't know anything about them. Helen Keller, however, was privileged to meet some of these distinguished people - Mark Twain, Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, Wright brothers and some other people who made names in both literature and science departments. I knew that they were real people, but I just had a clearer image of the time they were alive; that they are not some stuck-up people who only locked themselves in their houses while inventing or writing something.

In a sense, Helen Keller's life is very inspiring and motivating. It feels like I can be very grateful for what I am now and that I need not to wish for more. It can make you remember that life has its ups and downs and that there will always be people who will support you through everything. It can make you feel good about yourself and about the little things you've accomplished. It would allow you to think that life is not all about happiness, but is shared with sorrows and regrets. It was a very good read. I am thankful for my friend to gave me the book.

Well, here are some thoughts that I like from the book...

*  "When I try to classify my earliest impressions, I find that fact and fancy look alike across the years that link the past with the present."

*  "Knowledge is love and light and wisdom."

*  "Thus I learned from life itself."

*  "Any teacher can take a child to the classroom, but not every teacher can make him learn."

*  "It seems to me that the great difficulty of writing is to make the language of the educated mind express our confused ideas, half feelings, half thoughts, when we are little more than bundle of instinctive tendencies."

*  "There is no way to become original, except to be born so." - Stevenson

*  "Man only is interesting to man."

*  "I suppose we aimed o high, and disappointment was therefore inevitable."

*  "For after all, everyone who wishes to gain true knowledge must climb the Hill Difficulty alone, and since there is no royal road to the summit, I must zigzag it in my own way. I slip back many times, I fall, I stand still, I run against the edge of hidden obstacles, I lose my temper and find it again and keep it better. I trudge on, I gain a little, I feel encouraged, I get more eager and climb higher and began to see the widening horizon."

*  "Every struggle is a victory."

*  "There are as many opinions as there are men."

*  "But there is nothing more capricious than the memory of a child: what it will hold and what it will lose."

*  "To be banished from Rome is but t live outside of Rome."

*  "One goes to college to learn, it seems, not to think."

*  "I used to think that everybody was always happy, and at first it made me very sad to know about pain and great sorrow; but now I know that we could never learn to be brave and patient if there were only joy in the world."

*  "I wonder how many years there will be in eternity. I am afraid I cannot think about so much time."

*  "We are all discoverers in one sense, being born quite ignorant of all things."

*  "Some one is ever ready to scatter little acts of kindness along our pathway, making it smooth and pleasant."

*  "I wonder what becomes of lost opportunities. Perhaps our guardian angel gathers them up as we drop them and will give them back to us in the beautiful sometime when we have grown wiser and learned how to use them rightly."

*  "The thought that my dear Heavenly Father is always near, giving me abundantly of all those things which truly enrich life and make it sweet and beautiful, makes every deprivation seem of little moment compared with countless blessings I enjoy."

*  "But I am slowly learning that there is not happiness enough in the world for everyone to have all that he wants."

The Odyssey

I listened to a n audiobook of The Odyssey that I downloaded in my Ipod Touch. It was an interesting story and I can have a clearer image of the events in the story since the reading was full of emotions, unlike reading a book by myself.

I have watched the movie of The Odyssey some years ago and made a movie review as a requirement for my English course. That time, however, I did not focus much attention to the story and I have already forgotten it by now. Listening to the reading by various people is quite the feat since it is a new thing for me.

Basically, the story is about the misfortunes of Ulysses on his way back home after the war in Troy. There was also the story of the struggles of Telemachus, son of Ulysses, as he deals with the several suitors of his mother, Penelope, believing that Ulysses had died. Minerva, a goddess fond of Ulysses, had helped Ulysses and even Telemachus and Penelope through all their struggles. Provided with guidance from various people and with Minerva, Ulysses managed to return to his homeland and be reunited with his own family after 20 years and take revenge to the hateful suitors.

I think that the story was dark and gloomy talking mostly of one's misfortunes. I believe that the story belongs to a certain kind of literature. I am guessing that it was, at least in the old times, a tradition to ask one who they just met not only for their names but also for their misfortunes. In all honesty, I find it totally odd but I guess one could better understand a stranger by knowing what difficult things he had gone through. Even so, asking that from a person whom you just met is kind of rude, at least on this day.

I am also thinking that it was part of the traditions on the old days to ask not only for one's name, but also for his parents' name and his hometown. One's father and mother will reflect and affect one's character and so is the place where he has been raises. The culture, practices and traditions of the people in the place will partake in other's judgement of the person who came from that place. Like, if his hometown was a place known for its various sports, then the others would expect that he would at least excel in one or two of those sports. Likewise, if his parents are of noble origins, he is expected to be of excellent disposition. Even on this day, people are very careful not to bring shame on their family names. Sometimes, an adult relative of your friend will also mention that your this or that person's son or daughter. Well, the parents have lived for some good period of time, made acquaintances with several people and made themselves distinguished in one way or another...at least as compared to their off-springs.

It was also a bit evident how hospitable people were during those era. They will invite strangers into their houses and feed them before they get to know anything from these people. In this day, that very act was like asking to be doomed for it was very dangerous. Strangers are only being fed during festival celebrations, which is a tradition that has been dying as the years passed. In that age, however, I guess that their beliefs of gods were more powerful than anything and being kind to strangers is upon the will of their gods. They also believed that their gods take on the form of a mortal human and be among the human crowds to see who do excellent deeds and mischief among their fellows.

I was thinking that The Odyssey is another feminist story. In the olden times, I believe that male dominates female over almost everything. In the story however, there were some female characters who have shown dominance over males. Minerva and Penelope are some of the major female supporting characters in the story. It was also mentioned several times in the story that the cause of the war in Troy was Helen - the main story should be contained in Iliad.

Minerva, a goddess endowed with immortal beauty and magnificent powers is the main character to come to Ulysses's help. Her power and status is not as great as his father's, Jupiter, and uncle's, Neptune. There was even a part in the story where Minerva admitted that she is afraid of Neptune's anger. She had helped Ulysses to return to his hometown despite many misfortunes he had encountered. There were parts in the story were Minerva had shown her powers by changing Ulysses looks to deceive those around him or to make those around him treat him with more respect. Minerva also took forms of humans in order to come to both Ulysses's and Telemachus's aides, as well as to Penelope's. Although in the end, she still revealed herself as a goddess.

Penelope, Ulysses's wife, had gathered several suitors even though it was against her will. It was obvious how fair of a woman she was just by seeing the number of men who have come to take her for marriage. Her cleverness has been shown by her idea of making a needlework for Ulysses's father and that she will choose a man to marry after she finishes it. It was her trick to deceive the suitors since she undo her stitches every night. It was later discovered by the suitors through her maids that have fallen prey to them. Then, during a celebration when Ulysses, in disguise of an old man, return, she had come up with an idea of having an archery competition and that the winner will be chosen as the one she will marry. The suitors had a dreadful end in Ulysses's hand though.

There was also Nausicaa, a princess in the country of the Phaeacians, whose people had escorted Ulysses back to his homeland, Ithaca. I would say that his meeting with Nausicaa was the end of his misfortunes. It was Nausicaa who gave him the idea to ask his Father and Mother for help in sending him back to his country. It was through her that Ulysses managed to see his homeland again.

"Still, death is certain and when a man's hour came, not even the gods can help him no matter how fond they are of him."

This was the line that I like throughout the entire reading. Perhaps it was the only part that I remembered. It was mentioned by Minerva while on her disguised as a mortal.

Trapped in a Kaleidoscope

I want to keep the words to myself. I am not trying not to hurt anyone, since pain is a proof of reality. I don't know why but it seems like a big deal to me when two of my acquaintances broke off their relationship. I was never deeply involved in their romantic affairs. I was merely an audience to a real-time movie.

I just read a blog-entry of a guy friend about his thoughts and feelings on their break-up. I like how he writes such words full of emotions. He must have thought about their relationship over and over again. I knew they were in love with each other, and I knew that he loved her.

I didn't really wanted to ask him about it for it was like rekindling the pain. Moreover, he must have been asked by several people now and he just had to tell it over and over again since he's in a faraway country. So, I asked another friend who was staying with him. He simply provided me with the general idea of what happened. That was enough, I need not know every details.

For me, it all started when I saw the change in his relationship status in a social media. The girl broke up with him with vague reasons. I knew that much, rather it was like a given should they parted ways. She's a good girl and I like her too but I simply know that he was more in love than she does. I don't know what really happened to her but I could guess some trivial reasons. There were several things affecting a long distance relationship, after all.

I wanted to comfort him since he is a friend. I just can't do it when I was the one who broke up with my boyfriend a long time ago. Indeed, I am still running away from it. Then, I read his blog entry. I suddenly felt like I was trapped in a kaleidoscope of time. Years have passed since it happened but I just can't forget. I always think of the times we shared together. There were lots of them but they were no longer chronologically arranged. I had forgotten the feelings I had during those times. It was only like watching an old-school film in black and white - no sounds, no colors, just plain images. At least I knew that I loved him.

Should I interact with him at this time, will I be seeing how my ex-boyfriend was like when I broke up with him? That is what I am hesitating about. I wanted to know and yet I don't want to. I am burdening myself unnecessarily. All along, I had thought that I have given up on him and that I no longer wanted to be with him. It seems like I was only trying to make myself believe that. I can feel some prickly pain in my heart now. I loved the warmth of our relationship and I am longing for that.

I am still running away. I am still denying and lying to myself. But, I already gave up on us.

LVELJ.C05 (06.10.2012)