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3.86 AVERAGE
3.86 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
really loved this book, a good take on mental health, sucide, and paranoid behavior, the characters were believable and u could feel what they were thinking, was a really easy read,
Call me uncultured, but this was almost torturous to finish. I didn't find the book very engaging. Because of the many awards this book has received and how acclaimed the author is, I am going to leave it at that. But I didn't get it. Good storyline. Overwrought prose.
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
sad
slow-paced
I decided to read this because friends had read it at school so I figured that it must be an important piece of literature. The Great American Novel... or something.
So basically... it was a story about a misogynistic guy who spent the entire book trying to get his end away, who just happened to also want to do so with a deeply broken woman who was in an horrifically abusive relationship with a very unwell other guy.
Although the book does give insight into the horror of the Holocaust in Poland, I wonder whether it would have been a far better book if the narrator hadn't included so much of his own literal and psychological wank.
Sure, it made me look into some areas of the war that I hadn't previously examined, and made me question what I would do, should I find myself in a similar situation as Sophie... but again, the small sections of Sophie's story were the only parts that did this, the rest was the narrator's tedious grapplings with his unfulfilled sexual ideation (which disturbingly included some paedophilic references) and occasional bursts of anti-Semitism.
Overall, not a great book by any means, and I have no idea why it would be considered as appropriate for 16 year old students to study... but maybe that's why I'm not an English teacher...
So basically... it was a story about a misogynistic guy who spent the entire book trying to get his end away, who just happened to also want to do so with a deeply broken woman who was in an horrifically abusive relationship with a very unwell other guy.
Although the book does give insight into the horror of the Holocaust in Poland, I wonder whether it would have been a far better book if the narrator hadn't included so much of his own literal and psychological wank.
Sure, it made me look into some areas of the war that I hadn't previously examined, and made me question what I would do, should I find myself in a similar situation as Sophie... but again, the small sections of Sophie's story were the only parts that did this, the rest was the narrator's tedious grapplings with his unfulfilled sexual ideation (which disturbingly included some paedophilic references) and occasional bursts of anti-Semitism.
Overall, not a great book by any means, and I have no idea why it would be considered as appropriate for 16 year old students to study... but maybe that's why I'm not an English teacher...
Not at all what I thought it would be. Stingo is a great character. Loved spending time with him. His emotions and decisions felt real and true. Still pondering the parallels between Holocaust and American slavery. "Where was man?" Brave to have the two main characters not be Jewish. I suppose it speaks to the universality of it. And interesting how the patron of his writing was a slave of his own family.
Confess to skipping a section of this book due to trying to finish it for book club. Found the construction of this book odd and it was way too wordy. Could have been half the length.
Considering that I thought I would be reading a story about holocaust and WW2, it differs from every war book that I read before. Not saying it's bad, but I was not invested until the middle of the book.
The Polish immigrant Sophie is struck by an Emily Dickinson poem read by the teacher one evening in her English language class:
“Ample make this Bed –
Make this Bed with Awe –
In it wait till Judgment break
Excellent and Fair.
Be its Mattress straight –
Be its Pillow round –
Let no Sunrise’ yellow noise
Interrupt this Ground –"
Meryl Streep won an Oscar (Best Actress) for her portrayal of the Polish immigrant Zofia Zawistowski in the 1982 adaptation of William Styron’s novel “Sophie’s Choice” (1979). Alan J. Pakula wrote the screenplay and directed the film, but he doesn’t get much respect from film critic Leonard Maltin who gives this movie only 2.5 stars saying of Streep: “her stunning characterization cannot carry the film alone.” I have to disagree. Kevin Kline also gives a notable performance as Nathan Landau, the supposed research biologist who rescues Sophie when she faints in the New York public library after an officious, mean-spirited library clerk dismissively tells her there is no such American poet named “Emily Dickens.” Sophie is rescued by Nathan who takes her to his boarding house room where he nurses her back to health, curing her anemia with meals of leeks and calf liver. Stingo (Peter MacNicol) is the story’s narrator, a young aspiring writer from the South who has taken a room downstairs in the same boarding house in Brooklyn and is befriended by Nathan and Sophie. Stingo is captivated by the flamboyant Nathan and beautiful but mysterious Sophie. Nathan is possessed by erratic bouts of insane jealousy that seem inexplicable, until we find that he is a paranoid schizophrenic. Stingo knows Sophie has a horrible past because he has noticed the number tattooed on her forearm as well as the scars on her wrists. Her devastating story comes out in harrowing flashbacks as she relates her past bit by bit over time to Stingo. She was a prisoner at Auschwitz but survived and was taken to a refugee camp in Sweden where she tried to kill herself by slitting her wrists. You’ll have to read the novel (highly recommended) or see the movie (ditto) to find out the meaning of the title. If you don’t like depressing stories, you better stay away from this one. But, if you want to force yourself to confront the horrible reality of what the Nazis did to 6 million Jews and other innocent victims, then this is a great book to read and movie to watch. As far as the movie goes, Meryl Streep was not only beautiful but the Polish accent she adopted for the film has to be heard to be believed. Also, don’t look for any happy ending – Nathan and Sophie are a doomed couple: “Ample make this Bed – Let no Sunrise’ yellow noise interrupt this Ground –
“Ample make this Bed –
Make this Bed with Awe –
In it wait till Judgment break
Excellent and Fair.
Be its Mattress straight –
Be its Pillow round –
Let no Sunrise’ yellow noise
Interrupt this Ground –"
Meryl Streep won an Oscar (Best Actress) for her portrayal of the Polish immigrant Zofia Zawistowski in the 1982 adaptation of William Styron’s novel “Sophie’s Choice” (1979). Alan J. Pakula wrote the screenplay and directed the film, but he doesn’t get much respect from film critic Leonard Maltin who gives this movie only 2.5 stars saying of Streep: “her stunning characterization cannot carry the film alone.” I have to disagree. Kevin Kline also gives a notable performance as Nathan Landau, the supposed research biologist who rescues Sophie when she faints in the New York public library after an officious, mean-spirited library clerk dismissively tells her there is no such American poet named “Emily Dickens.” Sophie is rescued by Nathan who takes her to his boarding house room where he nurses her back to health, curing her anemia with meals of leeks and calf liver. Stingo (Peter MacNicol) is the story’s narrator, a young aspiring writer from the South who has taken a room downstairs in the same boarding house in Brooklyn and is befriended by Nathan and Sophie. Stingo is captivated by the flamboyant Nathan and beautiful but mysterious Sophie. Nathan is possessed by erratic bouts of insane jealousy that seem inexplicable, until we find that he is a paranoid schizophrenic. Stingo knows Sophie has a horrible past because he has noticed the number tattooed on her forearm as well as the scars on her wrists. Her devastating story comes out in harrowing flashbacks as she relates her past bit by bit over time to Stingo. She was a prisoner at Auschwitz but survived and was taken to a refugee camp in Sweden where she tried to kill herself by slitting her wrists. You’ll have to read the novel (highly recommended) or see the movie (ditto) to find out the meaning of the title. If you don’t like depressing stories, you better stay away from this one. But, if you want to force yourself to confront the horrible reality of what the Nazis did to 6 million Jews and other innocent victims, then this is a great book to read and movie to watch. As far as the movie goes, Meryl Streep was not only beautiful but the Polish accent she adopted for the film has to be heard to be believed. Also, don’t look for any happy ending – Nathan and Sophie are a doomed couple: “Ample make this Bed – Let no Sunrise’ yellow noise interrupt this Ground –