Take a photo of a barcode or cover
olddeuteronomy 's review for:
The Story of My Life
by Helen Keller
This was an amazing book!
I didn't finish the "letters" part of the book, but the memoir part was so beautifully written. I absolutely love Helen Keller's writing voice and it blows my mind that she is able to illustrate her stories with such vivid detail while also being blind and deaf. I've read some reviews saying that they wish she had written more on what her life was like before she learned how to communicate language. I get that, but it's also important to keep in mind that she was six years old (I don't personally remember much from before I was 6) and from what I read, it seems like she just doesn't remember most of it, except that it put her in a really dark mental headspace. She nevertheless told anecdotes from her parents' recollection of how she behaved, just not a lot about the inner workings of her mind like many people were expecting.I really want to read "How I Became A Socialist"[b:How I became a Socialist?: Helen Keller's Articles|29841540|How I became a Socialist? Helen Keller's Articles|Helen Keller|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|50201479] and learn more about her work as an activist for people with disabilities, birth control, etc.
Some of my favorite quotes:
-"Then, in the dreary month of February, came the illness which closed my eyes and ears and plunged me into the consciousness of a newborn baby" - 4
- The page where she talks about discovering what the meaning of love is made me so emotional:
"Is this not love?"..."it seemed to me that there could be nothing more beautiful than the sun, whose warmth makes all things grow"..." love is something like the clouds that were in the sky before the sun came out"..." you cannot touch the clouds, you know, but you feel the rain and know how glad the flowers and the thirsty earth are to have it after a hot day. You cannot touch love either; but you feel the sweetness that it pours into everything" - 20
-About Anne Sullivan:
"my teacher is so near to me that I scarcely think of myself apart from her. How much of my delight in all beautiful things is innate, and how much is due to her influence, I can never tell. I feel that her being is inseparable from my own and that the footsteps of my life are in hers. All the best of me belongs to her-there is not a talent, or an inspiration or a joy in me that has not awakened by her loving touch." - 27
-About American history:
"I was keenly surprised and disappointed years later to learn of (colonizers') acts of persecution that make us tingle with shame, even while we glory in the courage and energy that gave us our 'County Beautiful'" - 31
-About growing up and making mistakes:
"Up to the time of the Frost King episode, I had lived the unconscious life of a little child; now my thoughts were turned inward, and I beheld things invisible"
-About college
"The one I felt and still feel most is lack of time. I used to have time to think, to reflect, my mind and I. We would sit together of an evening and listen to the inner melodies of the spirit, which one hears only in leisure moments when the words of some loved poet touch a deep, sweet chord in the soul that until then had been silent. But in college there is no time to commune with one's thoughts. One goes to college to learn, it seems, not to think. When one enters the portals of learning, one leaves the dearest pleasures--solitude, books and imagination--outside with the whispering pines. I suppose I ought to find some comfort in the thought that I am laying up treasures for future enjoyment, but I am improvident enough to prefer present joy to hoarding riches against a rainy day.” - 69
-About Knowledge
“For, after all, every one 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 begin to see the widening horizon. Every struggle is a victory. One more effort and I reach the luminous cloud, the blue depths of the sky, the uplands of my desire.”..."Every struggle is a victory"- 71
-About reading books as a child/teen
"I did not study nor analyze them- I did not know whether they were all well written or not; I never thought about style or authorship. They laid their treasures at my feet, and I accepted them as we accept the sunshine and love of our friends" - 78
"Through all [of La Fontaine's]fables run the thought that a man's morality springs wholly from self-love and that if that self-love is directed and restrained by reason, happiness must follow. Now, so far as I can judge, self-love is the root of all evil"
"I know there are many things in Shakespeare, and in the world, that I do not understand; and I am glad to see veil after veil lift gradually, revealing new realms of thought and beauty" - 83
“Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disenfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourses of my book friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness.” - 85
-Friends
"Those are red-letter days in our lives when we meet people who thrill us like a fine poem, people whose handshake is brimful of unspoken sympathy, and whose sweet, rich natures impart to our eager, impatient spirits a wonderful restfulness which, in its essence, is divine. The perplexities, irritations and worries, that have absorbed us pass like unpleasant dreams, and we wake to see with new eyes and hear with new ears the beauty and harmony of God's real world." - 95
"I have met people so empty of joy, that when I clasped their frosty finger tips, it seemed as if I were shaking hands with a northeast storm. Others there are whose hands have sunbeams in them, so that their grasp warms my heart. It may be only the clinging touch of a child's hand; but there is as much potential sunshine in it for me as there is in a loving glance for others. A hearty handshake or a friendly letter gives me genuine pleasure."-96
-Love/Religion
"There is one universal religion, Helen—the religion of love. Love your Heavenly Father with your whole heart and soul, love every child of God as much as ever you can, and remember that the possibilities of good are greater than the possibilities of evil; and you have the key to Heaven.”- 96
I didn't finish the "letters" part of the book, but the memoir part was so beautifully written. I absolutely love Helen Keller's writing voice and it blows my mind that she is able to illustrate her stories with such vivid detail while also being blind and deaf. I've read some reviews saying that they wish she had written more on what her life was like before she learned how to communicate language. I get that, but it's also important to keep in mind that she was six years old (I don't personally remember much from before I was 6) and from what I read, it seems like she just doesn't remember most of it, except that it put her in a really dark mental headspace. She nevertheless told anecdotes from her parents' recollection of how she behaved, just not a lot about the inner workings of her mind like many people were expecting.I really want to read "How I Became A Socialist"[b:How I became a Socialist?: Helen Keller's Articles|29841540|How I became a Socialist? Helen Keller's Articles|Helen Keller|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|50201479] and learn more about her work as an activist for people with disabilities, birth control, etc.
Some of my favorite quotes:
-"Then, in the dreary month of February, came the illness which closed my eyes and ears and plunged me into the consciousness of a newborn baby" - 4
- The page where she talks about discovering what the meaning of love is made me so emotional:
"Is this not love?"..."it seemed to me that there could be nothing more beautiful than the sun, whose warmth makes all things grow"..." love is something like the clouds that were in the sky before the sun came out"..." you cannot touch the clouds, you know, but you feel the rain and know how glad the flowers and the thirsty earth are to have it after a hot day. You cannot touch love either; but you feel the sweetness that it pours into everything" - 20
-About Anne Sullivan:
"my teacher is so near to me that I scarcely think of myself apart from her. How much of my delight in all beautiful things is innate, and how much is due to her influence, I can never tell. I feel that her being is inseparable from my own and that the footsteps of my life are in hers. All the best of me belongs to her-there is not a talent, or an inspiration or a joy in me that has not awakened by her loving touch." - 27
-About American history:
"I was keenly surprised and disappointed years later to learn of (colonizers') acts of persecution that make us tingle with shame, even while we glory in the courage and energy that gave us our 'County Beautiful'" - 31
-About growing up and making mistakes:
"Up to the time of the Frost King episode, I had lived the unconscious life of a little child; now my thoughts were turned inward, and I beheld things invisible"
-About college
"The one I felt and still feel most is lack of time. I used to have time to think, to reflect, my mind and I. We would sit together of an evening and listen to the inner melodies of the spirit, which one hears only in leisure moments when the words of some loved poet touch a deep, sweet chord in the soul that until then had been silent. But in college there is no time to commune with one's thoughts. One goes to college to learn, it seems, not to think. When one enters the portals of learning, one leaves the dearest pleasures--solitude, books and imagination--outside with the whispering pines. I suppose I ought to find some comfort in the thought that I am laying up treasures for future enjoyment, but I am improvident enough to prefer present joy to hoarding riches against a rainy day.” - 69
-About Knowledge
“For, after all, every one 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 begin to see the widening horizon. Every struggle is a victory. One more effort and I reach the luminous cloud, the blue depths of the sky, the uplands of my desire.”..."Every struggle is a victory"- 71
-About reading books as a child/teen
"I did not study nor analyze them- I did not know whether they were all well written or not; I never thought about style or authorship. They laid their treasures at my feet, and I accepted them as we accept the sunshine and love of our friends" - 78
"Through all [of La Fontaine's]fables run the thought that a man's morality springs wholly from self-love and that if that self-love is directed and restrained by reason, happiness must follow. Now, so far as I can judge, self-love is the root of all evil"
"I know there are many things in Shakespeare, and in the world, that I do not understand; and I am glad to see veil after veil lift gradually, revealing new realms of thought and beauty" - 83
“Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disenfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourses of my book friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness.” - 85
-Friends
"Those are red-letter days in our lives when we meet people who thrill us like a fine poem, people whose handshake is brimful of unspoken sympathy, and whose sweet, rich natures impart to our eager, impatient spirits a wonderful restfulness which, in its essence, is divine. The perplexities, irritations and worries, that have absorbed us pass like unpleasant dreams, and we wake to see with new eyes and hear with new ears the beauty and harmony of God's real world." - 95
"I have met people so empty of joy, that when I clasped their frosty finger tips, it seemed as if I were shaking hands with a northeast storm. Others there are whose hands have sunbeams in them, so that their grasp warms my heart. It may be only the clinging touch of a child's hand; but there is as much potential sunshine in it for me as there is in a loving glance for others. A hearty handshake or a friendly letter gives me genuine pleasure."-96
-Love/Religion
"There is one universal religion, Helen—the religion of love. Love your Heavenly Father with your whole heart and soul, love every child of God as much as ever you can, and remember that the possibilities of good are greater than the possibilities of evil; and you have the key to Heaven.”- 96