2015-11-15

The Old Man and The Sea, Earnest Hemingway, Goodreads Book Review

The Old Man and the SeaThe Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Personally, I don't like any idea based on nihilism, since it goes against my motivation toward the life. However, the old man and the sea is totally different. Even though Hemingway treated the life as nothing left after all, I could find more than nihilism.
As I know, he won both Pulitzer prize and the Nobel prize, which I actually have the strong desire for, with this small volume of the story. It well indicates about the life and human's basic instinct for the life and accomplishment. Although the old man couldn't get anything from the sea because of the fights with sharks, he still had a boy next to him.
We are always struggling to fight against the life and the obstacle blocking out ways, and after the long fight, it seemed that we have nothing left with. But in fact, we have any kind of relationship still keeping us from giving up the lives and letting us rest with peace.

+plus: 2015.11.15
Recently, all of sudden, I've thought that our lives are more like the marlin rather than the old man who fought against the nature to get what he desired for. Sometimes, we were just hooked and dragged to where the society takes us to be and believed that that is the reality, even though it is not. At the end of the journey, there might be nothing left who did dot live their own lives and lived fiercely in the way that the old man let it be.

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Get ready for the next battle?


When I decided to go buying some books at the book store, the phrase "get ready for the next battle?" the video game Taekyeon saying was stuck right in my mind and kept repeating it over and over again. This winter must be the period for the next stage coming in the upcoming spring, which I should prepare for. 

The life has been wild since the last posting. Actually it was not super wild, but still wild enough for me to survive, I think. I experienced the death, which gave me the time to think of what the life is, and affection, which made people feel the love inside the relationship. However, here I am, I am here to write the story of my life again. It might be my English problem, in my totally personal opinion, because I always felt the pressure to write the longer posting with the sufficient contents on my life thinking, which resisted me to write any type of blog posting. 

I am listening to Adele at 4.40 in the morning. With the full of sentimentality, I also again, once again, decided to write the blog posting as many as possible to enhance my writing skill, to record and track the thought and time of mine, and to share it with random unknown people who might get some positive energy through reading my stories. Well, my stories could be really ridiculous and weird, but I think it could be more precious than anything to me, because it is from the heaven. Thank God. 

2015-09-26

The success is the greatest revenge.


 
 
This video of John Carpenter solving the last question to be the millionarie and becoming the first winner of the quiz show is my favorite moment of the history. Especially the part that he called his father to tell that he would be the millionarire was the best. I am not sure that the story about his childhood that I heard was whether true or not, but it totally inspires me for the time I fell down.

Here in the world, in the relationship with others, I could not avoid getting wounds no matter how hard I tried not to be sensitive about the words and behaviors they've done. At the younger age, I've thought of so many revenges against the people who hurt me, but once in the period of growing up, the idea saying I should not be under what others said and did and never let them destroy the happiness of mine came right in the middle of the mind. I was really weak and easily get influenced by the environments and what people talked about me, but I learned that what others think and talk about me is nothing. Some are from the jealousy and others from the envious heart. The only duty that I have is to live my own life well enough not to leave the regret behind.

And the success is the greatest revenge. The sucess means not only well-living, but also the great fortune to let them know. To get the moment of the revenge, focus on the aim and life.

Stop delaying the tasks, finish the work you started and move onto the next stage.

 

Since today for the next four days, Korean thanksgiving break has been started, and I planned several things though my laziness might resist me from the end line.

1. Finish the final draft of the writing from the spring.
2. Read four books shown in the picture.
3. Start writing the Korean novel for the annual spring literary contest.

Last night, I read the webtoon, Korean cartoons published serially on line, and the main theme was about the motivation and action. I always try to do something, but don't have the energy to push through the ending line, which made me discouraged and later blamed on other factors. Now soon I be 25 years old and don't have time to waste anymore. Before becoming 25, I would like to finish things I've started in the previous year.

2015-09-25

War is not the easy word to play around.


This book never let me get bored with short chapters and speedy development of the story. At first, I thought that Pete was a child with no consideration for his loving grandfather; however, being in his shoes at the age of ten-ish, the loving room-the own shelter-might mean more than the place to sleep. I really love that part when grandpa started his revenge and played around with him. Sometimes, grown-up men try to treat kids as they treated each other, but to let them learn about their behavior and life, they have to treat them as a little kid. Through experience, they will learn what is wrong and right. I believe because grandpa played the "war" with Pete, Pete got the change to think of the process of the war and what the meaning of the war is.

"Growing up, Pete," he said, "it isn't easy. Sometimes you have to do things you don't like." p.25

I totally sympathize with the phrase, but made me little sad. Grown-up meant more than "adult." They have to bear so many things that either they earned or not. By getting a year older, the society put one more responsibility and duty on the shoulders. It came as other forms and reasons, such as "for the loving one" or "for a living." However, sometimes, it became too heavy to tolerate that weight alone. 

"Maybe this is how wars get started and just go on and on," I said. "Your enemy does something bad to you, so you do something worse to him. Then he gets you back and you get him back and the whole thing gets bigger and bigger and meaner and meaner and in the end someone drops a bomb. Isn't that the way it happens?" p. 127

Generation who didn't experience the war thinks too easily about the war. The war is not the simple progress to get what we want, but the very complicated and dreadful wasting time on the desire of the power. Everything starts small, but grew bigger and bigger. Sometimes later, it became too massive to end it. The best example could be the world war 1 and 2. In my opinion, the World War 2 directly showed the disaster of the war. Through bloody fight, I bet some got the "historical" and "national" benefit, but there were too many victims who died and injured, not only because in the battlefield, but also captivated for the sexual slavery, the living-body test, and forced labor. War is not the easy word to play around. 

"How you shouldn't always do what your friends tell you to do. They're not living your life, you are. And you have to decide what's right or wrong." p.136

The War with Grandpa, Robert Kimmel Smith

2015-09-23

Reading books in the library is the great memory of youth.


"I knew you would love reading if only you would give it a try." p. 46
It is the storytelling book about the library, fun and easy to read. It is not a book about the impressive saying, but about the ordinary life that I could experience when I was young. Author might want to give the positive image of library and reading, and I believed that it actually works. 

Because of my father, I had the great memories at the library, although I can't remember any librarian like Murphy. With the book, again I thought about the library and the time at the library reading books, and now I am working at English library although it is not the typical library that you might know. At first, I decided to work here because of many English books I can read. In Korea, English books cost much more than in America, of course, and I couldn't afford the price of books I read. Working here was the great opportunity for me to read as many English books as available with the improvement of English grammar. 

Well, the story was delightful and I don't really have anything to say. For kids, a good book to read. 

The Legend of Spud Murphy, Eoin Colfer