Sculpted Sentences

"The Christian believes that in Christ he has died, yet he is more alive than before and he fully expects to live forever. He walks on earth while seated in heaven and though born on earth he finds that after his conversion he is not at home here. Like the night-hawk, which in the air is the essence of grace and beauty but on the ground is awkward and ugly, so the Christian appears at his best in the heavenly places but does not fit well into the ways of the very society into which he was born.

The Christian soon learns that if he would be victorious as a son of heaven among men on earth he must not follow the common pattern of mankind, but rather the contrary. That he may be safe he puts himself in jeopardy; he loses his life to save it and is in danger of losing it if he attempts to preserve it. He goes down to get up. If he refuses to go down he is already down, but when he starts down he is on his way up.


He is strongest when he is weakest and weakest when he is strong. Though poor he has the power to make others rich, but when he becomes rich his ability to enrich others vanishes. He has most after he has given most away and has least when he possesses most.

He may be and often is highest when he feels lowest and most sinless when he is most conscious of sin. He is wisest when he knows that he knows not and knows least when he has acquired the greatest amount of knowledge. He sometimes does most by doing nothing and goes furthest when standing still. In heaviness he manages to rejoice and keeps his heart glad even in sorrow."


(A.W. Tozer; That Incredible Christian)

Journey Begins.

I have undertaken the massive challenge of reading J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and admittedly, after three separate readings at a necessarily-slow pace, I have just finished the prologue which tells the back-story of Hobbits and Bilbo being in possession of the ring. It almost feels like a milestone reaching Chapter 1 and having this page in front of me definitely sparked some excitement of being led on a journey by Tolkien. 

On a sidenote, I watched Clue (1985) today and it was a great movie! It's a film featuring Tim Curry, the most popular actor I know in the cast, based on the crime/mystery board-game 'Cluedo', by the Parker Brothers. I really did not expect it to be so hilarious and well scripted. Absolutely loved the humour attached with the movie and will probably be on the look out for it when I'm next in JB Hi-Fi to buy a copy of it.

Salinger's Catcher

The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger

The Catcher in the Rye was quite an enjoyable read. For all who are fearful of extremely long reads, this one is quite a short one and is packed full with reasons why it is a classic. I know this was a Year 11 high school text in the English syllabus but I never did mainstream English so, here I am ticking a must-read off my list.


Much like Franklin's My Brilliant Career, I absolutely hated the narrator of TCR, Holden Caulfield. The consistently pre-assumed judgements he makes on people are ridiculously irritating despite how it makes reading the book so much quicker. After reading several analyses on this novel, I've concluded that Salinger's attempt at dealing with youth relations and issues are quite exaggerated and dramatic. That being said, a normal teenager's life would probably be too mundane to base a novel on. 


Salinger's use of stream of consciousness is extremely effective in this novel. As the novel is written in first person, it is debatable as to how reliable Caulfield is as a narrator. His biased perspectives on people and self-proclaimed 'better person' makes it difficult for me to sympathise with him being kicked out of Pencey. He claims others are such phonies, and that he but in saying so, reflects the exact image upon himself. Using this narrative technique is extremely clever of Salinger in highlighting the flaws and issues Caulfield is struggling with as he deals with aging and the events in his life. 


Despite how much I disliked Caulfield however, I did thoroughly enjoy the novel as a whole. It  was engaging and the plot developed in a slow and steady manner, just how I like it. Sometimes I feel a clear climax is too unrealistic, which is why I suppose I am drawn towards longer reads or slower-paced novels. But that is just sometimes. 


There's a part in the novel I thoroughly enjoyed reading and I thought I would share it with you readers. Allie is Holden's brother and he is someone I feel who brings Holden back to his senses a little even though he has passed away. 


"When the weather's nice, my parents go out quite frequently and stick a bunch of flowers on old Allie's grave. I went with them a couple of times, but I cut it out. In the first place, I certainly don't enjoy seeing him in that crazy cemetery. Surrounded by dead guys and tombstones and all. It wasn't too bad when the sun was out, but twice- twice- we were there when it started to rain. It was awful. It rained on his lousy tombstone, and it rained on the grass on his stomach. It rained all over the place. All the visitors that were visiting the cemetery started running like hell over to their cars. That's what nearly drove me crazy. All the visitors could get in their cars and turn on the radios and all and then go someplace nice for dinner- everybody except Allie."


Caulfield talks a fair bit about what drives him crazy throughout the novel, but when I read that, I felt his anger and the significance of his frustration. And after that, I didn't put down the novel until I got to the end.

The Dalloway

Mrs Dalloway - Virginia Woolf

This one's a classic. When I first mustered up enough courage to start buying books off Book Depository, I spent a good amount of time looking at Top 100 lists, books we must read before we die and all that jazz. Woolf's novel made it to at least 80% of the sheer amount of lists I looked at. So I decided I would get around to reading it and I did! (pat on the back for myself)


The novel follows the progression of a day in the eyes of two characters, Clarissa Dalloway and Peter Walsh. It really is quite ingenious the way the novel's been written in terms of its narration. The 'stream of consciousness' technique is frustrating to read but at the same time, so personal it's quite frightening. As a reader, often we take things for granted and simply understand the perspective of the narrator and accredit it for what he/she is worth. However, sometimes narrators aren't always as nice as we perceive them to be (I am reading The Catcher in the Rye at the moment, and I assure you, Holden Caulfield is a terrible narrator). 


What I really do enjoy reading in this text is the discovery of both narrators from each other. Peter reveals something about Clarissa from long ago and likewise. It's so biased, but yet, so honest. You just really don't know who to believe- does Clarissa really have issues? Can she not hold parties simply because she likes it? Must there always be an insecurity interpreted through her actions? It's really quite mind-provoking. 


From the get-go, I was so curious to know who Clarissa's husband was, and to find that he was a 'safe' man to marry, it was quite disappointing. But that's how it always is, isn't it? She picks the 'safe' choice over the man she should have married. I entitled my little review as 'The Dalloway' because Clarissa in the end, adopted his name and married him- and it ultimately is a choice she made, regardless of her feeling that she lacked the choice. Oh, the irony!


For a short book of less than 150 pages, I did however find it a bit tiresome to read somewhere in the middle but one must persevere and it was totally worth it. In page 42 of my edition, I stumbled upon one of the most satisfying passages I'll ever read. It's the words used and the rising-and-falling of the phrases which really leave me just in awe, comprehending what I've just read.


"Nothing exists outside us except a state of mind, he thinks; a desire for solace, for relief, for something outside these miserable pigmies, these feeble, these ugly, these craven men and women. But if he can conceive of her, then in some sort she exists, he thinks, and advancing down the path with his eyes upon sky and branches he rapidly endows them with womanhood; sees with amazement how grave they become; how majestically, as breeze stirs them, they dispense with a dark flutter of the leaves charity, comprehension, absolution, and then, flinging themselves suddenly aloft, confound the piety of their aspect with a wild carouse." (p.41)


Mind-blown.


[On a sidenote, I received two Hemingway and Dostoevsky novels in the mail today! I'm excited!]

Book Issue

To keep you up to date with the books that are going through my life right now, I finished More Than A Carpenter by Josh and Sean McDowell about a week ago and The Monkey Mask by Dorothy Porter yesterday. Having insufficient time, I am still going through Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf but I promise I will finish it soon; I'm a third way there. I started reading A.W.Tozer's The Pursuit of God two days ago and am already inspired by it as I finished the first chapter yesterday morning. 


To take advantage of BookDep's last few days of an extra 10% off, I got my hands on five more books (it's a problem, I know):
- A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
- The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky 
- For Whom The Bells Toll by Ernest Hemingway
- The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
- The Best Short Stories of Edgar Allan Poe 


I think when I finish Tozer's book, I'll start reading Counterfeit Gods by Timothy Keller and I'll launch into The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger after Woolf. 


Mid-year readings will include:
- Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
- The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien 
- Ulysses by James Joyce

Juan's Diary

Diary of a Bad Year - J.M. Coetzee

Out of all the books I've read so far this semester, I think Coetzee's really hits the spot for me. When you first pick up the book and flick through it, you'll immediately realise that the structure of the book is quite different as most pages are split into two or three parts. Coetzee's clever but foreign use of two (and later on, three) simultaneous narratives is initially difficult to read but in my opinion, reflects identically the reality of life, which then makes it worth the difficulty. The reality is, everyone's interpreting the events in their lives through their own perspectives without knowing the thoughts of others unless consulted, and Coetzee's technique really accentuates this.

The novel is split into two sections, Strong Opinions and Second Diary. Strong Opinions are a collection of thoughts which the main character, J.C. or Juan, an aging intellect of great credentials, has written to be sent to a German editor for publication. The Second Diary however, are simply "soft opinions" in the words of the female protagonist, a Filipina woman named Anya. The latter part of the book are essentially thoughts which didn't make it into the publication. What is interesting through this structure is we see Juan develop through the three different narratives within the two sections; firstly, through his gradually altered undertones in his 'official' submissions for publishing (which leads him to write his 'Second Diary'), his own personal reflections on how he views himself and also how he views others, and Anya's understanding of their interactions.

There is no real 'strategy' to reading this novel despite its complicated structure. Personally, I read each narrative on each page at a time until the sentence was completed, which sometimes meant having to go over the page. Then, I would go back and read the second narrative and so on. However, other times, I would be so engaged in what is written that I'd stick to the narrative until the end of the 'opinion'. If there's a humble advice I could give to any interested readers, don't be bogged down by the unfamiliarity, don't go by a strict rule, just go with it.

The 'opinion' I personally enjoyed the most would have to be 'On the Afterlife', the only opinion which did not have two or three narratives, but simply Juan's submission. It is also the last opinion in the first section of the book, which I feel ties 'Strong Opinions' and 'Second Diary' together neatly. It is the most human writing of it all, as Juan poses all these questions which he cannot answer to himself- questions about life and death. 

"Will those who loved many enjoy a richer afterlife than those who loved few; or will our loved ones be defined as those we loved on our last day on earth, and them alone? In the latter case, will those of us who spent our last day in pain and terror and loneliness without the luxury of loving or being loved faced eternal solitude?" (p.153)

What beautifully crafted sentences; so dense but yet, so raw. And that, I feel is the satisfaction of reading this novel- that readers are privileged to see a cold, unemotional old man reveal his humanity by the end of the novel; fearing and having doubts over his life, like you and I.


For me, dear reader, I once feared the same things as J.C. but now fear no more. For I know, that when I pass this world, eternity has just begun and each day will be better than the past.

Challenge Accepted

The great thing about buying things online is that they don't come all together and what happens is you end up with a series of joyful days with surprise gifts! It's like your birthday for five days in a row!


Two packages came in today- one from Koorong and one from Book Depository, both purchased with discounts (self-satisfied). 'Invisible Man' was SURPRISINGLY THICK which definitely took me by surprise, but considering the number of people in this internet-sphere who have said it was amazing, I shall challenge myself to read this along with LOTR I and the many other books I have. I shall aim to have 3 non-Christian novels read and 3 Christian books read. Challenge accepted.

I've already started listening to this because I unpacked it and chucked it into the car almost immediately on the way to uni today. Loving the EP look of the album but also, just the roadtrip feel NeedtoBreathe gives through their music. Maybe I'll even do an album review soon!

Catching the bus home always gives me time to think. Will share on today's thoughts sometime this week. 

Pause Day

Yay for packages!


Some things came in the mail yesterday but I was too tired to check so MD left them in my room this morning.

I am rather intimidated by the thickness of this. I knew it would be thick but that's just a whole new level of thickness. I could probably kill someone with it. But that's okay, I can make use of my 6-week mid-year break and hopefully come out victorious. 


Challenge Accepted.

I shared with a friend of how excited I get when I rip CDs into my iTunes. It is really a thrill to see my CD collection slowly grow. No regrets there. Loving the tunes at the moment! Of course there are songs in the album which are perhaps rather, 'eh' but it's okay, because it came with several others which I didn't expect to like but really did enjoy!


ANZAC Day to everyone means something different. A mid-week break is really quite a reward and have been using it to catch up on several things as you can see below.

Unfortunately, hanging out with friends today is rather impossible seeing I have ticked only half of "ATS2691 reading and oral presentation" and "Masterplan Qs"- I have done the readings but no questions nor preparation for the oral presentation as of now. Still yet to do a review on The First Stone by Helen Garner and Diary of a Bad Year by J.M. Coetzee but I definitely recommend Coetzee's for now!

Audience Participation

My biological clock is failing me today. It is 0109 and I am not exactly as exhausted as I would be. But it has been a good day- I have learnt much and loved many.


As another week passes, another book review will come soon. I have two lined up which I am really quite excited to share with you. I have also ordered Passion 2012: White Flag, Every Falling Tear by Matt Hammitt and And If Our God is For Us by Chris Tomlin so perhaps an album review will be up soon too! My copy of NEEDTOBREATHE's The Outsiders came the other day and have been listening to it on loop. WORD Bookstore has a sale at the moment on all Music, which means NEEDTOBREATHE's The Reckoning and Matt Redman's 10000 Reasons would be on sale too. But, I shall be patient and wait it out for awhile longer.


In the book-shopping arena, I have challenged myself by buying Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring. I am disallowing myself from buying the 2nd and 3rd until I have finished the 1st. Also in the same cart was Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, Ulysses by James Joyce and Grimms' Fairy Tales by George Cruishank and the Grimm brothers. I am rather nervous in buying the GFT but I think as long as I read it in broad daylight, I should be okay. [I'm not trembling] 


So if you would like to find out how the album/novel is going- pop me a comment!


Meanwhile, here's a song that pulled me through the difficult night.

Grossmith's Nobody

The Diary of a Nobody - George & Weedon Grossmith

The blurb at the back of the copy I have is correct in saying that the novel is a "source of delight" and George Grossmith was probably "unaware that he had produced a masterpiece". A very easy read of 168 pages, The Diary of a Nobody makes me smile every time I pick it up and flip through a page at a time.


The book is essentially as the title suggests, the entries of a diary belonging to a man called Charlie Pooter; no one famous, special, especially unique or different. If anything, he is what I imagine mediocrity and 'normality' to be. Pooter made me laugh with his silly puns and statements but what is great about the novel is just how relatable it all is; the settings, the characters, the events and the emotions. 


I could be artsy-fartsy and analyse the themes and the book being a microcosm of society's middle-class but that's perhaps a bit insane, so I'm going to be normal, and say I liked the book.


It being a Wordsworth copy also made me happy because it looked nice. 


Do I recommend it? Yes
Would I read it again? Probably
Out of Five? Four

Gleeful Smiles

So happy to see that Book Depository still keeps their cardboard boxes for packaging!

Miles Franklin

I thought I ought to make use of the Oz-Lit subject I am currently undertaking this semester and review the many books I am going to read over the course of 8-9 weeks. 

My Brilliant Career - Miles Franklin
Firstly, I thought Miles Franklin was a man, just like how I thought Christos Tsiolkas was a woman. I really am terrible at guessing genders. 
[finished assignment 1]

I'm not going to lie, the cover of the book really bugged me. I couldn't understand why the cover looked so oriental to me but had a Caucasian girl looking confused in what looked like an Asian top to me. But the book did get to me. It was slow to begin but when my mind opened up to it and wasn't as cynical about it anymore, I could not put it down. I needed to know what happened to Sybylla Melvyn, the protagonist and I needed to know who this mysterious Harold Beecham was. I liked how each chapter was at most, five pages which made it easy for me to track my reading progress because I hate ending my readings in between chapters or pages. I finished it off with a final reading of approx. 4 hours. 

I must have missed the memo on Miles Franklin being a feminist and with that, the novel did not end conventionally as I wished. There was little resolution and again, embedded meanings within texts. Hence why it is in my Oz-Lit syllabus. That being said, despite the ending being different, I really do appreciate the skill invested into this text.


The character of Sybylla was frustrating but also captivating. Her naive and unconventional thoughts irritated me to the ends of the earth but her strong-headed personality in standing up for what she believed in proved courageous and enlightening to me. Again, I'm going to be honest in saying that I was so surprised by the significant growth of Sybylla as a character that I feel almost inspired to write a novel even though discovering this technique isn't exactly a pot of gold. Rather addictive, I feel.


Do I recommend it? Yes
Would I read it again? No
Out of Five? Three point Five

Guilty Pleasures

Shopping Investments

Pay day usually means a few things:
1. ASOS
2. Work clothes
3. Food splurges


However, I have realigned and redistributed my moolah this fortnight focusing on building my growing collection of novels and old DVDs. At the moment, my bookshelf is very Christian/Australian Literature/Classic Literature-esque and hopefully by the end of this year, I will have my own Christian Literature section and a larger Classic Literature collection. I am scouting books on BookDepository already and in my Wish List are among many else, Madame Bovary, Don Quixote, Ulysses and To Kill A Mockingbird (I've read it before but I seem to have lost my copy!). I've spent a good hour just window-shopping on BookDep. and I'm really excited to tick off books that I will buy soon. Something about lists.



In terms of DVDs, I've got some of my two eyes watching eBay for some bargains.

Okay, I bought the Singin' in the Rain DVD already.