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Lasairfiona
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 9718
Location: I have to be somewhere? ::runs around frantically::
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 Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2013 11:10 am Post subject: |
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| Samsally wrote: | | Lasairfiona wrote: | | I loathed The Giver. |
I'm just really excited I agree with you about literature on something. I suspect we probably hated it for different reasons, but yay anyway. |
I hated it because it copied other famous sci fi books, dumbed them down, and then marketed it to children. And then the ending just sucked. On top of that, I had already read it and decided I didn't like it when I was assigned to read it again in an English class some 3-4 years after I read it the first time (so I was soooo beyond that book by then it was extra insulting).
I think young adult books are _hard_ to write - one must retain the difficult concepts WITHOUT dumbing them down while composing the sentences at a lower reading level. This is one of the reasons The Hunger Games was so good - difficult, heart wrenching concepts written at a reading level accessible to younger groups.
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Before God created Las he pondered on all the aspects a woman might have, he considered which ones would look good super-inflated and which ones to leave alone.
After much deliberation he gave her a giant comfort zone. - Michael |
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Samsally
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 7534
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| Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2013 12:57 pm Post subject: |
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I mostly remember hating the ending with every fiber of my being. I couldn't figure out the point to it. Not only was the ending completely unsatisfying, but I didn't get the 'moral' or even if there was one.
Maybe that was my own failing, but it just left me feeling uncomfortable and unhappy. I didn't have to read it for a class, so I didn't probe much deeper than that.
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Mr_Moustache
Joined: 01 Oct 2006
Posts: 9137
Location: The thing in itself that is Will
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| Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2013 1:45 pm Post subject: |
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Heart wrenching concepts in the hunger games?
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When life gives you lemons, some people make lemonade. I just eat them and make a sour face. |
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Dogen
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 11274
Location: PDX
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| Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2013 2:11 pm Post subject: |
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| Samsally wrote: | I mostly remember hating the ending with every fiber of my being. I couldn't figure out the point to it. Not only was the ending completely unsatisfying, but I didn't get the 'moral' or even if there was one.
Maybe that was my own failing, but it just left me feeling uncomfortable and unhappy. I didn't have to read it for a class, so I didn't probe much deeper than that. |
I can't really explain it without giving away spoilers (not that anyone is going to read it after the pasting it's taken):
| Quote: | | The Community has "sameness," and as a result of the suppression of difference people have lost emotions, the ability to see color, and become numb and childlike. Jonas' flight from the Community is borne by his belief that the things they rejected are good, and that some of the things they now accept are wrong (like "releasing" [euthanizing] babies). He steals a baby about to be released and heads out for Elsewhere. The end is open-ended, and a lot of people hate it, but Jonas finds his new home where he can experience the breadth of human experience, and saves the baby Gabriel from death (first by release, then from starvation and cold). He triumphs over adversity, does what he thinks is right even though it goes against society, saves a life, and is rewarded by finding a place where the good things he longs for still exist. It's essentially the same end as the movie The Land Before Time. |
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"Worse comes to worst, my people come first, but my tribe lives on every country on earth. I’ll do anything to protect them from hurt, the human race is what I serve." - Baba Brinkman |
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Samsally
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 7534
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| Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2013 2:33 pm Post subject: |
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I'm not really sure you need to worry about spoiling a book this old, lol.
| Quote: | Thing is, it was never confirmed if he actually made it. It was left extra super vague AND kind of went out on a down note, implying he might be hallucinating, which would of course mean he and the baby would die soon after. I didn't like how open ended it was and I didn't understand what good it did to leave it open ended.
Plus I am ALL TOO FAMILIAR with ridiculously cold temperatures. Once you've flirted with frostbite enough times the idea of having a kid and a baby dying out in that shit is pretty awful. |
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Samsally the GrayAce |
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Lasairfiona
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 9718
Location: I have to be somewhere? ::runs around frantically::
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| Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2013 4:30 pm Post subject: |
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| Mr_Moustache wrote: | | Heart wrenching concepts in the hunger games? |
Yes. Death of a parent, the withdrawal of a parent, running a household on your own at a young age, war like conditions, death of friends, and the slowly going completely crazy under the stress. Not to mention the government choices of varying types of totalitarianism.
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Before God created Las he pondered on all the aspects a woman might have, he considered which ones would look good super-inflated and which ones to leave alone.
After much deliberation he gave her a giant comfort zone. - Michael |
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Lasairfiona
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 9718
Location: I have to be somewhere? ::runs around frantically::
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| Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2013 4:39 pm Post subject: |
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Pleasure: retail therapy. I got my sister's birthday gift and some stuff for me. I have gotten on the Clinique bandwagon - the shit works. I have even talked Chris into trying it to improve the texture of his face. So far so good. Even my monthly breakout was reduced and that makes me very, very happy.
And I bought some pears a week or so ago. I bought them for a recipe I didn't get to make BUT I remembered to still eat them before they went bad. They were really, really good. Damn I love pears.
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Before God created Las he pondered on all the aspects a woman might have, he considered which ones would look good super-inflated and which ones to leave alone.
After much deliberation he gave her a giant comfort zone. - Michael |
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fritterdonut
Joined: 24 Jul 2012
Posts: 1458
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| Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2013 9:23 pm Post subject: |
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Went to the range with the M84 Škorpion (Semi-auto because Canadian laws), an M-14 and a little .22 bolt action. Brass flew, targets were shot and great fun was had. Humorous moment of the day was when brass from the Škorpion kept bouncing off the roof and landing in my hair, resulting in me combing out a bunch of little .32 auto casings.
All in all a good range day, the Škorpion is a hilariously fun gun to shoot, but it isn't overly practical, it's too heavy to use properly off-hand without the stock and the sights suck at anything beyond 50 yards. The .22 is a little finicky but accurate as hell with a 6x scope on it. The M-14 is just... obnoxious. Wonderfully obnoxious.
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The Thirties dreamed white marble and slipstream chrome, immortal crystal and burnished bronze, but the rockets on the covers of the Gernsback pulps had fallen on London in the dead of night, screaming. - William Gibson, The Gernsback Continuum |
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DeD CHiKn
Joined: 03 Aug 2006
Posts: 10229
Location: Baltimore, Maryla*gunshot*
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| Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2013 3:18 am Post subject: |
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You can call it the skorpion all you want, is a Klobb.
Also, guns are fun. |
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fritterdonut
Joined: 24 Jul 2012
Posts: 1458
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| Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2013 7:43 am Post subject: |
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| DeD CHiKn wrote: | | You can call it the skorpion all you want, is a Klobb. |
WHY CAN'T I HIT ANYTHING AND WHY AREN'T THEY DYING
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The Thirties dreamed white marble and slipstream chrome, immortal crystal and burnished bronze, but the rockets on the covers of the Gernsback pulps had fallen on London in the dead of night, screaming. - William Gibson, The Gernsback Continuum |
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DeD CHiKn
Joined: 03 Aug 2006
Posts: 10229
Location: Baltimore, Maryla*gunshot*
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| Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2013 7:45 am Post subject: |
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| Oh you're hitting them, but it's your own pride that is dying. |
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Finnegan
Joined: 30 Apr 2007
Posts: 1081
Location: in that cool mountain air, on an appalachian trail
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| Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2013 10:06 am Post subject: |
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I remember really liking The Giver, but then when I read it I was in the target age range.
| Quote: | | even as a child I think I always just assumed that exposure had caused jonas to slip into one of his memories and he never really made it out of the snow. I was okay with that because, while sad, it didn't detract from the deeper message of the book. |
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Formerly Green_Finn
hey! rock bottom's not that bad
we've got glow-in-the-dark fish down here that's rad |
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Samsally
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 7534
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| Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2013 10:20 am Post subject: |
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| Finnegan wrote: | I remember really liking The Giver, but then when I read it I was in the target age range.
| Quote: | | even as a child I think I always just assumed that exposure had caused jonas to slip into one of his memories and he never really made it out of the snow. I was okay with that because, while sad, it didn't detract from the deeper message of the book. |
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| Quote: | | Yeah but my problem with it was that I didn't get what the deeper message was. Like, I don't think I'm totally bad at getting the points of books, I used to read my dad's adult sci-fi novels when I was 13/14 and with the exception of completely missing a few drug references I still got the points of the stories. This one I just didn't get. |
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Samsally the GrayAce |
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Finnegan
Joined: 30 Apr 2007
Posts: 1081
Location: in that cool mountain air, on an appalachian trail
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| Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2013 10:40 am Post subject: |
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dogen explained it well
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Formerly Green_Finn
hey! rock bottom's not that bad
we've got glow-in-the-dark fish down here that's rad |
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Finnegan
Joined: 30 Apr 2007
Posts: 1081
Location: in that cool mountain air, on an appalachian trail
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| Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2013 11:33 pm Post subject: |
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Things have been fairly rough going for me lately but as I've posted elsewhere, I'm not necessarily unhappy. I really don't usually publicly share things of such a personal nature, especially online, unless I have suppressed the inhibitions that come with sobriety. Even then, the next day I often regret or feel embarrassed by the level of personal detail I have left scattered throughout the forum and remove most of it. I found myself in a similar situation the other day, but when I went back the following day to edit out some of the more personal details I unexpectedly found that the forum had responded by showing me some love. I should have mentioned this sooner and meant to, but I just wanted to say that this did not go unnoticed or unappreciated. I'm grateful, thank you.
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Formerly Green_Finn
hey! rock bottom's not that bad
we've got glow-in-the-dark fish down here that's rad |
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