Author Archives: Coreen Catenburg

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

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Despite its length, this novel is certainly one of the masterpieces still in the history of American literature. What I really admire and value the most in this book is the friendship between Lennie and George. I’m sure there is a bond between them which could have lasted forever if it wasn’t for Lennie’s mistake in the end and also it is a relationship which perhaps transcends those these two main characters have developed with their parents even.

From what I know, Lennie is a very physically robust but mentally weak character. He does not recognize his strength and only wields it when George tells him to; he even seems to be afraid of his surprising strength a little. George on the other hand, although always blames and reproaches Lennie for what he does, at important times he is the one who saves Lennie. He seems to be a bit of nonchalant, but when Lennie offers to leave him, I can sense a trail of yearning and guilt in George when he pleaded Lennie not to do so and that he is sorry.

Lastly, I think the last scene where George and Lennie retrospect about their dream of tending rabbits on a farm and how George shot Lennie was very memorable and unforgettable. In some way, I think Lennie knows that George is not here to merely just talk with him, he knew that he has to die in order to save himself and George. Therefore, he pretends to not know and lets him do that. So in other words, Lennie is not simply imbecile, he just lacks the ability to judge things properly and talks more clearly. His reliance upon George ties them together but also, at last, kills him.

-Coreen C. 

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck is available for checkout from the Mission Viejo Library. It can also be downloaded from Overdrive.

A Dog’s Purpose by W. Bruce Cameron

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From this book, the biggest thing which I learned is that dogs are men’s best friends. It is hard to imagine how much our dogs love us because they cannot talk like we do, through our mouths. They talk from their eyes and hearts and actions to show us just how loyal they are to us. Like the main character in the book, Bailey, he reincarnated so many times just to be back with Ethan again. They’ve gone through so much and it’s really the hardest for either of them to forget this relationship. One scene that imprints itself in me was the part where after Ethan hurts his leg he decided to go to college in another state and Bailey chases the car to a very far distance. I’ll bet he knows what’s best for Ethan to do in this case, but it’s just that he wasn’t willing to let his best friend just leave him at that.

Actually, a lot of the movies these days are about the relationship between dogs and humans. We devote attention, love, patience, and money to dogs but they return it with their whole life. Ethan and Bailey are not just inseparable when they are happy, they take on hardships together and it’s either both of them get blamed or punished or they escape together. There was never a time when one abandons the other to danger. And I really think through these types of books and movies humans can adjust the attitude they take on to other people as well. If animals can treat people they love and love them with loyalty and dedication, why can’t we?

-Coreen C. 

A Dog’s Purpose by W. Bruce Cameron is available for checkout from the Mission Viejo Library. It can also be downloaded for free from Overdrive. 

Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser

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Carrie Meeber is from a small city who seeks to go to her sister in Chicago to have a better life. However, when she gets there she realizes the fact that her sister and her brother in law are in a very wretched condition together with their daughter. Unable to endure their apathy when she fails to secure herself a job, Carrie decided to leave. Before she even arrived in Chicago, she met Druet, a wealthy young man on the train who really likes her due to her beauty. So right after quitting her job at the factory, Carrie accidentally met Drouet around the street corners. He treats her a meal and often buys her beautiful clothing and jewelry which made her think in his favor. And thus, soon they were living together in a comfortable flat.

But it wasn’t soon when Drouet introduced Carrie to his manager friend Hurstwood. Lured by his gentleness and suave manner, Carrie fell in love with him and he with her. However, since Hurstwood was not in a relationship with his wife and his children, he lied to Carrie and said that he was unmarried. One day, Hurstwood under the influence of alcohol accidentally took ten thousand dollars from the cashier’s unlocked box and decided to flee to New York. He wheedled Carrie into escaping with him as well and so the two left for New York. However, life was not as easy there because everything was more expensive. After several unsuccessful attempts at finding a satisfactory job, Hurstwood depended on Carrie to earn and they again fell into the state of poverty.

Just then, due to her looks, passion, and aptitude for singing and acting, Carrie made a career in the theatre. She was well-liked by a lot of rich people and thus deserted Hurstwood. Although she regularly supported him somewhat, she severed the relationship at last when Hurstwood, due to his pride, stopped asking money from Carrie and suicided at last.

-Coreen C.

Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser is available for checkout from the Mission Viejo Library. 

 

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

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I read this book in eighth grade as a reading requirement and at first, I thought it was relatively childish and boring. Nevertheless, the more I read about it the more that I thought this is an amazing book. Through reading this book, I think the biggest thing that I learned is friendship, family and the gap between rich and poor.

Greasers and Socials are two rival groups, the former representing the poor and the latter rich. Although Greasers are poor, their friendship seems to be unwavering. Their relationship is not built upon any foundation of money, social status, or family background. But merely that we all share a similar interest and intend to achieve it. For one thing, if one Greaser is in danger, all the others would risk their lives to help. But for Socials, they would just run away afraid if their parents should find out they would stop supporting them.

The Socials seem like they are enjoying their lives and they despise the Greasers, but in my opinion, they in some uncanny way also want to be like them. They were born and raised in well-off families, the education they received requires them to be aloof towards anybody who isn’t on the same social level as them. However, I believe in some way they also want to make friends who really care about them and wouldn’t just desert them if their parents’ company went bankrupt or something like that. So deep down, I think there is a piercing desperation and loneliness both from the fake worldliness they have to confront every day and the neglection from their always busy and snobbish parents.

-Coreen C. 

The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton is available for checkout from the Mission Viejo Library. It is also free to download from Overdrive. 

Father Goriot by Honoré·de Balzac

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Père Goriot by Honoré de Balzac

“Father Goriot” focuses on exposing and criticizing the naked money relationship between people in the capitalist world. The novel is set in Paris between the end of 1819 and the beginning of 1820. It mainly tells two parallel and overlapping stories. Retired flour-maker Goriot was neglected by his two daughters and died miserably in the attic of an apartment. The young Rastignac changed constantly under the corrosion of Paris society, but he still maintained justice and morality.

It’s also interspersed with stories about Madame de Beauséant and Madame Vauquer. Through the alternating main stages of shabby apartments and luxurious aristocratic salons, the writer paints a picture of the materialistic and extremely ugly society of Paris. It reveals the moral decay of the bourgeoisie under the control of the power of money and the ruthlessness between people, and reveals the inevitable destruction of the aristocracy under the attack of the bourgeoisie, which truly reflects the characteristics of the Bourbon Restoration period.

In “Father Goriot”, Balzac successfully depicts the complex relationship between class and class consciousness through the fate of Eugène de Rastignac and Goriot. This complex relationship has a historical basis. As two different classes, the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie have different economic bases, lifestyles and values, and occupy a dominant position in different historical periods. In France, in this sense, both the rise of Eugène de Rastignac and the fall of Goriot are the inevitable products of certain historical situations. The context set in the novel is 1819.

Although it was the restoration period of Bourbon, the regression was only partial, and the overall trend of historical development could not be reversed. The capitalist mode of production became increasingly stable, and the bourgeois consciousness inevitably became increasingly dominant. The gradual dominance of bourgeois consciousness not only means that the aristocracy is defeated on the whole, but also means that some individual aristocrats are incorporated by the bourgeoisie, such as Eugène de Rastignac.

This shows that the rule of the aristocracy was not only defeated from the outside, but ultimately collapsed from the inside as well. At the same time, the process eliminated members of the bourgeoisie who were not pure, such as Goriot. The bourgeoisie was consolidated from within. This shows the complexity of the historical process in which the bourgeoisie replaced the aristocracy. The struggle between the two took place not only externally, but also internally, not only in the form of revolution, but also in the form of ideological struggle.

Madame de Beauséant and Vautrin are the smartest people in the world. They had insight into a society that was respectable on the outside but dirty underneath. They were Eugène de Rastignac’s worthy mentors, and without them the young peasant would not have awakened so quickly. However, in addition to the words of these two teachers, it was also due to the example of Goriot that finally enlightened Eugène de Rastignac. We do not say this to regard Goriot as a bad man, or to say that he had done something unseemly.

Goriot died alone after his two daughters had bled him clean of his poor savings, and Eugène de Rastignac was a witness to the whole course of this tragic event. It was from here that Eugène de Rastignac saw through the world’s sordid society and was no longer under any illusion about the so-called justice, affection, friendship and so on between people. Therefore, he was determined to enter the upper class arena as a challenger. Sure enough, after some struggles, when the reader sees the young man again in one of Balzac’s other works, he has already mixed up a personal image.

Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

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Far from the Madding Crowd eBook by Thomas Hardy - 9780553905557 | Rakuten Kobo United States

The tone of this novel is light-hearted, humorous, lively and full of love for ordinary farmers, which is different from the heavy tragic color in Hardy’s later works. Although the reunion finale also contains themes familiar to readers in later works, such as pain and betrayal, the novel still shows a clear romantic color. In the novel, Hardy rendered the primitiveness and roughness of the natural scenery in Wessex with heavy color and ink, suggesting the potential deterrent force of such natural environment. However, man is extremely small and weak in front of the vast nature. A rainstorm or fire can destroy all the fruits of people’s hard work. An uncertain fate pervades “Far from the Madding Crowd”.

Poor Boldwood was tormented by fate. He poured all his feelings, thoughts, energy, and possessions into Bathsheba. Troy’s presence twice shattered his hopes just as he was within reach, so it was futile to demand what was fated to be unattainable. The beginning of the novel sets the tone that Bathsheba cannot live without Oak. In spite of Oak’s mediocre talent and appearance, in spite of the fact that his sheep had gone bankrupt and he had been reduced from a rich farmer to a wandering hand, Bathsheba had become the mistress of the farm because she had inherited her uncle’s fortune.

The conflicts between human beings and society in Hardy’s later novels reveal more about the social root of the characters’ tragedies, weaken the concept of fate, and replace the contingency with the inevitability of tragedy, which is the mature deepening of the author’s tragedy consciousness. However, such maturity and deepening are based on the conflicts originally embodied in “Far from the Madding Crowd”. In the plot structure, Hardy often sets up two parallel love clues and uses a lot of means such as chance, coincidence and mutation, making the love triangle between two women and a man or two men and a woman closely linked and fascinating. Techniques such as creating a heavy, tragic atmosphere through bleak depictions of the environment were pioneered in “Far from the Madding Crowd”.

Dracula by Bram Stoker

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Dracula (Bram Stoker) eBook by Bram Stoker | Rakuten Kobo

The creation of the horror image and the gloomy atmosphere in the novel is realized by spreading the devil world centered on Dracula, making the readers like a horror drama staged in the dark and dirty old castle. At the beginning, the novel presents a series of mysterious and dramatic images, such as a remote old castle, a desolate night, a sudden werewolf, and a strange bat.

The unknown smoke and other images serve as background factors to arouse readers’ memories and impressions of the grim and horrible scenes, so as to present a terrifying world to readers. This technique was also widely used in 19th century Gothic novels. On the one hand, it introduces the characteristics and identity of Dracula, on the other hand, it also employs these images to expand readers’ imagination and enhance their understanding, which sets a tone of terror and panic for the whole novel.

The existence of Dracula and the perception of his image are the self-perception of human eyes or psychology and the vivid description and presentation of the current social mentality. Jonathan’s visit and familiarity with the castle actually started the contest and struggle between good and evil, and at the same time hinted at the subtle relationship of conquest and resistance between the British Empire and the colonized countries at the end of the 19th century. The novel presents the reader with a strange and deviant world. In such a world, the reader is as anxious as the monster is terrifying. Dracula represents a strong possessiveness and a desire for racial invasion. He tried to invade London from far away eastern Europe, and while women were sleeping, he controlled their consciousness and drank their blood to reproduce his own race, expand his territory, and dominate the British Empire.

At the same time, the women who had been sucked into the blood were transformed into social outliers. They broke away from the male authority and were no longer bound by traditional concepts and customs, and freely expressed their likes, dislikes and desires. They possessed the characteristics of the new females emerging in the British society at the end of the 19th century, which was not recognized by the mainstream population at that time. The image of Dracula’s attempt to overturn the harmonious and orthodox order of British society was the accumulation of capital in the British Empire. The shadow of colonial expansion and self-portrait are the reverse of imperial colonial rule. At the same time, Dracula’s whole scheme is a symptom of the waning British empire’s fear of its own political future, a looming fear of the vassal states that are rebelling against colonialism and the rising powers that are gaining momentum.

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

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Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky: 9780553211757 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

Raskolnikov, a poor university student, lived in a small five-story apartment in a poor Petersburg slum. He had been forced to drop out of law school because he could not afford his tuition, and now lived off the money his mother and sister had saved from a tight budget. He hasn’t paid his rent for a long time. Of late the landlady had not only stopped feeding him, but was pressing him very hard for rent. Then he met Marmeladov, a junior civil servant. Marmeladov was driven to despair by unemployment, and his eldest daughter Sofia was forced to become a street prostitute. Raskolnikov did not want to be like Marmeladov, but he wanted to do something to prove that he was a very extraordinary man. The proprietress of the pawnshop, not far from where he lived, was a usurer, merciless. One night, while she was alone, Raskolnikov broke into the house and killed her. Raskolnikov, in a panic, killed the landlady’s half-sister, who was returning.

The next morning he received a summons from the police. He was horrified, but was relieved to learn later that he was chasing after the money he owed. As he was leaving, he overheard the officer talking about last night’s murder and passed out to get the officer’s attention. When he regained consciousness, he went home and was bedridden for several days, before recovering. After the murder, Raskolnikov, unable to get rid of his fear because of the painful conflicts in his heart, felt that he had lost all his original good feelings. This was a punishment of conscience more severe than the punishment of law. He was conscious that he had failed. So he came to Sofia in anguish of heart, and, inspired by Sofia’s religious ideas, told her the truth and the motive of the crime. Persuaded by Sonia, he turned himself in to the police. Sentenced to eight years of hard labor, Raskolnikov traveled to Siberia. Sofia was soon there too. The two met early one morning by the river. They are determined to have faith in God, to suffer all kinds of sufferings in a penitent mood and to gain spiritual rebirth.

Black Beauty by Anna Sewell

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Black Beauty by Anna Sewell: 9780440416456 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

Black Beauty is gentle, intelligent and strong. His coat is black and shiny. A white speck of fur stands out on his forehead like a beautiful white star. However, fate is difficult, life is fickle, as a horse, he has tasted the sweet and sour people give. Black Beauty, the hero of the novel, is a beautiful and well-bred black horse. He has been living in a noble family since childhood. He has been well trained, docile and clever. But the good times did not last long, the master home had a change, Black Beauty had to be sold. He had been sold many times in a row and met all kinds of people. There are drunks who take their horses to anger when they drink too much wine, cab drivers who whip easily, barbarians who don’t take animals seriously. After tasting all the joys and sorrows of the world, it was lucky to have a good end-result. The work reveals the inner world of the horse, as well as the description of the horse coldly looking on the human society. Black Beauty’s life is the epitome of Victorian horse-riding, wagons in the country and London cabs. When he was a boy, his mother told him that a horse’s fate was all down to luck — he was lucky to have a good master, but unlucky to have an abusive master. As he grew up, Black Beauty met good people and people who mistreated him. He was first sold as a mount to Lord Gordon, who was kind to horses. Then it was sold to the count, and that abominable bridle became his greatest nuisance, and the bane of all horses. Pulling wagons not only consumes a lot of physical energy, but also is whipped by the driver. Black Beauty suffers when he draws a cab because people drive in the wrong way. Finally, Black Beauty finally found a friendly home to spend his old age. In Black Beauty we see many human qualities: honesty, courage, meekness and friendliness. Though Black Beauty has gone through trials and tribulations, it has not changed these qualities. This makes us wonder: what qualities should we have as human beings? Don’t we treat animals so cruelly because we disregard good qualities in them? Black Beauty, through his own eyes, with vivid language, tells a story, to convey such a message to readers. Animals also have feelings and thoughts. Human beings should therefore be kind to animals.

Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne

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Amazon.com: Around the World in 80 Days (8601410733353): Verne, Jules: Books

The novel is rich in themes. Science fiction theme, roaming theme, detective theme, love theme and other themes cross and merge, and construct quite rich meanings. Among these themes, the Eastern theme stands out. In the novel, Fog’s route around the world is detour through Africa to India, from India to Japan, through Japan to San Francisco, and finally from San Francisco back to England. India, China, the Philippines, Japan and so on account for nearly a third of the pages. This part of Oriental imagination and writing is also the most prominent part of the dramatic elements in Around the World in 80 days, full of excitement and adventure, bantering and satire. Jules Verne fully demonstrated his humanism as a writer.

Through the words of his characters, he expresses his indignation at India’s barbaric funeral system, and shows his deep sympathy and righteous indignation at the British opium poisoning of the Chinese people through the experience of Jean Passepartout. He also used the beating of Fix and Fogg at the San Francisco convention to ridicule the chaos of the American democratic elections. Verne through Fogg’s whereabouts, connected Europe, South Asia, East Asia, North America’s topography, climate characteristics, urban architectural characteristics and local customs. As if it were a richly detailed book of popular geography, the precise amorous feelings and the ups and downs of the characters in the book combine closely with the strange religious customs and local customs of the world to form the propeller of the plot.

Fix, for example, would not have had the opportunity to urge the evil monks in Calcutta to sue Fogg and his French valet Jean Passepartout if he had not been a know-it-all who did not know that Hindu temples had to take off their shoes and socks and enter barefoot. If Fogg and Fix had not strayed into the Hong Kong tavern, Fix would not have drunkun Fogg with his pipe, and Fogg would have missed the important message that his master’s ship was about to sail ahead of time. Fogg had to venture to Yokohama in a boat of twenty tons, and there would have been no hurricane at sea. And if Fogg hadn’t gone to the Japanese acrobat troupe in Yokohama to find work and perform feats of human overlap, the master and servant would not have met by accident.

Custom has no greater effect on the plot than when Fogg and his party, riding on elephants, witness the grotesque and sinister funeral procession of widows passing through the dense forest, and Fogg has a whim to rescue the poor lady who has been forced to die. This directly created Aouda’s brilliant appearance in the story, and also created the sympathy between Fogg and Jean Passepartout. In other words, when a new custom is carefully portrayed by Jules Verne, it is conceivable that the conflicts of the story will again become concentrated and climax. The customs of the world’s landscapes are, in a manner of speaking, like intricate prisms, and the development of established stories like flower petals, which, when combined, create a kaleidoscope of wonders from Jules Verne’s travels.

Around the World in 80 Days follows the narrative pattern of travel in Western literature. The hero Fogg is a calm, rational, methodical, precise and accurate Englishman. He bet the men of the club twenty thousand pounds that he could complete the circle in eighty days. So he set out with the French servant, and after a long journey they returned to England on time. Fogg not only won the stakes, but also won the love of Aouda from India. This is the main clue of the novel. There is another clue in the novel: Detective Fix pursues Fogg. Fifty-five thousand pounds are missing from the counter of the Bank of England. The police find that the thief looks very much like Fogg. When they found out that Fogg had left England, they thought he was going to make an escape, so they sent Fix to hunt him down.

Travel and adventure and the pursuit of fugitives form the double power of narration in the novel, as well as the parallel and intersecting two threads, which make the narrative and structure of the novel form a certain tension.