Blogging Question #3: Christmas 1910

Blogging Question #2: Bartleby the Scrivner

Blogging Question #1: A Rose for Emily

Book Club #9: C, TBC

Passages From The Text	Pg #	Comments & Questions
·         “They are silent in the Court. And the judge too is silent. There is no sound there No one coughs or moves or sighs. The Judge speaks: ·           ·         This Court finds you guilty Absolom Kumalo of the murder of Arthur Trevelyan Jarvis at his residence in Parkwold on the afternoon of the eighth day of October 194. And this Court finds you Matthew Kumalo and Johannes Pafuri not guilty and you are accordingly discharged. ·         So these two go down the stairs into the place that is under the ground and leave the other alone. He looks at them going perhaps he is thinking, now it is I alone.”	235-36	·         (R)  I know that I am supposed to read at least 20 pages between each blog entry, Ms. English Teacher, but I really wanted to write about this part! I’m surprised that Absolom was found guilty; I thought this book would be like a comic-the “good” guys win and the bad guys lose. Except Absolom is a bad guy- I think he deserves to be punished. I do think that hanging him is a bit much though. Anyway, the author seems to try hard to portray Abolom as some wayward youth who is actually a great boy inside. He’s just made some bad decisions! Nonetheless, the author sent him off to be hanged and let his “friends” go off free. But due to the evidence that was given, that was exactly what should have happened. I felt that the reasoning behind the ruling was very sound. I feel very bad for Kumalo though. He left his life in the village, his wife also,  and used up a bunch of his resources to find out that his son is a thief and now, a killer. I wonder, does he sometimes think that he should have stayed in Ndotenshi?

Book Club #8: C, TBC

Passages From The Text	Pg #	Comments & Questions
·         “But at the first sign of disorder, John Kumalo will be brought down and put in the van and taken to some other place. And what will happen to the carpenter’s shop, that brings in eight, ten, twelve ponds a week? What will happen to the talks in the carpenter’s ship, where men come from every part of the country to listen to him? ·         There are some men who long for martyrdom, there are those who know that to go to  would bring greatness to them, there are those who would go to prison not caring if it brought them greatness or not. But John Kumalo is not one of them. There is no applause in prison.”	219-20	·         (R) So, John Kumalo is a man with a great voice who has the power to really move people but chooses not to because he doesn’t want to get arrested and go to jail. Also, he would miss the praise far too much. So, the author is trying to tell me that John is just a bad guy all around. He doesn’t care about anyone’s interest except his own. I get it, Paton.

Book Club #7: C, TBC

Passages From The Text	Pg #	Comments & Questions
·         “-Why did you carry this revolver? ·         -It was to frighten the servant of the house. ·         -But why do you carry any revolver?  The boy is silent        -You must answer my question. -They told me to carry it. -Who told you? -No they told me Johannesburg was dangerous. -Who told you? The boy is silent.”	194	·         (R) Absolom Kumalo’s trial has started. He is pleading not guilty against murder because he says that he did not “intend” to murder Arthur Jarvis. I think he’s lying. I don’t understand how they knocked out the servant with no problem but had to shoot the guy to get him down. Couldn’t they have fought him or something? Hasn’t Absolom and his crew done this kind of thievery before? Whenever people appear there first instinct is to shoot? I don’t believe it.

Book Club #6: C, TBC

Passages From The Text	Pg #	Comments & Questions
·         “-It was a lingo I knew nothing about, thank God. But he ought to know it, so he took lessons in it, and we went to an Afrikaner farm. He spoke Zulu as you know, but he was talking of learning Sesto. You know these native M.P.’s they have-well, there was talk of getting him to stand at the next election.”	172	·         (R) I have reached part two of the book. In part one the readers see the woe of the father of the killer. In part two, we see the woe of the father of the killed. The people in this part of this book our white, English-speaking South Africans. Everything, like the flow of the book and the way the people talk has changed. The only thing that’s the same is the setting.

Book Club #5: C, TBC

Passages From The Text	Pg #	Comments & Questions
·         “-You are in a decent home, my child. ·         -Yes, mother, says the girl with downcast eyes. ·         -And you were brought here by a good and kindly man, so good that there is no word for it. ·         The girl looked up at her eagerly. I know it, she said. ·         -Then if you are content to be brought by him, you will not laugh so carelessly. ·         -Yes, mother. ·         -You are but a child, and laughter is good for a child. But there is one kind of laugh and there is another. ·         -You understand what I mean? ·         -I understand you completely.”	152	·         (R) Alan Paton, you’ve lost me. How can someone have a bad kind of laugh? What is this? Due to the things that happened earlier in the book. I’m assuming that Absoloms baby mama “used to be” a prostitute or something (I think that she is still one- I don’t think she’s pregnant with Absoloms child!) and that when Mrs. Lithebe was talking about her laughter, she meant that she could hear the promiscuity in her laugh. I’m not exactly sure though. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a ‘careless laugh’ being a bad thing.

Book Club #4: C, TBC

Passages From The Text	Pg #	Comments & Questions
·         “Or does he weep for himself alone, to be let be, to be let alone, to be free of the merciless rain of questions, why, why, why, when he does not know why. They do not speak with him, they do not jest with him, they do not sit and let him be, but they ask, ask, ask, why, why, why, -his father, he white man, the prison officers, the police, the magistrates, -why, why, why.”	132	·         (R) I’m not exactly sure what Paton was attempting to do with this passage. Does he want the readers to feel sympathetic towards Kumalos son? Because I feel anything but sympathy for Absolom. He stole, abandoned a woman pregnant with his child then shot and killed somebody and wants people to sit around and “jest with him”? He must be out of his mind. It almost seems like the reader was meant not to like him before they were even introduced to him. If this passage was meant to appeal Absolom to the reader, to make it seem like “Oh, he’s caught up in so much stuff, he just needs a break”, then I think the author failed. Miserably.

Book Group #3: C, TBC

Passages From The Text	Pg #	Comments & Questions
·         “-You do not understand he said. The child will be my grandchild. ·         -Even that you do not know, said Msimangu angrily. His bitterness mastered him again. And if he were, he said, how many more such have you? Shall we search them out, day after day, hour after hour? Will it ever end? ·         Kumalo stood in the dust like one who has been struck. Then without speaking any more he took his seat in the car.”	100	·         (R) It’s been 100 pages and Kumalo is no closer to finding his son than he was at the beginning. Instead he’s learned how his son has run from place to place, leaving behind a bad reputation. He went from being a possible thief, to being a man that was at the very top of his game at the reformatory, to being the kind of man who would get a girl pregnant, than run away. I am not even sure if Kumalos son is worth all the running around. Honestly, the boy’s father is a reverend. You would think he wouldn’t be so … messed up.

Book Club #2: Cry, the Beloved Country

Passages From The Text	Pg #	Comments & Questions
·         “-That is a bad thing, she said, but she spoke as one speaks who must speak so. ·         -It is a bad thing, he said, and I cannot leave you until you have told what you would not tell.”	78	·         (R) Alan Paton, the author of this book, sometimes writes like he is the South African Dr. Seuss or something. He has a habit of repeating things, so just in case you didn’t catch it the first time, you’ll be sure to catch it the third time. This book took a while to get into- I wasn’t really feeling it the first 20 pages or so. It’s getting better though. The characters move very quickly. Their travels from one place to another take about a paragraph.

Book Club Reading Blog #1: Cry, The Beloved Country

Passages From The Text	Pg #	Comments & Questions
·         “Already the knees are weak of the man who a moment since had shown his little vanity, told his little lie, before these respectful people. ·         The humble man reached into his pocket for his sacred book, and began to read. It was this world alone that was certain.”	44	·         (R) I’m not exactly sure what to say about this book. I don’t think I like the story so far, but it’s getting better. The way the author, Alan Paton, writes is weird at times. He doesn’t really describe what the characters are doing all that often, so I’m not sure if they are walking, or just sitting in living room or what. I liked the quote though.  In the last sentence it says that Kumalo could only be certain of that world that he’s reading about in his “sacred book” which I took to mean the bible since he is a priest. I just wonder- what world? The world of the biblical days? Or maybe God’s “world”, like heaven? I like how I was forced to think for myself instead of just being told.