Alice in Wonderland

    We all have watched the Disney's movie, but who is the author?

1.Lewis Carroll (pen name)

    One day, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, went outing(郊遊) with his friend and three girls. When they were rowing in a boat, he told an "as crazy as possible" story, whose main character is one of the three girls, Alice Liddell, to them since they felt bored. After the trip, his friend and the girls wanted him to write down the story. With two year's modification, emerged the story we read today.

2.Story

     Alice feels bored while sitting on the riverbank with her elder sister. Then she notices a talking, clothed White Rabbit with a pocket watch(懷錶) run past. She follows the rabbit, and suddenly falls a long way to a hall with many locked doors of all sizes. She starts her adventure.

    I believe almost everyone have watched Disney's movie, so I choose some chapters that are deleted in the movie to introduce.

    Chapter 6 : Pig and Pepper

    This part is between Alice meeting the caterpillar and the mad tea party.

"   A Fish-Footman has an invitation for the Duchess(公爵夫人) of the house, which he delivers to a Frog-Footman. Alice observes this transaction and, after a perplexing conversation with the frog, lets herself into the house. The Duchess's Cook is throwing dishes and making a soup that has too much pepper, which causes Alice, the Duchess, and her baby (but not the cook or grinning Cheshire Cat) to sneeze violently. Alice is given the baby by the Duchess and to her surprise, the baby turns into a pig."

──from wikipedia

    The character ── Duchess has never appeared in the movie.

    So Chapter 9 : The Mock Turtle's Story, Chapter 10 : Lobster Quadrille and the reason for the trial are rewritten in the movie.

3.My Thought

    When I was young, I considered Alice in Wonderland to be a horror movie. And I can't fall asleep because I was afraid of having such a horrible dream like Alice does. Finally I had a dream, not so scary as Alice's, but with that damn cat's smile and its laughter around my head.

    But now it's no longer scary for me.

    The story becomes absurd when reading the novel words by words.

    The most impressive part of the story might be the mad tea party ── the noisy March Hare (三月兔) and the Hatter (瘋帽子) singing the strange unbirthday song.

    I put the video down here. Hope it can recall your memory of this horror movie .XD

Angels & Demons

1.Dan Brown

    He was an English teacher before he became famous overnight for the well-known novel──The DaVinci Code.

    His works are mainly thriller fictions(驚悚科幻小說) which combine cryptography(密碼學), science, and religion.

the first edition's cover

(The title is an ambigram!)

2.Story

    One of CERN's(歐洲核子研究組織) scientist, Leonardo Vetra, is murdered. His chest is branded(烙印) with an ambigram(雙向圖) of the word "Illuminati"(光明會). And the antimatter(反物質) was stolen. If it self-destructs, the exposion can lay a city flat.

    Robert Langdon, a Harvard symbologist(符號學家), is requested to help them find out the bomb, of course, and the murderer. But this makes him get into the fatal trouble between the science and religion...

3.My Thought

    The main character, Robert Langdon, first appeared in this story, but this book was not famous until The DaVinci Code was published. Although I think that this story is much more exciting and intricate.

    Although the science part is a little bit exaggerating( The security may not be so poor, and we cannot make such a huge antimatter for some legally or technically reason. Am I right, 杜毅修?), some of the part is so true to life that makes you believe the crisis has really happened.

    The most interesting part for me is the ambigram, it's so amazing that it is still the same word after it turns 180 degrees!

    I am going to put all the pictures in the book and some other pictures I found. Hope you enjoy it!

illuminati

earth

air

fire

water

from top to bottom is "earth, air fire, and water"

Turn your head to see what it becomes!!

You can also make a Chinese one, too!

http://truston.blog.163.com/blog/static/6057566220080309580132/

He is a genius of ambigram, if you want to make special words just view the blog to get some thought!

    By the way, the movie is totally a shxt, it cuts many important parts and make the whole story's pace to be too fast and puzzling.
    Go read the novel!!!

Robinson Crusoe

1.Daniel Defoe

    He is an English author and a reporter. His works are mainly about a person uses his knowledge and courage to conquer the difficulty.  Daniel Defoe is seem to be the pioneer of English novels.

2.Story

    Crusoe sails to the Queen's Dock in Hull in August 1651, against the wishes of his parents, who want him to study law.

    After a storm, his ship is wrecked. His lust for the sea remains so strong that he sets out to sea again. But the ship is taken over by Salé pirates and Crusoe is enslaved by a Moor(摩爾人). Two years later, he escapes in a boat with a boy named Xury; a Captain of a Portuguese ship off the west coast of Africa rescues him. The ship is en route to Brazil.

    After a few years, Crusoe joins a trip which is about to brings slave from the Africa. But the ship is wrecked in a storm AGAIN!! 

    He takes out the weapons and food in the shipwrecks, and then starts his life on this island and the fight against the cannibals(食人族)...

3.My Thought

    I read this novel after I watched the movie Cast Away (浩劫重生), and I found that there are some interesting similarity between them (although they might be totally different for some people).
    Everyone knows "Friday" is the volley ball's name in the movie. But actually in the novel, Robinson save a slave from the cannibals, and named him "Friday".
    Tom Hanks (the cast in the movie) makes the things and gets the food all by himself. But Robinson get the thing he needs in the shipwreck!
    This book is perfectly conformed the Hero's Journey (people who don't know can google Joseph Campbell)──starting from a shipwreck, life on an island, fighting against the cannibals, beating the traitors (叛徒), and finally coming back home and enjoying the wealth and the wonderful life with his wife and son.

Nineteen Eighty-Four

1.George Orwell

    "Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist and critic. His work is marked by lucid prose, awareness of social injustice, opposition to totalitarianism, and commitment to democratic socialism."

──by wikipedia

    Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm are the two most famous novels of his. Both of them are talking about the Totalitarianism(極權主義) and the power-follower, they are considered to be the classic work of the political allegory.

2.Story

    In 1984 (the future in the author's mind), Winston Smith lives in Airstrip One (一號空降場) (the former United Kingdom), a province of Oceania (大洋國) after a global atomic war, one of the world's three superstates.
    "Big Brother is watching you."
    It is a world that whatever you done is monitored by the telescreen(雙向電視) of the Party, which believes in the boss──Big Brother.
    Winston Smith hates the Party, he writes the true situation of the world in the diary and want it to last until the Party is destroyed, because every facts can be tampered(竄改) by the Party.
    Then he falls in love with Julia, although having a lover is not allowed for the Party member.
    They enjoy the illicit romance, and go to one of the Inner Party's member, O'Brein, who they consider to be a rebel, to see if they can destroy the Party.
    But he is actually a thought police, he arrests them, and re-education them by some cruel punishment.
    Then he let them out, but they can't face to each other because they are forced to betray each other.
    The last sentence of the novel is,
    "I love Big Brother."

3.My Thought

    As a person who lives in a peace world, the Totalitarianism government in the book is shocked for me. It really predicts some countries like Russia in the WW2.
    And the technology in the story is very interesting, the novel machine and the poem machine still can't appear today. It seems that human's brain still can't be replaced. Some like telescreen is developed, not being used for monitoring but for chatting.
    Maybe the future we predict in the novels nowadays will be discussed by the future people, too!

2013 Nobel Laureate in Literature 

──Alice Munro

    For the citation(表彰), "master of the contemporary short story", Alice Munro won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature.

    In 1968, her first collection of short stories, Dance of the Happy Shades, won the Governor General's Award, which is Canada's highest literary prize. It also opened the writing career for her.

    Most of her stories are set in her hometown, Ontario, telling about the love and the daily life of the civilian, involves illness and death.

    A few theme of her early stories are the narratives of a girl growing up and the compromise with her family and the town she lives in, such as Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage and Runaway.

    "She has shifted her focus to the travails of middle age, of women alone, and of the elderly. It is a mark of her style for characters to experience a revelation that sheds light on, and gives meaning to, an event."

(from wikipedia)

    Because of the special writing style, some critics have discussed whether Munro's works are short stories. But Alex Keegan gave a simple answer, "Who cares? In most Munro stories there is as much as in many novels."

    Her most famous collections are Dance of the Happy, Shades Lives of Girls and Women, and Who Do You Think You Are?

My thought

    Many authors are never known by us until they won the Nobel Prize, Alice Munro is an example. But their works must have high enough level, or some special characteristics to won this prize.
    I will choose one of her collections in the bookstore, and spend my free time to immerse in the sincere emotion she brings to me.

1.Stephenie Meyer

    Stephenie Morgan Meyer was born in Hartford, Connecticu.
    The idea for Twilight came to her in a dream on June 2, 2003, which was about a human girl and a vampire who was in love with her but thirsted for her blood. After preparing for three months, she had transformed her dream into a complete novel.
    Another famous novel written by her is The Host, an adult sci-fi novel published in May 2008.

The series of Twilight.

2.The Story

    Bella Swan moves to Forks, Washington to live with her father, Charlie.

    When Bella is seated next to Edward Cullen in class on her first day of school, he seems to dislike her. But when she is nearly crushed by a van in the school's parking lot, Edward instantaneously appears next to her and stops the van with his bare hands.

    This experience arouses Bella's curiosity.

    After investigating, she finds that Cullens family's members are all vampires, which only drink animals' blood, and Edward has the ability to read other's mind, instead of Bella's.

    Bella falls in love with Edward, and is considered to be a member of Cullens family.

    One day when Bella and Cullens family are playing baseball, the vampire from the other place comes. One of the enemy, James notices that Bella is a human, being protected by a vampire family, so he decides to hunt her as an entertainment.

    After a hard fight, Cullens family finally beats James before he kills Bella, but it also brings more crisis and enemy to them...

    The series cuts into four volumes── Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, Breaking Down. and one side plot of Eclipse──The Short Second Life Of Bree Tanner.

3.My Thought

    My first approach of this series is in the years in junior high school.

    At that time, some of the Twilight-fanatics in my class introduced it to me, then I finished the volumes one by one as it was published.

    To be honest, the story is dull (a classic romantic story, adds in some different races(種族) that do not exist in the real world),  and is easy to guess what will happen later. The fighting description is not exciting enough, too.

    But I have to thank this novel for giving me a chance to watch a movie with a group of girls.

    Boys, don't consider reading love story to be a waste of time, it's a good way for you to get closer to girls!

This is a parody (※a little bit erotic and racial discrimination) of Twilight.
Just for laughing.

1.Victor Hugo──One of the Greatest French Writer

    Victor Marie Hugo is one of the representatives of Romanticism(浪漫主義). He was at first famous for his talent on writing poems. 

    At the most tumultuous periods in France, he produced many representative works, which is about the politics or the miserable situations of the citizens.

    One of the others his famous novels is 《Notre-Dame de Paris》(法文原譯:巴黎聖母院), which is renamed in Chinese:《鐘樓怪人》. Like《Les Miserables》, it was adapt for musicals or movies.

The musical of 《Notre-Dame de Paris》.

The musical of  《Les Miserables》.

The movie of《Les Miserables》.

2.The Story

    In 1801, a poor farmer named Jean Valjean was put into prison for 19 years because of stealing a loaf of bread and trying to escape.

    Although he was discriminate by the public because he had a yellow passport, Bishop Myriel gave him shelter and then encouraged him to be a promising and honest person.

    But he still obeyed his human nature and robbed 40-sous coin from 12-year-old Petit Gervais.

    For this, he became an escapee.

    After six years, Valjean, replaced by his new name──Monsieur Madeleine, became a wealthy factory owner and was appointed to be the mayor of a town.

    Then he met  Fantine, and promised her to take her daughter, Cosette to her.

    When dealing the case that Fantine had encountered in, he enraged a adjutant guard(檢察官) named  Javert, who guess him to be the escapee, Jean Valjean, and then get into a series of troubles and heart-stuggling...

3.My Thought

    Although the story is really long, contains much knowledge of the historical background that we actually don't need to know, some parts, such as the description of the emotion, agony between  the honesty and the fame...etc are very worth reading.

    People don't have time to read can watch the musical version, it will move you not only by the touching story but also by the graceful melody!

1.J.K. Rowling ── from a single mother to a well-known author

    When starting to write Harry Potter, she was a nobody, working in Amnesty International(國際特赦組織)."In 1990, while she was on a four-hour-delayed train trip from Manchester to London, the idea for a story of a young boy attending a school of wizardry "came fully formed" into her mind."(from Wikipedia)
    "I did not have a functioning pen with me, but I do think that this was probably a good thing. I simply sat and thought, for four (delayed train) hours, while all the details bubbled up in my brain, and this scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled(戴眼鏡的) boy who didn't know he was a wizard became more and more real to me."

──from her website

    Going through the divorce and the single-parent hood, she finished the manuscript, and then finally had it published after some twist and turns. It not only improved her economic condition, but also made her to be a world-famous author, who has set off a whirlwind of Harry Potter around the world!

The manuscript of the Philosopher's Stone

    

Covers of the series of Harry Potter.

2.Story

    At the 11 year-old birthday, Harry Potter, a boy who had escaped from the notorious, frightening wizard, Voldemort, was bring to the wizard school, Hogwarts.

    The series is about the Harry and his friends' adventure in the wizard world, and the fight with the final boss, Voldemort.

    Let's see a short film to know the synopsis of each volume:

3.My Thought

    If you think that you've watched the movie so you don't need to read the novels, you are absolutely wrong!
    There are many interesting and exciting part, more details that are only mentioned in the novels. You may be amazed by the exquisite description which cannot be showed in the movie.
    For people don't have time to read whole seven volumes, I recommend the forth one, the Goblet of Fire. It's about the Triwizard Tournament. You will find that not only the 3D special effects but the words can bring the excitement to you!

week1

O‧Henry's Short Stories

1.Who is O‧Henry?

    O‧Henry is his pen name. His real name is William Sydney Porter. 
    He is absolutely more than an author.
    At his young age, O‧Henry was forced to drop out from high school. He worked in his uncle's drug store for five years, with the dream of being a painter in his mind.Then, he has tried a lot of works, such as shepherd, chef, babysitting staff, singer, comedy actor, reporter, cashier...etc.
    These experiences stimulated his humor, and also became his subjects of the stories.
    In 1898, he was arrested for embezzlement.
    He whole-heartedly wrote short stories when he was in the prison,
   only because its writing time is short, so that he could get the payment soon!
    After leaving the prison, he published hundreds of well-known short stories and his only long novel  Cabbages and Kings, and became a world-famous author.

    Many of his stories were adapted into comics, cartoons, or short movies for children.

2. O‧Henry's stories
    Since there are too many stories (almost 300!)which were written by him, I can't talk about every of them.
    So, I choose two most famous ones, The Gift of the Magi and The Last Leaf.

    The Gift of the Magi 

 
    I choose this video because it can help us learn how to read a story.
    People who want to practice their listening ability can ignore the caption and see if you can understand the whole story.
    The Last Leaf

    Both two stories has a common point:
        O‧Henry endings──
            unexpected, but reasonable
     O‧Henry often used some ambiguities or wordplay to create a totally different end from our thought.
    Although some critics say O‧Henry always use this immutable way in his stories, it's the most major reason why his stories are so famous.

3.my thought
    For those who spend lots of time on the bus or the MRT, reading these short stories may be a good pastime for you. 
    Spend 15 minutes enjoying the surprise that O‧Henry endings brings to you, maybe it will change your outlook on life!