Hope Was Here

I hate leaving places I love.

--Hope Was Here by Joan Bauer

Shakespearean Idol

I wish this story were different. I wish it were more civilized. I wish it showed me in a better light, if not happier, then at least more active, less hesitant, less distracted by trivia. I wish it had more shape. I wish it were about love, or about sudden realizations important to one's life, or even about sunsets, birds, rainstorms, or snow.

            Maybe it is about those things, in a way; but in the meantime there is so much else getting in the way, so much whispering, so much speculation about others, so much gossip that cannot be verified, so many unsaid words, so much creeping about and secrecy. And there is so much time to be endured, time heavy as fried food or thick fog; and then all at once these red events, like explosions, on streets otherwise decorous and matronly and somnambulant.

            I'm sorry there is so much pain in this story. I'm sorry it's in fragments, like a body caught in crossfire or pulled apart by force. But there is nothing I can do to change it.

            Nevertheless it hurts me to tell it over, over again. Once was enough: wasn't once enough for me at the time? But I keep on going with this sad and hungry and sordid, this limping and mutilated story, because after all I want you to hear it, as I will hear yours too if I ever get the chance, if I meet you or if you escape, in the future or in heaven or in prison or underground, some other place. ... By telling you anything at all I'm at least believing in you, I believe you're there, I believe you into being. Because I'm telling you this story I will your existence. I tell, therefore you are. 

--Excerpt from Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale

Offred's tape recording lest she does not get to tell her story to anyone. A tape recording because she's not allowed to read or write. I imagined her hushed voice, somewhat urgent and with hopeful desperation. 

When Mr. Lewis asked me what my favorite book was, I told him it was this one. Because a favorite book should definitely make an under-pressure junior read and stay up late and finish it in three days--forget the pile of homework she has. So I picked it as my Shakespearean Idol piece during spring break and would say it like some lucky spell. It became a lucky spell.  

Hannah--

What a delightful occupation: to sink into one's couch, rain falling outside and read your thoughts on your reading! These are wonderful explorations of literature. Keep up the good work!

Mrs. Bell

Frankenstein

It's incredible Mary Shelly conceived Frankenstein when she was only eighteen, and threw bold sentences like "But revenge kept me alive; I dared not die, and leave my adversary in being" (205). How horrid it must have been for Frankenstein to see with his own eyes the destruction and death his creation has done. And to hear it say to him, "You hate me; but your abhorrence cannot equal that with which I regard myself" (224). I imagined Frankenstein's face, his old and weary face after years of chasing and being chased, when he hears this. I imagined sadness pass over his tired eyes as he finally understood the  infinite dejection of the brute he created.