Words of Week 21

Exasperate: Irritate intensely; infuriate
Soporific: Tending to induce drowsiness or sleep.

Chiasmus: A reversal in the order of words in two otherwise parallel phrases

Vapid: Offering nothing that is stimulating or challenging
Hedonism: The pursuit of pleasure
Facetious: Treating serious issues with deliberately inappropriate humor

Charms in The Picture of Dorian Gray

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
254 pages

"To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim."

"There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all."

"[T]here is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about."

"But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face."

"[T]he value of an idea has nothing whatsoever to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it."

"You know more than you think you know, just as you know less than you want to know."

"It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances."

"Man is many things, but he is not rational."

"Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic."

"Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world's original sin. If the caveman had known how to laugh, History would have been different."

"Nowadays people know the price of everything, and the value of nothing."

"There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up."

"People are very fond of giving away what they need most themselves. It is what I call the depth of generosity."

"Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are. A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating."

"Unselfish people are colorless. They lack individuality."

"The basis of optimism is sheer terror."

"There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel that no one else has a right to blame us."

"[G]ood resolutions [...] are always made too late."

"Ugliness [..] made things real. Ugliness was the one reality."

"Difference of object does not alter singleness of passion."

"If a man treats life artistically, his brain is his heart."

"[W]hat does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses [..] his own soul?"

--
This book is the embodiment of 'lyrical prose.' Oscar Wilde is a genius, he captures the attention of the reader immediately and creates an amazing story. The plot is unique and the development of characters and events are all breath-taking. I would definitely recommend it if you like the horror, mystery or psychological thriller genres.

Irrelevantly, I normally pair my favorite author Jane Austen with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but I think, she would have been well off with Oscar Wilde too. They both are wit-masters (:

Words of Week 20

Fend: Look after and provide for oneself, without any help from others 
Immisirate: To impoverish or sink into misery 
Rambling: (of writing or speech) Lengthy and confused or inconsequential 
Sanctimonious: Making a show of being morally superior to other people 
Ostentatious: Characterized by vulgar or pretentious display
Incompetent: Not having the necessary skills to do something successfully
Ubiquity: The state of being everywhere at once

Stand Up.

We tend to sacrifice things we like and cancel activities we enjoy in fear of being criticized, or humiliated. We feel penitent both for standing up for the things we believe in and for failing to do so. We mar our own desires and the society routs our goals and dreams. And in our deathbeds, we get overwhelmed with the contrition of everything we were too scared to do and every word we were too scared to say.

Do what you love and live according to your principles. Don't live your life drowning in your regrets. Say 'I love you' to your parents, say 'Thank you' to your teachers, say 'We have so much in common, we should be friends' to the person in front of you in the movie theater line who buys a ticket to the same movie as you. Recommend an independent book, blast your favorite jug band's latest song, mix your coffee with sparkling water. The norm is dull. The exceptions are limitless. Be an exception.

Lots of soda caps,
~Belle

Let's Save Trees (!)

Stupidity will be the end of humankind because idiots have the pride of fools and the intellect of fish. You can reason with an intelligent person, but an idiot will never understand you -- and even if he does, he won't accept the truth because he is vain in his idiocy. A sad example can be seen in Turkey right now. 

1. A couple of environmentalists impetuously come together to protest against the government cutting a trifling number of trees in Gezi Parki, Istanbul.  
2. The main opposition party takes advantage of the harmless protest to spark a bigger event. 
3. Police uses 'unnecessarily' brutal tactics to dismiss the protesters such as tear gas and water canons. They backfire.
4. Secret groups, undercover organizations, communist clubs and other cliques of people who are against democracy emerge from their hiding spots and integrate themselves into the environmentalists community. During their devious emergence, they whisper into the ears of uninformed citizens, European countries,  and tourists, that the current prime minister is a dictator. 
5. In the blink of an eye, the peaceful protests of let's keep the trees turn into violent uprisings of the prime minister should resign.
6. The public, acting on their primitive instincts of bestiality and savagery, spill onto the streets to join the revolts. At this vital turning point, the public knows nothing, the environmentalists are lost, the government is struggling, and the opposition party is having a party.
7. The idiots on the streets tweet about unrealistic events and imaginary persons while the foreign media soaks up everything like a sponge. No filter, no affirmation, just pure bias.
8. Western countries shake their heads and do absolutely nothing to help. 
9. The idiots keep asking Europe for help. Because clearly, European countries are flawless and perfect and completely exemplary for every other country in the world. Why didn't the prime minister think of that?
10. The protests spread from Istanbul to other major cities such as Ankara, Izmir and Bursa.
11. The tree-lovers of yesterday cause damage to parks, plazas, public institutions, party quarters, police stations, ambulances, buses, schools, and roads. They set flowers and trees to fire (anyone see anything wrong here?), they take apart sidewalks and barricade streets. The hole left in the national budget is over 10 million dollars in the capital city just in the last day [6/18/2013]. You know we could have invested that money in medical research, we could have invested it in our children, we could have invested it in the welfare of our people and entertainment and more plazas and parks, BUT NO. Idiots will be idiots. The economy is also suffering due to millions of tourists cancelling their visits, leaving the country, or changing their future plans all together. 
12. The image of the developing and strong nation-state of Turkey has been hurt beyond easy restoring. The prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has been working for Turkey for a decade now. He is the perfect leader a country could ever ask for. He is determined, focused, and has realizable goals for Turkey. He has saved the country from the black pit of hopelessness it was previously drowning in. And as soon as he has all this nonsense under control, he will keep moving forward. 

People's stupidity both upsets and angers me. I am so insignificant, and have so little impact on the world. How do I change this? How can I become a leading figure in the world? How do I educate the masses as a whole? How can I stop cruelty, violence, discrimination, and inequality? How can I realize these huge goals of mine? How do I cure humanity?

Lots of tears,

~Belle

Words of Week 19

Infatuated: Be inspired with an intense but short-lived passion or admiration for
Prosaic: Having the style or diction of prose; lacking poetic beauty
Solipsism: The view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist.
Socialite: A person who is well known in fashionable society and is fond of social activity
Placate: Make (someone) less angry or hostile.
Languid: (of a person, manner, or gesture) Displaying or having a disinclination for physical exertion or effort; slow and relaxed

Charms in Brave New World

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
268 pages

"The mockery made him feel an outsider; and feeling an outsider he behaved like one, which increased the prejudice against him and intensified the contempt and hostility aroused by his physical defects."

"Words can be like X-rays, if you use them properly -- they'll go through anything."

"One of the principal functions of a a friend is to suffer (in a milder and symbolic form) the punishments that we should like, but are unable, to inflict upon our enemies."

"Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery."

"But God doesn't change."
"Men do, though."
--
My review on Goodreads.

Charms in 1984

1984 by George Orwell
328 pages

"The consequences of every act are included in the act itself."

"Orthodoxy means not thinking -- not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness."

"There was something he lacked: discretion, aloofness, a sort of saving stupidity."

"Your worst enemy, he reflected, was your own nervous system. At any moment the tension inside you was liable to translate itself into some visible system."

"Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious."

"[A]fter all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both past and the external world exist only in the ind, and if the mind itself is controllable what then?"

"[I]n moments of crisis one is never fighting against an external enemy, but always against one's own body."

"If you loved someone, you loved him, and when you had nothing else to give, you still gave him love."

"But if the object was not to stay alive but to stay human, what difference did it ultimately make?"

"From the point of view of the Low, no historic change has ever meant much more than a change in the name of their masters."

"For it is only by reconciling contradictions that power can be retained indefinitely."

"There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad."

"Why should the fruit be held inferior to the flower?"

"Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood."

"What most oppressed him was the consciousness of his own intellectual inferiority."

"We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Powers is not a means, it is an end."

"If you want to keep a secret you must also hide it from yourself."
--
This book definitely failed me. I hear and read so many references about it, I decided to read it. It's an easy-read, took about 3 days, but in the end I didn't understand why everyone loved it so much. The narration is confusing and the characters are so appalling. No character development, obvious ending, no moral lessons, no life-changing passages -- just a dull dystopian story.

Words of Week 18

Overwrought: Exhausted and excited
Bland: Lacking in special interest, liveliness, individuality, etc.
Candor: The state or quality of being frank, open, and sincere in speech or expression
Notorious: Widely and unfavorably known:
Sporadic: (of similar things or occurrences) appearing or happening at irregular intervals in time
Variegated: Varied in appearance or color
Nonchalant: Coolly unconcerned, indifferent, or unexcited; casual
Emulate: To try to equal or excel

Charms in The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
371 pages

I read this last year, but today as I organized my bookshelf I saw that I had post-its sticking out of it, so I decided to post them. Beautiful and powerful, yet there are some things in this book that upset me as they may enforce false opinions about my religion.

"I finally had what I'd wanted all those years. Except now that I had it, I felt as empty as this unkempt pool I was dangling my legs into."

"It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime."

"I envied the mullah now. I envied his faith and certainty."

"You're gutless. It's how you were made. And that's not such a bad thing because your saving grace is that you've never lied to yourself about it. Not about that. Nothing wrong with cowardice as long as it comes with prudence. But when a coward stops remembering who he is...God help him."

"I see now that Baba was wrong, there is a God, there always had been. I see Him here, in the eyes of the people in this corridor of desperation. [...] There is a God, there has to be, and now I will pray, I will pray that He forgive that I have neglected Him all of these years, forgive that I have betrayed, lied, and sinned with impunity only to turn to Him now in my hour of need, I pray that He is as merciful, benevolent, and gracious as His book says He is. [...] I will think of Him every day from this day on if He only grants me this one wish: My hands are stained with Hassan's blood; I pray God doesn't let them get stained with the blood of his boy too. I hear a whimpering and realize it is mine, my lips are salty with the tears trickling down my face. I feel the eyes of everyone in this corridor on me and still I bow to the west. I pray. I pray that my sins have not caught up with me the way I'd always feared they would."

"I lay awake, an insomniac once more. And alone with demons of my own."

"But I'll take it. With open arms. Because when spring comes, it melts the snow one flake at a time, and maybe I just witnessed the first flake melting."

Words of Week 17

Bookish: More acquainted with books than with real life
Ampersand: A character or symbol (&) for and
Sycophant: A self-seeking, servile flatterer
Disparity: Lack of similarity or equality; inequality
Presumptuous: Assuming an unwarranted, unauthorized responsibility
Flagrant: Shockingly noticeable or evident; obvious; glaring
Dubious: Of doubtful quality or propriety; questionable