I seldom read books, but back in university I was required to read a lot of novels, short stories, plays and poetry. I really loved the plays, poetry and short stories, but not the novels because I have a short attention span when it comes to books. I prefer it short and concise, like the articles in Reader's Digest.
HOWEVER, I did take a liking to the novel Seize The Day by Saul Bellow. It's about this New Yorker Tommy Wilhelm and the events he goes through in the span of a day. Tommy is this down-and-out All American guy, complete with good looks to boot. He had the physique of a football player but all he ever did was live off his retired father and dabble in the stock market. His life was a sham.
He had separated from his wife because she, if I remembered correctly, left Tommy because well, he just couldn't provide for the family. Useless bum lah so to speak. Rajin but just takde luck maybe. And the woman was demanding for some money to take care of the chidren whom she took custody of.
He was living with his father, despite being like, 40-ish years old.
He had so many failed ventures in life. He went to act in films in Hollywood for a short while, but that didn't work out.
Even his attempt at investing in stocks met with failure.
Throughout the story you discover this man who has 'been around' but never found true fulfilment in life. Not in his marriage, not in his career, not in his self- nothing.
The story climaxes when all this failure/madness/sadness/frustration dawned on him. Tommy was accidently pushed by the busy Manhattan sidewalk crowd into a funeral held inside a church. He wasn't suppose to be there, he just accidently stumbled in.
He saw the open casket. It was a man, in his forties, pleasant looking. It was him. He saw himself in the dead man and Tommy Wilhelm just let go. He cried so much that the relatives at the funeral were convinced that Tommy was a long lost brother or something.
"Oh, it must be the cousin from Boston," the relatives said. "Oh, to be mourned like that!"
Gosh that book gets me every time. I bring the book everywhere I go. Of course the fabulous thing is that I ineterpret the book this way. Maybe if other people read it, they might view it differently.
That's the thing about literature. There's never a right or wrong answer. Just remember to argue your point when you're writing your literature term paper lah.
But seriously, it's the same thing with songs and poems and movies too. As Ethan Hawke's character said in 'Before Sunset': " People see what they want to see. You view the world through your own tiny keyhole"
HOWEVER, I did take a liking to the novel Seize The Day by Saul Bellow. It's about this New Yorker Tommy Wilhelm and the events he goes through in the span of a day. Tommy is this down-and-out All American guy, complete with good looks to boot. He had the physique of a football player but all he ever did was live off his retired father and dabble in the stock market. His life was a sham.
He had separated from his wife because she, if I remembered correctly, left Tommy because well, he just couldn't provide for the family. Useless bum lah so to speak. Rajin but just takde luck maybe. And the woman was demanding for some money to take care of the chidren whom she took custody of.
He was living with his father, despite being like, 40-ish years old.
He had so many failed ventures in life. He went to act in films in Hollywood for a short while, but that didn't work out.
Even his attempt at investing in stocks met with failure.
Throughout the story you discover this man who has 'been around' but never found true fulfilment in life. Not in his marriage, not in his career, not in his self- nothing.
The story climaxes when all this failure/madness/sadness/frustration dawned on him. Tommy was accidently pushed by the busy Manhattan sidewalk crowd into a funeral held inside a church. He wasn't suppose to be there, he just accidently stumbled in.
He saw the open casket. It was a man, in his forties, pleasant looking. It was him. He saw himself in the dead man and Tommy Wilhelm just let go. He cried so much that the relatives at the funeral were convinced that Tommy was a long lost brother or something.
"Oh, it must be the cousin from Boston," the relatives said. "Oh, to be mourned like that!"
Gosh that book gets me every time. I bring the book everywhere I go. Of course the fabulous thing is that I ineterpret the book this way. Maybe if other people read it, they might view it differently.
That's the thing about literature. There's never a right or wrong answer. Just remember to argue your point when you're writing your literature term paper lah.
But seriously, it's the same thing with songs and poems and movies too. As Ethan Hawke's character said in 'Before Sunset': " People see what they want to see. You view the world through your own tiny keyhole"
Comments