"And when it's morning, the sun will rise."

I'm slightly embarrassed to admit it, but I really like The Hunger Games trilogy. At least, I enjoy the first one a lot. I'm quite attached to the characters, and consequently, I enjoy the second. Like many readers, however, I've had a hard time figuring out what I think of Mockingjay, the series' conclusion. After seeing the movie, I re-read the first two books, then skipped to the last chapter of Mockingjay on a whim, and found myself sobbing through the ending. For the next 24 hours, I couldn't really think of the ending or of the song lyrics in the book without tearing up, which was both perplexing and embarrassing. Finally, I had to sit down and write out why the ending affected me so much, why it was so painful--perhaps painful in a good way, though. I'm going to share my thoughts with you.

Can you feel the world turn upside down?

I want to return to the rather cryptic post I made in April about Christ's resurrection and elaborate on the idea which dominated my thought process this Easter season. Sometimes we fail to remember that Easter really is all about celebrating the staggering event of the Resurrection. The same phrase kept returning to me during that season: "Can you feel the world turn upside down?"

"It was the Water Rat!"

One of the great delights of summer is the opportunity to explore the literary world at whim, rather than abiding by the constraints of syllabuses. Despite the business of some of these weeks (and, indeed, the apathy of others), I've been able to take advantage of this opportunity quite a bit recently, reading books I wouldn't ordinarily pick up during the school year. This venture seems to have thrust me into the territory of non-fiction, a country I'm rather too inclined to neglect. At present, I'm perusing Simon Winchester's fascinating book, The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary. While the book as a whole has proven both intrigueing and incredibly informative, the highlight for me has been a minor digression in the book's second chapter, which reveals that the inspiration for the character of the Water Rat in The Wind in the Willows was "the half-mad scholar--gypsy who was secretary of the Philological Society, Frederick Furnivall" (38).

Reflections on an Easter Sunday

The Lord is risen indeed!

ALLELUIA!

(Can you feel the world turn upside down?)

"I wonder what you think of Joyce, Father?": Epiphany in "The Enduring Chill"

This is a paper I recently wrote for my American Literature class. It's a brief interpretive response of Flannery O'Connor's short story "The Enduring Chill." I was really excited to get to bring Joyce in--"The Dead" is one of the most beautiful short stories ever, and synthesizing what I'm learning with British lit feels like irrigating a desert. I'm not good with American Lit. Nevertheless, I really like O'Connor, and getting a picture of this interesting intellectual conversation was certainly valuable.