EVIL! *><*

At this point, I just really want to finish the book and be done with it, but yet again we have not only an extended ending, but it completely contradicts everything that Mark Twain seemed to be building up to about Huck maturing and how his views towards Jim have changed. The last few (what should have been the last) chapters took the book into a full loop right back to where it started with Huck and Tom messing around and pranking Jim. What happened there? It would have been much better off if Jim was set free and Huck ventured into the distance to an exciting new adventure out west, but of course there must have been one last point Mark Twain was trying to make, that is if he even wrote it at all. To me it didn’t seem like the style of writing he had been imposing on us before, but who am I to say he didn’t necessarily write it?

“Picks is the thing, moral or no moral; and as for me, I don’t care shucks for the morality of it, nohow. When I start in to steal a nigger, or a watermelon, or a Sunday school book, I ain’t no ways particular how it’s done so it’s done. What I want is my nigger; or I want my watermelon; or what I want is my Sunday school book; and if a pick’s the handiest thing, that’s the thing I’m a-going to dig that nigger or that watermelon or that Sunday school book out with; and I don’t give a dead rat what the authorities thinks about it nuther.” -p237

Wow. If this doesn’t show total disregard to everything Huck and Jim have gone through, then I don’t know what else does. Perhaps there are better quotes in the same part when they actually make him go into the shed, stain his own shirt with blood then throw it out the window, etc etc but this should do just the same. Huck seems to be explaining his point by using the examples “nigger” referring to Jim as if his life wasn’t depending on getting out of that shed despite the fact he was in there for several weeks; “watermelon” which I thought interesting because Huck did steal things he absolutely needed (food yes) and a “Sunday School book”. That interested me the most because Huck didn’t believe that Heaven was the ideal place to go since his friends would all be hanging out in Hell and it didn’t sound like one could have fun in Heaven anyways. So why would Huck care about a Sunday School Book if he didn’t give a dead rat for dead people (like Moses), didn’t want to go to Heaven, and certainly gave up trying to do good in the first place, knowing he had broken the law by freeing Jim? So here we have the “nigger”, the person he had once thought of as a father and a brother now reduced to a piece of property or even a simple object, a “watermelon” being food, something he could get anywhere or steal because he wanted it, and a “Sunday School Book” which doesn’t sound all that important to him anyway. My last and only other thought is how dare Huck do that to Jim after all they’ve been through! Such a complete turn around from the great ending I was expecting. Very anti-climactic if you ask me.

Even though I knew V was about to get what was comin to him, having seen the movie, I still cried while reading the book. :*( . I thought the jail scene was a bit harsh and was a bit of an odd way of saying “I love you” but she did say she wanted to get over her fear of death. The fighting scene was incredible too! I guess seeing the movie first wasn’t all that regretable, because the fighting was a lot easier to picture. I know first hand that describing a brawl between characters is a feat in itself if you make the reader truly understand what’s going on. It’s even more amazing when they can picture it in their heads as it happens. Contrasting a scene from a movie and a few paragraphs in a book for one quick second; while a scene can happen in a matter of seconds or even minutes, reading all that onto a page can make things seem to happen in slow motion. When I read about a fight, I wait untill I can imagine each “frame” if you will and then when I’m done put it all together. When he came back to Evey I thought he was actually going to make it, but then as he proclaimed his love for her I knew he was a goner. The most satisfying part was the downfall of the Chancellor by far, because V finally got what he wanted to do done. He saved Britain (and in the larger picture, the world) from the potentially problematic dictatorship. Fantastic Book overall!!

When I saw the movie, I knew it was going to be good. I laughed, I gasped and I cried. There were some things that I didn’t understand when I watched them on a screen that I suddenly understood in the book. So far, I’ve read about half the book and I believe I’m at the part where Evey hears about V’s past. I never got the whole flashback in the movie, but now I understand. V was taken to some sort of a concentration camp type of a place and was supposed to burn to death, but somehow survived. He then vowed to seek revenge not by killing all those in his way, but to keep the British Government from doing such a horrible thing to another innocent life. It’s also interesting how “V” is a roman numeral for five, and that number appeared on the file cabinet. Though I think V for Vendetta as a movie was one of the best I’ve ever seen, I still think I should have read the book first for the visual affects and to understand the story plot. Two thumbs up so far!!

The movie and the book are now so close together on the plot I could have written this on the movie! The funny part is that I am a huge movie critic when it comes out of a book.  This I would give an excellent review! It was so sad when Evey’s best friend V (posing for the real V I think) was arrested and she was hiding under her bed.  Hm, I thought, that seems familiar, then in the movie they show the flashback of her doing the exact same thing.  I didn’t figure Evey’s friend was the masked V because his hands weren’t burned and he wasn’t being played by Hugo Weaving.  (I know the actor because he also plays the virus dude who always says “Mr. Anderson” in the Matrix and Elrond in LotR).  Did you also know that the stunt coordinators and special effects staff were the same used for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and the Matrix? The book would have been better to read as the comic book than as the novel but I’m not one for comic books.  Either way I love this book! I suggest it to anyone.

My group is currently acting out The Scottish Play, Act III scene’s III-V.  I play Lady Macbeth, and I got a lot of lines to learn :Þ.  Currently we have assigned everyone at least a part and we all get to speak at some point.  With that out of the way, we all voted on what job we were to do.  I was given the job of set design writer, and so far I haven’t started but will vey soon.  Our progress could be fairing better but we’re off to a relatively good start.  The memorizing will be the hardest along with coordinating the costumes, but we can do it.