Post #14 Form B (FINAL POST!!!)

A lot happened to Heavenlight in a very short period of time. She had an affair with the son of the Emperor, Little Phoenix. Then the emperor died. She went off to become a nun at a monastery. Little Phoenix, the new Emperor, called her back to him. She gave birth to his son. She became a concubine. She then had the Empress kicked out and killed after Heavenlight’s daughter was poisoned by the Empress. She became the new Empress. She gave birth to another son. She had her sister become a concubine to the Emperor as well so that his interests would not leave the immediate family. “The Emperor had stopped pursuing the beauties to spend alternate nights in our beds.” (131) Her sister’s daughter fell into favor with the Emperor. “I learned that the sovereign’s heart had been inflamed once more and that his conquest had already been consummated. Her name was Harmony. She was Purity’s daughter.” (135) Her sister died of sadness upon hearing about the relationship. And her niece, Harmony, hates her guts. Talk about a whirlwind of activity and a ton of incest.

Post #12 Form B

People are very emotional in this book. Love, sorrow, wrath, jealousy, abandonment, loneliness, desperation, desire, it’s all here mixed together like a drama gone horribly astray. One moment people are in love, the next they are in mourning, the next they are jealous and inflict their anger on those around them. Many people have died from sorrow and abandonment. “I stayed at the bedside of the Delicate Concubine Xu, trying to persuade her not to let herself die. Beneath her linen sheet, she weighed little more than a feather. She spat blood and was wracked by violent coughing. She reached out for me with her frozen bony hand. We talked endlessly about our first few years in the Side Court, the Institute of Letters, and the late sovereign. I begged her to receive a doctor. She smiled and gave me no reply. I could see in her eyes her determination to follow her master into the next world. She died a few days later.” (86) Many more have been killed as a result of wrath and jealousy. It all happens so quickly that after a while it’s hardly even noticeable just how many emotions are experienced on each page.

Post #10 Form B

Dear Shan Sa,
I have many praises for you. I admire how Empress has such vivid, figurative language yet still carries a heavy dose of bluntness. Your elusions and descriptions are beautifully written and the entire book has a poetic feel to it. “The palace of Precious Dew was displaying its beds of irises and orchids. With its ceilings as high as the vault of the heavens, its curtains of pearls, its screens inscribed with calligraphy, and its succession of sinuous galleries, it was a labyrinth of intrigue. Its countless doors opened onto a little corner of sky, a sloping roof, a window in the shape of a crescent moon, a rockery smothered in the twisted limbs of a wisteria or an emerald pond around which white cranes flitted.” (70) Every character has many sides and emotions which are far more complex and developed than even some people.Yet you do not falter at even the most taboo of subjects. I admire that. I truly do. However, amongst the admirations there are also questions for you. What about Empress Wu’s tale inspired you to write this book? How much of her tale is historic, how much is myth, and how much stems from your imagination?
Your admiring reader,
Virginia

Post #8 Form B

‘“My little cousin, I have heard stories of you,” she said, pronouncing each word carefully. Her lips were two petals of red grenadine. “I shall take care of your instruction, my little, wild one.”’ (52) This is the beginning of a very very very very bad relationship for Heavenlight. She falls in love with her cousin, the Gracious Wife. “In fact my longing to see her again supplanted every other agony. Freed from the anguish of mourning, I was now enslaved by a new torment. I did not know this was the being of love: Taut as an archer’s bow, my soul distended with expectation, my desire tightly coiled, my stomach tensed.”(54) So, she falls in love with her. She thinks about her constantly and is anguished to be apart from her. Finally, she meets the Gracious Wife again. They sleep together. Yes, the intimate kind of sleeping together. They sleep together, the Gracious Wife beats her. They sleep together, the Gracious Wife beats her. The Gracious Wife even makes her sleep with other girls. “She forced strangers on me, girls I did not desire. In that accumulation of mouths and breasts, above the mirror that multiplied the gaping orifices further, she would beat me until I bled. The other women would fondle on another as they watched me. They were naked, with their heads between on another’s thighs, their bodies writhing in the blaze of sunlight, shrieking with pleasure; and I felt only loathing.” (62) Like I said, a very very very very bad relationship for Heavenlight.
(Do you pity me yet for having to read this Ms. Burgess?)

Post #6 Form B

“In the Palace of Celestial Breath, I followed the training given to new women at Court. The great curtsey, the minor curtsey, greetings of respect, greetings of condescension, greetings from equal to equal, the quick walk, the slow walk… there was no spontaneity in the Forbidden City. Natural responses were considered the premise of the people and of Barbarians; all the elegance of our movements derived from the height of restraint.” (42) I found it very interesting that these women who are granted a life of luxury create their own hierarchy. They make rules and laws to govern themselves within the Forbidden City. Though it seems very superficial it gives these women something to do rather than laze about. They make friends and enemies and create their own little world within the palace. It seems so distant, so dreamlike to read about. But I suppose to the women who lived there it was very real and very, very real. And very, very dull. They must have come up with many more rules and games in order to entertain themselves. And of course they chatted with the eunuchs to learn about the affairs of the outer realm. I feel sorry for them but I also admire their ingenuity and the cunning plans they made in order to gain power and influence despite being in a patriarchal society and being cut off from the world.

Post #4 Form B

Thus far Heavenlight’s journey has all been a matter of fate. Her family had once been a noble family with power and wealth. However, her father died and her mother and siblings were stripped of all they had and left to depend on their extended family; a family who did not care for them, who did not appreciate nor love them. Her mother’s way of adapting to this was to put her all into Buddhism. If her current life was a mess she hoped to have a better next life and so she prayed and prayed and made religion her life.
By another piece of fate Heavenlight met General Li, who, impressed by her intelligence, recommended her to the emperor. He told her, “Heavenlight, you are an exceptional girl. I shall take responsibility for your destiny!” (26) She was then brought to the Forbidden City to be one Emperor’s of the hundreds of women.” The Great Uncle told me the news: Great General Li Ji, Governor of our province, had spoken highly of me at the Imperial Court. I was to be called for by a decree from the sovereign to go into service in the Forbidden City.” (32) Named a Talented One, Heavenlight became the only hope her mother and sister had at a better life.

Post #2 Form B

‘After looking carefully up and down, she put a finger in my hand, and I squeezed it until she flushed red and began to cry. "You must not hurt your sister," my wet nurse told me. She did not know that years later, as she had in those days of innocence, Elder Sister would beg me to be her torturer.’ (6)
This is a very clear foreshadowing of the dangers, trials, and tribulations to come. I get the feeling that Wu will become a very powerful woman very quickly, but the internal struggles she will face will slowly tear her apart. She will be caught in the middle, torn at the seams. At least, that’s my impression thus far. She is very inquisitive and that leads to her becoming much more aware of how much the world around her differs from the confined world she has been exposed to. This inquisitive nature of hers is bound to get her into trouble and troubles like that might have something to do with whatever will happen between her and her sister. But, that’s just my guess on everything.

Post #14 Form B

‘I dreamed of the desert and the sun and the big house in Phoenix with the palm tree in the front and the orange trees and oleanders in the back. We had owned that house outright. Still owned it, I kept thinking. It was ours, the one true home we’d ever had.
“Are we ever going home?” I asked Dad one day.
“Home?”
“Phoenix.”
“This is our home now.”’ (154)
Jeannette and her family are constantly on the move. They are rarely in one place for long and when they do stay somewhere for a while the attachment the kids have is hard for them to get over especially when they move somewhere they don’t particularly like. (Example being the move from Phoenix to Welch, West Virginia)
This continuous change of environment shapes the Wells children’s lives dramatically. The shifts cause them to be much more open minded than most, especially when it comes to differences in people. However, the never ending cycle of moving the moment something happens becomes tiresome for the children and they are nearly always poor because of it. Though I’m sure it was fun for the kids at first, it must have been really hard to be always moving and switching lifestyles. Jeannette recalls bullying and sexual harassment in various places they lived and more often than not there are more bad things than good things to say about the different towns. She must have turned into a very strong woman after dealing with such variable condition all throughout her childhood.

Post #12 Form B

“After all he’d put himself through, I couldn’t believe Dad had gone back to the booze.” (123)
This quote shows Jeannette’s father’s continuing fight with alcohol. Despite numerous attempts at quitting the disastrous habit, her father always went ‘back to the booze’. It got to the point where, for her 10th birthday, all she’d asked for from her father was for him to quit drinking. And he had. For a while. He quit and went through all of the withdrawal symptoms. He had had delusions and became quite sick. He spent an entire summer, a Nevadan summer, recuperating yet he was unable to return to the dirty habit once things went south in his life. This habit shaped a lot of Jeannette’s childhood because her father became quite violent once he was drunk and the habit sucked up all of the money the family had. They were nearly always poor once her father started on booze again.
“With Dad drinking again and no money coming in, Mom began to talk about moving east, to West Virginia, where Dad’s parents lived.” (123)
Once Jeannette’s father was drinking heavily it was impossible for him to keep a steady job so he spent the money they had and didn’t bring in any new money. These drunken sprees nearly always led to the family packing up and moving in hopes of a better outlook elsewhere. But the same situation was repeated over and over again.

Post #10 Form B

After a gypsy clan stole Brian’s pogo stick and left a chicken with its throat slit on the doorstep of the family after the Mom got into an argument with the clan leader. Jeannette’s Mother decided to fight magic with magic.
“Standing on the sidewalk, she held up the bone like a crucifix at an exorcism, and called down a curse on the entire Gypsy clan and their house, vowing that it would collapse with the lot of them in it and that the bowels of the earth would open up and swallow them for ever if they bothered us again. The next morning Brian’s pogo stick was lying in the front yard.” (102)
This quote represents Brian’s mother’s superstitious nature. She decides to take the matter somewhat seriously and combat the ‘magic’ with her own ‘magic’. This quote also gives a glimpse as to what kind of neighbors Jeannette had in her early years. At the beginning of the chapter she describes her neighbors as ‘weird’ but this incident really highlights that. This quote is also a good comedy relief type of thing because it comes shortly after the death of Jeannette’s grandmother. All in all it just seems to fit in nicely with what is going on yet it is random enough to require a double take over that section of the book. Kinda neat.

Post #8 Form B

I am constantly impressed by the wisdom shown by Jeannette’s parents. Though some of their ideas about things aren’t what society would consider appropriate nowadays they often have excellent pearls of wisdom. An example of this is when Jeannette tells her mom that they should get a “No-Pest Strip like Carla’s family” but her mother refuses saying, “If it kills the flies it can’t be very good for us.” (65) However, some of Jeannette’s parents’ approaches are no longer considered good parenting. One example of this is when Jeannette goes out to play with her friends and gets a large gash. When she show’s her mother the cut her mother says, “Nothing but a minor flesh wound” (59) despite the mother of the girl Jeannette was playing with saying that Jeannette’s mother should take her in to get stitches. Jeannette’s parent’s ‘hands off’ approach to parenting works both ways for the children. Though they grow up in an environment where they learn from their mistakes it also means that when they make mistakes they must deal with all that accompanies those mistakes without the help of an adult. Though her parent’s are more than capable of giving great advice and thinking of things in a way which is beneficial to their children they often choose not to ‘on behalf of their children learning from mistakes’.

Post #6 Form B

“I want that one,” I said.
Dad grinned. “That’s Venus,” he said. Venus was only a planet, he went on, and pretty dinky compared to real stars. She looked bigger and brighter because she was much closer than the stars. Poor old Venus didn’t even make her own light, Dad said. She shone only from reflected light. He explained to me that planets glowed because reflected light was constant, and stars twinkled because their light pulsed.
“I like it anyway,” I said. I had admired Venus even before that Christmas. You could see it in the early evening, glowing on the western horizon, and if you got up early, you could still see it in the morning, after all the stars had disappeared.
”What the hell,” Dad said. “It’s Christmas. You can have a planet if you want.”
Then he gave me Venus.’ (40)
Despite the many poor qualities Jeannette’s parents display, it is clear that they truly love their children. Despite their lives being harsh and variable, her parents do their best to make their kids feel special and to look out for them. Whether it’s making them conquer their fears or giving them planets and stars on Christmas because they can’t afford real presents, her parents are always finding creative ways to display their love for their children and care for them to the best of their ability. I think it’s really neat how creative and insightful Jeannette’s parents are. Though the actions they sometimes display aren’t necessarily what one might consider appropriate for a parent trying to be a good role model, they never allow their children to feel unequal to others. That’s really good of them and I admire them for it.

Post #4 Form B

“But when Dad pulled out a bottle of what Mom called “the hard stuff,” she got kind of frantic, because after working on the bottle for a while, Dad turned into an angry-eyed stranger who threw around furniture and threatened to beat up Mom or anyone else who got in his way. When he’d had his fill of cussing and hollering and smashing things up, he’d collapse. But Dad drank hard liquor only when we had money, which wasn’t often, so life was mostly good in those days.” (23)
It’s so astonishing to me that Jeannette’s ‘good days’ were the ones when her family didn’t have money and therefore her father couldn’t buy booze. It’s terrible to think that Jeannette and her siblings grew up in that kind of environment yet saw their father as a wonderful man and believed that time in their life to be good. I suppose this is also some foreshadowing to future days which aren’t nearly as good. It makes me wonder what could possibly be in store for Jeannette and her family. I suppose this quote also just goes to show that, if you grow up in it, anything can seem normal to someone. It’s amazing what people can get used to if they have no other options.

Post #2 Form B

Dear Jeannette Walls,
With a life as busy, spontaneous, and adventurous as yours, did you ever grow tired of it? One moment you were in a trailer park lit aflame while making hot dogs. The next your father is taking you out of the hospital ‘Rex Walls Style’. The next you are in the Blue Goose traveling to yet another unknown destination sleeping under the desert stars along the way. Pain, joy, fear, friendship, love, and loss. All of these things moved by so quickly for you in your childhood. Did you ever just want to stop for a while? Keep to one place and not move around quite as much? Or were you content with your constant change in scenery. Happy with the never-ending excitement, the frequent moves, and spontaneous movements of your family. I’m sure it was all very thrilling. But there must have been times when you felt hurt by your family’s behavior. I know I would have been hurt if “Mom told me she had entered my name in a raffle at a fair, and I’d won a helicopter ride.” and I had asked “When do I get to go on the ride?” with the reply of “Oh, we already did that. It was fun” (13) How did you bear through your oddball family. Or was it just the only thing you knew, or was it your age, or were/are you just a stronger person than I?
A new fan and admirer,
Virginia

Post #14 Form B

“Fenris the Feared turned slowly to the high table, raising his great tattooed fist, opening his chasm of a mouth, a hideous spasm running over his face. ‘Angland!’ he screamed, louder and more terrible by far than the Lord Chamberlain had ever been. The echoes of his voice bounced off the domed ceiling high above, resounded from the curved walls, filling the great space with piercing sound.” (140)
This quote gives a very terrifying image of this thing-ish person. It gives a distinctive image of what Fenris looks like, acts like, sounds like, etc. You already are glad that you aren’t at the scene right now. I find that the author does a great job at describing this scene. He doesn’t force a specific image into your head, but rather, he give the basic outline for the character and you create the rest of the image based on what each individual person would feel was more fearsome. Personally, I think this is an excellent display of the skill of this author, and I think that more parts like these give the book more potential to be decent to people who don’t read this genre very often. Hopefully, this book will seem more worth it to have read after some time has passed and I begin to forget the … gory parts.

Post # 12 Form B

“Bethod’s second son turned his contempt on the First of the Magi. ‘My father will be displeased, Bayaz! That my men must wait outside the gate shows little respect!’
‘But I have so little, Prince Calder,’ said the wizard calmly. ‘Please don’t be downhearted, though. Your last messenger wasn’t allowed over the bridge, so you see we’re making progress.”’ (101)
This quotes shows that there is an order to this society. There is a hierarchy and assumed respect. This quote gives some insight to that order and the rest of the page continues to develop the order of things. It is clear that a lot of thought was put into how this society should be implemented. The chapter continues on to have Bayaz talk about how he would follow no one’s orders but on man whom is dead. He also says that he would much rather have the father come to talk to him in person rather than the son or messenger. He also refers to following the older traditions which shows a change over time in this society as it becomes more and more advanced. The ways of old are dwindling just as in our society today. All in all this portion of the book show a clear development of the world in which the charters live in and makes apparent the similarities and differences between this fictional world and the world in which you and I live.

Post #10 Form B

‘“Porridge and honey, better than money, everything’s funny, with porridge and honey!’
‘It’s a rhym for children. My mother used to sing it to me. Never actually got me to eat this slop though. But now,’ and he dug the spoon in, ‘I can’t get enough of it.’
‘Healthy,’ said Glokta, forcing down a mouthful of sweet mush and spooning up another, ‘delicious,’ choking down some more, ‘and here’s the real clincher.’ He gagged slightly on the next swallow, ‘no chewing required.’” (81)
This quote is interesting because it gives some sarcastic insight as to what Glokta’s life is like. The difficulty he has with just the things the average person takes for granted, to the things some have difficulty with which he takes for granted. The author uses a unique way of displaying a character with a way of life most would never wish to have and making the character someone whom you, as a reader, can relate to. I have found that I have warmed up the Glokta and even find his sarcasm amusing, at times. Every chapter gives the reader more and more insight as to what Glokta’s life was like before he was captured and crippled. One might even go so far as to say he might have been pleasant to be around when he was younger. Crazy thought for someone who is now a torturer. Yet, somehow it works out that way.

Post #8 Form B

Dear Joe Abercrombie author of the book The Blade Itself,
Having started reading your book it occurred to me that you use a lot of description for certain aspects of the story such as the fencing matches. Do you fence? If not, did you do a lot of research in order to learn enough about the topic to write about it in such detail? In fact, all of you fighting scenes are quite thoroughly written. Did you just kind of make it up as to how you envisioned it or did you do research? I ask this because I really like the practicality of your fight scenes. They aren’t embellished or made too simple. They are how one would think a fight would be in the real world. If we still fought with swords that is…
Also, much of this story seems to be modeled off of medieval times. (as many fantasy stories are) Was this something you studied as well? Or was it based off of prior knowledge? I don’t really know why but it seems to me, from reading the book, that you must have researched these topics. They seem too precise to just be made up or based off of prior knowledge. Anyway, I hope the book continues to impress me with it’s quality.
A content reader,
Virginia

Post #6 Form B

‘“Wait!” screamed the prisoner.
Bang! The heavy blade bit deep into the table top, neatly paring off Teufel’s middle fingernail. He was breathing fast now, and there was a sheen of sweat on his forehead[…]
“Confess.”
“You couldn’t.”
Bang! The cleaver took off the very tip of Teufel’s middle finger. Blood bubbled out on to the table top. Severard’s eyes were smiling in the lamp light. Teufel’s jaw dropped. But the pain will be a while coming. “Confess!” bellowed Glokta.
Bang! The cleaver took off the top of Teufel’s ring finger, and a little disc out of his middle finger which rolled a short way and dropped off onto the floor.’ (55)
How creepy! It’s one thing to read that someone was tortured but an entirely different thing to actually read about it in detail. This book is far more gruesome than anything I usually read. The way the author uses his words makes it seem real and that is even scarier. However disgusting this portion might be, it does give insight to what life is like for Glokta. I couldn’t imagine doing something like that for a living. How terrible it must be to constantly cause others to suffer by your hands. What got me the most though was when the author talked about the pieces of flesh rolling across the floor and flying into the air. Ugh…

Post #4 Form B

This… is a weird book. The genre is definitely not one I am used to. The bloody gory is kind of bearable but the overall attitude of the characters is hard to connect to. So far the book has introduced three of the four main characters. The first was Logen. He is hard to connect with because he is constantly fighting to survive and I must admit I have never really had the experience of fighting (literally) for life. Though so far only two chapters have been about Logen, in both of these chapters, pages 7-15 and 32-38, he is killing human/lizard like creatures in order to survive. The second character introduced is named Glokta. Glokta is a torturer. He tortures people. Not someone who you just immediately connect with. Besides being a torturer he is old and, because of an injury when he was younger, crippled. Again, not something I have experienced or could really have a full understanding of. The most recent character is named Jazel. He is introduced as a man who drinks and gambles to pass the time (pages 39-42). He is also apparently a rich captain who is fairly pathetic when it comes to physical prowess. Despite not bonding with any of the characters the book is fairly decent and it has been interesting seeing the various walks of life people, is this fantasy land, have. Also, I must say that I find myself feeling the same way as I did with my quarter 1 book, I’m glad I don’t live in this book. ^^