The Castle of Otranto-3

I've read the first chapter and half of the second so far and I've already come across so many "gothic" elements. By the way, each chapter is about 20 or so pages and there are 5 chapters total :)

The book starts out introducing the characters, like I've already blogged, then a large part of the plot is introduced (the prophesy) and a character is killed by a large helmet. After this happens, Manfred, the prince of Otranto, becomes a bit...crazy...but its really just all the grief from his son dying and the thought of losing his position as prince.

I think he's crazy because now he wants to marry Isabella himself, since his son obviously can't :D

He tells Isabella that she deserves more than a "sickly child" anyways and that soon he will be glad that his son is dead. Manfred wants to divorce his wife, who can't give him anymore heirs, and marry someone who is more capable.

Then, if that isn't weird enough, Isabella freaks out (which of course she should), then the gallery that they are in seems to become haunted, Isabella runs out (but the castle gates are locked, so she ends up trying to escape to the nearby church by using secret passages underground) she meets the peasant that was accused of somehow lifting the giant helmet and killing Conrad. Then they hear Manfred coming so Isabella goes through a trap door, but it closes making it impossible for the man to follow, so he trys to keep Manfred from thinking that anyone actually went through the trap door, so that Isabella can get away. Then a lot of other strange things happen (like there's a giant...supposedly...)

And I'm really excited to be reading this because it's actually a really good book, although it does kind of bother me that all the dialogue is just mixed in with the paragraphs without quotation marks or anything, so it's a bit difficult to read, but still very interesting. :P

The Castle of Otranto-2

Wow...so I haven't even read the first chapter and I can already see why this is claimed to be such a great gothic novel.

Like I've read, Walpole really sets the tone of his novel with the setting. During the first few pages he sets up a very happy setting with his son getting married, to a horrible one, where his son is killed (all within like 3 pages).

I don't think I've ever read a book where the plot takes such a dramatic change so early in.

The Castle of Otranto starts out as a very "normal" book. Walpole introduces the characters and the plot and setting. He introduces the Prince of Otranto and talks about his beautiful daughter and sickly son, who is to be married on the day that this book begins. He also introduces a key part of the plot: a curse on the family and its ownership of Otranto.

Then all this drama happens and you find out that his son has been crushed by the helmet of this giant statue...and that's where I stopped reading, so that I could blog about it. But, yeah, that's a lot to happen so quickly, and it already sets a *gothic* tone to the novel, so I'm ready to go keep reading and find out what other horrible things are going to happen...^_^

The Castle of Otranto

The Castle of Otranto
by Horace Walpole

So, I figured I should definitely read this since I'm doing my research paper on it :) it took *forever* for it to get delivered though -.-

I've already done a lot of research on gothic novels and so I have an idea about this book. Although I still don't know exactly what to expect because the different sources I looked at for my annotated bibliography said different things about it; most sources praised the book, though. I'm excited to read what's claimed to be the first gothic novel :D

The introduction to the book claims that Walpole had a dream, which he turned into this book (which many of my research sources also claimed). That is only one among many facts that I've learned about Horace Walpole and The Castle of Otranto in my research (all of it very interesting).

I am expecting a lot from this book although I'm afraid of how it's written (like if it will be difficult to understand or something) because it was written so long ago (1764). But i'm still excited to read it...XD

Me Talk Pretty One Day

Me Talk Pretty One Day
by David Sedaris

So, Ms. Cassell let me borrow this non-fiction book and I remembered reading a short story by the same author in our Bedford Readers, so I was pretty excited to read this.
The title did help with my excitement...i don't know why, but it's just a kind of unusual title...because it sounds kind of dumb and all...:D

Since I had read something by Sedaris before and it was really funny, I was hoping Me Talk Pretty One Day would be an amusing read too. I was not disappointed. David Sedaris is possibly the funniest author I have every read any books by. He is an incredibly interesting person and is also a really great writer!

This book is a collection of short stories of just moments in his life that he feels are important in some way. He writes about having a speech teacher at a young age, the many pets his family has gone through, learning to play the guitar (or not so much), his siblings and parents, and also the times when he was on drugs and attempting to do art as a living. All of his stories are very entertaining and I really can't wait to read another book by him (another book of short stories by him is amusingly called "Naked", so I'm hoping to come across it in our public/school library...I've gotta read a fiction book first because I want to keep my pattern up, but then (hopefully) I'll go back to reading about Sedaris ^_^

scarlet letter-done!

I finished The Scarlet Letter and I really liked it! Before I read it and while I was reading it, I had a bunch of my friends tell me that they didn't really enjoy reading it, but I was totally the opposite. I loved the characters and the plot of the story. The plot was incredibly interesting and the characters all contained so much symbolism. The story really was great :)

I also thought the ending of the book was well written. I usually don't really like the endings of books because, for one thing (if it was a good book) there's no more to read, which is kind of sad. And for another thing, they just usually don't end very well... :/ (like the ending of the seventh Harry Potter book...that just like ruined the whole series for me >.<)

But, I really liked the ending of The Scarlet Letter, but I don't really want to talk to much about it because my friends might read this and I don't want to spoil the book for them (because they just *have* to read it ^_^)

So, I know I forgot about my posts for last weeks blog check (we had the day off, which totally threw me off...), but I've already read my non-fiction book, so I'll publish this blog and write another for that book :P