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Gifts by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Pages Read This Week: 118
Pages This Semester:  591

Quotes:

1. "You know when sometimes you meet someone so beautiful and then you actually talk to them and five minutes later they're as dull as a brick? Then there's other people, when you meet them you think, "Not bad. They're okay." And then you get to know them and... and their face just sort of becomes them. Like their personality's written all over it. And they just turn into something so beautiful." - Amy Pond from Dr. Who
This quote is so cute and romantic (in context at least)!

2. "Thy acts are like mercy," said Hester, bewildered and appalled; "but thy words interpret thee as a terror!"

"One thing, thou that wast my wife, I would enjoin upon thee," continued the scholar. "Thou hast kept the secret of thy paramour. Keep, likewise, mine! There are none in this land that know me. Breathe not to any human soul that thou didst ever call me husband! Here, on this wild outskirt of the earth, I shall pitch my tent; for, elsewhere a wanderer, and isolated from human interests, I find here a woman, a man, a child, amongst whom and myself there exist the closest ligaments. No matter whether of love or hate: no matter whether of right or wrong! Thou and thine, Hester Prynne, belong to me. My home is where thou art and where he is. But betray me not!"

"Wherefore dost thou desire it?" inquired Hester, shrinking, she hardly knew why, from this secret bond. "Why not announce thyself openly, and cast me off at once?"

"It may be," he replied, "because I will not encounter the dishonour that besmirches the husband of a faithless woman. It may be for other reasons. Enough, it is my purpose to live and die unknown. Let, therefore, thy husband be to the world as one already dead, and of whom no tidings shall ever come. Recognise me not, by word, by sign, by look! Breathe not the secret, above all, to the man thou wottest of. Shouldst thou fail me in this, beware! His fame, his position, his life will be in my hands. Beware!"

"I will keep thy secret, as I have his," said Hester.

"Swear it!" rejoined he.

And she took the oath.

"And now, Mistress Prynne," said old Roger Chillingworth, as he was hereafter to be named, "I leave thee alone: alone with thy infant and the scarlet letter! How is it, Hester? Doth thy sentence bind thee to wear the token in thy sleep? Art thou not afraid of nightmares and hideous dreams?" -The Scarlet Letter 

Yeah these are long quotes but the context helps prevent confusion for you people who have not read The Scarlet Letter. I find this quote amusing because he is mad at her and they use Old English words. I can't take people seriously when they speak differently from what I am used to. Also, he is not quite teasing her, but I can't find the right word, when he says that he does not want to reveal his identity to the townspeople because of the reputation he would earn but then says that it could be a different reason. He's trying to keep secrets. It reminds me of my friends who say "maybe" when I ask them a yes/no question. I know what the real answer is but they are trying to hide it from me anyways.

No longer "Not Committed"

And I have finally found a book that holds my attention: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

While reading the chapter called "The Custom-House" of The Scarlet Letter, I was utterly confused and bored. This chapter is evidently an introduction after the previous introduction. The main parts about the intros that are actually useful are that Hester Prynne committed adultery and is being punished by her Puritan community, Hester's husband randomly shows up from Europe after years of absence and wants to remain unknown to everyone other than Hester, and Hester's lover is Mr. Dimmesdale. Even if you do not read the 40 page intro, you could still pick up on the context clues that will tell you this information.

The book actually became interesting once the story began. I like the descriptive words that paint pictures. For example, Hawthorne described the platform that Hester must stand on for three hours as punishment. The entire description of the scaffold takes up nearly the whole page!

Hawthorne also does not repeat phrases very often, such as repeating the description of the scarlet letter A on Hester's clothing. (She must wear the letter A on all of her clothing for the rest of her earthly life as punishment for committing adultery, this punishment is the compromise from death.) Sometimes Hawthorne refers to it as the "red letter" or "the letter A, in scarlet, fantastically embroidered with gold thread, upon her bosom" or "mark of shame." There are many other examples but this is the simplest.

The title is obviously uttered in this book, but what makes it interesting is that the editor capitalized the phrase  when it was first mentioned in the story.

"Her attire, which indeed, she had wrought for the occasion in prison, and had modeled much after her own fancy, seemed to express the attitude of her spirit, the desperate recklessness of her mood, by its wild and picturesque peculiarity. But the point which drew all eyes, and, as it were, transfigured the wearer--so that both men and women who had been familiarly acquainted with Hester Prynne were now impressed as if they beheld her for the first time--was that SCARLET LETTER, so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom. It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself.
'She hath good skill at her needle, that's certain," remarked one of her female spectators; "but did ever a woman, before this brazen hussy, contrive such a way of showing it? Why, gossips, what is it but to laugh in the faces of our godly magistrates, and make a pride out of what they, worthy gentlemen, meant for a punishment?'" -page 49 of Scarlet Letter

Most of the time, authors seem to enjoy "hiding" the title of the book in their story. This time, the author, or editor, decided to make the title very noticeable.

Not Committed

So I've been searching for a good book to read. In my searches, I have read some of Gifts by Ursula K. Le Guin and The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. I have not read much of either book because I have been so tired and busy this week and each book is tough to follow.

Gifts is a story involving magic and special powers. It is kinda like the X-Men series where people have special powers that can be destructive or used as defenses and only special people get them. In this story, the "gifts" travel through family lines. Gifts survive better when both parents are from the same lineage. Most of people that I have read about so far use their powers as defenses.

So far, the story has basically introduced the characters.  The narrator, Orrec, is a 16 year old boy who has the power of "undoing" (which causes instant death with just a glance). Orrec wears a blindfold because he believes his gift is "wild," that he could cause destruction unwittingly. Orrec's childhood friend, Gry, is from Roddmant (neighboring to Caspromant). Gry and her mother have the gift of calling animals to the hunt. Emmon, a runaway Lowlander, is traveling north, towards the Uplands. He meets Orrec and Gry in Caspromant, where Orrec's father is Brantor, or "master," Gry and Orrec attempt to explain the"gifts,"that they are real and not just Lowlander children's stories.  Emmon has trouble understanding that these powers should not be abused. He believes that Gry should call the animals whenever she pleases while Gry does not even want to use her power for hunting. Gry and Orrec also try to inform Emmon about the history of the Uplands, where various family lines live side by side, each of the with a hereditary "gift."

 'That's what the gifts are for, the powers — so you can protect your domain and keep your lineage pure.'-Orrec