What We Have Learned

"'And I saw a little girl, her eyes tightly closed, holding to her breast the old kind world, one that she knew in her heard could not remain, and she was holding it and pleading, never to let her go'" (Never Let Me Go, 272).

Reading books is kind of pointless unless you learn anything, so take it away, French Peas!

• Structure in life is important, but predestination dehumanizes.
• To an extent, we are all sheltered and should be aware of the mystery of the outside world.
• The past is a healthy thing upon which we can reflect.
• Human dignity should trump scientific achievement.
• Though they aren't always obvious, there are good thing in this world; we should hold on to them and make sure we never have to lose them.

I could deal with the cover of Brave New World -- a guy with a mechanical torso -- no problem. But the cover of Never Let Me Go is kind of scary for me, and I've noticed that I tend to set the book upside down after I read a portion of it. I'm assuming it's a really, really close-up picture of Kathy. For the most part, it's just a huge face, and I wanted to find something interesting in it, but it's just a huge face. There's a light reflected in her right eye that looks like a life saver or a Froot Loop. It's probably just a light.

Google Translate and Important Life Lessons

"Utopias appear to be much more feasible than was previously thought. And we are now faced with problems far more distressing: How to avoid their final completion? . . . Utopias are realizable. Life march towards utopias. And maybe a new century begins there, a century in which intellectuals and the educated class will dream how to avoid utopias and return to a non-utopian, less 'perfect' and free" (Nicolas Berdiaeff . . . is kind of scary looking).

For my last post about Brave New World (in your pants), I'm going to analyze the appropriateness of this French quote at the beginning of the novel. Technically, I stole this idea, but I typed it into Google Translate all by myself!

Overall, the sentiment fits the book nicely. Clearly, neither this quote nor the novel are pro-utopia. The quote does a good job of warning of the distinct possibility of the formation of a utopia in the modern world -- "life march towards utopias."

I don't necessarily agree with the last sentence -- "non-utopian, less 'perfect' and free" -- because the utopia in the book was not free at all. Unless, of course, the word "less" does not also modify the word "free." Google Translate was not very clear about that.

Sooo here's what I've learned from this book.

• Humans need to be willing to endure pain.
• Individualism is just as important as society.
• Just say no to soma.
• Life march towards utopias.
• Self-expression is difficult when one's environment is overly stable.
• If you sleep with too many men in New Mexico, their wives will get mad at you.