Poetry.
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments; Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O, no, it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand’ring bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
The enduring power of love. Perfect, right? My betrothed did not think so. “Nobodywill understand it,” he argued. So, I went with the more modern, less cryptic, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnet 43:
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
I’m currently reading Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus, a magical read with dark, mysterious undertones. It’s giving me plenty of words to add to my vocabulary list.
A sign that hangs at the gates of the Night Circus reads:
Gates Open at Nightfall and Close at Dawn
Trespassers will be exsanguinated
Doesn’t exsanguinated send a chill down your spine? It should. It means: to drain of blood. Creepy, right? Would definitely keep me out of the Night Circus. Here’s all the info:
exsanguinated: \ek(s)-‘san-gwə-nāt\ verb, from the Latin ex + sanguine- blood
My years in health care (as a P.T.) gave me a clue to this one- I knew sanguine referred to blood, and with the “ex” in front, it couldn’t be good.
To balance the dark themes, The Night Circus also offers plenty of extraordinary, magical fun, including cloud mazes and wishing trees. Characters think and talk a lot about their ability to alter perception and see into the future or the past.
After one performer in the circus gives birth to twins, a fellow performer announces that the twins’ hair, bright red, is an auspicious color. Of course it is! (If you can’t tell from my profile pic, I’m a red head.)
Auspicious: \o-‘spish-əs\ adj, from the Latin auspic= diviner by birds (avis- bird + specere- to look)
Affording a favorable sign, propitious
I’m curious about how we got from bird watching to predicting favorability. Word etymology is so fun!
Word Nerd Workout: Try using one of the new words in a sentence. I’m going to stay away from blood.
The warm, clear weather at our first stop marked an auspicious beginning to the trip.
Now it’s your turn; click on the comments to flex your word nerd muscles. Remember, if you don’t use ‘em, you’ll lose ‘em.
Review: I was listening to “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me”, the NPR news quiz, and one of the panel members used the word mellifluous. Can you remember what that means? If not, check the vocab page.
I’m a people person. I enjoy striking up a conversation with a shopper behind me at the Walmart check-out. Or swapping fun and useful tweets with people in cyberspace. Add my “people person”-ness to my “word nerdy”-ness and you get a reader who wants to find great characters. If I’m going to spend hours of my precious free time with someone, even if that someone only exists in the pages of a book, I’d better like ’em.
So I’ve decided to make “Great Characters” a regular blog post topic. And who is the hottest character to discuss right now? Yes, Katniss Everdeen.
For those (three) of you who don’t know, Katniss Everdeen volunteers to represent her district in a brutal fight to the death in the dystopian YA novel, The Hunger Games.
Why does everyone LOVE this girl? Usually, YA books attract female readers, but The Hunger Games has managed to draw young men as well. How does Katniss do that?
Photo of Jennifer Lawrence from Wikimedia Commons |
Last week during an NPR interview, Jennifer Lawrence, who plays Katniss in the recently released The Hunger Games movie, explained what she likes about her character:
“She’s not a hero…She’s just a girl standing up for what’s right when something is wrong, when it’s hard and when it’s scary.”
Great message, especially for the many young adults who have devoured this book, who undoubtedly face overwhelming pressures and temptations to NOT do the right thing. Katniss proves that one person can be powerful, something that naturally resonates not only with adolescents, but also with all of us who feel manipulated or controlled by our circumstances.
Katniss also demonstrates compassion and integrity in a world that isn’t black or white, but very grey. She debates protecting herself (for the good of her family and her district) with trying to help some of opponents survive. She never loses sight of how cruel the games are, and inspired by her competitor Peeta, she struggles to remain “herself” in a terrifying situation that could fundamentally change her.
So, why do you like Katniss Everdeen? Can you add any other outstanding qualities to define her? What about faults? Every good character has a weakness – what’s Katniss’s? Add to the discussion by clicking on the comments link below. And thanks for stopping by!
Related post: Who Should Read the Hunger Games?
Quaint = antiquated, charming, odd |