Close Reading Blog Post: Crime and Punishment

(WARNING SPOILERS) For my close reading project I chose to read the book Crime and Punishment by Feodor Dostoevesky. Crime and Punishment is about a poor man named Raskolnikov (I call him Ras for short) who is in debt to the pawn shop lady Alena Ivanovna. He sees that there are many other people who are in debt to alena and it's ruining there lives too. He decides to kill her thinking it's for the better, he gets caught in the act by alena's sister, Lizaveta, and he has to kill her too. He then goes insane and gets a terrible fever. If I told the rest it'd be too much. You're just gonna have to read it on your own.

Crime and Punishment is about many things. Alcoholism, the evil within one, what someone would do to save themselves from poverty, and immediate-gratification. Let's start with Alcoholism. Ras' best friend Marmelodov was an alcoholic. A few months after Ras killed the two women Marmelodov gets so drunk that he wonders into the road and gets run over by a horse carriage. I imagine that Feodor Dostoevesky wanted to express that alcoholism is something that is okay, but shouldn't be taken for granted. Which comes to my next point, immediate-gratification, Marmelodov kept wanting more drinks, because he thought he deserved it for doing his job every day. He ended up dying from his addiction.

The evil within one and what someone would do to save themselves from poverty are both very similar, so I will talk about both as one. Ras couldn't deal with how poor he was, and he broke. He took an axe from a neighbors house went to Alena's house and killed her and Lizaveta in almost an instance, without any second thoughts. He ended up taking the money back he gave to Alena. Ras wouldn't give in. He kept hiding. Someone who didn't even do it gave in and Ras watched it happen feeling nothing.

Overall, this book is beautiful and so great. It takes a while to read, but it's worth it. Please read this book. It changed my life. I hope you can see why this book is so good if you read it.

Into Thin Air

Into Thin Air A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster is a 1997 bestselling non-fiction book written by Jon Krakauer. It details the author's presence at Mount Everest during the 1996 Mount Everest disaster, when eight climbers were killed and several others were stranded by a "rogue storm". The author's expedition was led by the famed guide Rob Hall, and there were other groups trying to summit on the same day, including one led by Scott Fischer, whose guiding agency, Mountain Madness, was perceived as a competitor to Rob Hall's agency, Adventure Consultants.

In the book, Jon Krakauer tells events leading up to his eventual decision to participate in an Everest expedition in May 1996, despite having mostly given up mountain climbing years before. The 1996 season expedition recorded world-high 7 deaths, including Krakauer's guides, Rob Hall and Andy Harris. Initially, Krakauer, a journalist for adventure magazine Outside, stated that his intentions to climb Everest were purely professional. The original magazine story was to have Krakauer climb only to base camp, and report on the commercialization of the mountain. However, the idea of Everest reawakened his childhood desire for climbing the mountain.

Krakauer's recounting of certain aspects of the ill-fated climb has generated considerable criticism, both from the climb's participants and from renowned mountaineers such as Galen Rowell. Much of the disputed material centers on Krakauer's accounting of the actions of Russian climber and guide Anatoli Boukreev. An experienced high-altitude climber and guide for Scott Fischer, Boukreev descended the summit prior to his clients, ostensibly out of concern for their safety and in preparation for potential rescue efforts. Boukreev later mounted repeated solo rescue efforts, saving several lives. In his book, Krakauer acknowledged Boukreev's heroism in saving two climbers' lives, but questions his judgment, however, for his decision to descend before clients, for not using supplementary oxygen, for his choices of gear on the mountain, and for his interaction with clients.

All of the clients Boukreev guided on the mountain made it back safely, while Krakauer's expedition mates suffered injury or death. Galen Rowell criticized Krakauer's account, citing numerous inconsistencies in his narrative while observing that Krakauer was sleeping in his tent while Boukreev was rescuing other climbers. Rowell argued that Boukreev's actions were nothing short of heroic, and his judgment prescient. “…(Boukreev) foresaw problems with clients nearing camp, noted five other guides on the peak Everest, and positioned himself to be rested and hydrated enough to respond to an emergency. His heroism was not a fluke."

The Best Book I Read of 2013

There were so many great books I read in 2013. Mainly in the first part of 8th grade. The best book I read has to be Crime and Punishment by Feodor Dostoevesky. This book focused on the morals of a good man turned bad. And how he thinks he was right to commit the crime he did. Once he commits this crime he's a changed man with no limits. This man's name was Raskolnikov, but I'm going to call him 'Ras' for short.

Let me start off saying, this is the best book ever. I know I said that about The Catcher in the Rye, but truly. This book is amazingly touching in so many ways. Ras may have (spoiler!) killed a lady who owned a pawn shop where he pawned an item from, and that lady's sister. But he still has a good heart. He helped his friends, even how much of a monster his friends knew he was. They all helped him get through this. And the ones who didn't support this at all sadly killed themselves. The women he loved even knew that he did it. She stood by him at every moment that she learned this. It was extremely amazing. Ras becomes sick just knowing that he is the murderer and that one person has already said they did it, even though that person was not the murderer. Ras' best friends all stay with him and make him feel safe and secure aswell as supporting most of the decisions he made throughout all this trouble.

In the end Ras ends up turning himself in, because he feels too guilty. This is by far the best line in the book when he says, "It was I who killed the old women and her sister, Lizaveta, with an axe, and robbed them." Ras just couldn't go on with lying anymore, and became a better man just telling every one without one single regret. I completely recommend this book. It may have been written in the mid to late 1800's, but it's still to this day the best book ever. It's an incredible book, and from the bottom of my heart, I'm begging you to read this book.

Reading Inquiry - Motivation

Motivation is something that brings us the courage to do something important for ourselves. In my reading groups reading inquiry we asked, "What things do you notice (in a book or real life) that people do to motivate other people to do good things?" We all had many things to share. I going to just highlight a few of the ones a did. Because I want to let my group share their great observations.

So, for books I obviously chose 1984 by George Orwell as a main example since I am still reading it. In 1984, people are forced to not think bad things (if they do they will be arrested by the thought police), their thoughts are constantly monitored, which motivates people to think freely, out of the box and for ourselves. Also, in 1984 I noticed Winston, who I imagine to be a small person (maybe around 5 foot 4), who's very weak, and is a goody toe-shoes wants to do a big thing and break out of his little thought prison, which is something big, considering the thought police try to monitor everyone's thoughts. This motivates smaller, maybe even people who are very timid to make something of themselves. 1984 is the most thought provoking books I've ever read and I'm going to talk a lot more about it.

In real life there are many things you can do that are kind things you can do to motivate someone or many people. I focused on something little for this first one. Just holding a door open for someone is the gateway to a chain of motivation to do good things. For example, you hold a door open for somebody, that person does something good to motivate a few other people, and on and on. This next one is about Hurricane Sandy and that storm in Illinois a few weeks back. The amount of people who are helping the ones who got hit really badly by the storms were incredible. There still cleaning up for both. Just the people who are donating all there time to help the less fortunate are doing something that will motivate everyone to do something amazingly helpful.

Social Justice

Social justice happens everyday. No matter how big or how little, it's still something good that helps us in the long run. The whole thing of social justice is to maintain equality for every single person on earth. Social justice is the fair and compassionate distribution of the fruits for economic growth for a society. This is shown in two different ways, one is through books, and the other is through our everyday lives.

Books sort-of transfers the knowledge of social justice to you. It can give you a sense of kindness. It can inspire you to do good things for random people you meet off of the street. The things you witness in books have a subliminal message that gives you something that can bring you towards doing the right things, or showing you something terrible that happens so you can improve yourself as a person off of it. A book that really gives you a sense of social justice is Animal Farm by George Orwell. It shows a higher class discriminating against a lower class. Which, as I said previously makes you at least want to help the lower class out a bit. I mean giving something or helping someone less fortunate then yourself gives you a really little bundle of satisfaction.

Outside of the book world, we tend to help others out. By lending them money or maybe donating to an organization to raise some money for a certain thing. Really, anything you can do to help someone is just worth it completely. I notice this a lot. For example, when Sammy in the 8th grade has passed away a week before his barmitzvah, he wanted to donate some of the money given to him to a charity. He had told a few of his friends that. And his friends are trying to raise money to give to the charity. Something as little as a penny is going to help a lot of people. There are also people who on the subway give away their seats to pregnant women or people with a handicap. So that they can sit down and relax without a worry. I love when I see people do that. I try to help these people out as much as possible. I love to see them smile and be just really greatful that there are people in this world who care about what's happening to them.

Young Adult Non-Fiction Reading Response

Without a doubt, you can tell the articles, "The Banned Books we Loved" by Jen Doll and "Darkness too Visible" by Megan Cox Gurdon are incredibly different. They both are based on young adult fiction. "The Banned Books we Loved" talks about how books shouldn't be banned. Where as, "Darkness too Visible" talks about young adult fiction being "inappropriate" for teens, who can actually relate to the books they read.

I completely agree with, "The Banned Books we Loved" about how young adult books shouldn't be banned. These young adult books teach us lessons. Lessons that may help us figure out our life. They give us ways to be grateful about how lucky we are. It makes us feel like we're not the only ones having an unusual problem. Banned books help us see ourselves, most importantly. In books like The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger we see a teen who struggles with both his school and social life, aswell to find his way in life. Jen Doll has a sort-of caring tone in this article towards the banned books. She is someone who appreciates the brilliant writing of the authors with the banned books. Jen Doll also quotes many authors with banned books, showing that they're just good books and that we should be able to read them.

Now, I've got a lot to say about "Darkness to visible." Mega Cox Gurdon, doesn't know what she's getting into. She thinks young adult books should have ratings. This is not the correct solution. What is she gonna make a book "R" rated, so I can't just go to a book store and buy a great book. She also is very condescending in this article. Making herself seem smarter and us dumb by using loaded words, like "depravity" and "traumatizing," all that crap. She thinks it's evil aswell. She talks about how descriptive books can be. And that it the few words about bleeding in a certain book may "traumatize" us, isn't that right Megan. Let's take Hunger Games for example, the killing in that isn't real, it's a book for pete's sake. I mean books are great, but she obviously doesn't understand. Also there's this whole thing that ALL young adult books teach you by the end of the book, and Hunger Games was, war and killing is bad, so why would she not support the fact that she's basically saying that?

Overall these articles are very descriptive. As you can already tell I don't like "Darkness too Visible" and love "The Banned Books we Loved." This is just my opinion though. Books shouldn't be banned because teens need to explore culture and not be limited to uninteresting books.

Animal Farm

“Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself.” – George Orwell, Animal Farm.

The book "Animal Farm" by George Orwell should be allowed in the MS51 library. The subject of this book has something very intriguing about it. Which is the part, that's incredibly obvious, the animals take over the farm.

Before I read this and a few other books I wasn't a very fascinated reader. Pretty much all the books I read were just dull and boring. I couldn't ever focus on them because they were all about kids facing sports troubles and all the stuff. If you know me, I'm now much of a very sporty person. Though, George Orwell's Animal Farm was one of the first books I'd read to change my reading habits by a lot. Since, my dad's from England he told me about his favorite book, Animal Farm. He told me that it's about English society in the mid 1940's aswell. I had opened this book and was immediately interested. As soon as I had finished the book I had figured out what my dad meant. The "animals" were the poor English people of the mid 1940's and the "farmers" were the rich people, law makers and royalty back then. Soon after I figured this out, I thought that if the "farmers" keep abusing the "animals," then the "animals" will take over. I've never read something so brilliant (besides "The Catcher in the Rye"). George Orwell finally found a perfect way to comment on the way England was back in the mid 1940's.

My personal thought is, "if George Orwell didn't think of the Animal Farm idea that we know of today, yet he still wanted to find a sort-of outlet on English society, what else would he use to represent it?" I don't understand at all why this book is band. It doesn't teach kids anything bad. I mean if anything, I guess it would maybe be kids taking over something, but we're not strong and big enough for that. And that's the only bad thing I could get from it. I mean there's a bit of abuse in it. But that's life, and life isn't perfect, that's just the way it is. And also it's a metaphor, no animals really got harmed in the making of this book. No doubt I would recommend this book for 6th graders nearing 7th grade and up, or just anyone who's fit to the challenge of this book, and is a dedicated reader.