The Crucible by Arthur Miller

Reread
5 stars... still :D
R- 2? nothing graphic

From the introduction-- "In 1692 nineteen men and women and two dogs were convicted and hanged for witchcraft..."

Huh? Two dogs? Seriously??

How did those trials go? "Confess, Fluffy!"

Sorry, feeling a little punchy.

Seriously, though, how does one convict a dog of witchcraft? Do you think they really hung the dogs? That's just weird. (I mean, if it were black cats that would make a little more sense...)

Confession: I absolutely beyond a shadow of a doubt believe that, had I been born in Salem at the appropriate time, I'd have totally been burned/hanged/whatever as a witch.

Anyway, the play. I love this play. I loved it when I read it in high school and I love it now.

I also seriously ticks me off. People are idiots. I mean, really, who thought this process through? No one, I tell you. Confess or die. Whether you're guilty or not. *shudder*

I also love the movie. You know, the one with what's-her-name playing Abigail. You know who I mean. She's in Little Women too. Winona Ryder. That's her name. (Yes, I actually had to IMDB that. So sad.) In fact, I think I need to check that movie out from the library and watch it again.

So, anyway, if you haven't read it, go do it. It's not long. It's fabulous though.

Difference of Opinion

We've all been there. We love a book that everyone else hates. Or hate a book that everyone else loves. So I thought I'd list some.

Books I LOVE-- even if I'm in the minority:

1. A Separate Peace by John Knowles. Required reading. I really liked it.


2. Harry Potter 3 and 5. Everyone else's least favorites are my absolute FAVORITES!


3. Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather. Maybe not everyone hated it, but I know I liked it more than most people in my 11th grade English class.


4. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. See comment on #3.


5. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorn. Again, required. I thought it was really good.

Books I HATE-- minority again:

1. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. Or anything else I've ever read by Ray Bradbury. Ugh.


2. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Yeah, blasphemy, I know. At least I got through it finally. Once.


3. Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy. Okay, I know, maybe not hugely in the minority here, but my BEST friend in high school LOVED (probably still does) Hardy. I was really disappointed by the lack of dead bodies at the end of this one.


4. Romeo and Juliet. Would it have been that hard to check for a pulse? Really? Gag.


5. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. Okay, so I'm not sure anyone else assigned it liked it either, but the teacher doing to assigning (whom I love and respect and still keep in touch with) thought I'd really like it... yeah, not so much.

Books I should really pick up again:

1. Lust For Life by Irving Stone. Started this in high school Humanities and have just never managed to finish it! It was good.


2. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. Honestly, I don't think I even finished it. I should probably give it another chance.


3. Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. Another one from Humanities. Didn't really like it, but I think it probably deserves another chance now that I'm older.


4. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. Another from Humanities. We did a lot of excerpt reading that year.


5. The Aeneid by Virgil. I'm ashamed to say I haven't read the whole thing. When it was assigned in college I was so overwhelmed already the I read the sparknotes online.

What about you?? Favorites that no one else likes? Vice versa? Isn't it funny that so many of these were school assignments?