The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun

 
I have recently started reading again, and one of the books I have read over this summer was a fairly unique book by J.R.R. Tolkien, titled The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun. It is an English translation of two Norse poems, or lays: “The Lay of the Volsungs” and “The Lay of Gudrun”.

To most new readers, the overall sentence structure is interrupted, with seemingly out-of-place text fragments, but it is in Old English and so is merely the natural rhythm of the translation. In the preface of the book, the different types of rhythms are explained (there are six types of rhythms in all). These rhythms are made out of “strong” and “weak” elements, which can also be called “lifts” and “dips”.

For example, the phrase “knights in armor” has a “falling-falling” type of rhythm, in which the first syllables in the segments are the “strong“ elements, which are usually stressed and more high-pitched than the “weak“ elements, as in “knights in | armor”, with the italics indicating the strong portions. These rhythms may hinder many new readers, but it is just part of what makes Old English translations unique.

The first poem, The Lay of the Volsungs, is about the adventures and history of the Volsung family, as well as Sigmund and Sigurd. It describes the events of the tragedy between Sigurd and Brynhild (one of Odin’s finest Valkyries), as well as how it was linked to several other terrible events, like the needless slaying of the god Otr, the willful deed of Loki, and the extrication of Odin. In the end, all of these events set off a curse that ultimately leads to Sigurd’s death and Brynhild‘s suicide. Even though Odin equipped Sigurd with gear, a horse, and Brynhild (in order to punish the family of Hreidmar for the exaction of Otr’s ransom), in the end, all of his efforts go in vain.

This lay shows many real-life issues and feelings in its storyline, including trust, betrayal, vengeance, conflicting emotions, and the “you can’t have ‘em all” mentality. It mixes all of those issues and emotions into one poem-story that truly reaches into you and evokes feelings towards the characters and the storyline.

There is another poem, The Lay of Gudrun, and this one is about the maiden Gudrun, who is incapable of carrying out plans for almost anything, no matter what intentions Gudrun has for the outcome. Her mother, Grimhild, is the main antagonist in this story. She is skilled in reading minds and hearts and using their weaknesses, so it is no surprise that her will dominates both Gudrun and her older brother, Gunnar. Gunnar is an impatient character and often turns to violence in times of doubt.

Gudrun falls in love with Sigurd, but upon his death, unlike Brynhild, she did not take her own life. When provoked (in this poem-story, by Brynhild), she tends to be reckless, and her mistakes during these rampages sets off a calamitous series of events that ends in the slaying of the Niflung people by Attila and his Hun army (in this poem-story, Atli). Also, due to Atli’s rise in power, Gunnar soon realizes how much Sigurd could help him fend off the Huns.

This lay was meant to be a sequel to The Lay of the Volsungs and shows issues and emotions, such as manipulation, love, vengeance, the weakness of the human psyche, and the disastrous effects that happen as a result of them. Like its prequel, it also mixes them together into an influential poem-story.

In conclusion, this book, containing the two lays: The Lay of the Volsungs and The Lay of Gudrun, is a relatively unique piece of literature, containing Old English interpretations of the two lays. Although their format and diction may be confusing at first, if you can manage to interpret it correctly, it turns into a masterpiece with profound meaning.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

"The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" is undoubtedly one of the most revealing movies I have seen so far. It paints a clear and accurate picture of the terror and the prejudice that the Nazis gave to the Jews during the World War II era. This "terror" was exemplified throughout the movie, in the forms of pro-Nazi propaganda, the "farm" which was actually a concentration camp, and the misgivings the Nazi party officials were distributing to their followers.

The movie opens up with Bruno, a naïve 8-year-old boy, playing in the streets of Berlin with his three friends on his way home from school. However, when he gets to his house, his mother informs him that the family will be moving to the German countryside the following day for the time being, due to the fact that it was too dangerous in Berlin. The next morning, Bruno played with his friends for one last time before he headed off to the countryside.

Upon arrival to the family's countryside home, Bruno, still lonely from being separated from his friends, reluctantly explores the house. He finds his own room and looks outside the window. From there, he saw what he had thought to be a farm from a gap between two trees. Excited at the thought of new friends to play with, he told his mother about the farm and asked her if he could go there. However, she declined to let him go there.

After more long, boring days in which there were little events of importance with the exception of Bruno meeting the house servant, Pavel (a Jewish doctor before he was shipped to the camp), and getting a new propaganda-filled instructor, he decides to venture out into the wilderness and to the farm. The task was not easy. He had been caught once, and getting past the back outhouse was complicated. However, after seeing a way out of the back outhouse, he continued heading toward the farm.

When he arrived at the farm, he noticed there was a tall barbed-wire fence
separating the wilderness from the farm. What's more, he noticed a Jewish child (named Shmuel [pronounced shMOLE]; revealed not too far from this point) about his age across the fence. He started a conversation with him, and they shared their names with each other. Bruno promised Shmuel that he would return and talk when he can.

His parents did not know about Shmuel at all, despite Bruno being caught stepping out of the backyard door, which was part of the route he took to get to the farm. As the days passed, Bruno asked Shmuel why he was wearing "pajamas" and about a "number game" involving the number on his shirt. He replied that it was supposed to be a uniform and that the number was just assigned to him upon entry. During this same discussion, Shmuel told him that the place was a concentration camp, not a farm, and that Jews were sent here regardless of profession or background.

As time passed, things only got worse for Bruno. Pavel, the servant, was mauled to death by an SS officer who served as his father's aide-de-camp/driver just because he accidentally tipped over his glass of wine during dinnertime. His sister, Gretel, was becoming a Nazi-freak and plastered pro-Hitler and pro-Nazi propaganda posters all over her bedroom wall. Bruno became curious about the smoke and odor coming from the concentration camp (which was actually made up of the Jews' dead bodies being incinerated). Probably the most crushing event of all was that Shmuel replaced Pavel as servant, so Bruno gave him some food; however, the same Nazi officer who mauled Pavel jumped to the conclusion that Shmuel was stealing food. Thus, he was beaten and received many visible injuries off-camera. As a result of his injuries, Bruno did not see Shmuel for several days on end despite visiting for all of those days. When he finally did see Shmuel again, he had a severe bruise around his right eye.

A few days later, he snuck and watched a short film from a window about the concentration camps, which was packed with a truckload of false advertising and misgivings, giving the viewers the impression that the camps were nice places, when in reality, they were the exact opposite. Bruno knew something was wrong with the Nazis.

In the end, the family had to leave the house, but he wanted to talk to Shmuel and play with him before going back to Berlin, and so, he ran away to the camps and disguised himself as a captive Jew. Also, Bruno helped Shmuel look around the camp for his father who had been missing for days.

His family was frantically searching for him, when at the same time, he was being led to the gas chambers with a literal herd of other Jews. When his father finally located his whereabouts, it was too late. Everyone in the gas chamber had been killed, including Bruno. His mother wept at the site where he had changed clothes and dug his way into the camp.

This story was a very clear example of the prejudice against the Jews, as well as friendship and how it can affect someone's actions, for better or for worse. It also conveys the image of how people from different races can form a lasting friendship very quickly, despite cultural and traditional tensions between the two races. Overall, it was a very heartwarming, and, in the end, heartbreaking, movie.

Odd and the Frost Giants

The book "Odd and the Frost Giants" by Neil Gaiman is a very short read, consisting of only 117 pages with large margins and text. However, it is a great story, and is sure to please younger audiences.

It tells a story during the Viking era about how Odd, a very unfortunate (his father died during a sea raid on Scotland and a tree fell on one of his legs) 12-year-old boy, while venturing out into the woods during an abnormally long winter, met up with three talking animals (a bear, an eagle, and a fox). The true forms of the said animals were actually the Norse gods Thor, Odin, and Loki respectively. The reason why the three gods were transformed into animals and were in Midgard (the regular Earth) instead of Asgard (the city of gods) was because the Frost Giants, a group of giant humans with icicles and the like on their bodies, had banished them from Asgard (for reasons explained later in the story), and forced Heimdall (a god who had the power of transportation between the two worlds) to transport them to Midgard.

Odd took them to his home, where he took care of them for a night. The next morning, he decided to venture to Asgard in order to restore the gods' places there. However, getting to Asgard was very tricky during the wintertime, since you had to have a rainbow in order to get there, and all the water was frozen. However, Odd refused to give up, and after some experimentation with a frozen waterfall, different materials in an attempt to melt the ice, and a little help from the three banished gods, they were finally able to create a rainbow to Asgard.

Upon arrival to Asgard, Odd noticed the dimensions were twisted in a way: everyone was bigger here than they were on Midgard. After some refreshments and rest, Odd decided to venture to the Frost Giants' residency, Jotunheim (Giant's Place) to meet up with them and restore order to Asgard. One giant saw him and asked why he had come. He replied that he wanted the gods back in their proper places in Asgard. At first, the giant refused, since the gods had supposedly cheated the Frost Giants as a whole out of a dare (involving building a wall in a certain amount of time), but Odd stood his ground, and after repeatedly lengthening the discussion and changing the subject, he finally found something to satisfy him. Odd pulled out a wood carving that he found earlier while in the woods, even before he found the animals, and that satisfied the Frost Giant, and he left and let the gods have their places in Asgard.

At the table of gods and goddesses in Asgard, Odd was invited to a majestic feast, and all three gods in their animal forms were transformed into their original selves. Everyone at the feast thanked Odd for bringing back the three gods to Asgard once more. As a side result of the Frost Giants' retreat, the long winter in Midgard ended, and he finally went home without anyone in Midgard knowing about what happened right above their heads.

Overall, the book was a short but great read, and is useful if you want to fit a book into a tight schedule. Its length doesn't downplay its quality, and the storyline flowed smoothly. Also, for laughs, check out the text in parentheses in the author biography at the end of the book!

Avatar

A few days ago, I went to the movies to watch the new movie Avatar. Needless to say, I was very impressed with everything, from the stunning special effects to the engaging plot. Also, the themes the movie expresses using its characters and plot are very relevant to the state of the world or one's personal life. It is a movie of adventure, learning, gaining confidence, betrayal, and most of all, determination in many different forms.

The movie starts with several humans landing on a new planet called Pandora. Jake Sully, the main character, was one of them. The humans in place there had already built a research base. They were studying the Na'Vi, the native people, and their way of life. In order to accomplish this, the humans generate "Avatars", bodies similar to those of the Na'Vi controlled when a person "links" their nervous system to their corresponding Avatar through a machine, allowing him to report any findings from research while completely evading any suspicion.

During the first days of research, Jake's Avatar was separated from his colleagues by an enormous carnivorous beast. He was able to outrun it, but he soon got lost in the vast forest. However, he was saved by Neytiri, a female Na'Vi, and she took him to her clan, whose living quarters were inside the hollowed trunk of the giant "Hometree". At first, he was treated with hostility, but after Mo'at, Neytiri's mother and a prominent figure in the clan's life, said he was a sign from Eywa, the deity of all life in their clan. After that, Mo'at assigned Neytiri to the task of teaching Jake the ways of the clan.

At first, Jake was a bit shaky with their ways, such as "bonding" with animals to have control over them for as long as necessary. But with time, practice, and determination, he was able to master and memorize many aspects and values of the culture, such as the preservation of nature, the complex language, and their spiritual beliefs. With every new discovery, Jake reported his findings on the daily video log.

However, when Jake heard news about how the humans were going to destroy Hometree in order to mine a precious mineral, he was desperate. The humans in charge of the operation told Jake to talk the clan into leaving the area, since they would be crushed if they try to resist. However, when Jake tried, the clan refused to believe him and he was bound with ropes. Upon arrival of the airships the humans were using to destroy Hometree, the clan tried to pierce the steel and glass with their bows and arrows to no avail. After the airships made their assault on Hometree, Neytiri found out that her father was killed by a huge splinter of wood, and she told Jake never to go near her again.

Jake made his return to the clan on a majestic red ikran (bird-like creature) that only five people have tamed before and led the clan to a state of rebellion. They began to find other clans to fight against the humans who destroyed Hometree. These humans were now targeting the Tree of Souls, the clan's major spiritual center, and were also setting up armed offensives on land and in the air. The humans saw with their thermal radar scans that the number of Na'Vi in the area jumped by a huge margin. This was their signal to fight. Meanwhile, some of the humans who sympathized with the Na'Vi escaped in a helicopter and supported them in the fight.

The fight was long, intense, and was definitely not one-sided. Each side had their triumphs and failures. Many of the people Jake knew died in the battle, including Tsu'tey, the new clan leader, Trudy, a pilot who sympathinzed with the Na'Vi, and Neytiri was almost crushed by a dead animal. In the end, it was two (Jake and Neytiri) versus one (Col. Miles Quaritch). Jake was the one who fought Col. Quaritch and his machine for most of the fight, but in the end, it was Neytiri and her bow and arrow that sealed the fight with two shots to the chest.

Jake came out of a link machine transported via helicopter at the scene of the fight, and nearly died from lack of oxygen, but Neytiri found him in his human form and put the emergency oxygen mask on his face, reviving him. In the end, the spiritual leaders of the clan transported Jake's soul from his human body to his Avatar, and now, he was forever a Na'Vi.

As I said before, I really liked this movie for a number of things. First, James Cameron's imagination inspired him to make this movie, and I have to say that his imagination is incredible, from the very concept of the movie being set in a land only a select few can see, to the prehistoric-like animals and the vivid plants. I also like the message this movie sends to its viewers (that everything has consequences; demonstrated heavily in the second half of the movie). In addition, it subtly speaks out against deforestation, only seen in one part of the movie, but very powerful in its appeal. Also, the plot compels you not to leave your seat for any purpose, and you will often miss something big if you go out for a bathroom break or a new bag of popcorn. I give this movie a 5/5, since it is very good, and I don't see any ways in which it can become better.

Arc of Justice

I have recently finished yet another great book, this time for U.S. History class instead of English. It is called "Arc of Justice" and is about the troubles of a 1920's family in the city of Detroit, Michigan, which was heavily segregated at the time. It depicts the outrageous level of segregation and the anti-black movement in the United States in the so-called "Roaring Twenties." Also, it is supposed to be a college-level book, yet in my school, we are assigned the book, but it is really worth the time to read.

This book, based on a true story, revolves around the life of Dr. Ossian Sweet, a man whose education level was well above that of the average African-American, and was even higher than many white Americans. He even won a scholarship to one of the only two prestigious African-American medical schools in the country, Howard University in Washington, D.C. However, all his life the terror of the white man loomed over him, ready to strike his community, like white mobs did in various cities in both the South and the North. The whites were also willing to deride him from his promising career path in the medical field. When he moved into a home at the edge of a traditionally white neigborhood, he was confronted by a mob. He had to protect his home from them, even resorting to firing a bullet into the crowd, killing a man in the process. All of the people in the home were held on trial, and they had to face the long and topsy-turvy struggle for freedom.

This story was well written and I would recommend this book to anyone who can appreciate a good book at times. Although the plot was a bit shaky, the transitions between the current state of the story and the flashbacks and bits of history were present. The examples given about segregation in the story help the reader picture what it was like to be an African-American in the early 1900's. Life for them was obviously tough during this period, and "Arc of Justice" paints a picture of this well. Also, readers can gain background information on aspects of history that play a pivotal role in this story, from the various lynchings and race riots sweeping urban areas, such as Chicago and Tulsa, to the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) and their history and how they contributed to the main court case in the story.

This book paints the picture of the life of an African-American just wanting to be successful after all his hardships, including his early years in a very anti-black town, his grueling years at Howard University, and the turbulent course of the court case that changed his life for the better. It also shows the various sides that the residents of the 1920's USA have taken on the problem of racial segregation, most significantly the pro-white, pro-Protestant Ku Klux Klan and the colored-supporters in the NAACP. Overall, it is a great read and is sure to leave you satisfied in the end.

To Kill a Mockingbird

I have read the classic book “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee, and I have a lot to say about it. First of all, this is definitely one of the greatest pieces of literature of all time, and that is evident in the style, unique flow, and the build-up of characters in the story, all of which are aspects of what constructs not only a great story, but a sure classic. It is a good 323 pages long, but it’s worth the time.

Its style was appealing to me, and was a mix of realistic and historical fiction, from what it seems. Both of those genres make for really interesting stories, and a mix of them is no exception. I have read other books of one of those genres, and their plots mesmerized me.

The plot of the story seemed like it was actually two plots in one, separated into ‘parts’. The first part was about the three main characters in the story, Scout, Jem and Dill, and their fascination for an urban legend involving a mysterious figure named Boo Radley. Rumor has it that he was scrapbooking when his father came in the living room. At that moment, Boo stabbed him in the leg and proceeded with his scrapbooking normally.

The second part involved Scout and Jem’s father, Atticus, being assigned to a tough criminal case, in which his Negro client, Tom Robinson, was accused of raping a 19-year-old white girl. Although Atticus had enough reasons to prove him innocent, the conditions were unfavorable, and eventually, Tom was sent to prison. Upon an escape attempt, he was shot to death. Something eerily similar happened in another book, “Let the Circle Be Unbroken,” both of which I have read and were based in the same time period.

There are also many themes involved, such as prejudice (in this story, against African-Americans), intrigue, conflicts between different families or groups, and the troubles of regular life. I can relate to all of these themes, and being able to do so gives you a better understanding of the book.

Overall, this book is a great read and is very inspiring and provokes feelings within the mind and body, as well as thought about the situations in the book and how the reader can relate to them. It is long, but worth your time to read it. As you begin to read it, notice the main elements I pointed out, although they are more evident in some areas more than others.

Warrior of the Light

This is the second book by Paulo Coelho that I have read (the first one being The Alchemist about two years ago). It is called Warrior of the Light and describes the aspects of a Warrior and what he does and does not believe in.

There were many aspects of a Warrior of the Light and most people either do not have the time to gain all of those aspects or they do not think that they will be able to become a Warrior. This is why so few people are true Warriors of the Light.

Warriors of the Light respect moral values such as courage, perserverance, and responsibility. They also read and pay close attention to the teachings of various philosophers (one prominent example is Lao Tzu, the founder of Taoism). They also know that every Warrior had done something immoral in the past. They put aside the dark past and look forward to the future ahead of them.

I was really amazed at the various values a Warrior of the Light possesses. I really learned a lot from this book and though I don't plan on becoming a full Warrior of the Light, I can use these tips to change my life for the better.