Extremely Sad and Incredibly Beautiful

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer was a small book about life and death, love and war, and gain and loss. It was very beautiful but granted, very sad. When reflecting upon what I was going to write about, I realize how increasingly beautiful something becomes when it is heartbreaking. But does sadness in literature always make a good story? It's not the large topics in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close that really hit home, rather, it's the small moments of life before the mournful moments of death.

Oskar's, the narrator's, father died in 911. Oskar's grandfather's family died in the bombing of his home town. Both Oskar and the grandfather character, Thomas, are in between life and death. Once Thomas said "life is scarier than death". I always found this concept very interesting. Every since I first heard Mystery Jets' song Dreaming of Another World (Side note: I have written about the Mystery Jets before. I'm very sorry if it is getting stale and if you think I am a broken record for only talking about this one song, from this one band. Please forgive.) There is a lyric that reads "to live or to die, the riddle without a clue". After hearing this, I kept thinking about how death compares to life? Honestly, to me living outweighed death every time. But nearly all of the characters in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close found living a dreaded chore. This is because all the characters believe that life is scarier than death. They have lost many family members to political violence. Even Oskar, no, especially Oskar feels that wavering between life or death is a legitimate choice. “Everything that’s born has to die, which means our lives are like skyscrapers. The smoke rises at different speeds, but they’re all on fire, and we’re all trapped”, says he. He feels just as figuratively trapped as Thomas, the grandfather, and just as physically trapped as Thomas, his father.

In the flashback part of the story, Thomas, the grandfather, remembers the first time he "made love". (Side thoughts: He uses that term, "making love", that always bothered me. What is the difference between having sex, and making love? Nothing, it is two different words with the same definition. Like joy and happiness, cry and sob.) He remembers how much he loved her, and how she asked for them to "make love". And he remembers her wincing. When he asks her if anything is wrong, she says no. He asks her why she winced, and she said because it hurt. The next week or so, she died in the bombing. She was pregnant. To me, this is the definition of love: desire and pain.

To expand, can you live your life without fear of losing everything? Thomas and Oskar cannot, they are scarred by the horrible events that unfold and take everything from them. They are paralized by this fear and it prevents them from fully living their lives. Thomas used to have a family, a loving girl, an upcoming child, and a lovely home. But all of these things were ripped out of his hands, leaving him unable to love and resettle.

I honestly don't know what to believe about life and death, love and war, and gain and loss. After reading this book, it seems that one has to overcome fear in order to move forward. I feel I have only become more puzzled about my beliefs after reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I have even been questioning my writing style. To make a story beautiful, does it need to be so unnecessarily sad?

"Every Revolution Needs A Leader"

I am currently enjoying the extremely dirty thoughts and words of Nick Twisp, the narrator of Youth In Revolt by C.D.Payne. Nick Twisp is a 14 year old boy, living in California, trying to loose his virginity and impress his girl. To impress, he must act as devilishly rebellious as possible. He burns cars and scares his parents, he lies uncontrollably and scares his friend's parents, he runs away and occasionally does drugs. While reading this story, I started questioning what is rebellion and is rebelling the only way to truly live?

According to Google, rebellion is "refusal to accept some authority or code or convention". According to the Canadian band, Arcade Fire's song Rebellion(Lies) being rebellious is doing things that aren't good, then lying and keeping it from others. According to BBC, rebellion is " often symbolic. They want to look grown up and impress their friends." To further explain, BBC explains taking risks: " teenagers have well-developed emotions and feelings but have still not acquired the ability to think things through."

If you never act out, and never do anything against the rules for all of your life, are you wasting your life?

I believe that wasting your life, has nothing to do with your level of rebelliousness, but your level of happiness.

Are you happy doing what you are doing?

My personal female icons

As you all know I recently cut my hair very short. Devon asked what inspired me to do such a thing, and I thought it would be a great topic for a blog post. My main reason for cutting my hair off, was in search of adventure. I am reading Paper Towns by John Green. It has to be the most life changing/view changing book I have read so far this year. It is an adventure/mystery story about the most wonderful, adventurous girl named Margo. She has become my favorite female icon because of her great adventurous side. She inspired me to be as adventurous as possible and to create a top five countdown kind of thing of female icons that I look up to.

Isabelle's Top Five Female Icons Countdown!
5)Coco Chanel-Because she stood up for girls when all we had to wear was poof dresses and corsets. She's brave.
4)Myrna Loy-Because she was always graceful and all for equal human rights. She's perfect.
3)Becky from the 1993 movie Whats Eating Gilbert Grape?-Because she was my adventuring queen and she's so accepting and real. She is effortless.
2)The girl in the song 'Dreaming of Another World' by Mystery Jet's-Because this girl seems to be a rule follower... then she is told to 'scrape the sky, and do something that would make her mother cry' She's adventurous. lyrics here
1)Margo Roth Spiegelman-Because she's human.

So to sum up my feelings about really awesome girls that I aspire to be like, read the book Paper Towns by John Green. Through all my adventure-longing encounters in books, music and popular culture, I realize what makes a great person is summed up in a quote from Paper Towns:
"And all at once I knew how Margo Roth Spiegelman felt when she wasn't being Margo Roth Spiegelman: she felt empty.She felt the unscalable wall surrounding her. I thought of her asleep on the carpet with only that jagged sliver of sky above her. Maybe Margo felt comfortable there because Margo the person lived like that all the time: in an abandoned room with blocked-out windows, the only light pouring in through holes in the roof. Yes. The fundamental mistake I had always made--and that she had, in fairness, always led me to make--was this:Margo was not a miracle. She was not an adventure. She was not a fine and precious thing. She was a girl."
--John Green(Paper Towns)
(She has to be real.)

To sum up my feelings about this new adventure seeking part of me, listen to the Mystery Jets, because they will tell you life without adventure is kind of boring.
"They don't teach these things at school
They just lay down the rules which are there for you to break"
--Mystery Jets(Flakes)
(Links to the songs: Flakes
Dreaming of Another World)

Okay so i
need
need
need
need your feedback!
please comment with the following things:
1.top 5 countdown with your female icons(if your a guy, you can do male icon if you want)
2.what inspires you to do what you do/be who you are/believe what you do?

thanks