If it's not too dark - Hafiz

"Go for a walk, if it is not too dark.
Get some fresh air, try to smile.
Say something kind
To a safe-looking stranger, if one happens by." 


Khwāja Šamsu d-Dīn Muḥammad Hāfez-e Šīrāzī -  Hafiz is a Persian writer also considered one of the spiritual guides of the Eastern World. His poems have influenced the Persian culture and tradition. In his poems he talks about Love and God and friendship. "If it's not too dark is one of his most famous poems. He advises people to enjoy the beauties of this World we live in, by having a walk, smiling seeing the positive side and being kind to one another. 
"Take your spouse or lover into your arms
The way you did when you first met.
Let tenderness pour from your eyes
The way the Sun gazes warmly on the earth." 

Advises us make love to our lover, in a passionate way, like when we first did, let the sensitivity and emotions invade our bodies like the Sun does in Earth.  He tells us to feed life to the living by singing to plants and animals...Stop reading and worrying about God, he is so great that us cant understand him, just enjoy the life, jump around with happiness and accept that we cannot live without love. 

Love Story - The Movie

Love Story was considered so good, it they also made a movie about it. Directed by Arthur Hiller, written of course by Erich Segal was considered one of the best movies at the time (1970). However, the movie differs in some instances from the actual novel. The novel has those deep, profound romantic moments that a movie just cannot capture. I guess the movie compared to the novel differs from the person. Personally I pictured some the characters looking different, and the whole environment looking a bit more cheerful. In the movie we always have that figurative coldness all over with snow, whiteness, coldness which made me kinda sad, not as much as the novel though. The novel in my opinion had that non-so-white environment but in a way sadder. The movie misses some points and at the end, it misses the whole point of the novel. Jenny being a heroine at the end, and her death bringing together the family. In fact the movie ends in total tragedy, Jenny dies, his whole life shatters and at the end even the family does not reunite. So Oliver's whole life takes a miserable turn. I just thought the movie was only one sad dimension. Reading the book, the imagination let me create my own story based on the guidelines that the author provided me. That is how I find the book romantic, lovely, sad, passionate and everything that a good love contains, the movie was less than that...I guess that is enough for a 1970 movie.

Love Story by Erich Segal

The story on this point takes a different turn. Now they get married, and start to live in a miserable place but full of love. Oliver is not talking to his family, meanwhile, Jenny is trying to make a living for both of them while working as a teacher in a private school. Oliver is trying to finish his school. The story gets interesting now cuz she is married to a billionaire family and they can barely secure a living. They are happy though, madly in love living the days on their lives, until a phone call happens, and Oliver's family invites them to his father's 60th birthday. It's their 60 birthday, I mean that is pretty old, but Oliver does not want to hear about it. Jenny feeling bad about his parents tells them in the phone that Oliver is sending their love to them and hangs up. A huge fight starts among them and Jenny runs away. After searching for her everywhere, Oliver goes back home and finds her, outside in the cold, crying. He apologises and she says the greatest line of the whole novel: "Love is about never having to say I'm sorry". The story goes on...He graduates, finds a job with the highest salary and they are now trying to have a child together. After failing to get pregnant for a while, they go to the doctor and find out that Jenny has Leukimia and she is going to die. Their whole world crashes. He does not have money to pay for the medical bills so now he is forced to go to his dad, to ask him for the money. He does not tell him why, he just says to him it's for a good cause. At the hospital, Jenny is sick and in one cold wintery day she dies...Oliver meets his father in the hospital lobby and they have this touchy moment of reconciliation that changes the whole story, making Jenny the heroine of bringing his husbands family together. I think this story is priceless, timeless...Some would think that it's typical...I think that what makes it so damn special. The way how our ordinary lives can take different unexpected turns...

Love Story by Erich Segal

Erich Wolf Segal (June 16, 1937 – January 17, 2010) was an American author, screenwriter, and educator. He was best-known for writing the novel Love Story (1970), a best-seller, and writing the motion picture of the same name, which was a major hit.

LOVE STORY 


"What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died?"

Yeah, indeed...what can you say about a young, beautiful, smart girl who died, and a timeless beautiful love story that just ended. Written by Erich Segal in 1970, the story shows how falling in love was not so easy back than, considering their religion and mostly their social class. Oliver comes from one of the wealthiest and most inflectional families in the country. Meanwhile, Jenny - an Italian/American, worked in a library. Having a very successful father, Oliver was always in pressure of his father's achievements, I think he kinda felt threatened by his father, so he was always competitive. The love story starts in the library were they met, later they have a coffee at one point she goes to whatch a hokey game where Oliver was playing, of course he plays hokey, he's a wealthy Harvard jock. Meanwhile she's a a musician who like Mozart, Bach and Beatles...and Oliver.
They were desperatly in love, and at one point he takes her home to meet his parents. She freaks out when she sees his pallace-looking house. What I see as strange here is the way how he talks to his dad, addressing him as sir...the author describes this best how relationships between wealthy people get cold, when they have too much in their agenda, and no time for love and affection.

Love Song by Dorothy Parker

"My own dear love, he is strong and bold
And he cares not what comes after.
His words ring sweet as a chime of gold,
And his eyes are lit with laughter.
He is jubilant as a flag unfurled --
Oh, a girl, she'd not forget him.
My own dear love, he is all my world, --
And I wish I'd never met him. " 


This is a playful, colorful 'lady poem'. I say lady poem because it's just a poem that every single girl can relate to. All of us at one point on our lives would fall in love with someone, or have a huge crush on someone that we find strong, bold, sweet, and we so desperately like him that we wish we have never met him. The author here Mrs. Dorothy, explains best that obsessive feeling us ladies create when in love someone, it's like in our genes to think, obsess to that extent that we consider our lover Godlike and divine, like the sun lits only for him: "The ways are fair to his roaming feet, 
And the skies are sunlit for him." I think the author here does a good transition at the end line of the last stanzas. She emphasizes the increasing love and if I might say obsession for her love by first saying I wish I never met him, second I wish he were in Asia, and last like I wish someone would shoot him. Someone would think that's crazy, I think that is only humane. Girls fall in love so deeply that their dimesions change, and sometimes the fear of your love being with someone else makes us think it's better that I'd never met him, or that he dies...well, maybe we're crazy after all. 

My Lover the Sea by Reinaldo Arenas

"I am that child with the round, dirty face
who on every corner bothers you with his
"can you spare a quarter?"
I am that child with the dirty face
no doubt unwanted"


I think here Arenas treats a very sensitive topic that has been around in like forever - homeless kids. Reinaldo Arenas from Cuba, so I guess he has seen more homeless kids, but the way he explains how they have been there forever is amazing. "I am that angry and lonely child of always,
that throws you the insult of that angry child of always" He explains how their situation has never changed, there have been forever homeless children who always lived the same miserable life, the same uneducated, always on survival mode life, I think that is what the author meas by "the insult of that angry child of always", their lifestyle has never changed, neither their manners. "if hypocritically you pat me on the head

I would take that opportunity to steal your wallet." He explains how they don't have the luxury of time and future planning, their only concern is to survive the day, so even when people try to be nice to them, they would use that opportunity to steal their wallets. "I am that repulsive child that improvises a bed

out of an old cardboard box and waits,

certain that you will accompany me." The last stanza is kinda sad actually, he shows how they sleep on cardboxes and wait for the other day to come, certain that there will always be accompanied by more children, who's fate is the same...That other child of always.   

Yoko by Thomas Gunn

"At last deep in the stairwell I hear a tread,
it is him, my leader, my love.
I run to the door and listen to his approach.
Now I can smell him, what a good man he is,
I love it when he has the sweat of work on him,
as he enters I yodel with happiness,
I throw my body up against his,
I try to lick his lips,
I care about him more than anything."

Yoko is a poem about love, friendship, admiration and the sacred relationship among a dog and his/her master. Dogs have been around for years, the weird connection that they created with humans throughout the evolution can never be fully understood. What Tomas Gunn tries to do here is explain that, what I consider 'divine', relationship through the dogs perspective. I think that he does that masterfully. The author tries to explain the support and acceptance of the dog towards his master: "I love it when he has the sweat of work on him", a normal human being would not like the smell of sweat of the others, if it were his wife she would probably make him shower and remove that sweaty self out of him...but not his dog no. He loves it because it's a part of him, and the dog loves him. "Here on a garbage can at the bottom, so interesting,

what sister or brother I wonder left this message I sniff.
I too piss there, and go on." Gunn must be a real dog person, I love the way he explains the pissing nature of dogs in forms of messages. The extend to which the dog loves you is explained here too: "Joy, joy,
being outside with you, active, investigating it all,
with bowels emptied, feeling your approval" The way dogs feel joy makes the owner even happier, it's like you can see the smiles on their hairy faces when they're with the master. The joy they feel when they feel the master's approval and the way that he will protect you for life and stand with you braced against the wind.

Courts Stranging

Strange world we live in...What is weird about the next chapters is that we now have literally a trial. Meursault has been judged by others around him because of the way he thinks and acts...which is not necessarily bad, it's just freaky to other people because he's different. He thinks differently and people perceive it as unexpectedly weird, so they judge him. A LOT. The author now puts him in a trial where they don't judge him for the crimes he did, but they judge is character, his life, his non-biasness, his character and find him guilty, for "not having a soul" mostly. That makes me think, what are trials anyway...who are these people divided in two sides that play justice and make desicions for your life. They go as far as to decide how you are going to be dead. Why do we have these? How did it evolved to this...Having some weird people who judge your life for a living...That freaks me out a bit, because life can take unexpected turns, like it did with Meursault, and you just find yourself in a strange hall, with people who will decide how ur life is going to turn... that is just strange.

Continuing the next three chapter of The Stranger by Albert Camus, we see different events happening. At the beginning we see the chain of power first on the case of Raymond and his mistress. It was a fine day and Mersault and Marie were staying at Mersault's place when they heard the screams of a young lady...when they went out they found Raymond beating his mistress, Marie proposed to call the police but Mersault apparently was not so fond of policeman. The police came anyway and punched Raymond in the face when he refused to remove the cigarette. Here we can see the chain of power again, this time when Raymond starts trembling from the fear of the authorities, this time the police. Yet still, he turnes around and says to his girl "See you soon PET".
Moving on, we have the case of his neighbor Salamo and his dog. Salamano who is always being a bit too much arrogant and authoritative to his dog, one day his dog runs away, only to leave him with pain and regret. So the whole chapter the author shows this chain of power and authority in a way which I find fascinating.
          The most significant thing that happens in these three chapters happens right at the end of chapter six, when Mersault murders one of the Arabs who was a companion of Raymond's mistress' brother. The reason is somehow unclear, we can assume that it was self-defense, since the Arab put his hand in the pocket and tried to reach for his knife, but always keeping in mind that Mersault had a bit too much wine and it was so hot that day in the beach, and the sunlight was piercing his forehead, and the sweat from his eyebrows dropped and blurred his eyes. He fired four more shots and realized that the rhythm of that fine day in the beach with his favorite girl Marie, and his friends has been ruined. The balance of the day has been shattered....

The End...

...he refuses to see the priest. Why would he? He doesn't believe in God, he is going to be dead soon why  would he think and listen and talk to something/someone he doesn't believe in. The last chapters get a better view of this strange character. He just amuses me in every sense. I never liked the way people act because they have to, because the society expects us to. He just doesn't get that, that what makes him so strange, or depending on your view, so special. He goes to some sort of spiritual enlightment, when talking to the priest, and him talking crap about the heaven, and what expects us after we die, that this life is only some sort of a test that we go in order to decide one's destiny after they die. He gets mad, and realizes that the real gift is this life that we live... The real gift is outside and he wanted to experience it so bad. We don't see his end. We don't even know if the appeal happened, or what was decided. The author leaves it up to us to decide his fate, and that actually pisses me of, because I can't help but think that they killed him after all. I guess that is how optimistic you are... I enjoy The Stranger every single page, because it questions everything, it annoys us or it just make us think of the thinking patterns we are "obliged" in a way to follow, because the society expects us to. What happens if we don't is not really up to us...

The Stranger - Albert Camus

          In Global Literature last class we talked about a very unique novel by Albert Camus called The Stranger. The first three chapters of The Stranger to be honest were a bit strange. The story takes place in Algeria, and it all starts with the death of the main character Mr. Meursault's mother. There were a lot of discussions in the class on how Mr. Meursaultt is unemotional about his mother's death considering that he doesn't even know the exact date of neither her birth nor death but I am thinking differently. His emotional behavior can be explained in different versions. Maybe they had a bad history, considering the fact that even when they used to live together they barely talked to each other. Maybe the distance actually made them distant; or my favorite maybe he lived in an environment where there was no room for emotional baggage of any sort and being reserved is a part of their lonely lives. We can see that all the way through the first chapters, in the case of the lonely Mr. Salamano who hangs out with his dog all day. In the case of Marie who leaves in the morning without a single note after a night of "physical interaction", or in the case of Raymond who beats his girlfriend without any regret what so ever. It all sounds strange when you put it like that but the book itself is strange, and I like strange. To support further more my theory we have the case when Mr. Meursault helps Raymond write a love letter, he has nothing against the violence that would tear apart Raymond's mistress, in fact he participates in that violence in a way. What's even stranger are the advices people gave Raymond on how to punish his mistress  prior talking to Mr. Meursault. "Mark her" they suggested, like it was a perfectly normal thing to do to a human being.

          I don't think that Meursault is unemotional or a bad person, as far as I can tell from these three chapter the whole society was like that, lonely, miserable and unemotional to one another. I hope we will find out why in the preceding chapters. I'm curious and I like it. :)