Annie Kapur
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"Miss Ravenelās Conversion from Secession to Loyalty" by John W. De Forest
This book represents the way in which learning from each other can be a struggle especially in the midst of a war. But, the American Civil War is more than just war politics and a class struggle, it is also about race and slavery and humanity. There is also a great amount of violent language and the exploration I did into this book was to do with the way in which the characters talk about the war and what the reader learns about the view of the war throughout the novel. We get firsthand character judgements and a range of differing opinions to the way in which the war impacts the younger generation - both positively and negatively. When the reader encounters more humane characters, they are in no way perfect or even progressive for our own day, but when it comes to the American Civil War and the other characters who are brilliant examples of the racially insensitive and the racially abusive stereotypes, it makes the progressive characters obviously look more progressive than they actually are. Thus, we have this range of different characters that mostly depend on the way in which other characters too are viewed in the book.
By Annie Kapur6 years ago in Geeks
10 Books: Fallen Women
Fallen Women in literature actually has its own genre concerning women who gain agency through marriage and love affairs etc. and then, have their secrets found out or are violently mistreated and so, fall from this agency back down to either abject poverty or even worse, death. The literature of fallen women were most famous during the 1700s and 1800s with women being seen as more than alive for their agency in the 1900s and 2000s. Be that as it may, we can find fallen women in literature even in early eras of artistic movements. In Ancient Greece, we have the Orestian Trilogy and Sophoclesā Theban Plays which both contain fallen women, and in Shakespeare we can find fallen women in Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, Othello and even in aspects of Julius Caesar. The fallen woman sub-genre has been around for ages throughout literary history, but became more and more famous in the decadent eras of the 1700s and 1800s partially because of the adornment of women of the aristocracy. The scandal that was created around women of the richer classes who required to hold themselves with decorum but ended up becoming involved with acts of degeneracy and the such. Readers were very much used to tragedies involving men and so, from the decadent courts of the Enlightenment and Romanticist Era we get women becoming more involved in tragedy, most obviously inspired by the richness and vulgarity of the Baroque and Rococo Styles. Towards the 1900s and 2000s, the āfallen womanā sub-genre became more complex as instead of just having a rich woman who gains agency and falls into tragedy - we get a more complex story. We still have a woman either coming into riches or being above a certain social class, but then, we have a number of turns: familial tragedy, love stories, backdrops of war and sometimes the woman fell from grace before the plot line began and now, she is attempting to redeem herself. It certainly comes into the modern and post-modern eras with style and poise.
By Annie Kapur6 years ago in Geeks
The Best Performances: Margot Robbie
Margot Robbie, I feel, is an often underrated actress. Her range is incredible and her ability to portray characters with a thorough often romantic nature is her forte. As she turns thirty, Margot Robbie already has quite a lot under her belt, being nominated for an Academy Award for her role in "I, Tonya" (2017) which I felt she wholeheartedly deserved but unfortunately didn't win. However, Robbie has also been known to portray comic book characters with Harley Quinn becoming a cultural phenomenon pretty quickly. Margot Robbie has not only proved that she is more than just a pretty face, she is also quick-witted, intelligent and often very down-to-earth, humble and confident in her nature - arriving at interviews with the prime focus of keeping interest on her growing career.
By Annie Kapur6 years ago in Geeks
"Le Morte d'Arthur" by Thomas Malory
When I was a little girl, like a lot of other small children, I liked reading the Arthurian Tales in childrenās form. There were so many of them: The Sword in the Stone, The Knights of the Round Table, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Lancelot and Guinevere etc. But the best thing is that as I grew up, they got more and more sophisticated until I was fifteen and found the two volumes of Le Morte dāArthur by Thomas Malory. It was like discovering a diamond after having nothing but crystals - there werenāt very many words for having the real thing in my hands. I am going to admit I read both volumes in the same day because I just couldnāt put it down. It was everything Iād ever wanted - an adult book made from the books I read as a child. This book completely changed me and changed what I thought about the childrenās stories of my younger days. They really did come from other things. That was all a well and good theory until we got on to the fairy tales and Charles Perrault. Then it just got creepy and weird.
By Annie Kapur6 years ago in Geeks
"Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Bronte
It has been a number of over ten years since I first read āJane Eyreā by Charlotte Bronte. I was going to be thirteen and it was fairly cold outside (my birthday is in the winter). I was reading āJane Eyreā for the first time because it was on a reading list I had found listed next to āPride and Prejudiceā by Jane Austen - another classic. The way in which I discovered my copy of the book was simply by going to my local bookstore and reserving myself a copy (it was fairly popular and the book had sold out at that time). When I first read the book, it absolutely took me away. It made me cry, it gave me hope, it made me sad, it made me cry again and then finally, when it was all over - I could sob to myself happily in peace. It changed my whole life that book did. It was like reading something that was specially written to hit you right in the heart and make you feel every inch of the characterās emotions with them. Every bit of her anger and resentment, all of her rage and then, all of her calm and sorrow. Eventually, you can feel her happiness as well.
By Annie Kapur6 years ago in Geeks
A Filmmaker's Guide to the Best Performances: Katharine Hepburn
For over six decades, Katharine Hepburn was one of the most popular and most talented leading actresses in Hollywood. Born to incredibly wealthy parents in Hartford, Connecticut, USA - Hepburn was mostly known for her amazing talents to play any such character that she wanted with a great amount of accuracy. Her intelligence was often put together with a personality made of steel and she moved Hollywood's image of females forwards by her amazing fearlessness. The AFI called her the greatest actress of Classic Hollywood Cinema.
By Annie Kapur6 years ago in Geeks
"Memoirs of an Anti-Semite" by Gregor Von Rezzori
This novel is told in five separate episodes of one manās experiences growing up and being told that anti-semitism was the normal way of thinking. Since our narrator is an aristocrat, he has some obvious class prejudices which include anti-semitism towards the poorer Jewish folk. Slowly, but surely, he seeks to learn that his prejudices were wrong and actually, there is no difference between him - a rich and worldly man, and a working-class Jewish person. He realises this through various friendships, relationships and even complex meetings involving Jewish people in which he finds not only sympathy and rage, but also confronts himself in this rage - asking himself why he thinks about them in this way. As the narrator confronts his past, we see prime Jewish characters of complex natures such as Wolf Goldmann, the hearty child of Dr. Goldmann who only seeks to make a friend but often struggles to assimilate into a more āEurocentricā lifestyle. We also see the Jewish woman in which our narrator falls in love with. But, in hiding and concealing her Jewishness, he ultimately leaves her for her fakery. There are also many more in which the narrator has to confront why exactly it is that Jewish folk hide their Jewishness but then expect nobody to realise. He analysis this over and over again, looking both ways at how this is a product of being racially stigmatised and how this is also a deceit on the part of the Jewish folk who choose to conceal themselves. As we go through the book once more, we find that the confrontation that the narrator has with himself looks deep within his own personal prejudices and develops some contradictions and hypocrisies before he can attempt to rectify things that he had once believed that now, seem absurd.
By Annie Kapur6 years ago in Geeks
"Moby-Dick" by Herman Melville
I first read this book when I was sixteen yearsā old and the way in which it had an effect on me was so long-lasting that I donāt think I got over the book for a long time. I donāt think Iām even over it now. Iām just coping. I discovered the book after finding a really pretty Penguin copy in the bookstore. It looked rustic and beautiful and so I bought it. I had heard of the book but didnāt really know what it was about before Iād read it. My first reading experience of it was definitely immersive. It was one of those things that I stayed up all night for and I really got so into it that by the time it was morning, I hadnāt even realised the sun had come up. I was still making notes and drawing pictures. Thatās what I do when I get too into a book to the point of no return. I make notes and sketches. This book completely changed my perception on the way books about the sea could be written. It was one of the first American books that Iād ever fallen in love with so much that I barely put the book away for an entire year afterwards. I had it on my bedside table and would constantly be scribbling about it, highlighting it and writing short stories about the characters and other wild adventures theyād go on at sea. Yes, this was my life and pretty much, still is.
By Annie Kapur6 years ago in Geeks
āThe Makioka Sistersā by Junichiro Tanizaki
Tanizakiās āThe Makioka Sistersā is a story about four sisters who are on the brink of losing certain traditions and cultures obtained through their historical family to the changing world of Japan during the mid-20th century. A critical analysis of the varying degrees of cultural change over Japan and the wider world, the reader sees tensions grow between the sisters as all four of them seem to want different things from the world. Whilst there is a sister who prefers the lavish and feminine lifestyle of old, without worry and without an occupation or hobbies. Whereas, another sister prefers the world of the working woman and thus, turns the Makioka tradition of non-working, uneducated females upside-down. Her want to have hobbies, make a professional of herself and other things creates great tensions. But the sister that creates the most tension is the one that has not been able to get married. She may have suitors but after a newspaper-bred scandal that left her reputation amongst Makioka and other Japanese people alike, she has been unable to find a husband for herself and her family are extremely worried that, like the working woman, this will tarnish the historical name of Makioka. As far as tradition and females go, there are many characters who want to protect the culture of rich history that has many, many years and generations of members. However, with the war at hand, there are things that required to be changed in order to survive - even if this concerns being modernised within the confines of a traditional family who do not think certain things should be done by women. The symbolic nature of the sisters seems to represent the way in which war changes a population. There are obviously those who want to keep the current regime that is the old one at any cost - even if it means losing people they love. There are then the ones who care not for the modern world at all and want to keep everyone within the older regime in hope of keeping the tradition alive and thriving. Then finally we have the modern ones who care not for traditions and regimes, but choose to grow up with the world, growing together and changing to modernise. These are considered the best adapted to survive after the war. They may be considered to be best adapted but this novel also takes into account the fact that old and new are required equally in order for the world to move on from history. History is where we learn from and the modern is what we strive towards. This is exactly how the book sees things as well.
By Annie Kapur6 years ago in Geeks
20 Books of 2020 (Pt.33)
Can we talk about audiobooks for a bit? Thanks. Audiobooks are often considered "not reading" and honestly, I thought that this was true until I started to go partially blind and had to be more selective of my paperbacks, making sure the font and text size was good enough for me to see. (Not necessarily big enough, but at least printed in a font that I could see easily). I have been experimenting with audiobooks because I don't really listen to audiobooks of books I haven't read. I like listening to my favourite books via audiobook such as: "The Picture of Dorian Gray", "The Brothers Karamazov", "Anna Karenina", "War and Peace", "Jane Eyre" and "Moby-Dick".
By Annie Kapur6 years ago in Geeks
"Cloud Atlas" by David Mitchell
It has been a while since I first read āCloud Atlasā by David Mitchell. I was sixteen yearsā old and my first reading experience of it basically blew my mind. I stayed up all night making notes, drawing sketches of characters and by the morning, I was not only insanely tired, but I had a whole notebook filled with masses and masses of information about the book. I had handwritten over one hundred pages of notes, quotations, sketches, drawings, opinions, lists and so many other things. This would be an annual thing and now I canāt live without the book. I still have my copy from all the way back then. I used it at university for one of my essays and itās now covered in notes and highlighting. Now, my copy is safely tucked into a box under my bed and I take it out every now and again, I was reading it the night before my twenty-first birthday, at Christmas whilst I was twenty-three and I read it recently and the ripe age of twenty-four. It changed my entire opinion on the very limitations of literature. The truth is: there are no limitations.
By Annie Kapur6 years ago in Futurism
