book – Houghton STAR

If you are anything like me, you looked forward to Christmas break largely due to the plethora of time simply spent sitting at home in uninterrupted silence with a book. Once break finally arrived, you had time to read and linger over the author’s words without feeling the pressure of assignments and other obligations clouding your thoughts.

Now, break is over and the time to read for pleasure has diminished greatly. The booklist you have added to over break may now sit unattended for months. However, I urge you to find and make time for yourself. Solitary time to reflect is essential to every individual. Though if you think that you don’t have the time, I suggest not only reading a novel, but also begin having a daily dose of poetry intermingled with other activities to ensure even on busy days you allow for at least a few minutes of reflection.

Recently, I have become fond of a contemporary American poet, Denise Levertov. In particular, Levertov’s collection, Evening Train, is dear to me. Through her poetry Levertov describes faith as elusive and often discusses the tension of her relationship with the divine. In her iconic poem, “Suspended” she writes, “I had grasped God’s garment in the void/ but my hand slipped/ on the rich silk of it.” Though unable to tangibly sense her faith or feel security she concludes this poem stating, “For though I claw at empty air and feel nothing, no embrace,/ I have not plummeted.” Unsure of God’s presence she still feels some comfort there, perhaps dormant, but still there.

Faith is a prominent theme for Levertov. Her sublime mountain imagery becomes a common archetypal device for expression of faith. In her poem, “Witness” Levertov writes, “Sometimes the mountain/ is hidden from me in veils/ of cloud,” but then states, “Sometimes I am hidden from the mountain.” Her experience with God is a reciprocal relationship: with the disappearance of the mountain she loses the desire to search. With the disappearance of her faith she loses the desire to seek God’s presence.

In her poem, “Elusive” she writes, “The mountain comes and goes/ on the horizon/ a rhythm elusive as that of a sea-wave.” God, like a mountain, escapes her view. Yet, Levertov emphasizes the fickle elusiveness, because that is the inherent nature of faith. Faith is not a tangible experience. It is an intimate relationship that would not exist if we possessed factual knowledge from which deductive reasoning would ensue.

Levertov treasures faith as a personal and fragile necessity that humanity must pass down from generation to generation. For this reason, her poetry is steeped in contemplation of the divine. In this post-modern age where academics are plagued with doubts and questions of faith Levertov offers comfort. Comfort which you, like me, may deeply appreciate.

Having shared a poet dear to me I encourage you now to find a poet that you can relate to and revisit their words daily. Then read another poet, and another. Let their words wash over you like the ocean’s daily tide.

And if you will indulge me for one last short paragraph, I offer a quick list of some more favorites you may wish to explore. Classics such as John Donne, William Wordsworth, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Rainer Maria Rilke come to mind as well as many moderns such as William Stafford, Wallace Stevens, Franz Wright, and recent American Poet Laureate Billy Collins who wrote a book, Poetry 180, designed to make poetry more accessible to high school students. And if you are new at this ‘poetry business’ I suggest Collins’ “How to Read Poetry” for starters. As Collins writes, be mindful not to,“begin beating it [the poem] with a hose/ to find out what it really means.” So give poetry a try and you may find that a poem a day keeps the stress away.

The recent release of the enthusiastically anticipated film, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, completely overshadowed what I thought more worthy of enthusiastic anticipation: the Thanksgiving night debut of The Book Thief. When asked about my plans for break, after expressing my excitement towards seeing my family, my bed, and The Book Thief, I often faced the question, “The what?” Nevertheless, Black Friday found me not in line to buy that seventy-five-percent-off sweater, but rather waiting to purchase that full price movie ticket.

And the film proved well worth the anticipation along with the sacrifice of the sweater, even if my affection for Black Friday shopping was questionable to begin with.

Based on a book published in 2005 by Markus Zusak, the movie shows us part of a young girl’s life in Nazi Germany. The film generally stays true to its novel predecessor, leaving out, as films often must, only the unnecessary. Descriptions of both the book and the film include the setting of The Book Thief in WWII Germany, the hidden Jew in the main character’s basement, and the hobby of the book thief herself: stealing books from grave sites, Nazi book burnings, and a wealthy man’s library.

Though the excitement may initially sound thrilling and the plot may appear dangerous, the movie in fact points more toward the lover of a simple story, not an action-oriented or passion-inspired audience. It rather targets the sort of person that probably enjoyed the book before seeing the movie; more than half of the occupants in the theatre I sat in looked to be older than 60.

Still, the slow-moving plot gains appeal through lovable characters and clever scenes. We meet the Book Thief, Liesel Meminger, as a child of about ten, introduced to us by the surprisingly enticing, velvety voice of the film’s narrator, Death. We first encounter Liesel sitting on a train, lifting her enormous blue eyes to discover her just-dead brother. At his burial we watch her steal her first book, a neglected handbook for gravediggers, which she keeps as a memory of the one buried.

From the graveyard we move to Heaven Street, where Liesel spends the rest of her movie-life. We learn that her mother entrusted Liesel to the foster care system, and as a result, the child meets her new parents. Rosa, a secretly softhearted woman encased in a hostile, insensitive shell, and Hans Hubermann, a large-nosed, winking, immediately lovable father figure, form a duo dubbed “Mama” and “Papa.” The pair repeatedly provoked chuckles from the audience, through Rosa’s witty nagging and Hans’ silent expressions and gentle retaliation.

During her time at Heaven Street, Liesel forms loving relationships between the two foster parents, the Jew, Max, whom the Hubermanns harbor in their basement, and Liesel’s new best friend, the neighborhood energy-filled, “lemon-haired” boy, Rudy.

Though I found the film as a whole enjoyable, many aspects of the story seemed too beautiful for the plot and subject matter they surround. One scene in particular shows Liesel and Rudy just after the latter receives news that Nazi authorities selected him to enter into an early elite training program for the military. We see the two inexpressibly adorable fair-haired children laughing and yelling, “I hate Hitler,” across a clear lake, before a screen of bright green trees and sunshine.

In another more sober scene, following a shower of bombs from foreign planes, the camera focuses on burning rubble, shattered buildings, and a lineup of intact bodies, the occupants of each dismembered home lying peacefully on the ground, simply sprinkled with a little dust.

Overall, I suppose this lack of realistic representation also appeals to the same story-loving audience, who may in turn cringe at accurate gore or the expression of depressed emotions. Nevertheless, for those who crave a spirit-lifting tonic every so often, I found The Book Thief, with its charming protagonist and touching performance just the film to do so.