Sophie's World

Sophie is a young fourteen year old girl from Norway. She finds her world turned upside down after getting a note with the question, who are you? on it.

"Who am I?! WHO AM I?!"

Sophie explores this and many more questions in her garden hideout, her own little Eden. The man sending the letter begins evolving the questions into large philosophical lessons. Along with the letters she gets postcards to her c/o Hilde Knag from her father, Albert Knag who is stationed in Lebanon. Who Hilde is confuses Sophie, Albert seems to know but finds it irrelevant for the time being. Over time Alberto Knox, the 50 year old philosopher becomes Sophie's philosophical mentor.

Albert gives Sophie lessons ranging from Socrates to John Locke, from Stoicism to the rise of Christianity, from the Middle Ages to the time of Romanticism.

Through the lessons Alberto dresses up to match the time period and makes sure they are as in depth as humanly possible. He must keep up with the mysterious Albert Knag who seems to possess God-like powers. During all this Sophie struggles with turning into a woman.

Half way through the book and after an introduction to Berkeley the novel suddenly shifts drastically. It goes to the perspective of Hilde as she gets the manuscript from her father, Albert Knag, of the book her wrote specifically for her. The book is called Sophie's World. Hilde finds herself in the same curious shoes of Sophie, but is troubled that Sophie is only a character that her father seems to be tormenting.

Alberto battles Albert by teaching Sophie everything he knows. In the end, after the lessons finish and Sophie has her much anticipated 15th birthday party. Her and Alberto escape, becoming almost phantoms in Hilde's world. Albert was actually in Lebanon in real life with the UN Peacekeepers and was coming home just in time for Hilde's birthday. Sophie and Alberto watch as Albert explains in the end, beginning. In a dream, prior to the end of the book, Sophie dreams about watching Hilde sit on the dock outside her house. Her and Alberto take a boat off the dock and sail into the lake, in an attempt to prove the do exist.

The theme, I believe is blindness, and how children are conditioned to become blind to the world around them at a young age. They take what the world around them delivers as for granted and essentially become blind to its beauty. They are conditioned to stop asking questions, and this novel stresses that is when the philosopher should step in and teach the populous how to ask once again.

The tone is curious, inquisitive. You find yourself learning, asking, along with Hilde and Sophie. The examples are the lessons and questions Albert and Alberto ask. The book taught me that I have forgotten to ask, and the questions posed at every chapter have seemed release me from my shackles!

"Hey! What happens when I jump?"

Okay maybe I will not have to ask questions all the time.

Another Question (maybe nearly as "big")

I drove by the movie theatre yesterday, it was the afternoon, just a normal afternoon for me. For the movie goers it had been a cold, brainless afternoon and morning. I knew why they were there, that night was the release of the first part of the final Twilight movie.

As I skimmed over the line I noticed people sleeping. They resembled the dead, perhaps zombies.

Sweet lord! I ask myself. How early did they get here?

I know people have spare time, but you wait in a line all day, to be at the movie theatre a full twenty-four hours, THIS saddens me deeply. I later found out that they had been there since 5:30 in the morning.

What has this succupus, Stephanie Meyers, created?

The question is simple, has Twilight and other modern movies, plays and literature stupefied potentially "classy" movie-goers and readers? (Twilight readers=literary zombies)

As the Machines Take Over

Sadly this post is a little post-due, but I will document what and how I felt about this "future".

This is how I feel about certain knick-knacks the computer performs. I do not break this easily though, literally and I suppose metaphorically. In the conference, I was going in expecting technical error after error. To my surprise there were less errors than a Windows Vista.

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Humor put aside, I could not help but notice how almost everything we talked about somehow reminded me of Terminator. In a sense, I would say without doubt, the computer can end you. Like any tool you find (in this case super tool), the tool can be utilized as a insane murder weapon. Think about it; would you want to be locked in a tool shed full of innocent appearing squeegee and an escaped convict named Dr. Daddy?

                                              "Can I murd- I mean wash your car?"

Roy said, "Program or be programmed!"
I was frightened, yet excited at the thought of dragging the weak people/desktop items into the virtual trashcan for not complying with the future. Programming is beyond my understanding since the 010010101 code thing has been skinned over to accommodate the mediocre and technological inept. Not saying I am either (humbly speaking) but this makes me feel like I was cheated out of learning another language by the MAN! I have all these foreign friends who started learning English at seven years old, they should have at least been teaching us computer code at seven. I mean if they teach Starcraft Theory (http://celestialkitsune.wordpress.com/2009/03/05/uc-berkeley-class-starcraft-theory-strategy/) at Berkley, and it's a national past time in South Korea (pros making more money than an NFL player), we, the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, should integrate a little more computer theory in school.

                                                         
                                    "This is what Koreans and nerdy Europeans call bootcamp"

  

O' Brave New World

O wonder!

How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world! That has such people in it!

1   Brave New World takes place under in a new world unlike one you would have ever thought of. The word family is taboo, sex is now available for all ages, humans are created (incantated) at hatcheries and brainwashed to fit a certain class. There are approximately five social classes: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and Epsilon. Alpha's are the genius bred class, also the class that has the most free thinkers (which is not good) so there are few created. Beta's are the upper middle educated, they also do jobs that require much knowledge. Gamma, Delta and Epsilon are all the workers and make up more than 80 percent of the population combined. Personal sexual relationships are frowned upon between any class even within the same class.
    The world is not lost to this lifestyle, there are "indian" like reservations sprawled out. These are home to what the citizens of this world order call "savages." The savages retain old religions and culture in a way that would imply there name. They are somewhat violent and don't use birth control so they give birth naturally. This frightens people who visit.
    The story starts out with Bernard, an Alpha plus. He is a psychologist and a genius among his peers. He lacks social skills and his quite often mixed with the lower castes due to his smaller stature. He keeps to himself and has a small circle of friends or "friend" you could say. His friend is Helmholtz Watson, a professor of writing. They relate because of their differences in society. Unlike Bernard, who is smaller and quite Watson is too handsome, too talented, too much of everything.
    The third important character is Lenina, a beta who is not "promiscuous". She tends to hold longer relationships which is scandalous. She is still very popular and socially excepted. She begins to have feelings for Bernard.
   Bernard, wanting to impress Lenina, takes her to a reservation to meet the savages. There they meet a woman who belonged to the World Order. She gave birth to the son of Bernard's boss eighteen years prior after being separated from her tour group and missing her contraceptives. The mother, Linda, is conditioned to sleep around, and is hated by the women of the village for her scandalous nature. This resulted in her son, John, being an outsider. Bernard sees this as an opportunity to sabotage his boss, Thomas, by revealing his son. Linda agrees in an attempt to get back to her old life and to start using soma again (Soma is a drug that is strongly endorsed by the government). John is excited to experience the 'brave new world' his mother always told him about. He reads profusely, but only the books he had available. Those happened to be the bible and the Complete Works of Shakespeare.
    Bernard brings John to his work where he publicly humiliates his boss by showing him Linda and her son. The uproar is further agitated when John calls Thomas father. John becomes a celebrity, bringing a euphoric Bernard along for the short ride. He becomes depressed when John, Helmholtz and Lenina seem to all replace him and he is back to where he was before. John becomes horrified after his mother is dies and is tossed aside like trash and the workers intake in soma publicly. He is set over the edge when Lenina attempts to engage sexually with him and goes to destroy soma rations. The police come after an outraged crowd comes to stop him. Bernard is torn on whether to help and Helmholtz helps without a second thought. The police soma-gas the crowd including John, Bernard and Helmholtz.
   The trio are brought to the World Controller of West Europe where they are told they are going to become outcasts of society. Mustapha, the Controller, tells them that this is not much of a punishment, but a chance to rejoin society as free-thinkers and not influence the population. He reveals that he was given the choice of being a ruler or being an outcast and chose the prior. John and him have a philosophical debate and he tells Mustapha that he must stay to finish his "experiment."
   John takes the life of a hermit in an abandoned lighthouse. To atone for his iniquities he whips him self and poses in a crucifix posture until he passes out. He is seen doing this and draws attention, which dissolves his life as a hermit. People flood to see the "Savage" and even Lenina comes. Lenina, hidden by the crowd, cries and this is not noticed by the enraged savage. John sees Lenina, the woman who planted the seed of bitterness in his heart, and attacks her. The violent act excites the crowd and they begin a soma induced, sex crazed orgy, which John is drugged into. John, utterly defeated and ultimately depressed in this sinful and unforgivable acts. The crowd rushes to the lighthouse the next day to find that John has hung himself.

2 Themes of the book are alienation, or the lack thereof. John is alienated because he is what we would think of as moral. The population is conditioned from birth to never be alienated and have constant company which usually implies sex, this leads us to second theme. The second theme is birth control/social sex. The whole society views the idea of a family or close relations as pornographic, which is ironic. The world makes sure women have constant birth control and leave the reproduction up to the hatcheries. The third theme, and perhaps most prominent, is the danger of an all powerful world power. The world power makes peoples lives so "blissful" that they lose sight of what freedom once was.

3-4 Huxley is extremely fond of parody and satire. You find this when you simply observe how most the characters are off shoots of famous political or scientific characters throughout the last few centuries. One of the main characters, Bernard Marx (just look at the last name), there is Polly Trotsky (Trotsky!!), Darwin Bonaparte (c'mon it is getting to easy), Benito Hoover and so on so forth. Also you will find characters saying "Our Ford" or "Our Freud" which refer to Henry Ford, who created the assembly line. The controlled world base there timeline on the creation of the assembly line. "Our Freud" refers to Sigmond Freud, who was famous for dream psychoanalysis, brain conditioning and sex as a recreational too to acquire happiness. It is noticeable, but not positive that the population may think these two people were one in the same. Both are worshiped as God.