Rafa

Subject: I found that this book was written in a very unique way. Since it is an autobiography (written with the help of comedian George Carlin), I expected it to focus completely on the life and personal experiences of Rafael Nadal. But what I found was that it focused a lot on a man named Toni Nadal. Toni has been and still is Nadal’s coach ever since he began playing tennis. 

Occasion: Rafa is the life story (so far: he is only 27) of the world class tennis player Rafael Nadal. He was born in Majorca, Spain and began playing tennis intensely when he was 3 years old. Nadal is currently the number 1 player in the world, and his book shows his journey from where he began to the place that he has reached, and the things that he achieved in his career. 

Audience: The audience of this novel is adults and young adults. I think that it would be somewhat boring for kids much younger than I am. It talks a lot about feelings and learning experiences and how certain things built Nadal as a player and a man. The book includes (obviously) information and facts about Nadal’s career in tennis, his grand slam wins (13!!) and other data that would be a bore to children. It is a story of growth and becoming great as a result of hard work. 

Purpose: It seems to me that Nadal wrote this book in order to share his story with the world; and the main point of that story is that he was not born being great. He does not consider himself a natural talent, and he is willing to admit that in this book. Nadal describes in detail the many struggles that he went through; mainly at the hands of his extremely harsh uncle and coach, Toni Nadal. 

Style: This autobiography has a noticeable style, and it works well. Since it was written with the help of author and comedian George Carlin, it is well done. It include many comparisons and metaphors, such as this one:  “You have to cage yourself in protective armor, turn yourself into a bloodless warrior. It’s a kind of self-hypnosis, a game you play, with deadly seriousness, to disguise your own weaknesses from yourself, as well as from your rival”. The book is obviously written by someone who is passionate about tennis, and the descriptive and intense words used to describe the sport portray that. 

Tone: The tone of the book is somewhat mixed. It really focuses on his uncle and coach Toni Nadal, and we can tell that Rafa is still somewhat conflicted about his experiences with Toni. He was incredibly harsh on Rafa, to the point that Rafa hated him and felt as though he was being tortured by his uncle. But Rafa attributes his successes much to his uncle as well. He knows that without enduring those pains, he wouldn’t have the mental strength and physical abilities to do what he does now. 

The autobiographical novel Rafa has a fairly high level of diction; advanced word choice. I would call it advanced casual. The book is obviously written by smart, knowledgable and experienced people, but they are purposely creating a casual tone in order to make the book more enjoyable. Who wants to read a scholarly book about tennis? The syntax is well developed; the sentences in the book vary with the storyline. At time, in intense moments, they mimic the rapid intenseness of a tennis game. At others, they represent the slow, calculating mental piece of the game. The main arguments in the book are fairly clear: that any regular person can achieve anything if they are willing to dedicate themselves fully to it, endure great pain, and work their ass off for a very long time to reach that place. It takes work, but you don’t have to be a prodigy. 

The book puts a lot of emphasis on Rafa’s coach and uncle, Toni. It explains their relationship from many aspects. “Cruel to be kind, as Toni saw it, he would play games with Rafa in which the winner was the first to twenty points. He would allow the excited child to get to nineteen, and then he’d raise his game, beating him to the post, ruining his nephew’s day just as he was beginning to savor the thrill of an unlikely little victory. The blows to morale and the relentlessly harsh discipline to which he submitted Rafa all had a grand strategic purpose: teaching him to endure” Toni was very harsh on Rafa, but he also made him into the superstar that he is. Nadal certainly acknowledges this, and also attributes the pain that he endured to Toni. This book is almost a tribute to Toni, since he is the main figure in it. Rafa was born in Majorca, Spain, in 1986. He is 27 years old, and is the number 1 player on earth. Nadal’s coach and uncle Toni used to be a professional tennis player as well, and began coaching Nadal intensely at the age of 3, when he saw Nadal’s potential for becoming a great player. Nadal is called the “king of clay” and many think of him as the best player ever. He has made the second most money of a tennis player ever: about 66 and a half million dollars. He also has Nike as a sponsor, and assumably makes a fortune from them as well. As wikipedia says “Nadal has won 13 Grand Slam singles titles, the 2008 Olympic gold medal in singles, a record 26 ATP World Tour Masters 1000[23][24] and a record 15 ATP World Tour 500 tournaments. He was also a member of the winning Spain Davis Cup team in 2004, 2008, 2009, and 2011. In 2010, he became the seventh player in history and youngest of four in the Open Era to achieve the Career Grand Slam. He is the second male player, after Andre Agassi, to complete the singles Career Golden Slam.” This shows what an unbelievably good player he is, and his novel explains these wins from his perspective, but puts most of the emphasis on his childhood and coach Toni. 

I give this book a 5 out of 5 for ‘inspirationalness’. 

Still Alice

Still Alice follows the experiences of a 50 year Harvard Professor (who has a PhD in Neuroscience, and teaches courses in Psychology), as she learns of and comes to terms with a big change in her put-together life. When Alice Howland begins getting lost on her daily routines, forgets key words during lectures, and even forgets a business trip, she begins to worry about her mental health. When these strange occurrences begin, she googles menopause symptoms, which include confusion, disorientation, and memory loss, she quickly blames these things on the very normal, natural happening of menopause. 

When these strange and disrupting memory lapses become more constant, Alice goes to see her doctor about potentially taking Estrogen supplements. What she leaves with, though, is the news that she has a disease called Early Onset Alzheimer's. It takes Alice some time to understand this, and to be able to tell her equally successful professor of a husband, John Howland. He struggles with the diagnosis, but soon becomes caring and supportive. Eventually, Alice has to leave her beloved job. 
One day, Alice writes down three questions in her phone, all of which she knows the answer to. She decides that once she can no longer answer them, she wants to die. So she makes a file in her computer called Butterfly. We learn that this name has a connection to her childhood, because she remembers an experience with her mother and a butterfly. In the file, Alice wrote herself instructions for suicide by overdose; which is sad, but also selfless. She does not want to be a burden to her family. 
Her husband ends up leaving to NYU for a better job, while Alice withers away. Her youngest daughter, with whom she did not get along with for many years prior to the Alzheimer's, moved back from California, moved in, and took care of her mother. 

Subject: Still Alice is the story of a woman's battle with Alzheimer's, as it slowly burns away her mentality. The book shows how struggle can bring family together, and gives us a peek of what the world of Alzheimer's looks like. The message was delivered in a very unique way, because we are able to jump into the life of someone who it is difficult for us to connect to, even though she is just a regular person. While she has a clear mind (because her bad memory spouts are on and off) we can understand her thinking, and her reflections over her state.

Occasion: Takes place in Massachusetts, mostly at their home a mile away from Harvard, around town, and at Harvard. It is modern day, and everything in the book is relatable. That way we can focus on the unknown: the disease. 

Audience: This book is intended for anyone at an advanced high school reading level and above. It uses somewhat pedantic diction sometimes, which could be incomprehensible and take away meaning from the story for people who do not know the words.  

Purpose: With this, we learn a lot. We learn how the disease affects people, and their families. And we learn to feel empathy and sympathy. If it can happen to a Harvard professor who studies this type of thing, it can happen to anyone. 

Style: The point of view reflects the way that Alzheimer's affects a person, because we can see Alice's mistakes and memory blips even when she can't. This makes us somewhat of an all-knowing reader, but not on purpose.

Tone: The general tone of the book is very descriptive and emotional; full of meaning. There are not words wasted, everything contributes to the story, and to the emotions of the reader. Very well written, never dull. 

"I'm so sorry I have this. i can't stand the thought of how much worse this is going to get. i can't stand the thought of looking at you someday, this face I love, and not knowing who you are."
She traced the outline of his jaw and chin and the creases of his sorely out of practice laugh lines with her hands. She wiped the sweat from his forehad and the tears from his eyes.
"I can barely breathe when I think about it. But we have to think about it. I don't know how much longer I have to know you. We need to talk about what's going to happen."
He tipped his glass back, swallowed until there was nothing left, and then sucked a little more from the ice. Then he looked at her with a scared and profound sorrow in his eyes that she'd never seen there before.
"I don't know if I can."

p. 100

The diction utilized in the book varies, depending on the situation. When Alice speaks to her husband, she uses a tone leaning towards casual, but still not laconic or colloquial at all. Once in a while, they are very harsh and critical of one another. When she talks to her students and colleagues, Alice uses quite pedantic language. She speaks in a very scholarly manner to most people, perhaps because of the level of education she has and because of her profession. This book was very well written, and all sentences flowed very effortlessly. In terms of stylist elements, Still Alice did not fail. The book goes in a sort of reverse full circle. In the beginning, her husband is her main family member, who she lives with and is closest with. Although he does go behind her back to help their youngest daughter with money, who Alice does not get along with. In the end, the daughter is taking care of Alice, while her husband is gone and busy with his own life in NYC. Her daughter stepped up to the plate when those who were trusted before backed down. There is some very dramatic symbolism with the butterfly file: the file which leads her to suicide brings her back to childhood, when her mother taught her that the short life of a butterfly is still very beautiful and wonderful, regardless of length. Just like Alice's.

5/5 butterflies for educational content very interesting. 

The Devil in the White City... Continued.

Erik Larson's novel The Devil in the White City includes many instances of hinting towards a point without directly saying it. Even the title is somewhat mysterious, and does not openly describe the topic of the book, unless one has the background knowledge and can infer this to a point. As I have said before, the language that Larson uses in this book pertains to the time period in which the story takes place: the 1890's, and the diction appeals to knowledgable, educated, and informed readers. Larson uses well developed sentences and thoughts in his writing and samples of this can be pulled from any part of the novel. "Cities began to see it as a prize to be coveted, mainly for the stature it would confer, stature being a powerful lure in this age when pride of place ranked second only to pride of blood." (Part 1, Page 16). High level words and phrases in this single quote include: coveted, stature, confer, lure, pride of place, and pride of blood. If one did not have neither vast vocabulary knowledge nor a dictionary and a lot of patience handy, they would most likely struggle with this writing style. 

The story begins with a character named Daniel Burnham in 1912, on a ship called the Olympic. We soon learn that this man was the head architect of the World's Fair of 1893 in Chicago. The book opens with the implied fact that Burnham's co-architect has been in an accident, and is likely dead. The author does not state that death is in the air, but as readers we can make that assumption. This sets the stage for many events to come. The novel then quickly leaps back to the world, pre-World's Fair. The book leads us through the selection of the city of Chicago for the fair, and the choice of architects as Burnham and his creative architectural partner, who dies long before the project is completed. 

The book soon reveals that it has a double storyline: one which follows Burnham while the other follows a man by the name of H. H. Holmes, who is a medical doctor and runs a pharmacy. There is a hint of foreshadowing in one of the first introductions to this character because when Chicago is described as a city where people sometimes simply disappear, the thoughtful reader may link this to H. H. Holmes, the oddball of a main character. As the story moves forward, the readers begin to learn more and more about Holmes. Apparently, one of his friends accidentally died as a child, while he was there. It is clues like this that make Holmes a less and less likable character, and more and more likely to become an antagonist. When we learn about the design of his new house, his sick mind is truly revealed. "A wooden chute that would descend from a secret location on the second floor all the way to the basement, a walk- in vault with airtight seams and asbestos-coated iron walls; a gas jet embedded in one wall that could be controlled from his closet; large basement with hidden chambers and a subbasement for the permanent storage of sensitive material." (66)

The book drags on throughout the design, construction, and events of the Chicago World's Fair. It flips constantly between the lives of Burnham and Holmes. Although the life of Holmes tends to be more interesting to the twisted mind, that of Burnham represents a more public and typical side of the world and the events of the time. Burnham deals with issues such as picky architects and design flaws, while the many murders of Holmes become revealed over time. Holmes was a true psychopath who made intricate plans involving ways to fraud his own and other peoples insurance, steal money from people he had sweet-talked, and murder innocent women, children, and even men. As the killer wrote in a journal, "'I was born with the devil in me, I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing." (Part 1, Page 109).

In time, the fair ends. H. H. Holmes leaves Chicago with a new girl on his arm, and is eventually arrested for his crimes of fraud, which leads to the discoveries of many of his cruel murders and sentenced to death. Burnham lives on for the next twenty years, although many deaths surround both of the men. All of the architects of the fair have died in one way or another, with Burnham and his friend who was in an accident coming last. After the death of H. H. Holmes, a significant number of people who were involved with his prosecution were seriously injured or died soon after. The end of the novel flashes forwards once again to 1912, with Daniel Burnham aboard the Olympic. Larson makes use of a full-circle ending here, when we find out that Burnham's last architect friend has perished. 

The clear subject of this book was the event of the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, shown through two very different lenses. It followed two very different men, both basing their careers upon the occasion thing in contrasting ways. It seems to have been written for the mature, educated individual who appreciates history, good writing, and a catchy story. The Devil in the White City displays a style of fiction, although it is not. The author writes in such a way that I had a hard time believing that these were real events in history, not just interesting ones from a creative mind.  The novel sends out the message that evil is looming, on both the sides of the protagonist and antagonist, and shocks us in showing how two people can take advantage of one event, in one time period, in one city, and never even cross paths. 

On a scale of 1 to incredible, I think that this book deserves the best. Five gold stars!

The Devil in the White City

          I find the word choice in this novel to be quite advanced and old fashioned. I'm sure that the author chose this style to match the time frame of the book, because it would feel imbalanced if a book set in the past used the diction and style of a current day narrator. "It was so easy to disappear, so easy to deny knowledge, so easy in the smoke and din to mask that something dark had taken root. This was Chicago, on the eve of the greatest fair in history." -Larson. Words such as din are not used in today's language as much as synonyms like noise or sound. I think that using high level words and sentence structures was a very tactful choice for this novel. 
          The intended audience for this novel is made of people who are old enough to understand advanced language, and who know what the World's Fair is. There is not a definition of what the World's Fair is provided in the novel, because that would make it seem childish and give the author less ethos, due to the lack of sophistication. I think that Larson imagined young adults all the way to seniors reading his novel, because of the level of maturity that the book has. The older people are, it is more likely that they will have more extensive knowledge on the World's Fair in Chicago, but the younger end of the audience scale has access to information on it as well, in addition to the setting that the novel establishes. 
          Inductive reasoning is used as the structure of The Devil in the White City. The author writes in order of events based on where they happened in time. The story begins with a very broad topic, about the building of the fair and the city of Chicago. He then hones in on specific people and events, working towards a conclusion.   Logos is used as well, because this is historical non-fiction, facts, numbers and real events are described. 
Ethos is used in means of tone. The author speaks authoritatively, and we believe what he is saying because he appears to be very knowledgable. 

Nancy Drew - Captivating Children's Classics

          When I think back on my favorite books of all time, the Nancy Drew Series immediately comes to mind. I have one and a half shelves in my bookcase dedicated to these little yellow books, and even though I am 17 years old I am still working on collecting all 64 of these great Young Adult mystery novels. Something interesting about the series is that it was created by many different authors all using the pseudonym Carolyn Keene. Until I learned this, I had no idea that Carolyn Keene was not one person, simply because the writing keeps the same general tone and themes throughout the series.
          The factor that the Nancy Drew books deserve so much merit for is their ability to captivate a reader of any age. I have been reading the mysteries on and off for at least 6 years now, and I have been intrigued just the same all along. As I recently decided during English class, the most important thing about good writing is its ability to keep the reader interested. I know that a book is well written when I do not notice irritating or strange writing techniques and when I want to read it for hours and hours without putting the book down. Back in the good old days of 6th grade, my parents busted me night after night reading Nancy Drew under the covers with a flashlight.
       

          From the Mystery of the Glowing Eye to the Clue in the Crumbling Wall, every Nancy Drew Mystery book has a captivating can't-put-it-down storyline, involving many familiar characters and introducing new ones each novel, some of whom stay in the series and some of whom only stick around for one book. These characters are well described, and I can always picture them in my mind as I am reading. I have never been able to fully predict the novels either, because they always take sudden and unexpected turns, which enrich the stories greatly.