the one with the streetcar

"They told me to take a streetcar named Desire, transfer to one called Cemeteries, ride six blocks and get off at the Elysian Fields !"

Written by Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire is a play in eleven acts. Engrossing in its madness, it takes place in the two-room apartment of Stanley and Stella Kowalksi. Blanche Dubois, Stella's sister, comes to visit them and it is soon obvious that she is not all together.

With delusions of grandeur, she puts on airs and looks down upon Stanley who dominates over his wife with a passion that Blanche doesnt understand. Widowed at a young age by a husband who killed himself, she sifts in and out of reality. She tells her sister that she was allowed to take a leave of absence but in fact she had been fired from her post as Teacher for having had an affair with a 17-year old student. She talks  constantly of Belle Reve, their ancestral property and of how it was 'lost'.

Stanley gets into a collision course with Blanche as she holds court in his house, drawing his friend and her would-be-suitor Mitch like a moth to a flame.

Stella, defensive of her sister, seeks to keep Stanley from harming her but even she cannot turn a blind eye to the holes in her sisters' story or not see how much she needs help. When Stanley finds out all her secrets(the reason she left her job) and all the flaws that she's seeking to mask with her airs(her alcoholism is no secret through all the acts), he exposes it in a brutish way that pushes her over the edge. Mitch leaves her and Blanche subsides into a alcoholic misery where she keeps hoping for a former beau to call and take her away from all the madness and the unkindness. In the penultimate act, after coming from the hospital where his wife, Stella gives birth to their child, he rapes Blanche, tearing apart her reality.

In the last act, she is taken away by a doctor and his nurse; away to a mental institution. 

The original cast had Marlon Brando as Stanley; an unknown then, he was given cab fare to Tennessee William's house where he gave a brilliant reading and made some house repairs as well ! 

The play is a testament to cruelty and the fragility of the human mind. Blanche totters on the edge of sanity, clinging to memories long gone by. She is unable to face the present but chooses to dwell in the past but then don't we all ? Scarlett O'Hara dreams of Tara and Ellen's soft hands whenever she's faced with hardship. The human spirit is sometimes surprisingly strong. But at other times, it snaps like a thin wafer, leaving just crumbles behind.

the one with the little girl

"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta; the tip of my tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta."

A novel by Vladimir Nabakov(incidentally, the novel was written in English and not in his mother tongue- Russian), Lolita is one-of-a-kind. The protagonist of the novel is a middle aged man, rather sober and ordinary; a scholar. A tragic romance and a failed marriage behind him, he lives his life quietly, absorbed in translating French Literature for English speaking students while nymphets fluttered in and out of his life. His contact limited to just viewing them in their play and chatter, Humbert Humbert categorizes dreams of possessing a nymphet(a nymph-like girl from the age of nine to 14) as a thing that might never come to pass. His life becomes a whirl when he lodges with Charlotte Haze and he meets Lolita, he loves Lolita at almost the same instant as he met her.

Lolita is neither beautiful nor clever; Humbert laments often about how, no matter how hard he tries, Lolita refuses to bend to his will and become a cultured 12 year old girl. But his love for her is magical and a far greater force than himself. He cant break free even though it becomes obvious that he has caused his nymphet to resent him and his torture of her body. Forced to grow up far before she is ready, Lolita rebels against Humbert and finally breaks free in a combination of circumstances that she didn't think would happen to her. Robbed of her childhood, her story is symbolic of ruin. She's pregnant at 18, married to a man who has no idea of the truth of her relationship with her 'father' and in love with a man who wants her only for monetary purposes.

Lolita is a love story; an obsessive twisted love that disgusts you and thrills you at the same time. Tales of a pedophile, no matter how beautiful and lyrical it is, cannot lose their stench. And even if Lolita, at moments, seems far older than she is, you can never truly forget the nature of their mangled relationship. The relationship is doomed to fail, you can hang on and read and almost sympathize with the pain Humbert feels when torn from his Lolita. And be thankful in the end that even though Humbert manages to reach out to her again, she is far beyond his reach and no longer the four foot seven nymphet with the tanned limbs, the impish grin and the silky bronze hair. Heartbroken and resentful, Humbert drives himself to his ruin and finally with blood on his hands, writes the story of his life - his biggest love, his guilt and his attempt to relive a childish romance that ended before its time.

"...and this is the only immortality that you and I might share, my Lolita."

the one with the lion and the lamb

"Twilight is a young-adult vampire romance novel by author Stephenie Meyer. It is the first book of the Twilight series, and introduces seventeen-year-old Isabella Swan, who moves from Phoenix to Forks and finds her life in danger when she falls in love with a vampire, Edward Cullen."

This is what Wikipedia has to say for this book.

I don't think i need to go into what millions of teenagers have to say for this book.

I was one of those girls once. I take pride in thinking that since I am past the "I love Edward <3" stage that I can be considered a normal part of the human race.

But anyone who can recall nearly every part of Twilight cannot unfortunately be considered as a part of it.

There is a spell in those pages. A spell which makes you forget everyone else around you; your life, your college life, your friends, family. Scoff all you want but everyone who reads it reads it through. And that is the greatest thing you can say for a book.

What is it about these characters that make us like them ? Maybe its the thought of the macabre- vampires and the bloodsucking that turns us on. Or the eternal dream to be swept off your feet by a charming and suave man with smoldering eyes and an old fashioned gentlemanly manner (extinct now. all those qualities). Whatever it is, it makes us look beyond Bella seeming paper thin(Bella is the weakest character in the book), the laughable notion of the good vampire who seems like every girl's dream rolled into one(he's too perfect, a friend of mine says), how very good life seems for the vampire (I mean come on, they get everything ? good looks. speed. strength. memory. intelligence. immortality. extra sensory powers also ? give me a break).

The 'Twilight phenomenon' however (the craze over the movies)has driven all my love out of me. It is now worse than a boring book. The movie versions almost got me into a coma. All my love has been spent and there is nothing left anymore.

The name Twilight brings up a sense of cold, rain, deserted days and softness. Robert Pattinson makes me cringe and Kirsten Stewart makes me wish i were blind rather than watch her butcher up one of the books I enjoyed a lot.

The name Twilight brings up disgust towards the movie franchise and a little bit of shame. I still love the book. But everytime I read it, it dredges up visuals from the movie and that is just something i cannot take anymore.