Tag: Literature

Tips To Improve Your Language Skills, Part 2

Posted on by Stephanie Dodaro

Tips To Improve Your Language Skills, Part 2

See part one in the previous post.  To continue our discussion on tips to improving your language skills, next up is:

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Teach Someone Else

This may seem strange or even hard to imagine for some people, but it does work! If you feel as if your language skills are at least at an intermediate level, you should be more than ready to teach a beginner. If you get yourself a good beginner’s textbook, the lesson plan is already made for you. By following the book, you will have a very organized and methodical technique for working with a beginner. It will be a fantastic way for you to review the basics and refresh your knowledge and understanding of the grammar and vocabulary that you may have forgotten. It will challenge you to improve and refine your language skills, so it is a benefit to you and your student! In addition to making this crucial revision in order to teach a new student, you will also gain a much-needed confidence in speaking and using the language. You will probably learn a lot of new stuff as you go along, like new words you’d never come across before, and you will even likely improve your own understanding of grammar points that you may not have perfected the first time around. Being able to explain grammar and vocabulary will come easier for you, since you had to learn it the hard way just as your students are doing. You will be able anticipate the difficulties they will encounter because you had the same ones, thus being able to better help them.

Join A Conversation Or Book Club Group

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If you do a quick search in your area, you may find a language school or Meetup group that hosts a conversation circle that meets maybe monthly or as frequently as weekly. Here, we have several Meetup groups that meet on various days during the week, daytime or evening. You can maybe find a group that meets your language level or interest. Sometimes the group may meet to discuss literature or simply to have drinks or dinner in the evening, or coffee or lunch during the day or weekends. Language schools like Alliance Française or Deutches Haus, in addition to language classes, may host free or low-cost events in which members may be able to participate. These could be book clubs, seminars, presenters, film clubs, or even parties for Christmas or national holidays. Participating in these may be beneficial for you to meet native speakers, or other language learners with whom you can practice speaking in a very relaxed atmosphere.

Create An Immersion Environment At Your Home (see blog)

I wrote about this recently, so refer to the blog I posted (March 2021) for more details. I just want to reiterate that having as much immersion in the language you are learning is crucial! Subscribe to magazines or newspapers, get CDs or stream music, watch the news, movies or videos in your target language, put up posters of verb charts or vocabulary, change your phone or computer language, anything and everything you can do to have the language all around you will reinforce and strengthen your confidence and abilities.

Talk To Anyone/ Everyone, Even If They Don’t Know The Language You’re Speaking!

There is also another option, which might annoy your family and friends, but which could be fun and interesting to you (and possibly to others), and that is to just talk in your target language every time you want to say something, and then translate it. If you want your spouse to pass you the butter, say it first in the language you are learning, and then translate it. It sounds nuts, but I have students who do this. It gives them the chance to practice their language skills, figure out how to say what they want to say, but still get the message across in the translation. Their family members may even learn something in the process! It’s a little like the one from part 1, in which I said you could just talk to yourself. However the difference (and maybe an added benefit) is that it needs to come out quickly and in good pronunciation, intonation and rhythm. Thinking to oneself is a little different from speaking out loud. Give it a try. You may realize that you are a little slower at speaking out loud than you are at thinking what you want to say.

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Write Daily

In an article posted on my blog (Feb 2017) I talked at length about writing to improve your language skills. For more details, please refer to this post. Briefly, I believe writing is critical to the development of language skills, and I have seen this put into practice with great success by many of my students. When students began a habit of writing daily, even as little as a few sentences to a few small paragraphs, they would often notice great improvement in their ability to form their thoughts and ideas in the language they are studying. It challenges them to think about how things need to be said in the language they are learning, for example, the vocabulary or grammar needed and so much more. Especially if you are going to be writing by hand, I believe the memory for words and phrases that you write down is stronger and will last longer. Whether it be personal memories, experiences, daily activities or even on more abstract topics like friendship or success, taking a few minutes every day to write in a notebook will work wonders on your skills in all areas.

Get a Tutor / someone to talk to to practice/ language partner.

So finally, I will end with the obvious one. When all else fails or is still not enough, or when the above opportunities do not present themselves, and you just want or need more, you may just need to get a tutor or private teacher. Taking a class is great for the interaction that you will have, but it may not give you the individualized attention you need or want. If you have very specific goals in mind, for example to pass a test, to prepare for an upcoming trip or to apply for a job, then a tutor is probably the best option. I would also say that a private tutor is also best for someone with some experience studying the language here and there and may have a level that is difficult to place in a class. If you live in a very rural area and there are not a lot of language schools or tutors, there are plenty of tutors (like me) who are working online to deliver quality professional lessons. Don’t knock it until you try it! I know studying online may not seem like a great experience to you, but it is in the comfort of your own home or office, may fit in well when you have an unpredictable schedule, and you don’t have the hassle of commuting in traffic or going out in bad weather. It really can be quite convenient for people with busy schedules. If you are on a budget and just can’t afford the cost of hiring a private teacher, there are also programs that connect you with a language partner with whom you can exchange language lessons, dividing the hour between your learning their native language, and teaching your language to them. It may be a slow process, and they will possibly be amateur teachers, but if you both stay on task, you could get a lot out of it. Keep in mind that it also may be very irregular and some language partners are not as committed as you may be.

In Conclusion

All in all, language learning is a process. It can be a lifelong process, and at times frustrating or slow, but it is always well worth it. A second language is a valuable skill and useful in many situations, from travel to work. It keeps the mind healthy and young and can really change the way we see the world and others. So if you are committed, go all in. I hope the above tips prove to be as useful to you as they have been to me and to many of my students. If you can think of others, please add them in the comments below. I would be happy to see them, as well as many of my students.

The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary

Posted on by Stephanie Dodaro

In 1998 a book came out that detailed the birth of the first English dictionary which began in 1857.  No joke, there was nothing quite like a “proper English dictionary” before that time. It would take me nearly two decades to discover this book. The book is called The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester.  If the title alone did not whet your appetite, then possibly nothing will.  This was yet another lucky book fair find, and I could simply not resist this one.  It is the true story of the making of the famous OED (The Oxford English Dictionary) and of the famous or even infamous men who made it happen.  It is an absolutely awe inspiring story of the dictionary that almost did not happen, the dictionary that men died making never to see completed.   Our main characters are Dr. James Murray, editor of the OED, and Dr. W. C. Minor, main contributor of thousands of entries for the dictionary and permanent inmate at the asylum for the criminally insane.

There are many aspects about this book that I loved.  There are actual dictionary entries reproduced at the beginning of every chapter, almost setting the theme for the chapters themselves.  Chapter 1, for example, begins with the very lengthy listing for “murder”, with all the etymology and changes for the word over the years.  By seeing these entries, the reader gets a sense of the immense project it was to put together a dictionary of such scope.  It was a monumental task.  Even those taking on this task underestimated how long it would take, which in total took about 70 years. I also very much appreciated the author’s language, which is very elegant and sophisticated.  For “word nerds”,  myself included, it can be refreshing to read something so eloquently written, with such academic vocabulary, rich in meaning.

The book retraces the history of both men from childhood and how they found themselves in their individual situations, and to a degree, what made them the men they became, especially in the case of Dr. Minor.  It leads us to the moment when Dr. Minor finds a flier with a call for contributors for the dictionary.  Finding himself with a lot of time on his hands and an extensive library in his cell, he could work and occupy his time and his mind.  It could possibly have proven to be therapeutic in the end.

Photo by Thomas Kelley on Unsplash

Overall the story of these two men, and the incredibly ambitious project they undertook was fascinating, to the point that I even found myself reading little bits to friends who were willing to humor my enthusiasm for this book.  To imagine that this was done mostly by mail, submissions on little slips of paper, handset typeface, and compiled manually, in the mid 19th century makes my head explode.  To think that in Shakespeare’s day there was no English dictionary, to think of having no way to check the meaning or spelling of a particularly strange or unusual or new word, is difficult to imagine.  We take it for granted.

So as you may imagine, I devoured this one not only as a bibliophile, but also a word nerd and lover of historical fiction and etymology.   It is meticulously researched and eloquently retold. Undoubtedly a must read for anyone looking to improve vocabulary (whether English is your native language or not!) and especially for someone who underestimates the importance of and need for a dictionary.

 

How to improve skills in your second language… Read!

Posted on by Stephanie Dodaro

Many of my students ask me what I think is the best way to improve their speaking skills in their second language.  Of course the simple answer is to practice speaking.  The language student should seek any and all opportunities to speak their target language, even if that means traveling overseas where the language is spoken, joining clubs, language schools, speaking with international tourists that one may encounter, or with friends from school who are also studying the language.

Photo by Jilbert Ebrahimi on Unsplash

However, that is not necessarily the best answer, and it is certainly not the only answer. What would a person do if he has only few or no opportunities to speak the target language? This is often the case for a person learning a language in a country where the language is not widely spoken. I lived in Japan for a few years, and very seldom met people with whom I could speak  French. Even when that rare opportunity occurred, we were usually in a mixed group where the common language was English.  Even then, the French speakers were not likely to correct my French or offer assistance.  The only thing I could do to maintain my language skills was to read.

 

Speaking more, practicing conversation, to improve one’s speaking skills can only help if someone corrects the speaker.  Yet the student is not necessarily going to build on skills as much as maintain what he already has. The vocabulary already at his disposal is not likely to be forgotten, but he may not add much to it without the help of a teacher conducting a conversation class dedicated to building vocabulary and editing grammar.

 

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Why Reading Works

If one is living in a rural area without a multicultural population or in a small town without international tourism, expats, or access to conversation classes, then the argument for reading to improve speaking skills is much stronger and the overall benefits are numerous.  When reading, a person is going to see much more than vocabulary.  He is going to build on his understanding of syntax, the use of articles, verb tenses, prepositions, idiomatic expressions, the particular way a language expresses things, the way phrases are built, colorful, descriptive language, and so much more. These benefits don’t just come at the early learning stage, but throughout your language learning journey.  Just the other day, I came across a beautiful phrase in a French novel that I was reading  that I hope to use one day.  The author was describing a friend from her past, and said of her that she was “belle comme le soleil” (beautiful as the sun). I thought that this was such a lovely phrase and wanted so much to remember it for a future time when I can use it that I wrote it down in my notebook.  I also found equivalents to English idioms that I recognized, even though they were phrased somewhat differently. We really do continue to learn at any age, at any stage of our education.

 

Why Not Use a Dictionary?

The way students should deal with new and unfamiliar vocabulary is not to spend hours looking in the dictionary for every new word they come across.  Obviously that is dull, makes reading laborious, and can lead to confusion if they pick the wrong definition or if the word is part of an idiom or used metaphorically. The student should just keep reading.  Does the new word impede the meaning of the passage as a whole?  Is the general idea of what’s being said understood? If so, the student should just make a guess about the word and keep reading. If the word keeps popping up, and the student thinks that maybe it is important to know exactly what the meaning is, only then would I say it is best to look it up.  The student may find himself surprised to realize that he had understood it all along, which will absolutely help with his confidence for the next time.  Eventually this word may become part of this repertoire, adding to his growing vocabulary at his disposal.  I have very distinct memories of what book I was reading when I learned certain words.

 

Other Skills Learned through Reading

While reading, it is not just vocabulary that the student is developing.  He is also being exposed to the usage of prepositions, how and when they are used; articles, which ones are used and in which situations; and common expressions and how they are framed in the language that he is learning. We often make the mistake of simply translating expressions directly from our native language into the language that we are learning, and that often does not work well.  I can honestly say that my full understanding of which articles to use and when did not only come from my grammar classes, but by seeing their usage again and again in books I read. I would sometimes stop and reread a phrase asking myself why one article was used and not another. After some consideration of the meaning of the phrase, it would become clear why it was used. This momentary contemplation cleared up my confusion and has added to my understanding of the grammar.

Final Thoughts…

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This all can happen quite naturally, without distracting the student from what he is actually reading.  One word of caution, the student should not be translating in his head while reading. If the book is at the right level for the student, the words should be familiar enough for the student to simply read, as it is written, in the language and enjoy what he is reading.  If he is actively trying to translate simultaneously, or pronounce the words in his head, he will get lost in that activity and will lose the meaning in the process.  Therefore, when reading in a foreign language, it is especially important for the chosen book to be at the appropriate level for the student so that the student does not rely too heavily on translation or the dictionary.   Too much can be lost in meaning, and none of the other benefits will be gained from the reading.

So, what are you waiting for?  Pick up a great book and begin today!!

 

** Check out my Book Club courses for suggestions on great books to read for French or English language learners, and contact me for more information***

I Heard the Owl…

Posted on by Stephanie Dodaro

I Heard the Owl Call My Name, but Margaret Craven

This is a classic which I first read during my bachelor’s program in the spring of 1995.  I have since read it several times with some of my ESL students, and each time we did a very close read, discussing themes and topics along the way. With every new reading, I am reminded of how deeply philosophical it is, how it emphasizes the strength and importance of community, and how a village is really like an extended family.  I am moved every time by the reading. This is really the kind of book that a person might reflect upon from time to time for years to come, and a great book to enjoy at a time like this, so isolated and separated from our own communities.

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Based on a true story, it is the life of a priest, Mark, who unbeknownst to him is dying, of what exactly the reader never knows.  Due to this unfortunate news regarding the young vicar, the bishop decides to send him to his most difficult parish, the remote Native American village of Kingcome, in the Pacific Northwest.  The bishop knows that Mark has a lot yet to learn and wants to help him do so as quickly as possible because he does not have a lot of time left.  The post will be a challenging one for Mark, and even the trip to arrive there is arduous. He will have to go from one boat to an even smaller boat upriver, through mountains, not to mention the harsh climate he will have to endure, the isolation, and the task of understanding or getting to know the villagers.  However, Mark is wise and patient.  He knows the value of waiting and keeping silent, listening.  Over time he learns more about them, while never fully understanding them, as even he admits. He does in the end, however, end up being respected and even loved by the villagers who mourn his passing in the traditional ceremonial way.  

Here is a place of myth, of old legends, where the river is life itself, linking all the other villages, the only way in or out, where the boat he drives becomes an extension of himself.  From chapter one we learn the meaning of the title, which also is a legend in which the owl will call the name of the man about to die.  Here nature is One with man, and they are all connected, and even dependent on each other.  We learn of the slow and steady bond growing between him and another Indian named Jim, of how important that bond becomes, of how much he has influenced the villagers and how much they have influenced him.  In fact, their influence on him was so great, Mark could not imagine returning to his world.  He was a changed man.  He would never again belong to the modern world, and worried a lot about when the time would come that he would have to return there.  

Photo by Danika Perkinson on Unsplash

This book reminds me of the importance of stillness, or the simpler way of life, of how isolated we have become, in our own worlds separated from society. In the village they suffered together through the rains and the harsh winters, helping each other, sharing food, but in this modern society we have built for ourselves, we suffer alone.  The villagers seek to preserve their traditions and rites through dances and stories, but we throw away the old and replace it with new and shiny.  The only other man in the village not a Native American was the teacher, who stayed apart from the others. At the death of Mark, he was unable to open the door to join the others, thinking that, “To join the others was to care, and to care was to live and to suffer.”  (158)  We shy away from death, hide it behind closed doors because the reality is scary.  We hide from life too often because being a part of it means risking loss, which is scary.  Yet, death is a part of life in the village, and everyone shares in it, takes part in the responsibility of it.  It is the cycle of life and a part of everyone and everything in the village.  

It is on the short list of books that have made me emotional.  I ended up absolutely loving the characters, especially Jim, Mrs. Hudson, Marta, and Keetah.  They are charming and caring and wise. This book is inspiring and philosophical, a truly memorable book to remind us of the essential things of life.  

***** This book is available for English Book Club**** See Courses for details.

New Orleans, my love..

Posted on by Stephanie Dodaro
New Orleans Carrollton area

Andrei Codrescu is an essayist, novelist, poet and professor at Louisiana State University.  He is also a regular speaker on National Public Radio, and such a brilliant speaker! I first came to know him from an audio selection in the material used where I was teaching ESL in Houston.  I then discovered this book, New Orleans, Mon Amour, a collection of his essays, at the LSU bookstore. I completely fell in love with his style and his writing. His voice, his humor, his way of seeing things are all completely endearing.

He is Romanian by birth, but moved to America and eventually to New Orleans, his adopted city, around 1985, the year the essays in this collection start.  The essays are grouped by periods, chronologically, except for the first which is a kind of preface. In his essays he talks about everything from his being a newcomer and his amazement of the environment, his fascination with the cuisine, his observations of our festivals, the heat, the humidity, the spices.  He talks about his favorite spots, his corner bar, his first Mardi Gras, the first time he had crawfish. Over time he will even talk about the politics of the city and its corruption, elections, and crime. No stone is left unturned. For me, it is interesting to see my city from an newcomer’s point of view on the inside. 

What I love about his writing is his very poetic way of describing things.  He makes even the most mundane occurrence seem significant and often hilarious. When trying to choose a new book to work with one of my students, I picked this from the shelf for consideration.  I flipped open randomly to the page entitled: Alligators. I read a few lines and immediately began to laugh out loud!  He is languishing in the heat, lying in his hammock “with [his] mouth open, waiting for a ripe fig to fall off the tree into it.” All the while he is looking in the direction of a drainage ditch near LSU, when he observed an alligator, that apparently all the students know.   His description of the scene is absolutely perfect, and anyone who has been here can imagine it.  

New Orleans French Quarter
Photo by Caleb George on Unsplash

I realized very quickly that this book is perfect for anyone who wants to understand this city, its citizens, the culture and history of New Orleans and even for locals who want to enjoy an outsider’s view on the city.  It allowed me to observe things with fresh eyes, seeing things that I no longer noticed due to familiarity. It is also a perfect book to work with ESL students because it is divided into short essays making it manageable in an hour-long lesson.  Yet at the same time they are still fun to discuss and eloquently written. An English learner will learn culture and history while developing vocabulary and language skills beyond just academic essay style.

It is a wonderful text for any college-age or adult learner of English wishing to improve her reading and comprehension skills.  Even more than that, it is a brilliant book for the lover or New Orleans, anyone who has traveled here, lived here or who has dreamed of visiting one day.

**** Available as a ESL Book Club course**** See my Services page for details!!

Oh! A mystery of Mono no Aware

Posted on by Stephanie Dodaro

Oh! A Mystery of Mono No Aware, by Todd Shimoda

Another of the beautifully created books by Chin Music Press.  

Only very rarely have I ever purchased and read a book more than once. The first time I recall doing just that is with Phantom of the Opera.  The second, when my copy of Oh! was damaged in storage. I felt compelled to buy another because it was simply too beautiful a book to keep a damaged copy.  When my new copy arrived, I decided to read it again. It had been years since I had read it the first time. This is a deeply philosophical book involving the journey of a man seeking emotion in his life.  He feels as if he is simply going through the motions in life, in a boring job, in a loveless relationship, devoid of any meaning.  He feels numb, unable to sense strong emotion or to grasp feeling from the things he sees around him.  He drops everything to move to Japan in search of something but he knows not what.  

The narrator starts teaching in a language school but gets laid off because he did not have the proper visas for work.  It was there that he had met professor Imai, one of his students. He learns from the professor about mono no aware, a very complicated Japanese concept mostly applied to poetry and one that most younger Japanese do not understand anymore, involving an emotional response (usually sadness) to things around us.  A classic example of this is the Japanese cherry blossom, very beautiful flowers that bloom and fall in a very short period of time.  We have very little time to appreciate them before they are gone.  Mono no aware makes us respond with Oh!

Cherry blossoms in Japan

When professor Imai learns of the narrator’s search for feeling, he starts a series of tests for the narrator, sending him on little quests to check his responses to things.  This eventually leads the narrator down a very dangerous path where a curiosity of Aokigahara forest grows inside him, thrusting him deeper and deeper into the dark corners of Japan and leading him straight into the arms of Tokyo’s suicide clubs, wherein lies “the ultimate mono no aware experience at the moment before death”.  Little does the narrator know, the professor has some dark corners in his life too. They are both searching for answers and seeking to understand mono no aware.  I developed a real sympathy for the main character, and when I learned more about him, for the professor too.  They are both tragic characters who found each other at an important stage in their lives to help each other.  There is definitely something of a father-son relationship between them that I found touching.  The final chapters reach such an urgent climax that I found myself holding my breath or gasping in shock.  

It is a captivating book that is terribly hard to put down.  Each chapter flowed so smoothly into the next, or left me at such a cliffhanger that I never could quite find a place to put it down, leaving me reading late into the night.  Between chapters are “exhibits”, or explanations of complicated Japanese concepts on poetry and art and culture, mostly dealing with and expanding upon various definitions of mono no aware.  The ten or so pages in front and back have beautiful paper and art from the writer’s wife.  The book is art itself.  It is literature; it is a travel journal; it is philosophy.   It is a thought-provoking and emotional read that reminds us to stop and smell flowers, stop and look at the way the sun filters through the trees, stop to listen to the birds.  

Fabulous the first time, maybe better the second.  5 stars!!

**** Book available as an ESL Book Club course*** See my Services page for details !

Vocabulary for Discussing Literature in French

Posted on by Stephanie Dodaro

Voici des mots clefs pour parler de la littérature.

Here are some key words for talking about literature.

During my thirty years of speaking French, any time that I had to speak about a topic or subject that was new to me, I would be frustrated to discover all the holes in my vocabulary.  For example, if you have ever had the experience of needing to talk about literature in French, you may have come to realize that you lacked a certain specific vocabulary.

For students wanting to participate in a book club or to study literature to improve their language skills, this list might be of interest to you.  I put together a list of words and expressions that were needed for the conversations I would have during courses in which we discussed books and short stories.  Below are some expressions that you may find handy or essential in order to more easily discuss what you read (or even films you see) in French.

If you are interested in a Book Club course, please see my page on courses offered for details.

Expressions:

Il s’agit de…  = It’s about…

Traiter de = Concerns, deal with, to be about

L’histoire a eu lieu… = The story took place…

Cela m’a fait penser à… = It made me think about..

Ce livre parle de…  = This book talks about..

Tu as raison/ tort… = You are right/ wrong..

Je ne m’y attendais pas… = I did not expect that…

Je me rends compte que… = I realize that…

À mon avis – In my opinion..

Je suis en train de lire… = I am in the middle of reading, I am reading…

Ce livre m’intéresse parce que… = This book interests me because…

Je suis intéressé(e) par ce livre parce que… = I am interested in this book because…

La langue de l’écrivain est (élégante, riche, poétique, …) = The language of the writer is (elegant, rich, poetic…)

Langage haut en couleur, langage imagé = Colorful language

Vocabulary:

Genre = The style, type (of literature)

Roman historique, roman noir, roman d’aventure, une autobiographie = Historical novel, mystery novel, adventure novel, autobiography

Un récit, une histoire = A story

Le personnage principale, le/la protagoniste, le héros du livre = The main character, the protagonist, the hero of the book

Le lecteur = The reader

La lecture = Reading

L’auteur(e), l’écrivain(e) = The author, writer

Le dénouement, la résolution, la révélation ou catastrophe, la conclusion = Falling action

Le conflit, l’apogée, le moment décisif = Climax

La présentation, l’introduction, l’entrée en jeux = Exposition, introduction

Le déroulement, l’enchaînement, la progression de l’action, le développement de l’action, l’évolution du conflit, le point culminant = Rising action

le noeud, la péripétie = The entanglement, twists and turns

Le narrateur, la narratrice (omniscient)= The narrator (omniscient)

L’antagoniste, l’adversaire = The antagonist, the adversary, the enemy

Les personnages secondaires = Supporting characters

Le décor, la scène = The setting, scenery, the scene

L’intrigue = The plot

Le complot = The conspiracy

Une oeuvre = One or several works by an author

Un oeuvre = Describing the ensemble of works for a writer

Un recueil (de nouvelles, de poésie) = A collection (of stories, of poetry)

Le thème =The theme

The Alchemist

Posted on by Stephanie Dodaro

The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho

This is a book that has been recommended to me on multiple occasions by several good friends.  Flying home to visit my family a few years ago, I stopped in a magazine shop at the airport.  They had a really nice looking anniversary edition of this book for sale.  I picked it up and started to read the first pages and the inside cover with the synopsis.  I was absolutely intrigued; it did in fact sound like something that would have interested me.  It would take me a few more months to catch up on the other books that I was simultaneously reading, so that I could eventually get to this one.  Finally I could not resist any longer.  I read this book in record time!  I was completely absorbed in it, and was reading passages out loud to anyone who would listen.  

It is hard to categorize this book.  It is at the same time a travel book, a philosophy book, a self-help book and a novel all in one.  It is inspiring, thought provoking, and full of wisdom.  The language over-all is simple, but it speaks to me because I feel as if I did a lot of what the boy did and had some of the same experiences. The boy dreams of travel, of visiting places other than the small farming town he knows.  He becomes a shepherd, so that he can travel around and see more of the world.  One day he has a dream of hidden treasure to be found near the Egyptian Pyramids.  He visits a gypsy to find out the meaning of the dream because, as we learn from her, dreams are the language of God.  She tells him that he must go there to find his treasure.  

Then he meets a man who calls himself a king.  He tells the boy to give him 1/10th of his herd of sheep, and he will in exchange tell him how to find the treasure.  The boy thinks about it for a while and then decides to trust the king and gets very important advice about his Personal Legend, what he has always wanted to accomplish, about the Soul of the World, and he also learns that if he wants something badly enough, all the universe conspires in helping him achieve it.  The king told him all he had to do was follow the omens.  The king also advised against giving up on his dream. He will hear this advice on other occasions when he is at risk of giving it all up, and it is powerful advice which I think everyone needs to hear.  

“To realize one’s Personal Legend is a person’s only real obligation,” the king said.  And so the boy is off on his adventure.  It was not an easy journey to the Pyramids, and it takes an exceptionally long time, and there is a lot of adventure along the way.  On several occasions he finds himself ready to give it all up, but something always pulls him back.  He goes through many trials and successes and finally ends up exactly where he is supposed to be. Along the way he meets a crystal merchant, whose life he changed forever, an Englishman, a beautiful woman with whom he falls immediately in love and for whom he once again wants to give it all up, and finally the Alchemist.  It is the Alchemist who will finally set him on the path to being able to find his treasure, convinces him that he cannot give up for risk of resentment and losing his treasure forever, and he repeatedly tests him to see if he’s ready.  

 

Some of the most important messages in this book which I could certainly apply to my life are, “People need not fear the unknown if they are capable of achieving what they need and want”, “when you can’t go back, you have to worry only about the best way of moving forward,”  and “people are afraid to pursue their most important dreams because they feel that they don’t deserve them, or that they’ll be unable to achieve them.”  This of course is but a small sample of the wisdom in this book.  So much of it was noteworthy!  

What I realized is that despite the popular saying, you really can go home again!  He had to travel all the way to the Pyramids of Egypt only to find out that what he had been looking for all his life was right where he had started.  However, along the way he had had amazing experiences that he would never have known if he had not gone in search of something.  It is a lot like what I have done in my life, and now I know that I had been following the omens, and fulfilling my Personal Legend.  When I allowed myself to believe that sometimes taking the long way home is the only way home, I set off on an adventure to Japan to finally find my way home to New Orleans.  I had no idea what I was seeking there, or what I would find.  What I would in fact find was what I was really meant to do with my life.  Along the way, I saw and did amazing things that I would never have had the opportunity to do before, and may never again.

This is a book I could read over and over again.

**** This is an English Book Club selection. See Courses page for details.****

Albert Camus’ The Stranger

Posted on by Stephanie Dodaro

The Stranger, by Albert Camus

I recently discovered the book Looking for the Stranger by Alice Kaplan and started reading it at the same time as rereading The Stranger in preparation for a discussion with a student. It was through this combination of books that I was really able to look more deeply at the themes of the book and the personality of the main character. The Stranger, read by so many students in school, has as Kaplan says become a sort of “rite of passage” (Kaplan, 2). It sparks debate on all sides and leaves us wondering why we sympathize with the main character, wondering why he does not fight for his life, or for that matter even defend himself?

The Stranger is a classic and in my opinion a novel that everyone must read. You can read it simply for face-value, as a book about a man who seems disconnected from his world, and as events unfold he is lead closer and closer to the murder of a man on the beach. However, I think questions will come up that will cause the reader to delve more deeply into why. Why do the events unfold in a way that lead him to kill a man on the beach, why in this moment is he prompted to do something so extreme, and yet with such coldness? Why is he so disconnected from everyone and everything, his mother, his job, his friends, even his girlfriend? Why does he not respond to the violence he sees around him, only to then shoot a man completely unprovoked?

Kaplan says something that I have often heard said by another favorite writer of mine, Dany Laferrière,  in a similar way. She says that “books have a life. They come to life as you read them, and they stay alive long after you’ve turned the last page.” Oh, how I know that is true! The Stranger will do just that to you. In fact, the more I read this book, the more I feel it with me every day. Camus’ philosophy, often mislabeled as Existentialist, is in fact Absurdist. He sees men as all being condemned to death, all in their own time, of course. He says that as humans we are somewhat meaningless in the world. Meursault, the main character in The Stranger, says that we cannot change our lives. That basically describes our main character’s attitude before his own life. He is indifferent to his own life, saying, for example, to his girlfriend that he supposes that he does not love her, and that it does not make any difference, that it is all the same to him, but that if she wanted him to marry her, he would. He refuses to give way to the expectations of society, has no ambition to better his job at work, basically refusing a promotion and never justifying himself.

Camus uses the first person singular to tell his story, thus putting the words and thoughts directly into the mouth of his narrator. This gives us a strange feeling of distance between us and the writer, all while creating a strange relationship between us and the character. In my opinion it might be why by the end, we have a kind of sympathy for him, even while we basically know exactly what happened on that beach. By the end of the book, I wanted him to fight for himself, to let his lawyer try to save him. But eventually Meursault more or less condemned himself by saying “the sun made me do it.”

The question remains, of what exactly was Meursault convicted, putting his mother in a nursing home, or killing a man on the beach? At the trial, the victim was never mentioned, and the majority of the questions to him were related to his mother’s placement in a home, his lack of showing sadness, his behavior before the casket (drinking coffee, smoking and sleeping) and the relationship he began with Marie soon after his mother’s burial. Additionally, throughout the days following the death of his mother, he repeats phrases like “it’s not my fault” or that he felt guilty. Guilt over what? Did he feel guilty for abandoning his mother, or did he feel as if her placement in a home was what prompted her death, which of course we know is not true since we know she had a fiancé while there.

If anyone here is dying, it is Meursault, whose life seems empty. We see his slow Sundays where he sits on his balcony watching Life roll by. We know he has no passion about his job, or even for his girlfriend. He has no pets, no hobbies except bathing either at a pool or a beach. He eats at the same restaurant, and when not there will cook something simple like boiled potatoes. There is no spice or joy in his life from what we can see. He is a stranger to his life. Interestingly enough, talking about strangers, most of Camus’ characters are strangers to us, too. We never know Meursault’s first name, nor the name of the Arab that he shoots, nor the name of his neighbor’s girlfriend, la Mauresque. We never even know his mother’s name.
By the time we finish the book, maybe we can come to fully understand Camus’ philosophy, just like Meursault does at the end.
A truly stunning read, thought-provoking and moving. It gets better with age, and with every subsequent read! 5 stars indeed.

**** This title also available as a Book Club selection.  See my Services page for details.****

Why New Orleans Matters to Me

Posted on by Stephanie Dodaro

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to meet the author of Why New Orleans Matters, Tom Piazza.  He was hosting a book club meeting at my neighborhood bookstore, so I got there early for the chance to talk with him, thank him and tell him how much I appreciated his book and to hopefully get him to sign it for me.  (Yes, I am a bit of a fan girl!  I make no apologies for that. Several other women lined up behind me for the exact same thing.) In honor of this fortuitous moment, I took the opportunity to reread it.

 

This book, Why New Orleans Matters, released quickly after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, is less of a novel and more of a very elaborate essay on the importance of this city and why it needs to be protected at all costs.  In the days and months, and even years, after the hurricane and my subsequent displacement elsewhere, I felt a loss like nothing I have ever felt in my life.  No one really understood why I was so unhappy, or why I was so unable to settle into this new city and call it home.  I told them I could never call it home, and that it would never be home no matter how long I stayed there.  I tried to explain to them why I felt that way.  I tried to find the words to explain what it was that was missing there, what it was that I had found in New Orleans that I could not seem to find there.  Mr. Piazza gave me the words to say what it was I was feeling. He effortlessly and eloquently put his finger on that timeless thing that makes New Orleans so unique, puts into words that intangible feeling, that mysterious quality that we all love and appreciate so much about this place we call home.  And it is very hard to describe for someone who has never been here.

 

New Orleans, he says, “has a mythology, a personality, a soul…” (xvii) that so few other places can claim to have.  “The past in New Orleans cohabits with the present…” (xviii) and its history is palpable; it is living and breathing its past.

 

It feels different in subtle ways.  Never before have I ever felt the air upon me as I do here. It hangs, as one friend described, like a damp wool blanket on my skin.   It sounds different even.  I remember after having been away for a while, that one weekend I was back in town visiting.  I remember telling a friend one morning that the sound outside was different from the place where I was currently living.  I, once again, could not find the right words. My friend immediately knew what it was that I wanted to say and said “it is organic.”  That was it.  Organic.  I could hear the banana plant leaves rustling in the wind, the sounds of birds (not cars and construction), leaves blowing in the yard.  It was the beautiful sound of the closeness of nature.  It smells different, too.  As I walk down the sidewalk, I smell the combination of a dozen flowers and fruit trees mixed with coffee and fresh rain from earlier in the afternoon.  An intoxicating elixir.

Reading how Mr. Piazza describes our love of food, music, festival and family, all of which are inextricably tied together, was a beautiful affirmation of what I had already believed and felt, but simply could not express as well as he had. The  “food of New Orleans is a language, and all those who prepare it and love it are family.” (22).  It is a big small town, with a community mindset.  We all here are family in a way.  We greet each other on the street like friends even though perfect strangers, yet in our way of seeing things, if I see the same person on the street every day, we are not strangers.

 

If you are one of the million or so people who experienced Katrina first-hand, I recommend only reading part one.  Part two starts with the aftermath, and while I did experience the storm and the coming home part where I saw images that I will never be able to erase from my mind, I read it anyway. It was a very emotional experience, indeed.  If you are one who wonders why we stay here, why we live here, or why we came back here, maybe you need to read this.  It was not a matter of whether I would come home despite what happened, but more of a question of when.  It took me long enough, but when I finally did, I knew it was the right decision and the right timing. Like Mr. Piazza, I knew this was home, “for keeps, no matter where I might travel.” (7)