My Final Post, What We Learn From the Little Seamstress

*THIS POST GIVES AWAY THE ENDING TO "BALZAC AND THE LITTLE CHINESE SEAMSTRESS" 

So I finished "Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress." In the end the Little Seamstress leaves. She had started to change after hew abortion and then left. She became more modern and then left with out a goodbye. I wondered about why it was exactly she chose to leave. I think she had just finally gone through enough in her little town and had to leave. Though she never had the opportunity to learn she needed to. There comes a point at everyone's life where you become so mature you need to grow up. I think that though her decision seems quick and reckless, but she was really ready for it.

Often this moment comes with a anger. Anger at parents, anger at yourself. Some kind of anger. One becomes so caught up in his or her own need to grow that teenage angst forms. Teenagers are famous for this angst. I think that means you aren't really so mature that you can't stand everyone else, rather you think you are mature but very often are really just hopelessly confused. I liked that the Little Seamstress was truly ready when she left. She wasn't angry or upset. She was very calm. I think that this proves she is ready to leave more than anything.

I think it was Balzac more than her abortion that changed her. Which is interesting because you would think that a abortion would effect someone more than a book. I think this is also shows her maturity. If it was the abortion that caused her to leave she may have been angry at Luo for getting her pregnant, or at China's laws for making it so hard to get that abortion but making it impossible to keep the child. The banned books just inspired her to grow up so she could see the outside world. She learned about far away places like France and unheard of feelings like love. Her perspective on the world change resulting in a loss of innocence and the need to leave. The abortion just taught her about the harsh realitys of the world. A lesson more than a change.

I think that the Little Seamstress is actually a good example of a responsible teenager, despite her pregnancy. She made a mistake as a teenager but she learned from it. She grew up and left when she needed to. She didn't blame anyone. Which is really easy to do sometimes. She prepared herself for the outside world by slowly changing, she didn't rush into anything. I think as hard as it is, it's important for teenagers not to totally lose there minds. Not as easy as it sounds. Most importantly we need to learn from our mistakes. Learn from our mistakes, let books change us and never stop moving forward. Thanks Little Seamstress.

*This is my final post, so thanks to everyone who reads this and thanks to Ms. Robbins. If you have time please please please please check out and follow my blog "And A Little Bit Not"  for poetry, vignettes, some things that are almost essays but not really, lists, and everything else that goes through my mind. *

Lisabeth Salander

The author shows that you can't judge a book by it's cover. Lisabeth is the sort of girl who appears like a punk-rocker chick, with died black hair and skin covered in tattoos. In fact, she seems very much useless. She dropped out of high school and comes and goes as she pleases to work. Despite her appearance she works as a private investigator. Her boss almost fires her before realizing what she is capable of. It isn't just her intelligence or her mysterious ways of finding information on people that make her more than meets the eye. Her boss Dragan Armansky notices that she is almost pretty despite everything. She is almost delicate. She doesn't seem like much but she is very smart. She can get information described as being like "sheer magic" and "never once fumbled a job or turned in a single mediocre report."

Despite her differences between her and Mikael she handles conflicts with a similar matter-of-fact way. She is about to investigate whether or not he actually was guilty. Her reports are very matter fact similarly to how matter-of-factly he deals with his problems. Her reports are emotionless like how he reads his judgement thinking of how to deal with money and his company but barely his own emotional well being. When Lisabeth was about to be fired she convinced her boss to keep her three more days so that she could prove what she could do. Most people wouldn't try anything like that with their job on the line. She appeared as though she didn't care if she was fired but I think she did but didn't show it because she knew that it wouldn't get her anywhere. Lisabeth wrote a report on a pedophile with only pure facts and "dropped the bombshell" with the same "dry-dust tone she used to report that he lived in Sollentuna and drove a dark blue Volvo. Mikael gives very emotionless, vague answers in his interview after the trial when the court rules him guilty. It had just been officially confirmed he has to spend three months, basically ruining his reputation and he handles the press and his problems calmly. If only we could all face our own conflicts that attitude.

Mikael Blomkvist

So I just started reading "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo." I noticed in the very beginning after Mikael Blomkvist has been judged guilty by the court it says, "As he read the judgement, he felt a growing heaviness and discomfort in his stomach. This surprised him. As the trial began he knew that it would take a miracle to help him escape conviction, and he had become reconcile to the out come. He sat through the two days of the trial surprisingly calm, and for eleven more days he waited, with out feeling anything in particular".... "It was only now that a physical unease had washed over him."

I guess it doesn't sound that deep, but to me it sounded poetic. I think often in life we know something is going to happen but it isn't till it actually happens that we really feel anything. When we know something bad is going to happen we don't realize just how it feels. Like we may know a loved one is going to die of a terrible disease but it isn't till they are dead that we feel we have lost them. This is interesting psychologically because it would make sense that we would always be terrified when we knew something bad was coming, and sometimes people are, but often we feel very little. At least  compared to when it actually does happen. Even physically we don't feel much. He felt fine, but it took a moment of realization that made finally it all seem real to make him feel anything about it. In our mind nothing that is going to happen, no matter how sure we are that it is going to happen, feels real till it is right in front of our faces.

Mikael goes at the whole thing very business like. He thinks of how going to jail and paying the money will effect his career and his business. At first I thought maybe he was just cold. Later he says things putting down business men so it isn't that he only cares about money. I think he is just very logical about the situation. He is going to jail for three months but he keeps his head. Not that he doesn't feel anything but he handles the problem instead of losing is mind. If I were to go to jail, even for a short period of time for something that wasn't that bad I would be thinking more about actually going to jail. Then again he is a adult man. He isn't unfeeling after all, he is at least nostalgic about his apartment because he basically designed it. I think he is just sort of average-guy who got in the wrong situation. There doesn't seem to be anything cold or bad about him and is likable but has no stand-out qualities. He is a good, fair reporter according to Lisbeth Salander but I'll talk about her next.

Monsieur Ozu and Dumbldore

May i just say I love Monsieur Ozu and his relationship with Paloma, but especially Renee. I love him like I love Dumbldore. I think I would cry just as hard if he died like when Dumbldore died. Any way I think Monsieur Ozu kind of saved Renee. I think she was content keeping her thoughts to herself but she has realized that sharing her thoughts to some one who understand isn't necessarily going to make her life miserable, as she thinks would happen if she opened herself up to any one.

What I love about Monsieur Ozu is that he has a "child-like enthusiasm." This isn't to say he is childish, but he enjoys and is amazed by all the world has to offer. He, like Dumbledore, is wise, old, and helped the main character. Monsieur Ozu however, unlike Dumbledore (and all the old men like him in story's), is not teaching Renee anything. They are simply friends.  At the same time Renee has become a good friend to Monsieur Ozu and he obviously needs her company as much she needs his.

I appreciate this because often in story's the main character meets someone who they are somewhat friends with but the main character is more like, for lack of a better word, a apprentice. I find Monsieur Ozu and Renee's friendship refreshing.  The same could be said for Paloma except she has not really learned as much from being friends with him because she is still set on committing suicide. I think that she will change her mind. I at least hope she will.

Ozu, Renee and phenomenology

I just finished chapter 1 in the section "on grammar," in "Elegance of the Hedgehog" by Muriel Barbery. I have to say I find it interesting that Renee so quickly changed her thoughts on the man who moved in. After hearing his name and knowing that he is the man who created the movies she adores her entire perspective changed. Suddenly she became much fascinated in him. I mean she was interested before because no one had ever moved in or out of the building when she was there, but besides that her only worry was of the change a new person could bring.

I find it interesting that she had let her secret intelligence show a bit by mistake before she knew who he was.  Perhaps it simply was a mistake, that the author needed him to find out about her so they become friends but I think it was more then that. Maybe it was as Renee suspects, that she unconsciously wanted him to find out. That would make sense as Renee has spent a good bit of time remarking on phenomenology, the study of consciousness. Closer still but why do I feel there is more to it. I think Renee is so lonely that even if she thought that she must put on a facade she really wanted someone to talk to more then anything. Really the only people she talks to are the maid and Neptune, a woman's dog.

The author is trying to show that despite ones independence and that one may think they are above others, really we need people more then anything else in the world. Keeping everything we think to ourselves can drive us crazy. Often I have to write secrets down or tell someone before I can really feel at ease. Renee has a journal and Paloma keeps to as she writes down her thoughts and try's to convince herself not to commit suicide (A bit half-heartily but I'll leave that for another blog post.)