Less Is More

I like cliches. It may be because all through my childhood I listened to my mother and grandmother saying them . Every time they were going to give me what I call a life lesson it either ended or started with a cliché. This year I learned how its better if you don’t use them in your writing. While we were discussing them in class I could not help but think of one that was my grandmothers favorite: less is more. She used it for everything. Every time I asked her for adivice, if I was writing a letter she would say rember less is more, if I had made a mistake and had to apologize she would say it, even with the way I dressed, if I were to put on many bracelts, neckleses, scarfs or accessories, she would tell me.
One day I found myself at the beach, listing to the waves as they reached the shore and how the wind blew the leafes of the palm trees from side to side. There was nothing around except sand the water and the palm tress and then I thought, less is more. It was a simple landscape with nothing flashy or extraordinay but that was what made it special.
I like to think of Walt Whitmans poems as if they were the beach. They have simple words and talk about simple things. Yet they are special and Whitman adds his own specail touch. The fact that he named the book Leafes of Grass instead of blades of grass is something. Each poem is unique and yet alike, the structure changes, but in most poem he starts the sentence with the same word like in poem number 17
If they are not yours as much as mine, they are nothing, or next to nothing;

If they are not the riddle, and the untying of the riddle, they are nothing;
If they are not just as close as they are distant, they are nothing.

I am not saying that whitman’s poem are simple like vague just that compared to other poems they seem simple. This is why the cliche fits. The poems may seem simple but if you think about the title, the structure and the descriptions Whitman uses throughout all his poems, it becomes more just as the beach became more.

A Spiral With No End.

Imagine yourself talking with a teacher, usually you ask a questions and they answer or they ask a questions and you answer, rarely a conversation comes up. Now imagine yourself talking to your mother or father, you may be the kind of person that likes to talk with them, trusts them and share every detail of your life. I am not one of those people, a conversation with my parents is similar to the one with my teacher, they ask I answer. There are also people with the ones you speak about specif things. A conversation with my uncles and grandfather are about sports, traveling and food. With my grandmother it changes to fashion, shopping and family issues. Even with my friends, I talk about different things with each one. There there’s my aunt, with her conversations are like a spiral that never ends. We start talimg about one thing then we change to another and to another and to another, in the end we don’t know how we got to that topic in the first place.

Reading A Simple Soul reminded me of my aunt. Flauberts narration was like a conversation with her. He starts describing Madame Aubain’s life, then he describes her house, then before you know it you are reading abot how “she arose at daybreak in order to attend mass,and she worked without interrumption until night ”( A Simple Soul). The difference between Fluaberts writing and the conversation with my aunt is that if I you were to read one you would get bored and lost in the words. Instead Fluaber manages to make connections that make sense, giving the story its own rhythm, so the reader never gets bored and wants to keep on reading. Both are like spirals that do not end they continue going on linking one topic to another. If you were to draw a spiral on my conversation it would disorganized and shapeless while one of the book would seem infinite with a form like a chain of facts that sum up in the end.

Our Creation.

Walt Whitman continues to surprise me. While reading his poems I realized how he uses simple words which are not very common in poetry and how the poems do what the author wants to show. By writing about simple and common things and using simple words Whitman is able to do this. He’s poems are unique, while reading you get the impression that Whitman wants you the reader to understand the way he thinks or views life, most of times he focuses in nature. “These are the thoughts of men in all ages and lands” (poem 17). He is generalizing about the world and at the same time including himself, as if his thoughts were everyone’s thoughts or he was trying to make that happen. Another way to look at it is to think of the world and how we have all created it. Even though different people have done different things than others, it is still the creation of all of us together. “If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing”(poem 17). For the creation to mean something we must all be a part of it.
Then again he talks about grass. “this is the grass that grows wherever the land is, and the water is; this is the common air that breathes the globes.”(poem 17). He is comparing us and our creation to the grass. “the common air that breathes the globe” is us the people, we are the grass that grows on the land, the same way we all together create. More than making the reader adapt his way of thinking, what Whitman does is express the thoughts of most of the people. Many don’t know this so he writes for everyone, for the common citizen, the American poet, that is a poet because he creates as Whitman creates. In the end they are all great poets because they share the same ideas, they are all “leafs of grass”.

Part Of A Whole

One may think that describing simple things is easy because the thing itself is very simple. Think about water, you know what it is but try explaining it to somebody and I can assure you won’t have anything else to say except it’s just water. Walt Whiteman states the same “A child said, what is the grass? Fetching it to me with full hands; how could I answer the child? I do not know what it is, any more than he.”(Poem 6). There is no way you can explain a simple thing like this. You can describe it but not explain it.

Now think about poetry, you never understand a poem the first time you read it because of the complex words and the analysis you have to do to understand it. Walt Whitman is different. Reading Leaves of Grass I noticed how his poems have a unique style, they do what the author is saying. By using simple words to talk about simple things to make the reader literally understand what he is saying. I got the impression that the poems are not only saying one thing, but that each reader can get a personal meaning from his words and he usually leaves you thinking. “All goes onward and outward-nothing collapses; and to die is different from what anyone supposed, and luckier.” Why would a poem that talks about grass end like this? It is also written as if the narrator had experienced death. It could be death or the end in a different way, in this case the end of the poem.

The title fascinated me “Leaves of Grass”. This again proves Whitman’s unique style. Trees have leaves, grass has blades. In class, we read an introduction to this book where Whitman talks about America and how it has evolved, they the Americans are the greatest poets and America has its separate pieces but it is still as a whole. Each state is different but together that form they great America. The different people not necessarily have to be Americans. That explains the title, if you think about America would be grass and the people that make it up would be the leaves meaning that they are not Americans. The book itself relates with the title, it has the different poems that together make up the whole book. Each one a piece and yet they are a whole.

Flaubert's Style

When referring to the style of an author, we would say that it is the way he or she likes to write and the way they portray their ideas. In Gustave Flaubert’s A Simple Soul, he shows a unique style, one that includes a lot of description. “The outgoing tide exposed star-fish and sea-urchins, and
the children tried to catch the flakes of foam which the wind blew
away. The sleepy waves lapping the sand unfurled themselves along the
shore that extended as far as the eye could see, but where land began,
it was limited by the downs which separated it from the "Swamp," a
large meadow shaped like a hippodrome.”(Chapter 2). Not only does he use a list to describe a beach in this case but also, by using words like sleepy and unfurled Flaubert personifies the words for the reader to get a perfect mental picture.

The use of punctuation especially the comma stands out in Flaubert’s writing. “Every Monday morning, the dealer in second-hand goods, who lived under
the alley-way, spread out his wares on the sidewalk. Then the city
would be filled with a buzzing of voices in which the neighing of
horses, the bleating of lambs, the grunting of pigs, could be
distinguished, mingled with the sharp sound of wheels on the cobble-
stones. About twelve o'clock, when the market was in full swing, there
appeared at the front door a tall, middle-aged peasant, with a hooked
nose and a cap on the back of his head; it was Robelin, the farmer of
Geffosses. Shortly afterwards came Liebard, the farmer of Toucques,
short, rotund and ruddy, wearing a grey jacket and spurred boots.”(chapter 2) Even though he includes a lot of description in this passage the use of the common makes the idea smooth and precise, again creating a mental picture of the description.

The structure of his writing also stand out, by dividing the chapters into long and short paragraphs he gives more importance to one idea and the uses pauses to start a new idea and describe the house. “then she left her house in Saint-Melaine,
and moved into a less pretentious one which had belonged to her
ancestors and stood back of the market-place. This house, with its
slate-covered roof, was built between a passage-way and a narrow
street that led to the river.”(chapter 2). At a first glance, it may seem as if he used many words and the paragraphs look crowded, once you read you are left with the concise idea.

While reading you get the feeling that the story moves quickly, Flaubert makes this happen by jumping from one idea fast to the next one. His chapters start with the same idea from the last chapter creating the same effect.

Overall, in his writing Flaubert uses a variation in the length of his paragraphs and a lot of description to make the story move quickly making it fun and natural to the reader.

The Special Touch.

Let’s say that someone tells you to the read the book A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert. You ask them what the book is about and they tell you it is the story of a girl named Felicite and her tragic life. Would you liked to read it? I wouldn’t, it seems boring but I had to read it and I was wrong. The story may be simple but thanks to the authors style it becomes entertaining to read.

He was called Loulou. His body was green, his head blue, the tips of
his wings were pink and his breast was golden. (chapter 4). The description of the parrot is simple and concise, nevertheless Flaubert is able to create a mental picture and we imagine the parrot as he is. There are various things that stand out about his style like the use of punctuation and pauses, the structure, and how quickly he changes from one topic to another but the most impressive is the way he describes. “Her death agony began. A rattle that grew more and more rapid shook
her body. Froth appeared at the corners of her mouth, and her whole
frame trembled. In a little while could be heard the music of the bass
horns, the clear voices of the children and the men's deeper notes. At
intervals all was still, and their shoes sounded like a herd of cattle
passing over the grass.” (Chapter 5). With simple words and in a paragraph that you read fast, Flaubert makes you experience what Felicite is going through. He does this all throughout the book giving the story as a special touch. Being the description the special touch giving each word importance, allows him to create the effect he’s writing had on the reader.

Taking of all this away from the story would leave it to be nothing in comparison, maybe just some words that are boring to read. With his description, Flaubert gives a meaning to the story creating images making it fun to read. The simple story of his Felicite is a way for him to show his style and for us to appreciate it.

It All Meant Nothing.

My mom loves to read. Ever since she started a book club with her friends she reads one book a month. Reading has never been my favorite thing to do but this year because of my English class I have read some interesting books I would never imagined I would read. They seemed interesting and weird because I always saw my mother reading the most common novels, the ones you would find in the tables at the entrance of Barnes and Nobles. So, the book I read also seemed weird to her. One day she asked me what I was reading, and I told her that I had just finished The Crying of Lot 49. as I told her the title she made a weird face and asked me “what’s it about?” I really had no idea, I had no idea I had just read a 152 page book and I did not know what it was about. I had to tell her something so I finally told her “it’s a mystery novel, about this woman, Oedipa Mass and how her she was left in charge of her former boy friends will. “But what’s the mystery Isabella?” “It involves a mail company and all the clues she finds about this secret mail company called Tristero. ” I saw, by the way she looked at me that she really did not believe so she left and did not ask me anything else.

Then, I thought the book ended but proving nothing. Could it really been seen as the end of the novel? The mystery as I had told my mom is never solved. We never know who the mystery bidder is. All we ever know is that by trying to solve this mystery she ends up losing everything she once loved. The novel ends with a pessimistic feeling, leaving Oedipa and the people that once were close to her distorted (http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_6) for nothing. She gained nothing and lost everything in the end just to try to figure something out and in the end, she couldn’t.

The ending, odd and uncertain gives the book more reason to say it means it nothing. Pynchon does not wrap it up for us and explains in the end. He gives us more to ask ourselves. What next? But the truth is, nothing comes next because it all meant nothing.