Hole In My Life

The last book I read in my senior high school year is Hole in My Life by Jack Gantos, which is an auto-biography which refers about the power of books and reading. Gantos refers books as both beneficial and detrimental throughout his life. In times, books were there to comfort himself through troubles, and it also allowed him to reaffirm his future as a writer. However in other times, books became something like a drug, misleading him into sneaking hash into the U.S. However overall, the books he had read had given great impact in his life.

Since I don't read books in my own time, it's pretty hard to say what books have given impact to my life. Therefore, I'll be introducing books that I have read in my high school english classes.

I realised that novels with stories of political events are both beneficial and detrimental because they give the reader the character's view of the event clearly. By obtaining a view of an event, the reader benefits some certain knowledge of the setting. However, we have to remember that the novel would probably be bias, therefore making few errors of the events. I would like to introduce few novels that I thought were beneficial and detrimental to me.




The first novel I'll introduce is a novel I read in my junior year in high school. The novel is called "Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress", by Dai Sijie. This is a semi-autobiographical novel that is set during the Cultural Revolution of China's Chairman Mao Zedong. The story is about two teenage boys who are sent to be 're-educated' at the Mountain of the Phoenix of the Sky, because their parents have been called the "enemies of the people" by the Communist state. I thought that this novel was one of the best novels I had read so far, and had actually made me want to read more of it. This novel was beneficial to me because it made me learn deeper into the Cultural Recolution, through a teenager boys' point of view. It also made me understand how life is so much deeper than how we simply really see it.

The second novel is my favourite novel of all times. It is called "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini. This novel is about a story of a young boy called Amir, and his friend Hassan, the son of his father's Hazara servant. The story is set through various events, from the Soviet invasion is Afghanistan, the mass of refugess to United States and Pakistan, and the rise of the Taliban. Through all of these events, the two boys have a complicated relationship because of Amir's mistake in their childhood. This novel was beneficial because it made me realise how hard it is for one to confess their mistake to another, and how terrible you feel to commit a mistake. The tragic story of the novel allowed me to value the things I have right now.

The third novel is "Lord of Flies" by William Golding. The story is about a plane which was evacuating a group of schoolboys from britain, and had shot down at a deserted island. Through their survival in the island, there are countless of violence and savagery. While reading this, I was able to compare the story to our society today. Bullying and suicides happen everyday in the world, and it helped me realize that our society needs to be more aware about the violence that goes on. However, it could be detrimental to the readers because the story is exaggerated with extreme violence between the children. If the readers were children, they could easily get influenced badly.

The fourth novel is the "Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The story is portraying the American society in the 1920s. The main character, Jay Gatsby, lives his life from a rag to a wealthy New Yorker in order get his love back. This story is beneficial because it helped me realize how money and "materialism" doesn't solve everything. Our society today is similar in a way that people use money to get benefits. As we see in the novel, Gatsby did all that he can to get Daisy (his love) back, however in the end, the story finished with a tragic ending. "Great Gatsby" is also detrimental, and that can be seen in the scene where Gatsby is killed by Tom Buchannan. By killing him, it reflects how people think death is an easier way to get away from troubles, and that is wrong.

The final novel I'm going to introduce is called "The Stranger" by Albert Camus. The main character, Meursault, is an emotionless and unpassive person who spends his life with very little motivation. One day, he visits the beach with his friends, and gets into a fight with some Arabs. This led him with the penalty of death after shooting an Arab. However, Meursault seems remorseless in his life in jail, and even on the day of his execution, he is excited about the day when everyone will cheer for his death. The novel is beneficial because "The Stranger" is also detrimental because Meursault's attitude can easily be influenced or agreed to the people around the world, who are just like Meursault. It can make teenagers think "Oh, well if life is so pointless, why am I trying so hard?". And we wouldn't want students to question their life like that. However, the novel can be beneficial because when I read it, it made me reassure how life is important with the comparison of Meursault's life. I think majority of the readers will think the say way as I did. "How can Meursault be so inhumane?". And I think that question reinforces our attitude and values of life.