I finished this book a long time ago, but I didn't post it because, well, life doesn't have a spare five minutes in it. So anyway, I read this book. I know, it looks like the other reader I read, but it's not. It's for smarter kids than the last one. Again, it's really, really old, like 1909.
Okay, I admit it. I didn't read the whole thing. This book is for eighth grade, and is a lot harder than the other reader I read. Instead of cute little stories about Alice in Wonderland, this one is "A study in verse." Blah. I believe we've already discussed my feelings about verse. So, I paged through this one pretty darn fast. I did read quite a few things in it, such as the fancy historical dissertations, etc... we all know the Gettysburg Address, but it does really speak pretty powerfully when you sit down and read it all in one shot.
So, the thing that stuck out the most from this book was "The Bells" by Edgar Allen Poe. Not because this was brilliant poetry, but because I remember it from high school. I remember some crazy teacher playing an audio recording of it, thinking that a bunch of high schoolers would appreciate some person repeating the world "bells" twelve hundred times in a row. Well, I can tell you, we didn't. And having read the poem, I actually enjoyed it. I really heard all the different types of bells. However, I only heard one voice. It was the voice on the recording from high school... sort of a cross between Darth Vader and Freddy Krueger. This strange, disturbing, psychopathic voice intoning over and over, "the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, the ringing and the tinging of the bells..." What we impressionistic kids heard was, "the stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stabbing of your heart, the stabbing and the twisting of your heart..." because seriously! This voice was AWFUL! I had dreams about this scary bell-ringer that month.
The funny thing is, he was a great voice on the funeral bells. But when we're talking about the cheery sleigh bells, jingle, jingle, let's all go to grandma's house... "the digging and the twisting of your heart, the reaping and the feasting of your soul, your soul, soul, soul, soul, soul, soul, soul!!!" ...we were torn between wondering what "tintinnabulation" meant and fearing for our lives. Most of us just figured "tintinnabulation" was another word for "brutal slaying." So we feared for our lives.
So I was relieved to find out from this book that the poem was not psychopathic, but rather, merely Poe was. How refreshing.
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