The Island by Victoria Hislop

So, the tale begins the same way most tales do, for me atleast. I was shopping at wal-mart when a colorful cover caught my eye from the book section. Before this I had vowed never to get another book from the convienent store Goliath because, on more than one occasion the books purchased here became these literary excuses to own porn. But, this day and this colorful cover seemed different. It could have been because there were so many people at Wal-Mart that i didn’t want to spend the next half hour in line or my loathing to write off another possible source for books. Whatever it was I walked over to the book and read the back. I ended up half-hazardly shoving it into my cart and hustling over to a 20 items or less register.

Over the next day I engaged in a love affair with this book. The Island by Victoria Hislop began so well that i couldn’t put it down, and it’s basic premise of being a family saga amidst a backdrop war and small town gossip was alluring. But, what started off promising soon turned into a mix of a telanovela and Antonement. I soon forgot what the basic premise of the story was, at the beginning i thought it was about the journey into the past to move forward into the future. By the end, the emotionally exhausted women who narrate the story collide. Alexis, the post-college age great-granddaughter, who began her search to find an answer to whether she is in a good relationship with her current boyfriend weakly resolves her arc with a note and begins to mother her own mother. Sofia, Alexis’ mother and product of the mainplot in the story, is redeemed from her own immaturity-but, the audience was never fully aware of her agony so her character is saved from only a small conflict. Maria is already dead at the end and we never fully are given closure about what becomes of her after Sofia’s act of childishness.

Even with all these weak literary cliche’s the story is one that I am glad that I spent time reading. Hislop’s description of Greece and knowledge of Spinalonga was fascinating, and the reader becomes wrapped up in the mythology of leperousy of the physical and leperousy of the spiritual. Where some of the characters lack depth the main characters more than make up for it in their inner monologue as they handle seemingly insurmountable situations. The book is advertised as a “beach book with heart” and, while i would hesitate to praise it too much I would have to, even with my own doubts, agree that the book is just that. I would recommend it to someone who wants a leisure read that is character driven, but for someone looking for the next big thing I would say that this book is not that. But, i will be watching Victoria Hislop in the future and am looking forward to her next book “The Return.”

Everything that I have learned about faith and people comes down to this: everyone has it. Right now I can imagine all the people (people who will never read this so I’m good lol) who would be upset and be ready to argue to the death with me on this. The only way that I can even begin to explain how I came to this is to admit that it may take a while and even then you will still want to argue with me, and to me arguing is pointless. Of all the arguements in my life I have realized that it isn’t the arguing that matters, it is the way you do it; so for all who won’t read this and those who will argue with people like me, I can only ask that you be kind.

Anyway, back to my statement. Faith. The immediate connotation is of belief, science, reason, and finally religion; I will be honest and say that whether you adhere to any of these connotations doesn’t really matter, the fact is you have faith. When someone says that they believe something, anything really, it takes a certain measure of faith; “the sky is blue” is a statement of faith, the person who uttered such a statement trusts that what they call the sky is, in fact, what they are speaking about and that others refer to it as such. Then to call it blue is to trust, i guess you could call it science, that science is correct in distinguishing a certain wavelegnth at a certain frequency upon a certain surface is a color and that a particular color upon a particular surface at certain time is blue. I understand that this sounds alot like trust, but really is there that much of a difference between trust and faith? Faith, i believe (not to be funny:D) is borne of trust. Most would say that observing the sky is blue is a statement of science, belief and reason; it is reasonable to firstly assume that science is correct and believe those theories from whose womb they spring can accurately describe the sky. It is reasonable to then upon making the qualitative statement to find that your statement and, by extension, science is true and thus, come to believe that the sky is, in proven fact, blue. I would agree that it is reasonable that the sky is true, I would also agree that science adequately proves the sky is blue to us, and that I have come to believe that, weather notwithstanding, that on most days the sky is blue. However, my move to agree with these statements are a confession of faith, although it is not normally recognized as a confession, and come from that moment when I first chose to assume or trust that science is a reasonable and valid idealogy that i can trust about physically observable things.

Religion. The moment faith is brought up in any way religion will undoubtedly be present, it is as if faith is a body where religion is the cancer. If any person who does not consider themselves religious has agreed with me up to this point this is where they will begin to sit on their thighs instead of their butts as they read, i know this because i know many like you and you will be waiting for a flaw in my logic, grammatical structure, or layout and design for the wordpress. So to you, my thigh-sitting flaw-catcher, I admit that I am not really all the logical (ask anyone who has lived with me-which only excludes one of the readers of this wordpress, I think) and I am not going to try to reasonably or logically argue that one should find a religion or adopt mine. I believe that, although I loyally attend a church and christian fellowship, that religion is a defiled institution. Yeah, defiled. What was meant to encourage and build now breaks down and ridicules. What was meant to provide support and love now is the very idea of judgement and abandonment. My only defense for loyally attending to this idea is a vague hope that maybe i could help undefile it. (I don’t know if undefiled is a word and, frankly couldn’t give a bean-haha! I’m funny) I am a defiled person, and i think most people will admit that society as a whole is with me in this, but faith is the substance of things hoped for and I hope to maybe work together and restore religion to what it was meant to be. I may be considered a person who is religious, and people who don’t understand me will certainly use that label to make it easier for themselves, but i guess if i had to be labeled it would be more accurate for me to be called an idealist. A dreamer, a hoper-and i know there aren’t many with hope anymore.

But faith is actually something that each person intrinsically has. To have a religion, to not have a religion takes faith and a lot of it. To have a science or to blindly believe that the sky is blue takes faith, and to even reasonably think or communicate takes faith; in short, faith is the very essence of humanity. I disagree with those who believe that love is, love is what each of us intrinsically seeks (even if you won’t admit it). To the child who bows their head before dinner because they believe that there is a God in the sky, to the Tibetian monk who protests against the tyranny of other nations, to the scientist about to speak about evolution, or to the person who sits in front of their screen reading their is faith. It is the fingerprint of love that differentiates faith.

Cupabeans

My first entry. This feels exciting, partly because I haven’t screwed it up with anything too dramatic and cheesy, and partly because it is fresh. I always like beginnings, well I like endings too, but middles I’m not too high on. And I think that is why I am starting something right now, I feel like I am in the middle of something-nothing bad but nothing that good either-so beginning something feels nice. Welcome, to Cupabeans. I don’t really know how I came up with the name, I guess because I think it is funny. I mean, with all the thinking and being intelligent I have to do all day-and man, if I’m not it really comes back on me-it is nice to write whatever I want, under whatever title. I hope my blog refreshes and brings peace, not because of anything I write or post, but because of love. Yeah, I know, you are thinking about that sentence where I wrote about screwing something up with something cheesy, but I don’t think love should be cheesy. I think someone along the way felt uncomfortable with love-or someone who loved them-and decided to call it cliche, so if you think I am being cliche I counter you and say that you are being uncomfortable because someone ruined what you were meant for. You are meant to be loved. So yay! my first blog! Welcome, and enjoy a cupabeans!

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