ohtheplacesshellgo:

amsterdam. 16 april 2012. anne frank house 

while the museum entrance is the building on the right, the actual house is the one with the green ground floor, second from the left.

both rebecca and i were insistent on going to this museum when we were in amsterdam and we weren`t afraid to take our time. it`s small, but it`s definitely not a place you rush through. we had heard that there would be a line and were told to go early or late. we decided to go first thing in the morning and arrived at around 9:15 (the museum opens at 9). and boy, was there a line. we waited for just over a half hour, but honestly, i wouldn`t have been bothered waiting longer because just the idea of being able to step into the place where anne frank went into hiding boggled my mind. i remember reading the book in grade school and the profound effect it had on me. i even tried starting a diary (that endeavor didn`t last very long but her story stuck with me). you`re kind of required to walk around slowly since it`s like a line procession but everyone seemed to respect the place and want to take the time to look around and read the diary quotes in the exhibits and see the pictures she glued to her bedroom wall. 

it was kind of ironic. the fact that hundreds of us were piling into a secret hiding place for seven people. how loud our steps were on the creaking staircase, when we knew they had to be absolutely silent. how we were eager to walk into their tiny space when all she wanted to do was escape. they went into hiding because they different from someone`s beliefs of normal, yet people of every ethnicity, age, race, country were all lined up to visit this house. it all just seemed strangely poetic.

i also liked seeing how many different covers and languages and versions there were of anne frank`s diary in the gift shop. there was even a graphic novel adaptation.  yet it remains one of the books that most people i know have read. surprisingly, rebecca hadn`t read it yet but she plans on reading it this summer. it`s the kind of place that makes you want to read the entire thing again now that you`ve actually seen the location.

it`s also the quietest museum i think i`ve ever been to (at least until you exit the house and enter the additional rooms) as everyone just kind of walks around knowing what occurred and the mood remains solemn, as it should. 

the museum was super informative and really well put together and i particularly enjoyed the videos that they incorporated into the collection, the one of mr. frank talking about reading his daughter`s diary after the war still sticks with me. 

on the list of places that i`m glad i got to visit this year, this museum was definitely one of them. 

[i took the picture the day before from across the prinsengracht so the line and crowd of people are not in the picture.] 

fortiesresearch:

The Diary of Anne Frank is first published in the Netherlands (1947)

The Diary of a Young Girl is a book of the writings from the Dutch language diary kept by Anne Frank while she was in hiding for two years with her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. The family was apprehended in 1944 and Anne Frank ultimately died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. The diary was retrieved by Miep Gies, who gave it to Anne’s father, Otto Frank, the only known survivor of the family. The diary has now been published in more than 60 different languages.

bomdiatristeza:

“O papel tem mais paciência do que as pessoas.”

octopusrabies:

Annelies.

Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton was not quite what I expected. I’m always surprised by books written in the way-back that sound like they were written a couple of years ago. Wharton’s prose and observations are fresh, alive, and captivating. 

I recently read Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates, and reading Yates’ novel brought to mind Wharton’s. In both books, characters struggle with societal expectations, personal desires, inhibiting gender roles, and disillusionment and dissatisfaction. Both undercut the trust we put in society to operate logically, pushing readers to reexamine their lives and their views. 

In Age of Innocence, precedent and decorum are everything. A scandal can arise from the smallest faux pas, and in the constrained, tiny upper-class society, word travels fast. 

Wharton gives us Archer Newland, the son of a well-off, established family. He is content: he has a sister and mother who adore him, a beautiful fiancée, and security. Only when Countess Olenska returns to New York, escaping an abusive husband in Europe, does he realize his contentment is a static, stale thing. Wharton’s novel could have been some pulpy novel, but the level of her writing and observations on human behavior take it out of that genre. And the ending is perhaps one of the most punch-in-the-stomach I’ve ever read.

“Then you must tell ‘em dat love ain’t somethin’ lak ah grindstone dat’s de same thing everywhere and dod de same thing tuh everything it touch. Love is lak the de sea. It’s movin’ thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore.”

This quotation should be enough to convince anyone to read this beautiful book. 

Janie turns into a strong, self-assured woman through the course of the book’s extended flashback (who’s got two thumbs and is a fan of frame tale/flashbacks? this gal), but what she undergoes to get to that point is, to put it mildly, a hell of a lot. She has three husbands, only one of whom she ends up really loving, and that is the marriage that ends tragically. I won’t say what happens, what had to happen. You can read it and feel the weight of it yourself.

Zora Neale Hurston is an interesting case. Her work had become neglected after her death, only to be resurrected years later during Second Wave Feminism. It’s not hard to see why. Janie performs many roles through the course of the book, most of them related to stereotypical ideas of femininity and a woman’s place. Her first husband seems to be interested in Janie as a helping (farm)hand and someone to cook his meals. Her second husband values Janie as a trophy wife, someone to help him maintain dignity and appearances. As mayor of a new town, he has the freedom to wander while she remains stuck in his general store, doing work she detests. Her third husband is younger than her, but he doesn’t care. He loves Janie, wants what’s best for her, discusses things with her, works alongside her in the bean fields. That vision of equality cannot go unnoticed. 

Because it’s told in a flashback, the book takes on a hint of a dreamy quality, at least to me. Maybe I kept the flashback too much in mind. But Hurston knows how to describe an oncoming hurricane without a hint of dreaminess. It’s foreboding; you can feel the tension in the air, the hiss-crackle of it.  

But to return to the opening quotation. Janie says these words in eloquent defense of her third marriage, as a buffer to the townfolks that judge her for marrying her third husband. They find it unnatural that she and a younger man would marry, would even love one another. Hurston isn’t making a case for cougarism (but if she is, it’s a pretty one), only for tolerance and a relaxing of societal expectations, a call for openmindedness and for knowing the facts before passing judgment. 

libraryland:

pageoner:

literature and style icon.

Jack Kerouac