A Thousand Acres

Read and watched. Well, if it wasn't for the "Winner of the Pulitzer Prize" so obvious and intriguing on the cover of the book, I don't think I'll be interested to read it. It's not that the cover's boring (although it is indeed one of the many reasons), but the starting of the fiction's so dull and tasteless, I nearly fall asleep on every pages of the beginning part of the book.

And then it got more and more exciting, the story began to take its form and the plots began to unveil one by one, little by little bit. I felt that Jane's trying to make us realize the cruelty of real life, the helplessness of those who suffered. And sadly, reality's always that way. In this book there is this confusion and fine distinction of what's right and what's wrong, how can some things might seem so wrong but in fact it's as rightful as any other justice. I got a glimpse of how humanity can be twisted and manipulated about and how different viewpoints might just change someone's life significantly.

However, it's awfully easy to be confused of what's going on in the book as Ginny, the person whom eyes we look out from in the story, doesn't really tell us much about her feelings, and also her thoughts, as dark secrets began to float above the surface. As I was reading the book, it was as if I have been thrown into a pool of seemingly clear water, but in fact it's utterly murky and dark, because just when I thought I know everything, the book revealed other complications, and in the end it felt like it's all totally messed up. I was especially shocked, literally, that Ginny, I believe out of subconsciousness, made a jar of poisoned sausages to murder her sister out of desperation. It's funny how can feelings and thoughts affect how one person behaves, and I realized that the enemy that one should really fear the most is ourselves. Life gives you shit sometimes but it's always up to us to choose what to do and how to react to it. That's where what we've learned from various different exposures comes in.

Ginny might be wrong in that decision but then again, she was provoked. There is a limit of how much a person can handle and clearly Rose did not know that. But ignorance is never a good reason for wrongdoings. It's hard to tell who is right or wrong but then again, isn't the world always grey?

By the way, it's a waste that Ginny's idea of murder was not included in the movie. To me, it's a fairly important development of the character. But the movie's not so much of a disappointment actually because at least most of the things happened the way I had imagined while I was reading the book. Though I thought Rose was older than that in the movie. Hmm...

Yvonne..