Re: Ah Cliff, I bow to thee - Edit 1
Before modification by BlackAdder at 02/10/2010 05:34:04 AM
Not unless you went to High School in the illustrious state of SC. Some of the worst public education in the country. I'm almost certain this is how I could get good grades with Cliff's help. 
mmm, I did not. Possibly you have a point
In my own defense, I moved in from a much better school district in OH and not everyone in SC is a waste because the schools are terrible. The district I was in was the best in the state, for what it's worth to be the best of the worst. The state was litterally ranked last in the country while I was finishing up.
Heh, I actually graduated from HS in Cleveland, although I only lived there 2 years. City schools, so not the best, but I only used Cliff notes when I didn't have time to do the reading assignments, and they didn't really help. I didn't realize SC was that bad
I dig most of those. What is the Periodic Table about, if not Chemistry? I've not heard of that one. Like seeing another Twain fan there.
It's written by a chemist and Holocaust survivor named Primo Levi. Each chapter is titled after a chemical element and the author relates each of them to his experiences in Nazi concentration camps.
This sounds like an interesting way to write about this subject. Does he get through all of the elements or just selects several that match up with his experiences? Also, does he just play off the elements name or get into it's scientific properties as well?
Sorry for so many questions here, this just seems an interesting way to do it. I'm also picturing a chapter called Bromine (or pick other random element) and how I would relate that to surviving a concentration camp.
It's much more metaphorical than just a play on the names. He relates to properties as well as the history of each element used. The total is not that long of a list. As I mentioned it is one element per chapter, and I think there are twenty or thirty chapters.
It's Hermann Hesse... not exactly my cup of tea (not that I drink tea), but I found his other major work, Steppenwolf, readable at least. Siddhartha is his version of the Buddha story and I just couldn't get through it.
I know very little about Buddhism, which seems to be a major influence on quite a few of his works. I imagine that would make it difficult to get into them, even if they were action packed. May be interesting to look at something from a different angle like that, but Steppenwolf sounds much more interesting.
Action-packed and Buddhist narrative don't seem to occur together anyway. I'm no expert on Buddhism, however. It really wasn't that much of a content issue, more a style/pace issue. And the story just gets... stranger as you move further.