I started the Hunger Games last night. It was recommended to me by Kelsen. Actually she told Luke he had to get it while we were all at the book store. Luke didn't have any monitary methods of trade at the time so I said well I'll buy it. Not for Luke of course. First impressions: It's great, sweetly pyscotic.
Ivanhoe: I must say that Rebecca, the beautiful Jewess, is one of the greatest literary characters. Not that I'm saying she belongs on any top 10 list but she can hold her own. I looked up the movie based on Ivanhoe and Elizabeth Taylor was playing Rebecca, I would haved screamed but the vomit in my mouth prevented any sound escaping. This sensation came as I watched a bit on youtube. From a top window Rebecca looks down on Ivanhoe and the first thing I saw of Ms. Taylor's rendition was horrible. She quickly veiled her face. While Rebecca's veil is a big part of the story, the hasty and spazzy way Liz executed the motion was a polar opposite to the fluid and graceful motion I pictured Rebecca exhibiting.
I feel like exerpting the best part of Ivanhoe for ya'll because I can't wholly recommend it as a must read. So I'll just type it in and save you guys the trouble of reading the whole book. Though I will say getting to know Rebecca in order to fully appreciate this scene is, in my opinion, worth the effort.
The scene is Rebecca's witch trial, she is being tried for bewitching Brian de bois Gilbert, a knight templar:
At this period of the trial, the Grand Master commanded Rebecca to unveil herself. Opening her lips for the first time, she replied patiently, but with dignity, "That it was not the wont of the daughters of her people to uncover their faces when alone in an assembly of strangers." The sweet tones of her voice, and the softness of her reply, impressed on the audience a sentiment of pity and sympathy, But Beaumanoir, in whose mind the suppression of each feeling of humanity which could interfere with his imagined duty was a virtue of itself, repeated his commands that his victim should be unveiled. The guards were about to remove her veil accordingly, when she stood up before the Grand Master, and said, "Nay, but for the love of your own daughters-- alas," She said, recollecting herself, "ye have no daughters!--yet for the remembrance of you mothers, for the love of your sisters, and of female decency, let me not be thus handled in your presence: it suits not a maiden to be disrobed by such rude grooms. I will obey you," she added, with an expression of patient sorrow in her voice, which had almost melted the heart of Beaumanioir himself; "ye are elders among your people, and at your comand I will show the features of an ill-fated maiden."
She withdrew her veil, and looked on them with a countenance in which bashfulness contended with dignity. Her exceeding beauty excited a murmur of surprise, and the younger knights told each other with their eyes, in silent correspondence, that Brian's best apology was in the power of her real charms, rather than of her imaginary witchcraft. But Higg(a guy Rebecca healed who testified of the event but who's testimony was used as evidence of her witchcraft) the son of Snell, felt most deeply the effect produced by the sight of the countencance of his benefactress. "Let me go forth," he said to the warders at the door of the hall-- "let me go forth! To look at her again will kill me, for I have had a share in murdering her."
"Peace, poor man," said Rebecca, when she heard his exclamation, "thour hast done me no harm by speaking the truth; thour canst not aid me by they complaints or lamentations. Peace, I pray thee; go home and save thyself."
Higg was about to be thrust out by the compassion of the warders, who were apprehnsive lest his clamorous grief should draw upon them reprehension, and upon himself punishment. But he promised to be silent, and was permitted to remain. The two men-at-arms, with whom Albert Malvoisin had not failed to communicate upon the import of their testimony, were now called forward. Though both were hardened and inflexible villains, the sight of the capitve maiden, as well as her excelling beauty, at first appeared to stagger them; but an expressive glance from the preceptor of Templestowe (Malvoisin) restored them tot heir dogged composure . . . moving on . . . "There is yet one chance of life left to me," Said Rebecca, "even by your own fierce laws. Life has been miserable --miserable, at least, of late -- but I will not cast away the gift of God while He affords me the means of defending it. I deny this charge: I maintain my innocence, and I declare the falsegood of this accusation. I chalenge the privilege of trial by combat, and will appear by me champion."
"And who, Rebecca," replied the Grand Master , "will lay lance in rest for a sorceress? who will be the champion of a Jewess?"
"God will raise me up a champion," said Rebecca. "It cannot be that in merry England, the hospitable, the generous, the free, will not be found one to fight for justice. But it is enough that I challenge the trial by combat: there lies my gage."
She took her embroidered glove from her hand, and flung it down before the Grand Master with an air of mingled simplicity and dignity which excited universal surprise and admiration.
Even Lucas Beaumanoir(Grand Master) himself was affected by the mien and appearance of Rebecca. He was not originally a cruel or even a sever man; but with passions by nature cold, and with a high, though mistaken, sense of duty, his heart had been gradually hardened by the ascetic life which he pursued, the supreme power which he enjoyed, and the supposed necessity of subduing infidelity and eradicating heresy which he conceived peculiarly incumbent on him. His features relaxed in their usual severity as he gazed upon the beautiful creature before him, alone, unfriended, and defending herself with so much spirit and courage. He crossed himself twice, as doubting whence arose the snwonted softening of a heart which on such occasions used to resemble in hardness the steel of his sword. At lenght he spoke.
"Damsel," he said, "if the pity I fel for thee arise from any practice thine evil arts have made on me, great is the guilt, but I rather judge it the kinder geelings of nature, which grieve that so goodly a form should be a vessel of perdition." Blah Blah and he launches into this usual fair.
So there ya go the best part of the book!
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