【103-2 第三名】休運二 張〇心：Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

參賽者：張〇心（休運二）
名次：第三名
書名：Bridge to Terabithia
得獎作品：

     After finishing reading the book, I realize how a dream world, Terabithia, built by imagination, totally changes Jesse’s life.

     Under the control of the present educational system, students are required to conform and play it by rule, and there is not much room left for originality. Whoever goes astray from the normal way is more likely to be viewed as a strange fish. Thus, “yuk” is others’ reaction to those who want to go their own way. For instance, Jesse didn’t dare to show his drawings to his father or teachers since they disliked his drawings and took his work as nothing but wasting time and talent. Not until Jesse met Leslie, did Jesse feel happy about his life. Unlike Jesse, Leslie was a frank and outspoken girl. Different as they seemed to be, there was one thing in common between them and that was the expression ‘yuk’. In their school, Jesse was the only boy who didn’t play football, while Leslie was the only girl who played football well. Gradually, Jesse and Leslie became best friends.

     Thus, Terabithia, out of their imagination, was formed and offered them an escape from reality. Besides, this imaginary world belonged to them only. Nothing was impossible in Terabithia, where they could beat imaginary enemies and where they shared laughters, angers, as well as sadness. To Jesse, he finally got a place to pursue his dream and had the power to tackle sticky problems in life. Everything seemed to be greater than before.

     However, with the drowning of Leslie in the creek, Jesse’s world of happiness dramatically changed into a tragic one. At the thought of the significant turning point in the story, I keep wondering how Jesse overcame the great pain of losing Leslie. In my opinion, Leslie’s death represents the power of ‘the real world’ at work because no matter how wonderful the dream world is, people have no choice but to be pulled back and face the music. Sorrowful as the process is, Jesse grows mature from denial to final acceptance.

     By reading this story, I realize that everyone has Terabithia within, which was built by friendship, courage and the desire to live better, whether it is a place, a power or a belief. Terabithia is at work and helps us pluck up enough courage to overcome difficulties, especially when we lose faith in ourselves.

【103-2 第二名】應外二 李〇萫：A Good Fall by Ha Jin

A Good Fall by Ha Jin

參賽者：李〇萫（應外二）
名次：第二名
書名：A Good Fall by Ha Jin
得獎作品：

     With the view of a novelist and the author’s description, I experience how the immigrants from China live in New York and the bright side as well as the dark side in humanity while people are struggling in their lives. This is not merely a collection of short stories, but a great painting of the floating world.

     Some of these stories seem to originate from regular news events, but they are filled with more different colors. They are ingeniously transformed into kind of eternal literatures which are interweaved with sweet smiles as well as bitter tears. Whenever those Chinese immigrants suffer losses or gain advantages, their desires for relying on the tradition in their motherland slightly agitate at the same time. Therefore, besides the extraordinary story in ordinary life, I also perceive the incomprehensible contradiction of human nature.

     Usually, the poverty, inequality, suspicion, oppression, and turmoil make people lose confidences in their motherland, and keep hopeful expectations for other countries. For the characters in this book, America is a perfect heaven in their minds. However, living as expatriate is not as simple and fine as how they imaged before since it is also a kind of suffering struggling. After all, to exist is just like striking a balance between gratification and melancholy, no matter where people live in. Especially for immigrant life, people pull out their roots in their motherlands and start from zero in other places, so it is obvious that their beautiful dreams with lacking understanding lead them to another hardship.

     It is special for me to read Chinese stories with English, and I think this great work might be particularly meaningful to the author. The author considered that nostalgia was a nonsense emotion before because he thought that people had to face the reality at the present time and just went ahead. However, he is getting old nowadays, and he realizes something different about nostalgia, and sometimes he indeed misses his home a lot.

     Many people long for exotic culture and even hold blind worship of foreign goods and ideas. Nevertheless, people will eventually realize that no matter how far and how long people leave, the firm roots will always keep them and their home in touch forever.

【103-2 第一名】應外四 侯〇君：Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee

Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee 

參賽者：侯〇君（應外四）
名次：第一名
書名：Disgrace
得獎作品：

     Disgrace is a story about changes, from the social structure to the human relationship. In the beginning of the story, we could find the narrator, David, a college teacher in South Africa, who was incapable of caring about people, or loving people. After he resigned because of one affair with his own student, he moved to live with his daughter, Lucy. However, David had never known this would cause an unexpected change in their father-daughter relationship.

     Lucy was strong and independent, living alone in her smallholding in a remote town. She was surprised when her father moving in with her, and she did not believe he came to compensate her for the lack of fatherly love. David could not accept the fact that South Africa is undergoing a transformation; however, Lucy could and she adapted pretty well. This discrepancy broadened their difference and distance, and it got even more difficult for them to be together after the violent robbery and rape happened on them one day. David blamed himself because he could not protect his daughter well; he was only a weak scholar without defensive power. What’s more, David blamed those black robbers even harder. He kept asking Lucy to leave this town so that those black robbers would never haunt her again. Strangely, Lucy said no to her father’s proposition. She insisted on living here, and refusing to point out the suspect found in their black neighbor Petrus’ house.

     If we associated the time background of the story, we may easily have the clues of the reason why Lucy made up her decision like that. Since the story was about post-apartheid South Africa, the social order changed, and the white people were never the one who dominated power. Therefore, if Lucy wanted to find her subjectivity in this changing era, the only thing she could do was to seek the shelter from a black man, like Petrus, and that explained why she then married Petrus after her pregnancy. This action truly destroyed David’s thoughts, and made him change too. He started to reflect on the world he had known, trying to accept Lucy’s idea. Sadly, the efforts were useless, but only made them far away from each other.

     At the end of the story, David got inspiration from the play he was working on, and perhaps, after his self-reflection backing Cape Town, he realized he could always give it a try, giving Lucy and him a second chance. Maybe this is the power of the post-apartheid South Africa, where there is no fixed ideas, but all the possibilities of changing everything. For David, the affair is a disgrace, a shame and guilt, but a chance for him to go on the journey of change, while for Lucy, her disgrace is the rape, a pain, but the reason why she could blend into the society, for the baby had the black father.

     Reading Disgrace is not easy, but it is definitely worth reading. It discussed many issues, and people have various aspects to examine this novel. However, that’s the reason why it is an everlasting masterpiece.