Things I like: reading

 When I was 9 or 10, I had a chance to read a book. It was powerful to get into the world in the story. I loved the story because it was so exciting and interesting. There are some animals, humans, and some creatures between animals and humans. 

Picture was taken from: https://world.edu/how-to-make-reading-fun-and-part-of-life-beyond-the-school-room/

A few years later, I studied children's literature, especially in England. They have a lot of classical literature. For example, Peter Pan, Peter Rabbit, Mary Poppins, Dr. Dolittle, Alice in Wonderland, and of course The Chronicles of Narnia. They are so interesting and attractive. 

By Naoko Hiramatsu

Hamlet (William Shakespeare)

As you know, the story consists of spoken lines. At first, I’m not accustomed to this style. Therefore I can’t read quickly. However, I’d read from Act 2 to Act 5 at one sitting in the Sunday afternoon. Hamlet and Laertes understood each other finally but even so they had to fight and killed each other. Why they had to fight? Did they yield up their life for the sake of justice? Were they wild for revenge? I think they had a strong sense of justice. In these latter days, I wonder if there is such a man who fights for justice. Everyone, don’t be a cold fish!

Ikaros,

King Arthur & the Knights of the Round Table

I’ve read this story when I was a child. Now that I almost don’t remember the story, I enjoyed it. I found the story has not only adventures, battles but also love, romance, unfaithfulness and so on. When I was a child, maybe I couldn’t understand all of the stories.

Image by litmuse via Flickr

My favorite story is chapter 6, ‘The Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’. One day, a green knight came to Camelot and said ‘Cut my head by my axe and then I cut your head.’ If you hear it, it might sound awful or strange, but Sir Gawain tried to cut the green knight’s head. After the green knight’s head rolled onto the floor, surprisingly the green knight was not dead! Then he picked up his head and held it by the hair. Next turn, Gawain should be cut his head by the green knight. He had to made a long journey to a castle where the green knight lived in order to die, but he didn’t escape from deadly event. I found it knighthood like Bushido. (I will stop explaining this continuation because I don’t want to disturb someone who didn’t read it.)

I like adventure like this. For example, ‘The load of the ring’, I became to want to see the movie. I think the final battle between Arthur and Mordred would be very exciting if I watch it on a movie. I also want to see exciting scene which Morgana changed her figure to dragon. I searched the movie on the web site and I found some. I want to watch it some day.

Posted for Masao K.