Image via Wikimedia Commons History is more complicated than you think. It isn’t just some quarrel between different countries that started WWI. It was much more than that, and Lawrence of Arabia showcases this theme perfectly. I started watching the beginning of this movie, but I was very worried about the pacing and storyline, since it’s nearly four hours long. I tried avoiding it, but I couldn’t keep myself from doing so. I only watched about thirty minutes of it on a plane flight to India, and after that, I couldn’t get rid of it. My mind was obsessed with scenes from the movie, and kept on telling me the same thing: You have to watch this movie. You HAVE to. So after a long six months, I watched it all — in one sitting. My mind was blown away. Lawrence of Arabia is a true story of a British soldier named T.E Lawrence, who is assigned to protect Arabia in WWI and help Prince Feisal, the leader of Arabia, defeat the ruling Turkish Empire. But his journey to get freedom for Arabia is a bumpy one. He makes many friends, and many, many enemies. The thing that sets Lawrence of Arabia apart from other movies is that T.E Lawrence is not a hero that solves ALL the problems for Arabia. He realizes he can only do so much as a human being. For example, after he rallies the Arabs to defeat the Turks, he realizes that the Arab tribes are still fighting amongst each other, and cannot put their differences aside to unite as a common people and form a nation. By the end, Lawrence realizes he is just a mere pawn – used by Arabs for their own purpose (defeat enemy who is stealing their land), and used by the English/French and the Western countries for their own needs (to gain more land and control in the Middle East). This taught me that nothing in history is really solved. Problems creep up over and over again. For example, remember when we had WWI and Germany lost? Sure, the US and other countries got some relaxation for a while, but then Germany got revenge back in WWII! By the end, T.E Lawrence wants to get away from the desert and just live a normal life. T.E Lawrence also has many different aspects to his personality. Sometimes he’s good, sometimes he’s bad, but he never has one fixed personality! This leads to some really tense moments, because you’re scared about what he’s going to do! Lawrence also stands out from the crowd. He talks in a very strange way. Like in one part of the movie, Lawrence and his guide are traveling to Arabia, and they stop at a well. But just as they’re about to drink, a stranger comes and kills Lawrence’s guide! When the killer comes up to Lawrence and asks for his name, he says: “My name is for my friends. None of my friends is a murderer!” He also does some pretty crazy things, some resulting in near death. He also has some really memorable lines. One of the greatest lines he says is: “Nothing is written.” That one line captured the whole spirit of the movie for me. Lawrence is trying to say this when he tries to rescue a lost friend in an empty desert. Everyone is saying he would likely die from the heat, but Lawrence says that there’s still a chance, and he’s going to take it and obviously, he’s successful! The acting is just as perfect as everything else. Peter O Toole, Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn – all these actors play out their roles perfectly, and create very memorable characters. For example, Prince Faisal (played by Alec Guinness, aka Obi Won Kenobi) is very wise and kind as the Arab prince, but Auda Abu Tayi (a tribal Arab leader played by Anthony Quinn) is very quick-tempered and rough. The music is downright amazing. After I heard it, I started going on YouTube and playing the soundtrack over and over again. It truly fits the theme. The final thing I love is how this film captures history. Some of the battles and meetings are staged in a unique way, making this war with the Turks truly different than others (that’s also another reason this film is so good!). This is because this war is not just two different sides fighting each other. It showcases the stand-off between different tribes and countries, and some are fighting for different reasons than others! The imagery is awesome, like when Lawrence is shown on his camel traveling through the desert. The camera captures the shape and color of the mountains and sand and paints the whole scene in a beautiful sunny light. This is also one of the only movies I’ve watched that I seem to have no problems with! No wonder it won 7 Oscars, including Best Picture in 1962. I’m sure I can see it fifty times and I would still not be bored with it. Lawrence of Arabia completely surprised me. It truly captures the spirit of a simple, smart man that changed history, and trust me, he is more interesting than any superhero! He is the kind of protagonist I’ve always wanted in a movie.
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
Saturday Newsletter: December 14, 2019
“A Glimpse of Winter” by Hannah Parker, 13 (South Burlington, VT), published in Stone Soup December 2019 A note from William Rubel For our adult readers Firstly, I’d like to thank those of you who have so far given to our Annual Fundraising Drive. Your vote of confidence in us is much appreciated. Thank you. Donations are a huge help to us. Like most cultural organizations the basic charges–like the entrance fee, ticket price, or in our case, subscription revenue–don’t fully cover our budgets. The bulk of our income–and the way we further our nonprofit purpose–comes from selling subscriptions to Stone Soup, and through selling books by kids. By and for children. That is what Stone Soup is all about. Empowering children to read and to be creative by publishing the best work by their peers. Books make the best gifts Our newest anthology, The Stone Soup Book of Science Fiction is shipping now! This brings the number of Stone Soup anthologies to 9: over 1800 pages of short stories and poems by young authors; treasure trove of reading material. The 2019 Annual (all 458 pages of it!) is also shipping as I write. Take advantage of the special holiday discounts we have on both groups of books: -Buy the Stone Soup Book of Science Fiction at full price ($10); get any other anthologies for just $6.50 each. -Buy one Stone Soup Annual 2019 at full price ($34.99); get $10 off 2018 and $15 0ff 2017. These discounts will be automatically applied in our Online Store while stocks last. You can also buy all our books on Amazon (at full price). If you buy on Amazon, please consider making Children’s Art Foundation-Stone Soup Inc. your selected Amazon Smile charity. Please also keep Stone Soup subscriptions in mind for the Holidays. Monthly and Yearly Subscriptions are available at our website. And now–on to the main subject of today’s Newsletter! For everyone–William’s Weekend Project The story we are featuring today, “There Goes the Sun,” from the current issue of Stone Soup includes a recording of the story read by the author, Phoebe Donovan. The recording is a really fine one and joins the many other audio files posted to the Stone Soup SoundCloud account. I encourage more of you to explore this treasure trove of spoken word and musical compositions by Stone Soup’s authors and composers. I haven’t mentioned young composers for some time. Your compositions are always welcome. There is a submission category for music on the Submissions page. Phoebe’s “There Goes the Sun” includes passages of incredible intensity. I call your attention in particular to the opening scene in the subway car. This is a brilliant evocation of the sensation of sitting in a subway, bus, car, train, airplane, where you are at once very present–registering every detail of your surroundings–and at the same time your mind is wandering. And, when you get up and leave the vehicle you were in to re-enter the world, you are often in an in-between state. The word for this is a “liminal” state: not exactly here, and not exactly there. This is how Phoebe captures this moment: He wobbled off the subway and into daylight. The sun against his skin felt like an electrical shock. How was it that he felt so weak and vulnerable? The strength of Phoebe’s writing is her ability to make her characters seem real through brilliantly imagined feelings–bodily feelings and emotional feelings. I don’t want to say more about “There Goes the Sun” because I don’t want to give the premise or the unfolding events away. Read it for yourself. And then, I’d like you to write a story that brings a character to an in-between state. A liminal state. The classic liminal state that we all experience is when we may be falling asleep or waking up but are experiencing a feeling of being neither asleep or awake! Or, there are often points in relationships when you are becoming friends or stopping being friends where you might not really be sure–are you friends? Yes? No? Something in between? Some of you reading the Newsletter are tweens (an official label that more than hints at in-betweenness!), and feeling that you are not quite a kid but also not quite a teenager. I want you to think about this “in-between” idea, and then incorporate it into a story or a poem. When you are happy with something, you know where to send it. We look forward to reading it. Until next week, Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com! On Monday, we posted a review by Arielle, 13, of Langston Hughes’s poem “Dreams” (which you can read here). She discusses how Hughes expertly uses repetition and metaphors to make the short poem meaningful. Then on Thursday, Keshav reviewed E. B. White’s classic children’s book The Trumpet of the Swan. Keshav writes: “With elements of humor, suspense, and realistic imagery, The Trumpet of the Swan is a classic that many people will easily relate to and that you just can’t read too many times.” Read the rest of the review here. Personal Narrative Contest Closes Tomorrow! Are you ready to submit your entry? Get it in before tomorrow’s closing date! Read more on our contest page, and submit at the link here. Winners will be announced in early 2020. And remember, everyone has access to the free series of tips for improving your writing, made specially for this contest by our partners at the Society of Young Inklings. The video series and the tips for revision are helpful for this contest and for writing projects in general. Nikon Coolpix L830 From Stone Soup December 2019 There Goes the Sun By Phoebe Donovan, 11 (Boulder, CO) Robin stared at the orange plaid subway seat across from him, thinking about his father. How he always liked listening to “Yellow Submarine.” How after all that Robin had been through, his dad’s favorite song was still played all across the world.
Trumpet of the Swan, Reviewed by Keshav Ravi, 8
“Birds are a special problem, birds are hard to deal with.” This is what many people seem to think, and understandably, when a bird has just robbed their shop. However, Louis, in E.B.White’s The Trumpet of the Swan, proves exactly the opposite. Louis is a swan who was born with no ability to make sound or communicate with his family. His father breaks into a store in Montana to find Louis a trumpet so that he can make swan sounds like everyone else and persuade Serena, the swan he loves, to be his mate. With the help of Sam Beaver, an animal-loving boy, he goes to school and learns to communicate with humans by writing on a slate. He also works to earn money to pay for the stolen trumpet by playing songs which Sam helps him learn. The Trumpet of the Swan is special because of the strong relationship that forms between Sam and Louis, right from when Louis first meets Sam in the woods of Canada, and how they work together to solve Louis’s problems. Their friendship is the heart of the story and is what makes it a forever favorite for me. Something that surprised me was finding humor in an otherwise moving story. One instance among several that comes to mind is when Louis is swimming in front of the swan boat in Boston playing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” when a boy shouts, “This swan is as good as Louis Armstrong, I’m going to call him Louis.” Then Louis writes on his slate, “That’s actually my name.” This really made me laugh. White’s poetic description of nature is another feature I enjoyed. For example, the coming of spring is described as a time when “Warm air, soft and kind, blew through the trees.” With elements of humor, suspense, and realistic imagery, The Trumpet of the Swan is a classic that many people will easily relate to and that you just can’t read too many times. Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White. HarperCollins, 1970. Buy the book here and support Stone Soup in the process! Have you read this book? Or do you plan on reading it? Let us know in the comments below!
