Sarah's Key

Some of the major theme's uncovered in the novel Sarah's Key are knowledge vs. ignorance and secracy. Knowledge vs. Ignorance is a crucial theme throughout the book in not only Sarah's case but Julia's as well. For example, on page 40 Sarah comes to a realization that maybe things would have been easier to cope with if she just knew about the problems associated with Jews:

"As she looked at Eva and her mother, the girl wondered if her parents had been right to protect her from everything, if they had been right to keep disturbing, bad news away from her. If they had been right not to explain why so many things had changed for them since the beginning of the war. Like when Eva's husband never came back last year. He had disappeared. Where? Nobody would tell her. Nobody would explain. She hated being treated like a baby. She hated the voices being lowered when she entered the room. If they had told her, if they had told her everything they knew, wouldn't that have made today easier?"

This quotation also, connects with secracy. The parents chose to hide the information about the war and what was going on to protect Sarah's innoncence, and not get her involved with grown-up troubles. This is just the beginning to a book filled with "key" secrets and "key" events.

Sarah's Key

While reading Sarah's Key by Tatiana De Rosnay I paid close attention to not only the tone of her writing but the varying degree of seperation between the two protagonists. Sarah's Key is composed of two interweaving storylines: Sarah, in the past and Julia's quest in the present day. The structure of the novel in the first chapter of Sarah's Key Sarah, an eleven year old Jewish girl, describes the tragic day when her family was taken to the Velodrome d'Hiver on July 16th, 1942 and further sent to a concentration camp in France. In the second chapter, however, there is a total shift in character and mood, instead of hearing more about Sarah and her troubles the reader is introduced to a new character altogether, Julia Jaramond an American reporter living in Paris. This reporter has just been told by her director to write an article on the events that took place at the Velodrome d'Hiver, in the midst of her research Julia comes across Sarah's story and how they are connected through their Parisian apartment. After a constant back and fourth between setting and characters Sarah's perspective is completely removed from the chapters starting on page 167, and taken over by Julia alone. At this point, Julia takes on Sarah's story on her own and searches for the ending herself. This twist adds connectedness to the novel along with the additional mystery.

Sarah's Key

The New York Times best seller, Sarah's Key, is a story filled with sorrow and mystery. Written by Tatiana De Rosnay this profound novel was published in 2007 and has brought light to a Parisian tradedy of the past, the Jewish round-up that took place at the Velodrome d'Hiver on July 16th, 1942. This historical event is the only non-fiction element portrayed in De Rosnay's novel and it is important to understand what exactly happened in Paris at that time in order to be fully empowered by this epic novel.

Velodrome d'Hiver a.k.a La Grande Rafle

Early on the morning of July 16th, 1942, the French police, acting under orders from the German Gestapo, took over 13,000 Jewish men, women, and children from their beds. Most of the adults were sent directly to the concentration camp at Drancy, while parents with children remained at the Velodrome d'Hiver, an indoor stadium used for bicycle races and other various events, for days without food. While the Jewish families waited inside the hot stadium with no washrooms or places to sleep the French police scanned the city of Paris for the remainder of the Jews that were to be brought to the stadium. For six days straight the horrified prisoners of the Velodrome d'Hiver endured physical indignity while French police stood by doing nothing to prevent the future genocide. After a week at the stadium all Jews were shipped to different concentration camps across France and Germany where they were seperated from their families and murdered.

This was a shameful time in history for France that is rarely talked about today, and will always be remembered through De Rosnay's story, Sarah's Key.

Disney Part Two

The last and final quote that really impressed me was one from the author,

"Contrary to rumor, Walt was cremated- not frozen and put away to be thawed at some later date."

I was glad to see that the author did some research on the subject of Walt Disney and found that most of the American population believed he was frozen, when he infact was not. It was refreshing to see that they (Katherine and Richard Greene, the authors) totally disregarded the rumor and made it clear that this nonsense must be put to an end. A lot of hear say has been said about Walt Disney and the authors have made a point to correct any miscommunications that have been flying around. Walt's actual funeral was as he always wanted it to be, a very small, private affair. His younger sister Ruth didnt even attend because she didn't want to attract the media, as Walt said before "I don't want anyone to go through that for me."

Disney

Another quote that striked me was:

"if they hadn't been brothers this thing would have fallen apart in the first ten minutes."
-Roy Edward Disney

What Roy Disney said is definitely accurate. You have a stronger relationship with your sibling then you have with your close friend. This is because family never leaves your side; in the end, no matter how bad the argument, your still related. I believe that if Walt Disney did not have his brother by his side he wouldn't have had such an honest second hand opinion on things and probably would have been more careless with his money. But, because he had his brother Roy Disney working with him to help take care of the financial aspect of the company he knew what he could do and could not do, money-wise. Throughout the book the authors demonstrated a brief understanding on Walts various friendships; some of Walts close friends stuck by his side through the good times but left when the going got rough. That just goes to show how unsuccessful his company would have turned out to be if he decided to partner up with a "friend." All in all, Walt made a good strategic business decision when he decided to start a company with his brother and because of this choice his company is still live and running today.

The Man Behind the Magic

For my non-fiction independant read I chose "The Story of Walt Disney."
This book was a play-by-play biography of Walts' life from the beginning to the end.
One quote that struck me while reading the text was,

"Walt never thought he was beaten at anything-ever"
-Lillian Disney

In my opinion, this quote realitstically describes Walts confidence and drive towards work and his animations. Walt started off as a paper boy in Kansas city then after lying about his age had a summer job selling candy, newspapers, and drinks on the Santa Fe Railroad. He enlisted in the army at the age of sixteen years old but could only make it as a Red-Cross Volunteer, and soon after put his talent as an artist to a test started working for Louis Pesmen as an advertiser. He drew tractors and farm ads and it was there that he met Ubbe Iwwerks. They decided to go into business together and eventually from there Walt followed his dreams and started a company with his brother Roy Disney. He had some major fails, with his company being in debt and close to bankrupt from some mediocre cartoon movies that were made but that didnt stop him from completeing goals and expanding on his company. Walt managed to be the first to get animaton films with sound, and colour and eventually went on to recieving 59 Academy Awards and building Disney Land. Walt never gave up and was a major people pleaser throughout his entire life, he was determined to make a difference in the world and he succeesfully managed to do that. Walt Disney continues to be a huge impact on the world of entertainment and children even today still watch his movies.

An Educated Imagination

The sentence in Chapter two that I felt was most profound is "... your imagination couldn't operate on such a world except in terms of the world you know." (p.18) Logically, it makes sense. How can one imagine something they know nothing about?

If you were to ask a child who knows zilch about Art History to draw a picture of Vincent Van Gogh, you would be considered highly unreasonable for the exact reasons listed above. That's why I thought this quotation was insightful; it states the obvious and how one can only know as much as the information they have absorbed.

Dreams vs. Reality

I believe that when Frye stated “What produced the aeroplane is not so much a desire to fly as a rebellion against the tyranny of time and space.” (p.14) he was discussing the idea that humans may invent something for one purpose and realize that what they’ve created could be used for something entirely different. Therefore, giving us the understanding that the desire to fly isn’t as important as the desire to get somewhere quicker and more efficiently. I agree with this phrase for one specific reason that Frye proclaimed “…people don’t get in planes because they want to fly; they get in planes because they want to get somewhere else faster.” It is without a doubt that some aspects of Frye's lecture coincide with McCullough's speech. For instance, when McCullough discusses "The Love of Learning" he doesn't believe you learn information for a specific reason. You learn information for a variety of reasons and Frye has demonstrated the exact same concept through his quotation on aeroplanes.