Log 3, Flipped

 

Hello, this is Carolyn again. Here comes my third log. There's good news that I want to tell you is that I have read lots of chapters this time. The reason is that plots are so touched and meaningful to me. As I said in log 2, this book tells the story in two distinct voices: Bryce and Juli. Thus, my angle of vision could consistently be switching between the perspectives of two people when reading plots, which would naturally bring out the story's contradictions. What impresses me most is the incident of the sycamore tree. From Juli's perspective, the value of the sycamore tree isn't an ordinary plant, but it provides a place that gives her a sense of security and helps to broaden her horizons. By viewing the scene from staying on the tree, she not only came up with different levels of thoughts and feelings but even realized the notion of "the whole being greater than the sum of the parts." When I read this part, I was shocked by her change; her ideological maturity has even surpassed her peers. To Juli, the tree has become her friend to express her emotions and chat, and only this tree makes her think and change. The view on top of the tree breaks sixth-grade children's small patterns and vision which lets her feel the beauty of nature and feelings. In other words, the tree means a lot to her, so it is understandable why she can have such a strong opposition when the tree is about to be cut down.

When the perspective changes to Bryce's side, we will find that Bryce's focus is always on the past. Suppose he does the same thing with Julie or is with Julie, there will be the same rumors as in the past, which has become his prejudice against Julie to some extent, resulting in his refusal and exclusion to understand everything related to Julie. In the novel, Bryce describes the tree as "the tree was an ugly mutant tank of gnarly branches." This simple text description showed that Bryce's understanding and perception of the tree are not profound and far. In his eyes, the tree brings him Juli's noisy time report and ridiculous behavior.

As a matter of fact, there are no so-called "right and wrong" from these two perspectives. Julie climbed to the top of the tree and got a different view from others, which let her have widely different feelings for it. Bryce didn't have such a deep understanding of the so-called scenery. Further comprehension is the most attractive point of this book. When a thing is told from two perspectives, the ignored parts will let us understand that there are no precisely standard rules in this world, not only right and wrong but just different views, resulting in different interpretations.

After reading a paragraph, I was gradually attracted by Juli's personality traits. What attracted me most was her ability to appreciate beauty, which was the direction I was learning. For her, the beauty of nature was shocking and unparalleled. Recalling my primary school days, I was even sad that I couldn't go to the amusement park. From this point, it's not difficult to find that Juli's family education may not be the top, but from the spiritual level, her maturity is definitely much higher than her peers. To my knowledge, the ability to appreciate beauty may seem vainer or useless than other abilities, but now I find this is the ability to make people happy. In today's society, the pressure and burden are always getting heavier, but when we learn to discover the little beauty around us, isn't it full of a sense of happiness? This little beauty could be just the cloud ratio in the sky was more beautiful than yesterday or had delicious food, etc. Knowing how to appreciate beauty is the primary condition for creating a better life.

Finally, I want to share a paragraph on Juli once said in the sycamore tree: "the higher I got, the more amazed I was by the view. "This passage seems to be an experience of climbing a tree, but when we read it from another perspective, we will find that it is a simple and understandable truth of life. The harder we work, the more beautiful and more prominent the fruits of success we can harvest.