Long before the Diary of a Wimpy Kid, there was the Diary of Anne Frank. I wouldn't normally pick up this book because it seemed like required reading for high school English class (books that usually turn you off from reading). But for some reason, I was drawn to it. I remember that I used to have a diary where I poured my heart out about my crushes along with the silly mundane things that happened in my day. I stopped writing in a diary because I lived in fear of having someone snoop and discover it.
I was surprised to find out that there are a lot of versions of Anne's diary. From the book's foreword, I learned that her original unedited diary is referred to as diary A. She rewrote her diary to make it more interesting; this is diary B. Upon her death, her father created version C where he personally chose entries from diaries A and B, omitting those about Anne's curiosity about sex and bad references to people who lived with her in the secret annex. This definitive edition that I read was compiled by Mirjam Pressler who supplemented version C with more entries from A and B so that readers can have a more detailed picture of Anne's life.
Anne's family had gone into hiding for 2 years in what she called The Secret Annex, hidden behind a bookcase. Anne wrote a lot about living in fear of discovery. She wrote about not being able to look out the window, to make noise, even to flush the toilet at certain times of the day. Living in close quarters also led to a lot of quarrels with the other members of The Secret Annex, the Van Daans (Van Pels, in real life). To no one's surprise, she eventually fell in love with one of them, Peter Van Daan. Near the end, Anne wrote, "I want to go on living even after my death." Through her diary, she got her wish.
photo from amazon.com
I was surprised to find out that there are a lot of versions of Anne's diary. From the book's foreword, I learned that her original unedited diary is referred to as diary A. She rewrote her diary to make it more interesting; this is diary B. Upon her death, her father created version C where he personally chose entries from diaries A and B, omitting those about Anne's curiosity about sex and bad references to people who lived with her in the secret annex. This definitive edition that I read was compiled by Mirjam Pressler who supplemented version C with more entries from A and B so that readers can have a more detailed picture of Anne's life.
Anne's family had gone into hiding for 2 years in what she called The Secret Annex, hidden behind a bookcase. Anne wrote a lot about living in fear of discovery. She wrote about not being able to look out the window, to make noise, even to flush the toilet at certain times of the day. Living in close quarters also led to a lot of quarrels with the other members of The Secret Annex, the Van Daans (Van Pels, in real life). To no one's surprise, she eventually fell in love with one of them, Peter Van Daan. Near the end, Anne wrote, "I want to go on living even after my death." Through her diary, she got her wish.
I did find the story of Anne's life interesting to the point of googling it on Wikipedia and visiting the restored Secret Annex virtually. However, I did not find it gripping enough to read her day by day entries, hence Anne's note "Paper has more patience than people." I am guilty of skipping most entries after a quick scan. But, if I stumble upon the diaries of my girlcrush or my facebook frenemies, I'd read them from cover to cover! Hehe!
Rating : 2 stars!
hi ate ebook ba yan?
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