The book Marie, Dancing takes place in Paris, France starting in the year 1876 to the year 1872. It is about a girl named Marie van Gothem, and she loves to dance. The problem is she is very poor and on top of that her mother drinks and her aunt is trying to take her in and make Marie work for her. She has two sisters as well. One is no walk in the park and the other has to be taken care of by Marie because her mother just doesn't care.
One day an artist named, Edgar Degas comes to Marie's dance studio to try and find girls to pose for a statue he is working on called "Little Dancer Aged 14" and sure enough Marie was picked to pose. She went once a week to his studio after her dance class.
Even with the extra money her family did not have enough to support themselves. Meanwhile her older sister is using money given to her by her boyfriend to buy herself whatever she wants. Marie's father even admitted while he was dying that she was very selfish.
Marie runs into even more trouble when her best friend moves to the United States because his father is sick and needs to be taken care of. All of a sudden Marie is in a very big world all alone.
There is really isn't detailed description of Marie in the book, but it did mention she was very skinny and had strong legs. She seemed like a good person but she had a lot of anger bottled up inside because of her family issues. She yelled at her mom a lot because her mother really did not try to get them out of this pit they were all in for her mistakes.
The whole book is mainly of her dream to become a star. Edger Degas told her she would become a star after the statue was presented. But it is now, about 125 years later she is a star. They produce a ballet about Marie and the statue in the opera where she danced. I personally thinnk it is funny how she didn't become popular for dancing (I would tell you why but I don't want to spoil the end of the book).
Charolette played an important role in the book. Charolette, was Marie's younger sister. She was the girl Marie would talk to about her struggles for two reasons. The first is because she was the only one who listened and actually cared. The second is she understood what she was going through.
Charolette moved on to become a wonderful dancer. She is the only one of the three sisters who has clearly written, 100 percent acurate records. She became a teacher for the opera after she had stopped dancing in 1907. Her rank of dance was a sujet. retired in 1933. Charolette is also the only one out of the sisters who kept dancing.
I really liked this book. It was very descriptive, so it gave a clear picture as to what was going on. It was written in the form of The Diary of Anne Frank. The only differance is it is not the actual words of Marie van Gothem herself. It was written in the form where the author described events in her life the way the author thinks they may hev happened. But at the same time the book is written in first person, so Marie is almost telling you what happened.
I also really liked this book really because it was a great story line because if a new piece of art came out all you would hear about is the atrist. You would only find books on the artist but never on the person "inside" the statue. In this case Edger Degas made the statue Little Dancer Aged 14, so the statue is all about Marie and how she loved to dance, but that is not something you ever hear about. I think that is what made this book really good. Just the fact not many books are like it.
While reading this book the two habits I used were making connections, and mental images. I made connections to life and how I dance. In the book it describes Marie and Charolette getting nervous about their dance tests. It says how they are shaking and how they try so hard not to fall or trip. It was so hard on them because everyone is watching you and if you messed up you were taken out of school permanently. So while reading my book I compared my self to when I am dancing in front of people.
I also connected my sister to Charolette because my sister is really understanding, is always happy, and is a great listener just like Charolette. She is also the youngest out of all of us. My sister is also very stubborn and when she is set on something she intends on getting it done. I could just go on an on about how they are like but the last connection is that they are very genorous.
During the book I visualized the dancers legs shaking and Marie on the models stand in this one pose. It helped me understand the book because if I read what is supposed to be going on it becomes harder for me to understand than seeing what is going on.
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