Gah for some reason I didn’t like the interaction between Selden & Lily. I imagined it would be much cleverer and perhaps with a little more tactical conversation, and a little less awkward flirting. They were so obvious: I got the idea it would take a much longer ‘dance’ whilst they talked for it to get to that stage. Or at least, I had hoped it could have been.
How did you find the parts of the film we watched ?
This blog is pretty much going to be about me actually enjoying a book for once: yay! What interested me most about this book was the interaction between Lily and Selden. I find it so interesting to see what people are really like and the process of finding someone’s true mettle is interesting. Therefore, the way these two spar and dance round each other in the early parts of the book is really well written and interesting to see and wonder what they will do next.
I’d wonder, if in real life, they would simply only like each other so long as they were interesting and presented a mental challenge. Perhaps they wouldnt like each other for the person, but the notion of interest and the thrill of discovering someone’s true self; when this is achieved, would they get bored ?
Instead of talking about McTeague and naturalism for this weeks blog post, I’ve decided to talk about the struggle of the Precis. I did not think it would be as hard as it is to do this. The level of writing and opinions make it a challenging read. However, it presented me a great opportunity. I am choose to do my Precis on Twain, race, technology, and the ‘hypermediacy’ of it all. Not only is it interesting, it presents a wonderful source for my second paper, too. It talks alot about nurture; specifically Twain’s intentions behind what he wrote and what he intended it to be.
Therefore, I think it will be much easier to do my paper as opposed to my precis. Part of the reason for this is the word limitation: I love longer essays like paper 2, at least 2000 words so i can say what I want to say. 2 pages double typed is just waaaay too little a word count. Anyway, I digress.
The Book is, for the most part, a very nice read. I’m not sure i like reading about religion or the topic itself, but the way it is written is quite nice.
His story of desiring Celia doesn’t strike me as romantic or tragic in anyway, it just makes me feel angry at Theron. Especially because he is religious, but also in principle, what he was doing was wrong and from the get go i have a bias against him. For someone of religion, he is hopeless with his desires and I can’t think of a way we can feel sorry for him throughout the book. Perhaps the closest feeling would be pity. How do you feel about his character and how he acts ?
I must say i didn’t like Ex-coloured Man as much as I did P.W., i preferred the witty/sarcastic style of twain. Thinking about this a little deeper, I come from a place where Racism, particularly against African Americans, isn’t too strong nor is it a burning issue. If there is racism, it is between everyone. What i’m trying to say is that it isn’t the issue it was in America. Perhaps this makes me view the two books differently; i can appreciate Ex-coloured man but i don’t have the same appreciation as someone in America, or someone who is black. It seems a little more serious a book. In contrast, P.W. seems like a mockery of the whole thing; a humourous way to get the point across, and i prefer this more comical approach.
I am happy, in a way, that our second paper is 2000 – 2500 words long. This is much more like the length I have had to work with in Politics, so I feel I may be able to get my point across much better! I had planned on following one of the set titles, but instead I feel it may be better to discuss nature vs nurture in both books (specifically P.W. but comparing ex-coloured man, too). All in all, i cannot wait to get started and get it done .
Right off the bat, this is probably my favorite book of the class so far. Twain is an interesting person to read up on, and I think his quotes are amazing and sometimes quite brilliant. In fact, i’ll share them with you :
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/mark_twain.html
If you’re ever in need of inspiration or a good chuckle, go to that site and check out some other famous quotes, too.
The book is interesting, I find it more amusing than anything, the story of “Tom”, “Chambers” and Roxy is definitely satire and not racist. The idea that she would change the children, only for her child to be the one that is the spoilt brat seems to be a humourous parable. It doesn’t matter who you put in that position, they are going to end up an asshole. it makes you look past race and accept the fact that we are all human and will suffer from this all the same. In doing this, we look back at our racist ideas and compare them with this realization.
Maybe this is how people read it back in the day, or maybe they read it as a racist book; as always it is always subjective. I am interested to know what you think of this, and especially why you think what you do. Is the book racist, is it satire, can you see where I am coming from? Let me know below.
Can I just say THANK GOD that something exciting happened in the last three chapters of the book. My craving for some good action is finally fulfilled. I would love to read it again at my own pace and see if I have a different view of the events and the book in general.
Writing the essay was surprisingly easy; the books gave up some great quotes and examples with which to answer my question on the first person in Blithedale and Moby Dick. I actually thought Blithedale was the richer text for quotes, maybe because Coverdale is so great to use in the first person. Ishmael seems to vary between first and third and, while they are arguements in themselves, it isn’t as easy to pick out the real juicy quotes.
Whilst looking through some of the references in Moby Dick and having been taking english now for a grand total of 5 weeks, it struck me how much detail is in his book. The sheer amount of research, quotes and knowledge he must have collected is amazing. If nothing else can be admired about the book, I at least admire this detail and depth in his writings. No wonder he takes awhile to digest. It also makes me think why I could never become a novel/book writer: it just doesn’t occur to me to put that much character depth into a story.
Coming upto the close of the book, I must say i’m glad to see the back of it. Not one for forced reading at the best of times, it most certainly is a book to take your time with and I wish I had read the book beforehand and enjoyed it superficially first. Now I feel as though I wouldn’t be able to enjoy it just for the sake of reading; i’d have to go into detail and read between the lines and think of everything we talked about and that just seems to ruin a book for me.
Finally, in my previous blog + in class we talked about/listened too Blood and Thunder by Mastodon. It got my interested why they would decide to do that so I found an interview about it.
http://www.metalchaos.co.uk/Mastodon%20Interview.htm
They seem so blase about deciding on the theme, but it fits their style incredibly well to do something like this so I found it interesting
‘The Funeral’ got my thinking about how I actually felt and how i may have felt if I were hunting the whale. Also, can there be any other emotion that sadness/sorrow that we are meant to feel when reading? Personally, I think all the characters/reader felt a little disappointment at killing the whale, but not for the reasons we discussed. Perhaps it was more of a ‘Journey vs Destination’ deal, where the process of hunting and killing the whale is exciting, but after it is caught it becomes a forgotten memory. The trophy of the whale was nothing, symbolized by the ship sailing away from the carcass as it was eaten by the sharks.
I don’t particularly like how our imaginations are constricted by Melville and his immense descriptions; it robs the joy of experiencing a book in my head. Some chapters, such as the description of whaling and the processes, are immense and impressive. But the description of sights/sounds and people are a little TOO vivid for me, i want to think for myself. How does everyone else feel about this?
Continuing from my question posed in class today, the most interesting things to me in general is the psychology of things and how people work and how people think. So, it wasn’t just Ismael as a narrator and his choice of start, but Melville too who interested me and made me instantly think of all other references to characters who are that faceless.
Personally, I read alot of Japanese Manga and watch alot of their anime, and part of the criticism of a character (whether out of spite or serious) is that the character is faceless; he doesn’t give opinions or feelings beyond determination and a moral desire to do good. Therefore, he becomes everyone’s favorable character because they are him. Therefore, whenever we talk about Moby Dick i can’t help but remember all the episodes I have watched and the similarities between them.
Finally, i thought i’d bless you all with a song by one of my best bands, Mastodon. This song is called ‘Blood and Thunder’ and is sung about Moby Dick, too. Again, everytime we talk about the book I can’t help this song coming into my head.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=labytsb3gfI&ob=av3e
{Warning, it is slightly heavy rock and might not be everyone’s tastes}
 | Donna Campbell on House of Mirth |
 | Chris Kiick on House of Mirth |
| Donna Campbell on Less McTeague, More Precis… |
| Donna Campbell on Damnation of Theron Ware |
| Donna Campbell on Ex-coloured man, Paper 2,… |
boucherengl368 