Write Write Write

So lately I've been encouraged to write a song. This just seems quite hilarious to me because I have never done it/never have even written my own musical pieces. But lately, I've been feeling quite inspired to write down a few verses of lyrics and I could just be foolish, but I think they're kinda funny. Now I just have to learn how to play guitar, write my own music, and write the rest of the song! Nbd right?

More than just writing silly songs, I've been feeling God really work through my life lately in the avenue of journaling. It's so exciting to be journaling about something in the morning and see God be faithful through it in the afternoon. This recently happened to me when I was journaling to be able to extend grace to those around me who are difficult to be merciful to. And one afternoon, I was able to do just that!! It was SO exciting! I was able to forgive someone that I had held a stupid grudge against for a few months. God is so patient and kind. He's teaching me daily.

That's all I have for today, off to lunch with a friend!

Changing It Up

So, now that I'm fully enjoying summer and able to take a break from blogging to satisfy a grade for a classroom, I thought I would take the opportunity to write simply for pleasure and out of the overflow of my heart and mind. There has been so much for me to enjoy this summer and get excited about. I have started a wonderful new internship that I feel that I'm going to learn tremendously from. Although, sometimes it is quite intimidating because I do not feel well equipped for it. This is anxiety provoking for me because I'm simply the type person who likes to do everything PERFECTLY and often times don't even try anything if I don't think I'm going to succeed (which is a horrible way to look at things, I know). But, since I've taken this internship willingly (it is unpaid of course) I feel that I'm stretching myself in a good way, beyond my own comfort zone so that I can be enriched by it. I look forward to seeing how I learn and grow over the next couple of months.

Also, for the next three months I am residing in my lovely home of Greenville, South Carolina. A few weeks ago I was quite nervous about this because my first year as a student at Clemson was SO fantastic that I was almost afraid to say "see you later" to life there, but ready or not, here I am, back home for three and 1/2 months. Life has been quite different already to say the least. I'm laughing now thinking about how just three weeks ago the thought of going to bed at 11 would be outlandishly early, I never rose from the bed before 8:20 in the morning, and time spent with friends was constant. Now I'm maintaining an 11-12ish bedtime, at the absolute latest waking up at 8:20, and my time is predominately spent with the family. This is not worse by any means, in fact I'm definitely enjoying spending some quality shopping time with my mom, hearing the nightly corny joke from my dad, and daily walks with my golden retriever, Abby. I look forward to what the rest of the summer holds in our Greer residence.

Another reason there's been quite an adjustment but also quite an excitement is because in the final weeks of class in good ol' Clemson, a year-long friendship began to develop into something kind of new and exciting. And although I don't think I'll publicly name this wonderful young man, I'm SO excited about what's to come! We've already had some really wonderful conversations and actually recently had our first date. I feel so completely juvenile even writing like this so I'm officially stopping this silly little 7th grade jittery babbling, but it doesn't negate the fact that often times, I'm on cloud 9.

Until the next time...

Final Post

I would just like to start off this blog lamenting on the fact that I can't believe it's my last one, not that I'm entirely upset about it, but it is going to be weird not having to come to my "Blogger" website every couple of days to comment on some piece of literature. After reading "Baptizing the Gun" by Uwem Akpam I began to think I had really taken World Literature this year because it seems that everything we're reading is by a foreign author, except for the stuff we read at the beginning of the semester. But I suppose it's good that we're expanding our horizons.

I really enjoyed this story because it actually had a good ending. The entire time the priest is completely paranoid of the Lagosian. But then in the end, the guy was just trying to help him out. I felt like that was a kind of happy way to end the semester, with a hopeful view of humanity. That this guy wasn't actually out to get the priest's money, but simply to help him. The priest says, "I reach into my back pocket to show him my watch [a Rolex]. I hold it with two hands, an offering to a god of guilt, before putting it back on. As my passenger fades into the night, his laugh is my absolution" at the end of the story. He realizes that he needs to have more faith in humanity, and really feels guilty for not feeling this way the entire time. Which, I feel like I greatly benefitted from the narrator's lesson as well. So many times in life we have generalizations about people, often times they are bad generalizations that people are out to get us and do the worst to us. The unfortunate part is that some of humanity is this way, which causes people to questions all of the others who may simply be altruistic and trying to help others. I think there's part of us that need to be more trusting, and other parts that do need to be cautious, but we must find a balance.

It's quite interesting, I'm not sure exactly what this man is traveling for and why this priest is in a VW Beetle? It just seems like a rather comical image. Over and over he comments about how he wishes he would have worn the collar that way people would respect him more or show him mercy, then there were other times when he's so glad that he wasn't wearing it. Which, I feel is completely hypocritical as a Roman Catholic priest. However, it is true that this man had some lessons to learn about life but did indeed learn something by the end. And that was that he felt guilty for not trusting humanity.

The Eye and The Savage

The two readings for today, "Mauricio (The Eye) Silva" and The Savage Detectives by Robert Bolano, were very interesting to me and quite similar. They both tell stories of men that have descended from Latin America, moved to Europe at some point and seemed to come in and out of each other's lives and learned from one another in a profound way. The two sets of characters have bonds that have connected them through their lifetime and somehow always brings them back together to know about each other's lives through many years.

Some unifying themes between these two pieces seem to come from their view of violence. in "Mauricio," The Eye talks about how he hates violence and the story he shares with the narrator from his experiences in India is quite graphic. The interesting part of this story, in comparison to the other stories we have read, is that The Eye is homosexual, but it doesn't seem to be quite as big of a deal. For instance, nothing like the other story where they would have locked him up in a sanatorium for being gay. The narrator doesn't even seem to be too phased by it, except for the fact that it continues to pop back up several times throughout the story. But, the story of the prostituted boys who have been castrated was SO sad for me to read. I just couldn't understand how and why people could be this cruel and actually get away with it. Sometimes this fact truly boggles my mind. Like, Hitler for instance. How did something such as the massacre of 6 million Jews go on for so long without it being stopped? Or Rwanda? Or the thousands of other instances that have gone on unmentioned but invariably not unnoticed. Are we too timid as a society to speak up for wrong doings? Too afraid that it may hurt us to do so. This is quite plausible. I mean, it takes balls to do something we feel passionate for because it's not always going to be easy. I don't know I guess that's kind of a rant, but reading this I felt like somethings gotta give!

In the second story I read, The Savage Detectives, I guess I didn't understand it quite as much. It was a good story and I really enjoy the writing of this author. I know that there had to be much symbolic meaning because the writing was extremely rich, it almost read like a poem, well not quite but it flowed quite well. It also seems that this could be somewhat biographical because the two stories that we read for today had very similar aspects and the only thing I can attribute that to is the possibility that it could come from his own life.

What A Dad

Starting this story, I thought it had a great title "Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice," (other than the fact that it used tons "ands") but had no idea what to expect. Right of the bat, though, the reader realizes that the relationship between father and son is strained because of their initial greeting towards one another. Also by the statement that the narrator made saying, "He had a bait of speaking in Vietnamese proverbs, I had long learned to ignore it" (4). This definitely made me laugh because it made me think of all the things my dad says to me that I now simply ignore. Like every single time I would leave the house he would tell me to, "Drive safely," like I'm purposefully going to be reckless behind the wheel. Or in front of my friends, every time he sends me off he says, "Don't do drugs. Stay in school." And of course all my friends think it's hilarious, but after hearing it for the 1,000th time, I begin to just tune out.

The narrator's life seemed to be quite interesting. That he grew up in an EXTREMELY strict household, and even though his father seems like a sweet man in the beginning of this story, he was like a drill sergeant in the narrator's youth. So much so that he moved out, his father separated his mother after he found out that she was supporting their son, and then basically by guilt he came back. I mean, what kind of person does this? Separates from his wife because she just loves her son??! It just appalling to me because I cannot imagine this ever happening in my house. Granted there were many times I felt like moving out because I used to get into major fights with my parents, but nothing as profound as this guy. My life seems like Easy Street compared to him. So then he goes on to become a lawyer, but stops that to become a writer...and I'm wondering who in their right mind would do that? (No offense Mr. Kudera). I just would think that life would be much easier practicing law vs. living from story to story never knowing where the money or your next idea is going to come from. But, maybe that's the exact thrill he was searching for. The unknown and the independence away from his upbringing.

The end of this story was quite shocking. I knew when the narrator read the note from his father that said," I am going for a walk. I have taken our story to read" (27) that something bad was going to happen. The narrator just wanted his father to be pleased with him, which is something so many children long for. I know that growing up that had everything to do with why I worked so heard in my academic endeavors. I just wanted the approval of my parents and for them to be proud of me, so, "He would be pleased with me" (27). But then the father does something unimaginable, "He stood with the tramp, both of them staring into the blazing gasoline drum. The smoke was thick, particulate. For a second I stopped breathing. I knew with sick certainty what he had done" (28). Why in the world would he had done this?? To me it makes completely no sense because, the narrator could just simply write the story again, although it might take a very long time, that doesn't mean that he couldn't remember the story. This act just seemed so completely cruel for a father to do to his son. I simply don't understand.

The Lazarus Project pp. 164-238

Reading this story is quite interesting. As the story progresses, I get more and more interested, because honestly from the beginning I wasn't liking the story too much because it was confusing me. And I have to admit, sometimes I am wondering what exactly is going on...but the story is quite good. It seems to be just like a buddies story if you know what I mean. Like Tom and Huck but Brik and Rora. They have a funny relationship because Brik is always asking philosophical questions or trying to learn more about Rora and Rora is constantly telling him to just shut up or asking him why he wants to know so much. Like on page 210 Rora says, "You ask questions, you want to know more but no matter how much more I tell you, you will never know anything. That's the problem." And that really could be the problem for Brik. He's constantly in the search of something more, to know the answers to all of the questions he has and he isn't asking the right questions or even in the search of the right thing. I don't know, maybe that's possibly what Rora is trying to tell him.

This narrator also seems to be quite anti-American, which I guess is understandable in his case. He says on page 189, "I told that to be American you have to know nothing and understand even less, and that I did not want to be American." Also, "I realized that my center had shifted--it used to be in my stomach, but now it was in my breast pocket, where I kept my American passport and a wad of cash" (177). So by this I get that he thinks Americans are ignorant and all they care about is money...which is by and large true. It is really sad that this is the American image, that this is our reputation, not good.

I feel like Brik is going to make some kind of grand realization by the end of this story, whether it be about Lazarus or about himself, probably both. But I feel like all these questions have to yield answers at some point.

Adventures

Continuing to read this novel of, The Lazarus Project, by Hemon, I have to admit I'm slightly confused as what is going to happen throughout the rest of the story. It seems to take some twists and turns that I'm not exactly sure what the meaning is, but I do feel the relationships between Rora and Brik and Mary and Brik are quite interesting and is where I feel my interest is most peaked.

The relationship between Brik and Mary is obviously extremely strained. But I guess not that obviously not that I think about it. Maybe they struggle in the same way any married couple does. That they go on living day to day being afraid that their spouse may not come back that evening or that you're feeling like the slacker in the relationship and feel guilty for it. But, somehow I really don't think that's how a healthy relationship should be fashioned. Brik says stuff life, "I imagined Mary not coming home from the hospital," (30) or when talking about their relationship he says, "She was beautiful; my breath was taken; we were still lonely; she said yes." (32). It just seems like a broken relationship and the reason Brik needs to go back to Bosnia with Rora is because he is in the search of adventure so he doesn't have to be bogged down by his home life. He even says on page 72, "The daily work of love was often hard to perform at home. While she was in the hospital, I longed for her, and when she came back she was too tired to attend to my needs and desires. . . someone had to earn the money." All I know about reading these pages is that it's probably a pretty accurate view of how marriages can become if you don't work on them and I just pray that someday I never end up like this.

The Rora-Brik relationship also really intrigues me because I feel like Rora is about to really expand Brik's mind. Rora is just some completely easy going and an artist at heart and I don't feel like Brik really is quite in touch with just the beauty of art and things going on around him as Rora is. For instance, when he invites him to come to Bosnia, Rora's response is, "Why not. I've got nothing else to do" (page 50), or when Rora decides to take pictures of Brik on page 35 and Brik questions him on it, Rora's response is, "Why not? Every face is a landscape." They just seem to have completely conflicting attitudes and their relationship is interesting and is probably going to be quite significant by the end of the story. I'm excited to see what happens.

The Beginnings of The Lazarus Project

As I first opened this book, The Lazarus Project, by Aleksander Hemon I wasn't really sure what to expect because the only story of Lazarus I know is from the bible where Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead as an act of miracle. But, I really didn't know what that was going to have to do with this story. But then, in the first few pages, after the dedication, the author puts a few sentences from that story in bible..so even though I've read the first few pages I'm still not sure quite how it's going to play in, so that should be interesting.

I do know this is a story that, like The Same River Twice, goes back and forth from an older time period to a more present day situation. The first section, I felt that the writing was interesting. That Hemon was writing the story, and then all the sudden there'd be a one liner like piece of advice or word of wisdom. For instance, "There has been life here before us. Home is where somebody notices you are no longer there" (page 3). Or, "His stomach growls so loudly that Mr. Ludwig looks up from the newspapers on the counter and frowns at him as he tips his hat. The world is always greater than your desires; plenty is never enough" (page 3). But I just think it's sort of random writing, however the words of wisdom are quite true. People are always striving for more no matter how much they have. Even celebrities, who from the outside looking in, look like they have it all. They have fame, an abundance of wealth, great bodies, good looking boyfriends, yet still they have eating disorders, drug addictions, and depression. Why? Because as humankind we are discontent. Always striving for more, and usually what it boils down to is meaning and self-worth that we must find. At the end of the first chapter on page 9, the immigrant dies and it he dies, "without a curse, supplication, or a prayer," which is so sad. I feel pretty guilty that someone in this world can die without being known.

On to the second part of the story of the Brik. He starts off by saying, "I am a reasonably loyal citizen of two countries. In America--that somber land--I waste my vote, pay taxes, share my life with a native wife, and try hard not to wish painful death to the idiot president" (page 11). I just had to laugh after reading this sentence because isn't that a lot of people's opinion living in America at any given point. Not necessarily the part that they're not from the United States, but that they simply just pay taxes, vote, and think the president is an idiot... I mean I know at a lot of my extended family gatherings that's all I hear. I feel like this character is going to be the most interesting for me. I feel that he's a real, struggling writer who almost feels belittled by his neuro-surgeon wife. He says on page 17, "Whereupon I could show Mary that I was not a wastrel or a slacker or a lazy Eastern European, but a person of talent and potential." Also his friend Rosa I think is super funny because didn't we all know someone like that in like middle school or high school? Someone who always told these grand stories of how awesome their weekend was because they flew to Mexico for the weekend or got to meet Ashton Kutcher...when really we were never sure if they were telling the truth or not. But Brik puts it well on page 20, "He lived out our dreams; all of us wanted to be like him because he was like nobody else we knew." Sometimes it's even the dreams of doing something big and exciting that can be fun to think about.

A Virgin Bride

The story of "The Bridegroom by Ha Jin was quite and interesting one that definitely kept my concentration and curiosity high. So many things in this story bothered me. It was all the injustice presented to Baowen just for simply being homosexual. Granted, I'm not a Gay Rights advocate, having a moderately conservative stance in politics, but I do believe that homosexuals should not be treated like Baowen was in this story. I was shocked (no pun intended) when I was reading about the treatment that he was given. The very fact that he was sent to a mental hospital and then to jail really points out our tendency towards ignorance as human beings...although maybe I now sounds like a hypocrite by saying that because I'm not completley pro-gay if you will. But, I simply believe this is a sin that people deal with. I don't necessarily believe in a "gay gene." I think there can be a tendency to become gay as a younger child, as Baowen probably did, because of cultural influences. Such as, "well that little boy really likes pink, so he must be gay." Then his entire life, if he maintains an effeminate personality people make rude remarks, especially during the excruciating years of middle and high school, calling the young man gay and he may question his own sexuality. But anyway, that was a tangent where I laid out my beliefs i suppose...probably superfulous.

As I was reading this story, my heart really broke for Beina. The poor girl isn't that pretty, and her uncle is even swift to say so, in fact he was surprised when she got a wedding proposal and was going to do whatever it took for her to stay married. But the poor girl was a little bit naive and didn't realize she was marrying someone who was homosexual. But her reaction to the truth was absolutely amazing. If something like this had happened to me, I would be down right devastated! But she handled the situation with complete grace and even said, "Don't feel so bad, Uncle. He's better than a normal man" (page 101). She doesn't care about the sex, the romance, or the intimacy, all she wants is a man to keep her company at home. I can't decide whether this situation is extremely sad or a good thing. Because this definitely shows that she's complacent with what she has, which those of us who search for romantic love are usually searching for something more, but Beina is completely happy. It's interesting to me.

It was just really hard to read something where the doctor knew that there wasn't a "cure" to homosexuality but they were still sending Baowen to electric baths. It just reminds me of all the unfairness to others we've fallen to as human beings throughout history such as the slave trade, the holocaust, Japanese camps in the United States, and just simple prejudice. It's something we have to push past because this is what can happen when it gets out of control. A situation such as this one where a perfectly content and happy woman was broken apart from her husband because of an act that was considered a crime because of prejudices.

A Wife's Story

Right off the bat I thought this story, "A Wife's Story" by Bharah Muklurjer was going to be interesting because it immediately tied in another piece of literature we have read this semester, Glengarry Glen Ross by Mamet. This woman is offended by this play, however...which I can see how it would be difficult to watch in a theatre, but she did slightly overreact.

Even after finishing this story, I can't seem to get over the uniquness of her situation. She is living in New York City getting her Ph.D. in special education (a 2 year program) where she has left her husband in India to live without her. I don't know it just seemed quite interesting to me that she would be willing to leave her husband to live in a foreign country for so long...granted her marriage was arranged, but still he was her husband. The narrator of the story does mention how, "I've broadened my horizons" (page 31) and how she really does enjoy living there. Even while I was reading I was excited that she was willing to step out and fulfill her dreams. I think that so many times we get scared of what might happen if we reach for the stars (cliche i know). That we may be uncomfortable for a little while (this is probably true), that we might fail (it could happen), or we simply don't have the courage and strength to get through. But I believe this narrator shows us that if you're willing to step out of your comfort zone, good things do come. The ending is rather open ended though, so I don't even know if I can validly say that good things are going to happen to her because she's pursuing her dreams, but I d o think that she is doing the right thing by trying.

Another few quotes the narrator said that struck me were first on page 27 she says, "It's not my fault; its the situation." The reason I was truck by this is because how many times have I claimed this in life? It's not my fault, it's what's going on around me. And to some extent this is true, we definitely cannot control our circumstances but I do know that we can control the way we act in them. Also on page 36 she says, "I've been trained to adapt; what else can I say?" Goodness, how true is this! We're trained, as humans, to adapt to the situation we're in..and to be truthful those who adapt the most fit in the most. There's an entire branch of education devoted to this adaptation, it's called Sociology. There's an unspoken (and sometimes spoken when it comes to laws and such) social order that people have to follow to fit into society. It's almost a sad thought that as a society, we change people/outsiders to adapt to how we want them rather than letting them act as they would naturally. What a shame.

The Stones of Summer

So today was a nice change of pace to watching a movie about literature from discussing different pieces we've read throughout the semester. This film, Stone Reader, definitely got me interested in the book The Stones of Summer. I guess the curiosity of this man really intrigued me. That he would go to so much trouble to set up a basically a documentary on finding the whereabouts of the author of this apparently fabulous book he read 30 some years prior. I was first amazed at his memory that he read the book so long ago. A lot of times I will read a book (I'm always reading something) and then a few years down the road completely forget what the story was even about...so kudos to him. But, his memory then lacked where, in my opinion, it should count. He can't remember what he was like thirty years prior, he has to go to his mother to figure this out...which she had a grand memory of how he used to be (my mom wouldn't). One final aspect that made me think a lot was how much money this man must have spent on books throughout the year. Through the entire piece of the film we were watching in class today, he kept getting more and more shipments of USPS books coming in. And his library, oh his library. It was PACKED!! I guess the only reason I say this is because I come from a family who loves to read, but hardly ever buys books unless it's for a gift. We're big fans of the library (free!)

While watching this movie, I was astounded by the man's intellect which was a direct result of his literary adventures. He is constantly reading. In fact he even said, "Reading is the only thing that keeps me sane." And while he's traveling and the stories he's reading become the "place within a place." This was very intriguing to me because I can definitely relate, not on quite the scale as him. I love to travel and whenever I go anywhere (either with my family or friends) I like to bring at least 4 or 5 books to read during the week. Then later when I think back on the trip, I remember it by the stories I dove into during my journies either being a beach bum or a tourist across Europe I can remember the specific novels I was reading and the mental pictures I had while enjoying them.

In the film today they brought up Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man which almost made me cringe because when I was a senior in high school and in AP Literature, I read this book and basically beat it to death. I could probably tell you every symbol, significant quote, theme, important character and their relationship you would want to know about this book. You can probably tell that I really didn't enjoy the story, but I do realize it is a great piece of literature. And that is a lesson I learned from the film today that just, "because it was a great book, doesn't mean you have to like it." But you can appreciate the literary novelties that come along with the writing. Anyway, there's just some of my thoughts from the movie today.

Heart Warming

I was pleasantly surprised with the ending of Offut's The Same River Twice. Okay, well I don't know if surprised is what I was...I was always hopeful that the ending would be good. That their baby would turn out healthy and Chris would no longer be scared of being a father but he would be excited about the joys that are to come.

In my last readings for this book I did feel like I came across some symbolic aspects to the story. I thought the hurricane seemed to wake Chris up from this life that he's been leading. On page 154 he says, "I realized that I had no idea what I was up to, in fact never had. Twelve years after leaving Kentucky, I was still roving the twentieth century, ineluctably alone and no better at it, merely accustomed to the circumstance." He goes to the Everglades and realizes after that horrible experience that he cannot live life the way he does. He helps to get ready for this hurricane that is supposed to be a cleansing process for Florida, but it also ends up cleansing Chris in a way. It makes him realize that he doesn't want to roam anymore. Right after he leaves he goes to be with his best friend Shadrack and then shortly after that (or that's how he makes it seem in the memoir) he meets his soon to be wife, Rita. But while he's still there battling the storm he says, "Most of my life had been a sequence of halfhearted attempts at self-destruction. Somehow I'd always scampered away--you can't get me, I'm the gingerbread man. Now I faced a worthy death, a death of honor in the face of a stormy god" (page 169). And in my opinion he did face death, death of his previous life.

The reason I believe he was reborn is when his son comes along he says, "His birth was my rebirth. Paternal terror was simply ignorance. The baby knew everything there was to know" (page 185). This child in a way completed him and his journey. He found what he needed. Although his travels grew and matured him into the person he needed to become, his family completed him and gave him purpose. He was scared that he wouldn't be a good father, but as soon as he held his son those fears dissipated. I hope that's what happens for me someday, obviously not as a father. It scares me to death to be completely in charge of the life of another human being. But as soon as I hold my child someday, I want to feel the same way Chris does in this beautiful picture of parenthood.

I'll end with two really good quotes from the last page of the memoir (page 188):

"Nothing has changed except everying."
"He can't learn from my mistakes, only from his own."

Contrasting Views

As I've been reading this story of Chris' crazy, adventurous life in The Same River Twice, along the way I keep picking up on Chris' fear as an adult in the section of the memoir when he is about to be a father, and then his complete lack of fear/almost innocence when he's young. Maybe you could almost classify this story as a coming of age story, a bildungsroman if you will. But I guess maybe all memoirs are like that? They have to have some sort of story to tell and something to teach the readers as they go along.

Some of the fear I caught onto was after Rita had the amniotic fluid taken from the uterus to make sure everything was okay with the baby. Chris says on page 57, "The baby was missing an ounce of life already, a shot glass of amniotic fluid, like drought. I sat on the bed and apologized to Rita's belly for our invasion." This really struck me because I had never thought of this simple test like this before. That we, as doctors, parents, scientists (basically just human beings who are already on earth) could be stripping someone of life before they're even born. There's always something that the world wants from us, and it can start even before we're born. Another interesting quote pulling in Chris' knowledge of literature and Freudian psychology was on page 58 when he says, "Oedipus didn't fulfill his own destiny, he lived up to his father's terror." Again just displaying his fear to be a father.

Now on the counter side of that, while Chris is traveling with the circus, he seems to have no fear at all, but he is with people that do, like The Parrot Woman. She talks about how she willingly became a freak when all the other "freaks" that work for the circus were dealt the cards of fate for their freakness. She says, "I hate them because they're what I was in secret, before the tattoos. I was a freak too. You just couldn't tell. I was tired of hurting on the inside, like them. I hate my tattoos and I hate the men who pay to see them. Nobody knows about my inside. . ." (page 107). This really spoke to me because I think a lot (I would even venture to say most) of the people in our society feel like they need to bottle up whatever they're struggling with and keep the pain inside. But this girl, she decides to make her pain apparent for all to see through her tattoos, and when this happens she's not accepted. It makes me wonder, if everyone were completely true, honest, and open with their feelings how different the world may be?

Yay! It's A Story I Enjoy

I have to say that I'm really excited to finally be enjoying a story again in this class... okay I know that sounds a little harsh, but I can finally understand a the story line of The Same River Twice by Chris Offutt. I feel like this memoir, although is quite different than probably the way most men grow into adulthood/manhood/experience, but in the same sense there's some of the same themes in this story that many men go through while growing up and finally when they're about to be a father for a first time.

I love the set up of the novel because it goes from his present and then relates back to his past. Something that really struck me at the beginning of the novel was how completely unromantic Chris depicted Rita. He talks about his marriage proposal to her and all the trouble he had gone to to make it special and she answered no telling him he was drunk on nature. Then when he asked her the third time the situation was, "Being refused twice led me to a careful strategy, guaranteed to catch her when she was weak. On the morning of her birthday, I hurried to the bathroom ahead of her. A few minutes later she stumbled into my trap. We were both nude. I eased my knees to the cold tile. 'Happy Birthday,' I said, 'Will you marry me?' Bleary-eyed and half asleep, she said yes, and stepped past me to the toilet." (page 12) Reading this I was SO surprised! And then it goes on to describe their wedding ceremony that was extremely small and no one was invited to. I guess this shocked me because it seems like American culture now puts so much stock into a perfect engagement and wedding that anything less than spectacular is completely unacceptable, and it really shouldn't be this way. Because their relationship seems to be really healthy.

Another scene I thought was quite powerful was when Chris finally decided he was okay with having a child. When Rita came back from somewhere he threw out her diaphram and condoms right in front of her, and being a girl this just made my heart swell...so cute! However, then Chris has to go through some identity issues and fears with having a child. He says on page 18, "I doubted my abilities to raise a child without ruining it." I have had these same exact fears. Not that I have ever been ANYWHERE close to having a child, but for about a year I decided I never wanted to have kids because I was so afraid of doing one thing wrong and screwing them up for life. I think this stemmed from the problems I was having with my parents at the time though. When I was in high school I fought with my parents like CRAZY so I decided I never wanted to be like them and the best way of doing that would be never having kids. However, my feelings have now changed. I feel like I can still be a good parent someday, yes I will screw up sometime and my kids are probably going to dislike me for it at some point, but I can do things differently than my parents and maybe not be too bad at the parenthood thing.

Chris' travels to NYC and Iowa were very interesting. He grew up a lot and became wise in many different areas. His move to New York to become an actor failed, as any reader could foresee simply from the themes of literature. When someone has a dream of becoming a big time actor in New York or Los Angeles, but they don't realize how hard it is to actually make it big. One of Chris' first "deflowering" experiences, if you will, was at the train station (i think that's what it was) with the drag queen. This scene was hilarious to me because I think Offutt put some dramatic irony here because I definitely knew this was going to be a man, especially when Chris kept talking about the gun he thought he was grabbing. This scene in some ways was a little bit disturbing, but hilarious too, because as soon as he realizes its a dick, he just ups and runs away. On one sense I don't really know how he could have gone so long without realizing it, but there was some definite humor here.

In essence, this is a story of self revelation for Chris. He leaves Kentucky, where he's lived his entire life, to see what else is out there in the world. On page 44 he says, "I left Kentucky as soon as the doctor pronounced me healed, a diagnosis only physically correct." I look forward to see what else he learns.

Stop, Go, Yield

Go (I like this): As far as the way this literature class is structured, as a person who enjoys literature I really like it. From my high school experience, I really enjoyed my AP Literature class where we we did class discussion every novel in something my teacher called Socratic Seminar. But, we only did these seminars when class was over and it was much more formal than our class discussion is. I feel like having this every day encourages me to read and understand every novel, poem, or play we are going over. I feel like the syllabus is structured in a really good way that it's not too much for me to handle the assigned readings every night, but it's not too easy. Because I do know that it's going to take me at least and hour and a half to read and blog if I decide to do so. Probably my favorite piece we've done so far is "The Glass Menagerie" by Tennessee Williams, probably just because of the rich symbolism that goes throughout the story. Also, the blogging I absolutely love. Again, a great way to informally comment on literature, ask questions, and have them answered.

Yield (things we should do more often): Some aspects of the class that I enjoy while reading different works by different authors is learning either the historical background/context this is written in or learning more about the author who is writing. This give me more of and understanding of what is going on with the piece or what some of the influences might be for the plot or literary devices. For instance, in Lolita, when we learned about the new vs. old in regards to America vs. Europe. That helped me understand a little more of what Humbert Humbert was saying/implying throughout the novel.

Stop (please, no more!): I really don't have many complaints about this class as a whole. The only thing that sometimes makes it drag is when we get off onto different tangents that I can't seem to understand how they relate to the piece at hand. Also, I wish I would have known we weren't going to be reading Music of Chance before I ordered it on Amazon, but that can probably be easily sold at the end of the semester. I am curious to see how the final is going to be or how difficult it is because we haven't really been tested throughout the semester (which doesn't bother me in the least) but I guess it does make me nervous that I could completely blow the final and be screwed in the course if I don't do well on it.

How To Succeed In Business By Really Trying...

While reading through "Glengary Glen Ross" by David Mamet, I was struck by how cut throat business taking place and the absolute mockery of American capitalism. The story depicted here is that if you don't lie, cheat, and steal, you're not going to make it rich in the life. After watching some scenes of YouTube of this play depicted as a movie, I began to more fully understand what was taking place. These men are under a tremendous amount of stress to succeed in the busniess world, because if they don't they won't have any job to speak of. For many of these men this is tragic because they have families to think of. Like Levene always saying, "my daughter" (page 104). There's so much pressure that they end up cracking under it.

I think this story brings across the question though of how far are we willing to go as human beings to get ahead? If we're willing to lie are we willing to cheat? And if we're willing to cheat are we willing to steal? Is the moral line easily visible and acute? Or is it fuzzy and easily crossed or misconstrued? There are so many questions that come to my mind in this instance because I think a lot of times in our culture, it is the man's responsibility to provide for his family no matter what the situation is. These men, especially in this story Levene, have to take care of their responsibilities, so it could end up becoming a necessity for them to cheat their way to making that happen. This also brings up the major issue that nearly everyone in the American society deals with is the struggle for success. It is pushed in our society that we're not good enough or really worth much unless we're extremely successful at what we do. I feel like that's why there's so much pressure for kids of all ages, but right now I'm thinking mostly of college students because that's the stage of life I happen to be in, to become extraordinarily successful at what they do. That's why we see so many parents pushing their children to become doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc. But then the question is, how do these people get themselves there? Are they lying, cheating, and stealing their way up to hold this prestigious position or get this wonderful medical degree from the Duke University School of Medicine? It seems to be a cycle of corruption that Mamet wants to bring to attention for his readers.

I found a few good quotes dealing with this cut throat mentality, such as Roma saying, "I'm going to have your job , shithead. I'm going downtwon and talk to Mitch and Murray and I'm going to Lemkin. I don't care whose nephew you are, who you know, whose dick you're sucking on. You're going out, I swear to you, you're going . . . ." on page 96

But there was also some good advice in the context of this play. Even though sometimes it seemed immoral there were things said like, "a man who's your 'partner' depends on you...you have to go with im and for him...or you're shit, and you're shit, you can't exist alone..."(98) teaching loyalty and "You can't buy that. You have to live it." (97) just showing that you have to learn things, not just buy your way through life. Anyway, that's my ten cents on the issue.

When The Goin Gets Tough

The readings for today, "River of Names" by Dorothy Allison and "Cathedral" by Raymond Carver, in my opinion seemed quite different from each other. A lot of times when we're assigned two readings for one night I can see similarities between them, but I didn't feel that there were many this time. Other than the fact that there were suicidal issues in both of them, although entirely more prevalent in "river of Names" than in "Cathedral." Both did have a theme or sense of when the goin gets tough, get out and sometimes life is too hard to handle to stick around.

Starting With "River of Names," man oh man was this story sad. From the very first paragraph of this story the reader knows it's going to be graphic depressing, because at eight years old the speaker witnesses her cousin Tommy committing suicide who is also only eight years old. This should be a clear sign to the reader that this story in particular is not going to be happy in any sense if an eight-year-old child is committing suicide, I mean I don't even think I knew what suicide was that young, let alone did I EVER think about taking my own life. This story just breaks my heart because the life the speaker lived in was absolutley tragic. So tragic that basically every family member she had was killed, raped, or died in some capacity trying to escape the hell they were living in. On page 5 the speaker has a powerful quote saying, "I set my teeth at what I do not want to remember and cannot forget." I feel like this quote could be strong for most people. A lot of times there's something from our past that we just don't want to remember but seemingly we can't forget because somehow that event/person defines us somehow. This girl inescapably was defined by her upbringing, just like most everyone is, can't escape it. She tries to fake the fact that it bothers her but she won't express it. She says, "I rolled away, but I didn't cry. I almost never let myself cry" (page 6). She's trying to subdue it and lie to her lover Jesse about it, but it haunts her. I feel like this is the underlying reason why she became a lesbian, because she wanted to end this curse of abusing children. Even her sister who just had a child feels like she's ready to kill it when it keeps screaming, "Oh no' she moaned, ' I wasn't going to bre like that. I always promised myself.' She started to cry, holding her belly and sobbing. 'We an't no different. We an't no different" (page 11). It is actually quite admirable, in my opinion, that the speaker refuses to let life get so bad that she takes her own life and that she's going to stop the cycle of abuse by being with a woman. She's sure she won't be abusive if she can't have a children, yet she's still tormented by her past.

"Cathedral" by Raymond Carver had a little bit more of a happier tone than the previous story. The husband in this story definitely has many preconceived notions about the way people act, prejudices if you will. He's not thrilled at all about a blind man coming to his house because, "I'd always thought dark glasses were a must for the blind," and "I remembered somewhere that blind men didn't smoke" (page 113-114). But this blind man was extraordinary because he did all of these things. The speaker had a hard time opening up to this man because he didn't want to give him a chance. He knew this different man was his wife's friend but he was in no way interested in getting to know him. But, they ended up bonding over the description of a cathedral. Being a sappy girl myself, I thought this was quite cute because the speaker was trying his hardest to describe what a cathedral looked like to Robert, but he was having much difficulty. I thought about this as I was reading, how would I describe different images and places to someone who is blind. Because you can't just say, "oh it looks like ____" because they don't know what that looks like. I don't know, I guess just some food for thought. So they decide to draw it together while the narrator keeps his eyes closed (oh, another cute thing is Robert immediately has a nickname for the narrator "bub" which is what I call my brother sometimes, so I liked this). The interesting part of this story is in the end when Robert tells him to look at what he has drawn he keeps his eyes closed and says "It's really something." (page 124). I feel like this symbolizes that they have become so connected that somehow the narrator is like Robert in a deeper sense by not choosing not to see even for those brief minutes. This was quite heartwarming.:)

Scars

I would simply like to simply have a little sigh of relief that I will not be commenting on the Nabokov's Lolita today, however I am starting fresh and new with the two short stories of "Emergency" by Denis Johnson and "Home" by Jayne Anne Phillips. Both of which were quite interesting to read, and both seem to deal with some kind of scar or damage to the human body, which must be a symbol in some fashion. But here we go...

Starting with "Emergency," I thought this was definitely an interesting story. It seemed as though, the speaker and Georgie were both tripping on something while it was going on though. The sentences and thought patterns never seemed to be coherent. And it does indicate that they both abuse drugs, even while working, "A champion of the drug LSD..." (279). There seems to be some symbolism in this story with the knife that is inside Terrence Weber's eye. I'm not sure exactly what it means, but his poor fellow was stabbed by his wife, already has a plastic eye for his other eye (so therefore is already half blind), and walked three blocks to the hospital to get this checked out. Then, when the doctor comes to see him his first question is, "What seems to be the trouble?" (276). I mean, what in the world?! This guy has a knife sticking out of his eye, it is quite OBVIOUS what the trouble is! This actually reminds me of a similar situation that happened to me when I was four years old. I had an eye injury where I was cut by a pocket knife on my cornea (thank goodness I didn't go to the ER with a knife stuck in my eye). Anyway, ironically it was my left eye, just like Terrence, and I have joked with people before that it is a glass eye (which it definitely isn't, thankfully it did nothing to impair my vision, actually it corrected it). Actually I told that story to a fellow classmate of mine, Andrew Finley, and he believed me for a fraction of a minute:) But on with "Emergency," another quote I found quite interesting was in the beginning of the story when Georgie says, "There's so much goop inside of us, man and it all wants to get out" (274). This makes me feel that somehow when the narrator and Georgie make their escape, they're escaping more than just the hospital that they work in, they'r escaping something else as well. Maybe the constraints of society, their past, or even just every day living (which could also play into the use of drugs), I'm really not quite sure...just some speculation.

Now "Home" by Jayne Anne Phillips I have to admit I didn't get off to a good start with because initially I, for some reason, thought the narrator was a man (I guess that's just what I've been accustomed to lately) and I thought this man was having homosexual fantasies, but that obviously wasn't the case. It's about this girl who must move home to live with her mother to save money. Her mother and herself don't really get along because her mom just seems to think she puts out to any man that will take some. They both seem to have an unhealthy view of sex though. Because the mother and daughter were abused by the father in previous years so they both would view male figures in an unhealthy from that situation. The mother states that she would never want to have sex again because it was screw up everything and who would even want her now and the daughter is sleeping with Daniel, who is apparently seeing another girl whom he is serious with. Both mother and daughter seem to have some kind of identity issues that neither one are willing do deal with, especially not with each other. They both seem to go after the wrong men. The mother only married the father, it seems, because he had a sick mother that she could take care of. And the daughter loved a man named Jason who eventually went crazy. An interesting part that is to be noted is that the daughter admits to her mother that she doesn't think she's ever had an orgasm. I'm not sure the complete significance of this, but there must be some type of suppressed passion in her life that she's not willing to give up.

Changes

I don't know if I'm just not reading the story as well as I did before, but I feel like this book is getting harder and harder for me to follow. Humbert Humbert's character just seems to be aimless in all the things he is saying and it's hard for me to grasp everything that is going on here, but I try to at least grasp onto a little bit of what he's saying.

I feel like Humbert and Dolly/Lolita are going through dramatic changes as characters. Lolita is becoming a complete smartass and for some reason Humbert just takes it. She's becoming much more of a woman always talking back to Humbert and treating him like a father. What has been confusing me this entire time is why Humbert is still attracted to her? I mean isn't he a pedophile? So wouldn't he want a girl who was more childish looking? Lolita is becoming more of a woman, but for some reason Humbert still loves her. In fact, he's so crazy about her that he even begs her sometimes to just look at him. He says on page 192, ". . . I would dismiss all our quarrels, forget all my masculine pride--and literally crawl on my knees to your chair, my Lolita." All she responds to this is, "For Christ's sake leave me alone." I feel like Humbert is still going through the internal conflict of being a father to Lolita and all the roles that come with rearing a teenager but then also being completely attracted to her at the same time.

A part of this section that I truly enjoyed was Lolita's little scheming to get money out of Humbert, although basically the way she was doing it was by prostituting herself. I just thought it was witty of her to up the price for her sexual favors because she knew that Humbert wanted her and would pay anything to get it. This is another example of her independent spirit and her maturation process, she's definitely a conniving girl. Also, boys are starting to be interested in her, which Humbert simply cannot deal with. He won't let her go on any dates and she get's so mad because she feels that she's being deprived of a right. In this section, I completely sympathized with Lolita because my parents were SUPER strict about dating and it caused MANY rifts in our household as we'd fight over it. I can see how this definitely would have put even more of a rebellious streak in Lolita because she just wants to be independent and this point in her life. It probably sparked many of the other things she does to Humbert just to spite him for the rules he has on her (for instance when she sleeps with the man that has a pregnant wife). She is SO promiscuous!

I was a little confused by the meeting Humbert had with Pratt. They were talking about Dolly and how she seemed to be stuck in her Freudian sexual stages. That she didn't seem to be interested in anything sexual, but then she would tease other girls who were not as experienced as her? I just didn't understand why in the world an administrator of a school would call a stepfather in to talk to him about this, espeically in the 1950s, I mean wasn't this taboo back then? Maybe this is another example of our narrator being unreliable.

Another question I have while reading this is why Humbert stays in the United States with Lolita. He's talked about crossing the Canadian and Mexican border, but he never does. "Actually i was toying with the idea of gently trickling across the Mexican border--I was braver now than last year," is what he says on page 208 but they never do leave. It's almost like he wants to get caught eventually or else he would have fled the country with the child he kidnapped. I don't know...this is definitely an interesting story that keeps me on my feet.

Part Two...Even More Interesting

I feel as this story is progressing I'm able to understand it a little bit more and more every time i pick it up. I was actually in a salon this weekend and brought the book with me to read as I was waiting and I ran into an apparent English 215 alumni who was asking me about the book. She too had read it and we were conversing about the complete strange aspects of the story, but agreed that it was quite well written. For instance, I've found a few passages that I read that I'm just amazed by Nabokov's language and am so jealous as a writer. He uses so many different techniques and vocabulary to just completely impress his readers, or at least it really impressed me. For instance on page 157, "Moreover, we inspected: Little Iceberg Lake, somewhere in Colorado, and the snow banks, and the cushions of tiny alpine flowers, and more snow; down which Lo in red-peaked cap tried to slide, and squealed, and was snowballed by some youngsters and retaliated in some comme on dit. Skeletons of burned aspens, patches of spired blue flowers. The various items of a scenic drive. . . " I just would never think to write this way, but the imagery he uses can be completely grotesque but also fabulous at other times too.

As a reader, we're beginning to see Lolita grow up into a sassy teenager. She's beginning to resent Humbert Humbert as a father and really wants to grow to be more independent. On one occasion she makes the remark, "how lond did I think we were going to live in stuffy cabins, doing filthy things together and never behaving like ordinary people" (page 158). Also, when she's going to go out with her friends to I believe it was a roller skating rink, Humbert wants to come along but she swiftly informs him that it would not be cool or acceptable for him to join them. Humbert also feels like a failure as a father as well, which I think may play into this identity crisis he's having. He feels like he's failing Lolita in one sense (as her father) and basically has to threaten her to be his lover. It seems at some points he is quite ashamed of what he is doing and that he has had to sink as low as blackmail to keep her with him, but on the other side of things he is glad that she is still with him. Also, like most any man, his attention and complete and total affection is not only for Lolita, which is probably attributed to the fact that she's a brat to him most of the time. But whenever they go to a new town or city he admits to, "In whatever town we stopped I would inquire, in my polite European way, anet the whereabouts of natatoriums, museums, local schools, the number of children in the nearest school, and so forth; and at school bus time, smiling and twitching a little I would park at a strategic point, with my vagrant schoolgirl beside me in the car, to watch the children leave school--always a pretty sight" (page 161). So, as far as Humbert's problem is going, it is definitely not diminishing, if anything growing more intense. Because Lolita won't always give in to his sexual desires, he says, "how sweet it was to bring that coffee to her and then deny it until she had done her morning duty" (page 165). This man is definitely still quite sick, but can't understand why Lolita acts the way she does. I think it probably really tears him apart inside when she doesn't feel the same way about him that he feels about her.

I've also made some connections to Edgar Allen Poe's "Annabel Lee" that Nabokov is making to other authors. On page 167 he talks about "The Kingdom by the Sea" and his first love's name that got him into this whole psychiatric mess is Annabel which Annabel Lee is the speaker's lover in Edgar Allen Poe's poem. I feel like Humbert is able to relate to Poe because he too was in love with his younger cousin of thirteen and could not help but express his feelings. Humbert also reveals more of himself being an unreliable narrator on page 168 when he says, "I am exaggerating a little." See to the reader, if he is exaggerating here, where else has he been doing it? When he tells everyone that Lolita seduced him? When his wife's death was just an "accident"? For all we know now as readers Lolita was just an innocent little girl that was not being seductive in any way, shape, or form and he plotted his wife's death. But again, that's all just speculation. I'm excited to see where the rest of the story takes us.

Disturbia

So although I would never have chosen to read this book at my leisure, and even if I did pick it up randomly of a shelf and started to read would have quickly put it down because of content, I must say that being forced (okay not forced, but having this novel on the curriculum) to read Lolita has probably made me a more careful reader. And what I mean by that is the fact that the language that Nabokov uses is quite rich and, I really just can't get around saying this, well written. Though sometimes I really may not know what he is trying to say or get across to the reader, he reveals juicy details in his diction in a way that I feel is quite unique. Sometimes as a reader I tend to become lazy and almost skim the work and get the gist of what is being said, but with this work I must take my time and truly try to grasp everything that Nabokov is saying through is word choice.

What I found most interesting through the the reading I did today was the actual lack of innocence that Lolita possesses. Humbert was initially attracted to her "purity" and her girlish look that usually entails sexual purity. But, Lolita has been experimenting with different sexual things most of her childhood it seems. He tells the jury, "Sensitive gentlewomen of the jury, I as not even her first lover" (page 135). At some points I almost found it comical when Humbert was talking about how she must have learned how to kiss by a lesbian experience at her camp. Also an extreme curve ball that I felt was thrown to the readers was the fact that Lolita was the seducer in their little grotesque love affair (even after she has called this man "Dad" I might add...the little sketch ball!) Humbert says on page 132, "but by six she was wide awake, and by six fifteen we were technically lovers. I am going to tell you something very strange: it was she who seduced me." For some reason this little girl of twelve has an enormous amount of confidence when it comes to sex, I guess though she was well aquatinted with the subject already though. So anyway, I just first wanted to comment on the forwardness of the little girl, but she also keeps some of her girlish nature. She'll kiss Humbert on the mouth, but if he kisses her anywhere else she is extremely turned off. In a way, this is like how Tennessee Williams talks about how all pretty girls are a trap and men expect them to be. I feel like Lolita is keeping Humbert on his toes by her ever changing mood.

Humbert, through this entire passage seems to be playing two entirely conflicting roles. What he's showing to Lolita on the outside and what is going on within his head are entirely different realities. Whenever Humbert picks Lolita up from camp, he is playing the father role. She may be flirting with him a little bit, but he just tells her no while inside he's burning with desire for her. It's quite odd and I don't really know what to think of it. Maybe he knows what he's planning on doing is wrong and he feels guilty for it. He doesn't want to show her too early how much he lusts for her, atleast not until they get to the bedroom.

The entire bedroom scene seems to be a huge psychological battle for Humbert. He obviously wants to take advantage of this little girl (ew), he even drugs her with the expectation that he'll do it this way, but that plan backfires and then he's back at square one. He has this internal conflict within himself just trying to move closer to her throughout the night. It reminds me a little bit of the courage a guy has to muster up in order to kiss a girl for the first time (as long as the two aren't intoxicated). I remember talking to a guy once (later after he finally worked up the courage to kiss me...mind i say that we'd been seeing each other for like four months before he finally did) that he'd been trying to kiss me for so long but just never could work up the courage. Every time he was over-thinking it like, "oh if I kiss her here she's going to think it's cheesy, etc." I think a lot of times guys go through this internal conflict with trying to pursue a female, but hopefully the female is not a helpless little twelve-year-old girl.

Another quote I found interesting in this passage was, "Whether or not the realization of a lifelong dream had surpassed all expectations, it had, in a sense, overshot its mar--and plunged into a nightmare." I feel like this really coincides with peoples expectations in life. For instance, so many girls fantasize and dream about what their future wedding is going to look like and how perfect it's going to be. Sometimes we forget that things can happen and when your lifelong dream finally comes to fruition, even though it be wonderful, it may not be what we expect and it may leave us longing for more when all we get is one chance. I don't think that Humbert thinks the sex was anticlimactic, but he does say this that somehow his dream could become a nightmare.

Pedophilia

Before I begin to even attempt to give any insight on the meaning of this work of literature, Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, I must say that I have never read something so grotesque. As we were talking in class today, I guess somehow reading these words somehow makes this horrible situation that much more vivid to me rather than watching it in a Law and Order SVU or CSI television show. I also must give Nabokov my complete respect for being able to tap into the mind of a pedophile. I never would think this way and really can only think that someone who is truly sick with this disease of pedophilia (I think maybe that's a made up word?) could even write such things about a child. However, whether Nabokov truly feels this way towards children or not, he does an excellent job depicting the mind of a sicko.

I must say that the reading for today (pages 62-109) were slightly more easy for me to handle today. I felt like maybe I understood more that was going on during the narration than I had before. In this passage that I read, I felt that there were some specific instances depicted in the marriage of Humbert and Charlotte, that even though this marriage was built on a one-way love, that look like many marriages we see in modern society today. For instance, all the plans the wife has for the husband and how the husband just gets drug along through them and is expected to just go along for the ride. As soon as Charlotte and Humbert get married, she goes on a frenzy of redecorating the house and planning cute little trips for them to go on. Then finally one day she crosses the line and he vocalizes his opinion and says, "No, wait a minute, The present matter is only incidental. I am concerned with a general trend. When you wanted me to spend my afternoons sunbathing on the Lake instead of doing my work, I gladly gave in and became a bronzed glamor boy for your sake, instead of remaining a scholar and, well, and educator. When you lead me to bridge and bourbon with the charming Farlows, I meekly follow. . . I love being bossed by you, but every game has its rules. I am not cross. I am not cross at all. .. But I am one half of this household, and have a small but distinct voice." (page 91). I feel like this is probably happens in a few households in America. Where there's a domineering wife and the husband finally stands up for himself and the wife is just taken aback and doesn't know what to do. Although, I'm not sure that women now would respond the same was as Charlotte and say, "You're my god. Please forgive me. Let's have sex now." (not a direct quote of course) but nonetheless be surprised. I definitely liked this scene, that even though I am not a fan of Humbert in ANY way, I thought it was good that he was sticking up for himself.

This whole scheme of marriage that Humbert came up with really just blew up in his face. He thought he would be able to be closer to Lolita by marrying this woman that he was in no way attracted to. He even has to think of Lolita while he is intimate with Charlotte just so he can be turned on. He says, "I would manage to evoke the child while caressing the mother" (page 76). But, Charlotte apparently hates her daughter and plans to send her to a boarding school so she can have her new perfect life with her husband. This, however, does not fly with him. No, he is head over heels in love with this twelve-year-old girl who is also apparently wasting away months of her young beauty at this Camp Q. Humbert does try to kill Charlotte, but he has too much compassion for that. He thinks about it all the time (that's how deranged this man is) but he simply can't bring himself to kill her. But, fate takes care of that setback only after she finds everything out about his fantasies about her daughter. What an experience that must of been for Charlotte. She thought she was going to read maybe some secret love letter Humbert had written to her or maybe even some old secret of a former lover, but no, he's in love with her pre-teen daughter. Awesome. So she furiously writes 3 letters, goes to mail them, and is hit by a car and dies. Irony. But this is the time we actually see some normal human emotion in Humbert. He cries. He says, "Fat fate's formal handshake. . .brought me out of my torpor; and I wept. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury--I wept" (page 103). I don't know if maybe he was just so drunk that he actually cried or maybe he was just so excited about the time he was going to get alone with Lolita now that he was crying for joy. Whatever it is, I suppose this emotion came at the right time in the story for him to at least seem sad for his wife's passing.

Is there deeper meaning here? I'm not sure. Maybe Nabokov is trying to tell us something by this situation that he as just depicted, but I have yet to come to the meaning. I know in some of the parts he was satirizing the action of wives and the way they control their husbands lives. Also those parents who feel the need to send their kids off to a boarding school. But I shall just have to keep reading to see what else Nabokov has in store for me.

Well..What Can You Say About Ginsberg?

I must admit before I begin this blog that I've never had so much trouble with a poet as I have with Allen Ginsberg. His ramblings and outbursts of words that just seem to be him eloquently regurgitating random phrases and thoughts that come to mind. Is there a point to this seemingly chaotic literature? I feel there must be, or else what's the point? And why would he be so famously renowned? Although I didn't particularly enjoy either one of these poems, "America" or "In the Baggage Room at the Greyhound," but I did enjoy his "Don't Smoke" tune that we watched in class today. He really is quite a clever man though a little bit on the odd side, but there's nothing wrong with that.

So starting of with "America," the speaker seems to be quite frustrated with America and it's values and what this country ends up doing to people. There seems to be a lot of political tension throughout the poem. The speaker is obviously not happy with the times that America is with war, the political leadership, and decision making process. Some of the lines that seem to elevate the political tension in this poem is where he states, "Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb," and "My ambition is to be President even though I'm a Catholic," and being "communist." Essentially through this entire work Ginsberg is satirizing everything America stands for. Being "sinister," "pushing," "serious," making him want to be a saint. In some ways this reminds me of a nagging parent whom the child can never be good enough for. The child is rebellious and doesn't want the same thing as his parents and then becomes cynical about the world. There's a strong tone of sarcasm or simply a different approach to things from the speaker. He doesn't want to become like this "America" but I think in some ways he's saying it's inescapable? However, he ends the poem with, "I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel" which definitely defies anything that America would have stood for in 1956. I guess this is the speaker decides at the end of the poem that he's going to be completely rebellious and not go with America's perfect mold.

Now "In the Baggage Room at the Greyhound" Ginsberg basically starts of by giving a vivid description of the area he is in at this station. He vividly describes everyone who is there and the baggage they are bringing. A line that particularly got to me was when he says, "nor this trembling old lady with a cane taking the last trip of her life." I feel like I can see this woman. That's the great thing about Ginsberg's writing, he is so vivid that I had a complete picture of what this room looked like. Okay so I'm going to take a big leap with this literary epiphany I just had. I feel like the baggage that the people are bringing or this baggage room that is the setting could symbolically mean the emotional baggage that people end up carrying along with them in their journey throughout life. I know personally I have baggage from a previous relationship or family issues. Everyone goes through different hardships in life that shape them as who they are as an individual, but also in some ways haunt their present. Sometimes we just have to put them where they belong, on the racks that Ginsberg next mentions. He says, "the racks were created to hang our possessions, to keep us together, a temporary shift in space, God's only way of building the rickety structure of Time." I feel like this could be saying we have to put our belongings/baggage away for a while, where they belong so we can move along through life and Time. So this is just one of my thoughts on the poem, but I also feel like there's much deeper things going on. Just like in a lot of his other works, Ginsberg talks about being a communist, i.e. going against the normal social structure of society and political views of everyone. Also I really like the phrase "Tragedy reduced to numbers," because I feel like a lot of times as people we do have a tendency to have some kind of tragedy be reduced to something small. For instance, the recent Haiti occurrence. This is a HUMONGOUS tragedy that has killed many people. But sometimes, all we here is the head count. We don't think about how these peoples lives will forever be changed because of this dreadful day. We hear "100,000 people dead" and think "Oh, that's awful, 100,000 is a lot!" But that's all the mind we pay to this profound tragedy. I don't know. Just a few tid bits. A few thoughts that these poems brought to mind.

Yes, Sometimes You Can Learn From Your Little Brother

Today as I was preparing for class tomorrow by reading "Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin, I felt very impacted by the story and truly felt for the characters. This story of the lives of the two brothers who live in Harlem is exceptionally deep. This really made me think a lot about what people go through in life and the measures they take to overcome their troubles. But today for my blog, I'm going to focus on a few quotes/pieces of information the characters give and give my commentary on them.

The first is, "Then I wanted to ask him--to many things. He could not have answered, or if we had, I could not have borne the answers" (page 35). I feel like this is exactly how I am in so many situations. I definitely have the mentality of, "I'd just rather not know" when it comes to certain things. I feel like maybe sometimes I can still think of a person in a favorable light or just really think the world is a good place. But, I guess this is a naive view of the world. I don't know, sometimes this may not be a good thing to have this mentality, however I feel like it keeps my spirits higher or keeps a little mystery in a situation. "What you don't know won't kill you." Yes, no, maybe. Maybe it depends on the information? Maybe the narrator and I have something in common that we simply don't like to acknowledge the truth because as soon as we do we have to take responsibility for it. As soon as he realizes there's something wrong with Sonny, he must begin to help him. And he eventually does. I don't think this guy didn't love his brother, he was just scared that he was going to fail at helping him. He didn't know what he could do therefore he did nothing. But we must be careful of this because if we never know what is going on in the lives of those we love, how can we help, or ever make a difference in their lives?

The next quote is, " . . .you know people can't always do exactly what they want to do.' 'No, I don't know that,' said Sonny, surprising me. 'I think people ought to do what they want to do, what else are they alive for?" (page 44). This piece of dialogue truly hit me hard because I feel like it really speaks to people my age who are trying to figure out exactly what to do with their lives. This kind of conversation could be compared to numerous conversations that teenagers my age have with their parents. Kids who have passion for something that may not be lucrative or "safe" in the future, so the parents try to persuade them into doing something that is more secure and trustworthy. For example, I have always had a passion for theatre. I've never really even thought of going for it though in life because I can just imagine the conversation with my parents. "Where is that going to get you?" "You need something to fall back on if that doesn't work out." In fact, I think it's been drilled into me my entire life that I need to try something safe. Why is it that we do this? Suppress what we actually have a passion for, do something safe, and be miserable our entire lives? I think Sonny's advice was spectacular. We're never going to be truly happy unless we're doing what we love. The question is though, do we have the courage to do it?

The final quote is, "But there's no way to not suffer--is there, Sonny?' 'I believe not,' he said and smiled, 'but that's never stopped anyone from trying.' . . .'why do people suffer? Maybe it's better to do something to give it a reason, any reason." (page 51). If you can't tell already, I really like Sonny and his view on life. I think it's because I wish I could be more like him. He knows that everyone is going to suffer in life, he as had his fair share of suffering, but he refuses to not have an excuse for it. He wants a reason, something to explain it. ANYTHING! Although Sonny is a depressed character and has tried to commit suicide, I feel like he's more alive than the narrator. Atleast more of a risk taker and a feeler. I feel like the two, although they don't get along naturally because of their differences, they compliment each other. They're so different that they can help one another in their opposing ways.

Broken Hearts and Torn Homes

Today as I finished the last scene of The Glass Menagerie I was reminded of how incredibly sad it is by the way it leaves the audience feeling hopeless for the family and the situation they are left it. It makes me sympathize for those families today that live like this one...an unfortunate situation where the father is gone and the family is left broken and full of unresolved issues.

Mean ol' Tennessee Williams in this scene gets his poor audience's hopes up in order to just break us down in the situation with Laura and Jim. They seem to be completely hitting it off as they are enjoying conversation with each other. Jim seems to be the only person who can truly relate to Laura and he even diagnosis her problem as an "inferiority complex" that she just needs to feel better about herself, and for a brief moment she does, with Jim. Jim gives Laura this boost of confidence she most likely has never had before. He tells her she's pretty and reassures her that everybody has issues by saying, "And everybody has problems, not just you, but practically everybody has got some problems. . . you will see lots of people as dissappointed as you are" (page 76). He even goes as far as to give her the autograph she's wanted from him since high school and just to put the cherry on top, he kisses her!! Even this being the second time reading this play I was completely enthralled by this scene. Somehow I thought, for sure, that Jim was going to change his mind this time. That everything was going to work out well for Laura and Jim and they were going to run away and live happily every after. But I suppose that's not how Tennessee Williams wanted his play to turn out in this obviously post-modern work, because life just never seems to end up this way, does it? No, poor Laura only gets a glimpse of this happiness with Jim to soon find out he's engaged to the other woman Betsy. Oh, what a disgrace...isn't that a cows name? I mean come on Jim. Although I must give him credit, he did tell her quickly. He could have been a COMPLETE scum bag and left that evening allowing Laura to believe there'd be a future with him when all along he's in love with another woman. Laura too handled herself quite well. She ended up giving Jim her favorite piece of glass, the unicorn, which is now broken (SYMBOLISM!). They definitely both acted quite cordial in this situation...which I don't know if I could have done the same myself.

Now going on to Tom in this last scene. I mean come on Tom!! He just leaves in the end..leaving his poor mother and handicapped sister behind. I mean, what is going to come of them? I mean I do understand why he wanted out. He was yearning for adventure and freedom and Amanda was a nagging mother, but I just feel like he could have left on better terms. And, his decision haunts (duh! I mean he LEFT them!). He says, "Oh, Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be!" (page 97). The sad thing is though, even though Tom left his "coffin" he definitely wasn't able to escape without undoing a single nail. It seems as though he still feels guilt from his decision. That even though he is gone from the environment he felt to be so poisonous, he isn't free.

Nagging Mothers, Introverted Daughters, and Rebellious Sons

As I began the first six scenes of The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, I was reminded by his vivid use of symbols and everyday occurrences that his audience can definitely relate to, but definitely find something to learn from and take as a life lesson away from this reading. I have read this production before in the fall of 2006 and truly loved it and the rich nature of the literature.

Starting with just the title, there can be inference made by how the the story will begin. A menagerie by definition is, "a collection of wild animals kept in captivity for exhibition." The part of this definition that is of grave value is "captivity." I feel like all three of the main characters, Amanda, Laura, and Tom, all feel in some way held back from their true dreams. Amanda is held in captivity by her past and all the dreams she had for her future that were unfulfilled. Laura is held back by her false world of her class ornaments and victrola. She refuses to stay in reality, and the one time she tried to live in reality was by going to school which proved to be too much for her and she vomited in front of the class. Finally, Tom feels simply restless. In fact Amanda says to him, "But why--why? Tom--you are always so restless." (page 33). Tom is thirsting for adventure but is held back by the reality that he must provide for his mother and sister because his father left many years ago.

This family is a classic case of a strained relationship and broken home. Amanda is controlling. She has to control everything from what everybody wears, to when the eat, and how they eat it. Amanda says to Tom, "Honey, don't push with your fingers. If you have to push it with something, the thing to push with is a crust of bread. And chew--chew!..."(page 6). She is so discontent with the life she now lives that she must constantly bring up her past and how popular she was, "There was young Champ Laughlin who later became vice-president of the Delta Planters Bank. Hadley Stevenson who was drowned in Moon Lake and left his widow one hundred and fifty thousand in Government bonds..." (page 9). She can't seem to understand how her life turned out the way it has in my opinion. One of her flaws is that she fail to recognize reality, which I guess is exactly what Tom meant in the beginning of the play when he said they were somehow "set apart from reality." She does not recognize that Laura is crippled, doesn't even let other people say she is, and doesn't realize that Laura is a little bit odd.

All three of these characters go about conflict in different ways, yet almost the same. Laura is a recluse and simply goes and shines her collection of glass animals while dreaming of a different day. Tom drinks away his sorrows or goes to the movies where there too is a false reality. The movies are a getaway, a place where he can forget his job doesn't fulfill him and his life is in shambles. Amanda, she just returns to her past and the hope that was in abundance then. So far, these family members don't face their problems head on and that is going to be their downfall.

There seem to be many symbolic figures in the story. Starting off with the glass menagerie. For Laura, I believe this represents hope and something constant. She enjoys getting away and escaping by cleaning these glass figurines. The fire escape seems to signify something as well. I think it's the dangerous life their living and some kind of escape. Tom stands here in order to watch the swing dancers down the street at the club as well, so this too represents hope and longing. Also, music and the legend screen seem to play a pivotal role in the play. There are words that reflect the mood of a character or foreshadow and event and the music choice usually goes right along with the character's mood. The father's picture also is brought up a lot during these first six scenes. His picture is above the hearth (which ironically is a sign for family/home) and he is smiling down upon the family. I feel like this is quite an ironic place for him to be, smiling nonetheless. He was a traveling salesman who one day decided to never return to his family and left them destitute. But, for some reason he is still sitting there, reminding the characters of the past they cannot escape. Also, Guernica in Spain is mentioned a few times throughout...which maybe represents something terrible yet also adventurous and out of the norm. Tom brings up how at least Spain has Guernica. Now I think think is a little bit repulsive, but it was a revolution and I think he looks to this as adventure.

So finally I think I'm going to end my commentary with some quotes from the story I found quite good.

1. "Old maids are better off than wives of drunkards." p. 44

2. "You are the only young man that I know of who ignores the fact that the future becomes the present, the present the past, and the past turns into everlasting regret if you don't plan for it!" p. 45

3. "All pretty girls are a trap, a pretty trap, and men expect them to be." p. 52

Sometimes Being Young and a Girl Is Tough

The two short stories I read today offered me a great surprise and I do not feel they were in any way predictable (not that the literature/poems I have read for this particular class have been, but these gave me a surprise.

I'm going to begin with the more gruesome of the two, "The Flowers" by Alice Walker. Because, I do feel like if i tackle this one first than I will not feel quite as depressed the rest of my day :). First off I would like to point out there is a lot of color imagery throughout the story. Walker uses phrases such as, "golden surprises," "large white teeth," "wild pink rose," etc. It could have some kind of meaning that these colors Walker seems to implement are bright and almost youthful. This too presents a vast contrast with the dead man lying on the ground. He is lifeless laying there, but he still has the bright colors of life all around him. But Myop seems to be in the beginning of this story, a young vibrant girl who is simply looking for adventure and gathering flowers all along the way. She is enjoying every minute of summer exploring the woods. Throughout this piece though she is beginning to lose some of her innocence and grow up, even at the young age of ten years old. In the third paragraph it talks about how "Today she made her own path, bouncing this way and that way, vaguely keeping an eye out for snakes." This is the first instance of her starting to show her maturity and growth as a young girl. Also, Walker writes a little later how this experience beings to become unpleasant for Myop even before she encounters the man. Which is quite true for anybody. The process of growing up can be quite invigorating, but also scary just plain not fun at times.

But the shift begins when she encounters this man who has taken his life by actually stepping on his face. What I don't understand here is why this child is not spooked?! I mean, she just found a dead man in the woods while she is by herself. The author does indicate that she's surprised but now where does it say she's scared...weird is all i can say to that. This is where she grows up though. The summer/her flowers, which symbolically means her innocence/youth is gone. As soon as she laid down that bouquet, nothing is going to be the same for Myop again. This same sort of thing could be true for the rest of us (although hopefully not the same type of encounter!) Something drastic could cause us to grow up at a young age, leaving behind those carefree years. It's kind of a shame if you think about it. At least I think it is. This poor girl, at the ripe age of ten years old will forever be different.

Now the second story, "Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid presents quite a different aspect. This entire piece is basically a "How to" for girls, but I believe this is specifically an African American women speaking to her daughter. For this piece I think I may have more questions than answers...but I will try. This mother, or mother figure, is trying to teach what is pressumably her daughter how to be a good wife. How to wash clothes, how to fix fish, how to iron, how to act in public. But the part that is interesting and stands out a lot (because the narrator says it two or three times) is, "to prevent yourself from looking like the slut I know you are so bent on becoming." This makes me wonder has the girl gone and gotten herself knocked up? Or did her mother catch her shackin up with some boy behind the house? I don't know? Maybe she's telling her all of these things because a baby is on the way and she's going to have to know how to take care of a household, but really I don't think that's what it is. I think this mother is concerned for her daughter's obvious loose morals and is maybe trying to correct them somehow. A piece of advice I truly loved and thought was quite comical was the, "this is how you smile to someone you don't like too much; this is how you smile to someone you don't like at all; this is how you smile to someone you like completely." I just had to giggle at this because isn't this true for so many girls, or southern women it seems? They just smile, but behind that smile there is so much pent up hate and gossip that if it came out it would just flood the other person. Now the daughter only speaks twice throughout this piece and the last thing she says is, "But what if the baker won't let me feel the bread?" and then the mother responds, "you mean to say that after all you are really going to be the kind of woman who the baker won't let her near the bread?" All I can figure is this is a sexual reference...I can't think of any other thing the bread can symbolically mean and it would go right along with the daughter's "sluttiness." Okay so that is my interpretation..hopefully not too far off base. But i definitely enjoyed these pieces the characters were quite interesting to engage with in the literature.

Robert Frost. A wise man indeed.

So like many Americans, I am one of those people who don't even truly read poetry but enjoy a good Frost poem. Yes, I enjoy the good classic of "Road Not Taken," and gain inspiration from it. However, even though this particular poem is usually the one that comes to mind when most people think of the great poet Robert Frost, I believe he has more to say to us through his many poems. What I love about his poetry is that I don't feel that it takes someone with some kind of Ph. D. in the analysis of literature (which probably doesn't even exist) to figure out some of what he is trying to get across to his readers. Two of his poems that I will be focusing on are "Birches" and "Mending Wall."

So we'll begin with "Birches." I have to begin by confessing that no I am not a specialist in the names of trees to before I even started reading this poem i looked up "birch" into the trusty online dictionary Webster dictionary (thank you Merriam!) Which I thought the definition was interesting and pertinent to the content of the poem itself. Briefly described, a birch is a type of tree that is fast growing and generally peels away its bark. Which a lot of what I think this poem is talking about is growing up and kind of losing the our innocence or who we used to be as children, but still being the same person inside. Frost paints this lovely mental picture of a young boy swinging on these birches and actually conquering them. He says in line 32 "And not one but hung limp, not one was left/ For him to conquer." This young boy is having a marvelous time playing on these trees and conquering them one by one as he grows older. But the speaker of this poem is an entirely separate entity. He is watching the young boy and reminiscing on the days when, "So was I once myself a swinger of birches" (ll. 43). Frost says stuff like the tree "shed crystal shells" (ll. 10) which I believe this is a maturation process. The poem ends with the speaker saying, "I'd like to getget away from earth a while/ And then come back to it and gein over" (ll. 49-50). What I think Frost is saying here is that sometimes as adults or when people get older they sometimes want an escape, a thought of utopia if you will, or even just a nice memory to return to. When life presents tough times even to myself, and I'm only eighteen, sometimes I like to take a deep breath, remember a good memory, like being in a musical, or some crazy memory with friends in high school before I return to life's daily stresses. Frost emphasizes how it's nice to have something to look back on, something to remember and keep us sane during our chaotic lifestyles.

"Mending Wall," by Frost seems to have a slightly different tone throughout it... and I'm not sure if I got the entire meaning of this...but here's my whack at it. The wall seems to be symbolic of something that is holding us back as individuals. The poem starts off with, "Something there is that doesn't love a wall," which I know is significant because he adds the same line again further down in the poem...but exactly what it means, I'm not entirely sure. I think the speaker of this poem doesn't necessarily like having this wall because he says in line 33, "Before I built a wall I'd ask to know/ What I was walling in or walling out,/ And whom I was like to give offense." The speaker is curious about what is out there but the neighbor just says, "Good fences make good neighbors." This is where I begin to question, why are people so guarded? Is everything in society so private that it keeps us from experiencing everything life has to offer?? These neighbors go out in the spring to make repair to the gaps that have occurred in the wall, but what would happen if they left them there? Adventure. New experiences. Change. Which brings up a good point how change is stressful. People like what' they're used to...which is why any transition (like my recent transition to college) is difficult. People keep to what they're used to, but maybe there's something better on the other side. We just need to be willing to break down that wall.