first of all, i should tell you that i am reading a new book. yes, i finally finished/got fed up with my old book, and started something new. i wanted something nice. something easy. i am reading 'the new gothic', a collection of excerpts and short story Gothics. (no, not goth, Gothic, there's a difference!!!)
anyway, a lot of these are completely insane and weird and gross, so it's kind of hard to say what bad stuff is happening. and anyway, devils taking over the earth is not exactly a 'social issue'. so i thought long and hard, and i finally came up with something. NEGLECT.
I'm going to focus on one story in particular. it's called 'Blood', and it's about this girl who goes to the dentist, and he gruesomely pulls a tooth out of her mouth, and it never stops bleeding. and she goes back to school, but no one's there, so she starts playing piano, and someone asks her what she's playing and she opens her mouth to say 'motzart' without thinking and the blood spills out over the piano keys, and it doesn't stop. this doesn't sound so bad, but there's some kind of nightmarish terror that builds up until the one time that she forgets. maybe it's something to do with the fact that there's no one waiting for her when she gets to school, that no one cares that she won't stop bleeding. that there's no one to help her.
I know that neglect is a very broad issue. maybe i can narrow it down to neglect of children. adults re expected to do things on their own, but children sometimes need a little help. like in this story. she didn't know what to do. but if there had been someone there, someone to ask her if she was okay, someone waiting for her to come back, it would have made it so much better. maybe hat's the issue. not enough people waiting for others to get home. because we all need someone waiting, worrying about us sometimes. someone to make the world seem smaller and warmer. because if we don't have that, life turns into a nightmare. life turns into a Gothic novel.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
social issues/bad things in my book
yep, there is loads of bad stuff happening in my book.
but that's kind of what a book is, right? A book is about something that happens, and at least some element of it is always sad. but anyway, back to the book.
First a little summary of the book. this book needs some explaining.
I, since you don't know, am reading the book 'a heartbreaking work of staggering genius' by dave Eggers. if you can call it a book. It's a 437 page stream of conciousness novel. it is the story of about ten years of david eggers' life (the exact timing is hard to tell, because a lot of the events in the book seem in no way related to each other.) It's all about random things that happened to the author, things which could really happen to anyone. It also goes into a lot of detail about whatever strange, pointless, or completely unrelated things Eggers was thinking at that very moment. I used to think that i was pretty good at complicated books, but this one is like Lewis Carrolls maze. the problem is that it starts telling you about something, and then it goes off on some other memory and then another, and then in the end you can't tell what's supposed to be real or not. so. it's not that i hate the book. it's actually quite a good book. it can be really funny. but the problem is, i keep thinking 'oh god, is this how everyone else thinks? is everyone this ADD? does everyone curse every other word in their head?' It's hard to explain. you should read it. or maybe not.
But, befuddling as it is, this book did manage to pack in some social issues. one of these was racism. yeah, yeah, that's very broad. don't judge me!!! i'm about to make it better. The main characters (the author, his younger brother, his sister and friends) are mostly white. one of the big characters, shalini, is indian. but no one is particularly racist to each other. but there is this thing, when the author thinks something, and then thinks."is that racist?" and he's terrified to sound racist, even just in is head. i thought it was just him being insane, but i realized that i do that too. i think something, and then mentally slap myself for being racist every one has said at one time or another 'not to be racist, but...'. it reminded me of thoughtcrime, from the book 1984.
but which is better? to be correcting what we think, or to make unthinking and offensive racist slurs? It's creepy to think that we don't have freedom of thought, but does ot count if it's our own selves doing the policing? And of course, it's unnacceptable to be racist. the perfect soloution, of course, would be to have a balance.
but that's kind of what a book is, right? A book is about something that happens, and at least some element of it is always sad. but anyway, back to the book.
First a little summary of the book. this book needs some explaining.
I, since you don't know, am reading the book 'a heartbreaking work of staggering genius' by dave Eggers. if you can call it a book. It's a 437 page stream of conciousness novel. it is the story of about ten years of david eggers' life (the exact timing is hard to tell, because a lot of the events in the book seem in no way related to each other.) It's all about random things that happened to the author, things which could really happen to anyone. It also goes into a lot of detail about whatever strange, pointless, or completely unrelated things Eggers was thinking at that very moment. I used to think that i was pretty good at complicated books, but this one is like Lewis Carrolls maze. the problem is that it starts telling you about something, and then it goes off on some other memory and then another, and then in the end you can't tell what's supposed to be real or not. so. it's not that i hate the book. it's actually quite a good book. it can be really funny. but the problem is, i keep thinking 'oh god, is this how everyone else thinks? is everyone this ADD? does everyone curse every other word in their head?' It's hard to explain. you should read it. or maybe not.
But, befuddling as it is, this book did manage to pack in some social issues. one of these was racism. yeah, yeah, that's very broad. don't judge me!!! i'm about to make it better. The main characters (the author, his younger brother, his sister and friends) are mostly white. one of the big characters, shalini, is indian. but no one is particularly racist to each other. but there is this thing, when the author thinks something, and then thinks."is that racist?" and he's terrified to sound racist, even just in is head. i thought it was just him being insane, but i realized that i do that too. i think something, and then mentally slap myself for being racist every one has said at one time or another 'not to be racist, but...'. it reminded me of thoughtcrime, from the book 1984.
but which is better? to be correcting what we think, or to make unthinking and offensive racist slurs? It's creepy to think that we don't have freedom of thought, but does ot count if it's our own selves doing the policing? And of course, it's unnacceptable to be racist. the perfect soloution, of course, would be to have a balance.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
connecting annotations for charlottes web!!!
"Charlotte tore quite a section out of her web, leaving an open space in the middle. then she started weaving something to take the place of the threads she had removed. when templeton got back from the dump, around midnight, the spider was still at work."
i wrote- Charlotte give up so much for wilbur!
it's true. Charlotte spends all of her time, it seems, trying to save Wilbur's life. she tears out sections of her web, spends ages of time and work writing, and probably doesn't catch as many flies as she usually would have, because her web is all messed up. she tries to save his life until she dies. this seems to happen throughout the whole book.and something that really annoyed me was that Wilbur never really thanked her. if anything, he was more demanding. for example, when Wilbur is going to the fair, he asks Charlotte to come with him even though she is getting ready to lay her eggs, and she doesn't feel well. she says
"'oh, i just don't feel like leaving my web. too much going on around here.' 'Please come with me!' begged Wilbur. 'i need you Charlotte. i can't stand going to the fair without you! you've just got to come!'"
I mean really! We shouldn't be too harsh on Wilbur, though. he is just a kid. and he really does like Charlotte. and the reason why she was such a good friend is explained in her dying words. when Wilbur asks why Charlotte did all those things for him.
"'you have been my friend' replied Charlotte 'and that in itself is a tremendous thing. i wove my webs for you because i liked you. after all, what's a life anyway? we're born, we live a little, we die. a spiders life can't help being something of a mess with all this trapping and eating flies. but helping you, perhaps i was trying to lift my life a little. heaven knows, any one's life can stand a little of that.
this really touched me. it was not just a reason, it was a philosophy. and it's so true. giving your life a purpose can make it very successful.
i wrote- Charlotte give up so much for wilbur!
it's true. Charlotte spends all of her time, it seems, trying to save Wilbur's life. she tears out sections of her web, spends ages of time and work writing, and probably doesn't catch as many flies as she usually would have, because her web is all messed up. she tries to save his life until she dies. this seems to happen throughout the whole book.and something that really annoyed me was that Wilbur never really thanked her. if anything, he was more demanding. for example, when Wilbur is going to the fair, he asks Charlotte to come with him even though she is getting ready to lay her eggs, and she doesn't feel well. she says
"'oh, i just don't feel like leaving my web. too much going on around here.' 'Please come with me!' begged Wilbur. 'i need you Charlotte. i can't stand going to the fair without you! you've just got to come!'"
I mean really! We shouldn't be too harsh on Wilbur, though. he is just a kid. and he really does like Charlotte. and the reason why she was such a good friend is explained in her dying words. when Wilbur asks why Charlotte did all those things for him.
"'you have been my friend' replied Charlotte 'and that in itself is a tremendous thing. i wove my webs for you because i liked you. after all, what's a life anyway? we're born, we live a little, we die. a spiders life can't help being something of a mess with all this trapping and eating flies. but helping you, perhaps i was trying to lift my life a little. heaven knows, any one's life can stand a little of that.
this really touched me. it was not just a reason, it was a philosophy. and it's so true. giving your life a purpose can make it very successful.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Charlottes Web idea expanding: why is she so smart?
If I can fool a bug" thought Charlotte, "I can surely fool a man. People are not as smart as bugs."
Charlotte's web, page 67, chapter ten.
I wrote -Charlotte is so smart!
Charlotte is so smart!! she seems to know everything, from scientific facts to philosophy. But how does she know it? it just occurred to me that we barely know anything about Charlotte. where did she come from? how does she know so much? how old is she? we get the general impression that she's older, and therefore wiser. her age and knowledge contrast and keep in check Wilbur's youth and how naive he is. but another interesting question is, why didn't i ask all the questions above when i was first reading it? I think that i didn't ask those questions because i accepted Charlotte as the mentor character.
in every narrative there is a mentor character, a Dumbledore for every harry potter, a Jiminy cricket for every Pinocchio. they are the ones who know everything. they don't come from places, they're just there. I've always just accepted them as being old and wise and nice. but now I'm more curious. Why does Charlotte help Wilbur? is she just being nice? doesn't she have more important things to do? or is she doing it because she really is friends with Wilbur? the one that makes sense the most is the last one. especially since this is a book for little kids, so sometimes people (or anthropomorphised animals) go to extremes for friendship. It's interesting tough, to look at Charlotte's and Wilbur's friendship. they barely ever talk about her, always about him. he seems like a pretty hard person to be friends with. so why is Charlotte friends with him? maybe she doesn't like to talk about herself. maybe she likes other people -and other people's problems- to distract her from herself and her own problems. even if this is right, there is still a lot of unanswered questions surrounding Charlotte
Charlotte's web, page 67, chapter ten.
I wrote -Charlotte is so smart!
Charlotte is so smart!! she seems to know everything, from scientific facts to philosophy. But how does she know it? it just occurred to me that we barely know anything about Charlotte. where did she come from? how does she know so much? how old is she? we get the general impression that she's older, and therefore wiser. her age and knowledge contrast and keep in check Wilbur's youth and how naive he is. but another interesting question is, why didn't i ask all the questions above when i was first reading it? I think that i didn't ask those questions because i accepted Charlotte as the mentor character.
in every narrative there is a mentor character, a Dumbledore for every harry potter, a Jiminy cricket for every Pinocchio. they are the ones who know everything. they don't come from places, they're just there. I've always just accepted them as being old and wise and nice. but now I'm more curious. Why does Charlotte help Wilbur? is she just being nice? doesn't she have more important things to do? or is she doing it because she really is friends with Wilbur? the one that makes sense the most is the last one. especially since this is a book for little kids, so sometimes people (or anthropomorphised animals) go to extremes for friendship. It's interesting tough, to look at Charlotte's and Wilbur's friendship. they barely ever talk about her, always about him. he seems like a pretty hard person to be friends with. so why is Charlotte friends with him? maybe she doesn't like to talk about herself. maybe she likes other people -and other people's problems- to distract her from herself and her own problems. even if this is right, there is still a lot of unanswered questions surrounding Charlotte
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