#aplit18readingthework

[racheljjones]

book blog 8 - final things I’m thinking about

Hey tribe, (or other random people on Tumblr)

So this is probably going to be my last "readingthework” blog post regarding One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but I still have a lot to say! In the end, I genuinely enjoyed my book, despite it being completely and utterly disturbing at times. As I’m moving forward with this project and am starting to look at some criticism surrounding OFOTCN, I thought I’d share with y’all some of the most exciting parts of the book/things I want to really look into.

1. Erasing masculinity. Something I found interesting within Kesey’s novel was the way he spoke about masculinity. He (Kesey) paints the head nurse as this overly overbearing, ball-cutting, and overall masculine character, making the other characters seem (and feel) inferior to her power.

2. Power complexes within society, aka what do we do to those who are different than us? (I touched on this in my last blog) but the question still stands. And the horrible tactics in order to “fix” these men may actually turn them more insane than when they entered the ward.

3. Find identity in a world trying to warp it. This is a weird one, but I found the Chief’s story very interesting. As you can see in my very first blogs, I had a difficult time trying to “figure out” the Chief, who narrates the story of OFOTCN. I know now that that is because the Chief has lost himself throughout his many years in the Ward. His last words (and also the last words of the novel) prove this - “I been away a long time.” The reader is left feeling hopeful that the Chief will begin to gather a sense of self again after escaping the psychiatric ward he was stuck in, which is an interesting move by Kesey to also end the novel this way as well. 

Anyways, wish me luck as I begin to look at criticisms and ponder these three big ideas! Talk later!

[madeleine0bahorski-blog]

HOLY CANOLI

I HAVE COME TO A REVELATION SURROUNDING THE TITLE ON THIS BOOK. The book is titled All the Light We Cannot See, which I first assumed to mean the good in the world that goes unnoticed or some other squishy concept revolving around people being nice to each other in wartime. I now realized that a good amount of the book is about radio broadcasting of civilians and its impacts in  WWII. Because of this, it’s came to my attention that the title is in reference to THE ELECTROMAGNETIC SPECTRUM! This seems pretty straightforward once I realized it, but the whole book doesn't revolve around radio communications, so it took me a second. It’s really interesting, however, that the title is about the radio aspect. None of the family/emotional connections are tied in, nothing about the diamonds of the locksmith, just the radio, the light we cannot see.

[jstearns-blog]

Re-Reading

After annotating and reading through the criticisms of “The Forever War”, I found my take on the entire message sent from the book to be different. The most impact was held from the Feminism/Sexism article. The author of the article explained the mistreatment that I ashamedly admit to missing throughout the reading. Things such as: The portrayal of female officers as inferior leaders, female soldiers as inferior pawns, and the male officers as the smart cognitive minded individuals. 

[graciew18]

A Prayer for Owen Meany #4

I read in one of my criticisms about the armlessness theme that is portrayed in the book. I have never heard of that so I was curious to know more. The article mentions how “armlessness is an image of a figure standing with arms outstretched or missing and recalls Christ’s Crucifixion”. It goes on to state how several things are mentioned in the book that are armless, such as the fake armadillo that both boys love. Owen took the arms off it when he had it in his possession after the death of Johnny’s mom. It also mentions the dummy that Johnny’s mom used to dress up before she died that is in Owen’s possession as well. I believe all of this foreshadows Owen’s death. He saves a bunch of kids from a grenade, but ends up dying in the explosion and losing both arms. This whole theme was something I didn’t pick up until I read about it. It’s a very interesting theme to have. The one that really got my attention was the armadillo because Owen was the one who took its arms off. And finally at the beginning of chapter 9 Owen finally tells us why he did this! He says, “’GOD HAS TAKEN YOUR MOTHER,’ he said to me, when I was complaining about practicing the shot.... ‘MY HANDS WERE THE INSTRUMENT,’ he said. ‘GOD HAS TAKEN MY HANDS, I AM GOD’S INSTRUMENT’” (343). Owen believes he has a purpose and God has a plan. In the movie Simon Birch, it was the same too. Simon (Owen) believed God had a certain plan for him, and he was made to do something big. Owen takes his religion very seriously. He took the armadillo’s hands because his own hands took away Johnny’s mom. He believes he is God’s instrument, doing what God intended him to do. This theme of armlessness is very interesting. The symbolism of the armadillo is also quite interesting.

[lauren-andrus13-blog]

P&P entry #4

I have gotten to the second volume of the book, and right off the bat, there is conflict with the Mr.Bingley leaving unannounced to go back to London. I had felt terrible for Jane because it had seemed that her and Mr.Bingley were really started to become more romantic and all of a sudden they get this note announcing that they left to head back to London. What had really jarred me however was the mother's reaction to the situation, because she didn’t seem to be concerned about Jane’s feelings but she cared more about the marital status that she had, which was currently single. Not only did she neglect her feelings but she also blamed her daughter for not making Mr.Bingley fall in love with her fast enough, as if there was anything else she could have done. But unlike the mother Elizabeth had immediately blamed Mr.Darcy and was completely convinced that he had done or said something to his friend Mr.Bingley to leave. The contrast between Elizabeth and her mother is huge and I wish I had more dialogue about the father so I could find out where Elizabeth got her defiance from.

[dbalaji2000-blog]

A Thousand Splendid Suns #3

I did not expect this book to have so many depressing events. It really upset me that the two main characters are only 15 and 12 and are the ones who go through the most treacherous events. Mariam, 15, had to live through her mother’s death, marry Rasheed, a man 30 years her senior after her father cheated her, and was continuously abused by the her husband for having seven miscarriages. Laila, 12, had to live through her brother’s death, her best friend’s death, and was abused by her husband, the same man who abused Mariam. Through these events, it is easy to see that the two characters are indirectly connected to each other through the first two parts of the book. 

I also noticed that this book is very similar to the Kite Runner. For example, the themes and the narration of both the books are similar to each other.

Summary of Part 2: 

In the same neighborhood as Mariam lived a girl named Laila and a boy named Tariq, who are close friends, but careful of social boundaries. War comes to Afghanistan, and Kabul is bombed. Tariq's family decides to leave the city, and the emotional farewell between Laila and Tariq ends with them sleeping together. Laila's family also decides to leave Kabul, but as they are packing a rocket destroys the house, kills her parents, and severely injures Laila. She is then taken in by Mariam and Rasheed.

[emilyplumer-blog]

Spring-Part 3

Spring was a very different part from the begging of the book. At first it starts off with Frieda getting touched by an older man and she believes that she is ruined. She knows some other people that her mother considers ruined and she doesn’t want to be like them , and believes the cure is whiskey. Her and Claudia find Pecola and her mother to get wiskey. Pecola’s Mom works for a white family and it is very obvious she likes them better just by the way she treats the young white girl compared to Pecola.

From the beggining of the book until this chapter, Pecola’s mother and father seem like they are very bad people and bad parents. However, the next chapters in spring, we get to read a chapter with Pecola’s Mom telling her story and Pecola’s father telling his.

This is a different technique that Morrison uses and it honestly creates so much sympathy for them. My views on them have changed. Both parents have gone through a lot of hardship and it explains why they are the way they are. I think that was the point because the reader looks as them as “ugly”/ bad parents, but one we get to know them it is apparent that they are trying and have their own stories. It’s like the theme in the book that everyone has their own beauty, but the world assumes so much ugliness in them.

However at the end of the father’s chapter my view goes another 180 degrees. I still have sympathy for him, but HE RAPED HIS OWN DAUGHTER! He was drunk and torn over if he should do it or not, but he still did it, so I don’t know how I feel about him now.

Another character was introduce in this part as well named Soaphead. He was scamming people by telling people he was doing God’s work and could help them. At first i was very confused what his purpose was, but at the end Pecola comes and visits him. She asks him for blue eyes and realizes that is the realist demand that he has ever received.

He says “He thought it was at once the most fantastic and the most logical petition he had ever received. Here was an ugly little girl asking for beauty. A surge of love and understanding swept through him, but was quickly replaced by anger. Anger that he was powerless to help her. A little black girl who wanted to ride up out of the pit of her blackness and see the world with blue eyes” (174). Pecola just wants to be seen and realizes her problem, yet she is still so innocent that she is begging for her eyes to change.

[palathuruthil-blog]

Clutch finds for me and The Corinator ( @coreyalonso ) at Kresge

[racheljjones]

book blog 7 - the dirty laundry

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest opened my eyes to a puzzling but true phenomenon: how do people accept those who are different? Simple answer - they don’t. We force people with differences to conform to what the majority believes is acceptable. But what happens if there is resistance to that conformity? Take Randle P McMurphy, for instance.

McMurphy is a loud, brass, fiery redhead who is put in the psychiatric ward for rape. The moment he steps foot inside the ward, he has flipped it upside-down, From stirring up the Big Nurse, to organizing a fishing trip for the men in the ward, to even sneaking in prostitutes, McMurphy has never thought twice about pushing limits. The interesting thing, however, is not what McMurphy will do, but more so how he is treated once he begins pushing limitations of the ward. McMurphy is put through so many electroshock therapy sessions that it almost gets uncomfortable for the reader to sit and read through them. Why? Because the ward is trying to literally change McMurphy’s brainwaves in order to make him be more “normal” - not so brass and bold. When that doesn’t work and he “acts out” further, he is basically turned into a vegetable, as he is issued a lobotomy. That is so messed up! Kesey is using McMurphy in this instance as a metaphor for society to prove that people who are different than others in the way that they act are either forced to conform or is eliminated all together. 

[madeleine0bahorski-blog]

This book is so dumb

So there’s this guy and this girl in my book... and they communicate via radio as a French girl and a German boy in 1944. The girl is blind and the boy is a genius with radios. Even this little blurb seems ridiculously romantic!! They story is a tragedy as many of the characters suffer extreme pain and loose loved ones, as is expected in a wartime novel, but the connections these two kids have through the war that bring them together are so far fetched and unrealistic it takes away from the severity of the book. Because this is realistic fiction that story’s beautiful but ridiculous details make it so the true themes about wartime are hard to uncover, and even then take seriously. Especially after haven read Slaughterhouse V where the fiction was an obvious device and extreme metaphor, this seems just silly at times.

With this said, the creative beauty in the story telling is still very emotional and nicely crafted, it just distorts the themes and realities of wartime (compared to other wartime books I’ve read). 

[jstearns-blog]

The book starts off very confusing. On purpose for sure. This is one of those books where you learn about everything going on over time. No background is given at the beginning, which is kind of wonderful. This reminds me a lot of the new Sci Fi series I am watching on Netflix, Lost in Space. The main Character so far is named Private Mandella. We only know the last name and his rank. It is explained that Mandella is training to go off to war. The training session we jump in is the “How to kill a someone silently in eight different ways”. Everyone in the room is bored as expected, since the reality of the situation makes the video pointless. As we read on it is explained that these soldiers are no ordinary soldiers. That they are actually super soldiers of sorts. Not that they are any different from other humans, it is that they are naturally smarter, faster, stronger, etc. The best of the best taken for service.

[graciew18]

A Prayer for Owen Meany #3

The big event that really brings the characters of Johnny and Owen together is the death of Johnny’s mother, who was killed when Owen hit a foul ball in baseball that struck her in the head. Both boys were very close to her. Her death shocked them both. Both had to grieve and adjust to life without her. At the beginning you don’t hear much about her death. Johnny tells us how she died and that’s about it at first. As you get a little farther into the book you find out about the time after her passing, when both boys were grieving. You hear about Johnny and how he doesn’t know how to feel about the passing of his mother, let alone that his best friend was technically the cause of her death. Johnny also tells us how he knows Owen feels extremely guilty. You also hear a lot about the baseball that killed her. The sheriff even calls it the “murder weapon”. It went missing after she was struck. The sheriff is always looking for it throughtout the book. Johnny is almost positive that Owen took it. He has a collection of things in his room that he keeps nice and orderly. Johnny is certain that that ball has to be there sitting on his shelf. As of right now, Johnny’s mom’s death is not talked about a lot in the book. I believe this is intentional since Johnny is our narrator and doesn’t want to open up about his mother’s death. It’s too hard for him to share about it and go in depth, at least in the beginning. I’m also really surprised how quick Johnny was to let Owen back in his life. If something like that were to happen to me, I would not want to see that person for a while because the sight of them would remind me of what happened. Johnny takes some time but he lets Owen back in as if nothing much has happened. It’s interesting the way that Johnny grieves.

[lauren-andrus13-blog]

P&P

Mr.Collins, which is by the way, Elizabeth’s cousin, had asked for her hand in marriage, and even after she had very politely declined his offer, he had chose to ignore it as if she had not said anything at all. He then proceeded to try and sweet talk her and compliment her on her rejection but said he knew that she really meant yes. After many attempts her statement was finally clear, and even then her mother told Elizabeth that she was dumb for rejecting his hand, because even though she didn’t like Mr.Collins she told Elizabeth she would probably not be asked again for her hand. Also Elizabeth goes to another ball and Mr.Darcy had asked for a dance, which she accepted. I was really confused as to why she accepted his proposal to dance since she was told by Mr.Wickham about how terrible Mr.Darcy had treated him, but then she went against her own judgement and ended up dancing anyways so she wouldn’t be perceived as rude and unmanageable. It really bothers me how the men in this book can get away with so much but the women are supposed to be forgiving and just accept what they are. I am getting the impression that Elizabeth isn’t a lot like the other women in this book and is somewhat against all the gender prejudice and all I can’t wait to see what Jane Austen does with her character.

[emilyplumer-blog]

Winter-Part 2

I loved this section of the book. It really pulled me into the story, and made me invested in the book. This part had 2 chapter, which both had different stories and new characters introduced. Which was an interesting writing style. I think Morrison’s way of writing is to write different stories that the characters experience that all together show the themes of the book and the girls’ lives.

The stories in this section intoroduced characters with light skin. They aren’t white nor black, so we get to see where they fit into the girls’ stories. According to Chlaudia the mixed girls are also pretty, maybe not as pretty as the white girls, but they aren’t ugly like she thinks she is. It seems that their is a parallel that says the lighter you are the more beauty you possess.

The first chapter in this section a new girl comes into town, and she is light skinned and beautiful. She is also very wealthy compared to Chlaudia and the other girls. Her character shines light onto the idea that skin color also affects the social class/ money. She is so mean to the girls, and I want to go in the story and yell at her. She makes fun of what the girls have expierenced, yet they have no choice! It’s not their choice to see their father naked!

The other chapter in this section is about a light skinned family. They do not see themselves nor want to be associated with the “black ugliness” they see in this world. The mother of this family refuses to let her son talk to black kids and as a result he is rude and bullies Pecola. He says “A little girl who is very black comes. She was ugly” (88).

The society puts so much negative attitudes towards black people that no one wants to be that race. Even people that have black in them and should be proud of it, avoid it.

[stresschargo]

Curious Incident (Chunk 1)

Chapters 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67.

The first thing to point out about the book is that Christopher has decided to mark his chapters by prime numbers because he likes prime numbers.

Within the first chunk Christopher includes drawings and diagrams as visual aids to help his readers. The book is written from a first person narrative, like a journal, so all of the book takes place inside of Christopher's head.

To greatly summarize, Christopher found a dead dog (Wellington) in his neighbor (Mrs Shears) lawn. A policeman touched him so he hit him because he does not like strangers or being touched. His father has to pick him up from the station and tells him to not do any detecting. Christopher finds a loophole and continues to detect. PAUSE! I won’t summarize more because this book is amazing and you all should read it to get the whole story and figure out the mystery of “Who Killed Wellington?”.

Christopher often laments about how he does not understand people and their reactions. He does not understand why people think he is sad about his mother being dead. He explains his surroundings in explicable detail because he notices and remembers everything. He explains the rules he has for himself and how he likes to be logical. He doesn’t believe in the supernatural because it isn’t logical at all so when anyone mentions anything, he questions it relentlessly. Christopher hates jokes and metaphors because they are just lies and he does not tell lies.

The book is a lot like the play. Simon Stephens and Mark Haddon worked close together to create the play adaptation. As I have seen the show, putting visuals to Christopher's thoughts is VERY helpful and makes the book more magical than just a book would be. comparison between the two is very easy as some lines are exactly the same. Eventually I will drop a link to the pdf of both the book and the script for the play... you’re welcome.

[lil-hinman-blog]

Water for Elephants

I need to figure out exactly what it is that made me enjoy this book so much. Is it that it enlightens you on somewhat a different world? It has a good mix of struggle, pain, love, and acceptance. It makes you root for Jacob and feel for him and get upset and worried for him as well. Sometimes I would even get mad at him for making a stupid decision. Maybe it is that these characters are relatable, none of them are perfect, they all have flaws which makes them relatable. The writing feels like he’s talking to you personally, I think this book might be so good because of how you can relate and feel for everyone because none of them are perfect.