Edgar Allan Poe

I never read graphic novels, it’s just not my thing but Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories have surprisingly held my interest. They don’t keep me interested because I like the stories, the keep me interested because while I’m reading them I’m saying to myself “what the…?”. His stories are really messed up and creepy. A lot of people in class have already read most of the stories and say they don’t like the illustrations because they aren’t how they pictured the stories when they first read them, but I never read any of his stories and I actually really like the illustrations. The illustrations actually help me understand what Edgar Allan Poe is actually talking about, yes some of them are kind of confusing but it’s better than nothing, I think. The Tell-Tale heart is probably my favorite story we’ve read so far because it was the easiest to understand what was going on, and it was really creepy… specially when the girl started to go crazy and was laughing like a psycho. I didn’t really like The Fall of The House of Usher, I didn’t really have any idea what was going on and I got confused as to who was who from the illustrations. I liked the Raven because it was written like a poem unlike the other short stories we’ve read. The Raven flowed well and it was cool to hear it read out loud too. I really didn’t like The Pit and the Pendulum it was just weird and disturbing. I didn’t like the illustrations for this one at all, and I just didn’t like the story as a whole. Overall, the stories are interesting… but not something I would want to read voluntarily. Edgar Allan Poe seems like a messed up guy, his stories kind of freak me out. It makes me wonder what’s going on in his head all of them time and what provokes him to write in such a dark way.

Final Thoughts on The Road

I know a lot of the class didn’t like the ending to The Road but really liked it, it made me feel happy. I wish we could’ve seen a little bit more of the boy with the new family he joined up with or I wish that we could’ve seen the boy on his own for a few more days rather than joining a group so quickly. I wonder if the boy in the family that the boy joined up with was the original kid he saw on the side of the road and that the family has been close by ever since then, or following them. Whenever it was that the family saw the man and the kid, they probably noticed that the man was having a really hard time and maybe they wanted to stay close just in case the man died so then they could watch over the boy. I don’t really understand why the man and the boy were so determined to travel all the way to the coast, because when they got there it wasn’t any different from what they were already living it besides there being an ocean. I thought they were going to get to the coast and there were going to be a bunch of good people or something, but there was nothing but boats. I agree that it’s not fair for the boy to say that they don’t help anyone because the man is constantly helping the boy. The man’s only reason for living was the boy, so he had to keep focused on keeping the boy alive and training him how to survive on his own, especially because he knew that he was going to die soon. But overall, I really liked this book. I’m going to definitely see the movie over break. I hope everyone has a great thanksgiving break! J

The Road

I love this book! I started reading it and I was really confused because I had no idea what was going on but then I realized that was the point, and I slowly started catching on… I was hooked. I think The Road is really deep and I love a lot of the quotes in it. “You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget”, I underlined this quote in my book because I liked it, and it’s just really true to a lot of things in life. In the book, the boy is seeing so many things that young kids don’t need to see and as much as he doesn’t want to remember them… he will. When the man is having flashbacks he’s remembering the bad things about his former life with his wife and such, we see only a glimpse of the good memories when they hold hands in the movie theaters. Another quote that I liked was “The last instance of a thing takes the class with it. Turns out the light and is gone. Look around you. Ever is a long time. But the boy knew what he knew. That Ever is no time at all.” I think it’s sad that the boy has to go through a life like this, that he says he doesn’t care if he dies and he doesn’t even know how long he’ll live his life. I think McCarthy does a really good job at building the suspense in the book, you never know what’s going to pop out of the woods or what’s going to be in the random towns they come across. If it’s not suspenseful then it’s very descriptive and detailed which normally I get really bored with in books but for some reason I really like reading all the details of this book.

Extra Credit Blog

Contemporary literature is much different than literature was years ago. When I pick up a book that has been written in the last 10 years I expect it to be modernized. I expect the themes to be a lot like the world is now, with TV, iPods, cars, drugs, sex, etc. like when we read the Perks of Being a Wallflower, that is a lot of what I expect from most books now a days. I read a lot of books that were about the olden days, and war, and farms. I feel like a lot of books use to be about those topics. I also read books that had no references about drugs or sex or relationships within teens, if I read a book about a teenager the most it would say it that they “liked” or had a “crush” on someone, this also could be because I was younger although I did read pretty advanced books when I was younger. Now the books are about issues we have, maybe people are less afraid to write about them topics because now they won’t get criticized for it like the might have back then. There are lots of books about teens drinking and doing drugs, or having sex and relationship problems, there are books about gays now which I think it’s a pretty hot topic now. Those are the topics I usually expect to read about when I pick up a book that has been written in the last 10 years. I find them interesting also, maybe because I never really read about them before when there weren’t as many books being published about those topics. I also think it’s good to have those kinds of books if the author ends it with a good lesson and isn’t promoting drugs to younger kids or teens.

Still Life

feI’m excited to find out how Still Life ends, I still can’t make any guesses to who I think was the murderer of Jane. When Mathew 10:36 was quoted – “A man’s enemies will be the members of his own house hold”, I couldn’t decide if it meant just family problems and such or if it really meant that the killer was in Jane’s own house or town. Maybe it’s referring to both. It could be anybody, evil is present they just don’t know it yet, and they don’t know if it’s a stranger or someone close to them… but they’re slowing discovering that Jane’s death was most definitely not an accident. “Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our table”, I thought this quote was really creepy but it links with the Mathew 10:36 quote really well. It could either mean just in general with family problems or about the killer as well. The whole Mathew 10:36 quote also definitely goes with the reoccurring snakes throughout the book. The snakes are evil serpents, like the devil was in the story of Adam and Eve. I think the whole snake thing is really creepy, whenever I read about them I start getting the chills… I really hate snakes. I agree that this book has a very strong theme of awareness of evil, like we talked about in class. I really like how all of the characters have developed, they are all very different and unique. I also wonder how art will play out in the plot of the story, there is a lot about art and even on the book cover they make a reference to painting. Anyways, I’m eager to finish the book and figure out this whole mystery!

The Treatment of Bibi Haldar

I’m surprised how much I’m actually enjoying the short stories in Interpreter of Maladies, I think it’s interesting learning about a whole other culture. The short story that interested me the most was The Treatment of Bibi Haldar. I thought it was really strange that Mr. Hadlar would never let anyone take her to the hospital to get her the medical help that she needed for her seizures, maybe then they doctors would have been able to give her a proper diagnosis and the right treatment. Because like someone said in class, we don’t know if her seizures are from epilepsy or if it’s something more than that. It was also weird that he wouldn’t even really support or let her try to find a husband, despite what he thought of her I think he still should have given her a chance to change and try to find a man and be happy, marriage is a big deal in the Indian culture. What I think all Bibi needed to be better is love… she was forced to sleep in a storage room and her cousins’ wife didn’t want her to be anywhere near her because she thought Bibi would somehow infect the baby. Of course Bibi had problems she probably felt awful about the way her own family thought of her. I’m really curious as to how Bibi got pregnant… I almost think it was Hadlar because he just randomly packed up his stuff and left with his family, and he left Bibi money. I also think Bibi didn’t tell anyone who it was who got her pregnant because she didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, because she wanted the baby and she wanted someone to love and have someone love her back. I don’t think she really cared that she got “raped” because she did want the physical attention from a man and she wanted love, but since she couldn’t have love from a man… she got a baby and of course the baby is going to love her no matter what because she’s his mom.

Round Ireland with a Fridge

At first I didn’t really like Round Ireland with a Fridge, I thought it was kind of boring and it was hard for me to get into. But once we got further into the book I started to understand Tony Hawks’ humor a little more and I was actually able to enjoy his stories. At first it did seem like he was rambling on about random things but now his stories are more funny and entertaining. I thought it was so funny when he said he planned to marry the princess of Tory and even brought her flowers, and then again with Roisin. It’s kind of sad that she hasn’t called him yet though, she didn’t seem all that interested in Tony though, I mean going to a club with another guy... I don’t think she really even wanted Tony to go, he kind of just assumed maybe. I think it’s weird that he takes the fridge surfing and gets it baptized… I guess it’s funny. Reading this book has really made me want to go travel around Ireland. I’ve always wanted to go to Ireland because I’m 50% Irish, but since we’ve been reading this book I’ve been looking up places in Ireland that he’s mentioned and I’m really eager to visit Ireland now. I think it would be so fun to go to a pub and experience how much fun all the Irish people have when they’re singing and dancing. Plus the way our teacher talks about Ireland so enthusiastically, she seems to really love it and that makes me even more curious and excited. I think my favorite chapter was when Tony had to sleep in the hostel with the mean Asian man and the man that snored really loud, I like how he gave a time line of his night, it was really funny.