Everything Must Come to an End

Teaching through a different genre.  Young Adult literature is not the genre of literature being taught in classrooms today.  Why?  Looking at reading lists for New York state schools you will see the same books that our parents and grandparents read in high school.  On some of these sites the lists have not even been updated in the past ten years.  I think that this is a problem in our schools today.  If we want our kids to be prepared for jobs in the real world and college why are we not making their experiences with literature more enjoyable?  On the website for the American Library Association there is a page that highlights the top books that teens choose to read every year.  Not one of their picks was on any of the lists that I looked at for required reading in New York.  If these are the texts that young adults are connecting to and relating to their own life it should be important to incorporate them in the classroom.  It makes sense to use texts that mirror teens lives in powerful ways to help foster their critical literacy.  I think that a lot of these books can help teens figure out where they belong and maybe even deal with some of the overwhelming issues that plague our schools.  Every book that I read in high school I have never picked up again.  I did not learn how to read a text critically until I was in college.  There is a huge gap between literature and teens and as a future teacher it is important for me to find a way to bridge that gap.  The reality of the situation is that our country has about 35% of our 12th graders graduating with the level of reading skills they should have. 

So I am only one person and this is a gigantic issue. I am going to focus on one novel that is being taught in schools and one novel that is on the top picks teen list and link them together through critical literacy.  If I can make a sound argument that one of these young adult books could produce the same if not better outcome for students literacy skills and be approaite to teach students how to read critically I will start to make progress in changing the way we look at what is good literature for students to read.  There is no reason why teachers need to make students feel inadaquate for their choices in reading.  Picking the novels is going to be the hard part.  I know that I do not want to come across as if I am bashing all of the literature that has been taught in schools for this long because I think that there our still a lot of relevant texts that are important for students to learn, but there is no reason why integration of new material is not possible.  I do not want my students falling asleep in my class because it is painful for them to even look at the text.  I want reading to be a pleasurable experience.

2 comments April 10, 2009 kclovinlife

Psychological Narration

I wanted to take this opportunity to get some ideas out about the direction that my final presentation could go in.  After reading over my comments from the exploratory draft I know that I definitely want to focus on relationships in the novel.  I mentioned psychological narration in reference to Flaubert’s novel and I think that this may be something that I can really dig into.  I do not want to focus on Madame Bovary imparticular, but maybe tying that novel in.  I am thinking about how the novel has to get inside of the readers brain.  In order for a reader to get into the novel the narrator or author has to get into our psyche hence psychological narration.  As a reader I personally view the novel as a way to make meaning of realities in my own life.  Granted this is not always the case because I do like to use the novel to escape also, but let me stay on tract here.  If I could refer to Webster and his definition of psychology it is:   “ 2b: the study of mind and behavior in relation to a particular field of knowledge or activity”  So I am interested in the particular relationship that the readers mind has with the novel.  

Ok so now where do I go?  If the reader can have a relationship with the novel the relationship has to go both ways right?  The power that the novel can have over your psyche.  The fact that it can change the way you feel and view things.  The author has to suck his/her reader in somehow and this can be done through form, characters, or plot.  In any case the reader has to be willing to let that author in.  As a reader if I am not open to understanding where the author is coming from or what the POINT is than why would I waist my time.

I have just started to think about this and am not really sure where I would make my argument with this topic so if anybody has any ideas hit me up!!!

One little side note about The Keep; I think that Egan is testing the mind with this novel.  I think that her use of imagination within the novel gives the reader something to connect to.  I enjoy the form of the novel and do not feel as though it is “dumbed down”.  I mean when are we going to get over ourselves it is a new century and new generation we better start letting go of some of the “old” and getting into the “new”.    

Add comment April 3, 2009 kclovinlife

Native Speaker Post 3

So once again I feel as though there is way to much to discuss in this book let alone from 130-276.  The first thing that I feel is important to mention is the fact that Henry seems to be breaking his walls down.  On page 160 and 161 we begin to see Henry for who he is.  He begins to let us into his life in a different way than previous pages.  It is like he is just recalling for himself some things that make him up to be human.  I think that Lelia has a lot to do with Henry becoming more intuitive. 

At the bottom of 171 when Henry is around Jack we see the silent unmoved man and he talks to us again “I celebrate every order of silence born of the tongue and the heart and the mind.  I am a linguist of the field.  You, too, may know the troubling expert power.  It finds hard expression in the faces of those who would love you most.  Look there now.  All you see will someday fade away.  To what chill of you remains.”  I got the chills after reading this.  I felt like he was siting next to me talking to me.  It is so crazy how words on a page can do that. 

John Kwang- a political figure in his own right, but not running for any high office yet.  He seems to be a genuine character in the novel.  I like him.  I also feel for him.  I felt like this section of the novel when we get a lot about Kwang and company it parallels the election of our president in some ways p 194.  I think that Kwang knows just how much he can make a difference, but also what the repercussions could be from his actions.  Like the bombing.  Which I think that Jack or Hoagland had something to do with.  I also think that in the scene with Henry and Kwang we begin to see Henry more.  He seems as though he is coming undone.  Page 197 Henry says”But John Kwang was affecting me.”  So Henry is becoming undone. 

The first time that we see Henry show any emotion towards the death of his child is on page 249.  Lelia makes the little house out of rocks and twigs and leafs.  Something that her and Mitt probably would do together.  Henry does not do or say anything and stays away from it so he does not cause it to fall and when it is taken outside one day by Lelia and put meticulously back together Henry throws it and starts screaming at the top of his lungs for his son.  So he is capable of showing emotion.

I hope that we get to spend an extra day on this novel.  There is so much to unpack.

3 comments March 24, 2009 kclovinlife

Native Speaker Post 2

Native speaker is definitely my favorite novel so far.  What Chang-Rae Lee has done with this novel is not only a important piece of literature, but a beautiful piece of art.  (Virgina Woolf move over!!)  In class we focused on some main topics in the novel and there is so much to say about this novel that I wish we had more time. 

One of the things that came up in class was Henry’s ability to look at himself from the outside.  The wall that he holds up between himself and the other characters in the book and his reader.  One of the quotes that we discussed was on page 92 and it was the scene with Henry standing on the street in place of John the politician.  After rereading the part that we quoted in class and continuing on down the page I really began to see Henry’s ability to look at himself from the outside when he puts himself in the place of the onlookers and after describing his personal features; he says …”So he looks friendly, he looks like he’d be willing to talk to you, but really because of the way his gaze circles about you, gets at your outline instead of your live center, you think he’s really stepping back as he approaches, stepping back inside and back away from you so nothing can get around or behind him”.  Lee’s use of language is so powerful.  The way in which he uses words touches me, it makes me want to get inside of the novel or his head.  In this quote I can see just how closed off Henry is. 

Another part in the book that we discussed in class was the fight between Ahjuhma and Lelia. On page 72 one quote that we did not read was Henry’s thoughts on Lelia’s emotional crying fits and he says:”What I should have feared was the damage unseen, what she would’nt end up crying over or even speak about in our last good year”.  This quote gives the reader insight as to what is to come between these two.  I personally connect with a lot of what this novel has to bring.  If you have ever been in a serious relationship this quote makes so much sense because it is when the crying stops that you need to worry about where your relationship is headed. 

Lee like Flaubert uses form to his advantage.  Unlike Flaubert he uses it to give the reader bits and pieces of characters and stories in between the plot.  His ability to give the reader just enough before moving to something different and keeping the readers attention throughout the novel. 

I know that this novel is definitely political in every way; dealing with aspects of race, culture, identity, religion, death, and gender.  I think that we are definitely going to get a strong message from this author by the end of this novel.

1 comment March 20, 2009 kclovinlife

Native Speaker Post 1

In beginning this book I have been trying to look at more than the surface stuff.  While reading back over my blog posts and beginning the exploratory draft I realized that I read to get the main points and sometimes to just get through the novel.  So here we go again hopefully moving away from the old way….  

We have Henry who is the main character and the narrator.  He is married but I am not sure if they are still together or not.  Lelia hands him a list of who he was before getting on a plane to go away on an excursion.  Henry is a spy of some sort and I am a little confused about this.  I know that there is not enough information given out yet for the reader to really figure it all out.  The questions that I have now are:  What happened to their son?  Is it Henry’s job that has gotten in the way of their marriage?  To many characters when novel gets into people at his job or involved with his job.  The list that Leila gives him?  I mean what is it all about? 

She has obviously been constructing this list for a while because Henry finds a random piece of it under the bed.  Amoung the things on the list she writes traitor and spy at the end.  This is pretty harsh and has me thinking about Henry and if he is a traitor and spy.  I feel like it is to early in the novel to really have to much to say about it.  there was one quote at the end of the reading that stuck out to me:

“This is how we were meant for each other.  How we make our living.  The lives of frustrated poets and impostors.  This, too, how the love works and then doesn’t:  a mutual spectacle of the imagination.” (45)

1 comment March 16, 2009 kclovinlife

Myra Now Myron!!!

Where do I start??  I got through all but 20 pages up till last night and I could not believe what happened.  The end of the book ruined it for me.  All powerful Myra destroyed Rusty’s manhood.  When I began reading chapter 29 I was thinking ahead as to what could possibly happen and rape came to my mind, but I did not think that it would really happen.  I am almost never right in my predictions so when I got to the point of Myra putting Rusty on his knees and taking his will away from him I wanted to cry for Rusty.  What a sick human being.  Thinking about the fact that as Myron was victimized so many times by men and probably raped too, I can understand Myra’s need to destroy Rusty.  In the end what did she really destroy? 

She wanted the power and got it.  “The sense of power was overwhelming….I felt like I could do anything” (ch. 29)  After her conquer with Rusty she is beginning to think of herself as a God.  “Having raped his manhood, I shall now seduce his girl.  Beyond that, ambition stops and godhood begins” (ch. 31).  Myra is completely off her rocker.  I can not stand her by this point in the book.  Rusty and Mary Ann break up and Rusty is now taking out his pain on Letitia.  What a weirdo she is.  Everybody has their own kinks that they enjoy behind closed doors, but she is off the scale. 

Up untill the last chapter Myra is constantly gravaling with male and female roles and relations and who has the power.  I could go on with pages where this is evident, but I need to get to the end of this book.

The End…..What the FUCK!!!  I can not believe that Vidal ended this book like this.  Are you serious that Myra now Myron is living happily ever after with his love Mary Ann and he comes upon this notebook and “…can hardly believe that I was ever the person who wrote those demented pages” (ch 42).   People do not just change from one extreme to the next with out some life long therapy and even then I can not see how Myra is the same person who wrote the last chapter.  It was like a dream you get through all of the unbelievable stuff and then in pops your real voice and none of the craziness ever happened it was just a dream.   

This book was crazy.  I can’t even say what I feel about it at this point.  There is so much that needs to be discussed.

1 comment March 2, 2009 kclovinlife

Myra Breckinridge 2

Myra who???  All I can say is Holy Mother of God!!!  “Is it possible to describe anything accurately?” (First line in Ch. 25)  That is exactly what I feel like right now.  There is so much going on in this novel.  Gender issues, power struggles, race relations, sexual struggles, and who knows what else.  I am having trouble writing something right now.  We had such a constructive discussion yesterday I am still wrapping my head around the whole thing.  Back to the beginning of chapter 25 as Myra sits in her room at the card table wearing one of Myron’s old dressing gowns she says “I could fill many pages of yes-no and still not bring the reader to any deep knowledge of what it is I feel at 7:10 p.m., March 12.”  So now we are suppose to be figuring out how she feels?  I guess I as a reader could never understand how she truly felt unless I was in her shoes.  My question is, does she want us to know how she feels?  I think that we do get little split thoughts here and there about what she may be feeling.  Like after taking it from one of the four skins how she wanted to cut his peewee off and wanted to get revenge, but did she really tell us how she felt? 

I can’t wait to finish this book and see what happens to Myra.  I hope that she does give us the readers some insight as to how she really feels.  I think that this novel has been the most effective in helping me to see underneath the text and look deeper into the novel.

Add comment February 27, 2009 kclovinlife

Myra Breckinridge 1

Myra Breckinridge is interesting to say the least.  Beginning with her journal that her “analyst, friend and dentist” told her to write in for therapy she gives us right off the bat the idea that this book is going to be a “literary masterpiece” (2).  The next page chapter 3 she tells us how she is going to “cease all together to be human and become legend like Jesus, Buddha, Cybele” (5).  This girl is something, with her large breasts and nothing but “black mesh panties”.  I feel like as a reader she wants us to not have any doubt that she is a beautiful voluptuous woman. 

As for characters in the book she tells us that she is the widow of Myron Breckinridge the nephew of Buck a disgusting old fat guy who obviously wants to sleep with her.  Buck and Myra both have agendas in what they hope to get from one another. 

The form of the novel is self explanatory from the view point of Myra.  When we get that one chapter from Buck the form is confusing.  There is no periods and the words just run right into one another.  Not to mention that he is a disgusting old man just as Myra warned. 

So far I can see that like the first two novels we read once again we have a woman who is confused in some way in her life.  I am interested in seeing where the novel goes with Myra.

Add comment February 23, 2009 kclovinlife

Wrapping Up To the Lighthouse

Question #5:   How does the article help to answer the questions from question # 1?

One of our questions was why Lily and why the painting?  I think that the article gave more insight to Woolf’s creative process and her own struggles as a writer.  Even more so the article showed how much Woolf is an artist in her own right.  In the end Lily completes her painting and Woolf is able to complete her novel.  Another question I had was about the form of the novel and why so many references to colors and shapes?  Again I feel that the article shows Woolf as an artist and connects her writing to other forms of art including painting and music. 

Question #6:  What does it help us do as readers/literary critics?

Overall for me it gave me a new perspective to look at the novel with.  It helped me in looking deeper into the novel and using the quotes that Stewart took from the novel to see some of the beautiful imagery and use of colors in the novel.  It also helps to just see where someone else is coming from and what they get from reading the same text that you did.  In this case I think that Stewart definitely got more out of To the Lighthouse, but it was beneficial for me to look at an outside source. 

I think that this was a productive activity and thought provoking.  I hope we do it again with another novel.

Add comment February 20, 2009 kclovinlife

To the Lighthouse and Art

A “Need of Distance and Blue”: Space, Color, and Creativity in To the Lighthouse

Full citation

Stewart, Jack. “A ‘Need of Distance and Blue’: Space, Color, and Creativity in To the Lighthouse.” Twentieth Century Literature: A Scholarly and Critical Journal 46 (2000): 78-99. Academic Search Premier. Neil Hellman, Albany. 12 Feb. 2009 <http://www.jstor.org/stable/441934>.

“She wanted to make the novel more like a work of art, while catching the movement of life itself” (79).

In this article Stewart focuses on relating “…Woolf’s poetics of space to the psychodynamics of creativity.”(80)  His approach is “pluralistic, borrowing from formalism, feminism, aesthetics, psychoanalysis, and phenomenology.  These critical perspectives supplement each other and enable me to draw fuller analogies between fiction, painting, and music…I focus chiefly on textural and structural, spatial and formal elements in Woolf’s style.” (80)  Stewart uses the text from To the Lighthouse along with other critics to make his argument of Woolf using Lily Briscole and her painting to convey her issues with writing and being a novelist.  He also focuses on the color blue and distance in the novel. 

The color blue is used in the novel to convey different meanings and express feelings.  “In To the Lighthouse,‘first, the pulse of color flooded the bay with blue, and the heart expanded with it and the body swam’ (36).  Optically, blue opens a space for perception and meditation; as a substantive, the word blue conveys a substance (atmosphere or pigment) as well as inviting an imaginative response” (81).  Stewart gos on to talk about how Lily feels an “instinctive need of distance and blue” (Woolf 279) “as she struggles to give plastic form to memories and sensations” (81). 

Stewart talks about Mr. Ramsay “alphabet” working vertically in his brain and Lily contrasts him with her horizontal “scattered (polyphonic) type of attention that Lily practices in front of her easel” (83).  “Splicing voyage and painting together in a structural rhythm that implies their interaction, Woolf links points in space by an invisible line stretching elastically from immediate foreground to distant background.  The two movements intersect rhythmically until they converge at the moment the boat arrives at the lighthouse and Lily draws her final line” (83).  Stewart also talks about how “distance conveys perspective, proportion, outline, desire, and direction; it is also a symbol of being” (83). 

Stewart continues to express the meanings of “distance and blue throughout the article.  he says “Lily’s visual thinking and her more conscious reflections about the effects of distance are steeped in the blue aura that is the medium of spiritual vision” (93).

This article was not easy for me to understand so it would be hard to just right a few points about questions I had.  The author uses his own perspective to along with others to show how To the Lighthouse is a book that can be closely related to art through the aspects of distance, blue, and space.  I think that it will bring some interesting things to discuss in class, just going back to the quotes he uses from the book and examining them along with Stewart.

Add comment February 16, 2009 kclovinlife