I was not a fan of this book. I understand that it is social satire and therefore supposed to be thought provoking, but the author could have done it in a different way. Anderson's use of slang and technical terms in this novel made it very hard to get into the narrator's head and really understand what he's talking about.
Once I got toward the ending of Feed, I actually appreciated the characters and their dependence on technology and why Violet is so against it. However, I think it was difficult to start the novel because of the language used. While it is written in English, I felt like I had to learn a whole new language to understand the characters. If teenagers now sounded like how the teenagers in the book sound I would be disappointed. I would tell them to pay attention in school, read a book, do something other than look at a computer screen all day. Which is the point Anderson was trying to get across, I think. That if we keep relying on technology to do all the thinking for us, how are we going to know how to think for ourselves?
Anderson takes a different spin, one almost a step further, than earlier dystopian writers like George Orwell and Aldous Huxley. However, I think that their novels are considered science fiction classics and Anderson's is not is because of the language. The slang might be relatable for teens, but Feed won't be put on any "classics you must read before you die" list any time soon because older generations (like me) have a hard time getting into the mindset of a character who is constantly cursing and unable to hold a real conversation that isn't over text messages.
Monday, November 10, 2014
Monday, October 27, 2014
Harriet the Spy
I loved this book! And like many of the ones we have read for class, I wonder why I never read it as a child. I did read a lot of Judy Blume and Beverly Cleary books when I was younger, and Harriet the Spy had the same tone and type of characters as those books. Harriet is a quiet child who loves to write anything and everything because she hopes one day to become a spy/writer and they need to know everything. I think much of Harriet's, and her friends', personalities are because of the environment they were raised in.
Harriet the Spy takes place in New York in the 1960's (I assume because that's when it was written). Harriet is an 11 year old girl who lives with her parents, a nanny, and a cook. Her parents aren't around very much because they are always off doing something or going to parties. Therefore, Old Golly, the nanny, becomes both a mother and a father figure for Harriet. In my opinion, since Harriet was raised without much parenting, she became introverted and infinitely curious about what is going on around her. Which is why, later in the book when Harriet gets her notebook taken away because she wasn't paying attention in class, she has a hard time concentrating on school work because she isn't allowed to creatively express herself.
Sport, one of Harriet's best friends, is a different case. He also grew up without much parenting; his father is a writer and spends all his time doing that and his mother is out of the picture. Sport has to shoulder all the responsibility in his house, from cooking dinner to accounting. This makes him a serious person and one who, when given the opportunity to have fun, takes full advantage of it and thinks that Harriet's spying is too much brain work for him when he would rather be playing football. Even at the end of the novel when Sport's dad gets something published, Sport is not happy because he knows that he has to find a way to make that check last them as long as he can.
There are a lot of issues in this book that could be addressed and home environments is just one. However, I think it is an important one because it shapes our main characters into something more than just a typical kid living in 1960's New York.
Harriet the Spy takes place in New York in the 1960's (I assume because that's when it was written). Harriet is an 11 year old girl who lives with her parents, a nanny, and a cook. Her parents aren't around very much because they are always off doing something or going to parties. Therefore, Old Golly, the nanny, becomes both a mother and a father figure for Harriet. In my opinion, since Harriet was raised without much parenting, she became introverted and infinitely curious about what is going on around her. Which is why, later in the book when Harriet gets her notebook taken away because she wasn't paying attention in class, she has a hard time concentrating on school work because she isn't allowed to creatively express herself.
Sport, one of Harriet's best friends, is a different case. He also grew up without much parenting; his father is a writer and spends all his time doing that and his mother is out of the picture. Sport has to shoulder all the responsibility in his house, from cooking dinner to accounting. This makes him a serious person and one who, when given the opportunity to have fun, takes full advantage of it and thinks that Harriet's spying is too much brain work for him when he would rather be playing football. Even at the end of the novel when Sport's dad gets something published, Sport is not happy because he knows that he has to find a way to make that check last them as long as he can.
There are a lot of issues in this book that could be addressed and home environments is just one. However, I think it is an important one because it shapes our main characters into something more than just a typical kid living in 1960's New York.
Monday, October 13, 2014
The Birchbark House
Before coming to this class, I had never even heard of The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich. And now, even though I am not finished with it yet, I regret never hearing of it when I was younger. It was published in 2000 so I would have been just starting school when it came out, but I suppose since it never won a Newbery award or anything like that my school didn't think it was important to read in classes.
This book was written about the same time period as Little House on the Prairie, but from the opposite perspective. To me, they literally seemed like the exact same story: told from a little girl's point of view, and a tale of how their family survives in the harsh conditions the novel takes place in. In Little House, Laura is the main character who has two sisters, one older and one younger, and their family moves west as settlers. In Birchbark House, Omakaya is the main character who has siblings, an older sister and two younger brothers, and their family is forced to move west as well because of the settlers. Both novels have similar plot elements as well. One that really stood out to me was the fact that in both of theses novels, the family gets sick with a deadly illness and live to tell the tale (well mostly); the Ingalls family with Malaria and Omakaya's family with Smallpox.
Another similarity was the way the families treat "the other". Both are fairly tolerant with the other being there as evidenced by Deydey trading furs with the white people for supplies, and Pa not letting Jack attack the Indians because it was their land first. The Birchbark House seems much less racist than Little House, but perhaps that is because there are less actual encounters with white people than the Ingalls family has with Indians.
This book was written about the same time period as Little House on the Prairie, but from the opposite perspective. To me, they literally seemed like the exact same story: told from a little girl's point of view, and a tale of how their family survives in the harsh conditions the novel takes place in. In Little House, Laura is the main character who has two sisters, one older and one younger, and their family moves west as settlers. In Birchbark House, Omakaya is the main character who has siblings, an older sister and two younger brothers, and their family is forced to move west as well because of the settlers. Both novels have similar plot elements as well. One that really stood out to me was the fact that in both of theses novels, the family gets sick with a deadly illness and live to tell the tale (well mostly); the Ingalls family with Malaria and Omakaya's family with Smallpox.
Another similarity was the way the families treat "the other". Both are fairly tolerant with the other being there as evidenced by Deydey trading furs with the white people for supplies, and Pa not letting Jack attack the Indians because it was their land first. The Birchbark House seems much less racist than Little House, but perhaps that is because there are less actual encounters with white people than the Ingalls family has with Indians.
Monday, October 6, 2014
Little House on the Prairie
Little House on the Prairie is the first book this semester that I actually remember reading when I was younger. Opening the first page gave me such a sense of nostalgia for a simpler time and a simpler style of prose I used to read all the time. However, despite it's simplistic language and plot, there are quite a few larger issues hidden in the cracks of this beloved classic.
One of these issues is the reinforcement of gender roles through the novel. While on their journey, Pa is the one who builds everything, from their wagon to their house and all their furniture, almost by himself. The one time Ma tries to help him, she sprains her ankle because a log falls on it. Laura does help him sometimes as well, but only for doing easier work like holding nails and such. The girls are never allowed to go hunting with Pa, but they do help Ma with all the cooking and tending of baby Carrie. I for one feel bad for Pa because he has to do all this manual labor by himself and he never gets to sleep because he is busy watching for wolves and such at night. It makes sense why this book is reinforcing gender roles because while it is written by a woman, it was written in the 1930's about the late 1800's when women still very much had the domestic role in the household.
Another issue I saw was the racist ideologies about Native Americans. Even in the first chapter when they are leaving Wisconsin, Pa tells Laura that she will see a papoose in the West, which is described as "a little, brown, Indian baby" (Wilder 6). The fact that this is almost an attraction in the West rubs me the wrong way. Throughout the novel the Native Americans are objectified as savage and completely different from the Ingalls family. They barely wear any clothes and the ones they do wear are animal skins like skunks, and they simply walk into people's houses and take whatever they see fit to take. The author does not explain of course that they are taking things from the settlers because the settlers took their land, but I can chalk that up to the fact that our narrator is a young girl who is only concerned with seeing a baby papoose.
All in all, I really enjoy this book despite its blatant racist and patriarchal ideologies. It's just the charming tale of a family moving out West after all.
One of these issues is the reinforcement of gender roles through the novel. While on their journey, Pa is the one who builds everything, from their wagon to their house and all their furniture, almost by himself. The one time Ma tries to help him, she sprains her ankle because a log falls on it. Laura does help him sometimes as well, but only for doing easier work like holding nails and such. The girls are never allowed to go hunting with Pa, but they do help Ma with all the cooking and tending of baby Carrie. I for one feel bad for Pa because he has to do all this manual labor by himself and he never gets to sleep because he is busy watching for wolves and such at night. It makes sense why this book is reinforcing gender roles because while it is written by a woman, it was written in the 1930's about the late 1800's when women still very much had the domestic role in the household.
Another issue I saw was the racist ideologies about Native Americans. Even in the first chapter when they are leaving Wisconsin, Pa tells Laura that she will see a papoose in the West, which is described as "a little, brown, Indian baby" (Wilder 6). The fact that this is almost an attraction in the West rubs me the wrong way. Throughout the novel the Native Americans are objectified as savage and completely different from the Ingalls family. They barely wear any clothes and the ones they do wear are animal skins like skunks, and they simply walk into people's houses and take whatever they see fit to take. The author does not explain of course that they are taking things from the settlers because the settlers took their land, but I can chalk that up to the fact that our narrator is a young girl who is only concerned with seeing a baby papoose.
All in all, I really enjoy this book despite its blatant racist and patriarchal ideologies. It's just the charming tale of a family moving out West after all.
Monday, September 29, 2014
Kim Take 2
I must say, now that I am getting more into this novel, I am enjoying it more. I think it took a while for me to get adjusted to the language differences and unknown locations that Kipling throws at us, but now that I am the book is much more pleasurable.
One of the issues we talked about in class on Thursday was racism. There are a lot of hidden (and some not so hidden) racist remarks in this text, especially since Kim is an Irish boy who looks like and was raised like an Indian. One of theses blatantly obvious remarks happens when Kim first meets Father Victor and Reverend Bennett at their camp. He walks in because the prophecy told him to go toward the Red Bull on the green field and that is the flag flying in their military camp. Well when he is first discovered roaming around this camp the soldiers take him back to their headquarters where Father Victor and Bennett were to get him sorted out. Because he is dressed, and speaks like, a low caste Indian boy, Kim is immediately accused of stealing. Once he gets out in his garbled English that he only came to the camp because of their flag, and it is revealed that he is (perhaps) the son of the famous Kimball O'Hara, the effect is instantaneous. As soon as this information is revealed, Bennett thinks that perhaps he has been too harsh on the boy.
"It is possible I have done the boy an injustice. He is certainly white, though evidently neglected. I am sure I must have bruised him." (Kipling 134)
Clearly the same boy who he could have cared less about when he thought he was Indian is suddenly the primary concern of Bennett's, all because Kim has revealed himself to actually be white. This was the example that stood out most strongly in my mind, though there are others littered through the text. I am looking forward to finishing this book and I hope the ending is as good as the middle!
One of the issues we talked about in class on Thursday was racism. There are a lot of hidden (and some not so hidden) racist remarks in this text, especially since Kim is an Irish boy who looks like and was raised like an Indian. One of theses blatantly obvious remarks happens when Kim first meets Father Victor and Reverend Bennett at their camp. He walks in because the prophecy told him to go toward the Red Bull on the green field and that is the flag flying in their military camp. Well when he is first discovered roaming around this camp the soldiers take him back to their headquarters where Father Victor and Bennett were to get him sorted out. Because he is dressed, and speaks like, a low caste Indian boy, Kim is immediately accused of stealing. Once he gets out in his garbled English that he only came to the camp because of their flag, and it is revealed that he is (perhaps) the son of the famous Kimball O'Hara, the effect is instantaneous. As soon as this information is revealed, Bennett thinks that perhaps he has been too harsh on the boy.
"It is possible I have done the boy an injustice. He is certainly white, though evidently neglected. I am sure I must have bruised him." (Kipling 134)
Clearly the same boy who he could have cared less about when he thought he was Indian is suddenly the primary concern of Bennett's, all because Kim has revealed himself to actually be white. This was the example that stood out most strongly in my mind, though there are others littered through the text. I am looking forward to finishing this book and I hope the ending is as good as the middle!
Monday, September 22, 2014
Kim
I dearly hope that the Victorian child who read this novel had an easier time with it than I did. I found the language dense and difficult to get through, as well as the novel containing so many words that are foreign to me (as a 21st century American) that reading Kim is almost more of a chore than a pleasure.
However, I love the incorporation of India into this time period's literature. Kim reminded me very much of Secret Garden where the main character Mary was raised in India for 10 years before returning to England. There are huge contrasts between these two novels though. Mary was raised upper class and she had parents, though they were not often around to care for her so she spent most of her time alone or with her nanny. Kim has lived his whole life in India and is very immersed in the culture. In other words, he knows how to get around - as evidenced by his encounters with the bull in the marketplace and his con performed on the train. In some ways, I think these two novels are representative of Victorian attitudes of the British invasion of India. Secret Garden represents the side that thought the Indians were beneath them, and that the "true home" of the British was in England, even if they had grown up in India their whole life, like Mary. Kim represents the grittier side of the coin. The character of Kim seems to embody a sense of adventure and exploration that the British felt when they first conquered India. As to Kim's attitude compared with Mary's: he is Irish. There is a whole other dichotomy between British and Irish people that is not mentioned, at least in the first part of the novel. Kim being Irish allows him to become more immersed into Indian culture because both of those cultures were seen as inferior to the British.
I am looking forward to reading the rest of this novel. If not entertaining, it is almost guaranteed to be informative about the lives of the British in India which is what I think Kipling wanted to do the whole time writing this novel.
However, I love the incorporation of India into this time period's literature. Kim reminded me very much of Secret Garden where the main character Mary was raised in India for 10 years before returning to England. There are huge contrasts between these two novels though. Mary was raised upper class and she had parents, though they were not often around to care for her so she spent most of her time alone or with her nanny. Kim has lived his whole life in India and is very immersed in the culture. In other words, he knows how to get around - as evidenced by his encounters with the bull in the marketplace and his con performed on the train. In some ways, I think these two novels are representative of Victorian attitudes of the British invasion of India. Secret Garden represents the side that thought the Indians were beneath them, and that the "true home" of the British was in England, even if they had grown up in India their whole life, like Mary. Kim represents the grittier side of the coin. The character of Kim seems to embody a sense of adventure and exploration that the British felt when they first conquered India. As to Kim's attitude compared with Mary's: he is Irish. There is a whole other dichotomy between British and Irish people that is not mentioned, at least in the first part of the novel. Kim being Irish allows him to become more immersed into Indian culture because both of those cultures were seen as inferior to the British.
I am looking forward to reading the rest of this novel. If not entertaining, it is almost guaranteed to be informative about the lives of the British in India which is what I think Kipling wanted to do the whole time writing this novel.
Sunday, September 14, 2014
Black Beauty
This is the first time I have read Black Beauty. We have had it in my house for as long as I can remember, but that was just one book I never picked up, probably because it had to do with horses and I did not like horses when I was younger. That being said, I think it was easier for me to read this novel from a critical perspective since I did not have previous memories reading it.
The first question that popped into my mind was "why is the title of this book Black Beauty?" Sewell makes it very clear that it is because the horse who is narrating the story is a gorgeous black color. However, it threw me off when Black Beauty was described as a male horse. Beauty is normally an adjective used to describe females that goes all the way back to fairy tales such as Beauty and the Beast; the main character being Beauty who just so happens to be the most beautiful and most intelligent of all her sisters. I think by titling the book Black Beauty, Sewell appeals to a more generally female audience that probably would not be as strong if it was titled "Black Auster", one of the horse's other names for example.
This novel was also groundbreaking in terms of animal rights activism. Most animal rights activists happen to be upper class females. In 1877 when this book was written and in the five years following its immediate success, really the only people who could afford books were upper class citizens, despite the fact that serialization (like what Dickens did) was becoming ever more popular. Thus, by titling the book something more appealing to the upper/middle class female demographic, Sewell was almost guaranteeing that the issues brought up in Black Beauty would be picked up by those who cared most about these issues.
Since I am only halfway through the book at this point, I am not sure how the ending affects my proposal here, but hopefully they support each other. As of now I am enjoying this novel much more than I thought I would and I hope the trend continues as I finish reading!
The first question that popped into my mind was "why is the title of this book Black Beauty?" Sewell makes it very clear that it is because the horse who is narrating the story is a gorgeous black color. However, it threw me off when Black Beauty was described as a male horse. Beauty is normally an adjective used to describe females that goes all the way back to fairy tales such as Beauty and the Beast; the main character being Beauty who just so happens to be the most beautiful and most intelligent of all her sisters. I think by titling the book Black Beauty, Sewell appeals to a more generally female audience that probably would not be as strong if it was titled "Black Auster", one of the horse's other names for example.
This novel was also groundbreaking in terms of animal rights activism. Most animal rights activists happen to be upper class females. In 1877 when this book was written and in the five years following its immediate success, really the only people who could afford books were upper class citizens, despite the fact that serialization (like what Dickens did) was becoming ever more popular. Thus, by titling the book something more appealing to the upper/middle class female demographic, Sewell was almost guaranteeing that the issues brought up in Black Beauty would be picked up by those who cared most about these issues.
Since I am only halfway through the book at this point, I am not sure how the ending affects my proposal here, but hopefully they support each other. As of now I am enjoying this novel much more than I thought I would and I hope the trend continues as I finish reading!
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