On nerdiness and Greedo.

I found my connection to Benji in his references to life as a nerd. A Star Wars fan. A Dungeons and Dragons player. Benji is a huge dork, and I, too, am a huge dork.

I love every reference to Star Wars. Greedo is such an obscure character, and I love how he pops up in class discussions so casually. We talked about the various Greedos, and how they symbolize different things, and I'm just so shocked that my hours of elementary school research into the Star Wars universe are helping me in English class.

From what I remember, Greedo was supposed to be a bounty hunter. He could turn invisible. He got shot by Han Solo in a passing scene and was never really shown again, which was a bummer. It's interesting how a character like that is Benji's connection to Star Wars, by virtue of Greedo being a not necessarily white character that was kinda cool. At the same time, Greedo isn't one of the black characters like Lando Calrissian who isn't exactly a model outstanding character as Benji points out.

I feel like Benji's connection to Greedo is indicative of his current social status. He doesn't exactly fit in with his peers, just playing the game to fit in. He's not always the first on a trend and his background is different. He's also not totally white person like, due to his upbringing and a lot of the struggles he's had to go through. He's almost a totally separate party, a green, spiky, bulbous-eyed creature with a weird voice that falls victim to Harrison Ford always shooting first but drawing second.

I'm appreciating Benji's DnD references because recently Nick has gotten my friends and I to start playing. It's really complicated, but as long as it helps me in English to better put myself in Benji's shoes, I'll stick to it. Dungeons and Dragons epitomizes nerd stereotypes. As Benji puts it at some point, it's used to "perpetuate virginity" and I guess that's holding up for my friends. I should go out more.

Dag.

Sag Harbor has been a lot harder to read than a lot of the other novels we have read so far. I think it's the format of the chapters and the fact that the action is very slow moving until the ends of the chapters, I've noticed.

Ben the narrator uses the beginnings of the chapters to put in a lot of exposition and a lot of foreshadowing without necessarily revealing anything. This holds true for the past couple chapters we've read. The fact that the novel also takes place in a short timespan makes the progress seem to move a lot slower than in Black Swan Green.

There are relatable elements for me, like in "The Gangsters" when the kids get into some dangerous things not really thinking about the consequences. In class, we talked briefly about the nature of boys pretending and putting on adult roles for fun and enjoying.

If you think about coming of age as a process that's a sum of experience, I believe that the act of pretending is really important. The kids are acting out what they've seen, different lifestyles of adults that serve as role models. It appeals to some more than others, as mentioned by Ben in passing where some of those kids would go on to be actual gangsters in the future.

Actual coming of age, in my opinion, is the point at which it's no longer pretending for a while then going back to assuming your position as a child, but realizing you already belong in the "Dad" aisle of those stores. When the responsibilities overtake the desire to be someone else. When you realize you're done changing, out of the time in which you're still choosing what path to take in life.

Black Swan Green

Reading Black Swan Green and Jason's interactions with Julia, I'm always reminded of my own interactions with my own older sister Claire.

We're about the same distance apart age-wise as Jason and Julia. I always thought of my sister as flawlessly capable the same way Jason does. Claire would always win every argument against me because of her ability to choose her side wisely and in general just picking her battles.

I envied her ability to think critically. She was always able to pick apart things about me, like my opinions or my writing. She always just seemed to be a bit better than me at everything I tried to do. She left for college when I was Jason's age in the novel, so that aspect of it resonated with me in particular.

It was a huge moment for me when I finally won an argument against her, something of a right of passage.

Because of things like sibling interactions, Black Swan Green has really resonated with me and it's without a doubt my favorite book we've read so far.

The end of Housekeeping

The question came up in class of whether or not we as individuals owe it to society to make ourselves useful and I've been thinking about it a lot.

I feel like we do owe it to society to be useful because from birth to death everyone is constantly consuming things. Every life creates numerous burdens, environmental or otherwise, and as a result I think people should at least make an effort to make a positive difference on the world. By that I don't really mean becoming the world's biggest humanitarian and donating millions to charity or devoting life to volunteer work, sometimes just living can make a positive difference. By living transiently it subverts the whole process of equalizing and for everything they consume it becomes more of a burden for others. Maybe this perspective is only from the fact that I'm a product of society. In that sense, I am the angry boat man paranoid about my belongings and being angry at people whose lifestyles are different.

Which way does the pity go?

For me, the transient lifestyle doesn't seem super great because I've grown accustomed to the basic comforts of indoor life, but pity only comes from projecting one's own values on someone else I suppose. Everyone becomes a unique character and if it happens to be one that is more suited to a different lifestyle then it's no fault of theirs. Maybe that contradicts my original point.

The coming of age aspect of Housekeeping was definitely more of a finding of a social niche to fill for Ruth. She never felt comfortable in her own skin or her own society, and Sylvie provided an alternate lifestyle for her. When presented with another option Ruth realized she had  other options for a direction in life. Over time she learned enough about herself to make the decision. I used to think coming of age was more of a ritualistic thing, like going into the woods and killing a bear armed with nothing but a toothpick and a pebble, but the novels that we've read have made me realize it's much more of a subtle, gradual difference, and definitely a more personal change than anything else.

I ended up enjoying Housekeeping much more than I thought I would when I first started reading. It started out slow and the characters for me were not relatable. I think it's the questions that the novel posed that prompted a lot of thought that made me enjoy the book a lot more.

Blogkeeping and how I've been failing at it

I've been neglecting my blog recently, it slipped my mind like a weasel sliding off a rock into a pond.

There's a lot to talk about in Housekeeping. It's a book that at first I didn't think would be relatable at all for me, as a teenage male who slacks on chores and stuff. Strangely enough the book is making me think a lot about the nature of ambition and the end goal of the track that I'm on. The novel really focuses on the transition between the comfortability of domesticity and past generational values conflicting with the new ideas of what satisfaction should be. The end goal of the housekeeping lifestyle is totally free of ambition, and in my opinion that's not true happiness.

I think the easiest way to be satisfied is to always have something to aspire to so that you can gain satisfaction from completing goals. Time is the enemy of the domestic lifestyle and it constantly moves forward. I believe that along with time people should be moving with time. As I approach the end of my high school life I realize that as one track is ending I just still continue on a new, similar track without ever actually knowing exactly what my end goal is. Success, I guess.

When Sylvie's character was introduced I was instantly drawn to her because she found a way to really leave the track and still be happy with herself. In the way that Holden is likable, I think people are naturally drawn to people with different lifestyles to see how other paths and decisions can impact someone's character.

I've really enjoyed the discussions we have had about the novel so far and look forward to discussions sto come.

Est'her? I hardly know 'er!

I'm really enjoying The Bell Jar. I find it really interesting to get a female perspective on some of the same kinds of concepts that came up in the last couple books that we read as a class. The experience is rather jarring but it rings true. Get it? Well you don't have to because it was an awful joke.

When I first started reading the novel I immediately started drawing parallels with Holden in Catcher in the Rye, but as I read on the differences in the characters of Holden and Esther became more and more apparent. In the early chapters of The Bell Jar, Esther uses some of the repeated phrases that Holden does throughout Catcher, like how something "depresses her" or verbing the hell out of a noun. I guess that could be just as much from how people talked back then as it is a similarity. Besides that, they both feel out of place in their respective environments.

The main difference is that Esther knows how to play the game and is good at it. She's an A student, has manufactured answers to any probing question. She surrounds herself with a diverse, close group and knows how to behave in all kinds of situations. On the outside she also seems to be able to be comfortable with herself, like when she rolled caviar into chicken and ate it without fearing any judgement. Under the surface though, the reality is different from her self-assured exterior.

Both characters realize the inevitability of the path they're going down eventually and that scares them. Esther is pretending in order to move up in the world but she doesn't know about what that means about herself.

In my opinion, if you pretend for long enough you can overcome the brain and it actually becomes a reality. I feel like certain character traits can be faked until success. If someone acted really confident and well prepared all the time, people would be more inclined to trust them and follow them. As a result of more people being attracted to the pretender, they would take on more burdens and actually settle into the "lie" they created for themselves. I'm not really sure, that's just my theory.

I guess I'm not far enough in the book to make any more definitive statements but the blurb on the book says it's about a woman's descent into insanity and I'm curious how that would come about in the end.

Holden's Voice and writing style: The end of Catcher in the Rye

I've been thinking a lot about the assignment Mr. Mitchell gave us about writing a reflective response paper in Holden's voice responding to Portrait. It's a really interesting assignment but I think it would be really difficult because of the nature and style of the book. The closest thing the readers get to Holden's actual writing is the note he leaves to Phoebe and leaves in her school, and even then we get very little about how he actually writes.

Throughout the entire book it's like he's speaking to the readers directly, with a lot of asides to the audience and in general very casual. I wish Salinger included Holden's essay about Allie's glove or something for any reference on what academic writing would sound like. For me, there's a huge difference in the way I would write an assignment and the way I would tell someone a story.

Anyway, to switch topics, at the end of class we were talking about whether or not Holden really comes of age in the book and I don't think he does. He slowly notices changing is inevitable and takes place slowly over time and decides to stop resisting for the sake of the people he cares about. People like Mr. Antolini told him exactly what he should have needed to hear but he spends most of the conversation thinking about how much his head hurts and not really absorbing the message.

The events of the book are really just a low point in Holden's life and the end of the book is just coming out of a slump. With a little more exposition it wouldn't really seem like a coming of age novel as much in my opinion. I'm curious what other people think though.

Not Holden anything back

Uni High is a school in Urbana, Illinois. You probably haven't heard about it. Maybe you've seen the fundraisers and probably have seen the giant thermometer, anyway. It shows up in a bunch of magazines, called a "public elite" school by Newsweek because of our high scores on some tests. It's apparently notable for for producing Nobel laureates and a Pulitzer prize winner, but I don't know them. Maybe three guys, if that many. They probably already came to Uni that way. 


I really like the way Holden describes things, because it comes off as really sincere. Whenever he remembers something, he always adds on the new information like a close friend telling a story. At the same time, the character himself always seems very real because of the way he acts and the mistakes he makes. While what he's going through may not exactly be relatable for me, the way it's presented puts me a lot deeper into the story.

Before reading the book, just from the title I never thought it would be interesting. I mean, what does "The Catcher in the Rye" even mean? It didn't really seem super intriguing or anything. The title is probably down there in terms of interesting-ness with The Scarlet Letter, and if I've learned anything from that I shouldn't have high expectations. I literally would judge books by their covers and this book was just not colorful enough. At this point, though, having read a good amount of it I'm having a hard time stopping at the assigned points just because I need to find out what's happening next, which I rarely feel while doing these english reading assignments.

Holden's perspective is really refreshing and open and a nice change of pace from Stephen's in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. At the same time though, they really undergo a lot of the same problems but their approaches are different because of their respective backgrounds. For example, their encounters with women/prostitutes. Holden is able to Holden his desires (getit) while Stephen succumbs and it slowly eats away at his mental state. We never get an actual reason as to why Holden didn't end up doing the deed besides that he felt sad after hanging up her dress or just felt bad for her in general.

Anyway, I'm enjoying the book. I really am. I'm curious to see what the rest of it has to offer.

Growing up fast: A Truckload of Vice

In class discussions of Stephen's growth, his desires in the middle of the book to be unique and distinct from his peers came up a lot. Stephen had to feel unique in order to develop his identity.

Throughout the early parts of the novel, religion really defines all of Stephen's actions. He always tries to get in all of the prayers and tries to be a model child. The environment really forces him into that pattern of following the religious norms. Religion really ends up sorta screwing up his mind, in my opinion, since it made him feel as though normal stages of development were unusual and something to be ashamed of. None of the other kids around him would share their feelings with him as a result of this as well. Or, maybe they did, but it seemed like in the middle of the book Stephen didn't really have that many close friends because he was too obsessed with brooding and being different.

I find myself cringing at a lot of the things Stephen does in the book, like anyone would looking back on themselves when they were younger. The way he treats his family with such disdain, or ignores his friends, or fails to approach numerous women that aren't prostitutes. Even the part in chapter 5 where Stephen tries to show Cranly how anti-religion and faithless he is, especially since the readers know how big of an impact it had on him. It was probably Joyce's intention to make the readers uncomfortable with some passages, but I liked the cringe-inducing moments because it made me feel better about some of the awfully embarrassing things that I've done in my life too, sort of a  "oh other people have had the same experience" moment. Reading a book about the inner mind of another child developing would be great for Stephen.

Ultimately I think he finally found himself at the end of Chapter 4, and as evidenced by all the talking he does in the early parts of Chapter 5 he finally feels comfortable enough with his identity to engage in social interactions. I'm almost jealous of Stephen that his calling to art is so clear-cut and that he at least knows what he's doing with his life right away. I think for me and many other people my age, it's probably not so easy to just know what you're going to do in a moment of clarity. There are so many other factors preventing people nowadays from just saying to themselves: "I want to be an artist" and doing only that with their lives. Or, maybe it's easy and I'm just narrow minded, I'll never know.

Blog Post 1: APotAoaYM

The first part of this book really resonated with me and my own experiences growing up. Until recently, I was pretty tiny, and throughout my early school career I was usually the smallest kid in my class. It didn't really help me either that I wasn't particularly athletic, due to all the time I spent indoors reading books and doing other uncool things.

I remember making a lot of the same weird word associations and gathering memories in the same way Stephen did in the beginning of the book. One of my earliest memories was actually me walking on my driveway, looking down at my feet, and thinking to myself: "I will remember this exact moment." I still do. Which is weird, I wonder what kind of space I'd have for more important things in my brain if I didn't remember things like that.

In the more recent readings, Stephen struggles with himself because he believes he is unique in all the things he has going on in his mind. Everyone goes through that stage where they think to themselves how interesting and introspective they are, not realizing that every individual is undergoing the same thing. It's a really difficult thing for me to grasp, because I will only ever experience my own perspective. I will almost never be able to understand what those other people go through as a result of that. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is really interesting to me since it's essentially the next best thing in being able to see the process of maturity again through the eyes of someone else.

In the early parts of the book, Stephen falls into one of those trap questions, the dreaded "do you kiss your mother at night?" As we talked about in class, there really is no correct answer besides not really responding. I remember falling for a lot of those back when I was in middle school. Including, but not limited to:

"Hey, I like your shoes."

If you looked at your shoes, they would punch you and laugh and say that you were a woman for having multiple pairs of shoes and needing to see what you were wearing.

"Do you like fish sticks?"

When you say "fish sticks" fast, apparently it sounds like "fishdicks." If you say yes, they say: "well then you must be a gay fish." If you say no, they would go on about how delicious and wonderful actual fish sticks were.

There were a few others, like holding your hand a certain way and if you looked they would punch you.

Thinking back about these is making me pretty mad and confused. I'm glad we're all passed those.