Rag and Bone

I think that it was very significant for me to read this novel. While I do have a best friend that is gay, I didn't have a real grasp for the problems and the inner struggles that many people of different sexual orientations go through. I think understanding the history behind the AIDS epidemic really opened my eyes as to how exactly AIDS is stereotyped in the gay community, and the effects that has on the people that get stigmatized. Most importantly, I think this book was good to read because so many people in Oklahoma have a close-minded view of homosexuality. So many think that "those people" need to find God, as though their sexual orientation completely eliminates any possibility that they might in fact have a religious set of beliefs. I think that Elena is the perfect example in the book; she has her way of life, and yet she has made her peace with God so that she does not feel like a hypocrite or is turning against her religion.

Less Than Zero

This novel, as someone put it, "sounds like the rantings of a spoiled rich kid." Sad as it is for me to say, I must agree. I see this so often in the schools and my education classes that this topic really interested me about the novel. I would say that the main character probably suffered from being what we deem in the education lingo as a latchkey kid. Those would be the students that go home on their own, and do not have parental supervision until the parents get home later from work. Latchkey kids are deemed high risk students, because from 3 om when they get home from school until 6 pm or later when their parents arrive home is the time frame when the most risk-taking behavior takes place for teens. It is also the time frame where most teenage pregnancies are consummated. I think this could explain the main character's drug behaviors. He has been seduced into the drug world because he had little else to do in his time, and lacked the parental involvement to really make his see the consequences for his actions.

Paradise

I touched on this a little in one of my posts, but I thought it almost ironic how the "cultlike" description of Ruby, Oklahoma is still spot-on stereotypical of some small Oklahoma towns today.

When my fiance and I were house hunting, we got lost looking for a lisitng out i nthe boonies. We thought it was in Sand Springs, but it ended up being way far out, almost to Lake Keystone, in the backwoods of Oklahoma. We're talking donkeys tied up next to your pre-fab trailer. As we drove in, the people of the town glared at us. Sitting at the one and only stoplight was uncomfortable. It was almost as if they were hyper-aware that there were outsiders in town. As we were leaving, there were trucks parked across the road, blocking the way we came. It was almost as if they were yelling at us, "We don't want you here, get out!" We had to find an alternative route home that didn't go straight through their small town (thank you TomTom).

The point of this story is that I cannot BEGIN to imagine what it was like for those women living in that convent. They were the outsiders, not just for a few uncomfortable minutes, but their entire stay in the town of Ruby. I can only imagine what must have been done to them to make them feel unwelcome, awkward, and as if they had committed some unspeakable wrong.

Fear of Flying

Erica Jong's Fear of Flying was probably my favorite book the entire semester! While I didn't necessarily agree with Isadora Wing's lifestyle of promiscuity, I could identify with some of her feelings. Since I am getting married in a few months, I thought that some of her marriage perspectives were very interesting. One of my largest concerns is that I would lose part of myself after I became a Mrs. Wing seems to feel that same loss of identity, which was interesting. I think it is very common for women to lose sight of their goals once they become married, and end up falling into Wing's category of women needing to be rescued...but from what we are unsure of. It's as though we get so panicked not "knowing" ourselves that in that moment we are in desperate need of saving by a man. I want to be able to keep who I am and what I want, AND be married. Unlike Isadora, I don't think that is impossible. In the 70s it was very common to give up and become the housewife. I feel like in 2008 I am presented with more opportunities. It was nice to see a piece of myself reflected in a character....the worries and the options that I have.

On the Road

In the discussion of On the Road, I liked how someone (maybe Dr. H) brought up the question of male friendships versus female friendships, and which ones last more. I think that it can be seen in this novel that while men may stay "friends," or as I like to think of it, acquaintances, for a long time, you lose that sense of closeness. The two lead characters considered themselves friends, but realized that the friendship really was not a mutually beneficial one where both parties gained positive feelings from the other party. I think that females have a tendency to have fewer long-lasting friends, but the one or two that they have will be deep in meaning and in value. I think it would have been interesting to have more female characters in this novel to see if those assumptions are correct.

The Crying of Lot 49

This novel raises the question, "What is the real plot line?" Has Oedipa uncovered a national mail conspiracy, or are all the occurrences a practical joke of her ex-lover? Better yet, is Oedipa just on one large LSD trip? I think that the majority of the occurrences are a dream-like sequence with the help of some serious drugs. While Oedipa is experiencing many of the "conspiracy" moments, she also suffers physical symptoms that seem to relate to LSD usage. The following are symptoms pulled off of a LSD addiction website:
dilated pupils higher body temperature increased heart rate and blood pressure sweating, loss of appetite, sleeplessness dry mouth tremors

diminished control over thought processes, resulting in recent or long-forgotten memories resurfacing and blending with current experience, or in insignificant thought or objects taking on deep meaning.

To me, with that in mind, it seems as though Oedipa is actually under the influence of drugs, and might be mixing reality with flashbacks.

Ellison and Morrison

For our class assignment we had to read Ellison's Invisible Man. I was amazed, after I finished reading it, how many thematic similarities it has with Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. Both focus on the significance of sight, being able to "see." and eyes in relation to the African American culture. Both make references to the act of incest in their culture. And both make a reference to dolls as symbols of some greater cultural struggle. I think that this might help format my paper for this class. Anyone who has any interesting insights for either one of these novels, or both, please feel free to comment. I welcome everyone's viewpoints!

Stretched Too Thin

This week has been so crazy, it has been one of the few that makes me feel like I am pushing the limits with my time management this summer. I am taking two summer classes, working full time, and planning a wedding to boot. I have had such a hard time keeping up that the stress has been so bad this past week! I have been looking forward to a nice vacation at the end of July, but it just seems so far away. I just have to try to keep things in perspective....
My fiance has been helping me with my one project, which has been a huge help.
My wedding plans have been going without a flaw, which is a big relief.
I have already taken Dr. Carrell's class before, so I know what I'm in for.

I just need to take a big breath...one summer class almost down, just one more to go! :)

The Pretty Little Liars

Since I am going to be an English teacher for high school, I try to keep up to date on what types of books teenagers are reading. For the most part, this "assignment" of reading has been pretty fun...reading Harry Potter and the Twilight series with a good excuse, that is! :) There is a series, however, that has done really well that I chose to read, and was quite suprised by its topics. The Pretty Little Liars series deals with four girls that are being stalked by someone posing as thier friend, Ali, who disappeared years before. The stalker is terrorizing them with her knowledge of all their unsavory secrets, like sleeping with a teacher, the knowledge of a parent's infidelity, cheating, bulimia, and other topics. I was concerned with the things this book was presenting, a life that teenage girls supposedly lead, but I was more concerned with how addicting these books were! I waited for months just to find out who "A" (the stalker) really was. Sometimes it's good to know what students are reading, so that you can ask them what they think about the material. Even though I don't necessarily agree with the books, at least they served a good purpose in my learning curve, as well as a little entertainment, in a weird sort of way.

Different Class, Same Girl!

Hello Advanced Composition students! I used this blog for my English Literature since 1800 class with Dr. Hochenauer, and just thought I'd continue on, rather than starting a whole new blog. Feel free to read past entries, and look for more current postings to come! :)

The Final Countdown

Usually my blogs have a theme, but I have a feeling that this one is going to be comprised of various ramblings. This course is over, and I must say that is has by far been one of the most enjoyable "survey" courses that I have had to take! I was sad that we ran out of time and didn't get to discuss Mrs. Dalloway though. I read that book months ago for the class, and it was my favorite by far! I loved how each character analyzed life and how it should be lived....it was a book that made you think about your own mortality, your own purpose in life, and what all you have accomplished so far. Reading it was a challenge, with its lack of chapters, but after a while I realized that Woolf's writing style helped make it that much better...all of those deep perspective a day!

I have taken a lot away from this class, more than I think a student would get if this class was in an actual classroom. Presenting your thoughts online seems a lot less daunting, and I think it opens people up more. The projects in here were fun, and I liked the fact that the professor was more interested in out personal thoughts and discussions, rather than driving paper-writing into our brains, a normal stipend of any English Lit. class. Overall, this class was a fun class to take, and the information that I take away is both useful and applicable to my course of study, a rare find sometimes! :)

Running for Eliot and Yeats

This past week, we had some really great poems that spoke a lot about the way one should live their life. Yeats and Eliot both suggested to readers through their works that we should slow down and enjoy all that life has to give to us, but not to slow to the point of over-thinking things and missing out on the real meaning. Today, I got the perfect application for that principle. Today I ran the the OKC Bombing Memorial Marathon, on the 5K relay team. This should be the point where I also mention that I am not by any means athletic, and I didn't train prior to the event (smart, I know). At 5 AM, when I got downtown, it was freezing cold (esp. in my pink shorts), and it was raining out. My bus got stopped on our way to the checkpoint, got lost, and almost didn't make it in time for me to catch our first runner and make the exchange, and then I had 3.1 miles ahead of me, wind in my face, and hill like crazy....and yet it was SO much fun!! For the past two years I have done this event, not because running is my thing, but because I love what I take away from it. I run beside nearly 1,500 different strangers, and you befriend people along the way. I had such a blast joking with perfect strangers about bad bus schedules, angry steroid-crazy runners, and the crappy weather that after awhile, you forget about being cold and uncomfortable and really focus on the good parts of the race. Making it into a positive experience, and finding that meaning in such special events is, I think, what these authors were striving to present. The best part of all today? I ran my leg in about 34-36 minutes, which is under my time from last year. Good times.

As this class goes on, it's getting harder for me to pick which era of English Lit. I like the most. I always thought it was the Romantic period, with all of its eccentric characters and amazing literary themes. After this week, though, I like what I see from Victorian Literature as well. I really like that, with this era, we get to see more of the voice of women, because this was around the same time that many got politically active in the women's rights movement of England (I think). We've now gone from seeing women as strictly inferior, to those that are almost equal to men with Tennyson. The works that we get to read in class are actually enjoyable to read, as opposed to really dry "college-ish" material that students usually get stuck with. I already read Mrs. Dalloway, and, although it was more challenging to follow along with, it was a great read. This class just keeps getting better.

Frakenstein's Theme Modernized

Another week, another post. In reading Shelley's Frankenstein, I posted as my "What is Shelley's message" answer that the question revolved around the responsibility of the maker vs. the responsibility of the created. I think that this theme has played out in several modern-day instances, including in the cinema. Tonight I watched the movie (very gory) The Mist. In it, the mist that covers the New England town is from a military lab who went too far in the ways of science, looking for ways to get to "other dimensions." Horrible things happen (I know, who would want me to ruin such a thrilling plot), but my fiance and I got to talking if David (the main character) would face implications after the military accident was cleaned up, or if the military should take full responsibility for all of the bad things that happened because of their massive mistake. Kind of a weird twist on Frankenstein, but still nice to see a common theme arise out of both. This movie also had serious religious undertones, and followed the same lines of Shelley, in that humans should not try to be God (else they be ready to meet their maker). Who should have been held responsible in this situation, the military for being dumb and stretching too far, or the townspeople, because they just starting acting on their own free will instead of relying on common sense. Again, that never-ending question. . .

Frankenstein As a Classic

Over spring break, I actually sat reading my Frankenstein novel in order to relax. It's just one of those books that you are required to read for a course, and yet you can read it for pleasure, just to get away from the "boring" day-to-day texts that we usually get with our other literature courses. With this course, I love the fact that we get to read different novels...as a person who is going to teach literature to students one day, I like actually getting to read the "classics" that I will teach to them, as opposed to spending my days doing coursework that has little relevance to my future as a literature teacher. Yay for application!!!!! After thinking about this, I found a list of the Top 100 Classics to Read. For the next year I want to focus on this list and expand my reading horizons....seems like a good idea to me!!

The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck
The Crucible Arthur Miller
On the Road Jack Kerouac
Three Theban Plays, (The Antigone; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus) Sophocles (Author); Robert Fagles (Translator)
The Canterbury Tales Geoffrey Chaucer (Author); Nevill Coghill (Translator)
Death of a Salesman Arthur Miller
Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck
East of Eden John Steinbeck
The Odyssey Homer (Author); E. V. Rieu (Translator)
The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Epic of Gilgamesh N. K. Sandars (Translator)
The Iliad Homer (Author); Robert Fagles (Translator)
The Last Days of Socrates (Euthyphro; The Apology; Crito; Phaedo) Plato (Author); Hugh Tredennick (Translator)
Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad
Utopia Thomas More (Author); Paul Turner (Translator)
Great Expectations Charles Dickens
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave Frederick Douglass
Candide Francois Voltaire (Author); John Butt (Translator)
Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte
The Awakening and Selected Stories Kate Chopin
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce
Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories Washington Irving
Confessions Augustine (Author); R. S. Pine-Coffin (Translator)
My Antonia Willa Cather
The Oresteia (Agamemnon; Libation Bearers; Eumenides) Aeschylus (Author); Robert Fagles (Translator)
Moby-Dick Herman Melville
The Adventures of Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes (Author); J. M. Cohen (Translator)
The Divine Comedy (Volume 1: Inferno) Dante Alighieri (Author); Mark Musa (Translator)
Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte
Cannery Row John Steinbeck
Frankenstein Mary Shelley
The Prince Niccolo Machiavelli
The End of the Affair Graham Greene
Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen
The Koran N. J. Dawood (Translator)
The Power and the Glory Graham Greene
Black Lamb and Grey Falcon Rebecca West
A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens
Hamlet William Shakespeare
The Winter of Our Discontent John Steinbeck
Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair (Dual Language Ed) Pablo Neruda (Author); W. S. Merwin (Translator)
The Republic Plato (Author); Desmond Lee (Translator)
The Razor's Edge W. Somerset Maugham
The Histories Herodotus (Author); Aubrey de Selincourt (Translator)
Leaves of Grass Walt Whitman
Siddhartha Hermann Hesse (Author); Joachim Neugroschel (Translator)
Uncle Tom's Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe
The Moon Is Down John Steinbeck
The History of the Peloponnesian War Thucydides (Author); Rex Warner (Translator)
The Theban Plays (King Oedipus; Oedipus at Colonus; Antigone) Sophocles (Author); E. F.Watling (Translator)
Dubliners James Joyce
The Communist Manifesto Karl Marx (Author); Friedrich Engels (Author); A. J. P. Taylor (Author)
Ethan Frome Edith Wharton
Medea and Other Plays Euripides (Author); Philip Vellacott (Translator)
The Autobiography and Other Writings Benjamin Franklin
Winesburg, Ohio Sherwood Anderson
Passing Nella Larsen
The Pearl John Steinbeck
The Twelve Caesars Suetonius (Author); Robert Graves (Translator)
The Letters of Abelard and Heloise Peter Abelard (Author); Heloise (Author); Betty Radice (Translator)
Eichmann in Jerusalem Hannah Arendt
The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde
Gravity's Rainbow Thomas Pynchon
Common Sense Thomas Paine
The Jungle Upton Sinclair
Northanger Abbey Jane Austen
Othello William Shakespeare
Lysistrata and Other Plays Aristophanes (Author); Alan H. Sommerstein (Translator)
Leviathan Thomas Hobbes
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Brian Stone (Translator)
Hard Times Charles Dickens
A Doll's House and Other Plays Henrik Ibsen
Travels with Charley in Search of America John Steinbeck
Walden, or Life in the Woods, and On the Duty of Civil Disobedience Henry David Thoreau
Little Women Louisa May Alcott
King Lear William Shakespeare
The Decameron Giovanni Boccaccio (Author); G. H. McWilliam (Translator)
The Log from the Sea of Cortez John Steinbeck
The Ramayana R. K. Narayan
The House of Mirth Edith Wharton
The Tempest William Shakespeare
Seize the Day Saul Bellow
Les Miserables Victor Hugo (Author); Norman Denny (Translator)
We Yevgeny Zamiatin (Author); Clarence Brown (Translator)
The Complete Poems of Dorothy Parker Dorothy Parker
The Social Contract Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Author); Maurice Cranston (Translator)
Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift
The Quiet American Graham Greene
Revelations of Divine Love Julian of Norwich (Author); A. C. Spearing (Translator)
Herzog Saul Bellow
Henderson the Rain King Saul Bellow
Beyond Good and Evil Friedrich Nietzsche (Author); R. J. Hollingdale (Translator)
The Age of Innocence Edith Wharton
The Twilight of the Idols and The Anti-Christ Friedrich Nietzsche (Author); R. J. Hollingdale (Translator)
Daisy Miller Henry James
The Bhagavad Gita Juan Mascaro (Translator)
Sense and Sensibility Jane Austen
The Metamorphoses Ovid (Author); Mary M. Innes (Translator)
Sister Carrie Theodore Dreiser

Welcome New Viewers!

Welcome all to my new (and vert FIRST) Blog! This blog is created for UCO's English Literature since 1800 course, with Dr Kurt Hochenauer. For right now, the title is a bit ambiguous for now, but that's because it will relate to my overall webpage....Lindsay's Lit. Lounge! What could ever be better than a good book, some coffee, and good conversation?! Yes, I love reading that much....

So here's to eight weeks of fun English Literature commentary from yours truly! Sit back, relax, and, as always, feel free to leave your own additions on entries yet to come! I look forward to it!