So, I realized today that I somehow spaced creating a blog last week, so I am just going to make this a double blog and comment on all the group presentations here.
Group 2: "The Postcard Killers"
I have yet to read this book, but this group seems to have had a particularly interesting text to work with. I really enjoyed the fact that they chose a James Patterson novel. I thought that the idea of exploring this idea of "art as murder" was pretty cool. It's really creepy that these killers posed their victims as actual paintings! This theme sounded to be rather popular among group 2 but I also really enjoyed this idea of looking at the characters and their nationality and the way that this plays into both the setting and plot of the novel. It is always interesting to compare and contrast stereotypes as well as theorize why a book was written to portray characters in a certain light. This idea of ethics in the novel was another interesting take on the book. It must have been hard to work with a bunch of news reporters who were basically giving the killers what they wanted: to be publicized. We really do glorify serial killers, at least in this country! I also felt that the exploration of "popular formula" was another intriguing subject. It was something I wish had been a little bit further explained, but it sounded rather compelling! It is amazing that James Patterson is such a popular author, who apparently (I have not read any of his books) writes stories using rather similar formulas that cater to the needs of the public eye. How can someone not be bored after reading x-amount of books by the same author that uses the same formulas over and over again! Perhaps I am just generalizing based on a lack of information, however if this is the case and Patterson is able to sell that many books based off a similar formula every time--hats off to him!
Group 3: "19 Minutes"
While I do own this book, I have yet to find the time to read it, however after listening to Group 3 presentations, I feel like I am missing out. Thus far, I have heard many great things about Jodi Piccoult and from the looks of it 19 minutes is a great read. While their text was not particularly related to the book that our group read, there seemed to be some similar themes of not fitting in, social expectations, etc. and I really enjoyed hearing what this group had to say about their papers. There seemed to be a common theme of exploring roles that people take on in high school based on social expectations, as well as the results of what these pressures are capable of doing (inevitably in this novel, the school shooting). However, the two topics that particularly intrigued me were the ones about Peter's sexuality and the one about the characters' understanding of death in high school. Both of these are rather striking as topics and I really enjoyed their observations on these particular topics, especially this idea of bullying coinciding with this idea of homosexuality, the masculine and the feminine. It hits home even now...
Group 4: "Then We Came To The End"
While this is not a text that I will most likely purchase, I really enjoyed what Group 4 had to say in regards to the novel. Something that particularly peeked my interest about the text, as it did for so many others, was this 1st person plural point of view for the majority of the novel. I loved the group's observations about community and unity within the work space, which kind of seems...funny to me, when I think about the fact that it's an advertising firm that is basically aimed at making people feel inadequate or in need of something in some way. However, I suppose it is ignorant to assume that every person that works for an advertisement firm is viciously out to seduce people all the time. This text is particularly relevant with the way that our economy within this country has plummeted. They had very keen observations about depression and how lack of job security can cause instability in other aspects of one's life. I thought it was a little bizarre for some reason, that the character with breast cancer seemed to be the most central point of the book. I have not read this book before, so I would not know about the claimed profound affect, however it seems a odd to me that this could be such a sharp focus for people in the office through which the author could play off with gossip among other interrelations between co-workers. I would really be interested in hearing what Emmy comes up with in this regard. I know that she is focusing more on the aspect of breast cancer's affect on ones life, but perhaps she might comment on the workplace itself as well.
Group 5: "Trans Sister Radio"
In terms of plot, this book was rather different from all the others that were presented in class. It is nice to see that transgender literature is slowly making itself known to the world and I really enjoyed Group 5's insight to this particular text. I admire them for pushing their own ideas of gender and sex through reading this novel as well as the willingness to do outside research and discuss a topic which is still on the rise. It's awesome and I think they are doing a wonderful job! Of course, it is no surprise that this idea of gender is a topic of focus for a majority of the papers and I really like the observations that people are making about these social expectations and how it correlates to one's own identity. The one presentation that I was particularly blown away by was the one about the archetypes. I thought that this was absolutely phenomenal and it is not something that I would have thought to do myself! Her arguments were clear and also thought it was cool that the author manages to follow these archetypes of the feminine even when the character had yet to transition. It was awesome. I also really enjoyed the fact that someone stepped out of the lines of gender and focused on the structure of the text itself, exploring the ways in which these multiple points of view affected the story that was being told. Overall, great job Group 5!
Group 6: "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim"
I absolutely LOVE David Sedaris and I am really happy that a group in our class chose his book as their primary text! It made for a very interesting last class and I really enjoyed the discussion. I love that nearly everyone had something different to say about the book. While there were cross-themes in the presentations, no one person seemed to be focusing on the exact same theme as someone else and I thought that was really cool. I loved that one person was taking a look at literature based relationships within family and that another person was looking at humor in terms of lightening up heavier messages and to switch that up a little bit, another person had a thesis about humor and David as the outsider. Then someone else decided to focus on gender and sexuality as well as socio-economical status and in turn also used this idea of humor to dictate Serdaris' experiences growing up which I thought was really intriguing. And then (finally!) someone else was focusing on this idea of memoir, which I personally love. Owen's topic about fiction and memoir and the discussion of differences and similarities and the fact that twisting the facts can make for a better story was great. It's going to be an awesome paper, I'm sure. It's a debate that is still on the rise.
I really enjoyed listening to everyone's ideas, including my other group-mates. It's been a wonderful semester with you all. Thanks for the awesome literary experience. I hope you all have a wonderful break and best of luck in future endeavors. Oh, and good luck on those papers too!! :)
-Jake
No comments:
Post a Comment