Category: Senior Literary

perhaps this may be news to some of you (it’s not), but i am an absolutely HOPELESS romantic. i write the love poems and i read the love stories and i watch the love movies.

so it only seems fitting that i would eventually find writing that resonates so deeply with me as a hopeless romantic that i’d obsess over it.

in the foreward of richard siken’s poetry collection crush, it’s described as a book about panic, and it really is. i’ve read interview upon interview and analysis upon analysis, everything i can find that had anything to do with this book, and it’s all about panic. fear and desire and love so big that it terrifies you.

i’ve also read that much of the collection was largely inspired by the death of the author’s boyfriend in the 90s, so ouch.

not only is this poetry about love, not only is it about fear or desire or the crushing, consuming weight of infatuation — it’s about being gay and fearing everything you love and watching it all fall apart before you.

this collection is panic. it’s crush, it’s chaos, it’s whirlwind uncertainty felt at a thousand miles a minutes. the words pour out and you don’t know how to control them because maybe some things just can’t be controlled.

i think i connect so much with this collection because i’ve also felt so heavily, so overwhelmingly. i’ve always given so much of myself to people, held so much love in my heart that my entire body is weighed down with it.

the first poem i ever read of this author is “litany in which certain things are crossed out,” and it’s probably my favorite poem ever. i think it’s about forgiving oneself when love falls apart, but maybe i’m wrong, but maybe i don’t need to be right. in the collection, this poem is the last of the first part, and it feels like the collection’s truest beginning. to me, at least, it’s where the story begins. and the last poem of the collection, “snow and dirty rain,” is the end. the two poems reflect each other so well that it’s easy to assume they belong together.

i haven’t exactly been around the block much, but i’ve never read anything that quite captures this level of overwhelming devotion to someone, the ache that longing leaves in your stomach when you love people who can never be yours, when you love people who were yours but never will be again.

this was a very long-winded way of saying i love love, and i love every single word of this little book of love. i love raw and passionate and tight-mouthed. i love carnal, unabashed desire. i love the flutter and the ache and everything else that falls somewhere in the middle of it all.

this is a book about panic – love and loss and death and desire and longing and fleeting – and i am still washed in the aftermath of the attack.

After writing my last book review on the final book in the Eragon series, I want to write this month’s on the first book, Eragon itself. Eragon was one of the first over-one-hundred-page books I really got into, and because of that the whole series holds a special place in my heart, but especially Eragon itself. It starts off very normal and not at all like a fantasy novel normally does. Other than it being set in a make-believe world, there is nothing special going on with the main characters and their lives. Eragon and his cousin live with their uncle on a small piece of land a few miles away from a small village. They are very poor and don’t have a whole lot going on in their lives. Shortly into the book Eragon finds a weird, big blue rock that for some unknown reason he decides to keep in his room for a little while but then he wants to sell it because his family is very poor and on the verge of starving. Anyway, he can’t sell the egg because a dragon pops out and his whole world turned upside down. For a little while he is able to hide his new dragon, Saphira, but she becomes too big, and a group of bad guys come to his house, burn it down and kill his uncle. His cousin decides to join the army because he’s sad and doesn’t really have a home anymore, Eragon meets up with this old hermit who (SPOILER) turns out to be his long lost father in a later book (but he dies too) and begins his journey of learning and becoming the newest and only surviving Dragon Rider. 

So, despite this whole book of around eight hundred pages being just one big set up for the rest of the series, it’s extremely good. As I’ll repeat from my last review, Paolini is one of my favorite writers, even though these books are pretty much the only things he’s ever written, or at least published. I often stray away from writing fantasy, even though it is, embarrassingly, one of my favorite genres because world building is such a daunting task. Paolini manages to bring this whole world into your mind and not make anything too confusing. Of course, there are points to where you’re not really sure what’s going on or who is who, but he was very in depth with his world-making and nothing stays in the shadows for too long, unless he wants it to. Overall, because I’m biased, I give this book a 10/10, would read many times again.

The Handmaid’s Tale is a revolutionary book written by Margret Atwood.  It is an absolutely intriguing, painful, and beautifully written experience.  The book is centered around the main character, Offred.  In the book, the author describes the Offred’s mental journey in a dystopia that was based off of the 80’s.

It begins with Offred’s experience in the red center.  Atwood writes this part in the eyes and descriptions of Offred and her observations.

Throughout the book, the reader is able to piece together exactly how Offred’s life was before this and how this dystopia came to be and how that affected her life.  It shows why she acts how she does now within her roles and current society.

Throughout the story, Atwood continues to use the metaphor of flowers and the color red.  Red signifies rebirth, death, and fertility.   The flowers are a constant juxtaposition against the harsh nature of the book.  They also represent fertility and womanhood.

Other aspects of this book also really jumped out at me.  Atwood lays the story out non-linearly.  It creates a dizzy affect while explaining everything thoroughly.  The reader is clear on everything that is happening in the end.  All the threads come together and fray in a way that leaves the reader hopeless in the most magical way.

The format was also great for character development.  This story has a definite steady pace that felt right for the scattered plot at hand.  It allows for a before and after of the characters and shows some of that development throughout.  The plot’s turns and twists allow you to ponder on each aspect of the story, while simultaneously leaving you satisfied with each chapter.  Atwood definitely floods the reader with emotion with each chapter written.  The deeper you get into the book, the more complex the emotions become.   Common themes that are portrayed in this book are womanhood, community, power, extreme political views, and survival.  Offred’s flashbacks within the book definitely foreshadows the other character’s futures.  However Offred’s thoughts also lead the reader to conclude an opposing ending.  The book’s main theme is feminism, however.  The characters of each role show a different part, kind, and view on womanhood.  It is really intriguing how this separation leads to many different perspectives on womanhood.

This book forces me to seriously evaluate our current state of government, politics, and balance of power within the United States of America.  Considering the way that Atwood’s world transitioned into what it is, and how realistic it all is, we should all re-evaluate ourselves as a country.

Comments from other reviews include, but are not limited to:

“Splendid.”-Newsweek

“The Handmaid’s Tale deserves the highest praise.” -San Francisco Chronicle

“Atwood takes many trends which exist today and stretches them to their logical and chilling conclusions….An excellent novel about the directions our lives are taking…Read it while it’s still allowed.” -Houston Chronicle

“A novel that brilliantly illuminates some of the darker interconnections between politics and sex….Just as the world of Orwell’s 1984 gripped our imaginations, so will the world of Atwood’s handmaid!” -The Washington Post Book World

http://www.bodybuildingreviews.net/brokeback/

The link above is the transcript to Brokeback Mountain, a 2005 movie that’s been adapted from book form.

I like this movie a lot, and not just because Heath Ledger is cast in the main role as a cowboy, Ennis. This piece has some really strong, really heavy dialogue in the majority of the scenes, and I connected with the turmoil and pain that the characters carried throughout the movie.

(Ennis and Jack are lovers that meet on Brokeback Mountain in the summer of 63, after working together, tending to sheep.)

I don’t necessarily want to dive into a summary or review of the book/movie itself; rather, I’d like to just share some of the lines that were especially hard-hitting to me, and describe why they were so important.

Here’s some of my favorite consecutive scenes:

Scene in camp:

(JACK opens a can of beans as as ENNIS scrubs down with his shirt off.)

ENNIS Shot a coyote up there. It’s a big son of a b****, balls on him size a apples. He looked like he could eat himself a camel. You want some of this hot water?

JACK It’s all yours.

Scene in camp:

(JACK takes a piss at edge of camp as Ennis finishes his can of beans.)

ENNIS Mmm.

(JACK walks up and taps on his rodeo belt buckle.)

ENNIS I don’t rodeo much myself. I mean, what’s the point of ridin’ some piece of stock for eight seconds?

JACK Money’s a good point.

ENNIS True enough, if you don’t get stomped winnin’ it, huh?

(JACK pours some whiskey in ENNIS’s cup.)

ENNIS Thank you.

JACK Well, my ol’ man was a bull rider, pretty well known in his day, though he kept his secrets to himself. Never taught me a thing, never once come to see me ride. Your brother and sister do right by you?

ENNIS They did the best they could after my folks was gone, considerin’ they didn’t leave us nothin’ but 24 dollars in a coffee can. I got me a year of high school before the transmission went on the pickup. My sis left. She married a roughneck, moved to Casper. Me and my brother, we got ourselves some work on a ranch up near Worland until I was 19, and then he got married. No more room for me. That’s how come me end up here. (Notices JACK smiling.) Whut?

JACK Friend, that’s more words than you’ve spoke in the past two weeks.

ENNIS Hell, that’s the most I’ve spoke in a year. My dad, he was a fine roper. Didn’t rodeo much, though. He thought rodeo cowboys was all [screw]*-ups.

JACK The hell they are! (Gets into ENNIS’s face and whoops.) Yee-haw!

ENNIS There you go.

(JACK continues to whoop and carry on.) I’m spurrin’ his guts out, wavin’ to the girls in the stands! He’s kickin’ to high heaven, but he don’t dashboard me, no way! (Stumbles and collapses in laughter.)

ENNIS (also laughing) I think my dad was right.

Scene in new camp:

ENNIS Tent don’t look right. (Works on it.)

JACK Well, it ain’t goin’ nowhere. Let it be. (Plays harmonica.)

ENNIS That harmonica don’t sound quite right either.

JACK That’s ’cause it got kinda flattened when that mare threw me.

ENNIS Oh yeah? I thought you said that mare couldn’t throw you.

JACK Ah, she got lucky.

ENNIS Yeah, well, if I got lucky, that harmonica would’ve broke in two.

Scene in camp:

JACK (singing) “I know I shall meet you on that final day, Water Walkin’ Jesus, take me away . . .”

ENNIS (taps rhythm of song out) Very good.

JACK Oh yeah. My mama, she believes in the Pentecost.

ENNIS Oh yeah? Exactly what is the Pentecost? I mean, my folks, they was Methodist.

JACK The Pentecost. I don’t know. I don’t know what the Pentecost is. Mom never explained it to me. I guess it’s when the world ends and fellas like you and me march off to hell.

ENNIS Speak for yourself. You may be a sinner, but I ain’t yet had the opportunity. (takes the whiskey) Thank you.

 

This movie was important to me because Ennis’ character learned, experienced, and grew throughout every scene. The best part, though, is that he grew with the help of Jack, played by Jake Gyllenhaal.

Their interactions with each other were always very hurried, very brisk and harsh in tone, even the intimate ones. Their love was rough, and that scared and confused me. I have never seen two people in an intimate relationship interact they way that these two characters were written and acted out.

The movie was also important because it was set in the sixties, and it was placed in Wyoming. Both men had families, lives, reputations. Jack’s life was taken because of his relationship with Ennis in the end.

This quiet connection between the two, the way Jack could make Ennis speak up about his life like no one else could, and the angry relationship, the scared and violet love the two shared, made this an excellent movie. I am planning to read the book version very soon, and I recommend both to you.

 

This is Part two for Intro III by NF: For the second part it breaks it down more, in a since NF begins to become “free” and begins to get rid of a unnecessary weight. I would consider this part my favorite because of the shift in mood, intensity, and flow.  

(NF and NF’s “Fear”)

Aye, where is my shovel at?

*(Already. It begins to show a power struggle leaning on the side of the “underdog – NF)

Prolly out back—where it always is

You can’t get rid of all of me!

I’m the reason why—

Nah, shut up, I don’t wanna hear another sentence

*(NF is seems to be giving”fear” a way to give up or maybe save itself?)* 

Hey, I’m NF

“Is it me or the fear talkin’?” Ha! What a dumb question!

Yeah, it’s real music ’til the day we die, right?

Yeah, ain’t that the slogan, Nathan?

Thought I told you to keep your mouth shut

I mean, so what? You know I never listen

Let me guess, we gon’ dig a hole, kill the track, and prolly put a beat in it

Rap about it for like three minutes

Ayy, that’s pretty deep, isn’t it?

Wait a minute, you don’t really think for a second that you’re puttin’ me in this?

No, of course not, just a little deeper then we’ll go inside and we can stop diggin’ (woo)

You had me scared for a second, I thought we were diggin’ my grave [thunk]

We did, what, you don’t like bein’ afraid?

*(You kinda have to listen to the song to understand this part a little bit. But for background knowledge in the audio it sounds like a body hitting the ground. This is when things completely shift into NF’s territory. This is the moment of pure clarity between the two. It’s a who towers over who dynamic.)

Here’s a dose of your own medicine

What, you don’t like how it tastes?

My therapist told me don’t bury my issues, but I’ma be honest, man, I’m feelin’ great! (great)

I think it’s only right we go back to where you were created

I wrote a song for Johnny without you, but he ain’t gon’ like it, let’s see how he takes it (takes it)

He probably don’t even remember us, does he?

*(A man becoming a monster. He takes “Fear”  and forces him t0 take in what he has to deal with. But if it’s an embodiment of the thing itself doesn’t it have to go through it everyday? In the since of fear feeling pure fear everyday but assuming things that the one thing that can truly terrify “Fear” to the bone is the moment it was completely forgotten, or left behind. By the person who created it.)*

I wish I was buryin’ anger

But both of us know I’ma need him for that song, he still lives in the basement

Almost done, shoulda done this a year ago, I don’t know why I waited

You know how I get, I put everything off in my personal life, you hear what I’m sayin’?

That was a joke, yeah, it’s hilarious, ain’t it?

You’ll spend the rest of your life in my backyard or back of my mind, depends how you see it

Put the shovel away, time to go back in the house now, you’ll be out in a week

Tellin’ me you want your room back, that’s funny; what, you ain’t got nowhere to sleep?

I’ma just look out the window and laugh at you, this is crazy to me

‘Cause I thought you had me in prison this whole time, but I’m the one holdin’ the keys

*(Pure assurance within the self that you got rid of the thing that has always clung to you as a child, a teen, and even an adult. Something so big and bad that even the thought of it could reduce him to his knees, conquered and buried and left behind. But things like this only fester. And through the climax of the song i believe he knows this and awaits the moment when “Fear” comes back full force. Nothing can stay away forever and it will one day crawl from the hole and once again enter his “Mansion.” This whole thing to me both sections was what i feel everyone wants to do, but NF in particular tries his best to reach out to his followers and show them the, not so glamorous, life of living with mental issues that tear you down from the inside out and reconstructs your whole lives, Fear will return and the final line and some lines before that one shows that this cannot be a permanent placement. He put nothing over the whole. He doesn’t even try. Because he knows, deep down, that he’s going to need fear again one day. It filed some part of him and he can’t keep that part closed forever.)*

 

“Disney Girls”

Disney Girls is a fantastic song, easily one of my top five on this album, and it works on a number of levels.  When I first heard it, I interpreted it as taking itself completely serious without a tinge of irony, and it is an entirely nice song in that way if a little bit cheesy.  I put it on my personal playlist interpreting it in this way.  The lyrical imagery is beautiful and paints an idealistic picture of suburban life.  Lyrics like,

“Patti Page and summer days
On old Cape Cod
Happy times making wine
In my garage
Country shade and lemonade”

and

“Love…Hi Rick and Dave
Hi Pop…Well good morning mom
Love…get up guess what
I’m in love with a girl I found
She’s really swell
Cause she likes
Church, bingo chances and old time dances”

are so impossibly perfect that they make me nostalgic for experiences that I’ve never had.  After interpreting the song in this way and enjoying it, I filed it away, not to be reinterpreted.

It was not until I read Brian Wilson’s memoirs, I Am Brian Wilson that I was forced to recognize that my initial understanding of the song was not necessarily the intended one.  In the book, Brian discusses each of the Beach Boys’ albums, including Surf’s Up.  When he brings up “Disney Girls,” he describes it as a sad song.  I was intrigued because I personally couldn’t imagine a happier song, but what Brian was saying made sense.  He described the song as being about a man who loses touch with reality, and giving the lyrics a second look, I couldn’t argue.  Lyrics like,

“Oh reality, it’s not for me
And it makes me laugh
Oh, fantasy world and Disney girls
I’m coming back”

made Brian’s point obvious.  Suddenly, a song that I had interpreted one way for the entire time I had known it, took on a whole new meaning and a far richer complexity.  This made me appreciate the song even more than I did before and made me far more interested in the music of Bruce Johnston.  This realization also came at a particular time in my life that made me appreciate it even more than I likely otherwise would have.  This song helped me to reevalutate how I look at the world and myself, and what more can be asked of any piece of art than that?

9/10

“Student Demonstration Time”

The Beach Boys were never protest artists like Bob Dylan or John Lennon.  This should have stayed the case, but Mike Love thought otherwise for some reason.  To tell the truth, this song is not just a bad protest song; it’s an attempt at a protest song that turns out to be an anti-protest song.  How does someone mess up this badly?  Let’s take a look.

“Starting out with Berkeley Free Speech
And later on at People’s Park
The winds of change fanned into flames
Student demonstrations spark
Down to Isla Vista where police felt so harassed
They called the special riot squad of the L. A. County Sheriff”

The first few verses such as the one above, play like a highlight reel of absolute tragedies.  Who was asking for this?  What was the point of this?  That will become clear as the song progresses, but you may not be happy with the answers.  When Mike finishes his pointless fan service for absolutely nobody, in come the lines,

“I know we’re all fed up with useless wars and racial strife
But next time there’s a riot, well, you best stay out of sight”

and

“Well there’s a riot going on
There’s a riot going on
Well there’s a riot going on
Student demonstration time.”

I bring up the former verse because of just how disgusting I find it.  There is a lot to dispute about the Vietnam war that I honestly couldn’t begin to contest, but I have no problem having a big problem with what seems to be an attempt to trivialize the civil rights movement of the 1960’s.  Following this with the advice to stay out of sight next time there’s a riot is nothing but gross.  By the time this song was released, a number of the effects of the civil rights movement had been felt across the country, and Mike decided that he’d tell the protesters who had been responsible for those long-needed changes to go home.

I include the second verse/closest thing this revolting song has to a chorus, to show how pointless this song is.  Honestly, this is the most poetic thing to be found in these lyrics, and that is for all the wrong reasons.  “Well there’s a riot going on,” apathetically whines Love over and over… and over.  There’s no meaning hidden in these lyrics and no meaning behind them.  Mike Love isn’t sure why anybody is protesting, and he doesn’t care about why anybody is protesting.  He sees them and feels the need to say something, anything, and he sure does say something.  Unfortunately, it would have been a lot better if he had said nothing.  Only Mike Love could make an homage to a group that can only be read as an insult.  Don’t listen to this song.

1/10

so we just finished reading margaret atwood’s the handmaid’s tale in english, and boy let me tell you what a RIDE it has been. i  personally don’t really want to put myself or anyone reading this through the pain of rehashing this bleak world, but there’s little to be said about it otherwise, so here we are.

first of all, this book is sad. and not in the boo-hoo weepy way, but in the sour sinking-feeling-in-the-pit-of-your-stomach way. i never wanted to but this book down once i got into reading a section, but i also never wanted to pick it back up again after. it’s definitely something that caters to a morbid curiosity we have for chaos (among other things).

the government was massacred and completely overthrown by christian extremists, their rule gradually tightening its grip into what is now the republic of gilead. women’s value is assigned based on two things: how “morally corrupt” they are, and their ability to bear children. offred is our narrator and a handmaid, a woman whose sole function in society is to have children in a state where populations have been decimated by diseases causing death and infertility. she describes this world as she experiences it, with the occasional flashback to her life before the republic and the limbo period between that and becoming a handmaid.

we want this world to be unfathomable. we want it to be impossible. we don’t want to ever consider for a second that any aspect of this world could ever exist – this pious, totalitarian nightmare. and what’s scarier is that it could happen, that it is happening, somewhere in some way. certainly not to such extremes, but freedom is a privilege not all of us our granted. the book discusses this as well – this “freedom to” versus “freedom from.” there is a freedom to autonomy for women, but there is also a freedom from men’s unwanted attention to women; the republic has chosen the latter, and its citizens suffer for it.

i’m someone who has always been vehemently independent, and the thought of losing my autonomy (especially in such an extreme setting as this one) makes my skin crawl. this society, this world of the handmaid’s tale, is abhorrent. the thought of my existence becoming nothing more than my body is terrifying, but i cannot help but fear its possibility. sure, it’s an extreme state of mind, but in this day and age, even the ability to fear it is a virtue.