Category: Senior Literary

My personal copy of this story was apart of a book of T.C. Boyle’s short stories called The Human Fly and Other Stories.

The story began with a quote by Franz Kafka in A Hunger Artist,  “Just try to explain to anyone the art of fasting.”

The Human Fly by T.C. Boyle is a quick read that spires readers into the world of a talent agent set as a less successful counterpart in a large entertainment business.  One day he is approached by a man who refers to himself as la Mosca Humana, or the human fly.  This man is portrayed to carry a certain estranged sadness within his cape and bathing cap.  The character becomes known as Zoltan, but his full name is Zoltan Mindszenty. Zoltan has one object in mind throughout the story, and that is that he wants to be famous.  This is made apparent from the very beginning of the story, a goal is set and the two have a reason to need one another.  I won’t spoil anything and tell everything that happens, but i will say there are some absolutely sky high stunts portrayed scarily detailed by T.C. Boyle.

The tone of the book is the tone of the narrator for the most part, and that is Zoltan’s manager.  The name of this character is never revealed, but I believe this adds to the story.  The agent himself is much more caring and human than others in the business and this is portrayed by the worry the reader truly feels in all of the situations, for Zoltan.  Money could be made off of Zoltan whether not he lives or dies at one point in the story, and that shows the human and relatable part to the narrator.  Now, the narrator was not always this way.  In the beginning he was in it for the money and spotlight, but you see the shift of character throughout the story.  It is a un-pointed out, very important, change in voice and context he categorizes his emotions in.

I would recommend this story as a quick read with a lot of flesh and layers.  The imagery is beautiful, a real sense in all of the story.  There is an array of emotions to be taken away and given to this story, from sadness to hope and disbelief to anger.  If you are looking to be given another universe in your mind for a minute, this is the story for you.

My favorite part of the story is the narrator describing Zoltan in this quote,

“A fine band of skin as blanched and waxen as the cap of a mushroom outlined his ears, his hairline, and the back of his neck, dead white against the sun-burnished oval of his face.  His eyes were pale watery blue and the hair beneath the cap was as wispy and colorless as the strands of his mustache.  His name was Zoltan Mindszenty, and he’d come to Los Angeles to live with his uncle when the Russian tanks rolled through Budapest in 1956.”

This book was about a girl who noticed another girl named Suzanne in her town and she watched the little moves that the girl would make. She found herself drawn to this girl that she barely knew and wanted to know what it was that was so interesting about her. Her mother was mean to her in a way that she forced her boyfriends into her life without any consideration of her daughter. This lead to a big fight and eventually her leaving the house for a night. She ends up tied into a cult, while her mother believes that she is at a friends house while she in fact, is not.

The first part of this book really didn’t capture my attention and I believe that somehow, the book should have started out with the girl noticing the other girl. This would have made the beginning of this book much more attention-grabbing.

The rest of this book was very easy to follow. It is both in present and past tense and she spends most of the book reflecting back on the time where she was in a cult and wondering what that all meant to her now. The end of this book was very reflective and shows the reason she decided to join the cult that she was in. She realizes that if Suzanne wouldn’t have left her she probably would have killed the people as well because of the anger that was built up inside her. She didn’t leave with Suzanne, and instead stayed at the school that she was at, and i really like the authors idea in doing so. I believe that her not going with them made her personality stronger because we see that she has overcame this strong urge to leave, just like she would have overcame her urge to commit violent acts.

I believe that the anger that this girl has came from her parents. She was angry at her mother for having the men around the house, and then later in the story she was angry when she was forced into sexual acts for the cult. Her anger resonates with the writing, and I felt strongly connected to that hatred.

She was so drawn to this girl because she wanted that free feeling. She saw that Suzanne was free, and careless about anything that was happening around her. I think that deep down she wanted to be apart of that. Suzanne saw something different in her. She saw that she did have a little more good in her that would have gotten drawn out if she would have stayed with the group. So, Suzanne leaving her really wasn’t a bad thing. Instead, this was Suzanne’s way of telling her that she is free from the group. She wanted her to live a life outside of jail cells.

The end of the book resonates the whole story itself. She sees a stranger walking across a gravel path and she believes that the person is walking to her to hurt her. Instead, it is just any normal person walking down the path. I love this part of the book because it is easy to see how her mind is different from other peoples, and she will never really be free from her mind because of that difference.

The Thief of Always by Clive Barker is one of my favorite books for both sentimental and literary reasons. My mother introduced me to this work of Clive Barker’s when I was twelve, shortly after she bought a copy from a library sale. She gave it to me and told me how much she enjoyed it at my age and how it felt like another world entirely. In an attempt to bond with her over the summer of my eighth-grade year, I dove into it. The Thief of Always gave us a common ground and subject to talk about, she seemed to share my excitement as I told her about the book while she reminisced. I’ve read it at least three times throughout the years, picking up on new details each time.

The story revolves around the life of a ten-year old boy named Harvey Swick. In the beginning of the tale, Harvey experiences extreme boredom and grows tired of the routine he falls into daily at school and in his home. During a particularly bad storm, a man (more similar visually to a goblin) named Rictus hears Harvey’s pleas for a more fun life and invites him to join him with his siblings in “The Holiday House”. The Holiday House is a place in which friendship is abundant and adventure seems as constant as the oxygen they breathe. Harvey stays there for 31 days, meeting new friends such as Wendell and Lulu as well as experiencing every holiday and season of the year daily. Mornings are spring, noontime is summer, afternoons are autumn, and nighttime is winter. He is able to get any gift he could ever desire on Christmas, and as anyone would, he takes advantage of it. The children are permitted to explore almost anywhere they’d like, but going to a dark, gloomy lake on the property is not looked upon highly by house- staff members (Rictus, his siblings, and a human woman named Mrs. Griffin along with the illusive homeowner, Mr. Hood) and going home is not an option. Though his friend Wendell seems content, Harvey believes him to be a bit naïve as the house begins showing its darker side. It drives Lulu to physically morph into a demonic-seeming fish who lives in the dark lake. The book follows Harvey’s discoveries and attempts to get back to his parents without drawing attention to himself.

Clive Barker wrote The Thief of Always in a way that can successfully capture the attention of children as well as provide deeper meanings for adults and older readers to seek out. This kind of writing is rare, oftentimes when a story is labeled as a “child’s book” it implies a simple story with a very obvious lesson to learn. That is not the case with The Thief of Always. Each time I’ve read it, I’ve been able to pick up on new elements of it from metaphors to subtle foreshadowing and a nearly-hidden B story that can easily go unnoticed unless one is actively searching for them. It is a very cleverly-written story meant to captivate readers of all ages.

The Great Gatsby is one of those incredible books that you read and you begin to question really what the rich life is like. The book is about a cool dude named Nick who lives in kind of a crappy apartment next to Gatsby who is a very rich man. Gatsby is very popular and has a lot of parties in his own house and is really loud. One day Nick gets an invitation to one of Gatsby’s parties, which is kind of rare, and goes to it, meeting Gatsby, which is also kind of rare. They become really close and have a really good time with each other.

This story is kind of like a really good book about economy and how even though you are rich, you can still feel empty inside. I really love the metaphor to the human condition that is in the story and I love how Nick doesn’t start out rich and inside of the rich life, but when he gets into the rich life, he begins to notice how different it is and doesn’t enjoy it.

Even though there aren’t many characters in this story, the main characters have a lot of development and aspects to them. The reader always manages to take away a new trait of each character each chapter. I really love in this book the chemistry that Nick and Gatsby has and just the incredible relationship that they develop just because of the invite to a party. I also enjoy that even though Gatsby is rich we see more to him than just an older rich person that has worked hard for his earnings.

This story is very good at bringing up questions of morals to the readers. There’s morals that comes into play with each character that can impact the reader. From the actual intentions of Daisy to the real feelings of Tom to the deep truth of who Gatsby is, F. Scott Fitzgerald never fails at growing these characters in a positive or negative way. I think the character arcs and development of each character is executed extremely well and that his storytelling ability and sensory details were very defined and pinpoint in this story. Faulkner manages to show a lot of his talent through this wonderful story and it definitely shines throughout.

I do enjoy his way of tackling topics in the real world in this story. Cheating, being rich, and maybe even exploration of yourself when you are older instead of a coming of age from a teenager. I believe that he did a great job at doing a coming of age portion of the story while avoiding the cliche of it being about a teenager and a group of kids who are experimental, emo, and trying to understand who they are. Faulkner dodged a lot of cliches in this story, and maybe even invented some from this story. He added his own flare and originality to affairs and the rich life and it definitely shines through.

I highly recommend reading this book. It’s great.

 

Dirty Pretty Things by Michael Faudet is a collection of poems, short stories, and quotes of love, lust, and heart-wrenching loss. Faudet, the long-time partner of poet Lang Leav, released the collection as his first book in 2014. The two worked together in many aspects of the book from editing to publication as well as the signing tour, the introduction of the book even features a short piece from Leav that shows her admiration of him as a fellow writer as well as her lover.

Faudet captures a wide array of human emotions through his work with a powerful lack of censorship and refusal to follow a typical or traditional pattern. He showcases his versatility through this piece by offering a variety of works in many different styles of writing, all centered around the most intimate aspects of his personal life and painting an image of who he is as well as how he came to be the writer he is today.

Perhaps the most vulgar collection centered around love and human desires that I’ve read thus far, reading Dirty Pretty Things was an entirely new experience. At times I caught myself wondering things such as “Can he say that in here?” or even physically cringing at certain phrases or mental images that would be typically censored or simply not told in poetry and short stories in today’s society. These reactions caused me to dwell not only on the human condition and what I’ve been lead to believe was acceptable, but also opened my eyes to the reality of writing not introduced to us in a structured learning environment.

Writing is not always pretty. What we learn in schools is not necessarily reality, but a watered-down version of it. Contrary to classroom censorship; life can be hideous, life can be vulgar, it can be one of the most grotesque things humans ever experience, but in that there is beauty. There often isn’t a happy ending waiting on the other side of a mountain of struggle; depression can kill even the biggest smiles, anxiety can bring a bitter end to the most wonderful relationships, only a fraction of endings result in smiles and fond memories, but all can provide entertainment.

Heartache, love, and lust are feelings most (if not all) people can relate and connect to. Faudet realizes this and embraces it with gritty phrasing and primal imagery, often throwing in an element of sarcasm. Through his work, he is able to reach the minds of many, whether they be teenagers driven by heartache and infatuation or adults who’ve matured well past their teenage years and wish to have a moment of recollection and think back to names and nights forgotten. Through his raw emotion and lack of censorship, he’s created a style of writing far different than any I’ve seen thus far.

Pieces in Dirty Pretty Things can range from only a few words or lines to several pages long, each conveying its own message, a timestamp in the author’s life. I enjoyed reading it and experiencing different moments from the poet’s life.

 

Overview:

In 1818, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley wrote Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (now simplified to Frankenstein). It is a Gothic horror fiction book that stars the titular character, Victor Frankenstein, (not to be confused with the creature, commonly known as Frankenstein) genius but lonely scientist who becomes fascinated with the secret behind life. He decides to create life himself, unnaturally in the form of the 8-foot tall hulking monster (but he’s not really a monster!). He regrets it the moment The Creature opens his eyes and abandons him. From there, because of Frankenstein’s neglect The Creature, disastrous events occur.

Rating and Its Effect on Me:

I’m going to do something different. I’ll give a rating first. I HATE this book. 2 out of 10, and it only gets that is the…

Diction:

Frankenstein is a very well written book. I enjoyed its manner of speaking. Most famous novels are black or white, Shakespearean language that’s difficult to comprehend, or JK Rowling, easy to pick up because of the currency of the speech. Mary Shelley sits right in the gray area of that scale. The pretty wording truly is pretty wording, but it is not too elaborate for a modern reader to understand.

A Really Big Negative (A Small Rant):

VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN IS THE WORST FICTIONAL PERSON IN EXISTENCE.

Now, that I have that of my system, I’ll try to approach this rationally.

Over the years, scholars have argued who the true villain of Frankenstein is, The Creature or Victor. I have to say Victor Frankenstein is. He is the one terrible thing about this book.  He blames The Creature for things out of his control. His hurtful words make The Creature become the Monster. He neglects his family, friends, and fiancee in favor of his precious work, who ironically enough is the very Creature he places the blame his misery and un-health upon. He isn’t a strong character; his constant inability to deal with life (fainting, making himself sick, going senile) annoyed me to no end. This is especially terrible because towards the end of the book, he decides to track The Creature to kill him. I couldn’t take him seriously. Victor’s only saving grace is that if weren’t in the story, the story wouldn’t exist, and that’s not a very nice compliment. If I don’t like the main character, how can I like any of the book?

Here’s How– A Really Small (but 8-foot tall) Positive:

The Creature is very best character in the story– with  the exception of perhaps Henry Clerval, who unfortunately isn’t in the story for long. He is nothing like I expected him to be, like his 1931 Hollywood counterpart. He is extremely intelligent, and quick learner, and an optimist. That is, until he is pushed to the brink of the madness. Eventually, he does kill, quite a lot, but at no point does he have no cause to do so. Even if it is for a petty reason, I understand his every action. In fact, every time he murders, I found myself pitying The Creature, instead of the character who was supposed to pitied, Victor. He was a magnificent character.

The Strange Framework:

I suppose I ought to mention the strange framework. It might be off putting. It is a story written by Mary Shelley, narrated by Robert Walton who is telling his sister, Margaret, the story Victor told him, who in his own story includes the story The Creature told him somewhere in the his own story.

… It’s difficult to explain, but not so much while reading it. Even the reader can wrap his/her head around this idea, they are in for a very good reading.

True Rating:

I rate this story 9 out of 10 stars, for it’s amazing storytelling, and very good characters. (Note: Victor is great character, but a terrible person.) I probably won’t ever read it again though, thanks to Frankenstein.

The book The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, is a wonderful story about greasers. I think that this book might be one of the best books I have ever read. It’s a great book that has described greasers perfectly as characters. The way that this book is written is wonderful. It manages to constantly pull you back in every single sentence. The story gives you these incredible characters that you become easily attached to. It manages to give out the background story of many important characters so well without interrupting the flow.

There are so many great characters in this story. There are basically two groups that don’t necessarily get along. There are the Greasers and the Socs. You automatically get sucked into the world of the Greasers as a group and so you start to not really like the Socs. I think the Socs might be one of the greatest antagonists I have ever read in a book. They genuinely strike you as people that you want to get away from the main characters.

In the story, we follow Ponyboy, a 14 year old boy who runs track. As soon as you understand that these people are all about 14-20 you begin to get sucked into this world that has horrible kind of situations. It manages to pull us in because it doesn’t spare us the straightforward areas in this story.  Sodapop Curtis is 16 and Ponyboy’s brother. he dropped out of school and works at a gas station. again, just small aspects of a character brings the reader right into where they are and what is happening. The author writes these characters so well and it manages to keep our attention. Johnny Cade is Ponyboy’s best friend who is 16 and lives with his abusive parents. I think that even though abuse is considered very cliche now in writing, I believe that this book writes about how abuse can cause kids to act certain ways because of what happened to them and how they were raised. Johnny is a great character and he is written very well, he just came from a bad area in his life. Darrel, known as “Darry” is the oldest brother in the Curtis family. He is 20 and basically leads the gang. Darry is one of those characters that are tough but is a very loving character. He cared for his two younger brothers when their parents died from a car crash.

There are so many great characters in this story. I appreciate how well written every single character is and how the author doesn’t seem to care about what people think because he does not shy away from serious issues. The writer understands what makes a great character and he does. I think that there is just a perfect balance of protagonist and antagonist in this story. Enemies are very well written here and the plot of the story is so well thought out and well executed. I think that many people should read The Outsiders. I highly recommend it.

 

“It’s hard to get right when the free folks out there are more trapped than the criminal folks in jail. I just want to be free” (Brown).

Yet again, I found myself reading another work from Mr. Kiese Laymon. This week, I read an essay entitled, “Teaching White Students Showed Me the Difference Between Power and Privilege”. This work was found on his website under the extension of essays. I originally began reading another essay, which was going to be the topic of my blog; however, this essay caught my attention the second time around of searching for a piece to analyze.

The work itself was everything I expected as far as a powerful message being delivered, which as I said in my last entry, Mr. Laymon does a fine job at. Mr. Laymon speaks of the connections formed between him and a man in Poughkeepsie, New York, as well as observations as an educator, and the links between the two. The essential message within the text is the repetition of the “black cycle” of supporting “white folks”, and how, as Mr. Laymon states it, “Americans with the least access to healthy choice and second chances are given the harshest punishments” (Laymon).

The piece is in no way a work that slanders any race per se, but it is honest in the view and foundation of the social structures that we as Americans have experienced so long, and how we have come so numb to the feelings of society we find being slandered comfortable. I would say that this piece touches my inner activist. I personally love works that are blunt and aware that the world we are in is crueler to some more than others, and there are not as many people as it should be who are trying to change this because people are turning a blind eye to what does not affect them negatively.

The only downsides of this essay were a few missed opportunities that I feel Mr. Laymon could have explored. In my opinion, the best way to explain without spoiling the work itself is that he speaks of a student and the student’s characteristics, but he never speaks on the student’s own comments or how the student reacts to the circumstances he is born with. I believe him being an educator, then he would most definitely see his student’s comfortability in his life or his self-awareness to the standards.

As far as the writing, on a positive note, the essay is written in the form of a story; however, it is embedded with personal thoughts and logic from Mr. Laymon. The work itself is not long, but for its length, I am very impressed with how well Mr. Laymon packed so much depth into the essay. So many well-written points and lines were put into it that it makes a very rich read. I most definitely recommend this work to any who are interested, and I encourage writers to read more works from Mr. Laymon. If you would like to read this essay, click here.

Once again, I have found myself reading another Kate Chopin short story. What can I say? I think I’ve become addicted to this interesting woman. This time I chose the short story titled “Desiree’s Baby”. A friend introduced me to this story, so I guess it was just fate. “Desiree’s Baby” is a great short story. The central story is about miscegenation (inter-breeding of races), and the setting takes place in Louisiana.  Just to refresh your memory, Chopin was strongly Pro-Confederate during her life. It’s safe to say how she already feels about miscegenation; however, the story’s empathy towards the subject was quite surprising.

The story begins with a subtle flashback to the abandonment of a child, Desiree. Madame Valmonde took her in and claimed her as her own. A very prominent and rich white man fell in love with Desiree years later, and they were married. Eventually, they had a child together. The conflict is a racial crisis between a husband and wife.

It is written in the third person omniscient, playing into the thoughts and emotions of all three main characters—mostly Desiree. As the conflict is introduced in the story, the mood changes. It’s a very abrupt change which worked well. At first, the author had me confused at the time, but I eventually came to a realization.

Chopin does well with having sensitivity towards the emotion of the wife. In a way, she kind of displays the hurt she feels because of identity. In this story, I feel there’s no bias present towards the conflict. The author places herself in the shoes of every character and displays what she thinks they would feel to the best of her ability, which is very appreciative. I love the way Chopin incorporates the Louisiana lifestyle in the story.

Some things I found unattractive of the story was the lack of metaphorical descriptions as I see in her other works. This story was full of literal descriptions, not leaving much up to the imagination, and that’s something I enjoyed about her other works. I also didn’t agree/understand the ‘wrapping up’ of the conclusion. With that being said, the actual ending was amazing, a definite jaw dropper. There was the numbering of the paragraphs, and I didn’t know if this was the actual structure or if the website placed them there. I found the numbers quite distracting and unnecessary. Throughout the story, all of the text was in chunks, and the last section was very small.

In conclusion, this story definitely tops the others I’ve read by Chopin. It’s very well written and emotionally stirring. It really does leave you thinking ‘wow’. I know it did for me. I would definitely say this is one of my favorite short stories now.

If you’re looking for something great to read in under ten minutes, “Desiree’s Baby” is the answer. You’re in for a good treat. Click here to read the full story, and see the very nice portrait that goes along with it. You can thank me later.

I very rarely find myself incredibly moved by a personal essay other than mine. No, I’m not saying this arrogantly, but I always end up with very tragic personal essays. “The Home That Made Me Doesn’t Exist Anymore” is an inspiring piece of nonfiction work. This essay incorporates a myriad of social disconnections and victims of stereotypes. When the word victim comes to mind, our brain automatically thinks of a person, a human being. However, places and homes can be victims too. There have always been the poor, middle-class, and high-class standards of living. We have a definite picture of how each of these classes lives. When you see an apartment building with chipped paint and a broken window, those are signs of poor or middle-class habitats. It is too often people are judged by the place they lay their head at night, cook dinner for their children, or bathe the day’s dirt away. A home is a home.

In this essay, the main character is the writer, and it travels through her young years to her present self. She is an African American woman from Chicago, which is the setting of the essay. There are many descriptions that give the piece great visuals and a sense of the Chicago lifestyle, more specifically the way she saw Chicago. In the beginning, the little girl is naïve about the place she lives and doesn’t understand why others see her home differently. As the piece progresses, she becomes more and more aware of the faults in her surroundings. For example, the once crystal covered playground is now shards of glass from liquor and beer bottles. It takes a very harsh but gentle turn because the narrator understands now.

There are a ton of great verbs used in this piece such as shimmers, affirmed, ensconced, mythologized, bathed. The writer does very well with progressing the story with interesting words. There also nouns that stood out to me such as haints and maws.

While reading this essay, it became an emotional journey for me. I felt what this writer was feeling and saw this world through her eyes. She gives this place that everyone looks down on admirable characteristics. “Our neighborhoods are broken in so many ways, but there is light here as well.” That was one of my favorite lines from the entire essay because it embodies so much character. It adds depth to the setting and the personality of the writer. This essay also dips into the division of races. “I didn’t learn whiteness as a default, or the limitations placed on those who exist outside of it, until I was much, much older.” This line is powerful because it shows that sometimes you have to learn the hard way of the inequality of the world, and in a way, you must accept it.

Another great thing about this essay is the constant references to other writers. She explained how they were introduced to her and the importance or impact they had in her life. Overall, I wholeheartedly enjoyed reading “The Home that Made Me Doesn’t Exist Anymore.” If you’d like to give it a read, like always, just click here.