Final Blog

"The Stone Reader" is a documentary movie that shows the main character's quest in order to find the author of a unfamiliar novel. The novel is "The Stones of Summer" published in 1972 and written by Dow Mossman. Mark Moskowitz brought the novel in 1972 and had yet to finish reading it until years later when he discovered it was one of the best books he had ever read. So he went on to research for the author, Dow Mossman, but he seems to have vanished. He cannot be found in articles in the library or on the internet. He asks all of his friends that could  know anything about the book and asks them to read it and judge it for themselves. Moskowitz only finds one review written on the book and all the publishers and people who worked on the book were now dead. So he researches and finds the author of the review and talks to him about the book. Since not many people have read the novel, Moskowitz feels like he has known the author for years and can talk to him about the book unlike he can talk to anyone else. He is on an insatiable quest to find out more and more about the author that has disappeared when he could just be dead.
     Overall this class was enjoyable and a relaxing class. The reading helped me relax and learn things about different genres of books that i have not known. Blogging helped to keep up with the readings and made the discussions better and more informational in class. The class discussions let me see how other people interpreted the novels and stories which open my mind to deeper meanings of everything we read. The novels we read all kind of had the same character and plot, I wish we could have read a more variety of stories but the ones we read were good. Overall it was an enjoyable experience.

Cowboy Chicken

Cowboy Chicken is a story depicts the differences in the capitalistic society of America compared to the socialistic society in China. When a new America restaurant, Cowboy Chicken, is opened in a village of China, the workers and the customers are all engaged in new rules of the capitalistic society. At the beginning of the story everyone who had opened the store was very grateful to have such a high paying job. Unlike in the United States the job of frying chicken had prestige as seen when the father gets upset because his son is making more than him, "At the sight of my monthly wages- 468 yuan- my father because heartbroken. He'd had dropped too much that night, full of self-pity, and waving a half- smoked cigarette...Honwen, Ive joined the Revolution for almost forty years and I only earn three hundred yuan a month. But you just started working and you draw a larger salary. This makes me feel duped, duped by the Communist Party I've served". This shows the difference in costs of labor between each country. Americans are not willing to work under such low wages while Chinese are. The Cowboy Chicken was not liked a first only, accepted by the young new hip crowd. But Peter changed all that. He had gone to school with the main character but left for college in America to get a business degree and came back a smart and savvy manager of the restaurant. He got the restaurant to cater weddings and meeting events to bring in new customers. The restaurant was challenged by a man who claimed to have found a fly in his food. The Americans would have apologized because they believe the customer is always right, but in China it does not work that way. So the workers threatened the man's life if he did not back down. The main difference of capitalism comes with the wealth of Peter and the disposal of the leftover food. When the workers see the wealth of Peter they began to plot against him and want him fired. But the main character realizes that he is invaluable to the company and he deserves what he makes. Not only does he make more he burns the leftover chicken. In a capitalistic society nothing can be given for free because then people will not work for things. If they had given the chicken to the poor, like the moral way to do, the business would fail because no one would pay for chicken they would wait to closing time and eat the left overs. That is how a capitalistic society works. When the workers went on strike they thought their manager would bend to their will, but no in an American business you are easily replaced with one word. The Chinese people are appalled and plan to fight back but it will not work, it is two different ways of life. Overall this was an interesting story that made you contemplate the differences in societies .
Eunuch- a castrated man, especially one formerly employed by Oriental rulers as a harmen guard or palace official.
Cauldron-a large kettle or boiler
Henchman- a unscrupulous and ruthless subordinate, especially a criminal

Extra Credit- Jon Thompson

Jon Thompson was a very relaxed and sublte reader his poems. His repetition of "ums" were very distracting the entire time he was speaking but other than that his reading were interesting and calming. He started from his first collection of books inspired by photographs his father took during the invasion of Japan. His father died before he could talk to him about the pictures so the Japan he describes is completely from his mind. The first stories were sad and somber about the death of the people and land in Japan. All the poems about being conquered would be sad but all of the poems are about death. The next set of poems he read was about the intricate, historical body tattoos that many of the inhabitants. He marvels over the bodies of the foreign people. The next sets of poems were about a bride and groom getting married in Japan and about the life and death cycle and how they held high faith in the Hyngongi temple. His next selection of readings "From the Ship Coast line with the words all meaning farewell. Lastly his poems were themed of landscape. He was writing on the film about Chinatown and everything that went on in the urban landscape. Overall  his poems abstract and very subtle but interesting.

Extra Credit- Richard Ford

Richard Ford was a great guest speaker that added funny antics in between and during his readings. He started by saying how much we loved Clemson because of how much we talked about it which is true. He believes that no one has just "one voice" that everyone has different voices in their brains and talked and wrote in their different voices. He starts with a very obscure story called " Reunion" that featured a man named Mack, his wife Beth and the unnamed speaker. The speaker had seen Mack in a train station and was flooded with memories of their previous relationship. Mack and his wife were married but both with wandering eyes, both having younger lovers in different cities. Well the narrator became an interest of the wife but Mack finds them and beats the narrator up. A few years later as they saw each other in the train station, the narrator thinks that Mack is waiting for Beth, but low and behold Beth run off to Europe with a young lover and Mack was waiting on his daughter from boarding school. Both men had a theme of resignation in common. They both commonly resigned in their lives. Mack leaves and the men never see each other again. The second reading was from Richard Ford's newest book "Canada" in which the main character is the son of a failing relationship. The story started off very obscure when he claimed something about his parents breaking laws and killing someone. His mother was foreign, short with dark hair and premature wrinkles on her face. She married a southern boy in the Air Force that was the complete opposite of her. Their parents did not want them to get married, but she was already pregnant. They should have realized that after their first passionate encounter, they should have left each other no matter how they felt. They were stuck at a air force base were no one wanted to get attached to anything because eventually will have have to leave. The mother never invited anyone over and you did everything with only your family. But in the end you cannot blame your life on your parents mistakes. Overall Richard Ford was a great reader, the stories were slow at times, but his humor and tone of reading kept the audience engaged.

The Lazarus Project Part 2

Brik and Rora have arrived in the surprisingly Americanized Chisinau. Brik walks into a convince store filled with Americans items such as Duracell, Dial soap Wrigley and Marlboro. He senses is foreignness when the people at the store look at him funny and the concierge thought he wanted "girls" instead of "glasses". But they also felt right at home while eating a the McDonalds. Rora gets annoyed with Brik for talking so much and saying "Even if you knew what you want to know, you would still know nothing. You ask questions, you want to know more, but no matter how much more I tell you, you will never know anything. That's the problem." Is Rora just being mean or will Brik will never really understand life. Brik goes through his thoughts of wanting to be alone and not needing Rora or Mary, but he does. Rora explains the rest of the story about Rambo and how he ended up killing the people who worked for him and now works for the government as a trade off. The two then goes to a historical site to find out more information about Jewish culture where they meet Iuliana, a beautiful young student that Brik seems smitten on. Brik asks her about Averburch and she has a family relevance to that name so she begins to weep and they go to a grave yard to find out more information. There is where the real question of life or death comes into play. He claims to have lost a part of himself in that cemetery and that he was everyone else there but himself. He dreams of being with Iuliana and kissing her and holding her, which makes me believe he would cheat his wife. He questions "What is the world about- life or death?" Who is more important the living or the dead? Are there more dead people than living? He is really questioning the meaning of life.

     Olga is being carried into the police office, heavy with sadness and somber from her bothers death. The police send in Herr Taube who they think can relate to her more but Olga dismisses him. The are trying to lie to Olga so that she will be willing to give her brother a proper burial. They have found the body which they thew away and it is now dismembered, missing the heart. They want to properly bury him because news o riots and revolution are scheming within the anarchists and they are considering Averburch a martyr and want revenge. But Olga refuses to have him buried properly because it is not proper after what has happened. She gets so upset she passes out and dreams about the time with the police back home invaded her home when she was young. They ruined her house, tried to rape her and kill her entire family. The police now offer her anything for her to agree with the proper funeral.

Protubances-a protuberant part, projection or bulge.

Kaddish- an ancient Jewish liturgical prayer largely written in Aramaic and used in various forms to separate sections of the liturgy.

The Lazarus Project part 1

The novel starts out obscure with a description of a young poor immigrant looking for Sheriff Shippy, but must return at a later time to speak to him. The young immigrant who we find out later to be named Lazarus, then goes into a store with a growling stomach and is quickly stereotyped for looking that way. He then returns to the sherif's home and hands him a letter, with out thinking the sheriff accuses him of being an anarchist and the Sheriff ends up killing Lazarus and his own son, while everyone is waiting to change the story. Then in a change of scenery our main character Brik, is a Bosnian - American who lives in chicago as a writer while his wife is a successful brain surgeon. The men in many of our books are similar, all freelance writers living off of their wives. Well it is weird how the Bosnians are all paranoid of Brain Inflation. Anything bad they do will cause their brain to inflate. Describing the Bosnian Reunion was a great way for the author to relay the beliefs and stories of the Bosnian culture. The background to the war is told and Brik runs into his long lost friend Rora who is the photographer. He was there for the war and survived it while Brik escaped. He describes there childhood as Rora had all the cool stories to tell and how he envied him, when in actuality Rora did not live a glamourous life. He made it all up. But it was there tradition to believe in what everyone says. I liked how the author incorporated such deep thoughts about the world as " All the lives I could live, all the people i will never know, never will be,they are everywhere. That is all the world is." He has very profound thoughts on life. But he also is very engaged to write this book but does not want to be another failure to his wife. He discovers he receives a grant and decides to dig deeper into the story of Lazarus and go back to Ukraine. He wants to make this story real. The two story lines keep the book interesting and easy to read.

Otiose- being at leisure, idle

burly-large in body size, sturdy,stout

kibitz- to infer or offer unwanted advice.

A Wife's Story

" A Wife's Story"
This story is about the culture differences between America and India. The main character is first offended by David Mamet's play, Glenngary GlennRoss, when they use racial slurs as "Polish jokes, Patel jokes" and "Their women, he goes again, They look like they've just been fucked by a dead cat"( Mukherjee 26). She is very offended by these slurs and wants to write to David Mamet. But she never gets around to writing Mamet because things start to happen in her life to make her realize the actual distance and different she is from home when her husband visits. She has been in New York for a while getting a degree in Special Ed, while her husband is at home with a well paid job and a rich hesitance. This is mainly why she is offended at the play because they are stereotyping foreigners because they are poor and unwilling to buy property when in actuality she has money back home and comes from a wealthy family. She realizes how removed from her culture she is when her husband comes to visit. He is amazed at the new modern lifestyle as seen, " He picks up hair rinses and high protein diet powders. There's already so much I have taken for granted" ( Mukherjee 34). He tries all new types of foods and buys things that he has to smuggle back on the plane. She almost feels ashamed when she says " I know I'll not be able to describe any of this to Charity, or to Imre. I'm too proud to admit I went on a guided tour" (Mukherjee 37). He wants her to come back to India with him, but she refuses as she is set in her new American ways. Then she gives in to him the night before he leaves. Her husband makes her realize how different her views and culture have become since she has been in the U.S and she may slightly understand why Mamet uses those slurs in his plays.
Magyara- member of the ethnic group, of the Finno-Ugric stock, thatforms the predominant element of the population ofHungary.
Opalescent- having or emitting an iridescence like that of an opal.

The Same River Twice- The End

In the end of the novel Chris Offutt has completed a 360 degree turn around from where his life began. The end portion starts when he is moving to Florida for a new job. The bugs, the heat, the humidity is already proving to be a living Hell for him. He not only moves to one of the warmest places in the country  but to the deep swamplands of Florida where the air is so thick you can barely breathe and you incur 150 mosquito bites a day. He now is self- aware and says "but i was thirty, beyond the excuse of youth. For the first time in my life, I felt aged" ( Offutt 154). He wonders if going to Florida was a mistake. In Florida is where he "found my low spot" , "living on neither land nor water, but in a foreign world of both" (Offutt 161)."  He tries to kill himself during the hurricane but unfortunately survives it. He leaves shortly after heading back to Boston where he meets Rita. They date marry and move around for a couple of years before settling down. Then the two stories meet together at awaiting the birth of their child. Rita was the one that had convinced him to settle down and not run away anymore when he wanted to. The baby was two weeks late, happily safe in the mothers womb, having to be induced. The birth process was a time when Offutt felt completely helpless as seen, " I was powerless and frustrated" (Offutt 182). The baby would surface, then suck back in multiple times. According to Offutt "After being squeezed through a tight tunnel for a quick view, it had opted for return, prolonging the safety of darkness and food. It was certainly my kid"(Offutt 184). This was the beginning of their connection together. Offutt claims "his birth was my rebirth" (Offutt 185). He claims everything he had said before about being scared and nervous was simply ignorance and all went out the door. His son has completely changed him. In the epilogue the reader can truly see the changes, he talks to his family more and wants to have connection with them and the baby. He says " nothing had changed except everything" (Offutt 188). His life as changed for the better with the undeniable growth of love for his son. Overall the novel was a great memoir of Chris Offutt's life. It shows the transition stages of a free- living hobo to a great loving father.

Vocabulary:

Ponce de León - a spanish explorer who accompanied Christopher Columbus on his second trip in 1493. In 1513 he discovered Florida.

Scow- any of various vessels having a flat-bottomed rectangularhull with sloping ends, built in various sizes with or withoutmeans of propulsion, as barges, punts, rowboats, or sailboats.

Androgynous -being both male and female, hermaphroditic 

The Same River Twice part 1

In the first couple of chapters of The Same River Twice, Chris Offutt uses dirty, straight ford realism to describe his life in the past and in the present. Each chapter bounces back and forth between current times and his life growing up and leaving his hometown and exploring the world. Stream of conscience is used with first person to narrate the story from Chris's point of view. The novel starts off with his unavoidable love for nature. He compares everything to nature and animals as seen "...we were both in the same fix- animal sex is only a billion ad a half years old"(Offutt 16) where he compares having a child with his wife to turtles procreating. Most of this book is driven by the act of sex, whether he is trying to have a child with his wife or learning to have sex for the first time. Sex seems to be a heavy ongoing theme in the novel as he matures. Sex maybe a metaphor for his life, as he grows older his meaning for sex changes. When he is younger he is "fucking" Jahri but as he is trying to make a child with his wife he realizes "Sex with the goal of conception finally meant making love" (Offutt 14). Another theme is his selfishness throughout his life experience. He is first selfish by not wanting to have children seen "All I could see was what I'd lose"(Offutt 14) and him getting jealous of Rita and her pregnancy. How can you be envious of your unborn baby getting more attention then you? All he cares about is himself an how his life is going to change. Also how can you be so selfish when you are a loser in life with no job living off your wife's salary? The baby made him think that he would had to get a real job and he didn't care for that thought. Overall the tone of the book made Chris seem emotionless and selfish and living his life not caring for others. The book has a great tone of realism, easy language with some euphemisms that made the read light but the hard, real language kept me entertained.
Vocabulary :
fecundity -the quality of being fecund;  capacity, especially in femaleanimals, of producing young in great numbers.
saboteur-a person who commits or practices sabotage.

Cathedral- Raymond Carver

The short story  "Cathedral" by Raymond Carver is a story about a closed mined, uncomfortable man, coming to life and feeling things he has never felt before with the help of a blind man. Carver opens the story with a slight cynical tone about Robert coming to visit. The main character is very un comfortable with the fact a blind person is staying in the house. He says "I wasn't enthusiastic about his visit. He was no one I knew. And his being blind bothered me." He almost treated him as if he had a contagious disease. He was also very judgmental and asking uncomfortable questions to the blind man about his perception of things, when overall he perceived things better than the main character. But his wife scorned him and made sure he treated the guest well the entire visit. She would throw him mean looks if she felt that he was being disrespectful. There was major drug and alcohol abuse in the story that solidifies the drug abuse of the current times. The main character was not happy in his life, he did not like his job or anything in his life. He could not feel anything and he had nothing to believe in. After the wife went to sleep the males had bonding time. The blind man was going to make the husband feel something he had never felt before. He made him close his eyes and become blind and draw a picture of a cathedral. This opened the mind of the main character and changed his view on everything. The main character thought he was teaching the blind when in actually the blind was teaching him, irony. At the end of the story he does not even want to open his eyes as stated in " My eyes were still closed. I was in my house. I knew that. But i didn't feel like I was inside anything." He feels what the blind man feels now. He is no longer uncomfortable because he had walked in the blind man's shoes. Raymond Carver uses very simplistic language in the story with short words, sentences and dialogue. It is for anyone to understand the tension and emotion written in the story.

The Crying Of Lot 49 - Chapter 6

Chapter six really begins to end the novel by tying loose ends together and making the reader think and contemplate the real actions and meanings throughout the entire novel. First she finds that Metzger has run off and eloped with Serge's chick. She tries to hold back her feelings but everyone knows that she is sad and disappointed. Just as easily as he cam he up and left leaving her with the will and someone else. The she goes to visit Professor Emory Bortz, where she really comes in contact with her life by having no children and family to show for her life. The Professor and Oedipa talk about the play the Courier's Tragedy and how lines were changed when she saw the play and how it was originally pornographic but changed. She also learns that Brody dies and comes the realization that all her men are leaving her by saying "They are stripping away, one by one, my men." The reader knows the men were only sexually attracted to her but she wanted more and no she is hurt. Oedipa finally knows the true historical background of the Tristero and the true meaning of W.A.S.T.E. Fallopian opens the idea that Oedipa may have been being set up this entire time, that Inverarity planned for all this to happen. But she is in denial at first but then comes to the realization that it might be true. So she goes crazy and loses her mind. She stricken with physical and mental pain. She really loses it all. She had lost everything on a whirlwind ride that was set up. The Crying of Lot 49 was a very interesting book. It was hard to understand most of the time due to the language and stream of consciousness. It is very ironic and makes you think about actions of people.

The Crying of Lot 49- Chap. 3

So much went on in chapter three, it seems to be over a span of a year but we all know it was just a couple of days. The writing style of Thomas Pynchon confuses me at some points as he seems to rant and rave off on useless topics. The chapter starts out with the relationship of Oedipa and Metzger. They are still having an affair and having to find different ways to be sneaky about it as in doing it in the closet with Metzger's legs in the bottom of a chest drawer. There relationship is becoming something more. This relationship is fulfilling what Mucho cannot do. At the beginning of the novel, it was understood that she was going to have an affair, almost like it has happened before. Then the duo went to The Scope, the blue collar bar where there is illegal inter office mail delivery. It shows the difference in the times, where mail is a monopoly of the government and cannot be interfered with. They meet up with the Paranoids, which is a group of professionals that do crazy things as run away from there clients and steal boats off the docks. One of the Paranoids wants to sue Inverarity. His client claims, that he owes him for the bones in his man made lake. Then the story rants off on how the bones got there from war and was almost completely pointless. Then the couple went to a play and every scene of the play was morosely described in the book. I feel there was a parallel between the play and actual affair of the two. There were so many ups and downs and finally only one man standing. This is how the end of the book will be, only one man standing. The director of the play was the one who wants to sue Inverarity, so Oedipa went to talk to him a bout it but could not bring up the topic. This show the weakness of Oedipa and how she will not be able to complete the task as Executor.

Allen Ginsberg "America"

In Allen Ginsberg's poem "America" is a comparison of himself and  the country of America around the time of communism and war. Ginsberg is describing himself as America but can be very contradicting when he talks bad about America in lines as "Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb" this line stood out to me. The harshness of the language and the hatefulness towards not only Americans but the armed forces and what they do. He says he had given everything to America, It is as if America owns him and he is not doing his job.  He wants to know when American will own up to its problems as in lines "America when will you be angelic? 
When will you take off your clothes? 
When will you look at yourself through the grave?". He wants to know when Americans will take responsibility for its actions and not create human wars and become the saintly place he knows it should be. He makes the reference to Time Magazine, about how he is intrigued by it and has to read it every week. It tells him of the responsibility that he is lacking, the duties he is failing to do. He is not the ideal American citizen by smoking marijuana and drinking. He makes references to his real America with Chinatown and mental institutions. This is the real america he believes and America needs to acknowledge that it is not all about war and killing people and becoming most powerful, this is his real america. Ginsberg was at a time a part of the communist and this was when America was fighting against them. The reader cannot fully distinguish whether he wants to fight with America or against them. He says lines as "America save the Spanish Loyalists 
America Sacco & Vanzetti must not die 
America I am the Scottsboro boys" which were the communist threats of the time. This poem is a mix between hate for American and wanting the ruins of   America as he has ruined his own life.
Vocab:
Trotskyites- followers for Leon Trotsky's communism
"Wobblies"- (members of the Industrial Workers of the World or "IWW"), socialists, and the unaffiliated also joined

Girl by Jamaica Kincaid

In the short story "Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid, the author uses short phrases to tell a girl how she should behave. The story is one long sentence, no periods, no starts or ends. The one sentence continues on for one and a half pages. It makes the story seem as if someone is giving instructions directly. It is almost a list of how to behave and become a desirable woman. The style could be a symbol meaning that this job as a woman is never ending. There are no stops ever in the life of a woman, it is ongoing and life consuming. Kincaid starts by telling how one should wash clothes and what days different colors should be washed on, then about how to cook and clean. Every once in a while she throws in slants about becoming a slut as "and this way they won't recognize immediately the slut I have warned you against becoming" or "prevent yourself from looking like the slut I know you are so bent on becoming". She keeps mentioning on the girl doing things to not become a slut. It is apparent that this could have been told to any girl growing up during this time period. The had strict rules of what to do and what not to do and this story clearly lays it out. if they do something wrong then they are automatically sluts or girls that no one wants to be around. It is sad that women have to go through this. Jamaica Kincaid must have been subjected to these rules as she grew up. This seems like a personal experience that all women can relate too. Maybe not to this extreme but at some point. This short story that was told from a personal experience, straight and clear cut. No periods just a long run on sentence which symbolized the never ending job of being a woman.

Robert Frost

In the poem Mending Wall by Robert Frost the author compares a relationship with his neighbor to the relationship of their yards. He speaks about the separation and how it cannot be fixed and they way it is will always be the same. He says "I have come after them and made repair ,Where they have left not one stone on a stone, " while trying to make amends and repairs to the relationship but it is already to far damaged. The gap is getter wider and will never leave as he says "We keep the wall between us as we go". The authors neighbor will not let the wall down.  He is hanging on to it for dear life and will keep it there. This is a somber poem about losing hope in relationships with close ones. Anyone in life can deal with a wall in between them and someone they love and it can never be mended as in this peom.

Photograph of My Father In His Twenty Second Year

In the poem "Photograph of My Father In His Twenty Second Year" by Raymond Carver , the author displays his thoughts and feelings about his father by looking at his old photograph. He is looking at a photograph of his father from when he was 22 years old and is reminiscing and thinking about what he was like. The setting of the the poem is in a dark and somber kitchen as seen when the author says "Here in this dank, unfamiliar kitchen". The author is not in a joyful happy place or mood when studying the photo. This could be symbol for the way  he feels about his father. The memories of his father may have been dark and lonely. Carver judges his father, he thinks that his father was trying to be something he was not. By saying  "He would like to pose bluff and hearty for his posterity..All his life my father wanted to be bold" he felt that his father was a fake and tried to be big and bad and he was not. But Carver could decipher the picture. He knew what his father was really like. Carver did love his father, but he regretted him. His father did not teach him the things that a father was supposed to teach their sons when he says "yet how can I say thank you, I who can't hold my liquor either,and don't even know the places to fish? ". His father did not do his job and teach his son how to be a man and Carver is disappointed. This poem is short and to the point. When read the reader automatically can feel the mood and somberness in the poem. Carver uses simple, dated language to keep the reader interested and feeling the way he does.