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