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.