Saturday, March 21, 2015

Do Tell

Hey, so I thought it would be interesting to hear what everyone is reading for their independent study project and what the books are about. You do not have to go into incredible detail, I am just interested in finding out a little bit of info. Please tell me if you like it so far because I am looking for books to add to my own reading list. I'll go first:

I have decided to read Nabokov's Pale Fire, which is a 999 line poem in the same kind of broken style as T.S. Elliot's The Waste Land. The poem itself is interesting because the "author" of the poem is said to be this dude Kinbote, but then this other guy, Shade, is all up in it like "I'm here to, yo". The poem itself is very postmodern and really scattered but I really like it so far. It feels like I am trying to unravel some weird mystery between Kinbote and Shade and, since I have to read the poem carefully, I notice tiny things that change the whole meaning of some lines.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

I am reading The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. It is a story about women in a society where women have no rights. In The Handmaid's Tale, Handmaids are assigned to a "commander" and forced to bear his children. It's right up my alley.

Sri Korrapati said...

I'm reading The Color Purple by Alice Walker. It's told in the style of diary entries, written to God. The main character is oppressed by this guy, Mr._____. I still don't know his name but that just makes this book more relatable and makes him more impersonable. The protagonist is literally only 14 but pregnant with her second child due to rape and incest. Her dad uses her because her mother is ill. It's a really sick and twisted story so far but it's worthwhile and important to read.

Unknown said...

I'm reading Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. He utilizes his experience of the bombing of Dresden, Germany in 1945 during World War II as the central basis of the story. However, he uses Billy Pilgrim, the protagonist, as the main character who has faced the same events he has. It's super silly and easy to read and pretty good!

Unknown said...

I am reading Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I chose this book because One Hundred Years of Solitude to me was truly a life changing book, and I love it so much that I felt like I wanted to read more of Marquez's books. So far, I have seen a lot of similarities between this book and One Hundred Years of Solitude. I thought it was interesting how in the first few pages of One Hundred Years of Solitude, one of the men of Macondo say how religion is between a person and God and that no one could impose the Church on them. In Love in the Time of Cholera, in the first few pages, the same idea reoccurs. The main character, Dr. Urbino, is very religious and attached to the Church, yet Marquez, from what I can so far, seems to criticize this.

Unknown said...

I am reading Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I chose this book because One Hundred Years of Solitude to me was truly a life changing book, and I love it so much that I felt like I wanted to read more of Marquez's books. So far, I have seen a lot of similarities between this book and One Hundred Years of Solitude. I thought it was interesting how in the first few pages of One Hundred Years of Solitude, one of the men of Macondo say how religion is between a person and God and that no one could impose the Church on them. In Love in the Time of Cholera, in the first few pages, the same idea reoccurs. The main character, Dr. Urbino, is very religious and attached to the Church, yet Marquez, from what I can so far, seems to criticize this.

Unknown said...

I am reading Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I chose this book because One Hundred Years of Solitude to me was truly a life changing book, and I love it so much that I felt like I wanted to read more of Marquez's books. So far, I have seen a lot of similarities between this book and One Hundred Years of Solitude. I thought it was interesting how in the first few pages of One Hundred Years of Solitude, one of the men of Macondo say how religion is between a person and God and that no one could impose the Church on them. In Love in the Time of Cholera, in the first few pages, the same idea reoccurs. The main character, Dr. Urbino, is very religious and attached to the Church, yet Marquez, from what I can so far, seems to criticize this.