The (Last) Performance...

I really enjoyed a number of the pieces that we were assigned to read...definitely more than I expected. The short stories/excerpts in the anthology were entertaining for the most part. I enjoyed reading A Streetcar Named Desire, and I feel like I appreciated it more once I wrote the first paper on it. We discussed the play in class and looked at some of Tennessee Williams' influences, and I feel like it really helped to understand the storyline much more. I could begin to make connections between characters and plot. I also liked reading Sula: probably more for Toni Morrison's writing than the story; And out of the poetry, I liked James Dickey more than the others, for example The Shark's Parlor... because I fish a bit back home and I could relate to the experience. Overall, I liked the books and short stories that we read, I don't think I would add or replace any of them, especially since they tend to reflect different styles, influences, and topics.

I didn't really enjoy Atonement too much, or some of the other poetry pieces. Atonement I just didn't appreciate too much, not sure why though, I guess because I don't really care for those types of love and despair stories...too me it was too much like a soap opera, maybe just not as cheap. The book could definitely be left out, it would also allow more time for the other books that we had to read. I feel like we could have spent more time on the others and not hurried through them just to add in Atonement. As for the other poetry, it just wasn't interesting to me...nor could I understand some of it. I think it's important to have a number of pieces of poetry, but they might be swapped out with some other contemporary stuff by Billy Collins or someone like that...if it meets the criteria for the class of course.

And that's my two cents...

The Watchmen

I would like to start off by saying that I did end up enjoying The Watchmen more than I thought I would. I had a number of people comment on the fact that I was reading a comic book, which I in turn replied "No, it's a graphic novel." I had never previously read a comic book or been a fan of them either. However, this was not what I had expected at all.

I will have to agree with the article's author on the book being tiring. After I read what was required for class, I did feel physically tired. I don't know if it was because I was trying to hard or what, but having to interpret and catch everything in the book was laborious. And even though it is a graphic novel, it still took a while to read: it wasn't just looking at the pictures and reading the speech bubbles...I felt like I had to examine every panel.

Also, he talks about the characters and mentions "I am repeatedly seized by how no one character is a hero and that costumes, adrenaline-junkie-genes, super-smarts, and even money don’t make you perfect. That what humans like Dan and I often want, and also fear: a magic wand to fix everything, something that will leave all healthy, happy, untroubled especially when the world seems more for ill than for good." I would also agree here, speaking to the fact that, other than Dr. Manhattan, all of the characters were pretty normal. We discussed in class about them being kind of like Batman, and I think that's a really accurate representation. Alan Moore probably did this intentionally, along with plugging in a number of historical things to increase the story's ability to relate with the reader and keep it from being to large of a stretch.