Blog appeal?

So I haven’t finished Galatea 2.2 yet, but so far I’m interested in Richard’s relationship, and its transformation, with English and writing.  He begins the novel as a writer who has had a few books published.  But as the novel progresses, his passion changes.  On page 76, he says: “Sustaining so much as a paragraph became impossible.  I’d juggle the first verb in my head, overwhelmed by my own weighted backlist, I thought of the four books I’d written between leaving U. and returning.  The round trip seemed too immense.  I no longer had the heart to extend it.  I’d missed my connection.  Stranded at the terminal.  I didn’t want to write anymore.  I was sick of speculation and empathy and revision.  All I wanted was to read word frequency lists to Implementation A.”  My analysis of this may be wrong because I’m not sure I understand one hundred percent what Implementation A is.  But, it seems that the more invested he becomes in the science and technology of Implementation A, the less interested and attached he becomes to writing and literature.  He is willing to devote his year at U. to working on the project, rather than writing his novel.  The work for Implementation A becomes his obsession, deterring him from writing.  He becomes unable to write. 

I think this reflects what we have been discussing this semester and some people’s fear of what is going to happen to the book.  As technology and new forms of communication are emerging, will we lose our ability, as a culture, to write novels?  What does it mean when Howard says he was sick of “speculation and empathy and revision.”  If there is no empathy with Implementation A, then how does one connect to it?  What forms do we empathize with?  Even though Richard claims to be sick of revision, clearly Implementation A needs reivsion and continuous work. 

I’m also wondering about the overabundance of technological/computer language in the book.  Is this intended to purposely alienate the reader?  Or is this aimed at an audience who is fluent in the language?  I find myself getting lost and distracted with the language.  I wonder if this is to illustrate a meshing of literature and science?  Since these are seemingly opposites, it is strange to see them combined into one form.  Maybe this is hopeful; showing that it’s possible for the two to coexist.  Or maybe they are not able to, since some of us are not able to follow the technological aspect of the story one hundred percent. 

I’m still thinking about the question we brought up last night: is it better to have your work possibly misread by the masses, or read correctly by a much smaller audience?  This may seem like too easy an answer, but why can’t you have both?  We used Beloved as an example in class, and we agreed that we were unsatisfied with how the public responded to the book after Oprah stamped it.  Although it’s unfortunate that the masses did not get more from reading Beloved, isn’t the fact that they still read it worth something?  Just because the novel has been “released to the masses” now, does not mean academics are going to stop reading it and it will not stop being taught in schools/colleges. 

Even if people who are not “trained readers” do not get everything the author hoped they would out of a text, they still get something.  Sticking with the Beloved example, maybe some people really didn’t know how horrible slavery really was, and now they do since they read the novel.  Yes, that wasn’t just Morrison’s point, but so what?  There are still those of us who will dig deeper and fully appreciate the work.  But, whose to say that scholars and academics are going to read a work “correctly”?  Even within our class people often have different readings of books and different opinions.  Even after discussing Special Topics in Calamity Physics I don’t think we have all completely figured it out yet.   

Speaking of Pessl, I think she’s kind of brave as an author.  As I said in class, I felt like she wasn’t afraid to incorporate the “classics” into her work.  I think it was her way of saying that she’s not afraid of the cannon, or challenging it, and proving that she can be just as “good.”  She experiments with form and even added visuals.  As I mentioned in my last post, after saying that there were no words to describe Hannah, she simply left blank spaces where the adjective should be.  I enjoyed that and it’s something I wish I could do, especially when writing papers for class   Whether or not we really like the book or not, I think Pessl has to be given some credit for her talent and confidence in her own writing.   

Fitzpatrick’s article seemed like the most rational disucssion of the fate of the book we have read thus far.  Whereas in other articles we’ve read, the authors have been either unrealistically scared that the book is going to vanish, or others simply dismiss the idea completely.  Fitzpatrick, though, truly delves into what is happening to the novel, and what that means for its future.  I thought one of her particularly important observations was on page 26.  She says: “As I’ve already indicated, the novel is hardly the sole literary form whose death has been critically mourned; one might similarly investigate the ‘ends’ of the epic, the long poem, the sonnet, the drama in verse, the tragedy, poetry and the theatre altogether, the belletristic essay, and the literary letter.  Each of these genres is ‘dead,’ and yet each lives on, albeit in altered forms.  The epic has been reborn in the big novel…the popular poem flourishes in song lyrics and the spirit of the theatre in independent film.  Each form is altered by its historical circumstances of production and reception and by the forms that succeed it; this alteration does not equal death but the recombination of old forms into new.”  I had never really considered the “death” of these other forms before.  As she states, though, literary forms do not “die out,” they are simply altered.  I think this could be true for the novel, too.  As we have seen, authors have already been experimenting with the form of the novel.  In Pessel’s Special Topics in Calamity Physics, Blue says she does not know the words to describe Hannah.  Starting on page 98, there are blank spaces where adjectives describing Hanna should be. 

It seems that the only real thing at stake here is the form of the traditional novel.  As Fitzpatrick claims, “there is no reason to suspect that print generally, or the book in particular, or the novel most specifically, will die” (39).  It is now common to see different forms of literature/art combining to create something new.  For expamle, there is found poetry, which pulls words and phrases from other souces and turns them into poetry.  If you are interested, here is a link where you can read some found poems (and many other poems).  http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5780

Pessl pulled from other authors, to a small extent, by naming her chapters after different literary works.  As some people said in their blogs, this was successful most of the the time when they could make the connections.  I think this also worked to prove the importance/significance of literature.  The works she referenced could each be applied to the what was happening in that chapter.  This could suggest that we all turn to literature because it reflects life and what we all experience.  Or, it offers us experiences we may never have in person, so we get them through books.  Is this her way of proving literature’s, specifically the novel’s, important place in society? 

I’m not finished with Special Topics in Calamity Physics so I don’t yet know my overall feelings about it.  I haven’t read anyone else’s responses yet either because I didn’t want to read any “spoilers.”  So I hope I’m not repeating anything that someone already discussed.  Although I like the book so far, I’m kind of surprised it was a New York Times Bestseller.  The reason I’m surprised is because I would have thought that all the references, and perhaps even the format, would have turned the public off from it.  I hope this doesn’t come out wrong and I don’t sound like a complete snob, because I definitely don’t mean to. 

Even after six years as an English major, there are books listed in the “Required Reading” that I have not read.  So far, the one’s that I have read which have been the headings of chapters, I have been able to make the connection between the content of that chapter and its title.  As for works I haven’t read, I obviously haven’t been able to draw connections.  I think it’s safe to assume that the general public has not read all of these texts either.  I find myself annoyed when the chapter title is a book I haven’t read.  Do other people feel this way? 

I also find myself somwhat annoyed/distracted with all the references throughout the book.  “Jade was the terrifying beauty (see ‘Tawny Eagle,’ Magnificent Birds of Prey, George, 1993)” (88).  I think at least one of these references appears on every page.  It makes me feel like I’m missing out on something if I don’t check the reference, which I’m definitely not going to do.  I’m surprised, then, that these factors did not prevent it from becoming a New York Times Bestseller.  But maybe I’m overthinking these things and the fact that the book is really interesting and good is what really matters.

Also, I may be wrong in assuming that it’s the public or the New York Times editors who decide which books make the bestseller list.  I honestly have no idea who decides.  I read some reviews on amazon.com and they were mostly positive.  Perhaps the fact that I don’t know all the references and haven’t read all of the ”Required Reading” implies that I shouldn’t be in grad school! (just kidding…I hope).  I guess what this really comes back to is the idea of “high literature” which we discusssed in class.  Does this book qualify as high literature?  Should all books be accessible to the general public?  Should writers assume that people will know all their references?  Or are they geared toward a certain group of people? 

Sorry I’m a little late, I wanted to make an entrance.

I’ve been thinking about the end of The Keep and how unsatisfied I first was with Holly’s narrative.  As some other people felt, I was disappointed that it ended with her because she was such a minor character throughout the book.  It seemed out of place and I felt cheated out of an ending.  Reading her narrative was the first time I found myself a little bored with the novel. 

After thinking about it, though, I think her “story” may make Ray’s narrative more believable.  As we discused in class, it seems like there were three different “stories” in the book: the castle/Danny, the jail/Ray, and Holly.  Holly’s, we all agreed, was the most reliable.  When I first read it, I was surprised that she was in love with Ray.  I thought Ray had fabricated the whole notion that there was anything romantic between Holly and himself.  On page 144, Ray and Holly are speaking on the break: “Are you married? I ask, and when she doesn’t answer right away I say, Divorced.  Or separated.  And ‘complicated’ means kids- two at least, but I’m guessing three.  Something peels off her face and for a second she looks raw, almost scared.  You’re a con man, right? she says.  That’s what you’re in here for, conning people?”  This interaction, like the rest of them, is strange and it is not clear how Holly feels about Ray.  I assumed he was just overthinking everything she said or did and took it the wrong way.  However, after reading Holly’s narrative, I realized that he was not delusional.  This gave some more credibility to his story. 

But if we trust Holly as a narrator, and Holly is supposedly the one who has written all of the text, based on Ray’s manuscript, do we now trust the entire text?  Are all of the different “stories” equally credible now that we think they are written by the same person? 

After reading everyone’s response to The Keep, I’m glad to see we all enjoyed it.  Even though I loved the book, sometimes the style drove me crazy.  As some other people said, there were a few times when I was confused and did not know who was speaking.  What annoyed me the most, though, was the way Egan wrote dialogue.  She did not use quotation marks, until the very end.  Instead, it was the speaker’s name, a colon, then whatever they said.  I found this hard to read because I kept reading the speaker’s name as part of what was being said.  Does that make sense?  For example, on page 176 it says, “Danny: Anything you feel like telling me?”  At first I read that as someone asking Danny if he had anything he felt like telling them, rather than Danny asking someone else if they had something to tell.  There were other times when I could not distinguish between what was actually being said or what was just a thought.  On page 135, Howard asks Danny what he hears.  “Danny smiled.  Just static.”  I’m assuming Danny said he only hears static, but it’s hard to say.  I wonder what Egan’s purpose for using this technique is?  Does it simply add to the confusion of the text?  Does it allow a little more room for deciding what is “real” and not real, what is said and what is not said?  And why would she suddenly begin using quotations near the end of the book? 

I was also intrigued by Danny’s feelings of chaos and conspiracy becuase of his lack of techonolgical access.  I normally associate conspiracy with technology.  I think many people are still uncomfortable with using the internet for everything, such as on line banking, becuase they do not want their personal information on line.  Some people get paranoid about their phones being bugged.  Danny begins to become paranoid after he looses his satellite and cannot use his cell phone.  What does this imply?  Are we so addicted to technology that we will lose control and become paranoid without it? 

On page 47, Howard says, “Think about medieval times, Danny, like when this castle was built.  People were constantly seeing ghosts, having visions- they thought Christ was sitting with them at teh dinner table, they thought angels and devils were flying around.  We don’t see those things anymore.  Why? Was all that stuff happening before and then it stopped?  Unlikely.  Was everyone nuts in medieval times?  Doubtful.  But their imaginations were more active.  Their inner lives were rich and weird.” I think this statement ties into what we’ve been discussing so far.  With all of this new media and “convergence,” are we thinking less?  In some cases, that’s probably true.  We’re so intvested in technology and media to entertain us, perhaps we can no longer entertain ourselves.  However, things such as fan fiction, I think, encourage kids to use their imagination.  Even if we are using our imaginations less, that does not mean we don’t have them anymore.