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Showing posts from January, 2018

Week 3: Unidentifiable Horror (A Wild Sheep Chase)

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I’m envious of the way Murakami writes. Based on assignment restrictions for college, I’ve had to cut down multiple stories to their bare minimums. I long for writing with the same ease as Murakami. He lingers on each detail. There’s development of character through narratives that don’t necessarily support the main storyline or the main goal. It unfolds at a leisurely pace that seems motivated by expanding rather than focused developing that will get to the end objective in the most efficient way possible.  His writing inspires me to write more stories and longer ones.  Art by: Tony Huynh             I started reading Haruki Murakami’s work “A Wild Sheep Chase” with expectations based on some of his other works that I have read. However, his work varies greatly in style. I did not expect what I read. I am continually impressed by his stories and look forward to reading more of his work in the future. Murakami's constant is creating stories that raise more quest

Week 2: All things are intertwined (my thoughts on "Interview with the Vampire")

After the in-class discussion, I found clarity in regards the motivation for the narrative of “Interview with the Vampire”. The conversation was especially helpful to my understanding of the relationships of the core characters.  Much of the novel is clearly lead by Anne Rice’s grief from the loss of her daughter. This is seen most acutely through Louis’s relationship with his brother and Claudia. There is a theme of preserving youthful purity. A frozen image of childhood that is reflected not only in Claudia but also in the dolls that Madeleine creates. There’s also a preserved image of Louis’s brother that haunts him. “ my brother, blond and young and sweet as he had been in life, as real and warm to me now as he'd been. . .” (p. 116) His brother’s death shapes the way that Louis interacts with all other character’s throughout the novel. Louis fears becoming close with Armand, “ I could not conceivably satisfy him. I could not satisfy Claudia. I'd never been able to sa

Week 1: Frankenstein

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While I feel like most people have at least seen film adaptations of Frankenstein, I had not before reading the book. I feel that this gave me a different experience when reading the book. The story is rather infamous and a huge part of American culture, especially around Halloween, so I am aware of many of the simplified motifs that come out of versions of the story. I was expecting something very different from what I read. The closest version of the monster from Frankenstein I've seen in a film is through the adaptations of the creature that appears in Scooby Doo. This changed what I expected from the story. I thought that it would go into further details about the actual creation of the monster with all the grand thunder and lightning that generally goes with it. Movies use the fear that thunderstorms bring, the sublime nature of it. This mirrors the Gothic style. However, it distracts from the horror of what Dr. Frankenstein has actually done. Mary Shelley really focuses