Well Mr. Coon, I have finally settled on a book and I decided to pick All the Pretty Horses. I know you were adamant on us to start reading The Crossing, but if kind of felt weird to start reading the middle part of a trilogy even if they book don’t really intersect until the third novel. It would have always been in the back of my mind, and I’m feeling a lot better about picking the first novel.
So far I’ve read about 75 pages, and the first part of the book was extremely confusing. There was no main character I was able to identify, but after reading further I found out that John Grady Cole was having his final interactions with his family members before deciding to go off on this journey. His grandfather has just died, his mother ran away to go pursue her own dreams, and for some reason he doesn’t live with his father and has a slightly awkward relationship with him. From what I’ve pieced together, he wants to go Mexico so he can live the cowboy life he idealizes. He takes along his friend Rawlins who I don’t know too much about and along the way they meet this annoying kid named Blevins.
Now that I’ve summed up what I know, I guess I will give some of my opinions about the book. The book started off a bit difficult to understand but it has gotten a lot easier since I’ve come to the part about them running away. So far there hasn’t really been much action either which is kind of disappointing. They have just been riding around, but I’m hoping as I get further along in the book it will start to pick up. I’m kind of excited to continue reading because the book has received many accolades and Cormac McCarthy is regarded as one of the premier writers of my generation.
If I had to find some kind of theme so far, I guess it would have be to about the idealized versus reality. It seems as if John Grady Cole and his friends have an idealized version of what cowboy life is like, but they really haven’t faced many hardships. For example, Cole thinks he can make his family ranch profitable once again even though it hasn’t really been producing for years. I also find it amusing as to how Cole and Rawlins find a liking to the cowboy lifestyle even though they have been using money to but food for themselves and haven’t really faced any hardships. As I progress through the novel I assume their naiveté will clash with reality and I look forward to seeing what the results are. The West has usually been romanticized (this is an assumption as I don’t read a lot of western novels) and it will be interesting to see how McCarthy comments on it losing its allure through his characters.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Friday, April 18, 2008
All the Pretty Horses Part II/Huge Problem!!!
Well I have gotten a little farther into my book and the storyline is starting to make a lot more sense. When I previously left off, John Grady Cole and company were wandering around somewhere in Mexico. Now they have cut a third of their group (due to the loss of Blevins because he was being stupid) and they have landed steady work on a huge ranch in Mexico. Obviously the action will be picking up again because I still have a lot of the book to read, but so far Cole has just been working on the ranch and showing his equestrian prowess.
An interesting development in the novel is his love affair with Alejandra. I have a feeling it isn’t going to end up well considering he is a ranch worker and she is the daughter of the ranch owner. I’m looking forward to finding out more about the relationship provided I can get an answer to my next problem.
I checked the JSTOR website today and was only able to find one article on my book. Even then, the article was a book review about the first two books in his Border Trilogy series. I really don’t want to have to switch books, but I guess I may have to in order to fulfill the requirement of having three JSTOR articles. I’m hoping you can help me out with my quandary, and I will try to come see you on Monday to see if there is anything I can do to rectify the situation. Until that time, I don’t want to read too much more into the book because I may very well have to switch to another selection. I will update my blog shortly after I have reached some sort of resolution.
(304)
An interesting development in the novel is his love affair with Alejandra. I have a feeling it isn’t going to end up well considering he is a ranch worker and she is the daughter of the ranch owner. I’m looking forward to finding out more about the relationship provided I can get an answer to my next problem.
I checked the JSTOR website today and was only able to find one article on my book. Even then, the article was a book review about the first two books in his Border Trilogy series. I really don’t want to have to switch books, but I guess I may have to in order to fulfill the requirement of having three JSTOR articles. I’m hoping you can help me out with my quandary, and I will try to come see you on Monday to see if there is anything I can do to rectify the situation. Until that time, I don’t want to read too much more into the book because I may very well have to switch to another selection. I will update my blog shortly after I have reached some sort of resolution.
(304)
Sunday, April 13, 2008
All the Pretty Horses Part I
Well Mr. Coon, I have finally settled on a book and I decided to pick All the Pretty Horses. I know you were adamant on us to start reading The Crossing, but if kind of felt weird to start reading the middle part of a trilogy even if they book don’t really intersect until the third novel. It would have always been in the back of my mind, and I’m feeling a lot better about picking the first novel.
So far I’ve read about 75 pages, and the first part of the book was extremely confusing. There was no main character I was able to identify, but after reading further I found out that John Grady Cole was having his final interactions with his family members before deciding to go off on this journey. His grandfather has just died, his mother ran away to go pursue her own dreams, and for some reason he doesn’t live with his father and has a slightly awkward relationship with him. From what I’ve pieced together, he wants to go Mexico so he can live the cowboy life he idealizes. He takes along his friend Rawlins who I don’t know too much about and along the way they meet this annoying kid named Blevins.
Now that I’ve summed up what I know, I guess I will give some of my opinions about the book. The book started off a bit difficult to understand but it has gotten a lot easier since I’ve come to the part about them running away. So far there hasn’t really been much action either which is kind of disappointing. They have just been riding around, but I’m hoping as I get further along in the book it will start to pick up. I’m kind of excited to continue reading because the book has received many accolades and Cormac McCarthy is regarded as one of the premier writers of my generation.
If I had to find some kind of theme so far, I guess it would have be to about the idealized versus reality. It seems as if John Grady Cole and his friends have an idealized version of what cowboy life is like, but they really haven’t faced many hardships. For example, Cole thinks he can make his family ranch profitable once again even though it hasn’t really been producing for years. I also find it amusing as to how Cole and Rawlins find a liking to the cowboy lifestyle even though they have been using money to but food for themselves and haven’t really faced any hardships. As I progress through the novel I assume their naiveté will clash with reality and I look forward to seeing what the results are. The West has usually been romanticized (this is an assumption as I don’t read a lot of western novels) and it will be interesting to see how McCarthy comments on it losing its allure through his characters.
Also my blog is late this week because on Friday after school I left for a college trip to visit UCLA. While this gave me ample reading time, I did not have a computer so I could only write this blog once I came back home on Sunday.
So far I’ve read about 75 pages, and the first part of the book was extremely confusing. There was no main character I was able to identify, but after reading further I found out that John Grady Cole was having his final interactions with his family members before deciding to go off on this journey. His grandfather has just died, his mother ran away to go pursue her own dreams, and for some reason he doesn’t live with his father and has a slightly awkward relationship with him. From what I’ve pieced together, he wants to go Mexico so he can live the cowboy life he idealizes. He takes along his friend Rawlins who I don’t know too much about and along the way they meet this annoying kid named Blevins.
Now that I’ve summed up what I know, I guess I will give some of my opinions about the book. The book started off a bit difficult to understand but it has gotten a lot easier since I’ve come to the part about them running away. So far there hasn’t really been much action either which is kind of disappointing. They have just been riding around, but I’m hoping as I get further along in the book it will start to pick up. I’m kind of excited to continue reading because the book has received many accolades and Cormac McCarthy is regarded as one of the premier writers of my generation.
If I had to find some kind of theme so far, I guess it would have be to about the idealized versus reality. It seems as if John Grady Cole and his friends have an idealized version of what cowboy life is like, but they really haven’t faced many hardships. For example, Cole thinks he can make his family ranch profitable once again even though it hasn’t really been producing for years. I also find it amusing as to how Cole and Rawlins find a liking to the cowboy lifestyle even though they have been using money to but food for themselves and haven’t really faced any hardships. As I progress through the novel I assume their naiveté will clash with reality and I look forward to seeing what the results are. The West has usually been romanticized (this is an assumption as I don’t read a lot of western novels) and it will be interesting to see how McCarthy comments on it losing its allure through his characters.
Also my blog is late this week because on Friday after school I left for a college trip to visit UCLA. While this gave me ample reading time, I did not have a computer so I could only write this blog once I came back home on Sunday.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Claude McKay's Views on "America"
It is often said that a person’s personal trials and tribulations best serve as influences for poetry. In the 1920s, Claude McKay had already encountered enough experiences to shape his poetry. As part of the Harlem Renaissance, he was helping to blaze a new path for blacks across America, while having to deal with the negative aspects of our nation such as racism and segregation. His conflicting views helped shape his form and content in his well known poem “America.”
In “America,” McKay fuses early 16th century form with a little bit of his own style. The form of the poem makes it a traditional Shakespearean sonnet with fourteen lines and the familiar a b a b c d c d e f e f g g rhyme scheme. The poem also seems to follow the iambic pentameter meter thus giving it a fluid sense of rhythm. However, McKay deviates from the traditional form when he essentially splits the poem into two blocks of seven lines each. This split is readily apparent when examining the eighth line of the poem. In traditional sonnets, that line should be the conclusion to the second quatrain whereas in this poem it is the beginning of a new sentence and idea. The tone in each set of seven lines is also different. The first seven lines take on a critical and bleak view towards America. Yet while pessimism pervades through the second set of lines, one cannot help but notice the hope invoked in the last sentence with regard to priceless treasures out in the distance. It’s as if McKay has the same hope for America as he does for his poem: infusing good aspects of America’s time honored traditions with new ideas to make an even better product.
A sense of duality also seems to run through the actual content of McKay’s poem, especially during his description of America. Although the narrator personifies America to allow readers to more readily relate, we see two opposite extremes. On the one hand the humanly figure of America seems hateful with actions such as, “…stealing my breath of life…” He also describes America using water as a metaphor. He moves from the idea of tides flowing with vigor to the even more destructive example of a flood in order to best illustrate the magnitude of what he faces. McKay uses irony when describing himself as a rebel fronting a king in state. America has never had a king but for oppressed minorities it must surely have felt that way for many years. Likewise, the only way American’s ever received their own independence was by confronting a king. Yet the overwhelming sense of negativity never consumes the poem because the speaker knows that things can better. While the speaker acknowledges that it will not be easy and is at best a tenuous reality, he sees that there is the foundation for change when he looks towards the future. Though not very promising, it is the idea of change for the better that seems to allow him to “…love this cultured hell that tests my youth…”
Claude McKay is unique in his ability to weave a lifetime’s worth of black struggles into one simple sonnet. Yet the further we, as humans, delve into his poem, the more we can see that his story is one which many of us can relate to even in today’s society. While we have come a long way in our quest for a better America, we can strive to do better. Until this challenge has been met, Claude McKay’s poem will continue to serve as hopeful reminder of what is possible.
(613)
In “America,” McKay fuses early 16th century form with a little bit of his own style. The form of the poem makes it a traditional Shakespearean sonnet with fourteen lines and the familiar a b a b c d c d e f e f g g rhyme scheme. The poem also seems to follow the iambic pentameter meter thus giving it a fluid sense of rhythm. However, McKay deviates from the traditional form when he essentially splits the poem into two blocks of seven lines each. This split is readily apparent when examining the eighth line of the poem. In traditional sonnets, that line should be the conclusion to the second quatrain whereas in this poem it is the beginning of a new sentence and idea. The tone in each set of seven lines is also different. The first seven lines take on a critical and bleak view towards America. Yet while pessimism pervades through the second set of lines, one cannot help but notice the hope invoked in the last sentence with regard to priceless treasures out in the distance. It’s as if McKay has the same hope for America as he does for his poem: infusing good aspects of America’s time honored traditions with new ideas to make an even better product.
A sense of duality also seems to run through the actual content of McKay’s poem, especially during his description of America. Although the narrator personifies America to allow readers to more readily relate, we see two opposite extremes. On the one hand the humanly figure of America seems hateful with actions such as, “…stealing my breath of life…” He also describes America using water as a metaphor. He moves from the idea of tides flowing with vigor to the even more destructive example of a flood in order to best illustrate the magnitude of what he faces. McKay uses irony when describing himself as a rebel fronting a king in state. America has never had a king but for oppressed minorities it must surely have felt that way for many years. Likewise, the only way American’s ever received their own independence was by confronting a king. Yet the overwhelming sense of negativity never consumes the poem because the speaker knows that things can better. While the speaker acknowledges that it will not be easy and is at best a tenuous reality, he sees that there is the foundation for change when he looks towards the future. Though not very promising, it is the idea of change for the better that seems to allow him to “…love this cultured hell that tests my youth…”
Claude McKay is unique in his ability to weave a lifetime’s worth of black struggles into one simple sonnet. Yet the further we, as humans, delve into his poem, the more we can see that his story is one which many of us can relate to even in today’s society. While we have come a long way in our quest for a better America, we can strive to do better. Until this challenge has been met, Claude McKay’s poem will continue to serve as hopeful reminder of what is possible.
(613)
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