My Faves

Okay, I just commented on Julia's post about Leo how Leo is my favorite character in Room. For my last Hero's Journey post, I want to combine that and Claire's post (reflecting on the heroic traits of various hero's we've discussed) and make my own little list of my favorite characters in each of the novels we read and why. Here goes:

1. Wool: My favorite character from Wool has to be Holston. I know he ends up dying before the book is half over, but his love for Alyson (his wife, if you don't remember) is so meaningful. Plus, without Holston's efforts in finding the truth, the truth never would have been found.
2. The Odyssey: Will people be mad if I say my favorite character from The Odyssey is Polythemus? Honestly, I hated everyone in this epic. I do not approve of many of the actions taken by Odysseus, Penelope was ugh, Telemachus was basically a sheep, and Athena was an obnoxious master manipulator. Then there's Polythemus, a cyclops who has his wine and cheese stolen and, rightfully, gets angry. Then he gets blinded. Poor guy.
3. O' Brother Where Art Thou: Okay, so O' Brother isn't a novel (neither is The Odyssey. Oops) but we did spend some significant time watching / talking about it. My favorite character has to be Everett. I mean come on, he is super funny and witty and smart on his feet. Delmar is a close second.
4. As I Lay Dying: Darl is my fave. I don't care if he's seen as crazy or anything like that, and I don't think he's a fool like his father. I think he's insightful. Maybe it's because the book started out from his point of view; maybe it's the quirky way he describes things. I don't know. I'm just drawn to Darl. 
5. The Memory of Running: I'm going to have to say that my favorite character from TMOR is Smithy. I kinda want to say my favorite is the dude who got killed in Vietnam when Smithy peed into the swap, but I felt like that wasn't sufficient. I really like the way Smithy perseveres on his bike ride across the US. I would have biked from Rhode Island and maybe made it to the place where Smithy fished when he was younger. There's no way I could go from Rhode Island to LA. No chance in hell. Mad props to Smithy.
6. Room: Omg Leo. Leo! AKA Steppa. I love Steppa so much; I don't care that he potentially smells like weed or whatever, what matters to me is that Steppa is really, really good with Jack. He teaches Jack not to play with fire, and explains the water purifying process, and that it's okay to mess things up (as seen when they are playing with LEGOs). I know that Ma doesn't seem to like Steppa, but he is a great person.

Okay everyone, that was it :)

I Can't Even (Again)

I've been majorly procrastinating on doing a blog post about Room. I actually considered not writing a post about the novel anyways, but I would have felt malicious if I excluded the novel on this post. I don't know. My head doesn't make sense. However, I will try to explain why writing a post on this novel is so difficult for me.

Room is a sad story.

Yes, I know that Ma and Jack managed to escape and were in Outside for the last half of the novel, but it's still such a despairing read. For me, at least. I think the novel being written in Jack's point of view makes it even more sad. On one had, Jack (naturally) has an unknowing, childlike narrative, so reading his thoughts isn't anywhere near as depressing as it would be reading from Ma's point of view. On the other hand, the reader knows what Jack doesn't, and watching him struggle to understand Outside vs Room, and that his life isn't really real, and that people don't typically hug random strangers, and that it really is him and Ma on the TV, and that there are multiple copies of Dylan the Digger, is heartbreaking.

Also, it is entirely possible for this to happen. Like... I can go off to college and everything that happens to Ma could happen to me. Heck, it could happen now. And, quite obviously, I don't want to be kidnapped and raped and be trapped in an 11 by 11 room for seven years. I'm actually shaking right now thinking about being in that situation.

And yet... There are people who actually have been in similar situations. I've read a few blog posts that have mentioned the Fritzl case and the Castro case. I think that's another major reason I'm uncertain about writing this post on Room; I don't want to seem insensitive, and I just don't know what it was like for the victims. I mean... I'm even feeling bad about calling them victims, because if it were me I wouldn't want to labelled as a victim my whole life. I feel like it would be a weight dragging me down and making it hard to move forward. But it's not me, and so I have no way of knowing. It's just such a sensitive subject area that I'm not comfortable in. Does that make sense?

I don't know if that clarified anything, but those are my thoughts.

If You Say So...

This first blog post I wrote in this 4 week chunk was about how The Memory of Running was my favorite of the books we'd read so far, and that Smithy is a very likable character. My opinion hasn't changed much, but here's a list of things I don't like and/or find unbelievable:

1. How did Smithy ride after being hit by a truck and not actually treated? He claimed to have had cuts all over his behind, right? Well I got bitten in the behind by my neighbor's beagle when I was in 4th grade (long story, but it wasn't my fault) and it wasn't even a bad bite, more like a nip, but I couldn't sit down for like a week (my best friend wouldn't stop laughing when I'd stand at my desk during writing time).
2. Smithy has been shot legit SO MANY TIMES! How the hell is he still alive? First Vietnam, then almost shot in (East!) St. Louis, then kinda in the neck in that snowstorm wherever he was at that point. And he was also hit by a truck? Yea... and then he continued biking hundred's of miles? Yea...okay.
3. Like Shaleen mention in his post, Smithy managed to have enough energy to bike across the country essentially eating only tuna fish and bananas? I mean if you say so...
4. Also along the lines of what Shaleen mentioned, no withdrawal symptoms or anything from just going cold turkey on smoking and drinking? Now that's incredibly unrealistic.
5. WTH?! Why is Norma on the exact beach in California he showed up on? At the same exact time.

And what I have a problem with even more than the ending (therefore I find this to be a huge problem) is that Smithy should have been concussed. First he gets hit by a truck, then he get's beat up. I'm pretty sure he's not okay. Let me point out the section on pages 184 and 185; "He kicked me hard in my ass, and I lurched forward, lost my balance, and fell down the eight or ten steps to the walk." So Smithy is, essentially, kicked down the stairs. "At the bottom of the stairs, my face bounced next to a pink azalea," means that Smithy's head impacted the ground so hard that it bounced and hit the ground again. "I was swaying a little, and the more I tried not to say, the more I swayed." Smithy is really, really dizzy and can barely stand on his two feet. "I fell again, got up, fell, got up. My head felt worse than when Carl's truck hit me. I could feel flows of things crashing up my neck, rolling to the front of my head." Does this really need to be explained? And it should also be noted that Smithy threw up twice. So just think about that.

And then a quick Google search.

Signs and symptoms of a concussion may include:

• Headache or a feeling of pressure in the head.
• Temporary loss of consciousness.
• Confusion or feeling as if in a fog.
• Amnesia surrounding the traumatic event.
• Dizziness or "seeing stars"
• Ringing in the ears.
• Nausea.
• Vomiting.

Smithy has like half of these. Pretty sure he has a concussion. But then less than five days later (In chapter 37 Smithy tells Norma it's been five days since their phone call had been interrupted at Carl's house, and by that time he was in Indiana).

Okay, when Taharka got his concussion from soccer the fall of two years ago, he had issues with concentration and stuff and wasn't okay for like a week. It also took him a few weeks to be able go back to soccer. And then when I had my concussion the following spring (also from soccer, but I swear the sport is fabulous and lots of people don't end up concussed. I've always gotta follow in my big bro's footsteps) I was not allowed to do any physical activity either. So I find it a bit hard to believe that Smithy is just right back on his bike as if nothing had really happened a mere few days later without insane headaches or nausea spells or anything.

Not to say that this wasn't a good book anyways, as I enjoyed it the most so far. However, there are aspects of the novel that caused me to raise my eyebrows in disbelief.

I Might Have an Obsession...

Note: If you're feeling lazy and don't actually feel like reading all of this post (no worries, I've been there), can you at least scroll to the bottom paragraph and contemplate responding to my questions?

I've decided to write about Harry Potter for my research project. I know it's an obvious pick, but I think it's fitting. However, the Harry Potter series has been a constant in my life ever since I was very little.

Almost every year my family makes the 12-14 hour drive to Virginia for family reunion, and the summer I turned five my grandpa had the brilliant idea to purchase Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone for family entertainment on the car ride. My mom, Taharka, and I were all enamored by the story, and it soon thereafter received a spot in our nightly reading rotation. I loved having my mom read the story to me because she was a master at changing her tone of voice and giving the main characters different distinctive voices.

That all happened over the summer, but by the time school rolled around -- I was in kindergarten that year -- we had finished the book. I wanted to hear the story again but my mom was too busy to read to me every night. I tried to get Taharka to read to me, and that worked for a while, but he never mastered the voices the way my mom had. I decided it was up to me to just read the book by myself. I know I struggled with some of the words, but I had already heard the story before and knew the gist of what was happening, and by the end of kindergarten I had finished the book all by myself.

After that, I convinced my mom to buy the rest of the Harry Potter books (that were out at that time) and my obsession with Harry Potter grew over the years. I still remember fourth grade me lining up outside of Pages for All Ages when the 7th book came out. Sometime within a year after I finished the 7th book, I became unsatisfied by simply re-reading my Harry Potter books (of which I have read each over 20 times) and I somehow stumbled across fanfiction.

I always have a hard time explaining fanfiction, so I googled it: Fanfiction is "fiction written by a fan of, and featuring characters from, a particular TV series, movie, etc." In my case, it was a book series. Though I do sometimes write my own fanfiction, I have never posted it anywhere online and, instead, am an avid reader of other people's stories. I currently probably spend a lot more free time reading Harry Potter than it is socially acceptable to admit; I found some really great stories and the crossover opportunities between other series (eg. Percy Jackson, Avengers) are boundless.

Though I really like Harry Potter fanfiction, I could never dream of giving up the original series. I have read the books over and over again, and I turn to them when I'm sad. It's such an addiction that even my blog title, Just A Bit Of A Saving People Thing, is from Hermione telling Harry "...don't you think you've got a bit of a -- a -- saving people thing?" in Harry Potter and the Order of The Phoenix.

I even have a whole section of my bookshelf in my room dedicated to Harry Potter; it holds my private collection of all the books which my mom got me in England, other HP spin-off books such as The Tales of Beedle the Bard and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, my wand and butterbeer mug from HP World, the bracelet I made at Computer Science GAMES camp last year with a deathly hallows emblem and with a light up LED in the middle, etc. I also found a light switch cover with the Dumbledore quote: "Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times if one only remembers to turn on the light."

Sorry this was so long, but I was just trying to emphasize that I love Harry Potter. I don't know why; it might be because the series has been integrated into my life since I was such a young age, it might be something completely different. However, I know that some people don't like the series, or do but not to the extent I do. Or you might love the series even more than me. I would appreciate if you guys would please comment if you do or do not like the Harry Potter series. If you don't like the series, try to explain why, I won't judge anyone.

Here are some potential questions, maybe pick a few to answer:

What age were you when you were introduced to the series?

How did you discover the series?

Which book was your favorite?

Is there any particular aspect of the book you like most?

Have any of you guys been aware of HP fanfiction?

Did you read the books or just watch the movies? Which do you like better?

Do you like the series or have you never really been into it?

Anything else you can think to add would be nice :) Seriously, it'll be really embarrassing for my if no one answers anything.

Smithy Thus Far

The Memory of Running is my favorite of the books we've read for Hero's Journey class by far. In fact, it's probably one of the best books I've read in a while.

But I have no idea why this is.

We're only about halfway though the book, but I'm already completely drawn in. Ron McLarty did an amazing job developing his characters and their story lines.

Smithy Ide, the main character, is 43. He is a lazy, overweight chain-smoker who spends his evening drinking and eating hard pretzels and other junk. None of those things are good indicators about his personality, and yet McLarty narratives from Smithy's view in such a way that draws the reader in and makes them sympathize with him. I don't see it as Smithy throwing his life away, I see it as him trying to cope with the past and his family and what he's been through.

Within the first few chapters of the book, I read about how Smithy's parents got in a car crash and both ended up dying on the same day. A few days later, Smithy reads a letter for his late father that said that Bethany, his sister with Schizophrenia, has passed away as well. It's hard not to feel for Smithy.

At this point I greatly pitied Smithy and so, while I didn't (and still don't) understand how he came to always going though a cycle of eating and smoking and drinking, I didn't put that against him. When Smithy had the biggest reason for letting his life go, he instead managed to get on his bike and begin an epic journey. This is potentially the reason I like Smithy's character so much. He got off his ass and started biking and wow... The amount a determination a person must have to decide to bike from Rhode Island to Los Angeles. Or, I guess, Denver. I know that Smithy didn't initially plan to take the trip and that the trip "happened to him" but, when he realized he wasn't satisfied in his life, he decided to continue on. It's unbelievable.

We also see more of Smithy's character when he gets hit by a truck and yet takes care of the man who hit him instead of complaining or getting help for himself. We have the flashback chapter to how horribly he'd acted in the army hospital, so I definitely got a feel for how Smithy had been developing as a person.

There's also Smithy's dorky awkwardness. He doesn't really have friends. It makes the reader able to sympathize more because, lets face it, we all have our strange moments. We as readers also get to see his crush on Norma developing. While some of the things he does. like the love dream" and buying a romance novel because the girl on the cover that looked like her, can be seen as semi-disturbing, I think the main reason we might see it as such is because we're reading about it for our English class. It's actually not that weird. I also love how, when Smithy buys the book about the Norma look-alike, it's the determined look on her face that he sees the connection in and focuses on rather than some random perverse thought. That's so sweet.

That's basically all I have to say right now, but expect more on this book soon(ish).

Nothing's Swell for Dewey Dell

I guess I just want to put this blog post together for Dewey Dell. She has been through so much, and I honestly feel so sorry for her at this moment. I know she's not dead, but I think she deserves a moment of silence now...

Now that that's done with, I think we should reflect on all that she's been through. The first time she's mentioned is through Cora's point of view, and Dewey Dell is depicted as this rude, moody teen who won't really let her family see or talk to their mother. Throughout the novel, however, we as readers get insight from her point of view. It'd been deduced that she hadn't really been taught much sex ed, so of course she was a typical hormonal teenager and didn't really know what to do about that. When she reflects on the scene between her and Lafe we see how she make up a little game; if her sack was full (of cotton) when she got to the woods she would (sleep with Lafe) and if it wasn't she wouldn't. Lafe then went on to help fill her sack and thus she "could not help it." This is the first time in the novel we see Dewey Dell being taken advantage of.

Dewey Dell became pregnant as a result of sleeping with Lafe, and she struggled throughout the novel debating what she would do about it. Abortion was illegal, but she wanted to go that route anyways. Dewey was too scared to ask Peabody's help, and so she was going to use the $10 Lafe gave her and 'take care of it' on the trip to Jefferson. Darl was not very helpful with his taunts about how Dewey Dell really wanted their mother to die so that the family would go to Jefferson; I can only imagine how distraught Dewey Dell was at this point.

On the trip to Jefferson, at one point the family stopped in Mottson, but Moseley wouldn't give her anything to abort her child. When the family got to Jefferson, Dewey Dell went to a drugstore hoping to be helped there. Instead of help, McGowan (a store clerk) said he would give her 'treatment'. Part one of the so-called treatment was drinking a cup of turpentine, and part two was being raped by McGowan.

I'm so repulsed by this part of the novel it's ridiculous. McGowan nothing more than a lowlife and Dewey Dell seems to have the worst luck in the world. As I Lay Dying actually ends with Dewey Dell still being pregnant and oh-so-hopeless, and without the majority of the family knowing of her predicament. Plus, Anse took her $10 so it's not as if she can go to another pharmacy and try again. She doesn't know what to do, and the reader is left unaware of the final outcome.

Dewey Dell did not deserve any of what happened to her, and I can only hope she ended up with an okay life.

I Cant Even

I've been having a hard time writing blog posts for this section. I really have. I think the reason is because I really don't feel like I can connect to any of the characters in As I Lay Dying, and being able to relate to a character is one of the biggest things I look forward to in a novel.

I feel like I don't even have to explain why I don't like Addie, as my last post was entirely about that. Anse, however, is so dweeby. And lame. And ugh. I really don't like him. I began the book thinking awfully of him -- he is not a good father whatsoever. I was starting to feel for him because of the way Addie treated him. However, what he did to Jewel took my sympathy right away: Jewel worked so hard for his horse and Anse just gave it away without consulting him ! I don't understand how someone can do that! The horse meant so much to Jewel!

Speaking of Jewel, if I was going to like anyone in the novel it would be him right now. The fact that Jewel went off by himself and took his horse to Snopes for the sake of getting his mom's body to Jefferson to be buried. I can't seem to forget about how Jewel seems spoiled, though. Plus, his seeming lack of caring when his mother died, while it might have something to do with his way of dealing with the trauma, is off-putting.

There's nothing bad, per say, about Cash, but there are some areas of his personality that are worrying. I feel like Cash has tried to replace his unfortunate family life with work. He works even when he's injured, and that kind of causes me to worry about both his physical and emotional health. I guess it's good that he's so incredibly hardworking but the fact that he puts himself at risk is an unfortunate result.

Dewey Dell worries me as well. It's not really her fault, and we talked a little in class about her lack of general sex ed and role models, but I have no idea what how she's going to end up what with her being pregnant and all. I guess I need to hear more from her point of view to get a better read on her, but so far, even though I don't dislike her, she is not one that I can relate to.

Now we get to Darl, who on one hand is kind of my favorite and on the other is a douchebag. Darl is mentioned to be queer and strange and kinda freaky, which I find almost endearing. We also see from Cora that he is a 'sweetheart' and cares about his mother. However, we only see that from Cora's point of view and, as such, don't know whether that is an accurate depiction of him. Additionally, him being seemingly omnipotent is pretty cool but also extremely creepy. Why does Darl get to know everything that's going on? Also, why is he so rude about it? He is very unsympathetic towards both Dewey Dell and Jewel, and I feel like he should be able to handle himself better.

I left Vardaman for last because he's the youngest and I honestly have no idea what's up with him. Honestly, I said early that I like Jewel the most in this novel, but Vardaman is the one I sympathize with (for?) the most. He's just a young child with a family practically set on self-destruction. His life had been in shambles from the start and now it seems to be falling down and he has no idea what to make of it. Vardaman needs the most support right now, and absolutely no one is giving it to him. Honestly, we see more interaction between the him and the Tulls than we do with his own family. Vardaman always runs off and is without supervision; I'm pretty sure there were multiple occasions in the novel where he could have gotten lost or killed and no one would've really even noticed. He's also dead set that his mother is a fish, which is really weird.

Basically, this family needs help and I'd be extremely worried about what a a psych evaluation of this family would result in.