RachZ

The Time Traveler's Wife:

The ending of the book was like I expected it to be: a slow resolution.  Henry's death did not come as a shock to me because I knew that the author had to write something to satisfy a story that took place over 10's of years. However, the author did put a spin on Henry's death, which I will recap: In the present (2006, or so) Henry is in is 40's and is still time traveling actively to the future and to the present. In one of his trips in the present, he goes back to Clare's childhood home (in which she is about 9 years old). When he arrives, it is late as night and Clare's uncle's are out hunting. Because he appears out of nowhere, Clare's uncles shoot Henry in the hopes that he is an animal. Of course, before they can get to him, he disappears back to the present (2006), where he appears in Care and his home covered in blood almost dying. So, even though he dies in the present, he still often visits Clare in the future because when he visits her, he is still alive. SO CONFUSING but SO GOOD!! Clare is able to wait for him and even though he is dead, he still gets to see her grow old, even though he is young. 

As for the literary techniques used in this novel,  I  continue to believe that a large part of the storyline focuses around point of view. Without point of view, readers would not be able to understand both Clare and Henry's thoughts, which brings me to another point. Although this novel is written in first person, it is very different from other first person novels we have read in English in the past. For example, in A Farewell to Arms, the novel was written from Henry's point of view, yet readers still had to use other clues throughout the novel to understand what he was really thinking. In this novel, there aren't as many literary cues sprinkled throughout to give us hints as to how the characters are thinking. Instead, the characters thoughts are plainly laid out on paper so there is no guessing involved. If I had to name this movement, I would call it the "contemporary movement" because many other novels I have read from this time follow this same style: point of view and a focus on real aspects of life (ie. the five senses). 

I wasn't really sure what to expect with Maus. I didn't know if it would be funny, difficult to understand, or interesting. I have found that it is mildly funny, not hard to understand, and very interesting. I have never really been into comics that much, so reading this book/ graphic novel is a new experience for me. I find it interesting that the author/artist is able to keep the characters the same in each frame. If it were me writting/drawing the novel I would find it difficult to distinguish between characters of the same species (ie. mice, cats, pigs). It makes sense that the cats were choosen to be the nazis and the mice were choosen to be the jews. Because cats are known for being infamous "mice chasers" it only fits in this story that they are the nazis.

I keep trying to analyze the way the pictures are drawn and the only thing I have come up with is the nazi symbol that occasionaly appears in the background of the frames. It doesn't appear in every frame, but seems to represent the nazis, obviously.

The relationship between the father and his new wife seems strange to me. The father has attempted, several times, to talk to his son about her but he does not seem to want to hear it. I wonder why?? We'll see!

I think that the book has begun to lead up to the climax of the story. The story has started to move at a faster pace and the character relationships have developed to their full extent. Henry and Clare have just enlisted the help of a genetics doctor to help them determine the cause of Henry's time travel problem. Henry and Clare want to have a child, but are reluctant because they do not want Henry's "disease" to be passed down. Henry also seems to disapear for lengthy periods of time now, and often receives sharp headaches whenever he does. Will he get stuck in the future forever?? That's what I think might happen.

As I said before, the book still continues to focus on the thoughts of the individual characters. I think that this novel really centers around the personalities of the characters and in order to develop a personality for each character, the author had to explain each of their personalities. I have also noticed that the author of this novel often uses a variety of sentence structures. They are not all complex or compoud complex. There are often simple sentences thrown in to make a point or realy emphasize a particular subject. There doesn't seem to be any symbolism, which might have been a characteristic of older literary movements. Instead, everything thing means what it is supposed to mean. There are no hidden messages (or at least if there are, I haven't picked up on them).

I wonder what will happen next!!! 

Rachel, Chelsea, Jordan

Laura

• Feels disabled by her leg, even though it does not really inhibit her physical movements.

• Her mom is so controlling. This overprotection pulls her in and makes her shy. She is afraid to branch out of her "mold". 

• Hasn't been growing -->maybe doesn't want to. Is she satisfied with her life as it is??  

I finally understand the details of the time traveling that occurs in The Time Traveler's Wife. In my last blog post, I wrote that I was confused about how Henry's age changes as he travels back in time. I have realized that his age doesn't change when he goes back in time. For example, in the year 2004, Henry is about 40. if he were to travel back in time to the year 1984, he would still be 40. It is strange because he often meets himself in past form when he travels back. So sometimes chapters have headings like (Henry is 40 and 20). He is able to have conversations with himself. Strange!!! This also influences his relationship with Clare (yes, i know, her name doesn't have an "i" in it). Like I said before, Henry met Clare on a journey back into the past. So she was only 6 when she met him, while his age constantly changed. Finally, they have met each other in the present, but Henry doesn't remember anything that happened between them in the past because he hasn't traveled back in time to meet her yet. Sound confusing? It is! I guess the only real way for anyone to understand what I'm saying would be to read the book, which I highly recommend!

Now, for the literary part of this blog post:

I continue to believe that a big part of the "current" litterary movement is a focus on point of view. The Time Traveler's wife revolves around the thoughts of two different people, whereas previous American novels focus on ideas and symbolism. In this novel, the diction is much less intricate than in previous books, yet it is still able to convey the story line effectivly. This might sound trivial, but I have also realized that a big part of this book focuses around the main senses:Sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. The author often says things such as " I felt the raindrops soaking through my thin jacket." or "I could feel the soft touch of her skin against my rough cheek."This makes me think that this movement emphasizes real feelings instead of symbols that aren't real. Maybe a good name for this movement would be "simple-ism" or "actualism".

Blog 1 (p.1-122)

I can't get enough of this book!! I just really started to read it on Friday, but today it really started to pick up, and I couldn't put it down. The plot is mildly confusing as the main character, Henry, travels through time, jumping in age, but also stays in the present. He lives moments of his life over and over again, yet refuses to tamper with them for fear of changing the future. He often travels back in time to meet a girl named Clare at different stages of her life. He first meets her when she is 7 and occasionaly pops in on her as she grows up: his age changes each time he sees her and her's stays constant. I often get confused when Henry time travels to the past because he often gets older instead of younger, which doesn't make sense to me right now. I can't wait to see what's going to happen next. I feel as though the book is working up to a big conflict involving time travel-which fascinates me.

As for the style of this book, I have noticed that a big part of the novel revolves around narration and point of view. In Time Traveler's Wife is narrated by two people, Clare and Henry. Often each of their narrations are only a page long, which is very interesting because it lets me see how each of them interprets the same scene differently. This book is written in first person and each of the characters explains exactly what they feel at every moment in the book, which might be another characteristic of the current literary movement: a focus on character feelings. In books like A Farewell to Arms, readers had to guess how Henry (haha same name in both books) felt at different moments in his life. Hemingway used literary techniques to give the readers clues about Henry's feelings. In this book, the feelings of the two characters are directly stated and it is up to the reader to interpret why the character feel the way they do. 

I can't wait to see what's going to happen next. A thirty-something year old Henry has just told a 17 year old Clare about his mother's death and how he is often transported in time to re-live the moment. His mother died in a car accident when Henry was a child. The strange thing is, Henry was also in the car with her yet right before the accident, he time traveled out of the car to watch it crash. (this still mildly confuses me because I don't understand how Henry's random time changes are controled).  I feel as though the book is working up to a big conflict involving time travel-which fasinates me. Can't wait!!

I thought that the ending of this book was well written in that it created a conflict and also resolved the same conflict. There were two major conflicts in this book: Daisy, Tom's, and Gatsby's confusing relationship and Wilson, Tom, and Myrtle's relationship. Fitzgerald resolved the book by ending these love triangles by killing off just enough people so there would be no more relationship problems. From what I understand, Tom told Wilson that Gatsby was the one driving and was the one that killed his wife. This is very interesting because it is almost as if Daisy should have been the one to die, not Gatsby, since she killed Myrtle. Gatsby pretty much died for Daisy's safety. Wilson also shot himself in Gatsby's yard which adds even more mystery and significant to Gatsby's large house. We also learned that since hardly anyone came to Gatsby's funeral, except his father and Nick, he must have made many enemies on his way to the top.

"They were all careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then they retreated back into their money of their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made..." (179).

This quote really shows the disparity between West egg and East egg. Nick is almost criticizing the people from East egg in this quote. He believes that they know that even if they mess up, they will always be able to fall back on their money. Although Nick had money, he still tried to work on his own to make his own life. This is the same for Gatsby, which is why they both live in west egg. I wonder how Daisy feels about Gatsby's death?? It is interesting that Fitzgerald left this part out because it seems critical to figure out if she really did love Gatsby. However, maybe this just proves that she was meant to be with Tom (since he was picking out jewelry for her in the end...) So, was Gatsby really great? Who knows. To Nick he was not well liked. Only 3 people came to his funeral which proves that he doesn't have very good relationships with other people. I think that he was great. He worked for what he wanted...Daisy.

VOCAB: 1. Addenda (166) - noun. A textual matter that is added onto a publication. I added two addenda to the end of my academic journal to explain my interest on the subject of the journal. 2. Interminable (154) - adj. tiresomely long. The meeting was interminable and made me fall asleep.

Ps. sorry for the long-ness of this blog 

"Yes." he said after a moment,"but of course I'll say I was. You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive- and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way." 143

 Myrtle's death can be seen as a somewhat ironic event. She was cheating on her husband with Tom, who's wife Daisy had begun to cheat with Gatsby. The death of Myrtle off-balances this whole setup. Especially since one of Jordan's reasons that Daisy should see Gatsby was that "she deserves to have someone in her life like Tom does."  I can't tell yet if her death will bring Gatsby and Daisy or Daisy and Tom closer. It already seems as thought Daisy and Tom are getting closer (from the seen that Gatsby saw through the window). Maybe Tom will realize that he should begin to love Daisy more because 1) he no longer has Myrtle and 2) He might be a tad jealous of Gatsby. It almost suprised me that Gatsby and Daisy haven't directly taken the guilt for hitting Myrtle, because it would seem like something Gatsby would do. But, I guess he is a dishonest man and this just proves it. Also, Daisy might not want Gatsby to confess because she fears what will happen if Tom finds out she was the one that killed his lover. I really would like to know if he ever finds out what Daisy did, or if the police find out. Wilson and the police seem to have a pretty good idea of what the car that hit daisy looks like, so it shouldn't be hard to findthem

Before Daisy and Gatsby left the hotel, There was an emmense amount of fighting taking place between Daisy, Gatsby, and Tom. Tom now knows about the developing relationship between his wife and Gatsby...yet for some reason, he still pushed for them both to ride in a car together....kind of odd. Also, I found it rather strange that Daisy kept mentioning something that happened in the past between herself and Tom. When she mentioned this "thing" (it was never really stated what happened in the past), he would snap at her and tell her that it no longer mattered. This makes me suspicious...what happened in the past between Daisy and Tom that Daisy is so compelled to mention??

We now know exactly how Gatsby got his fortune, by selling over the counter alcohol with Wolfsheim. Both men mention someone samed Walter Chase. They never actually directly say who Walter Chase is (or was), but they speak of him like his presence in Gatsby's life was bad. 

Vocab

1. portentous (135)- adj- grandiloquent, overblown, pompous, pontifical. By the look of Tom's portentous dress and speech, one can observe that he is quite stuck up.
   
2. julep (127) noun- bourbon and sugar and mint over crushed ice. During Gatsby's hot, summer parties, many of the guests drink mint juleps.