FIR Reading Blog #12

Title: Two Words (an excerpt from the book The Stories of Eva Luna)

Author: Isabel Allende

Date: September 14, 2010

No. of pages: 8pages

Time alloted in reading: 1 hour

Summary

The short story “Two Words” by Isabel Allende is a tale about a girl who went by the name of Belisa Crepusculario. She had extreme desire to be the best at selling words, since the first time she saw words in the sports section of the newspaper. Belisa learned to read from a priest for 20 pesos and read the dictionary until she knew it cold. She went from the top of blistering cold mountains to scorching hot coasts selling her words in markets and fairs. Belisa’s words became popular fast and everyone knew who she was. People waited for her from year to year to hear her words.

Insight

The main focus in this story is on the two words that she said to El Mulato that cursed him. This shows that you can’t be so quick to judge someone. The conflict in the story is man vs. man because it is generally a battle between Belisa and El Mulato and in the end Belisa won the battle by cursing El Mulato making him unable to run for president. This short story “Two Words” is written in an omniscient narrative point of view, in other words a person is telling a story about something that happened to someone else. The main character in this short story is Belisa Crepusculario. Belisa is a round character because in the beginning of the story Belisa was a poor nobody. She was born into a poor family until she decided to set out across the plains toward the sea. When she made it across she found on the ground a newspaper and decided that she wanted to sell words, which changed her.

FIR Reading Blog #11

Title: A Madman's Diary

Author: Lu Xun

Date: September 7, 2010

No. of pages: 7 pages

Time alloted in reading: 30mins.

Summary

'A Madman 's Diary' focused on a single character that yearned for change and experienced it, somehow affecting the people around him. It is the story of the narrator visiting two old friends from his hometown (old home . He learned that one of them fell ill, which prompted him to visit . Upon arriving and greeted by one of them , he was told that his friend is a 'man-eater'. Seeing the people in his village as potential man-eaters, he is gripped by the fear that everyone, including his brother, his venerable doctor and his neighbors are preparing to eat him. It is anti-traditional in the sense that the other characters are portrayed as heartless, bound to tradition, and cannibalistic. The insanity of the narrator is never proven, however, leading the reader to question the seemingly wholesome intentions of those who care for him. Despite the brother's apparent genuine concern, the narrator still regards him as big a threat as any stranger, showing just how distrustful he has become.

Insight

The concept of a “man- eating society” means that the strong devour the weak. The madman could be said that he is a rebel and social critic whose madness is a kind of sanity that aims for progress or reform at both the personal and social levels of his society from the time of his living. His personal claims about his worldview of society reflect the rejection of an oppressive traditionalism, ignorance and conformity. Furthermore, he has deep sense of and feeling for the ironies, false appearances, and deceptions often involved in human social life. The story is a good literature as to how one can expose the evils of the clan system and feudal ethics and wherein the “man- eating” is the one referred to as “evils”. It is an interpretation of societies of the past, present, and future. The story can refer back as far as in the early century to the present times of the society. Meanwhile, as human cruelty is being pinned down in the story, it shows us that the recipient is dehumanized in the eyes of the offender as in the case of the madman. The depiction of the image of the madman projects an illustration of society that stresses submission to authority, and the ultimate compliance of tradition thus; society is constantly being manipulated and controlled by the masses of people who know no better that to follow tradition.

FIR Reading Blog #10

Title: The Perforated Sheet (Excerpt from Midnight's Children) from "The Vintage Book of Indian Writing", 1949-1997

Author: Salman Rushdie

Date: September 1, 2010

No. of pages: 10 pages

Time Alloted in Reading: 3 hours

Summary

Midnight's Children is the first-person narrative of Saleem Sinai, an obscure thirty-year-old pickle factory worker who writes the fantastic story of his life each night, reading it aloud each night and having it commented on by a doting woman named Padma. He starts his story by describing how his grandfather came to the Kashmir region of India in 1915 after receiving his medical degree from Oxford and how he was approached by a wealthy landowner to examine his daughter. He was not allowed to look at her, though, and during each examination for months could only view her through a hole in a sheet that was held up by attendants. Aadam Aziz, Saleem's grandfather, fell in love with his grandmother, Naseem Ghani, by viewing her in parts.

Insight

The book is an allegory, a tale, full of magical realism and little pieces are hidden and revealed, much like the famous perforated sheet metaphor that pervades the book. What was very flabbergasting for me was all the Indian history. I felt very ignorant about it all. I felt like I was missing something indefinable, something that I would get if I knew more about the history involved.

I still haven't finished, but I'd like to talk about one of the occurring elements. That sheet with the hole cut out that was the only way Saleem's grandfather, the doctor, could examine the girl who would become his wife. Isn’t it a dizzying idea? Here is an institution who wants to protect their girls and women so much, that they allow speculation about them? It seems this method of protection serves a paradoxical purpose. Aren't we reading this book through a sheet, too? Where the hole moves around and we can see one element of the whole story, but we have to make the connections for ourselves?

I can somehow relate to the story in a sense that I strongly believe it is possible to love someone in pieces, without knowing their whole being. When examining the relationship between Naseem and Aadam Aziz, it seems as though Rushdie is stating that one cannot love someone through a perforated sheet, without knowing their soul. Aadam and Naseem’s marriage became a battleground because they did not have a solid foundation of love to build upon. As a consequence, Naseem employed such tricks as attempting to starve her husband, and Aadam reacted by refusing to eat. Due to the fact that both Naseem and Aadam were quite stubborn, neither one of them refused to concede to one another. It makes me wonder if, for Naseem and Aadam, showing one’s true feelings would be to admit defeat.

FIR Reading Blog #9

Title: The Electric Ant, 1969 from the book "Decades of Science Fiction"

Author: Philip K. Dick

Date: August 24, 2010

No. of Pages: 9 pages

Time alloted in reading: 4 hours

Summary

Garson Poole is physically an electric ant, possesses the mental attributes of the human. The struggle to retain these human qualities is the mark of the true human in the "Electric Ant." Like the human, the android must have these very qualities if they are to fulfill their particular function. They must be able to correct their mistakes and to creatively engage with new situations. It is imperative that they act as autonomous beings. It is the act of choosing one goal out of many that helps to create identity. Poole is treated like a person and is unaware, until his accident, of his true nature as an "electric ant." It is his treatment and his memories of his pre- accident experiences as a "human" that help to drive his search for a true sense of himself and reality. The electric ants are designed to function along side humans, but they were programmed not to notice or know they are robots. Furthermore, Poole is not the first electric ant that has accidentally discovered his true nature. Poole is but one of many electric ants who accidentally find out their true identities.

Insight

Poole was designed and constructed for a purpose that was not of his choosing, but now that he knows his true nature, he ponders the concept of decision. He probably never gave his ability to make decisions much thought before, because being human grants one the right to make their own decisions. Since he realizes that his ability to make decisions in the past was an illusion, that the ability becomes very important to him. I sympathize for Poole because he is the true "human" in the story. Even though, he is an android, he is more human than the actual humans around him. The story presents us how human being are being reduced to a commodity/ robot and everything he does has a value. It reflects reality in contemporary life or modern society. The human values in the story is compassion, sympathy rather than commodification or materialistic and there is "sense of justice." So it makes us question, "What makes a human being human?"

Take- off Poetry

The uproar subsided,
tears like flowing water
dried up by the sun.
The residue the tears left
is like salt to fill a
ten- pound sack.

A deep love felt for a father
is like a mother's milk
dried up from the shock.
I had enough in mourning
yet, for mom awaits
the enormous responsibility.

Found poetry

We hid our faces
behind masks
that suggested other histories;
we touched hands
accidentally and our skin
sparked like a personal revolution.

We stared
across the room at each other,
waited for the conversation
and the conversion,
watched wasps and flies
battering against the windows.

We were children;
we were open mouths.
Open in hunger, in anger,
in laughter, in prayer.

Jesus, we all want to survive.

Ghazal Poem

Waiting in vain, impatiently I cry.

There you were yesterday leaving with no goodbye.

Days die so soon, emptiness made me strong.

It was yesterday weaving the thought of final goodbye.

Never will it matter, I found solace in my voice.

So it was yesterday I am believing you bid goodbye.

Some say, distance is what makes the heart grow fonder.

I tried to believe this yesterday, how it meant was goodbye.

Words are just words unless it makes you stronger.

Today I believe, yesterday is stronger than the word goodbye.