Today is June 28th and we have two more days with Mr. O'Brien and The Third Policeman. I hope some of you out there read it! I think I'm going to send a copy to my brother if I ever find myself with an extra $10.
On July 1st we'll be starting "Trout Fishing in America" by Richard Brautigan. It should be a nice breezy summer read, only about 100 pages, but it's also what you might call "literature" maybe even bordering on "prose poetry" if you want to be all stuffy about it.
6.28.2012
6.20.2012
The Delayed Awareness of Screaming
The author does a strange thing with screaming in this book. He has a lot of the characters screaming at different points but he does it in a really weird way. Here are a few:
The way the passages are written, it's almost as if the characters (and the reader) only become aware of the scream AFTER it's already happening. Like it slowly dawns on them that someone, or they themselves, are screaming. As a reader, you get set up with a scene or an image and then you have to go back and re-imagine it, this time with screaming.
On pg 129, you are given the yawn image and then the scream comes in as a shock. On pg 140, you can hear the sergeant "calling" which all the sudden transforms into a scream. And on 162, the scream comes flying out of the narrator on it's own. (This one is a little different from the delayed awareness angle, but still very creepy.)
pg 129
"It is no wonder that you are yawning, the sergeant said..."
"I was only screaming, I blurted."
pg 140
"When nearly on the threshold I was arrested in my step by a call from the sergeant which rose nearly to the pitch of a woman's scream."
pg 162
"Here from my throat bounded a sharp cry rising to a scream."
The way the passages are written, it's almost as if the characters (and the reader) only become aware of the scream AFTER it's already happening. Like it slowly dawns on them that someone, or they themselves, are screaming. As a reader, you get set up with a scene or an image and then you have to go back and re-imagine it, this time with screaming.
On pg 129, you are given the yawn image and then the scream comes in as a shock. On pg 140, you can hear the sergeant "calling" which all the sudden transforms into a scream. And on 162, the scream comes flying out of the narrator on it's own. (This one is a little different from the delayed awareness angle, but still very creepy.)
6.09.2012
The Trouble with Plot Twists
For those of you who don't yet know, there is something of a plot twist at the end of this book. I promise I won't spoil the ending, but it hasn't been easy. This is also a warning: almost anything you read online about this book will give away the ending and it will be a huge bummer. So, be careful out there!
Some readers, smarter than me, will probably figure what's going on before they get to the end. I did not figure it out, but this let me have an ending that was very satisfying and cool.
Some readers, smarter than me, will probably figure what's going on before they get to the end. I did not figure it out, but this let me have an ending that was very satisfying and cool.
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