"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; I lift my eyes and all is born again."

I’m really starting to like this book, even though I must say it’s one of the strangest I’ve ever read. The point of view changes often and although it’s been hard for me to really understand Haze at all, I’m beginning to think that maybe that’s the point. He clearly is misunderstood by everyone around him, but he almost invites the isolation upon himself. He is intentionally short and rude to people, and challenges everyone who so much as looks at him the wrong way. So far, it seems like the only one who has any hope of getting through to him by the end is Enoch, and that’s because he’s been so persistent. I must say, of all of the perspectives that O’Connor rights through, I enjoy Enoch’s the most. The way he follows his blood so intently is intensely bizarre and captivating at the same time. I especially loved the anticipation throughout chapter 8 that finally leads us to understand why Haze and Enoch were brought together–to start the Church of God Without Christ, and use the mummified child that Enoch’s going to steel and keep in his cabinet as a “new Jesus”.

There are also a few things in the book that are continuously being brought up so I’m beginning to think that they have to be symbols for something, but I’m not quite sure what so I’m going to go ahead and just throw them out there for anyone who has any idea and would like to enlighten me.

1. The Essex (Haze’s “new” car)

2. Haze’s old hat that he always keeps tipped down, and then the new flashy one he buys

3. The clouds in the sky (especially when Haze and Asa get have to get the car fixed after it breaks down)

4. Enoch’s blood–obviously it has to have some greater meaning since it does make up the title of the novel

Just some things I’ve been thinking about!

One more thing, can I just say that for how much Haze claims that he despises Jesus and seems to fear him, he sure does say his name almost constantly.

After hearing about our next paper prompt last week, I began to look for quotes in The Moviegoer that resonated with me as profound statements of truth for life in general. As soon as I read this one by Kate, my mind was already spinning with ideas of what to write about so I thought I would collect my thoughts in a blog post. As she is explaining her near suicide attempt to Binx, she says, “-Listen. Isn’t it true that the only happy men are wounded men? Admit it! Isn’t that the truth?” When I think of wounds, I think of the scars that they leave. In a metaphorical sense, scars obviously have to do with your past, and bad things you may have overcome–or are currently attempting to overcome. So is Kate saying that we cannot fully be content with your lives until we acknowledge and accept our past? In other words, we need to understand who we are and where we came from (the bad and the good), in order to move forward and try out new things that will hopefully fulfill us. I can think of a lot of people who would agree with this statement, including myself, so I look forward to possibly developing my ideas further if I chose this as a subject for our final paper.

At this point, I’m not sure I could go so far as to say that I love this book; in fact, I probably wouldn’t even be able to say that I like this book yet. It’s slowly growing on me, let’s leave it at that. I think it’s hard for me to find this book really interesting when it seems to be moving slowly. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that the author, Walker Percy, is purposely highlighting the mundaneness of the characters’ lives because it enhances the idea that each one of them is “stuck” in an identity they don’t want to be in (except Uncle Jules who seems perfectly content with his life), but at times, I find myself zoning out while reading because it just gets so monotonous. However, I’m hoping that since I’m not even half way through the book yet, that it will pick up at some point. If it doesn’t, I’ll just have to walk away from the book with a simple appreciation for it, but nothing close to a strong love and longing to read it again some day.

However mundane the novel seems to be right now, I did notice a few interesting things, one of which I would like to point out. I find Binx’s “search” most interesting of all. Not only is the idea a worth while one because it can be applied to everyone who ever felt out of place, but the way he went from living his dull and conventional life, to suddenly seeing things differently and noticing the little things. One of these days (when I find enough time), I want to walk around my room and just take everything in. It’s a compelling idea, I think, to take the time to truly notice everything around you. The things you see everyday may not seem important when you pass them twenty times a day or a lot more, but if they were gone tomorrow, I would surely notice. They represent more than what we tend to realize. They are what makes our life ours-what makes it unique to us, and that is something to be at least noticed and accepted.

I still have yet to peg the central theme of this play. So far, I’m sensing that there are several including (but not limited to), the meaning of language, the significance of life and identity, our purpose for living, and of course (because what would an AP Lit book be without it), the inevitability of death. Death is especially referenced to quite frequently in the second act of the play, which we finished today in class. Since the title of the book tells us that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern will die (just in case you haven’t already read Hamlet…in which case, you should probably go ahead and do that before reading this play), I can’t help but note that those remarks about death are supposed to be a hint of foreshadowing. With the player saying things like “over your dead body” and Guil wondering aloud whether they will ever return from their voyage to England, the idea of death is essentially thrown at us right where it should be-towards the end of the novel. These frequent references to some overall theme have already happened several times throughout the play, so that leaves me still curious as to what exactly Stoppard was trying to get across. Will all of these separate themes intertwine, or is this just a complex play with multiple lessons to teach us? I guess will have to keep reading to find out!

Considering Wicked is one of my favorite books, I was really looking forward to starting Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. I think the idea of a well known story being told from someone else’s point of view is pretty intriguing because you learn things that never would have occured to you before–it’s almost like a backstage pass. However, I must admit that thus far into the play, I have been a little big dissappointed. I’m usually one to give anything I’m reading a very fair chance before I come right out and say I don’t care for it, but Act I has proven enough leeway time for me. So far I don’t care for it too much because, like Graham, I need a little more action. I understand that sometimes the beauty of a novel or play is that so little action can take place, yet the characters somehow address some profound overall meaning, but still, I am not entertained, but rather confused. I find myself so busy trying to keep up with what’s on the surface of the text, that I barely have enough time to contemplate what the underlying meaning could be. Maybe if I were reading it to myself, at my own pace, that would help (seeing as I am generally a very slow reader), but I will admit that its very helpful when Dr. Crumley pauses to point out something profound a speaker may have said. Without those hints that “hey look! they’re contemplating identity. could be a major theme here!!”, I would have absolutely no clue what to think of this play, and therefore would probably give up. However, I’ve decided not to give up–partly because I literally can’t since we’re reading it in class–but also because I want to have faith that maybe I’ll start to understand/appreciate it more once we’ve read further.

Considering that most of the novels we’ve read this year have not had the most exciting of endings (with the exception of Hamlet in which almost every character dies in one of the last scenes), I was completely blindsided by the ending of The Hours! Usually I consider myself a very intuitive reader. I like to try and figure out what’s going to happen next pages before it actually happens, but I did not see the fact that Richard was indeed Laura’s son, “Richie”, coming at all. At the end of Laura’s final chapter, when she is examining the bottle of sleeping pills in the medicine cabinet and saying how she feels as though she is a ghost, I was absolutely sure that she was going to commit suicide by the end of the novel. Obviously I missed the mark altogether because she ends up being the only one from her family to survive, which is heartbreaking in and of itself. I did get one thing right though, she did at least attempt to commit suicide, and it obviously had a profound affect on Richard (Richie) for the rest of his life. It’s interesting to me that after her failed suicide attempt, she ran off to Canada to be a librarian, leaving her family completely behind. I have to wonder, was she happier once she got out of her suffocating life as a housewife? I’d like to think it was worth it for her to break her son’s heart like that. He looked up to her, and was so enamored by her. I’m sure it was devastating for him to know that when his own mother could not leave the world completely, she still couldn’t get away from them fast enough. No wonder Laura haunted her son’s writing for the rest of his life.

I’m also curious as to why Cunningham chose to end Virginia’s part of the novel with her getting ready to move to London. Is it because of the irony? She’s so excited to move, it’s almost as if she’s getting a fresh start. There’s so much hope in her thoughts, and if I hadn’t already known her eventual fate, I would have predicted that she would be healthier and happier once back in London, with all of the headaches reduced to nothing but a distant memory of a disease she once suffered from. The irony is in the fact that despite her hope that everything will be better, it only gets worse.

Each character in The Hours is stuck. All three women are pinned, attached, and glued to the lives they currently lead. Thoughts of the life they wish they could have lived, whether it be in London, with a young love, or being anything other than a housewife, constantly fill Virginia, Clarissa, and Laura’s thoughts respectively. As a reader, I can feel their hopelessness. I want Clarissa to be able to “slip out of this life” and go back to the time when she was “still full of hope, still capable of anything”. I wish Virginia could move back to London with her husband and enjoy a headache free life full of passionate writing that means something. And I would love for Laura to be able to explore the part of her that hasn’t been seen by anyone yet, the part that becomes something amazing and meaningful. What will it take for all three of these women to lead a life they can be proud of? That’s my question. Maybe that’s one of the messages that Cunningham wants to convey to us readers out there. Where did each of these women go wrong? How do we keep ourselves from traveling down this same path that leads to a life we don’t want to be in. I don’t know about you guys but thirty or forty years down the road, I don’t want to be in a position where I’m wondering what path my life would have taken if I would have followed my heart or my passion before it was too late. That sounds like an awfully dreadful existence to me, and so I feel terrible for Virginia, Clarissa, and Laura. Obviously we know that Virginia couldn’t handle the life she was stuck in, what with the headaches and overwhelming depression, but I’m curious to see what becomes of the other characters. I feel almost a protective attachment to them now. I wish I could snap my fingers and poof! They would all be living the lives they dream about, and everyone would be unconditionally happy.

Virginia Woolf is one of those authors who has the undeniable ability to transport her readers to the very location as her characters in the novel. The amount of detail she puts into each description of the way something looks, smells, tastes, feels, or sounds is so realistic. That is one of the many reasons I am enjoying this book so far. I’m not always such a fan of such detail because it can often be unnecessary and boring, but Woolf’s writing is so breathtaking, and each sentence is so beautifully constructed, that the least we can do as readers is simply appreciate her work.

Sometimes I wonder how happy Mrs. Dalloway truly is. She seems to be putting on a facade for the world, when really she’s wondering where her life went. She even says herself that the best moment of her life was when Sally kissed her. That to me screams that she longs to be more carefree like Sally was.

Also, I have noticed that there are many references to trees in the novel. Both Mrs. Dalloway and Septimus have already mentioned the trees so far, and seem to have a love for them that runs deeper than just saying they’re pretty. I wouldn’t be surprised if they come up plenty of times throughout the rest of the novel.

For a good chunk of the time that I was reading these first 34 pages, I was simply trying to figure out the characters and their relation to one another. I almost felt like I should be keeping an on going family tree, and also make note of what relation characters like Vernon (neighbor?) have to the rest of the family.

After I understood a little more clearly who each of the characters were, the writing began to flow a little more easily. Surprisingly, I like the way each of the characters have their own thoughtful monologues within which they can completely reveal themselves to the reader. With each changing section, the tone and thought processes change. I like that. It gives a very personal touch to each character.

Darl seems to be the most observant and pensive one of the narrators we’ve had so far. His thoughts are much deeper than the others, so I sense that the theme of the novel will most likely be expressed through Darl’s thoughts more so than others’. But I could be wrong.

Does the amount of repetition drive anyone else crazy? I know it’s just the style of writing, but the way certain lines are repeated over and over again is getting to me. Why did Faulkner chose to do that? Are those specific lines emphasized for a reason? Am I supposed to draw something special from them? If that’s true than someone please tell me why it’s so important that Cora’s cakes “turned out real well”… obviously I’m missing the point.

The first poem I chose to analyze by Sylvia Plath was “Electra on Azalea Path”. It’s a little bit of an eerie poem because she’s talking about her father who passed away. I was attracted to this poem first of all because of how strong and clear Plath’s emotions are throughout each stanza. She was obviously traumatized as a young girl when her father, whom she looked up to and loved very much, died so unexpectedly. All of the imagery she uses really allowed me to understand exactly how she felt at the time of his death, and even how she felt later in life when writing this poem. I also found the title interesting. Electra could refer to Freud’s theory that some girls have an “Electra complex”, meaning that they are in love with their father and are envious of their mother. Then the poem tells us that Azalea Path is the name of the cemetery where her father is buried. So why did she chose to title the poem this way? Is she referring to herself as electra? Does she think her relationship with her dad was an unhealthy one? Or is she just trying to show how much love and adoration she had for him in a very normal way? One thing is for sure, this haunting poem makes it clear that the her father’s death when she was such a little girl truly affected her for the rest of her life.

The second poem I chose by Sylvia Plath is titled, “Stillborn”. I must admit that I was apprehensive when I saw the title of this poem. Knowing that Sylvie Plath was not the bubbliest of poets, I wasn’t sure what disturbing stanzas of poetry might await me. However, I was pleasantly surprised. The tone of this poem is still a negative one, but there seems to be more frustration throughout the poem, unlike the last one. Plath personifies her poems as she describes them as stillborn children, insisting that they are “proper in shape and number and every part”, yet they have no life. Plath must have truly believed that most of her poems were no good, and would never be able to speak to anyone on a deeper level. The last stanza of the poem starts off with a very playful tone. She refers to pigs and fish as “piggy” and “fishy”, but then the tone turns very dark and somber again as she refers to herself in the third person as their mother who is “near dead with distraction”. Maybe she was extremely busy during this period of time so she wasn’t able to put in as much effort with each poem, and therefore she felt like they suffered because of it? Or maybe the “distraction” she speaks of is referring to something completely different. That’s something I’ll need to investigate further