While it does help us as readers empathize with Christopher and understand his disorder more clearly. I did find the novel a bit hard to follow at times because of it. For example on page 11-12 when Christopher is explaining what primary numbers are and the process in discovering them that really confused me. I also don’t like when he has to go into detail about every little thing. I kind of lose interest.
A. Rose Miller 11/06/12 1st Reader Response The first eight chapters of Candide are undoubtedly interesting. I like particularly because of the philosophical ideas that appear in every other page. It is clearly meant to be humorous or satirical but, I don’t have much of a liking to those two concepts. This book doesn’t remind me of anything in particular, other than the unusual streak of bad luck that both Candide and myself share.
He is almost the complete opposite of me, and I find it hard at times to track his line of thought. It seems that he goes from one place to another way too fast. For example, he goes from talking about his conversation with Mrs. Alexander in chapter 97 to an explanation of the Monty Hall problem in the next chapter. Since my mind tends to work in a straight line with very obvious connections between ideas, I find seemingly bizarre topic switches like this to be confusing. Besides that, the way he tells the story is very captivating and intriguing.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty When it comes to literature I bounce between comedy and drama, which do not reflect the types of movies I like to watch strangely. So when going through the different choices of literature, I found quite a lot that actually interested me. The one I chose however was “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.” The author tied in not only a relationship that you could see every day between couples who have been together for quite some time, but exaggerated humor can be found within the story as well. This piece of literature was a great example of satire. Mrs. Mitty is characterized as a flat character in my opinion.
She had no confidence in her mother growing up, and saw her as a “limit” and an “embarrassment”. Later in Tan’s life, she found several surveys which led her to realize that she was not alone; there were other Asian-Americans who may have shared the same struggles as her. Tan creates a symbolic diction through the use of words like “broken”, “limited”, and “fractured”. She is very repetitive with her use of these words, although she explains how she hated when people described her mother’s english that way. Although Tan knows that the way her and her mother converse is not grammatically correct, she has grown to love it.
I do not like how she criticizes everything about others and attacks people by putting them down all the time, but I was still curious to find out what this book was all about. Unfortunately, this book did not change my opinion of the author and the message she sends to her readers and viewers. I Hate Everything Starting With Me is crudely humorous. Her signature sarcasm starts on the first page. It is just one of those books that when you read it in public, you start laughing out loud, and people give you some weird looks
It is clear that Tabitha stumbled upon this book before, whilst the reader is ultimately engaged and captivated in wanting to find out why this book is provoking such an emotional response from the protagonist. Moreover it is explained that the past ‘is not only more distant but reassuringly unreachable’. The description of the past is extremely effective as it reveals certainty and factual with regards to the past being distant and unreachable. From this point the reader immediately assumes that the ‘flavour’ the past holds is bitter and saddening, which afflicts pain on to the stories main character. Evidence of the emotions Tabitha is swamped by is seen through the imagery of her ‘eyes
The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt is actually quite an engaging book once you really read it and learn to be open-minded about it. The first half is very confusing, full of digressions and confusing changes of scenes as it is. Despite this, once you get past the bewildering twists and turns of the point of view, and the perplexing dialogue, you start enjoying the wit and intelligence portrayed in the book, especially by the main characters, Sibylla Newman and her son Ludovic. Sibylla is seen using unorthodox ways of teaching Ludovic about the world. She starts educating him at a young age about things that would normally be taught to youths a decade older than him.
It was dramatic, melancholic, and with an unexpected ending! Some parts of the book were difficult to read because of how sad it was, like Kate asking to die was very depressing, not to mention the ending! I would have preferred a happier ending taking in consideration the overall melancholic story but I have to say it was a surprising twist. I would have also liked for Kate to have been a lot more involved in the novel. Passages: "I'm an allogeneic donor--a perfect sibling match.
Even when I got into the story, I struggled with how unsympathetic all of the characters were. They were foolish, naive, whiny, and self-absorbed. They were very human, however in some cases it was hard to see that they could ever redeem themselves. For example, Catherine- the beloved whose rejection of Heathcliff spurs the book’s events. She had a very high sense of self-worth: “But I begin to fancy you don’t like me.