Tuesday, June 15, 2010

The Great Gatsby

As a starting note to everybody reading this, know that this is my first time trying to give thoughtful analysis on a book via blog and most of this entry probably will make little, to no sense at all. With that being said, let’s get started.

The Great Gatsby, a book that was first introduced to me in my AP US History class as a novel of the roaring nineteen twenties, was a book that I feel both likeness and annoyance towards. To answer everyone’s first question, yes I liked the book, all though the class snobbery was long and hard to read through, I on balance did enjoy the love story and the tragic ending that kind of left me in a weird funk. As for the rest of the book I’m not very sure exactly what to comment on, so I’ll take what was posted on Mrs. White’s blog:” the annotating process, the plot, the characters, a review, whatever else strikes you”. In addition I will try including the AP board’s recommendations for reading: “structure, style, and themes, as well as such smaller-scale elements as the use of figurative language, imagery, symbolism, and tone.”[In that order.]

Annotating process: Well seeing as I’ve yet to visit the site suggested on Mrs. Whites website, my annotation is much like that of any high school student, or if above not by much. I annotated basically whatever I saw fit to be significant words, sentences, rhetoric, and other such things. In the first chapter my mind was still stuck in AP Lang so I was annotation every metaphor and hyperbole I saw. Later I was more selective of my annotations and I only noted unfamiliar words and sentences that I felt the author emphasized. Most of what I talk about in the later elements is things I annotated along the way.

Plot: The plot is quite odd. So basically: There’s a rich kid, named Nick Carraway, who’s trying to make a life of his own and he lives in New York state; He’s friends with the neighbors [Tom and Daisy Buchanan] and visits them one day meeting Jordan Baker; Baker asks if Nick knows Gatsby and Nick does not; Fast forward a few weeks and Nick along with Jordan Baker are at a party of Mr. Gatsby’s upon Gatsby’s invitation to Nick; Gatsby meets Nick and Nick successes in making and epic first impression; Later that night Gatsby takes Baker away to discuss something secret; Fast forward some more weeks and Tom brings Nick to see his mistress, that Daisy knows about but Tom doesn’t know she knows; Myrtle, Tom’s mistress, is wife to a friend of Toms, Mr. Wilson, who wants to buy a car from him; Myrtle and Tom, later at their apartment, introduce Nick to Myrtle’s sister, and her husband; Fast forward some more, after Gatsby and Carraway become friends and Gatsby tells how he is going to ask a favor of him, later that day Miss. Baker tells Nick the favor which is to invite Daisy over for dinner. She tells Nick that the secret Gatsby had told her earlier was that the two of them were once lovers. Nick agrees to the favor, even though he doesn’t feel it’s that burdensome, and invites Daisy over three days later. Gatsby is at first shy to see Daisy again but soon they are back in love and Nick starts to suffer from TWS [Third Wheel Syndrome.] After Nick and Miss. Baker get to know each other more, Gatsby invites the two of them in addition to Tom and Daisy. At the party Gatsby smoothly dismisses Tom to guess as “the polo guy,” and precedes to spending the rest of the night with Daisy until she goes home. Later on Gatsby invites them all to dinner and after words the go to town under Daisy’s and later Tom’s request. After they get in town they stay at a Hotel and only after a little Tom and Gatsby are having it out about who Daisy loves. Daisy is taken home by Gatsby and a little while after the rest of them leave they see that a person has been hit on the road, Myrtle. After further investigation they find it was a yellow car, the same kind Gatsby drives. Later after talking with Gatsby, Nick finds Daisy was driving and she swerved to hit her. The next morning, under suspicion that the man who killed his wife is the man she had been cheating on him with, Mr. Wilson hears from Tom that Gatsby was the driver, and Mr. Wilson shoots Gatsby and then himself-I think. Soon after Gatsby dies, Daisy and Tom move away, and Mr. Caddaway and Mr. Gatz, Gatsby’s father, are the only two to attend the funeral. Nick, afterwards decides to leave the east, and Mrs. Baker, and that’s that. The beginning is filled with semi-colons to try to make the sentence feel longer, because that’s what character development in classical books feels like, long and boring. But if not for the last sentence in this book I would think it was about how love can’t last and the bad guy wins. Nick, Jordan, Mr. Gatsby, Myrtle, Mr. Wilson, everyone is left unhappy or dead at the end of the book, except for Tom, that racist basterd.

Characters: [Please read last paragraph.]

Review: [Please read second paragraph.]

Whatever else strikes you: In order of appearance:
I. What’s up with the repetition of certain words like “riotous” or “ghostly?” Does the author have a limited vocabulary or does he have certain hidden meanings behind the repetition of these words?
II. What’s up with the random racism made by both Tom and Daisy? Tom says we can’t let blacks beat us, and she says “Beat them down?” You crazy 20’s idiots. I can see why its better to make Tom, the antagonist, look to be an idiot but why Daisy?
III. WHOOOO TOM, Brake that chicks nose :]
IV. I would see why the author would like to make Tom look bad in comparison to Gatsby but when talking of the two houses, the author makes Caddaway’s house seem like a refuge shelter and Gatsby’s house look like Bill Gates house.
V. Over use of the------ as an interrupter of sentences.
VI. What’s the point of giving the long stories of people’s lives?
VII. Page eighty three I wrote in large text “PLOT???”
VIII. Who cares about the story of Dan Cody and Gatz past? Notice in my plot I didn’t even mention it. Story goes on without it, save us some pages will you?
IX. I had to read the beginning to chapter six twice, very confusing.
X. For paragraphs that share one thought there is not space but for different thoughts there is a space.
XI. At first when Tom mentioned the sun getting hotter every year I noted it was ironically true, but as he corrected himself saying it got colder every year I noted, Nope, still stupid.
XII. I like how the author refers to Tom, in his informal first name, and Mr. Gatsby, formally by his last name.
XIII. Although he’s a douche bag, I believe he has honest feelings for Daisy and vice versa.
XIV. I think Gatsby could have been far more clever with his and Daisy’s escape rather than just announcing she’s leaving Tom.
XV. Don’t cheat on your husband or he’ll lock you upstairs.
XVI. I think it’s pointless to have “Goodbye, I enjoyed breakfast, Gatsby” as Nicks last words to him as opposed to the sentence preceding that.
XVII. The holocaust was complete?
XVIII. I literally noted, “Who reads this and doesn’t cut themselves afterwards?”
XIX. When leaving Jordan, Sebastian should have sang “Kiss the Girl.”
XX. I think the point to this book based off of the last paragraph is you can’t relive the past.

Structure: I hate the nine years of boring character development in the beginning. I found the paragraph spacing discovery interesting. I’m sure there is some huge literary structure technique I’m overlooking but hopefully I’ll catch it in mental comparisons between this and the other three books

Style: well, I really don’t know. This writing style seemed to use weird inteuptions and repetition of seemingly random adjectives-or maybe their adverbs?

Themes: Like morals? Read XX. Or is it like themes of the era of the nineteen twenties with flappers, and new jazz?

Figurative Language: first the definition: A technique in writing in which the author temporarily interrupts the order, construction, or meaning of the writing for a particular effect. This interruption takes the form of one or more figures of speech such as hyperbole, irony, or simile. He uses a wedding cake metaphor twice and one hyperbole is that seagulls confuse the two eggs of New York which look nothing like eggs if you look at a map of the area.

Imagery:”A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up towards the frosted wedding-cake of the ceiling, and then rippled over the wine-coloured rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea.” I hate the British “Colour.”

Symbolism: Huh, I guess the closest to symbolism I can think of is the Daisy’s green light from across the bay, “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us.”

Tone: The book contains several tones, causal when speaking about funny subjects, calm when talking of Tom’s affair, serious or enraged at the hotel fight, etc.

Once again as always…

Thank you for reading,
Dustin Trembath

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Remarks on Outliers

I’ve never been a hard worker. I see the value in hard work and I also believe that diligence is a virtue, but I’ve never really subscribed to the nose to the grind stone mentality. My parents, teachers, grandparents, and almost every adult figure in my life have tried to persuade me towards fallowing a hard working lifestyle; some have had little success but none have been nearly as convincing as Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. In this book Gladwell tells stories of people who have lives out of the ordinary; or in other words outliers to society. Some of these people consist of Bill Gates, Robber Barons, Bill Joy, Airplane Pilots, A man with an IQ of over 160, and many more, all who have had incredible and often well know lives; The interesting thing that Gladwell tells is how these people became rich, famous, or in some other way successful and why, or sometimes more importantly, why not. The author uses many, many real world examples, both humors and serious tones, and an anthology of respectable observations in order to argue that it is a mixture of willingness to work hard, and an amazing opportunity that allows ordinary, or extraordinary people to become outliers.

I highly recommend this book.

Thank you for reading,

Dustin Trembath

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Test Post

Since I have nothing very interesting to say about the assigned literature, I'll simply post what my goals are for this year.

First and foremost my goal is to improve time management ability and be more diligent about my work. My freshmen and sophomore where, as my GPA shows, crap. Trying my junior year to improve this was a hard and somewhat successful step; however again my GPA shows, not completely successful. This year I hope to do well enough that I may use it as an example to colleges, as to what my abilities actually are.

My second and more specific goal, mainly because its the only other one that comes to mind, is to finish the summer homework two weeks before the school year begins. The college board recommends:
"students should consider a work's structure, style, and themes, as well as such smaller-scale elements as the use of figurative language, imagery, symbolism, and tone."
know this, I hope to identify an example of each of these elements in all three of the books.

Besides these two goals I only hope to develop a more analytical mind and a better critical thinking skill.

Thank you for reading,
Dustin Trembath