1/10/10 Youth In Revolt

Youth in Revolt by C.D.Payne seems to be a great read with a hilarious narration. It tells of a simple 14-year old who is obsessed with sex and everything related to it. He has to deal with his father, an uncaring and unsympathetic person. He has to deal with his mother, a uncaring and unsympathetic person who, and her deadbeat boyfriend. Nick Twisp, the main character, is faced with tons of problems as he goes on a vacation, if you can call it that, to Clear Lake to stay in a trailer for a week. When he meets Sheeni, his whole world seems upside down as he becomes happy beyond belief when he grows close to her until he learns she has a boyfriend. This is as far as I got. The story seems to be similar to the plot of Catcher in the Rye as it goes through a journey of a young man. However, this story involves more comedy and a hilarious outake on life unlike Holden Caufield's which involved mostly depressed moments full of ignorance. The book is a great read due to its writing and hilarious comments which are waiting at every corner. After a nice moment with Sheeni on a hike, Nick claims that they "hiked on. For twelve miles. In the heat. Straight up. [His] feet never touched the ground." (32). Nick's silly little comments give the reader an insight into his life that is very rare in other books.

1/3/2010 Kitchen Boy of the Last Tsar

After finishing the book, I was amazed at the ending. Usually, books like these do not have endings that satisfy the mystery that they create. Instead, in this story the main character's entire plot and storyline has turned out to be a lie. Misha (now called Leoneka) told his granddaughter that he was the kitchen boy of the Tsar's family and the he accidentally led to their deaths. He stated that he was the one who ended up saving the Grand Duchess and tried to save Aliskei. Unbeknown to the reader, Misha is lying. His grandaughter later finds out that her grandfather's name was actually Volodya and he was one of the gaurds that killed the Tsar's family. Kate (the grandaughter) is confused but she "understood it could be no other way.......Her grandfather had been on of them, one of the Reds." (222) Kate soon understands that her granfather had to live with emotional suffering for his entire life and this is the main point of the story. That regarding the russian Revolution, nothing is as it seems. There was deceit, lying, and fraud.

12/06 Catch 22

Almost coming to its end, Heller's story seems to have finally found its plot. Up until now hints have been made about the possible end or the actual main theme of the story but no real points were ever given. It is not until practically the end of the book when Yossarian "marched backward with his gun on his hip and refused to fly any more missions" (400). Seemingly, the entire 399 pages before this have just been setting the scene for the actual main theme of the story. Unfortunatley, I feel that Heller has wated too much time describing minor details about random characters. It seems that Catch 22 was meant to have a short story that ties everything together. I am not sure whether or not Heller will be able to do this, but the last few pages will be an attempt at this. As with the humor and comedy associated with the story, Heller kept up his end of the bargain. Classic comedic scenes such as the one with everyone asking Yossarian about the situation do help the story move along. Heller's book seems to be more of a list of long jokes than a story.

11/21/09 Catch 22

So far Heller has not done too bad but he has not pulled out a great story yet. As in my last entry, he has spent countless pages filling the story with unneeded information that few people may find funny. Heller seemingly writes small plots about side characters in order to have them interact with Yossarian in some way and add to the story. Still, Heller is able to add in humor now and then, as he writes the interaction between Yossarian and Milo. As Milo describes his method for buying eggs in Malta and selling them for even less amongst the troops, Yossarian has to ask "'Why don't you sell the eggs directly to you and elminate the people you buy them from?'" to which Milo obviously replies "'Because I'm the people I buy them from."(237) Seemingly, Milo buys eggs from himself and sells them at a prove that is even less than he bought if for. Yet somehow he gets the illusion in his mind that the syndicate he is a part of is making money when actually they are simply throwing money around and not gaining a cent. Heller has little jokes like these that tie into the story well, but do not change the fact that the plot is nowhere to be seen in this book. So far, I am unimpressed with this book's plot, storyline, and description of characters although the characters are very interesting.

11/15/09 Catch 22

Heller seems to be going rouge on his own story. He seems to want to tell 2o different short stories instead of actually writing one long one. Much of the time he spends on the story actually is spent on describing the side characters' past experiences that sometimes don't even relate to Yossarian (main character). For example, Heller spends many pages describing how Captain Black tried a moral crusade for his regiment. However, Heller adds humor none the less. When Captain Black did not get his desired position, and Major Major did, Captain Black asserted that since Major Major looked like Henry Fonda, "that Major Major really was Henry Fonda; and when they remarked that Major Major was somewhat odd, Captain Black announced that he was a communist." (116). Cleary using the humor of his time to make fun of a large portion of people, Heller was able to make a social/cultural connection. This is something he does often as his plot finally comes to surface that Yossarian is crazy because he is the only sane person left. While everyone else is apparently insane because they have little resent towards going into a dangerous mission, Yossarian is sane because he does everything he can to prevent the mission from happening. Heller has a great plot and the humor to back it up but he seems not to be abel to stay focused long enough.

Catch 22 11/7/09

Joseph Heller's Catch 22 doesn't seem to go anywhere so far. I have read a few pages but I have simply no idea what this book is about. It seems like the beginning is similar to the middle of a Kurt Vonnegut book where little details seem to make up most of the story. Unfortunately for Heller, the details seem to be pretty redundant and useless to the story and actually seem to make it less comedic while it should make it more. Little lines like "The Texan never minded that he got no reply" (11) or "They put the Texan in a bed in the middle of the ward, and it wasn't long before he donated his views." (9) seem to be the ending statements of whole paragraphs. I have not read much, but so far the main character Yossarian seems to be a horribly lazy and boring person. The story reflected around him seems to be so directed at others that the reader cannot find out anything important about Yossarian through his actions. The story so far has been a web of random details that have not yet been glued together.

11/1/09 Blog Reflection

1. My observations in my blog usually relate specific examples to the larger theme of the book. I often take quotes and use them to either support the author's ideas or criticize the book. I will take quotes from any part of the story and use them in order to get a better sense of what the author is truly saying in his story. I focused mainly on the book in general and how it relates to views today or how it describes its own purpose. The blogging experience really helped me as a reader. I had to look deeper into normal quotes and I had to get a context of the lines surrounding the quote. The blogging experience helped me to understand the hardest parts of my books as I was able to write my ideas out.
2. My goal for blogging in the second quarter is to look deeper into quotes and specific moments and maybe to provide a little more context. Most of the quotes in my blog have very vague context and for anyone seeing my blog to understand the quote, I must give them more information. I would like to improve my conclusions of these blogs because I am usually unable to sum up that part of the story or the idea in a way different than that of the author. I would like to make my blogs clearer as I feel they are often clouded with random ideas such as a list of notes and observations. I am interested in what I write in blogs but not so much that I would edit it until I feel it is perfect. To get me further excited about blogs I would like to see extra credit points be given out each week to two people with the best and most imaginative blogs. This would inspire me to try and write better blogs.