Read-Along-Blog: Prologue, Silence by Shusaku Endo

Time to dive into this book. 

First, the cover. I absolutely love the cover. Well, at least the cover on the copy I got from my local library. My buddy across the hallway also checked it out and his cover is not as good. But the image is so beautiful, so evocative. I love the contrast between the dark grey/black of the sky and the red of the moon and the "moon drips". The sea is tinted pinkish/red because the blood of the moon is dripping down. And then this image of the priest praying on a cliff--very symbolic.

Now, let's dive in.

• "News reached the Church in Rome. Christovao Ferreira, sent to Japan by the Society of Jesus in Portugal, after undergoing the torture of 'the pit' at Nagasaki had apostatized." Very interesting way to start the book. It clues us into what Christovao is going to do in the future of the story, but I am assuming we are going to then go back and watch how he got to the point where he apostatized--what made him do it. Also, several prepositional phrases in this sentence.
• "And this same Ferreira was now somewhere in Japan. Had that face with its clear blue eyes and soft radiant light--hat it been changed by the hands of the Japanese torturers?" I love how the question in this second sentence is phrased. It starts out a question and then loses itself in description, but then picks up the question later after a dash. 
• On the whole, Shusaku Endo is impressing me with his prose. I mean the prologue reads like a historical text book, only with more details on individuals. But the diction and syntax is very well done. Especially since this is a translation. We may be missing some of the poetic turns of phrase that I am sure are present in the original, but overall, not too shabby.

So, not a ton to discuss, but a good set up chapter. Hopefully this book will hold my attention. I really like the idea and Endo is a good writer and that cover!

Fight Club ch. 6 Read Along

Still really enjoying this book. Such a delight to re-read. I look forward into jaunt into this world each evening. 

My thoughts for this read along are in no particular order:

• "I did this to myself." 
• More on lines like this later.
• "Maybe at lunch, the waiter comes to your table and the waiter has the two black eyes of a giant panda from fight club last weekend when you saw him get his head pinched between the concrete floor and the knee of a two-hundred pound stock boy who kept slamming a fist into the bridge of the waiter's nose again and again in flat hard packing sounds you could hear over all the yelling until the waiter caught enough breath and sprayed blood to say, stop."
• Now this is a sentence. While some people may slap the hand of people who write sentences like this, I really love them. Thus why I am drawn to authors like Faulkner, Joyce, McCarthy, and now I guess Palahniuk. You can see this happening though. The description is simple and beautiful.
• "Maybe self-improvement isn't the answer." and "Maybe self-destruction is the answer."
• But between those two lines is this one, "Tyler never knew his father." Now this idea comes up several more times in this chapter, but we are beginning to see this theme formulate throughout the novel. Now-a-days we have a lot of young men being raised without a male figure to look up to, to learn from. Who is teaching these men to shave, to fix things, to fight, to take a punch, to throw the ball. I don't think that I am the best person to answer these questions as I am not the manliest of men (I mean I read and discuss literature for a living--nothing better than curling up with a good book), but there is something to be said about the modern man and what we have devolved into. Maybe this is why Mr. Warren says that every young man should be required to read Fight Club.
• Then we get the famous rules of Fight Club that every knows from the movie.
• "What you see at fight club is a generation of men raised by women."
• Nothing inherently wrong with being raised by a woman. Many great men have been raised by women. But like I said before, do we lose something by not having a male figure to look up to?
• Then Palahniuk talks about football on television and it occurs to me that we are used to watching other men doing manly things rather than doing manly things ourselves. He has this great line, not entirely appropriate, but the point is made: "After you've been to fight club, watching football on television is watching pornography when you could be having sex." The point is this...that we watch people being manly and never get out there and do man things for ourselves. We don't hunt for our own food. Heck, I hate working in the yard. Building my shed in the backyard was probably one of the worst experiences of my life, I hated it. But that is what a man would do, right? He would get up and build something out of wood, build it to last.
• "The gyms you go to are crowded with guys trying to look like men."
• "I'm a thirty-year-old boy, and I'm wondering if another woman is really the answer I need."
• Another good point to my whole argument about men. The narrator talks about walking through his life, just jumping through the hoops. Graduation high school because that is what is expected of you. Going to college to get a degree. Upon graduating, what comes next? Get a job. Get married. Have children. Work until you can retire. Our lives are scripted these days. Everyone follows the same formula. But are we really happy? Living our lives which are the copies of every other life, are we really happy? Palahniuk would say no, I think. And what will break the mold? Being a man.
• "You aren't alive anywhere like you're alive at fight club."
• "Fight club isn't about words."
• "Sometimes, Tyler speaks for me."
• Again, hints at things that will come later.

I agree with all of this to a point though. Palahniuk is trying to make the point that we are all the same and that men are no longer men. But if we all attending fight club and "become" men, then don't we have the same problem again? The meathead cliche of men is one I actively reject, and I spent a lot of time trying to dispel when I used to teach All Boys English. Men are just a varied as any other group of people and I believe that is a good thing. Being a man can mean so many different things. I especially like the renaissance man ideal--a man that is strong, smart, artistic, and sensitive. Hey Palahniuk, how about a fight club of the mind?

Great Play-By-Play Read Along of A Rose for Emily

Check out one of my students awesome read along of A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner.

http://shelber36.blogspot.com/2015/09/a-rose-for-emily-by-william-faulkner.html?showComment=1441164117166#c4028019202200930757

Things Fall Apart ch. 14 Read Along

Here are my thoughts and what I considered important as I read chapter 14 of Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe.

• Okonkwo has been exiled.
• Uchendu = ou-CHEN-doo
• Okonkwo cried as they brought his mother's body back to her home town. Only time we've heard of Okonkwo crying for any reason. He would consider crying a woman's train. Maybe we will see more crying from our main charater?
• Highlighted: "Today Okonkwo was not bringing his mother home to be buried with her people. He was taking his family of three wives and their children to seek refuge in his motherland."
• Motherland is an interesting concept. I've never heard of that before. Land of my mother.
• Interesting that Okonkwo's crime is a feminine manslaughter. Okonkwo is supposed to be the most masculine character in the book. Maybe this will change Okonkwo.
• Okonkwo's extended family helps him in his time of need. Not very similar to Job in the bible anymore
• Highlighted because it is beautiful writing: "For two or three moons the sun had been gathering strength till it seemed to breathe a breath of fire on the earth. All the grass had long been scorched brown, and the sands felt like live coals to the feet. Evergreen trees wore a dusty coat of brown. The birds were silenced in the forests, and the world lay panting under the live, vibrating heat." Great images in this passage, I can really visualize them.
• coiffure = a person's hairstyle, typically an elaborate one.
• It hails.
• Highlighted: "A vague scent of life and green vegetation was diffused in the air." I can smell this. And smell is such a difficult sense to get into literature--too often it is ignored entirely. But this I can sense. This is what it smells like right before a rain or right after--a vague scent of life.
• Okonkwo has changed, work no longer holds any pleasure for him.
• Okonkwo is disappointed because he thought he was destined for great things. Destined to be the lord of the village. But he believes that he was always destined to fail, that no matter how hard he worked he would not achieve his goal. This is a fixed mindset, but also the believe of his culture. How awful it would be to believe this. I doubt I would get anything done ever if I had this belief.
• Compare and contrast the image of Uchendu presiding over his vast family at the final wedding ceremony for his son to Okonkwo's idea of success. Uchendu is sitting next to his son's future wife, holding the families ancestral staff--presiding over the family. This seems to me to be just as important and powerful as being lord of the village. But Okonkwo just doesn't see it.
• The ceremony isn't a confession, it is an interrogation.
• Okonkwo doesn't belong
• Okonkwo consults with the wise old man (Uchendu). Uchendu comes to the conclusion that Okonkwo is still a child, which I would agree with. He doesn't really understand what is important and/or valuable in life.
• "A man belongs to his fatherland when things are good and life is sweet. But when there is sorrow and bitterness he finds refuge in his motherland. Mothers comfort us and help us get back on our feet."
• Finally, Uchendu talks sense to Okonkwo. It isn't all bad, things could be way worse. At least you still live. You need to help your wives and children to get through this trial so they can return to their village. Stop moping. I see some great allusions to Friar Lawrence's speech to Romeo in Romeo and Juliet.