Category Archives: LITERATURE

LITERATURE: The BW Life of Oscar Wao – Voice and Character

Posted on November 24, 2008 by susan

Junot Diaz has a nice sense of his characters. With Oscar, we feel his struggle between his growing natural interest in girls compounded by peer pressure and his need to hold onto the part of himself that he knows is … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: The BW Life of Oscar Wao – Changing Perspective

Posted on November 24, 2008 by susan

While Oscar was the protagonist in the third-person pov of the first chapter, and we followed him from adolescence through his going away to college, Diaz switches us to first person pov of Oscar's sister Lola without warning in the … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: More on Neruda’s Ode to The Past

Posted on November 22, 2008 by susan

Well that was an astute review of the piece below: Wow. Let's see if I can be a bit more specific. The language (at least in translation) is simple and direct. Neruda uses a metaphor for time as two rivers, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: Pablo Neruda: Ode to the Past

Posted on November 22, 2008 by susan

I am a firm believer that besides the different genres and classic masters, every would-be writer should keep as well a book of poetry beside the couch. For learning imagery, brevity, rhythm, there is nothing that matches the lines of … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao – Opening Thoughts

Posted on November 21, 2008 by susan

I've been busily writing on Hypercompendia so I haven't been as caught up as usual here on the literature postings but I have starting reading this novel by Junot Diaz and find it to be rather quick, easy reading despite … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: Alice Munro’s Prue

Posted on November 19, 2008 by susan

Let's put aside the fact that I can relate to this story of love and infidelity far too easily. Munro is superb at getting inside the emotion of relationships by viewing them through a character that may or may not … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: Posts

Posted on November 19, 2008 by Susan

Just when I'm feeling like an unpaid lit tutor (or essay writer when I look at the students googling for help writing their papers), something nice comes along. Found my posts on Life of Pi by Yann Martel linked on … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: Up Next: Diaz and Neruda

Posted on November 19, 2008 by Susan

I checked out Pablo Neruda's poetry while following Steve Ersinghaus' 100 Days poems throughout this past summer, his having mentioned Neruda as a source of inspiration while he produced a poem a day to match watercolor paintings of his colleague, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: Munro’s Bardon Bus

Posted on November 18, 2008 by susan

Another close writing from Munro–by close, I'm using the "close reading" application, the same attention to diction and use of writing tools such as dialogue and character reflection to give information that a lesser writer might merely present as backstory. … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: Deciding on What’s Up Next

Posted on November 16, 2008 by Susan

With Munro half-finished, I'm ready to browse the bookshelf. While I was rather thinking of Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, my amazon order has been sitting in the hands of the US Postal Service since the … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: Alice Munro’s Accident – The Seeds of Hypertext

Posted on November 16, 2008 by susan

This story, in the anthology "The Moons of Jupiter," is a peek into a woman's affair with a married man.  It follows a short time span when Ted's only son Bobby is killed in a snow sled accident, while rounding … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: The Kindle

Posted on November 15, 2008 by Susan

One of the good things about twitter is that you connect with someone who can direct you to something you've been looking for. Wayne Schulz happened to mention that he loved his Amazon Kindle and upon further tweeting, he directed … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: Truth is Stranger Than Fiction…

Posted on November 13, 2008 by Susan

A while back Dan Green at The Reading Experience posted a response on Obooki's impressions of how valuable fiction is to the store of human knowledge. Dennis Jerz points to a Telegraph article that questions instead the value of journalistic … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: Additions

Posted on November 12, 2008 by Susan

I don't dare tell you how many more books I bought from amazon.com. I do this every time; go to the library sale and then, feeling bad about how many books I didn't get from my list, turn to Amazon … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: The Moons of Jupiter – The Turkey Season

Posted on November 9, 2008 by susan

A young girl, the first person narrator, goes to work at a turkey slaughter house where she hopes to overcome doubts about her capabilities. Munro then uses the character to discover the facts and faults of the workers around her … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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