Responses to "Cancer Made me a Shallower Person," "Caring for Your Introvert," and "June: Circle K Recipes"

I found Miriam Engelberg's "Cancer Made Me a Shallower Person" motivating in a strange way.  I thoroughly enjoyed her dry sense of humor throughout the comic (particularly the allusion to a mechanic working on a car), especially given the subject matter.  I also liked that she was very forthcoming about her own flaws, like the fact that she felt a need to tell everyone with whom she came into contact about her diagnosis.  It was interesting reading what she went through, and while I've never been through anything similar, it seemed that her thoughts and feelings (and more particularly the way she recounted them in the memoir) were very realistic and human and therefore relatable on some level.

I was not sure what to think of Jonathan Rauch's "Caring for Your Introvert."  The first thing that I noticed was that the introduction was very elementary (a series of rhetorical questions leading to a "here's the answer" statement of thesis), but as I got further into the essay it occured to me that the introduction may have been satirical in some way.  Sometimes Rauch seemed to be tongue-in-cheek, and others completely serious, and I wasn't able to decide which tone he was aiming for.  He made some statements, particularly the one about introversion being an "orientation" rather than a choice, that seemed a little extravagant or strange, but not so much that they must have been satire.  I finished the essay having enjoyed it for the very reason that I did not know what to make of it.


The last reading, Karen Tei Yamashita's "June:  Circle K Recipes," was the least enjoyable to me.  It seemed to have little focus other than listing recipes and using them to set up vaguely related stories or sentiments, and I found her style very choppy in a way that was hard to understand.  She used many fragments in her writing, and while I understand that this is a perfectly acceptable use of literary license, it seemed to me that she didn't preface these fragments with enough context to make them easily understandable. 

Interview with a Psycho

Strange as it may seem, I still regularly keep in touch with my high school English teacher.  Her name is Ms. Chambliss, she's about 180 years old, three times a divorcee, and yet has more pep in her walk and more edge to her mind than my graduating class in its totality.  Chamby, as those few of us who could get away with it liked to call her, is certainly an acquired taste; her name was often used as a measure of hyperbole to describe something terrifying ("you better not hit on his girl again, he'll go Chambliss on your ass").  But I adored her.


So I recently e-mailed Chamby to touch base and let her know how everything was going for me.  I told her that this summer I had failed a class, and her response led to a back-and-forth between us that would not be at all a stretch to call an "interview."

In high school, Ms. Chambliss had been a stickler for not only attendance but attentiveness in class.  She swore by discipline and studiousness, and that's why I was shocked to read her response to my failing a class:  "Great job, party on!"  I took this as a tongue-in-cheek reprimand, and responded that, while I had certainly caught the college party bug this summer, I wouldn't let it get the best of me.  Again, she responded in her usual eccentric manner:

"I'm happy for you that your grades slipped because you discovered partying. Keep it up! Grades can be negotiated, but partying is #1.  All work and no play makes Jake a dull boy. You can do both and be successful, Honey Chile. It looks as though you are headed for a career in writing/teaching, and I can guarantee it will make you feel rewarded in some strange way. Take care."

I'm still not sure what she means, but as our e-mail "interview" continues, I'm actually starting to think she's being literal rather than sarcastic.  And if she is, it just shows not only that her reputation for slight psychosis is well-earned, but that the guise people present when they're in professional 9 to 5 mode is not always who they really are after they punch out for the day.

Responses to "What Helen Keller Saw," "Interviewing," and excerpt from Candyfreak

Cynthia Ozick's "What Helen Keller Saw" was basically a brief profile of Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan, with parts about other significant figures in Keller's life but the main focus remaining on Helen Keller.  The piece raised many questions about the way history views Keller, calling into question her authenticity on several accounts.  I found this interesting because I have never heard any of the accusations mentioned in Ozick's essay, like the charge of plagiarism concerning her story about fairies.  Ozick seemed to be defending Helen Keller in most cases, but for me personally, all the essay did was raise many questions about Helen Keller that weren't directly answered in the end.

Chapter Nine of the textbook, "Interviewing," was a short instructional piece on the process of interviewing for creative nonfiction.  I found most of it common knowledge, though I was surprised to read that most journalists don't use recorders or take verbatim notes.

The excerpt from Steve Almond's <i>Candyfreak</i> was a bit hard for me to follow.  I did enjoy the author's style, and I thought it had a few idiosyncratic details that made it interesting (like the narrator's losing his driver's license at the start of the trip), but overall I think it is difficult to become and remain enthused about unless you have a particular interest in candy or the behind-the-scenes life of small name candy-making.  It felt like watching an episode of Food Network's "Unwrapped," which is an interesting show to turn on for background noise and the occasional "huh, that's neat," but not something most people would watch on the edges of their seats.

PTSD

Interestingly and literally, I have almost no recall of my two years of junior high school.  The things I do recall seem less like memories and more like vague recollections of dreams I had while passed out drunk, and a lot of the time they're very different from what others who were there with me remember.  Sometimes I think it's like a mild case of post-traumatic stress disorder; those were probably the two worst years of my life.

Mostly I remember just feeling really awkward and not having any friends.  Only, most of the people I consider my closest friends now are people I met in junior high.  And when I tell them this, when I tell them about my memories of middle school friendlessness, they remind me of that.  But yet, despite the fact that I know I met them all in junior high, I almost don't remember it.  More so I remember them being there, and my having a sense of their having been there for a few years already, in early high school. 

I wonder if this horrible experience of junior high is somewhat universal?  It makes sense to me.  Seventh grade is about when puberty kicks into full swing, when hormones are raging, people are learning to be deceitful and cliquey, and some sense of the future starts to set in.  But I remember it being more than that; I was hopelessly distraught over something.  I just don't know what it was.  Looking back with an objective eye, I can say with a fair degree of conviction that it really was just normal pubescent kid stuff.  I felt weird, awkward, and lonely, but I remember it being so much more than that.  Only it wasn't.

Responses to The Winged Seed, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, and Blankets

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius was a very enjoyable read for me.  One of the first things I liked about it, something that I thought was reasserted throughout the excerpt, was that the narrator did not ask for the reader's sympathy in the self-pitying way that the narrators of many memoirs do.  What I mean by this is that while the situations in Heartbreaking Work were unfortunate and it was in fact very easy for the reader to feel sorry for the narrator, neither the author of the memoir nor his character in the narrative portrayed self-pity, in my opinion.  Eggers's character seemed almost unaware of the misfortune of his situation, and seemed to simply accept it and move on. 

The excerpt from Blankets was my favorite of these pieces.  I felt it was bursting with a literary value that did not come off (to me) as pretentious or contrived at all.  Thompson's first struggle--the break-up--was very universal and portrayed with a stark reality (excellently supported by the accompanying pictures) that made it very tangible, and the pressure to which he was subjected about college was also very easily identifiable.  I thought the symbolism (particularly the bits about "looking directly at the sun" and the ice as a "scab") was very well done, and the metaphors added a lot to the memoir.

As far as The Winged Seed, I didn't quite connect to it like I did the other two selections.  While it was well written and the topic of alienation in general was apparent to me, I feel that I missed the true point that Li-Young was trying to make.  I didn't see the connection between his linguistic struggles, his father's faith, and Ethel Black. 

Responses to "Memoir: A History" and excerpt from Eat, Pray, Love

The first text, "Memoir:  A History" was stylistically a bit strange in that it was a review of a review, but throughout the piece the sense of it being a review yielded to that of it being a cursory history of the genre of memoir.  I thought the piece did an excellent job of narrating the genre's history and pointing out its landmarks, such as the work of St. Augustine, the Book of Margery Kempe, and the secular movement that led to what most of today's memoir is.  Despite the fact that it was partially a critique of memoir in general, I thought the article did a good job of remaining objective, pointing out the genre's flaws as well as its positive qualities.

The excerpt from Eat, Pray, Love was a combination of memoir, travelogue, and profile (a profile of the narrator's sister).  It is difficult to react appropriately to this particular excerpt outside the context of the work as whole.  This particular short piece was mostly a profile with little scene or movement, and if that is an accurate sample of the book as a whole, I imagine it probably leaves the reader wanting.  Also (again this is said with only knowledge of the particular excerpt), I found the narrator's martyrdom to be a little irritating, though perhaps the rest of the book justifies that aspect of her.

Responses to Chapters 1 & 2 of Creating Nonfiction

The first two chapters of Creating Nonfiction served as a very general introduction to the topic of "creative nonfiction," discussing what it does and doesn't encompass and the subgenres therein.  The text gives vague descriptions of both what is creative nonfiction and what is subgenres are, mostly through the use of example rather than definition.  These subgenres include memoir; essay; critiques, rants, and reviews; lyric and reflective essays; place writing; the city essay; and literary journalism.

I found the text to be very subjective, casting judgment calls on many types of creative nonfiction.  I believe the fact that the text deems each category worthy or unworthy, deeming it so as if it were fact, detracts severely from its objectivity and therefore from its authority.  I hope to see more objectivity and strict exposition from the rest of the book.