"History as Fiction" enthusiast

    Throughout Libra , we've noticed Lee's desire to be a part of something, to be more than "a zero in the system". He is also very impressionable and easily influenced by those who make him feel important. David Ferrie notices this, and exploits it. He uses astrology to connect to Lee, convincing him he is the "positive Libra" rather than the negative Libra, although clearly Lee is the latter. He convinces Lee that there are important people who are very interested in Lee and "they've been watching extra close" (338). And when the Miami motorcade is cancelled and moved to Dallas, where the motorcade will pass right under the window of Lee's workplace, Ferrie convinces him that it is no coincidence, rather "that building's been sitting there waiting for Kennedy and Oswald to converge on it (384). Ferrie influences him easily because he knows exactly what Lee wants to hear, and he gives him that.            The closer we get to the...

This post is riffing off of a comment I made on Leor's post, "Kevin Character Analysis". See here: https://leorblogsplot.blogspot.com/2023/11/kevin-character-analysis.html?sc=1700454447766#c6292752440283883920 My original comment: You went all in on the idea of Kevin as a student learning about the 1619 project. That's definitely a meaningful way to analyze it. Although neither Kevin or Dana spend any time in 1619, they do get a hands-on learning experience of 1800s institutionalized slavery. Both Kevin and Dana return to the present scarred, physically and mentally, and will never truly recover from their experience time traveling. It occurred to me that this could be used to argue that the 1619 project is a harmful way of teaching kids about American history (not my actual opinion, but an interesting question to unpack and debate about). Of course, it's essential to not censor history in any form, and it's important to face uncomfortable truths. That might b...

Both Mumbo Jumbo and Ragtime  use history to add to the realness of their texts. In Ragtime, Doctorow uses "false documents" that likely aren't true but for the most part can't be disproven to fill in the gaps of real history used in his book. For instance, he depicts J. P. Morgan talking to a seagull in a bout of loneliness, something that cannot be proven nor disproven. Moments like this make Ragtime  feel real.  Mumbo Jumbo takes place around the ragtime period as well, and during the Harlem Renaissance. Jes Grew is an anti-plague that spreads dancing and liveliness, a metaphor for the spread of black culture. The novel identifies things like ragtime and jazz as elements of Jes Grew, but Jes Grew's origins go back thousands of years. Reed uses what I presume to be (mostly) real Egyptian mythology and mumbo jumbo lore as actual history in  Mumbo Jumbo.  By using African history/mythology to set the novel, Reed accomplishes multiple things: he creates an Afroce...

Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow tells a unique story about the Ragtime era. There is no main character, no antagonist, and a very confusing plot. Instead, it jumps about seemingly aimlessly at the beginning, emulating some kind of omnipotent camera zooming in on random people. Doctorow doesn't use names for fictional characters but does for real historical figures in the book (with the exception of Coalhouse Walker). Things get interesting when historical figures interact with fictional characters, because Doctorow writes Ragtime in the gaps of history, making it impossible to know whether these events really happened.  Although all the characters are seemingly disconnected, they end up all having some connection to each other by the end of the book. The Family of Mother, Father, and the Little Boy meet Houdini in a rare coincidence, who meets Harry K. Thaw, death row convict and estranged husband of Evelyn Nesbit, who has an affair with Mother's Younger Brother. Coalhouse Walker'...

  All subsequent posts from this blog will be for the class "History as fiction".

Benji's adventure of trying to get into the eighteen-only club is a classic teenage adventure in my opinion. Of course as a teenager I don't know what other adventures come after, but this is the kind I can relate to. As a teenager I've enjoyed pushing the boundaries and tip-toeing the line of what I can or can't do (or get away with), and I see that reflected here. But all the adventures I've had along these lines have been spontaneous-- I've never gone into the intense planning to pull off such an operation. Benji describes him and NP planning for days, weeks even, on how they'll pull it off. NP works on bribing the bouncer for a while, and Benji practices his adult persona (that one I can relate to).  In the end, they manage to get in without trouble, and Benji to this day remembers the incident as "a caper that didn't go wrong for once" (I can't find where, but I'm 99% sure he says this). It also signifies them having come of age to...

 I wrote this after reading the first two chapters of Black Swan Green. It is my first impression of Jason: Jason Taylor is a kid who cares very much about keeping up appearances, similarly to Bruce Bechdel in  Fun Home.  However, unlike how Bruce hid his homosexuality, stammering is the sort of thing that the harder you try to hide it, the more apparent it becomes. He refers to his condition as "Hangman", and has four commandments for it: "Thou shalt hide from speech therapists; Thou shalt strangle Taylor when he is nervous about stammering; Thou shalt ambush Taylor when he is not nervous about stammering; Once Taylor is 'Stutterboy' in the eyes of the world he is  yours " (31). He really wants to maintain his social status and that makes him anxious about his stammer, which makes it all the worse. I've experienced a similar sort of "mental echo chamber" where the more I think about a certain problem, the more it affects me. However, I've ...

    The story of Daedalus and Icarus goes that Daedalus, the genius inventor, crafted wings of feathers and wax so he and Icarus could escape Crete. However, Icarus grew cocky, flying so close to the sun that his wings melted and he fell to his death. In Fun Home, Bechdel makes a comparison of her and her father to Daedalus and Icarus, which I think is the perfect analogy. Throughout the novel she and her father embody both of these roles interchangeably, which I'll explore here.      At the beginning of the book, Bechdel illustrates her and her father playing a game of airplane, which she related to the Icarian games of the circus. She cryptically notes that, "In our particular reenactment of this mythic relationship, it was not me but my father who was to plummet from the sky" (Bechdel 4). As they are playing airplane, her father is Daedalus and she is Icarus, but this statement implies the opposite. Her father would be the one to plummet from the sky, which c...

    Buddy Willard emotionally injures Esther when he tells her he is not a virgin, shattering Esther's image of him and her feelings for him. Esther claims she isn't bothered by that; it's the fact that he had pretended otherwise that bothered her. However at the time, it was expected that men would sleep around, and other girls at Esther's college told her that was perfectly normal. Perhaps Buddy didn't feel the need to tell her because of this. But Esther felt cheated, like Buddy had one-upped her, and she couldn't continue to be with him knowing that he wasn't a virgin. She couldn't "get even" because of the threat of pregnancy and worries about having to marry the wrong man. Also, the double standard that men could sleep around while women were expected to remain chaste greatly upset her.      Later in the novel Dr. Nolan prescribed birth control to Esther, which greatly helped Esther on her healing journey.  Esther tells Doctor Nolan that ...

     Holden is obsessed with not being "phony". He gets ticked off anytime he catches a whiff of phoniness, but he takes it so far that he feels surrounded by phonies. To not be a phony in Holden's eye leaves almost no room for being part of the adult world.      One thing that annoyed me is when Holden criticized Ernie for being too good at the piano. The way he described it, Ernie really did sound like a prick, but the idea that I didn't like was when he said "If I were a piano player, I'd play it in the goddam closet" (84). He rejects the idea of being good at something to get attention from other people. As a pianist, I enjoy playing for myself as well, but I also like sharing what I've learned with my friends, and I don't like his view on that. It isn't wrong to want others to see what you've accomplished. Holden also dislikes the actors in the Lunts for being show-offy, saying, "If you do something too good, then, after a while...

The circumstances have changed. I feel it is necessary to let you, the readers, know that I can no longer in good conscience continue blogging about the 20th century. I have decided to shift the focus of my enthusiasm to the "Coming of Age" novel. I hope that you, the readers, will continue to support my blog in the new direction it is going. Thank you. All subsequent posts from this blog will be for the class "The Coming of Age Novel".

When I read about Guitar's involvement in the Days, it reminded me of Meursault. They both committed murder, but in totally different situations. I want to compare and contrast their situations and find some meaning in them.     Meursault committed murder without any clear motive, and with little feeling in it. He holds nihilistic beliefs that allowed him to do that. In contrast, despite a deep aversion to murder, Guitar commits murder out of a sense of duty, as if it were a responsibility of his. His reasoning is that he has to keep the ratio the same between black and white people. He also harbors deep hatred of white people, in contrast to Meursault, who seems to have nothing against Arabs.     Meursault and Guitar are in opposing classes. Guitar knows that black people get no justice in white courts; he believes he is defending his people by killing innocent white people (although in his mind, there are no innocent white people, as every one of them is a potentia...

What were Mersault's motives for this killing? "The sun" wasn't enough for the jury, and its not enough for me. Here is a passage that I think helps us understand: "A minute later I turned back toward the beach and started walking.     There was the same dazzling red glare. The sea gasped for air with each shallow, stifled little wave that broke on the sand. I was walking slowly toward the rocks and I could feel my forehead swelling under the sun. All that heat was pressing down on me and making it hard for me to go on. And every time I felt a blast of its hot breath strike my face, I gritted my teeth, clenched my fists in my trouser pockets, and strained every nerve in order to overcome the sun and the thick drunkenness it was spilling over me. With every blade of light that flashed off the sand, from a bleached shell or a piece of broken glass, my jaws tightened. I walked for a long time " (57). This is right after Raymond and him encounter the two Arab me...

    When Jake Barnes returns from his trip to Spain and overtips a waiter at Cafe Marinas, he says,  "it felt comfortable to be in a country where it is so simple to make people happy. You can never tell when a Spanish waiter will thank you. Everything is on such a clear financial basis in France. It is the simplest country to live in. No one makes things complicated by becoming your friend for any obscure reason. If you want people to like you you only have to spend a little money. I spent a little money and the waiter liked me. He appreciated my valuable qualities. He would be glad to see me back. I would dine there again some time and he would be glad to see me, and would want me at his table. It would be a sincere liking because it would have a sound basis. I was back in France" (237).  I can't tell if he's being sarcastic or not, but his words really bothered me. Money can buy you a lot more in France than it can in Spain, including people's respect. But clai...

     In class as we discussed Clarissa's past trauma, Mr. Mitchell mentioned that when Clarissa was little, she witnessed the death of Sylvia, her sister. On page 76, Peter Walsh reflects on the impact Sylvia's death has had on her, saying, "her notion being that the Gods, who never lost a chance of hurting, thwarting, and spoiling human lives were seriously put out if, all the same, you behaved like a lady. That phase came directly after Sylvia's death -- that horrible affair. To see your own sister killed by a falling tree (All Justin Parry's fault -- all his carelessness) before your very eyes... was enough to turn one bitter." After Sylvia's death, Clarissa acted ladylike and behaved properly in the hopes of getting back at the Gods, although later she would come to believe there were no Gods and no one was to blame.     I wondered why I hadn't noticed this at all while I was reading, and while part of it may have been due to a lapse in concentrati...

     The way Howie sees the world in this book really had an effect on me. After reading a few chapters, I would usually look up and sigh with relief. Suddenly, I would start to really notice everything around me, for instance a lamp sitting next to me whose light I read by. That lamp probably came from a lamp factory halfway across the globe. One chapter that really influenced my post-reading alertness was chapter 9, in which Howie remarked on the wonder of the men's bathroom. "Is there any other spot in the modern office where a comparable level of mechanical ingenuity is so concentrated and on display?" Howie said, referencing the ingenious design of the toilets, the urinals, even the soap dispensers.      This made me think about the pencil I was holding. It is a perfectly cylindrical shiny metal mechanical pencil with a knurled grip* at the end, and it is undoubtedly the best pencil I've ever owned. I discovered mechanical pencils when my back-to-...

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