Wednesday, February 17, 2010

As I Lay Crying

Last week we started reading some new books! Two at a time sounds intriguing. We began the reading marathon with The Great Gatsby, so far it’s alright. It is definitely easier than As I Lay Dying to read, but I’m not sure where the book is going. Then again, we’re only on the third (second?) chapter. According to many people, it’s a good book so I’m excited to get to the good parts! Ha-ha. As for As I Lay Dying, it has nothing but negative comments. When I went searching for this book, the store worker (at the store that didn’t have it) said, “Oh. That book is ROUGH. Good lucky with it”. Then at the other place of purchase, the cashier looked at me pitifully and said, “Well, the Great Gatsby is good. But this one… didn’t really make it through after the first half”. Now that I’ve read 25 pages of it, I can see why. Modernists novels= not good. How am I supposed to know what the author is suggesting? That’s like me saying “The orange cat was permanently attached to the tree.” Well, from this my reader OBVIOUSLY has to assume that the cat symbolizes the hopes and dreams of young Johnny and the tree symbolizes his step-father’s existence. Without the step-father, Johnny would have absolutely nothing to live for (wow that sounds strange). The cat is Johnny and he’s orange because Johnny is an unwanted person, just like the color orange. How can we possibly know what was going through the author’s mind? The author could be a psycho and could be thinking creepy, dark things. Anyway for the plot of the story, there is a dying mother. The mother is just chilling in the house, staring out of the window for the entire little town to see her. She has three sons? Four? She also has a daughter named Dewey Dell. Faulkner needs to learn what are a guys name and a girls name because frankly, Jewel isn’t a guys name either. But it was written forever ago, so we’ll cut him some slack. As for the mother slowly dying in the house, she also gets to watch her child build her coffin! So not only is she painfully decaying, but she gets to see her family accept her decease and even promote it, by building her a nice little coffin to rest in. That is way too creepy. If I were her, I would cry at the coldness of my family. I know they aren’t meaning to be mean; they’re just doing it out of the heart! But come on, whose last days are wanted to be spent watching a symbol of one’s death being constructed? It’s so weird! So that’s pretty much what we did in class the past two days; we discussed some lovely literature! < Alliteration right there! Sally sold sea shells by the sea shore. < Alliteration AND tongue twister. That’s right! Ha-ha. Those use to be the best things ever in elementary school! Oh, the salad days have passed.

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