Week of 16/12/13: Life, the Universe, and Everything

Prompt:  Describe the mood of what you are reading.
Pages: 214-355

    I am very happy to have found this prompt, because I don't think I could do this book justice without going over one of it's best parts. It's ambiguous mood.  Although you can tell from the text that it is not the most positive of books, with it's sarcastic remarks about the meaning of life and it's biting (yet albiet very funny) dialogue between the characters. Life, the Universe, and Everything does have some positive and uplifting parts, like when Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect escape from a planet they were trapped on, but like it's predecessors (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and The Restaurant at the End of the Universe) those moments do not last long.  And don't mistake the negative mood to be anything along the lines of melancholy, because melancholy seems very subdued compared to the gloomy, almost doomsday-ish mood of this  book. 

   This book's usually negative and things-are-not-looking-good-here mood has this sort of analytical lens to it.  The part being analysed is the Universe itself, hence the title Life, the Universe, and Everything. The Universe part mostly  Parts of this book when the characters or Universe is in trouble are used to make the author's (Douglas Adams) point that the Universe doesn't always do what we want it to do, and it is far bigger and more dangerous than we think.  When the fate of the entire Universe is in trouble, and there seems to be absolutely no hope for survival (leaving you in a rather depressed mood after reading), you get this feeling like the entire Universe's mood is negative (which sounds like something someone would say when they are not trying to sound pretentious, but are utterly failing at doing that).  I think that means the book's mood comes out very strongly.  

    As said before, this book's gloomy atmosphere and depressing nature lets you take a step back and look more into how life really is.  Putting the "Life" in Life, the Universe, and Everything.  The mood does not portray humanity as either a bad thing or a good thing; rather, it helps to understand the nature of ourselves and the true proportion and biodiversity of the Universe.  After rereading that, I realize how seriously I am taking this humorous (not lighthearted) book, with a negative mood.  It's fiction right?  Well, that's debatable, but truly, this book makes things seem like they are real.  All while bringing you back to reality with it's biting dialogue and sarcastic remarks about, well Everything. 
  

   

Week of 9/12/13: Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Prompt:  What special way did the author write (for example, flashbacks, told in first

person, multiple voice narrative, foreshadowing, lost descriptive words that

create visual images in your mind, etc.)? Did that make reading it better or

worse? Explain.

Pages read: 0-214

    Douglas Adams, the author of this book and a book I have blogged about before (the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) has an interesting and unique way of writing this book.  His humorous and sarcastic tones really make this book fun to read.  Science fiction is a very hard genre to write a book in, and sci-fi books that are too verbose or have unnecessary words with very little humour in them can make readers feel bored.  I guess I never feel bored reading The Restaurant at the End of the Universe because Douglas Adams injects the right amount of humour and surrealism into a book filled with hard to understand futuristic contraptions and societies.  

  Another thing unique to the author's writing style is he portrays his characters.  He has characters that are both believable and unbelievable and writes about them from his point of view. For instance, a very arrogant and self-confident character Zaphod Beeblebrox will be written about with the author's opinion on him.  Like when Zaphod claims he is too important to be killed, Douglas Adams will add his opinion on the statement, like "...said Zaphod like the diva he is".  I think that adds something to his writing.  His interjections help me understand the characters and their emotions throughout the story.  As this story has a very complex storyline, it helps a lot to have the characters, who are going through difficult situations, explained and analysed. 

  Finally, the author of The Restaurant at the End of the Universe  does a very nice job of taking concepts from the story and breaking them down.  Which not all sci-fi books do, making them hard to understand and read.  When Douglas Adams introduces a new and confusing element to the story, like how to correctly define things that might happen/will happen/have happened/are happening all at the same time.  I really like how he explained this, but incorporated it into a part of the story, so it wasn't an author's note, but it just went along with the flow of the story.  When I first picked up this book, I was expecting it to be very confusing because the back mentioned some topics that I was not familiar with.  But I am very happy to have picked up this book and to be reading it.  

Week of 4/12/13: Son

Prompt: Write a journal entry as if you were a certain character from your reading
Pages read: 185-232

*In the POV of Claire, our protagonist) 

    It has been years since I made the trade with that evil manifestation of temptation, and although I do not regret the trade, I have been thinking about how things could've gone differently.  Trading my youth to see my son Gabe was the best and worst thing I have done with my life.  In the end, getting to see my son, who I have worked SO hard for, is the most incredible thing a birthmother can experience.  Though my Gabe doesn't even know my name.  I know he can see me, and feel my presence after my watching him for 7 years, but neither I nor him knows what to do about it. I guess I shall talk to Jonas, who I am so proud of.  It is quite a feat to become Leader of a village designated to refugees from Elsewhere.  But God I hate that term. "Elsewhere" is a euphemism designed to guard the children of where I was born.  Make sure they don't run off looking for a better life.  

   Today I stopped at the herbalists, getting your youth taken away from you really does make your body old.  All this joint pain and lack of appetite further reminds me of when I was younger.  I am still young!  Young at heart!  Young inside an old women's body, who was turned old over night by the Trademaster!  I would like to give that personification of evil a taste of his own medicine.  Medicine; yes, like what I got from the herbalist today. Medicine; yes, like what you need when you're old like me.  God it would be fun to see that Trademaster become old and weathered.  

   This town isn't a terrible place to spend your very few remaining years. Actually it is quite wonderful to have a community of people who have gone through the same things as you have.  They all have unique and thrilling stories to tell about how they came about 'Elsewhere'.  I'd loved to hear all of them, and share my story with the others.  All the others are very pleasant and accepting of my age.  They understand the part about Trademaster.   So I think I'll tell Jonas my story now.  Maybe then he could pass it on to Gabe someday.  My beautiful, pale-color eyed Gabe. 

Week of 11/27/13: Son

Prompt:   What emotions did you feel while you read? 
Pages: 1-185

   Son has quite a lot of heavy topics and themes throughout it's many pages; so as you can imagine, there are a lot of emotions to be felt here.  For me, the most prominent feeling I get from Son (as of right now) is frustration.  Which, from reading the back of the book, you wouldn't expect.  But if you were to actually read the second part of this book, I'm sure you would be feeling the same way. You would feel frustration along with me because Claire (the protagonist here) loses her memory (a deeply annoying and unoriginal plot twist, sorry Lois Lowry.).  This means she *SPOILER ALERT* forgets the whole purpose of her running away from the town/'utopia' she lived in (the same town where The Giver takes place) and basically sets the whole plot of the story back a whole section. Now that may have been a bit dramatic, but it's frustrating when someone who finally decides to be an individual in a society that looks down on the prospect, gets held back from doing that. Can you just imagine my frustration? 

  Another emotion I feel after and during reading Son is awe.  This is the same kind of awe you felt after reading some of the final chapters in The Giver.  The kind where you just cannot believe that a society could do that.  I am in halfway in awe of how a society could conform to that, and halfway in awe of how people would do that.  My awe is neither negative nor positive, just an observant state of awe. This paragraph looks quite a lot smaller than the other, so I'll fill it with unnecessary words, kind of what like happens in Son.  Although I don't mind this book, it is kind of entertaining. 

  Lastly, on a more positive note,  I felt like Claire was very brave to be running away from a society that she doesn't think is right, or right for her.  So I feel inspired.  Is that an emotion?  I think it is.  I am inspired because it seems like Claire is doing the impossible, which always makes a character more interesting, especially because she is a female (duh) and she isn't just crying over the fact that she lost her baby, she is actually doing something, which isn't too common when a female is a protagonist.  So I applaud Lois Lowry for that.