Blog Entry #3: Reading & Listening
Part I:
1: "Go to Philly, best brew I've tasted in all my life. Most refreshing thing I've ever tried."
"Erik, tell me about that brewery in Philly."
"Yuengling is the goat, that's all I have to say."
"Wait a minute, Chase, now that I have you here, what did I just watch?"
"You mean that YouTube video I sent you over Facebook?"
"Yeah."
"Oh yeah, I knew you'd like it."
"Nah man, that shit was weird as hell."
"Again, I knew you'd like it."
2: "Don't make this scenario a soap opera, tell me now. Is she my child or not?"
"Yes she's yours, obviously. I can't believe you'd have the audacity to even question me like this."
"Oh yeah? Well why don't you hear me out. She looks nothing like me. Who the hell has redhead in our family? You're a brunette, I'm a brunette. There's no redheads in either of our families."
"Recessive gene, that's my best guess."
"Bullshit. I don't even know what to do if she's not mine."
"How could you say that?"
"How could I say that? Raising and loving a child whose not my own makes me feel...I don't even know how to describe it."
"She's yours."
"Do you promise?"
"I do."
3: "I want a baby, she wants a dog. But we can't just spare the time to commit to a dog."
"I feel the same way about the baby though."
"What?"
"We both work, we both have so much on our plates that's having a child will make our lives in more difficult."
"I want a child, my own flesh and blood, to continue the family name. We can always get a dog after the fact."
"We'll be right back on Geraldo..."
Part II:
In story one, the setting is a picnic and the general story is revolving around reminiscing about the past. I would say I like the strength of the description, as I found out a lot about the family of the main character (there's a cousin Billie and a cousin Butch) just by reading those parts of the story alone. On the other hand, I would've preferred more dialogue, but it's a minor thing. As long as the characters are a piece of the main background of the story, that personally makes me a happy camper. The writing is in first person, the narrator being a straight to the point kind of person. No beating around the bush, just general summarizing. One of the things that is repeated the most in this piece revolves around the constant mentioning of family members. "My Uncle Matthew used to beat my Aunt Raylene," and "Little Bo came running out of the house," to name a few examples.
The other story also reviews around family matters, with this once going on about the past and such, visiting places. Like the first story, description runs the story more so than the dialogue, so I'm not as keen on this as I was with the first story. While the description also helps out in regards to the back, like the first story, thus helping strengthen the character development, it isn't as intriguing. We have lines like "I imagine the artist who painted the baptismal font in that baptist church..." that seemingly go on and on. Again, I dig Allison's wiring style in description, as I feel a connection to it because of the power (for lack of a better word). But I'd rather instances like these be lessened. The writing is in first person as well (personally I prefer third person because at times I begin to try and identify with the main character due to this, with little success) and the narrator, as stated above, merely goes on about background events. Not much is really repeated, all instances of description have been new but, as stated before, it just plods along a bit. Nothing too bad in all honestly.
http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/15/reviews/980315.15sayrest.html
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/12/17/magazine/the-roseanne-of-literature.html?pagewanted=all
1: "Go to Philly, best brew I've tasted in all my life. Most refreshing thing I've ever tried."
"Erik, tell me about that brewery in Philly."
"Yuengling is the goat, that's all I have to say."
"Wait a minute, Chase, now that I have you here, what did I just watch?"
"You mean that YouTube video I sent you over Facebook?"
"Yeah."
"Oh yeah, I knew you'd like it."
"Nah man, that shit was weird as hell."
"Again, I knew you'd like it."
2: "Don't make this scenario a soap opera, tell me now. Is she my child or not?"
"Yes she's yours, obviously. I can't believe you'd have the audacity to even question me like this."
"Oh yeah? Well why don't you hear me out. She looks nothing like me. Who the hell has redhead in our family? You're a brunette, I'm a brunette. There's no redheads in either of our families."
"Recessive gene, that's my best guess."
"Bullshit. I don't even know what to do if she's not mine."
"How could you say that?"
"How could I say that? Raising and loving a child whose not my own makes me feel...I don't even know how to describe it."
"She's yours."
"Do you promise?"
"I do."
3: "I want a baby, she wants a dog. But we can't just spare the time to commit to a dog."
"I feel the same way about the baby though."
"What?"
"We both work, we both have so much on our plates that's having a child will make our lives in more difficult."
"I want a child, my own flesh and blood, to continue the family name. We can always get a dog after the fact."
"We'll be right back on Geraldo..."
Part II:
In story one, the setting is a picnic and the general story is revolving around reminiscing about the past. I would say I like the strength of the description, as I found out a lot about the family of the main character (there's a cousin Billie and a cousin Butch) just by reading those parts of the story alone. On the other hand, I would've preferred more dialogue, but it's a minor thing. As long as the characters are a piece of the main background of the story, that personally makes me a happy camper. The writing is in first person, the narrator being a straight to the point kind of person. No beating around the bush, just general summarizing. One of the things that is repeated the most in this piece revolves around the constant mentioning of family members. "My Uncle Matthew used to beat my Aunt Raylene," and "Little Bo came running out of the house," to name a few examples.
The other story also reviews around family matters, with this once going on about the past and such, visiting places. Like the first story, description runs the story more so than the dialogue, so I'm not as keen on this as I was with the first story. While the description also helps out in regards to the back, like the first story, thus helping strengthen the character development, it isn't as intriguing. We have lines like "I imagine the artist who painted the baptismal font in that baptist church..." that seemingly go on and on. Again, I dig Allison's wiring style in description, as I feel a connection to it because of the power (for lack of a better word). But I'd rather instances like these be lessened. The writing is in first person as well (personally I prefer third person because at times I begin to try and identify with the main character due to this, with little success) and the narrator, as stated above, merely goes on about background events. Not much is really repeated, all instances of description have been new but, as stated before, it just plods along a bit. Nothing too bad in all honestly.
http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/15/reviews/980315.15sayrest.html
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/12/17/magazine/the-roseanne-of-literature.html?pagewanted=all
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