Final Project Evaluation

To start off, I would first like to say that I am very thankful that we were able to have a hand in selecting the material for the next English 110 course. I have truly enjoyed this class and would like to essentially 'put my mark' on the next course. My group selected the novel My Most Excellent Year by Steve Kluger. While I'm sure a lot of students will pick their novel as the winner because they are after the extra credit, I simply would choose this novel because of its content. I think the strong characters, literary elements, and creative use of various forms of communication would help this novel fit into the course very well.

I also think that as a group, we did an excellent job presenting the novel without giving away too much of the plot line. For me, this is key because I was instantly uninterested in novels in which a group's presentation ruined the ending because I personally do not like having the ending spoiled for me. I think that a few groups spent far too much time discussing the plot and not enough time discussing how it was a critique of society or comparable to other pieces of literature we had read (something that would have helped associate the book with something else we enjoyed, therefore making it more appealing). I think that our group worked very efficiently and, while we touched on things each other said, we did not keep repeating the same points over and over again. We were very cohesive and knew precisely what each other member was going to say, making it a clear and concise presentation. Also, our incorporation of a playbill, in which we cast the play, was something that made our presentation stand out from the others. Since casting novels seemed to be one of our class's favorite activities, I think that it was very wise for us to do so, helping everyone to visualize the story even without reading it on their own. I definitely think that My Most Excellent Year should be included in the next curriculum.

To be fair and make it clear that I wasn't just selecting my group's novel, I would like to say that I think My Sister's Keeper would be an excellent novel to include in the course. The storyline is very interesting, and the use of multiple points-of-view is a very important literary element that would be sure to keep the reader engaged. I also think that readers would be able to relate to the characters and, in turn, be very involved in discussions.

I think that of all of the novels, either this or My Most Excellent Year would be nice additions to the course.

My Most Excellent Year

While some may be instantly put off with the seemingly stereotypical portrayal of high school students, My Most Excellent Year was a very interesting story. For starters, the novel doesn't just use one form of writing, but rather encompasses a lot. By including instant messages, emails, diary entries, and various other forms of communication, the author easily relates the novel to a young audience, much like that found in our English 110 classroom. The various points-of-view shown keep the reader intrigued throughout the novel and make it a very quick read. The use of more than point of view also makes the novel comparable to My Year of Meats. With the use of this literary element, the reader is always kept active in trying to keep track of different lives. It ensures that the story is interesting and fresh.

Also, the themes addressed in the novel are ones that many students deal with in today's world and would find easy to relate to. Throughout the novel, the author uses a variety of literary elements, such as symbolism, tone, theme, and point-of-view. Mary Poppins is a symbol for comfort and compassion, seen by many characters as someone who would take care of them. Since most people can understand who Mary Poppins is, this is an easy symbol to relate to. The tone of the novel is also very inviting and positive, with a few somber moments here and there. Overall, the storyline is very strong and enjoyable to a variety of readers. By containing various forms of writing, the novel will be found pleasurable by a variety of readers. The writing is very easy to understand. However, this does not mean that it isn't complex. There is a great deal to be taken from the novel, but as it goes on, it is easy to dissect due to the fact that each character writes and speaks in a different manner, allowing the reader to keep track of who is saying what. I truly think this novel would be a great starter for the course. It is upbeat, interesting, and would be a nice transition from high school reading to college reading. I think My Most Excellent Year would be an excellent addition to the curriculum for next semester.

Our Great War.

I am absolutely in love with Fight Club. When I was in the 9th grade, I read the book for the first time. Probably not quite appropriate for a 14-year-old, but I couldn't bring myself to put it down, even for a minute. I was just so surprised by the realness of the message and my intrigue with the characters. Of course, my brother "accidentally" ruined the ending for me, but even that didn't stop me from reading it. Having read the book and loved it so much, I was even more surprised by how in love I was with in the film! I have seen it countless times and was THRILLED when I discovered we would be watching it in class. Every time you watch it, you can find something new, little hints that Tyler is not really there, and little flickers of Edward Norton's face when Tyler is speaking (and vise versa). I think I enjoyed it even more this time, however, because I was able to sit back and watch everyone else go through the motions of the film only to be caught completely off guard at the end.

While many might not see how "two" men making bombs out of soap can be something the average American can relate to, Tyler provides so much insight into life that it is near impossible to walk away from the film (or novel) without taking a great deal out of it. He hit the nail right on the head when he said "Our Great War is a spiritual war. Our Great Depression is our lives." I truly believe that one of the largest struggles we can face is a spiritual one, with all of the conflicting religious and scientific beliefs. However, I also think that there is a way to balance both worlds, and hold true to spiritual beliefs and scientific fact at the same time. The fact that we constantly battle with ourselves and our own beliefs definitely causes the largest 'war'--and make sure not to forget that conflicting beliefs are often the instigators of physical wars. On the same level, we can never be more depressed than to the extent that we often leave ourselves. Just take into consideration our conflicting beliefs (on top of all of the other problems and personal issues we face on a daily basis), and there is no doubt that depression is often rooted at our own individual cores.

Let's face it. Regardless of the fact that Tyler Dourdan himself did not exist, he was a genius. It is clear to me that Chuck Palahniuk is a genius, too.

Non-Required Reading

While I am not fully sure how calling something a Non-Required Reading would instantly make someone want to read it—at least not to the same extent as a banned book—I did enjoy a lot of the readings in the book. I liked the combination of short essays, top ten lists, and graphic novels. Overall, the entire book felt fresh and hooked me from the start simply because it contained a variety of forms of writing. After a while, it becomes boring to read the same thing, one after the other, and this was a nice change—especially for the time of the semester. It was nice to have fairly light reading as a sort of break from novels. The short graphic novel was also a nice transition into In the Shadow of No Towers, even though they were very different graphic novels. Having never read a graphic novel before, it was nice to get a little taste of the style before tackling a considerably more daunting one. It was definitely a quick read, and much more lighthearted than the Best American Short Stories. I grew more attached to the characters in the novels, and became more absorbed in the stories, but I was still able to fully enjoy the short stories and selected readings in the Non-Required Reading book. It was a very nice change of pace that came at the perfect time!

In the Shadow of No Towers

I have to say that while I have dreaded the day that I was going to be forced to read what, at first glance, looks like a large, tag-board picture book, I am pleasantly surprised with In the Shadow of No Towers. When I walked into my house after the four hour drive home for Thanksgiving break, the last thing I wanted to do was read a graphic novel. However, my view suddenly changed when my oldest brother (who was visiting with his wife) ran over to me and started gushing about Art Spiegelman and how he loves Maus and that he absolutely had to have this graphic novel after my class was over. Deeply respecting my brother's taste in literature, I knew there had to be something in this, so I took to reading more wholeheartedly.

It is very clear to me that Spiegelman is a brilliant graphic novelist. However, while I thoroughly enjoyed the individual components, I did find that it was a little overwhelming at times, and that the placing of particular pieces on the pages was not always organized in a way that would have allowed for the reader to follow the point a little more closely. I particularly enjoyed the strip that showed the building on fire, spread across all ten pages. After I finished reading, I went back and just read that section together, and seemed to get a lot more out of it. I also loved the strip at the top of page 2 in which the boxes gradually turned sideways to represent the towers. This specific element completely encapsulated the depth that the visual aspect of a graphic novel adds to the story. I definitely believe that the piece was so enjoyable because of the incorporation of images and dialogue.

I'm not quite sure I would consider In the Shadow of No Towers long enough to be a novel on its own, but part of the story suggested that it was merely an episode of something larger. If that is the case, I would be very interested in reading the rest. I think that Spiegelman did a lot with the material and the physical size of the novel helped encompass all of his vision. I am surprised to say that I am really looking forward to reading another graphic novel, and will no longer complain about how I have to carry a really big, hard-cover comic book to class for an entire week, because this is much more than just some hard-cover comic book. Great literature truly comes in all shapes and sizes.

Don't Judge a Book By Its Pulitzer...

To be completely honest, it was a struggle for me to make it to the end of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Not because I was frustrated that things were lost in translation. Not because I couldn't stand the mother. Not because deep down I was able to associate with the loneliness of Oscar. It is simply because I did not like it.

Don't ask me why. Frankly, I'm not sure.

From the start, I prepared myself for something amazing. I mean, Pulitzer's aren't dropped down stairwells at high schools like invites to a big party. They're a big deal. So I guess when I heard that this novel had won a Pulitzer, I was expecting something above and beyond many of the novels I had read in the past. That is probably where my problem started. Once I became confused that the material wasn't remarkably more intellectual or sophisticated than what I had read in the past, I had a difficult time appreciating it at all. I understood the story and appreciated the difficulties the characters went through, I just didn't appreciate the style of writing, and I thought that the footnotes were often overwhelming and in a sense took away from the story itself.

There must have been something spectacular in his novel that I just didn't find that amazing in order for him to receive a Pulitzer. All in all, I am not overly impressed with Junot Díaz. Lucky for him, I'm not an accredited critic.

Animal Crackers

From the moment I picked up Sarah Gruen's Water for Elephants, the child in me had been craving one thing; Barnum's animal crackers. My initial obsession with animal crackers started years ago, after attending the circus for the first time with my family, and I have yet to overcome it. I looked for days for animal crackers, scouring the shelves at the grocery store, the Bookie, and finally I found them. Alone of the shelf lay a lonesome box of Barnum's Animals. It is safe to say that for the entire last portion of the book I slowly ate my box of crackers, until I started to feel the similarity between myself and August, as I ate the snack animals in my box and he abused the real animals in the book.

Needless to say, I stopped eating my crackers for a while, but my craving for them has not subsided, and neither has my craving for Water for Elephants.

To be honest, I was devastated when I finished the book because I wanted it to go on and on forever. Frankly, I was even more devastated when we switched to our next book because, to me, it is in no way, shape, or form comparable to Water for Elephants. I miss Jacob, miss the animals, miss the vivid yet also dreary tone of the circus, but most of all, I miss Rosie. I guess for now I will just have to be content with the fake elephant in my little cardboard train car, because The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is doing anything but satisfying my hunger.

A Collection of Everything

JonFen is quite possibly the most obsessive compulsive person I have ever seen. Well, maybe not the MOST, but he is pretty high up on the list.

Since I am a little bit of a pack rat myself, I can relate to JonFen in a sense. I often have a hard time throwing away even the most insignificant items, things that I will never even pull out to look at again. However, JonFen takes it to an all new level. He collects ANYTHING and EVERYTHING he finds. This is not to say that there isn't a deep meaning behind each object, just that it is a little excessive. I completely respect JonFen's quirky nature and obsessive ways, but at times it is rather eerie. The wall of random collected objects, including a set of used dentures, is almost enough to make someone cringe. On the other hand, there is a suggestion of brilliance in JonFen for finding a deeper meaning and relevance in these items.

Some might argue that his obsessive traits are annoying and unnecessary, but I respect his ability to find value in even the most insignificant objects, holding on to every piece of the past, as opposed to those who throw everything away. While it is important to move on with your life, I almost feel sorry for those who draw no emotional connections to items from their past. JonFen may go over the top, but every item he collects, whether be it from his past or that of a member of his family, invokes real emotion. It is depressing that some people go their entire lives throwing away every element of their past.

Without anything to draw back on, life almost seems pointless.

True Happiness.

Like many others, I was actually fairly pleased with the end of Happiness. I love when an ending of a novel isn't predictable. I grow tired of reading book after book with the same cookie-cutter ending of what society has pin-pointed as "true happiness". Who really knows what "true happiness" is and why does it have to be the same, or a similar variation, for every individual? For the characters in Happiness, I think Will Ferguson gave them the closest thing possible.

I honestly would not change much about the ending of Happiness. I guess the only thing that I would add to the story would be to have Jenni become more and more like Meg everyday, and likewise for Meg. I would also have Meg and Edwin end up together, only to add irony to the fact that he can never escape the "essence" of someone like Jenni. I imagined that Jenni, with her obsessive nature (as shown with the sticky-notes), would turn into an overly made-up, slimmer version of Meg. Meanwhile, Meg would continue to stop using the Crayola lipstick and become obsessed with self-help. I'm not sure how this would play out exactly, but I do think that it would add to the fact that with the constant need to be happy, Edwin never reaches it.

I think any other changes would compromise the point of the novel and make it far too predictable. Personally, I like the surprise of living unhappily ever after.

Self-Help Overload

Sorry for the delay...I had some technical difficulties.

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To me, the author seems to be creating a weird relationship between Edwin and Tupak Soiree. At times it seems like Edwin finds too much of the self-help book familiar, as if there is perhaps some deeper meaning than merely an editor-manuscript relationship. I can't tell if Edwin has seen this manuscript before, or if he is just that good at remembering where all of the pieces come from, or if it's simply the tone that is familiar to him. As a whole, the self-help book seems to be a jumble of numerous techniques to overcome certain habits, all comprised into a seemingly unorganized mass. While all components are intertwined, there are so many topics that it seems impossible for any given one to have a concrete focus. Personally, while I think self-help books are beneficial to some, they often seem excessive and seem to attempt to stop one obsession by replacing it with another (such as stopping yourself from binge eating by leaving yellow sticky notes everywhere). This new found obsessive-compulsive nature is not necessarily any better than the binge eating it is covering up. The books just tend to replace one habit with another.