After reading the part when Ruku’s youngest son dies of starvation, I noticed how much rice I had in my kitchen pantry (About enough to fill a couple of three gallon containers). It made me just how prevalent of a foe hunger was in this novel. Ruku, from the beginning of the novel reminisces about her and her husband’s easy life in the first year of so of their marrige– a roof to sleep under, a loveing husband, (and most emphasized) a good store of rice. Where there’s rice, there is life. Most of the drastic actions taken place in the novel ( Ira’s prostitution, Khunthi’s blackmailing) are done in response to avoid hunger. This symbol struck me the hardest because I’ve never really been really hungry, and there’s always obscene amounts of rice put away in my kitchen. And it’s not even like I like rice; I just have it so much that it’s as much a part of my life as breathing. It’s just really kind of heavy (For lack of a better word– nothing’s coming to me) to see some thing that you really take for granted to be treated with such importance that if it’s not around people keel over and die.

The longer blog I posted on April ninth was my favorite. It was actually the first time I made comparisons with fiction outside what I’m required to read, without being forced to; which to me, is amazing, since it goes against my usual slacker nature. That post made me come to a realization that a school blog doesn’t always need to consist of a dull analyzation (Even though it was a dull analyzation) and that the blogs gave student room to express themselves. After that blog, I tried more to write posts that related to not only what I though of the book, but felt. If that makes any sense.

            One entry I didn’t like was the one posted on the twenty-fourth of April. I loved the concept of it, but overall I just ended up not being able to stand it since it was just so rushed and nothing like I intended it to be. It was supposed to be anecdote or sorts written in The Stranger’s style, since the situation in some way was similar to the book (At the time, in my head…). But I rushed it so much that it was nothing like Camus as far as subject matter goes. The situation I was writing about was supposed to end on a note that made the reader feel the futility of effort, and the consistence for the world to do what ever it wants. But that just didn’t get through, and the fact that I could have made it some thing much better (but didn’t) frustrates me.

            I visited Nia Le’s blogs the most. The entries in her blogs were thoughtful, and posed ideas and comparisons that were interesting, and often times agreeable to me. Her snarky (and some times humorous) commentary on the book made me check back. I also enjoyed Laura’s blog for her insightful observations.  

            Blogging was a great experience that helped me understand the book better by getting input from other people via comments and conversation. Analyzing the book came naturally when getting into discussions with other students about it and backing my ideas and statements.

true facts.

Before I post the link to my photo story, I want VENT IN CAPSLOCK RAGE.

Photo story is an ok program; simple and easy to use, sure. But the fact that you can’t save your file as a photostory file more than once to back to and edit– I DID, however, find a solution to this… exit out, say yes to “save and edit for later” and you’re all good– but for some reason or another the computer said there was no disc space when there was NOTHING IN THE FOLDER. I did one thing or another and ended up saving it, but only as a WMV file, which you CAN’T EDIT. Which means my photostory is undone, cheesey, corny, and without quotes. (and I already have a C in the class as it is, what the heck!?)

I HATE THIS.

So just keep in mind, the few people other than Mrs. Canady who read this blog… That this wasn’t my best effort, and most mistake pointed out, I’ll already know… I didn’t do the middle narration of the photostory, and it’s suppose be  like (durring the beach pictures… no, the ray picture.):

“blah blah, his apathy is his down fall when he befreinds raymond, blah, simple day at the beach goes horribly wrong, when he shoot a man for no real purpose, blah.”

ok. Here’s it is. (Ewwwwww.)

The stranger photo story

I went on intouch the other night and saw that I was failing art… again; and i remembered a situation a while ago that reminded me or the book. This was all typed up with no drafting, editing, or any thing of the sort; this was just stuck in my head and I HAD to get it out. It Didn’t quite end the way I wanted to… I might post later with a revised version.

I now present, and excerpt from THE ACQUAINTANCE:

I failed art yesterday. Or maybe it was only for the quarter. I’m not sure because I don’t exactly know how the grades work. But anyhow I still got an F for at least two missing hundred point projects.

I have art second period in the ceramics room. I decided to take the class because i thought it would be interesting to learn some realism. But once I started doing work in there I came to see that all the teacher really did was tell us what to do but not how. There were people that told me to switch out but I didn’t see why. All the other classes were just the same. Except for language. But I don’t like French or Spanish because every one takes French or Spanish. After some time I stopped doing any thing in that class because other thing were intresting me. When I saw my progress report I saw that if I didn’t start doing work my grade would not be salvageable. It was very ironic, too, because art was supposed to be my best subject. The instructor gave me my grade shaking his head, as if saying, “You could do better,” and I got very irritated. I wanted to tell him I was trying my best, but the deadlines for the projects were too short to turn in a well-composed piece. And I would never turn any thing in unless it was finished and at my best because I didn’t see the point doing it any way otherwise.

The other morning, I came to realize that if I kept trying my best in that class I would keep failing. It was strange, how some thing like being motivated to do your best can get you into a bad situation. So now when I draw I don’t think about making some thing beautiful like I used to. I think about points and art vocabulary. Deadlines and what will be given credit. How using one medium instead of another will have points taken off. Even if it honestly did look better that way. I don’t think i’m the only person in class that feels this way.

And Mr. Harding doesn’t walk around the room anymore. He doesn’t loom over any one’s shoulders and nod. No one ever hears him “Affirmation noises” as much as we used to.

(Will change periodically) This is a little playlist with various songs that reminded me of the book; each one has to do some thing with a character, scene, or theme. Some of the lyrics don’t correlate to the book at all, but other things do (The music itself, vocals, etc.)– so it might be pretty hard to figure out how some have to do with The Stranger. (Except for the one by The Cure; I’ll loose my faith in humanity if some one doesn’t get that one.) I don’t feel like witting an interpretation for each and every one, and I think it would be nicer if I heard what YOUR song interpretations are, and there could be some dialog going. You know. Chatting it up……

onetwothreego!

The only time I ever read is for school. And when I do read on my spare time, the things I read really have no correlation to the things that people are usually assigned in school. Required reading is more often than not vomit-inducingly vile to me, because of how pretentious the material can be sometimes. (Um, hello, Wuthering Heights much?) But for the first time, I’m making comparisons to fiction I’ve read on my own to some thing I’m reading in school- not just books, actually.

Chuck Palahniuk

An author that’s really hard to forget after reading one or two of his books. (Of Fight Club fame; PSHYES, it was a book– I’m so surprised at how many people don’t know that.) The Stranger reminds me of Chuck’s work because both or their minimalistic styles, and their narrators. There’s common apathy and, well, this “why not?” attitude that I getout of Marsault and many of Chuck’s characters. It’s also the attidues of the narratives that I find a little bit a like too– only a little bit. There’s that same apathy, but the difference is that chuck’s narrators are usually passive aggressive whereas Mersault is COMPLETELY neutral, and not just most of the time. I flipped to the back of the book because I like to spoil things for myself to when Mersault reaches enlightenment… It reminded me of one of my favorite Palahniuk quotes:

“You are not special. You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as every one else”

I mean, it’s that same feel diminutive feeling you get knowing you really don’t matter to the rest of the world, but in Chuck’s token snarky fashion…

The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky

Alright, for those that HAVE read this book it may seem like a really stupid comparison, but it really isn’t. The Stranger is about self realization and your place in the universe, what ever, and Perks is a comming of age tail– really different, but there are small silimarities that I just find intresting… The main characters in Perks and The Stranger are both bluntly honest, to a point where is get them in trouble; they are both observers and prefer to be indifferent to the world; but the situations both of these characters end up in are completely different. Charlie eventually started to interact with the world and start being happy with his life, but Mersault kind of just sat there and rotted. And he was ok with that. And I was kind of thinking, if he spent more time with Marie to eventually fall in love or some crap like that, if he would have came to the epiphany of his small and unimportant place in the world. I don’t know if he accepted that because he was about to die, or if he was really enlightened…

“She Is the New Thing” – The Horrors

She’s a special girl you know,
the kind I’d hope to see,
hanging on a wall,
watching me cross the street.
I wonder how long it will be before I’m sick of her,
and I no longer care where she goes or has been,
because she’s the new thing.
Feel my stomach sink.
Whatever she brings,
I cast myself in.
She is the new thing.
It started so slight then I flared into life,
attention again onto another new thing.
Once she had me on my knees, enamoured with disease.
Now, she fails to impress.
A different sickness.
A different kind of sickness,
lacking any interest.
And I, sunk in apathy,
totally absorbed in me.
Sitting vacant on my own,
my senses lying prone.
She was the new thing.
Feel my stomach sink and I curse my slow limbs.
Staring at her,
alterior girl,
I cast myself into whatever she brings…Another new.
With sickness,
it ends how it begins:
First mine then hers,
and then the cycle blurs as my actions reoccur
through no fault of my own,
through no fault of my own.

(most fitting lines in red) One little theme with this song is the triviality of love affairs, and being around some one you really want nothing to do with– Marsault likes Marie, sure, but that’s not really what I’m getting at. Think of “The new Thing” as a symbolic form of LIFE. Life continues as it does regardless of your participation in it. and there’s really no use in getting involved, to him. It comes and goes. Nothing matters. The music itself really makes be thing of this novel too, especially the base line. It’s really steady, and almost completely unchanging despite all the other noises flying around, like the way Marsault and his apathy towards the world.

“Raymond said they were only flesh wounds.”

Monty Python diggs Albert Camus. Oh yeeah.

I just got done with that part where the fat man’s dog runs away.
I wasn’t the only person that thought of this little guy when the narrator was describing those scabs, was I?

Aaaaw…. ♥

No, seriously, that’s hideous; if the guy’s dog looked like that, I could totally understand why he treated it so badly. But once it ran away he was really down, and I guess he was just lonely, with his dead wife and all. (But you’d think if that were the case he wouldn’t be such an arse.)