Final Exam, etc.

By way of clarification, the final exam is not on May 5. There is an error on the assignment schedule (thanks to Jessica and Margie for pointing this out). The final exam is on May 3 (next Tuesday), from 10:30 AM to 12:30 PM. This is obviously earlier than we usually meet, so please make arrangements to be there. I will discuss the final exam with you when I see you on Thursday so that you will know what to expect.

I also mentioned the possibility of making up some blogs. For every one of the following poems, stories, or films you read/watch and post a response to, I will make up one missed blog. (I'm putting you on your honor here. If you have already seen one of these films you will need to watch it again in order to post about it.) The responses should be of (at least) normal length, and they should discuss how these works fit in with what we have already read this semester. What themes are the same? How are they treated similarly or differently? What new insight do they offer into the questions we have been asking?

Poems:
1. Philip Levine: "The Simple Truth"
2. Lucille Clifton: "Why Some People Be Mad at Me Sometimes"
3. Emily Dickinson: "Tell All the Truth"
4. Robert Penn Warren: "A Way to Love God"
5. William Shakespeare: Sonnet 138
6. Edward Thomas: "Old Man"

Stories:
1. John Cheever: "The Swimmer"
2. Charlotte Perkins Gilman: "The Yellow Wallpaper"
3. John Updike: "A&P"

Films:
1. Memento
2. Fight Club
3. Big Fish
4. The Usual Suspects
5. The Neverending Story

Self-Forgiveness

Briony is able to atone for her actions, in her mind, by forgiving herself. She says she wanted to give Cecilia and Robbie the happy life they deserved. She convinces herself that by giving them a faux life by means of literature, she has redeemed herself. She was able to bear her mistake, and instead of sulking about it, she did the best thing of which she could think by giving them the happy life they deserved in her novel, albeit a fantasy. It was a grave mistake, and I think she would have found more efficacy by making amends with Cecilia, rather than keeping it all to herself and living in a land as real as Hoth or Tatooine.

Subtlety, Rather Than Blatancy

The ending of Atonement had a unique feel to it, almost as if I already knew the ending; or that I have already accepted it. I do not mean that I knew the exact ending or the events that would occur, but rather I knew the emotion or reaction I would give. Surely enough, I had the feeling of indifference or more appropriately, contentment. In the other books I always had this lingering longing for closure in the endings. The open-ended interpretations kept expanding the boundaries of truth. In, The Things They Carried, there was an obvious contrast between story-truth and happening-truth since O'Brien directly tells you what is fact and fiction. Through this, O'Brien made the reader wonder what is actually considered truth and what is not. In, Life of Pi, Pi describes two ideal stories of which both fully explain what had happened to Pi. The two contrasting stories gave the reader a sense of truth being used in a unique manner. By Pi using animals in his first story, he gave a deeper meaning it rather than giving dry, yeastless facts. In, Lying, Slater presents this idea of lying as being actual truth. Despite her lying about her epilepsy, or her lying about not having epilepsy, she ultimately wrote a memoir about her life by using epilepsy as the main focus. This basically forced the reader into thinking about lies being used as a way to convey truth. However, in, Atonement, the word truth is never really covered. Granted, though, that there is an interesting concept of truth in the book. The idea that what you fully believe may not be true, and the way it is done is elegantly subtle. There isn't this harsh contrast away from the actual story, so the author can explain or deduce what is happening or what they are trying to convey. This book had a more realistic feel to it, straying away from its philosophical brethren. The reason I think of realism is because this concept of truth directly related to a believable tragedy; because of that I believe that it is unique when put against the other books we have read.

Unable to Atone

By the end of the book, I feel that Briony has not completely atoned for her childhood 'crime'. Although I do believe that stories have to power to change things and make bad things right, I also believe that this only extends to a certain point.

I think that Briony's character expresses a great deal of guilt throughout the third part of the book, and I do believe that part of that is alleviated through the fictitious moments of happiness that she creates for her sister and Robbie. I also think that the character's very public admission of her 'crime' in the form of a novel helps to sponge away some of the guilt as well. However, I do not think that her guilt could ever be erased or that her 'crime' could ever be corrected or forgiven. It can be understood, because of her age at the time. Although I just do not believe that even her best efforts to punish herself or correct the past can make the pain that her sister and especially Robbie had to endure. Nothing short of going back in time and making it so that it never happened could fully make up for what she did, but it is endearing that she immortalized the ones she hurt most in her novel, giving them the happy ending that they so deserved, but were denied due to her actions of youthful ignorance.

The Ending of Atonement

I enjoyed the ending of Atonement. It was interesting. Briony, at the end, told the reader that the events that we read may or may not have happen. In this case, her narration is a lot like O'Brien's in that when he talks about killing the star-eyed soldier, the reader really doesn't ever know if he really killed the person or if, to him, it felt like he had. Also, in the book Lying, Lauren Slater definitely takes the reader for a ride when she says she has epilepsy, but then changes the truth, by saying she doesn't. In Life of Pi, Pi gives the interrogators two stories, allowing them to choose. Either story could be true; both stories could be false. Briony is like Pi. She describes in detail her sister and Robbie standing with her as she is about to depart for the train. However, she hints at the fact that Robbie died of septicemia and Cecilia died by a bomb. As a reader, I choose to belief the former. I feel that this book fit in really well with the other readings because it seemed to twist the truth in writing. As I was reading this, I was only thinking that this book relates to this class because of Briony's perception and memory, but because on the last page, she questions her story and thus the reader questions her story.

Atonement - Final Prompts

For tomorrow, please respond to one or more of the following questions:

1. To what extent is Briony able to atone for the mistake she made as a young girl?

2. How is the ending of this book similar to books we have already read, and how is is different?

3. If this book is, ultimately the power and capability of storytelling, what does this book have to say about stories? What can they do? What can they not do?

This is your last chance to blog about the book, so please take advantage of it.

The End

For me the ending had mixed emotions. I still don't know if I liked it or not. It really did not surprise me because we have seen this in other books with some twist. I think the reason I like the ending is because it is not the normal ending to a book and it does make you think about life in a different light. The reason I didn't like it is because I invested myself into the story and thought it was going to end somewhat happy, but it didn't. I would have rather not read it if it was going to end sad. I avoid sad movies because of this very reason. I know some people like these kind of things but for me, I like to think that all bad things can end for some kind of good and maybe this book can or does end that way. I still am not sure if Briony felt some sort of relief from guilt. I am not sure she does and so this book ends sad for me.

This book reminds me of a classic love story that I passionately hate, Romeo and Juliet. This does not mean that I hated the book altogether. There were parts of the writing I thought were good. Obviously not the over use of descriptive words. I still can't get over that it took a whole chapter and more for a little girl to run across a field to deliver a note. Back to what I was saying, I liked the part of the book when Briony talks about how she could write this love story she witnessed outside her window from three points of view in a book. This was when I realized that Briony is writing the story that I am now reading because it was exactly the way the book was written.

The End

Change of Schedule

In class today, we decided that we will not be meeting as a class on Thursday. Instead, I will be meeting one-on-one with students in my office during class time. These conferences are not mandatory, but they are encouraged. If you come, please bring your paper in whatever state it is in (draft, outline, notes, etc.) so that we can discuss it. Also, please have Atonement finished for Tuesday. I will post new prompts  on Thursday evening. Thank you, and I hope to see you on Thursday.

And, just for fun, the trailer for the film, in case you haven't seen more than what we watched in class.

Atonement Prompts

Here are some questions to think about for tomorrow. I would enjoy reading responses to any of them.

1. Cecelia's last words to Robbie-words she repeats in her letters--are "I'll wait for you. Come back." "Come back" are also the words Cecelia whispered to Briony when the latter was a very young girl, when she would waken from a nightmare (see page 41). Do you see a connection?

2. Why does Part I have chapters when the rest of the book doesn't?

3. There are several places in the reading that mention literature or storytelling. How are these significant? (Please use at least one example.)

4. Discuss the scene where Robbie and Nettle catch the pig (240-41). Compare this scene to something from another book we have read. What can it be compared to?

5. Why do you think Robbie has such a hard time putting the leg out of his mind? What might the leg symbolize?

See you tomorrow.

Poetry Readin'

Yesterday, I went to the poetry reading in the Reece Museum. The event was hosted by Jesse Graves, a professor in the English department. He introduced his book Southern Poetry Anthropology. The book includes poems by eighty different poets. Jesse Graves was the first poet to read. His poem was called, "Elegy for a Hay Rate." It was about working in the yard with his father. The second reader was Jane Hicks, known for her publications in the newsletter, The Mockingbird and for her quilts. Her first poem was entitled "Dust," and it is only published in this certain volume of poems. I really enjoyed her metaphors like "a perjury of promised rain," featured in "Dust," and "lay crucified on the quilt with love," in her poem that I think was called "Felix."

Alan Holmes was the third reader. I am not certain what the title of his first poem was called, but I think it was something like "Awning." This poem was about going to work with his father. He used descriptions like "pentacostal hair" to describe women in a hair salon. His last poem was entitled "Joan's Valley." I noticed in this poem that he contradicted Appalachain stereotypes like "backwards, southern, country." I liked that.

Don Johnson, the ETST Poet in Residence, was the next poet. His first poem, "Grappling," was about a young boy trying to figure out how to catch fist without getting in the water. His second poem was called, "Going to Chattem." It was about going to the family cabin on "Decoration Day." I liked his use of the word "directly" at the end of the poem. It fit well with what he was trying to describe.

After Don Johnson, Ted Olson, receipient of last year's Major Facualty Research Award, read his poems. He read "Writing by the Spring," his first poem ever published, "Swallows," and "River Baptism." I enjoyed "River Baptism" because it was very descriptive.

I did not catch the last reader's first name. I think her name was Areta Quillen. She read "Sunday School Lesson" and "Sugar and Spice." I liked her first poem, especially when she read that "it took me twenty-six years to figure that out, " while it took her young son a walk on Sunday to figure out some spiritual phenomenon. Her second poem, "Sugar and Spice," was about pieces of her girlhood childhood. It was light-hearted and funny.

I really enjoyed going to this poetry reading for several reasons. It was cool listening to the words of members from around this area and I liked hearing stories and experiences in a poetic form. The poems embodied both evidence of a strong Appalachian culture and a knack for literary excellence.

Yeah, I don't have to blog!

I am relieved that I do not have to blog, but because I was thinking about it I am at least going to quote a familiar thing that we have become aware of. "Self-exposure was inevitable the moment she described a character's weakness; the reader was bound to speculate that she was describing herself". (6) Yep, that about sums it up. It is hard to separate the writer from the writing because a reader will inevitable speculate.

Blogging, April 11-15

In order to allow you to focus on paper writing and keeping up with the reading, I am letting you take the week off from blogging. This will also allow me to spend more time grading your papers. However, I reserve the right to quiz you on your reading of Atonement, so make sure you are getting it done! Also, I am going to provide some make-up opportunities for those who have missed a blog or two. I will discuss these in class as well.

As always, you may post your thoughts on what we are reading at any time. You are just not required to do so this week.

Dr. Westover

Embelm

In the Afterword of her novel, Lauren Slater writes that, "Lying is a book of narrative truth, a book in which I am more interested in using invention to get to the heart of things than I am in documenting actual life occurrences." Slater goes on to talk about even her epilepsy, the main focus of the entire story, was only a metaphor. It was merely a clever metaphor, twisted from small shreds of her actual reality in order to convey a much more important truth.

To Slater, narrative truth is everything. It is her way of expressing her unstable and troubled life as she felt it while living it, not as it technically happened. The emotional impact of Slater's life, as she experienced it, is the most important type of reality to her. It takes weight over the factual truth of events. That is the reality Slater portrays in her novel. It's the reality that she felt she had to tell, like she was almost compelled to tell others about. Slater even speaks of feeling relief at having finally managed to find a way to express it in epilepsy. In the end, I loved this book even more, because of the truly artistic way she managed to use epilepsy as a metaphor to cleanly and crisply explain so many things about her life.

What Matters.

The first passage of the Afterward particularly caught my attention, because Lauren is defining what is important and what really isn't. She bluntly points out that the facts are not needed in some parts of the book, and that they cannot be in some. I felt this portrays the memoir perfectly, since she speaks of historical truth being foolhardy and coy when explaining one's own person. Throughout the book she stretches the truth, she admits lying, and she conveys herself to the reader in an empathic manner. As the reader you begin to understand Lauren on a level of clarity and faith. I say faith because you start to trust Lauren, at least I did. Despite the underlying theme of deceit in the memoir, there is this sense of truth/trust between Lauren and the reader. As the reader you expect her to explain her life-story and herself in general; this she does with any difficulties. And as the story progresses, I want to know more about what Lauren thinks and desires, rather than the factual events. The bendable, narrative truth that she praises as being the correct way of conveying oneself is what I desire. Furthermore, this passage supports the idea of this text being considered a memoir. For clarity, the definition of a memoir is:

a record of events written by a person having intimate knowledge of them and based on personal observation.

I think that she has accomplished creating a memoir, because she gives us these events in her life, whether they be factual or fictional. She also, prominently and expansively, gives us her personal opinions on said events. This entire books does. This passage in particular though talks about the overall concept that she is using. It speaks of using subjective truth rather than its counterpart, and through this she is recreating the stereotypical idea of a memoir.

Question Mark

In the afterword, Slater talks about different disorders like "epilepsy...boderline personality disorder...post traumatic stress disorder...bipolar...Munchausen's...OCD...depression...autisthat doctors have thought she had had at some point in her life (220). However, these disorders could possibly be metaphors for different phases in her life. In the novel, she suggested that her epilepsy may be a symbol for her constant restlessness, different angles of her personality, etc. Her PTSD could have been after the breakup with Christopher or the rejection of her articles. Though these illnesses are very present in modern society, I feel as though people and physicians throw the terms around. Maybe she did really have all of these illnesses. Maybe her doctors were just so confused with her psyche that they felt it necessary to put a label on her forehead. Maybe these disorders are just metaphoric of different phases of a child's adolescent life. Maybe no one really ever have illnesses; people just perceive them as different and thus place a name to their difference. Slater, in the afterword and the entire book, has shown that she is not epilepsy. She is a creative being, filled with imagination and invention that make her unique and fascinating character and thus person. However, as much as doctors and researchers explore diseases like Tourette's and epilepsy, they will not completely ever understand what is real or what is expected of the patient. Thus, diseases like epilepsy are metaphorical of people, they only ever answer questions with "a question mark" (221).

Metaphor as a Way to Convey Truth

I particularly liked the passage, "Metaphor is the greatest gift of language, for through it we can propel what are otherwise wordless experiences into shapes and sounds. And even if the sounds are not altogether accurate, they do resonate in a heartfelt place we cannot dismiss." That really sums up how I feel about this entire book. I'm not sure I agree with all the methods Slater uses in her memoir, and I'm not sure I even like the book that much, but I do have to admit that what she says does resonate with a kind of truth. I understand what she is doing, even if it kind of got on my nerves to read. And I do like the use of the metaphor of epilepsy to convey her feelings about growing up and coming of age. I think it's a very appropriate metaphor that does an excellent job of illustrating her experiences and the way she has felt about her life. I both like and do not like this book, but it has been very interesting and enlightening to read. It's a new way to look at truth, even after what we've already read in class. I do like that part.

Lying: Final Prompt

The prompt for tomorrow is very simple: choose a specific passage from the Afterword and use it as a way into a discussion of the book as a whole. In other words, discuss the passage specifically but also the book generally.

Thanks. See you tomorrow.

Literary Abiogenesis

I completely disagree with the notion that one's intended literary persona relies upon one's life experience. The ability to listen to facts, comprehend them, and systemize them into logical tenets is all one needs to create a persona- out of thin air; no life experience necessary. As an example, I didn't fight in World War 2. I didn't participate, involuntarily if I had, in the Bataan Death March. I wasn't present at the Battle of the Bulge, nor Stalingrad, nor Dresden, nor Okinawa, nor the flag raising upon Mount Suribachi. I have absolutely zero experience. However, I am learned and educated enough to concoct a persona which could lead a reader to believe I was a Japanese soldier staring at the 1.6 million Soviet troops at the Manchurian border after the United States dropped two atomic bombs on my homeland. I can create the persona of a soldier fighting for Free France; fighting alongside my British, American, and Canadian brethren in an attempt to extinguish the world of the absolute evil which was Nazi Germany. I could create the persona of a helpless Jewish Pole in Auschwitz; despair, death, torture, pain, and sorrow; always pondering escape, the war, the evil who were Goebbels and Himmler, amongst hordes of others. I could portray myself as Eddie Rickenbacker- soaring through the skies of Europe in hopes of finding the next Luftwaffe-designated fighter down which to shoot. It is knowledge that enables us to create a persona; not experience.

Connection and Disconnection

Books are never one hundred percent factual. Period. I do not care who the author is; some of their information has to be made up. That being said, Lauren is depicting her life perfectly. Who lives their life understanding everything around them? Lauren clearly had a broken relationship with her mother while struggling mental health issues. Whether or not her epilepsy is true it illustrates the mother daughter bond brilliantly. Part one the seizures are the way Lauren connects with her mom. She is consistently nervous about her mother at one point she repeats to her self “please, God please, God let her like this” (12). Her mother’s emotions with Lauren are sporadic and inconsistent just like seizure attacks. Though her mother acts as if Lauren is beneath her, she is jealous of the ability Lauren has to become everything her mother is not.

However at age thirteen Lauren’s seizures change rapidly, and become the main disconnect between the two. During this age Lauren no longer seems to care what her mother thinks and instead begins looking to fill the hole she has been left with, by having nurses and doctors cater to her the way her mother should be caring for her. Her mother, the woman who once denied the allowance of Lauren to consume medication, agrees to a brain surgery. After the surgery Lauren no longer has seizures but she still longs for her mother and acts out with lying and stealing. The note from Patricia Robinson, P.T on page 98 suggests that Lauren will continue to struggle with her mental illness the rest of her life, which foreshadows that she will also struggle with the relationship with her mother as well.

The idea of lying

In class, we referenced the novel Running with Scissors. Last semester, I watched the movie and read the book. Lauren's mother reminds alot of Augusten's mother, especially when she begins her writing. She is filled with a desire to write and a fantasy to be published, but when she is rejected, she sips a drink of watery depression and lies "in a darkened room for hours" (64).

This novel seems to be filled with images of lying, both the communication and position form. For instance, in this novel, you never know which part of Lauren's tale is true. She makes up people and references them in her writing, like Hayward Krieger. She also tells of memories of lying, like to Sarah Kushner, to whom she told that she had cancer. She learns how to lie from her mother, who goes on an errand to see Suki Israel and comes back hours later only to say that "it's been minutes" (68). Lauren seems to lie to communicate. However, her epilepsy is a form of communication with her mother. The idea of physically lying down or falling to lie down is mentioned in the novel. When her mother lies down, the reader sees who she really is. For instance, earlier in the novel, Lauren comes into her parents' room on vacation and sees her mother lying down. In that scene, the mother is conveying the truth of her real life to her daughter. When the mother is standing or sitting, she pretends to be happy, pleasant, perfect. However, when she lies down, her true life shows through, like when she was rejected and she lied down for a long period of time.

When Lauren is standing up, she is worried about having seizures, etc. However, when she is lying down, she is fine. For example, when she was going through the first operation with Dr. Deu, he was stimulating her visual cortex and she began to feel different, pleasurable sensations. It seems that when she in lying down in the hospital, she doesn't want to leave and is happy. She makes friends with the nurses. She seems relaxed. After a seizure, the doctors tell her to "stay still. Lie down. Rest" to show the symobolism of "lying" (66). The quote, "the Saltonstall, the Peter Bent Brigham, the Lying-In, all wonderful, rhythmic names, all old brick buildings with twinkling views of the city," have pleasant sounding connatations that make the reader feel that Lauren is happy in the hospital setting (66).

Apparently, epilepsy has four chapters, like the book. The last stage is called the recovery stage. Maybe this too, is symbolic. Maybe Lauren is recovering from a childhood of lies and attempts to please her mother, and moving onto a stage of relaxation and growth.

Persona?

Chris's interesting and thoughtful comments suggest that we should spend some time talking about some aspects of the literary persona. A persona is the voice through which the author speaks (narrator, speaker, or other storyteller); it is a mask created by the real, actual author, but it is not the author him/herself. However, as Chris rightly points out, much of the actual author is evident in the persona. But how much? Some critics argue that a written text can never accurately represent a person because it is constructed and is therefore artifice; others argue that a text can never be wholly separate from the person writing it because authors ultimately draw upon life experience in order to create. (This seems in line with the O'Brien quotation that Chris mentions, from the "Spin" chapter: "You take your material where you find it, which is in your life, at the intersection of past and present." But remember that O'Brien also makes the opposing argument, that nothing, not even a memoir, can ever really be factually accurate; in that sense, "happening truth" is an impossibility, at least for the writer.)


So this is where Lying gets really interesting. A memoir isn't supposed to have a persona. It is supposed to be naked and mask-less. It is supposed to be written in the author's voice. But by calling her book a "metaphorical memoir," Slater ducks that responsibility a little. She wouldn't put it that way. In fact, she would likely argue that the metaphor represents her actual self better than any literal story could. She is therefore defining memoir not as the relating of literal experience but the relating of the essential self. In other words, there is a distinction being made between events, which may or may not be factual, and identity, which is best expressed metaphorically. This calls the very nature and purpose of memoir into question. This is from a review in the New York Times:  


"Slater's hopscotch between veracity and deception concerning her supposed epilepsy is intended to convey the subjective truth about what it feels like to be her. 'My whole life has been a seizure,' she writes, and this self-diagnosis makes literary, if not literal, sense. But she also has ambitions of delivering a critique of the memoir genre. She habitually interrupts herself in order to throw what she has just written into question. One chapter consists of a memorandum to the Random House marketing department and her editor, Kate Medina, about whether the book should be marketed as fiction or nonfiction, and there Slater writes of her intention 'to ponder the blurry line between novels and memoirs. Everyone knows that a lot of memoirs have made-up scenes; it's obvious. And everyone knows that half the time at least fictions contain literal autobiographical truths. So how do we decide what's what, and does it even matter?' 


These sound like the very questions Chris is raising. It's worth talking about. I'll let you guys write about whatever you want for tomorrow, but I like that you are wrestling with these concepts. Ultimately, the answers that you come up with are important, not just to the final paper you are going to write for this class, but to the way you will read for the rest of your lives. 

Is there a difference between writer and story?

My dad stole "The Things They Carried" from me and so I can't quote word for word the quote I want to use. My favorite line in the book goes something like this: You get your material where you find it. My understanding of that line is that writers can only write about what they understand or know. They can only write about the way they see things or at least the way they think they see things. I was handed my test this week and Dr. Westover (sorry if this is too formal, but I use this out of respect) had written a comment that I keep going back too. On the test I wrote a paragraph about how "The Dumb Man" and "Story" where similar in that they talk about the struggles that the authors have in saying what they want to say. I referred to the speaker and narrator of the poems as is they were the same as the author. Dr. Westover made the comment that they are not the same, and that they actually did say what they wanted to say. I'm not disagreeing with him at all! I am pointing out that I am struggling to separate the author from his or her writings because I know that they can only write about what they know and understand. When I write, I can only write something good when I know what I am writing about. Maybe in a research paper I might be able to distinguish between the author and what is written, but even then wouldn't the writer of a research paper be convinced through research of what he is writing about to the point of believing what he writes? In the type of books we have been reading I believe there are very few differences between writers and the characters they are writing about. The characters are so detailed that they are very believable and very real to me. I can't help but feel like the writers are not just trying to write in an awesome writing style but also putting some of themselves into the characters. I am really having a hard time writing out what I am trying to say. One thing I have learned in this class is that whether I talk or write, someone is not hearing or understanding me the way I want them to. This reminds me of two poems we read and ironially they are "The Dumb Man" and "Story".