Our Reaction to the Unknown

While reading the story Cathedral I was constantly thinking about the I way I would personally react to a blind person. It impressed me how the man was at first reacting to the fact that he would have a blind guest. He want happy at all. He was making imprudent comments and he was not being nice or supportive to his wife. However I did like the end of this story. I was glad that the narrator is able to connect with Robert and that he actually tried to explain to him what a cathedral was and how it would look like, "I tried to explain to the blind man what was happening."(p.223) This shows that he is a good person in the inside and at the end he actually kind of experiences the blindness on his own. He takes the time and trouble to give his best explanation of what a cathedral would look like and then they end up drawing it together to give Robert the best idea possible.
I cant imagine what being blind would be like. I guess it would be like this feeling of nothing, you don't see and you don't know what seeing is so you don't crave it. I don't know which is worse, being born blind or becoming blind. I guess that the good thing of never being able to see is that you don't know what you are missing so you don't miss it. On the other side, if you were able to see during some point in your life, well you at least enjoyed it for a while. Plus a person that used to be able to see would probably be able to imagine descriptions much easier since he knows what colors are and how textures look like. He would have bases and guidelines from where to create an image. Still I wonder, how do the people who was originally blind remember moments, or how does a deaf think. I mean one remembers with images and one usually thinks with a voice, but how do these people, who have never experienced either one, do? How do you describe something they have never seen before and is composed of other things he isn't able to see. I guess the only way is to have him experience through their other senses, like touch for example, just like they do in the book.
I wonder how I would react the day that I meet a blind person and I hope to do so in a way that i don't offend the other one because they might not have all their senses working well but that doesn't take away the fact that they are human beings just as any other and one just has to learn to accept them as they are. So I hope that I will always be able to react appropriately when I meet a person with a disability, since I have met some in the past and consider Ive done well. I will hope to enjoy all the good qualities and abilities they have instead of focusing on what they lack.

The importance of titles

Vitamins. I guess the title is rather obvious in this case. The story mentions people that work selling vitamins and how this has affected their lives, they have even begun to dream with them at night and feel they cant escape them. However, this doesn't really matter at the moment. What I really wanted to talk about was the importance of titles. Titles are like a first impression. When you meet a new person you usually decide if you want to keep getting to know him or her depending on the first impression that was presented, well with a book its the same thing. One many times decides what to read based upon the title of a book. Its like the famous saying that goes: "don't judge a book by its cover", however one usually does. You make decisions on what you interpret and if you think it will be good and worthwhile. That's why people that write newspaper articles have to be very good at coming up with catchy titles. They need to call their publics' attention to make sure people will want to read their work.
Some titles are very obvious but others require some more analyzing ability. Some are tricky and one really has to think to understand where the title came from. Titles are important for everything. They affect books, articles, poems, movies, songs, ideas, paintings, sculptures, plays, almost anything that you want to get other people to know because the title is a name, it is what everybody will remember that work for. So it is necessary to give the necessary attention to a title and highlight its importance.

Who We Are

We have been commenting a lot this semester the free will vs destiny topic. If you pay close attention to each book or story, one can often find how the authors include this question in their writing. Some suggest that there is only free will, that each person has the power to choose what will come based on their actions, others say that we are predestined, that no matter what we do it was always going to be that way because one has a fate to follow, and others just question the topic or give ideas for both so that the reader is left thinking about it. In the short story Chef�s, House by Raymond Carver, one of the main characters says: "We were born who we are" p33. In my opinion he is suggesting that our life is somehow predestined. That we become who we are due to our past, because every experience, feeling and situation we live affects who we become and who we are. There is also another interpretation, one can also infer that he is saying that even when you were born you already had a future in front of you and everything you did was going to lead you to who you become. So you were born with a life ahead and you cant go supposing what would have happened if you were somebody else or if you would have made another choice because that isn't the case, you were born, and you made the decision. So you were really born not knowing what you were about to do, but the truth is you were always going to make that decision, you were always going to look that way, you were always going to think in that way, you were always going to suffer and enjoy in that amount. So really since you were born, you were somehow destined to act in a way and become that specif person you are.

"I take what happened back there as a sign." p. 108

And The Point Of The Trian is...

The whole story of The Train by Raymond Carver occurs in the train station. At first a woman talks about a murder she almost commits but decides not to and then an old couple arrive and argue until the train arrives. When the train arrives the story ends. I would have probably liked this story better if more background information was included. If we knew the reason why the lady had pointed a gun at a man, if we knew some more information about the couple, then maybe the story would have gotten better. In my opinion the story lacked a point. There was nothing to that story other than a narration of a events that don't really even connect. You can really make a story out of anything, out of any moment, and a good author is that one who can. However, I don't really appreciate this skill yet. When reading a short story such as The Train one cant expect something interesting to happen. There is really no point to that story other than being able to appreciate the authors skills at creating a good mood and writing style. I have been used, throughout my life, to novels, poems, informative papers, essays, any writing in general that has a point. One reads it and feels the author is trying to get a point across to you. They might even just tell you a story but it is one that is meant to entertain you or just make you spend your time on a topic you enjoy. However this story doesn't really make you enjoy what is being told because of the content, but you must instead focus on the style to enjoy it.

Even if it was the best story(in content) ever, without any style, the work sucks. One has to tell the occurrences in a way that the author gets through to the reader. It might not be wanting you to learn or discuss a topic but it does get you to feel a certain mood and each one develops his own voice. It might be a sarcastic one, or it might be a sad one, or as in this case it might be an expectant one (except the story ends abruptly without anything really happening and a wasted suspense), in any case, the reader must connect to the author and appreciate his writing skill and how he might create a story out of the simplest thing.

The point of Feathers

After reading this short story all I could think about were questions, what was the trauma that dinner had left Fan and Jack? Why had they decided to ave a kid if they hadn't wanted one and if the baby was ugly? Why had Fran seemed so unwilling to go to dinner? Plus, even though its like a short story about two friends that have dinner together with their wives, I don't see what was the main purpose of the story. It didn't lead anywhere it just narrated an event but there really wasn't like a main point or purpose for it. I don't know, maybe its like Crying of Lot 49 where the author is actually trying to get at us and have us suffer from the same paranoia his main character is experimenting. Still I don't think Carver is like Pynchon, who is trying to trick us. I think Carver just wanted to write a piece and it just came out with no meaning at all. Pynchon on the contrary is laughing at us, he is making us fall in our own dilemma in which we begin to doubt our selves. So what is the point in books like these? What are they trying to tell? what is the reader getting out of them? I really like having like a specific goal and guideline to understand and at the moment I cant figure out what it is im supposed to get out of these writings.

Reflecting Myself in My Work

In the book review, Glistening as it vanishes, Ben Wilkinson comments on the third full collection of Maura Dooley's poems, Life Underwater. He comments that the author has improved her works, comparing them to her previous volumes but he concludes that she still has lots of space for improvement.

He also criticizes the title of the book since he doesn't agree with its appropriateness since only few poems mention wetness while most are based on other drier topics. He declares, "Life under water is a somewhat misleading title..."However, he also gives positive feedback on the work, he congratulates and acknowledges the author on the improvement of her factual reference. She is now including historical events on her works but she is blending them in a way in which one feels them flow and bend with the rest of the writing. She has also included the historical facts in ways that one can infer that she knows about the topic while in her previous works many times her references didn't really make sense or connected with the point that was being tried to get across. Still Dooley keeps her personal style and expresses her talent in a way that only she knows how to do.

One of the most important traits about an author, in my opinion, is his/her style. This is very important because it takes a reader to have its own personality plus it becomes recognizable and unique. Due to the fluidity and richness that voice can give a piece of work is that we, as students, are taught since young to give a unique personal touch to each work. Placing your signature on your work in an indirect form is not always easy to do. This is an ability that you might have been very lucky to have come naturally since you were born, but on the most part you don't have it, you develop it. Teachers give us the basics on what it is and after that only practice can develop it to have what you want. You readers will easily recognize your works and you will be able to leave a little bit of yourself in each and every one of your works. It will eventually come off naturaly and you will see that all your works have that little something that you made them bring to life.