Tales From Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan
The tales are the epitome of quirky, with secret poetry gathering like a snowball into an enormous ball in the sky, leaf-like exchange students, and instructions on making your own pet. I liked visiting this strange, enchanting world, where water buffalos point you in the right direction. There's something about Shaun Tan's books that are so ethereal and otherworldly it's like sitting at the edge of a very high cliff and quietly watching the clouds as they move past your feet. Tales from Outer Suburbia is no different, and it's like I want to absorb the book into my skin. The most obvious thing to compare to this, if comparisons are something we have to make, is The Twilight Zone. The last time suburbia got this skewered with the unknown, it was in that post-war Rod Serling era. Maybe history repeats itself. Maybe our new era with our new president and our new hope in the American dream means that suburbia will once again take on those mythic qualities it was once thought to have. In the past Shaun Tan has said that the notion of suburban communities has always fascinated , why not? Suburbia is a state of safety and collective agreement that can go terribly wrong when left to its own devices. There’s a kind of insanity to it, and Tan has very delicately placed a finger on that insanity’s pulse. He will give you a sense of it, but you will never quite see the whole.
Sunday, May 17, 2015
Blog 9
The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston
The Woman Warrior is Maxine Hong Kingston's own story of growing up Chinese-American, an irreconcilable position for her as the two cultures would seemingly clash, unable to provide her with a stable sense of identity. She grew up confused by the ideas and behavior of her parents and the villagers who had settled in Stockton, California, who saw their American-born children as very strange - not really Chinese. Her parents hoped one day to return the whole family to China - yet the China they had left had since changed. All she knew of the place she had never been, was through the 'talk-stories' told by her mother; parables in the Chinese tradition of telling magical stories and incorporating them into their everyday life; of ancestors and relatives, and great tales of mythic and cultural heroines. In The Woman Warrior MHK constructs her own identity and the meaning of her life. She places herself as the primary narrator in stories artistically woven with Chinese myth and legend, including other women characters- some known and unknown, real and imagined. The stories are highly imaginative; the narrative flows with wondrous elements of magical-realism.
The Woman Warrior is Maxine Hong Kingston's own story of growing up Chinese-American, an irreconcilable position for her as the two cultures would seemingly clash, unable to provide her with a stable sense of identity. She grew up confused by the ideas and behavior of her parents and the villagers who had settled in Stockton, California, who saw their American-born children as very strange - not really Chinese. Her parents hoped one day to return the whole family to China - yet the China they had left had since changed. All she knew of the place she had never been, was through the 'talk-stories' told by her mother; parables in the Chinese tradition of telling magical stories and incorporating them into their everyday life; of ancestors and relatives, and great tales of mythic and cultural heroines. In The Woman Warrior MHK constructs her own identity and the meaning of her life. She places herself as the primary narrator in stories artistically woven with Chinese myth and legend, including other women characters- some known and unknown, real and imagined. The stories are highly imaginative; the narrative flows with wondrous elements of magical-realism.
Blog 8
Catch-22 A BOOK WORTH READING
Catch-22 reminds me a lot of those comedy/tragedy masks—you know the ones that are supposed to represent like, fine theater or something? Not that I’m comparing Catch-22 to some great Italian opera. All I’m saying is that the book oscillates cleverly between the absurdly humorous and the grievingly tragic.
So it starts off on the hilarious side.This is the point at which the humor starts to wear thin and seemingly unrelated events are haphazardly thrown around and you’re wondering if it’s going anywhere or if it’s just one absurd situation after another.But finally, you settle in for Act III and discover that the seemingly unrelated events are actually part of an ingenious narrative structure that Heller has planned out from the beginning. Jokes that were set up earlier finally deliver their punch lines. Only it turns out the jokes aren’t funny anymore. In many ways, Heller’s writing is like that of Kurt Vonnegut, with similar subject matter wrapped up in threads of absurdity. But while Vonnegut speaks of the horrors of war, Heller’s issues are more with the horrors of the War Department: it is the red tape of bureaucracy that gets his goat. Well, and war, too, but mostly it’s the bureaucracy.Anyway, this book is smart and well written. It would be difficult for me to come up with the name of another author who could write such perfectly contradictory sentences while still making so much sense.
Catch-22 reminds me a lot of those comedy/tragedy masks—you know the ones that are supposed to represent like, fine theater or something? Not that I’m comparing Catch-22 to some great Italian opera. All I’m saying is that the book oscillates cleverly between the absurdly humorous and the grievingly tragic.
So it starts off on the hilarious side.This is the point at which the humor starts to wear thin and seemingly unrelated events are haphazardly thrown around and you’re wondering if it’s going anywhere or if it’s just one absurd situation after another.But finally, you settle in for Act III and discover that the seemingly unrelated events are actually part of an ingenious narrative structure that Heller has planned out from the beginning. Jokes that were set up earlier finally deliver their punch lines. Only it turns out the jokes aren’t funny anymore. In many ways, Heller’s writing is like that of Kurt Vonnegut, with similar subject matter wrapped up in threads of absurdity. But while Vonnegut speaks of the horrors of war, Heller’s issues are more with the horrors of the War Department: it is the red tape of bureaucracy that gets his goat. Well, and war, too, but mostly it’s the bureaucracy.Anyway, this book is smart and well written. It would be difficult for me to come up with the name of another author who could write such perfectly contradictory sentences while still making so much sense.
Blog 7
Trickster Tales Ed. by Matt Dembicki
Almost exclusively, the writing in the book was limp. These stories of the Trickster (usually a coyote or rabbit or raccoon) were simply uninteresting. Perhaps they make a better oral tradition than a written one, but my feeling is that almost any of the stories could have been made more compelling with a steadier author’s hand. Many of the tales take forms similar to Kipling’s Just So Stories. How the alligator got his skin, how the rabbit got his tail, how the raccoon got short and fat, how the beaver stopped being an unbridled killing machine, et cetera. There’s meat there for some decent stories. Or at least some lame stories told interestingly. But it just never coalesces.
And while very rarely all that good, there are times when the art is actually just plain bad. After several stories with lackluster art, I gave up entirely on hoping for good visual storytelling and merely crossed my fingers, hoping that it wouldn’t get worse. The inhabitants of the frame often looked like creatures in static poses, only rendered so still from the steady hand of some demented taxidermist. It was rare that I felt an artist had a good feel for the story being told.
I don’t know what to feel. Should I see Trickster as well-representative of the North American tribal folklore? If so, then what am I to make of that culture? I found the storytelling infantile and the artistry remedial. Am I then too quick to judge another culture by standards I have learned under the rigours of my own? If so, that would be deeply unfair, like judging the first novels to come out of Borneo by the standards to which we would hold the latest literary release from Knopf. I don’t want to be that person and yet: if Trickster is a fair representation of the North American tribal narrative art, I can honestly say that I’m not all that interested in sitting around, waiting for it to develop into something I can appreciate.
Almost exclusively, the writing in the book was limp. These stories of the Trickster (usually a coyote or rabbit or raccoon) were simply uninteresting. Perhaps they make a better oral tradition than a written one, but my feeling is that almost any of the stories could have been made more compelling with a steadier author’s hand. Many of the tales take forms similar to Kipling’s Just So Stories. How the alligator got his skin, how the rabbit got his tail, how the raccoon got short and fat, how the beaver stopped being an unbridled killing machine, et cetera. There’s meat there for some decent stories. Or at least some lame stories told interestingly. But it just never coalesces.
And while very rarely all that good, there are times when the art is actually just plain bad. After several stories with lackluster art, I gave up entirely on hoping for good visual storytelling and merely crossed my fingers, hoping that it wouldn’t get worse. The inhabitants of the frame often looked like creatures in static poses, only rendered so still from the steady hand of some demented taxidermist. It was rare that I felt an artist had a good feel for the story being told.
I don’t know what to feel. Should I see Trickster as well-representative of the North American tribal folklore? If so, then what am I to make of that culture? I found the storytelling infantile and the artistry remedial. Am I then too quick to judge another culture by standards I have learned under the rigours of my own? If so, that would be deeply unfair, like judging the first novels to come out of Borneo by the standards to which we would hold the latest literary release from Knopf. I don’t want to be that person and yet: if Trickster is a fair representation of the North American tribal narrative art, I can honestly say that I’m not all that interested in sitting around, waiting for it to develop into something I can appreciate.
Blog 6
American Born Chinese
This exert is a great example of satire but needs to be accompanied by explanations as to why the inappropriate language and stereotypical images shown throughout. The book is a fabulous example of the difference between old "long ago and far away" tales of Chinese and a current, here and now struggles of Chinese-Americans.Gene Luen Yang does a good job telling his story about his life (or not his own maybe) as a Chinese American. I was very excited to read this book becasue first it was a graphic novel and second his story sort of connects with me since I am a Chinese American myself. Yang chooses an interesting title, "American Born Chinese". Its not one of those clever, thought provoking titles, but it is a rare one that you don't come across often. I sort of anticipated on what this story will be about, but what I didn't expect was the form of the story. Basically there are three story lines: a story about an American Born Chinese who moves to a new area and goes to a school as the only asian kid, a popular chinese myth called "Monkey King", and a story about a chinese kid who has all these negative chinese stereotypes and ruins Danny's life. There is no chronological order to these stories. Yang goes back and forth with all three stories, but in the end eveything ties together. One thing that I really like about this book is that everything is in color, unlike the other graphic novels that are black and white. The color adds more life into the stories which constantly reminds me that I am reading a biography (or autobiography). The writing is easy to understand but the main point of the book is the meaning it is trying to convey. It is always hard to live in two cultures at the same time, something like living two lives. In this book Yang mainly focused on the struggles of being a Chinese American, but I believe all minority groups experience the same thing. People who refuse to accept others and differences always make it harder for immigrants and maybe this book can change some minds.
This exert is a great example of satire but needs to be accompanied by explanations as to why the inappropriate language and stereotypical images shown throughout. The book is a fabulous example of the difference between old "long ago and far away" tales of Chinese and a current, here and now struggles of Chinese-Americans.Gene Luen Yang does a good job telling his story about his life (or not his own maybe) as a Chinese American. I was very excited to read this book becasue first it was a graphic novel and second his story sort of connects with me since I am a Chinese American myself. Yang chooses an interesting title, "American Born Chinese". Its not one of those clever, thought provoking titles, but it is a rare one that you don't come across often. I sort of anticipated on what this story will be about, but what I didn't expect was the form of the story. Basically there are three story lines: a story about an American Born Chinese who moves to a new area and goes to a school as the only asian kid, a popular chinese myth called "Monkey King", and a story about a chinese kid who has all these negative chinese stereotypes and ruins Danny's life. There is no chronological order to these stories. Yang goes back and forth with all three stories, but in the end eveything ties together. One thing that I really like about this book is that everything is in color, unlike the other graphic novels that are black and white. The color adds more life into the stories which constantly reminds me that I am reading a biography (or autobiography). The writing is easy to understand but the main point of the book is the meaning it is trying to convey. It is always hard to live in two cultures at the same time, something like living two lives. In this book Yang mainly focused on the struggles of being a Chinese American, but I believe all minority groups experience the same thing. People who refuse to accept others and differences always make it harder for immigrants and maybe this book can change some minds.
Thursday, April 9, 2015
Blog #5 (Sandman Vol. 1 by Neil Gaiman)
The hero of the series is, simply, Dream. His identity is a rather philosophical matter, as he is not so much a god of dream, but rather, the embodiment of the very concept of dream itself. At the beginning of the story, Dream is summoned by a human mystic, and caged. Seventy years later, when he escapes from his prison, he finds his kingdom in ruins, and must return to himself the symbolic garments of his reign to rebuild it. This except from the book is very eery and creepy. I did not really find this work interesting. It was not my type of reading, i felt that this work was for someone more into the dark types of leerature in the world. And with the idea that this book was written a while ago, maybe this book was written for those in that time period who were starting to be interested in these type of things. Maybe the time period represented a dark and creepy nature, and the many authors of this time were only just starting to write like this to appraise the readers of the novel.
Blog #4 (American Indian Myths and Legends Ed. by Richard Erdoes & Alfonso Ortiz)
Stories and legends often represent the heart and soul of a culture. They tell tale of creation of life, the supernatural, higher beings, and even explain such miniscule things as why the crow is black and why a beaver’s tale is flat. Perhaps the greatest storytelling culture is that of the American Indian, a culture so committed and dedicated to oral history, myths, and legends. In Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz’s colorful collection, American Indian Myths and Legends, these stories help give reason to creation, life and death, spirits, love, human and animal relations, and thoughts on war and warrior code. While those tales are few and far between, the remainder of the book is filled with comical and meaningful tales meant to teach children and adults how to be good people. Even those with no knowledge of the Native. American culture will find it easy to take something away from one, if not all, of these stories.
These stories are meant to teach everyone about the culture and have then understand why the creators choose to tell these specific ones. I found these stories interesting and had me interpreting every story in many different ways. It had me thinking of of the ways these stories can be applied to the times of now and how they were applied to the times of the Native Indians.
These stories are meant to teach everyone about the culture and have then understand why the creators choose to tell these specific ones. I found these stories interesting and had me interpreting every story in many different ways. It had me thinking of of the ways these stories can be applied to the times of now and how they were applied to the times of the Native Indians.
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