Methland

    "Methland: The Life and Death of an American Small Town" is a story about the effects of Methamphetamine on everyone, and everything it comes in contact with. Nick Reding doesn't simply illustrate the effects of Meth on Oelwein, Iowa; he sets out to examine its effects on its users, their communities, and our nation's small communities. Reding starts with an explainaintion of what brought the issue of meth to his notice, then expands to an explanation of both his concern and the disregaurd it was treated with by his peers. Reding goes on to tell specific stories of interviews with users and cooks; and then offers a grisly story of one Ronald Jarvis who suffered horribly at his own hands when his lab exploded.

Reding speaking at Emory University

    Although I haven't read the rest of his book -though that will change within the next three hours- Reding seems to be genuinely concerned for the conditions of our rural towns and communities. He even offers a story involving a small town he would frequent where he found the drug to be prevalent  While I don't yet know his full motivation, I will say this article has done much to sway me -with little knowledge of the whole story- to believe his actions are quite laudable.
    Redin's work relates to Winter's Bone almost blatantly. Reding's entire book is centered around the same type of community as Winter's Bone and talks -almost directly- about the real life equivalent to some of the books characters. I think that if anything, Reding's book can lend support the reality to the Winter's Bone's story, and thus make the book understandably less, "fictional." Rather Reding himself or his story lends credibility to my analyses, will remain to be seen closer to its completion.


Reding, Nick. Methland The Life and Death of an American Small Town. Bloomsbury, 2009 Print

"Nick Reding Image" Emory.edu Course Spotlight 28 Feb 2011. Web http://www.emory.edu/EMORY_REPORT/images/issues/2011/02/methland-2-WEB.jpg

Winter's Bone -movie adaptation-

Well here I am slightly embarrassed by my previous post only six(ish) hours later.  After watching the movie adaptation of, "Winter's Bone" I can safely say that it is not the story that makes this book special. It really is entirely in the writing, and this is quite evident in the movie. When you remove the descriptions of events, internal monologues, and transitions, you wind up with a disaster of a story. The movie almost made no sense, and that was with an operating knowledge of what was going on after having read the story. When you take all the writing out, you wind up with an uninspired mess of a story about a fist full of characters you don't care about. Doing things that you don't care about. For  a purpose you don't care about. I take back anything I said about the book in my previous post. Granted the movie changed a few elements, lightened a few scenes up, and didn't include a drawn out close up of anyone urinating; but I have to insist that I will take the book as a complete work -hallucinogenic date rape of a minor and all- over this disorganized, soulless, train-wreck  It's very rare for me to say or type this phrase, but I was wrong -and for the record, so is metacritic-. How this movie got good reviews is totally beyond me. Perhaps they watched a movie with a similar title that wasn't wretched, and are simply confused? Trying to watch the movie and stay objective, it didn't have any flow and made very little sense. Then again, I suppose Superman 2 is in the top movies of all time according to metacritic, so perhaps their vote doesn't count anymore on the back of that alone.

Oh, and if anyone was considering watching the movie rather than reading the book I recommend the following: The book is short, just read it. The only other option is to punch yourself in the face, because it'll be a lot more pleasant than sitting through the movie.

Winter's Bone

Ah, "Winter's Bone," how I've derived a guilty pleasure in reading you; yet you stand as a reminder of why I don't care for the grimy style of storytelling so popular this past decade. 

Compliments of Amazon.com

Daniel Woodrell is the beginning of my problem with this book, but is also responsible for a lot of my enjoyment of it. Honestly the man has written some of my least favorite books, and I'm not just saying that to be a disagreeable. I won't get too deeply into my personal feelings, and instead try to stick to reviewing the book and not his writing style. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to get a little of that out of my system before I can write anything serious in relation to this book. As I have found with all of his books, I get sucked in to the story and tend to read them cover to cover over the course of a day. My problem is, I glaze over certain parts of the book that he spends way too much time on. For instance: Spending a paragraph describing urine hitting a wall; I'm not kidding, -for those of you that haven't reached that point in the reading yet- he gets into far too much detail on the subject. Now don't get me wrong, I'm far from a prude, and this isn't gross to me; I simply think it's a joke, and if it's not, it strikes me as poor decision making about the stories flow -no pun intended-. I understand that the very idea of the writing is to be very vivid and real, but I can think of a lot of books that are both; only they achieve this by being good, not by spending an uncomfortable amount of time describing bodily functions. This isn't my only issue with the book, but it serves as the best example. The story on the other hand, was fantastic -as it seems to be frequently with Woodrell-. I was instantly engaged, the man paints scenes beautifully, and I enjoyed about ninety-five percent of it. So while I can't say it was a bad book by any means, I can say that some authors should stick to what they're good at; and leave the grimy story telling to authors that are good at it. As a tangent note: I also have a personal distaste for gritty story telling. I don't know if it comes from having witnessed real human suffering and tragedy, or if I simply don't need more reality in my fiction; but I am never impressed by that type of writing. Perhaps I'm biased, I'm perfectly willing to admit that; but no matter how I feel about the content, I still enjoyed this book thoroughly.

Midterm Check-in.

Dear Laura Cline,  


    I can’t believe we’re already at our halfway point, can you? It seems like just yesterday I was filming that ridiculous intro video, and now here I am having just submitted my second major assignment.

    Thus far my biggest challenge has been recovering from years of being away from school in general. I’m almost thirty but I still find myself struggling with punctuation at times. Not that I have any real issue composing thoughts, I've just always lost something transferring those thoughts to paper. I suppose beyond that, there’s trying to wrap what I think when I read a given text into a coherent thought to write it out. Usually I can explain things verbally –to death some might say-, but again, in the written form I think of myself as a little, “lacking.” I can’t honestly think of any major successes other than refraining from saying anything too offensive in any of my papers or posts. I can tend to be a little crass at times… and by that I mean most all of the time.

    I know we have been reading some really good classical literature, and I applaud you for keeping it within the realm of single essays and the like. The readings haven’t really affected me in any particular way however. Honestly they are beautifully written bits of writing, but I don’t find they hold enough substance to really warrant too much analysis. I feel like at this stage in the class –even dancing around my admitted lack of writing refinement- it’s mainly just a matter of shaking your head at the right time to agree with the right things. I am, however, quite excited about reading this book that’s been sitting on my floor a month before class started. Hopefully it will have more flexible themes that I can enjoy and give some real analysis to.

    Analysis isn't different from any other type of thinking I frequently engage in, so I suppose it’s not really alien territory to me. Granted my ability to focus on the texts up to this point have been lacking at best –essay two being no exception-, but I hope for good things in this next section. It is different in the sense that I have to get my thoughts directly on the paper, which has proven challenging, but aside from that it’s basically just more of the same thing.

    My major goal for the second quarter is to get over the hurdle of disinterest in the text, even if I don’t find it interesting, and write a few good papers that actually reflect my abilities to write –although I guarantee nothing in its punctuation-. outside of that, I’d like to improve on my punctuation, it’s really bad -although I am quite familiar with the em dash; sometimes I fear it may take out a restraining order against me-.

    I pray I don't come off as negative in any of these musings about the first half, I assure you I am not in the least bit negative. I'm just tired, hungry, and need to go to the store to buy cigarettes before my head explodes into a puff of glitter and rainbows. Yep, sounds like something that might happen soon. Anyway, I hope you enjoy a fantastic week.

I never know which closing to use,

Chris

Tentative Thesis Paragraph

PDI provided by "Getty" - also oddly spooky.

    For my analysis of Swift I don't want to spend much time covering the condition of Ireland. Instead I chose to dig for his personal motivations in writing this essay. Rather than looking at it from the angle of a man defending the poor, I read this essay as the thoughts of a man that thinks very poorly of his intended audience. I think the following summarizes my impressions as best I can state them:

    In Swift’s writing “A Modest Proposal” he was not speaking to his countrymen. Instead Swift spoke to an oppressive force in Ireland that was strangling the life from the nation’s economy and people. Swift was not embarking on a crusade to implore the mercy of those responsible; this essay was not a mission of peace. Swift used his text to assault the very thought processes of those he saw responsible for the state of his home nation. In a single elegantly crafted essay Swift speaks to the state of his impoverished nation; using the careful wording of his respectable and proper opponents to make a travesty of their very rationale. Swift did not seek the enlightenment of these individuals to stir change. Swift sought to humiliate his targeted audience and to thoroughly illuminate their shameful actions and disregard for the people of Ireland.


 When looking for support for my argument I came across a very well written summary and analysis of Swift's essay by Howard Bromberg. I would suggest giving it a read if only for his wording. While it's not necessarily support for my views, I found it interesting.