Writing II: Blog Post 6

I'm currently still reading "The Heart of Everything That Is", the story of the Sioux war against the US. I must say I'm very impressed with the sheer level of detail in this book. The amounts of first hand accounts, primary sources and direct quotes is astounding. I cannot even imagine the number of hours it must have taken to track this all down. Where would one even look to find quotes from Red Cloud? Seriously, this is the most impressive history book I've ever read. But anyways, this book is not only interesting but also wildly entertaining. One thing that you have to be conscious of when studying history is where the bias is located. In the case of this book, the sympathy of the writer's definitely lies with the Native Americans, particularly the Sioux. While both sides did awful things to one another in the war, such as mutilation, murder, rape and so on, It always seems more barbaric when the white men do it, and more "justified" when the Indians do it. Although this is understandable. While it is true that Indians killed settlers in gruesome ways, white settlers were invaders, backed by a government that kept no promises and allowed slaughter of Indians to go unchecked. Neither side had clean hands,  it was a total war, with no bystanders in the west. So yeah, it is horrible to read about the killing of children, Indian or white, but I suppose if you ever read this book it's important not to blame these deaths on those who fought, but on centuries on ignorance concerning Indians and other cultures under European influence. Either way, this book is only getting better the more I read, and right now the actual huge war is about to begin so if you'll excuse me I'm off to read.

Writing II: Blog Post 5

I finished "The Road" several days ago and I have to say I loved it. That might be a bad sign, considering it was a brutally dark and depressing book. But my own sociopathic tendencies aside, it really was a great book. It was the epitome of a gripping survival adventure and despite all the hardships and horror, the ending was somewhat hopeful. Either way, really epic story, and for once the movie of it actually followed the book (*cough *cough *hobbit *cough). Now I have started my new book, "The Heart of Everything That Is", which is a biography of a Native American Red Cloud, who led the Sioux and various other Indian people in the only winning war against the US. This book is actually really awesome, especially for a history work. If you have ever read a history textbook, you know how dry they can be, but this book is so in depth and well-flowing that it feels like a novel. Not to mention that it is just plain interesting. The authors, Bob Drury and Tom Clavin, do a great job of creating a scene, especially at the Indian gatherings and raids. It must have been incredibly difficult to track down all this information, and I can't imagine how long it took to verify everything in the book. The bibliography is about 10 pages long, so these guys must really love history. Aside from just being an interesting story, I find it fascinating since I am planning on majoring in history in college so this type of writing might be appealing to me, so getting an idea of how historians write is probably a good idea. One thing I have noticed in the book, and perhaps it helps to keep the reader entertained, is that although I am only on page 67, there have to have already been a dozen references to torture and graphic killings by the Sioux people. I understand that the Sioux people were warriors, and in Great Plains Indian culture torture killings were common (as stated in the book), but I feel like any book that needs to mention the removal of a man's reproductive organ and subsequent replacement in his mouth to cause suffocation more than twice may be pandering to the side of readers that love good old fashion violence and death. And lets be honest, almost everyone loves violence, human nature is naturally drawn to watching it. For real, I'd totally watch gladiator battles if we had them today, millions of people would. Anyways, so far my new book is also great, and I'm quite enjoying it.

Writing II: Blog Post 4

This week I finally finished "Plague Dogs" and I have to say, the last 50 pages made the book. There was a giant plot twist right at the end that completely changed how I read the book. It had really seemed that it was building up to a sad and brutal climax, and I was sure there was no chance of a happy ending, but let's just say I was shocked at what happened. I was disappointed at how long it took me to read this book, as I'm am usually a much more dedicated and speedy reader. I blame about 90% of it on Senioritis however. Anyways, overall I give "Plague Dogs" an 8.5/10. It was a compelling story with a deeper undertone that did not compromise the actual adventure, and the ending was satisfying and complete. The only lacking point of the book was the occasionally confusing dialogue, which sometimes made the reading hard to follow or slower. But that doesn't change the fact that this was an excellent book. Today I started my new book, "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy. "The Road" is a book set in a desolate post-apocalyptic world and follows the struggles of a travelling father and son. In terms of powerful books, I know this one will be a winner, and I'm only 25 pages in. I did see the movie adaptation of the book, which I also found incredibly powerful and shocking. I would recommend the movie and surely the book as well, but only to those who can handle brutality and some horror. Both the book and the movie deal with the violent side of humanity. One interesting thing I have already noticed is that McCarthy does not use quotations for speech and doesn't always start a new paragraph when a character says something. It seems to make the whole novel flow better, while decreasing the importance of the father and son's words. Also I noticed that in both the movie and the book, neither the boy nor the man had names, they are referred to as the father and the son. So far I think "The Road" is acting as a narrator's stream of thought while following the struggle of two lone, "good" souls in the end of the world. The narrator seems aloof and distant, unconcerned and with no tone, simply relaying all that happens. I'm very excited to continue into this book, and hopefully I'll zoom right through it.

Writing II: Blog Post 3

I am still reading "The Plague Dogs" and I know that I need to finish it up soon because I usually don’t take this long to read a book. It has really been a busy couple of months for me and I’m getting pretty lazy to boot (currently writing this at 11:22 pm). But the book has gotten very good now, yet I do have one or two persisting issues. Firstly, I am bothered by the thick Scottish accents of various characters and one fox, which make reading very slow and hard. I understand the whole relevance and necessity of adding an accent but sometimes it’s just too hard to read. Also I find that because of this every character with an accent sounds exactly the same in my head, whereas I usually create accents or voices for each character. My other issue is that Rowf, the main dog in the book, seems to have had little to no character development or progress. The book is focused on the other dog, Snitter, but Rowf has had no change. He just seems to stay a big aggressive, dumb dog, kind of like my dog expect without the aggression. But at any rate, the plot of the book has picked up quite a bit, as the dogs are now actually being hunted. There is also an interesting case going on with a reporter, and I have discovered why the title is “The Plague Dogs”. Let’s just say someone discovered something about a deadly disease being used at the Research Facility the dogs escaped from. I also really enjoy the fox that travels with him, despite his annoying accent. He is just too funny, constantly making jokes and swearing and saying “Oi canny lad” and such. He’s just an enjoyable jerk. Along with this, Snitter is a very peculiar character and very interesting. The brain surgery he had while captive really affects his progression as a character. At first I kind of hated his random dialogue and odd gibberish but further into the story it makes a lot of sense, but there will be no spoilers on this because you should read this book. However, if you had to choose between this and “Watership Down”, also by Richard Adams, I would say choose the latter, it is much easier to follow and is more compelling, plus the language is much more inviting. Honestly though, you should check out one of these books.

Writing II: Blog Post 2

So far I haven't read very much more into "Plague Dogs". I have a busy past few days and only managed about 70 more pages of reading. I still enjoy the book very much, but finding time to read has been difficult. I am anxious to continue though, as the book's pace has increased and it is getting quite interesting. I don't want to go into too much detail because this is a book people should definitely read so I don't want to spoil anything. One warning I would give about this book, however, is its language. Adams is after all, a British writer, so his writing style tends to be more complex than that of most American writers. Also, this book was written in the 70's, so some language is also outdated. This does make the reading somewhat confusing, and several times I have to actually look up a word. One time I  had to look up the word "tod" because I had no clue it meant a fox, then had a pleasantly nostalgic memory of the Disney movie "The Fox and the Hound" from my childhood, where the fox was named Tod. By the way, really great Disney movie, you have to watch it, to some extent it is actually a lot like the part of "Plague Dogs" I am reading right now. Anyways, the language in this book can make the reading much slower and sometimes laborious, but it is worth slogging through the occasional J. R. R. Tolkien-esque multiple page description of a flower or something to get to the main point that this book is about some baller doggies. At any rate, this week I will actually have to take a brief break from "Plague Dogs" to read all the Paperclip submissions that we have collected in preparation for creating our magazine. We have even more submissions than last year I'm happy to say, and now comes the long process of reading the 100 odd pieces. I've found in past years that usually about 75% of submissions are either good and contain genuine effort in them. But of course there are always plenty of "I submitted some bullshit because it was either a class requirement or my teacher said I could extra credit so here's like three haiku's on a page, give me my 10 points". Luckily, though, a quick look at the work showed no haiku's, so I'm a little relieved. I always do enjoy reading the work sent to us, though, as it shows me how many talented and dedicated writers there are in ETHS, a very relieving feeling when you think about the intelligent things you hear in the hallways (i.e. "bro my DJing career is totally about to takeoff, I was doing mixes at the (insert fake club here)"). At any rate, "Plague Dogs" is still going to strong, but it's slow reading. For the next week or so, however, I get to enjoy the variety of poems and short stories written by the students of ETHS.

Writing II Blog Post 1

The book I am currently reading is called "The Plague Dogs" by Richard Adams, who also wrote two other books I have read, "Watership Down" and "Tales from Watership Down". The basic premise of this story is two dogs, Rowf and Snitter, escape from an animal testing facility and must try to find a new home. I have read about 120 pages of this book and I do enjoy it very much so far. My only complaint is that Snitter, the victim of some brain surgery experiment, talks way too much nonsense in the story that it is difficult to follow what he is trying to say. That aside though, this book combines two of my favorite styles of fiction, Adventure/Questing and animal personification. I always enjoy a good adventure novel but more importantly, my favorite type of fiction books (besides apocalypse stories) are ones that have animals as protagonists. Some of my favorite writers who have done this include Erin Hunter ("Warriors"), Jack London ("Into the Wild" and "Whitefang"), and Brian Jacques ("Redwall"). For whatever reason I think animals make better characters than people. Speaking of which I really ought to reread some of the "Warriors" books, I haven't read any in years and they were some awesome books about bad-ass cats fighting each other. Anyways so far this book is pretty good, but I'm expecting the pace to pick up soon because it has gotten somewhat slow. The weird thing about Adams as a writer is that he doesn't seem to have a consistent style from book to book. "Watership Down" was definitely his best work, with a smooth flow to his writing and good consistency between characters. In "Tales from Watership Down", written 20 years later as a string of short stories concerning the same characters from the first book, I was shocked at how different and inconsistent everything was. Characters behaved differently, talked differently, and the writing altogether seemed different and less thought out. I still enjoyed the stories but was a bit disappointed by the decline in effort. "the Plague Dogs" seems to be reasonable in terms of perceived effort, but it just doesn't seem like the same author wrote it. I'm not sure what the deal with Adams style is, but it's not too big of a deal, it just bothers me for some reason. Either way, so far this book has been a solid read. I always wanted to try writing one of these animal protagonist books just for fun, but it's actually much harder than it seems. The most difficult part I would say, and something Adams does incredibly well, is to explain the world from the point of view of the animal, and expressing how they might perceive things that are normal to humans, such as cars, weather, cities and so on. Despite the inconsistencies in his writing, I have enjoyed all the work of Adams and "The Plague Dogs" only reaffirms this.

Blog Post 6

The book I am currently reading is called "Jack London Stories". It is a collection of many of the works of Jack London, an author famous for his stories concerning the Yukon Gold Rush of the late 1800s. The first story I am reading is called "Into the Wild". It is one of his longer stories in the book. It is set in the point of view of a dog named Buck, who was abducted from his home in Santa Clara Valley, California and brought to the north to work as a sled dog. This story reminds me of "Watership Down", the book that I read about a month ago that personified rabbits. In this case, it is a dog that is personified. When I wrote a blog post about "Watership Down", I think I may have actually compared it to this story by mistake. I realized that Jack London has written two similar books. "Into the Wild" is about a pet dog that becomes a wolf, while the one I have read before, "White Fang" is about a wolf that becomes domesticated. I was confused when I first started reading this book because it seemed familiar, I had to check Wikipedia before I realized that I had read "White Fang" and this story was like its reversed image. That said, It should make this book even more fun to finish since I have an idea about where it is going. As I have said, books that personify animals, while considered perhaps immature to some, are in fact my favorite books to read as I like animals infinitely more than people. At any rate, so far "Into the Wild" is hugely enjoyable to read. Buck is personified like a normal, although extremely intelligent, dog. He isn't given thoughts in the human sense. That is to say, he doesn't speak or communicate or talk as human characters might. Rather, the narrator of the story describes his feelings and thoughts to the reader, although they are not necessarily understood by Buck himself. That really does seem confusing but trust me, it's cool. Right now I'm about half way through this first story, then there are dozens of other short stories and another long one in London's book. I have enjoyed other works by Jack London and am currently enjoying "Into the Wild", so I have high expectations for the rest of his stories to come.

Blog Post 5

The book I am reading right now is called "The Zombie Survival Guide" by Max Brooks. Let me just start off this post by saying that if you don't like zombies, this isn't the post for you. I personally love zombies and the idea of a Zombie Apocalypse. It makes for interesting and exciting reading and television. "The Walking Dead" comics and TV series are among my favorite piece of zombie fiction. I pretty much enjoy any type of zombie or apocalypse book/movie as well. "The Zombie Survival Guide", however, is not a story, but rather a manual on how to survive a zombie outbreak. The cool thing about this book is that it goes into a scientific, although fictitious, explanation of how zombies are possible. The it proceeds to explain proper methods of killing the undead and necessary supplies to survive an outbreak. The only part of this book that seems somewhat "corny" is how seriously-toned it is, almost as if Max Brooks really excepts humanity to be wiped out by zombies. I personally don't believe in the living dead rising up and eating people, but I do find it possible for humanity to face some sort of disaster that would plunge the world into anarchy, and to some extent this book actual helps to prepare for that. Right now, I'm reading the "Recorded Outbreaks" section, which discusses real "zombie" attacks throughout history, and the reason as to why they are considered zombie outbreaks and how they were covered up. They are actually pretty entertaining, but I doubt that there really was a zombie war between the Romans and zombies in England 2000 years ago. Either way, this book is a fun and entertaining read and I would suggest it to anyone who loves zombie fiction.

Blog Post 4

The new book I am reading, "Watership Down" by Richard Adams, is probably the best book I have read this year, not including books I've reread. "Watership Down" is the survival story of rabbits as they try to create a new burrow in a large and dangerous world. I find two particular aspects of this book extremely appealing. The first is that several times throughout the book, there are chapters that tell a story within the story, basically one of the rabbits tells a story about El-ahrairah, who is supposedly the first rabbit from long ago, known to be a trickster. These stories somewhat resemble ancient human stories, mostly originated from Native American cultures, I believe. Basically these stories serve the pretense of explaining things such as, why rabbits have long legs, or why so many animals eat rabbits, or why rabbits are known to sneak into farmers crops, and so on. These little chapters, while not moving the plot along, are entertaining and especially fun because El-ahriarah always does some amusing trick on another animal. The second aspects I really enjoy in this book is the fact that it uses rabbits. I have read books with cats, bears, wolves, and many other animals as the main characters, but for some reason it seems strange that rabbits, Nature's all-you-can-eat buffet, the heroes. I think it adds a fascinating twist to the story, as the rabbits are constantly faced with danger, such as the unknown and large expanse of predators, such as owls, hawks, men, dogs, etc..., and live in constant fear. Instead of being brave and heroic, the rabbits are merely trying to survive, and live in fear and run because they cannot fight these threats However, I have a feeling there will be a fight coming up, as the rabbits are currently planning on rescuing some domestic rabbits from a farm, guarded by a bunch of cats, which seems ominous. One other thing I enjoy about this book, which I only just realized, is the interesting character of Hazel, the protagonist of this story. While he is the leader of his group of rabbits, he recognizes the skills of each other member of his group and what they have to offer. Hazel became leader because he acted, his willingness to strive ahead and do what was needed set him apart from all other members of his group including those with something more to offers, such as the powerful Bigwig or future-seeing Fiver. Hazel is a perfect leader not because of his own skills, but his ability to combine the skills of those around him into a single, functional body.

3rd Blog Post

Over the weekend I finish, "A Superior Death", by Nevada Barr, which wasn't much less than a superior novel, and hardly even sub-par. The murder mystery ended with the capture of the killer, who had done it because of the "priceless" wine hidden on a sunken ship in Lake Superior. The women who was missing, and presumed dead, was actually just hiding from her abusive husband. These two mysteries were not exactly exciting to be revealed. My favorite part of this book was just being done with it. By the way, sorry for the spoilers, but you shouldn't read this book anyways, so I just saved you 300 pages of anti-climatic disappointment. I definitely need a break from murder mysteries with lame endings. I've started my new book, "Watership Down", by Richard Adams. You may perhaps recognized this title if you have ever had Mr. Bourjaily, who advertises this book in his classroom and on his arm. This book concerns the quest of a group of young rabbits as they attempt to find a new home after leaving their old warren. 70 pages in and this book is amazing. If you have ever read any of the "Redwall" books by Brian Jacques, probably my favorite author of all time, you will find this book extremely similar and enjoyable. "Watership Down" personifies rabbits while still retaining a sense of animal instinct or behavior in them, Such as in Jack London's "Into the Wild". I personally enjoy books with animals as protagonists more than those concerning the life of humans. As long as I am on the topic of favorite and least favorite types of books, I can say that my favorite books always involve an heir of magical or supernatural force within them. "Life of Pi", "The Underland Chronicles", "Redwall", and "Lord of the Rings", are but a few examples. I have found, with few exceptions, that books without magic, that is, concerning the lives of normal people, always fail to arouse my interest. "A Superior Death" was one of these books. Perhaps the only exceptions I can think of include "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "The Grapes of Wrath". I cannot remember any other "realistic" books I have found enjoyable or even stimulating. At a closing, I'll say that the next two books I intend to read are "The Zombie Survival Guide" by Max Brooks, The Bible, and then perhaps Hobbes' "Leviathan".

2nd Blog Post

As of right now, I am on page 180 of "A Superior Death" by Nevada Barr, and I must admit that this book has picked up quite a bit. After 130 more pages of reading, the story has developed quite a bit. At this point, there has been a murder and possibly a second one, as there is currently a woman missing from the national park. The main character, Anna, is investigating the murder as well as the disappearance. So far, I suspect that the man who was killed, a diver name Denny, was killed by his two good friends, Hawk and Holly, because he was killed at the bottom of lake Superior and those two seem to be the only ones experienced enough to dive that deep. As for the missing woman, Donna, she might have been having an affair with Denny, which means that her husband, Scotty, may have killed her. This is where the fun in the book ends. There is so far no evidence for any of these ideas, and this book is more than half way over. The pace of this story is unbearable slow, and often gets sidetracked by meaningless activities by the protagonist, which usually consist of phone calls or drinking heavily. I find Anna an overall boring character with no depth. Nothing more has been revealed about her over the past 1330 pages. She still appears to be nothing more than a noisy park ranger who likes the outdoors. Her frequent back flips from interest to apathy for the murder case is infuriating and makes it difficult to consistently read this book. Having read this far, I need to finish the book in order to know how it ends, plus I'm hoping for some good action fights (though I won't hold my breath), but I have already chosen my new book. Once I get through this snail's pace murder mystery, I want to switch to a completely unrelated book, Hobbes' "Leviathan", which discusses the nature of man as well as political powers. As I had mentioned before, I was also disappointed by the ending to the last novel I read, "Iron Lake", and I feel as if I've been temporarily disillusioned with fiction, especially when the stories have such anti-climactic endings. At this point, I would prefer a predictable, "the bad guy gets killed by the main character in an epic battle between good and evil and everyone lives happily ever after" ending rather than the "untrained office worker fires gun for first time and blows up bad guy's car" ending. After I make my way through this book, I want to shift my reading from fantasy to philosophy, something I find just as intriguing as fiction.

First Blog Entry

I am currently reading the novel "A Superior Death" by Nevada Barr. This book is supposedly a murder mystery that takes place on Lake Superior in either Wisconsin or Minnesota, however, there has yet to be an indication of a plot to this book. I am currently on page 54 of this 300 page book and there hasn't been the slightest hint of a murder or a mystery. So far all I have done is read about the daily routines of the main character, Anna Pigeon, who is a park ranger in the area. Anna has attended the wedding of a man, Scotty, In the main plaza in the park, where other rangers and important characters were introduced.
I am disappointed by the lack of action or plot thus far in this book. Over the summer I read a different murder mystery called "Iron Lake". This book had an excellent beginning. The book opened with the discovery of the first murder victim and after that the mystery kept you emerged. I also found the main character of that book, the ex-county sheriff, who was also one quarter Native American, was much more complex and described in depth. The sheriff, Cork O'Conner was a much more likable character, as he displayed intelligence, curiosity, and a desire to solve the murders. Anna Pigeon has not really been developed at all in the story. All I know so far about her is that she cares deeply for nature, and that her husband somehow died in Texas several years ago. Perhaps the problem is that there was one book in this series before "A Superior Death", and I haven't read that book yet. Maybe reading that book next will explain more about Anna.
Lastly, although I am nowhere near finished with this book, I sincerely hope that the ending will not disappoint me the ending to "Iron Lake" had done. In that book, the main character was valiantly preparing to take down the killer with nothing but a knife as the man drove at home in a car on a frozen lake. Just as O'Conner prepared to fight the killer, his ex-wife, who had never shot a gun (or at least it was never mentioned in the book), fired a random shot with a rifle, which must have been blessed by some divine force, because it hit the gas tank of the car, drawing the book to a devastatingly anti-climactic close. I swear if "A Superior Death" ends in some similar fashion, I may have to go back to reading books I know end well, such as the works of Dr. Seuss.
I certainly hope that this story picks up soon, as I am currently finding it difficult to read through this piece, and doubt I will go much further with it if nothing exciting happens soon.