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 Also, this book was written in the 70's, so some language is also outdated.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.