Love and Honor

This story kind of shocked me at first. You never hear about American soldiers abusing their power in war and slaughtering a village of innocent people. In my eyes it just shows how awful the Vietnam War must have been. I feel like the American Soldiers slaughtered those innocent civilians out of pure frustration and anger over the atrocities of war and all the brothers in arms that they had seen die. You normally associate the slaughtering of civilians with the people the US is trying to fight whether it be the Nazi's or the terrorists in the middle east. I guess I would have to be pretty naive to believe that the US is never cruel to other innocent people in foreign nations. But I would like to think we try to do our best and be fair with others.

This story also reminded me a lot of the movie we watched. It dealt with Iowa's writing workshop and the intensity of writing stories. The first scene really cracks me up when it talked about the narrator cleaning up his apartment when his father arrived early. "As he moved into the kitchen, I grabbed the three quarters full bottle of Johnnie Walker form the second shelf of my bookcase and stashed it under the deask. I looked around. The desktop was gritty with cigarette ash. I threw some magazines over the roughest spots, then flipped one of them over because of it's cover bore a picture of Chairman Mao." This reminded me of when my parents came to visit me the other weekend. The night before they came I was trying to clean up the best I could, sweeping, doing dishes, taking out the 4 garbage cans full of trash and the empty adult beverage cans that seemed to be lying everywhere. You try to think to yourself that you are still their little boy slash girl but the truth is your not a little kid anymore, your pretty much an adult which is really sad, I miss being a kid and it will never happen again.

The relationship the narrator has with his father seems to be a very unfortunate one. They love each other yet they have a hate for each other as well. The father is the scarred army veteran who has seen atrocities while the son is a writer just living out his life in small town USA. Two very opposite lives and because of it they both misunderstand each other and never really get along. It even says that the narrator had not seen his father in 3 years, if that was me I wouldn't be able to make it. My dad would be in a worse case than me, I know he misses me a lot because I am ten hours away from him. He did not really like the idea of me going to a college this far away but he loves me so much that he supported my decision and is now a giant Clemson Tiger fan. I wouldn't know what I would do without the strong relationship I have with my dad, I respect him so much and he is a very good role model and I strive to be like him and make him proud of me everyday. I couldn't imagine having a bad relationship with him like the narrator does with his father. My father would never burn a piece of work that I had poured my heart and soul into for so long like the narrator's father did.

Movie Last Part

I am really glad the narrator finally found the author. It would have been an awful ending if it just left you hanging with the question of what the author was like and why he had stopped writing. It also gave me a lot of insight into what the life some authors is like. Hectic, I could not imagine being so stressed out I took jobs like a paper boy or welder even though I do enjoy welding a lot I could not take doing it for a living unless i was paid very well. Although I would imagine the satisfaction you get from writing a whole novel yourself and getting published would be worth the hardship to make it. All the authors seemed so intelligent, I feel like I could never become that intelligent or read that many books, I don't think I could get motivated enough to do that. I am more interested in other things to get focused and I do not have the attention to spend hours and hours on writing a story, I would have to have the inspiration of a lifetime or the experience of a lifetime to even think about writing a major novel or work of literature.

The author does not seem stable mentally when ever the narrator talks with him. He goes off on random rants that although they are literature related they don't seem to ever be relevant to the conversation. I watched the Shining again today and it reminded a lot of the author, maybe to not nearly that extreme, as in the author actually wrote a novel but the process had it's wear and tear on both of them in the authors case it was not to that extreme but it did drive him to pursue other careers. It is crazy to think that because of one motivated man The Stones of Summer got into mainstream literature scene again and was kind of reborn. The last thing I have to say about the movie is that I did like the soundtrack, who ever picked the song really knows his movies and the way music sets the mood of a movie.

Movie Part 2

I could not imagine being a writer. I am way to ADD to be a writer, I would start writing and get distracted or just lose interest in what I was writing about. Not to mention the whole editing process. Whenever people edit my papers and I have spent considerable time on the paper and feel like it is a good paper I always take offense to the edits people make. When my mom edits the crap out of research papers and essays I don't know why but it kind of makes me mad even though I know she is write on most of the edits and she is just trying to help. It might be the fact that I had worked on the paper for so long and now I have to make a bunch of edits. Publishing companies and editors go through so many drafts it is unfathomable to me that I would be able to write a novel especially the fact that I am use to writing five to ten page papers and being mad about having to go back and re-doing things where novels have hundreds of pages in them.

It's not surprising it could drive someone crazy trying to write a novel. They said it took the writer over four years to write The Stones of Summer and you wonder why he only wrote one! Four years ago I was a freshman in high school, that is soooo long ago I would be chilling in a psych ward to if I all I did for four years was work on a novel. Plus it is a giant gamble if you are banking on it selling to make you money because most novels make no money.

As for the movie I am on the edge of my seat to actually see this author, I hope he does eventually find him just for closure even if the author has to wear a straight jacket to see him. The teacher the author dedicated the book to really makes me laugh, he seems pretty eccentric and the ways he would say things was pretty fun. But he does seem like a brilliant man who really knows what he is talking about when he talks about the process of making a novel and literature in general.

Movie Part 1

I really wish I was a bigger reader, I don't know what it is about my personality that holds me back. In high school and grade school whenever I would get motivated to read for pleasure I would always read a bunch of chapters then stop for months then whenever I would go back to reading the book I would forget everything that happened that I had already read so I would just give up on reading the book. I think the problem is the fact that I do not have enough time or I don't want to devote enough time to be able to make a habit out of reading. My schedule is very hectic, I am either in class at work or in the gym all day during week days and when I am done with all of that I am doing homework and studying then when I am finally done with all that I relax and that relax time is not a lot and I usually spend it doing other things like watching television shows or sports games or just sitting around chilling on facebook while my roommates are cooking some Ramen Noodles. The weekends are where I get my real free time. Friday night and all of Saturday I refuse to do any work and usually am either sleeping or relaxing trying to do the least possible work expending no effort at all in to anything and reading seems to be to taxing of a process and could never be relaxing enough for me. I don't know why it is but whenever I do read for long periods at a time my eyes start to hurt and I get really tired even if it is the middle of the day. I asked my eye doctor about it once and she said I should be able to read fine with my 20/15 vision so I really don't know what the problem is, maybe its just all in my head.

The movie really made me sad because they seem like reading is this awesome voyage and it is a nice hobby to have and be able to talk to other people about different novels. I only knew a few of the books that they rattled off and discussed and only probably a third of the ones I recognized I had read. I feel like I am missing out on so much and just being left behind. If I could some how find enjoyment in reading I could grow so much more as a person opening up personal help books and classics that could benefit my mind, my body, and my way of life.

The way the narrator/main character's obsession with books reminds me a lot with my obsession with movies and music. I am constantly trying to find movies and music that I love and when I find something I really like I make my friends listen/watch it too and see what they think just like the guy in the movie does. Then I thought about how there are way more books then movies especially because people have been able to write books way longer than make movies. I wish I could see the movies the people of the past would make. Imagine a Shakespeare of the movie industry or a Plato of the movie industry, they would probably make Steven Speilberg look like an amateur. Not only great movies, but we would also get a huge insight into what the life and times were like in the past because a lot movies reflect how things are going at that time in history.

The Same River Twice pg 152-188

I don't know why but after reading this section I really want to experience a hurricane first hand. I really want to see the brute force that mother nature has. "A tremendous gust lifted my feet. My body tipped over the bay, held by wind to the railing, while my legs lifted behind me." As a kid I have always wanted to lean against the wind and have it hold me up, the wind Chris talks about would throw me around like a rag doll. It would be fun to hang on to a rail and just let your body flap in the wind like a flag though. After the hurricane is a very interesting part in the book too. When Chris talks about all the destruction that it wrecks on the landscape. All the wildlife trying to get back to their lives crossing the highway is very interesting because normally you would never see an alligator crossing the highway with their baby alligators. This section really kind of opens up how Chris seems to be depressed with his life and how he has tried many times unsuccessfully to ruin it for himself. He tries to let mother nature make the decision for him to end his life. He has traveled across most of the country and has not been real happy anywhere and his mantra of always going forward seems to have failed him and he has ended up in a very awful place to live and work. When he actually does go back to a place he has been to before, Boston, he finds Rita and with it stability and happiness.

The last section seems very personal to Chris, it shows his experience of the birth of his first child which is very life changing or I feel like it would be life changing for me at least. To have a child that you made, it came from you and is living and breathing and is your responsibility. Your whole life would alter in a matter of hours. When I was younger I really didn't get what the big deal was with having a baby, it was just a child I didn't see past that or why anyone would want to have one and have that responsibility, wouldn't you rather just be free and have fun your whole life. "We stared for many minutes, passing unknown information back and forth through the conduit of of his initial sight." This moment is the first moment of a father and son looking into each others eyes before a lifetime of unknown which I think is very cool and it almost takes you a step back from reality and look at life as a whole.

The other thing I got from this section is a affirmation of how glad I am to not be a woman and have to give birth. That would be absolutely awful!! Not only do you have to carry around the baby for 9 months and not have alcohol or caffeine but you have to go through the whole birth process. "For an hour she moaned, receiving ninety four stitches," 94 stitches!! are you kidding me I would DIE especially being on that part of the body, I am so glad I do not have to go through an ordeal like that.

The Same River Twice pg 110-152

"I hope for a son who is not like me," pg 112 I think speaks volumes. I feel like everyone has doubts about themselves as people, they feel like they are inadequate and would want more for their children then their own life. I feel like Chris is putting responsibility on himself for how his child turns out and if the child's life is bad it will be because of his bad genes and all his fault. If I ever have a child I hope he or she is most like my mother and father because I respect them a great deal, as for being like me I am really not sure yet I have not proven my worth to anything yet, I am still in college "finding myself."

The advice shadrack gives the narrator on page 117 ending with "never ever yank your rod" really cracks me up. Other than it being an innuendo it reminds me of all the guys trying to give one of my old high school friend advice on women since he had never really had a girlfriend or anything through high school and he was going up to college and he wanted advise on women. I feel like most guys think they know a lot about women. Every guy has his own theories and philosophies but most of the time they really do not know much about the opposite sex to be honest.

"To protect myself I wore a scarred leather jacket and a permanent scowl. While walking home one night, I watched a couple cross the street to avoid me, and half a block later cross back. It was one of the better moments of my urban life. I felt vindicated for the general apprehension I carried in the street." pg 134 This whole section where Chris describes about his ghetto apartment and neighborhood really reminds me of Washington D.C. and my families condo. Although the condo is not directly in the ghetto it is not a few blocks away from a really bad part of town. I remember a few times when you could see helicopters fly over and police cars zoom by all at the same time. Another part of this section that I find interesting is the fact that it shows how people are very judge-mental of others. Just because Chris is wearing a leather jacket that is beaten up does not mean he is some biker thug criminal. I guess people do it instinctively just to be cautious but if I would have been the couple i would not have crossed the street again right away that seems pretty low ball even if they were scared of Chris.

Same River Twice pg 9-53

I find the narrator in the story to be very naive and innocent. He lived a shelter life, he wasn't exposed to the rest of the world in Kentucky. He even says he never crossed his own county line. I think one of the funniest parts of the section was when he couldn't tell the difference between Hispanics and African Americans in a laundromat he confused Spanish to be Ebonics or a African American dialect of English. I knew those two differences by at least first grade and the narrator is 18-19 in that section. He is learning about the real world, experiencing it for the first time making mistakes and learning from them.

I see the narrator being very human too. He is deathly scared of having a baby with Rita. He is afraid of change, of growing old. He feels like if he has a kid that some switch will flip and he will become an old man and change forever. Which is true, having a child does change a person. I draw some similarity with my transition to college. Senior year everything was stable i knew the routine of high school and sports and family living with my parents, college posed a big change, different class styles harder classes, living away from home away from my family and friends. I feel like I have changed as well being released to the rest of the world seeing and learning new things everyday.

I think it would be cool to throw caution to the wind and just live where ever I want doing what ever I want like the narrator does. Get a job make friends, if I get tired of it just move on to the next city, job, and friends. It might seem lonely at times but the freedom seems very enticing to try and make it out on your own where ever you want. It is sort of like the American dream, to go out into the cold dark world and make it by yourself, make a living have fun and do whatever you want.

A few parts I was really taken a back by. When he mistakes a hermaphrodite to be a hooker, that part really caught me off guard and I had to cringe about how awful that experience had to be. The horse riding part also was pretty crazy and the fact that Jahi was crazy enough to want to have sex after such a traumatic event. I really am sketched out by the fact that the narrator was willing to go do things with random people like the hermaphrodite and Jahi, for all he knows they could have been walking std factories. I guess his sheltering was why he did it, the fact that he most likely did not know about STD's. Was why he didn't double take at any chances to have relations with random strangers.