"The Miracle Worker" by William Gibson is an interesting piece. It is the dramatization of a segment of Helen Keller's life in play form. I suppose this makes it dramatic nonfiction in genre. To me, it read very much like a comedy you'd see on the big screen today. Or that one reality show, Supernanny. I say it reads like a comedy, even though it deals with a fairly dramatic and serious part of a very real person's life, because of just how absurd some situations become. Acts 1 and 2 are full of scenes where Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller wrestle about and fight, and these are exceedingly well written and fun to visualize. I would think these are meant to be very tense and serious, but it simply does not come across like that to me. I'm drawn to vaudeville style black and white stage fights, to that one scene out of Step Brothers where the two titular characters go at it in the most inane way possible.
That said, act 3 does not read like a comedy in the slightest. It feels like the downtime one gets in most movies, after a big event or change. A breather space. But that changes substantially around the last 10 or so pages, with the story going into an upswing and then reaching an end with two plot points settled neatly.
On the whole, I liked "The Miracle Worker", with particular regard for setting. It is not a plot point but dialog between characters like Aunt Ev, James Keller, and Arthur Keller do a nice job of fleshing a post-Civil War South out in a nice way. It uses stereotypes, but not jarringly so, and I thought it was a nice way to immerse a reader, or viewer, of the play.
For reference: this post is number 25 on the Summer Reading Project Directions and Requirements list for Pre-AP English 1. A direct link to this post is:
In regards to the last post: I made a mistake in reading some of the instructions on the packet, and this is the correct part of the project to be viewed. For those directed at my last post, be it from facebook or whatever, please comment on this one, and not Watership Down.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Monday, August 17, 2009
Watership Down
As I type this I've just finished Watership Down scarcely 10 minutes ago. My impressions of the book are generally positive, and it was by no means a bad read. But my one qualm comes from the way rabbits seem cast along the lines of good and bad. There is no in between that I can see. The one, that was to me jarring, example of this comes with the character of Captain Campion.
Both Bigwig and Hazel are reluctant to harm him, despite his working for their enemy and posing their biggest threat when it comes to their plot to raid Efrafa; the threat of detection. While most of Hazel's band seem to think being found is the one thing they cannot do, and indeed Hazel does order his expedition to attack any passing rabbit and ask questions later, both he and Bigwig show reluctance to harm Captain Campion.
It seems to me the only reason for this is because he is somehow good! But the reader is not given evidence of this at least until the very end of the novel, if one does not take Bigwig and Hazel's amiability towards him seriously.
If there was going to be one exception to this, I would have thought Blackavar's guard Bartsia to be good, and worth redeeming. He only treats Bigwig with some measure of respect and seems a very dutiful rabbit while Campion is only seen, at least by me, as a distant eye capable of bringing down the wrath of a warren's military arm on Hazel's band. But Bartsia is simply attacked and wounded in Bigwig's escape from Efrafa and left at that.
That one point aside, Watership Down is a nice piece of adventure fiction with an interesting perspective that casts humans in the same light as H.P. Lovecraft's unknowable Great Old Ones. As sometimes malign gods that have no real regard to what goes on as consequence to their actions. It is this indifference that I really did like, that had me smiling as I caught the odd parallel as I read Watership Down.
For reference: this post is number 25 on the Summer Reading Project Directions and Requirements list for Pre-AP English 1. A direct link to this post is:
http://talesfromtheglass.blogspot.com/2009/08/watership-down.html
Both Bigwig and Hazel are reluctant to harm him, despite his working for their enemy and posing their biggest threat when it comes to their plot to raid Efrafa; the threat of detection. While most of Hazel's band seem to think being found is the one thing they cannot do, and indeed Hazel does order his expedition to attack any passing rabbit and ask questions later, both he and Bigwig show reluctance to harm Captain Campion.
It seems to me the only reason for this is because he is somehow good! But the reader is not given evidence of this at least until the very end of the novel, if one does not take Bigwig and Hazel's amiability towards him seriously.
If there was going to be one exception to this, I would have thought Blackavar's guard Bartsia to be good, and worth redeeming. He only treats Bigwig with some measure of respect and seems a very dutiful rabbit while Campion is only seen, at least by me, as a distant eye capable of bringing down the wrath of a warren's military arm on Hazel's band. But Bartsia is simply attacked and wounded in Bigwig's escape from Efrafa and left at that.
That one point aside, Watership Down is a nice piece of adventure fiction with an interesting perspective that casts humans in the same light as H.P. Lovecraft's unknowable Great Old Ones. As sometimes malign gods that have no real regard to what goes on as consequence to their actions. It is this indifference that I really did like, that had me smiling as I caught the odd parallel as I read Watership Down.
For reference: this post is number 25 on the Summer Reading Project Directions and Requirements list for Pre-AP English 1. A direct link to this post is:
http://talesfromtheglass.blogspot.com/2009/08/watership-down.html
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