Gosh Darn This Book...

I've almost never had problems putting down a book when reading for school. Sure, in Ragtime I read the final chapter because I just wanted to see the conclusion of the book, but I'm the kind of person who just reads the part they're assigned to read and just stop. However, when I'm reading Kindred, I find it nearly impossible to stop once I've started. I just find the book that good. I just sat down, planning to spend around 10-20 minutes to read the short first two section in the fight and ended up reading completely through the section assigned for the Tuesday after Spring Break. This completely shocked me. I realized I was spending more time reading than I planned to but I just kept telling myself, "Okay, just this next paragraph and then I'll stop." Yeah, that didn't really work out the way I planned...I'm still tempted to read more but I don't want to end up knowing the whole plot at this point. I want to take my time reading this book, even if it tortures me greatly.

I remember hearing in class about how people accidentally read through the whole book, and it surprised me. How can you possibly accidentally finish a book? But now, I understand. The book pulls you in, draws your attention. You want to know what Dana's next adventure is going to be, you want to know about Rufus' fate, you want to know how he'll turn out, and whether he and Alice are going to be romantically involved, or if it's just a situation where he rapes her. The book keeps your attention once you've started. I'm almost certain I'm going to end up reading ahead, which could potentially cause some problems for me, but we'll see. One thing I do know for certain is, I'm not going to just forget about this book once I've finished it. I plan to always keep this book with me, to reread and get drawn into it. In terms of books I've had to read for a class, this book is my favorite. It's impossible for it not to be.

Poor Billy

I really feel bad for Billy in Slaughterhouse Five. The poor guy got picked on by almost everybody when he was in the war, and after the war he was in an accident and lost his wife as a result. It's quite saddening, especially since Billy is just so seemingly innocent but he seems to have rotten luck. He's captured not only by the Germans after being ditched by the two real scouts with no weapons and some really poor quality clothes. He also gets abducted by aliens, which sucks, because who likes being abducted? He manages somehow to survive the bombing of Dresden but years later ends up in a plane crash. He survives, but while he's in the hospital his wife, who's completely freaking out, gets into an accident, isn't physically injured, but ends up dying of carbon monoxide poisoning when she gets to the hospital that Billy's at. Nobody seems to take Billy seriously either. Even his own daughter is convinced that he's crazy. I can't help but feel sorry for him because of this. To me, it seems that the reason Billy claims he was abducted by Tralfamadorians is because he needs a way to cope with what he's experienced and lost, which just makes me feel sorrier for him. Overall I feel that Billy is a character that's very easy to feel sorry for and one that you should feel sorry for.

Slaughterhouse Five

Having read most of Slaughterhouse Five, I can say, without a doubt, that I am completely confused on how mixing together history and strange aliens from another planet can even remotely work. I'd normally think nothing that combines history and aliens would be able to work, but apparently it works perfectly fine in this book. How does putting something serious and completely fictional manage to pass? My brain is telling me that shouldn't be able to work but having read the book, but there's just no issue with the book in doing so. Moving on from that strange combination, I was also really surprised at the book having three titles. I've never seen a book with more than one title before, probably because I don't read that many books, but three titles seems a bit excessive to me. Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against a book having multiple titles, it just seems strange to me. Overall though the story really captivated me and I'm definitely going to read this book again in my free time.

Jes Grew?

When I first started reading Mumbo Jumbo, I was really confused about Jes Grew. So some people get this...illness(?) which makes them want to dance and be happy? Really? Is this supposed to be something to really worry about or was it created as something to not be taken seriously? Oh, so this could threaten the Western civilization? Well how? What does people dancing around and being happy have anything to do with civilization? It made no sense to me. I thought at first that Jes Grew was supposed to be something like immigration. Immigrants would bring over their culture, which would spread, just like Jes Grew, and there would be people worrying about how the culture of Western Civilization would be threatened by the new culture of various immigrants. Jes Grew seems harmless, just like immigration, but it's over-hyped by the media and older generation who don't like change. However, as the book progresses, it's revealed that Jes Grew is a movement and it completely shot down any thoughts I would've had about what Jes Grew is. Aw screw it, there's always next time, and deep conclusions are for tools and English teachers anyway.