Well, I've just begun to sink my teeth into Clockwork Angel which is good and unfortunate at the same time as the library website isn't letting me renew it and it's due on the 30th... Ah!
I'm always in awe of science fiction and those that create fantastical worlds or worlds within or along our own. As much imagination as I think I have, I'm not sure I'd have something that amazing in me. So I am content to partake as a consumer in this genre :)
We read the short story "Dawn" by Tim Wynne-Jones for class and I was floored. Short stories can be iffy for me because I feel like they can be rather abstract sometimes. "Dawn" wasn't very up front but it was still incredibly deep in my mind. I can't even find adequate language to describe my reaction to it past having my mind blown so I recommend you read it for yourself and see what you think. It's when I read pieces like this that I have to make sure I keep my perspective because it can be easy to feel utterly dwarfed by writing and talent like this. But hey, as Anne Lamott [Bird by Bird] quotes from Natalie Goldberg [Writing Down the Bones], the best way to improve your writing is to write. More proof that there is truth in simplicity. :)
If we had had class today I would have liked to bring The Folk Keeper by Franny Billingsley. I can't remember the first time I read this book but I know I've read it since then so many times that I can't count them. I am worthless when it comes to summaries so here's one from a Google search:
Corinna is a Folk Keeper. Her job is to keep the mysterious Folk who live beneath the ground at bay. But Corinna has a secret that even she doesn't fully comprehend, until she agrees to serve as Folk Keeper at Marblehaugh Park, a wealthy family's seaside manor. There her hidden powers burst into full force, and Corinna's life changes forever..
I can't say it any better without spoiling it, but I think I can safely say it's unlike anything else you've ever read. And if it is, let me know, I'd like to read those books too :)
The biggest thing that draws most people to books is being able to form an attachment to the main character. Now, I can't say that I have too much in common with Corinna but her strength of will and cutting mannerisms frame a vulnerability that I help but admire and care about. The art of developing a character is something I'm still working on but I believe Billingsley really created a life in this book.
So I've been spending a lot of my time on possible character developments which means that what I'm sharing today is more of a theoretical musing but hey, I think most of my writing is, haha.
Countless people have voiced the idea that college is where you find yourself. It's where you become and adult and make lifelong friendships and find out who you really are.
I myself have said this very thing at least once because it's true that while you're studiously learning about statistics, physics, literature, music, and llamas [yes, llamas] you are simultaneously and, generally, subconsciously studying the subject of you.
High school is the survival test. college tests your identity out of its nooks and crannies now that it's apparently that you will live.
My question is: when does the finding stop? Do you ever manage to find all of yourself? And once you've found a part of yourself, does it stay found or are you perpetually chasing yourself, just with a better idea of where to look from then on?
And what about people who never go to college? According to this idea, do they never even begin to find themselves? Do those who drop out only find part of themselves and the rest is left in a dusty storage box in the back rooms of the Lost and Found, never to be retrieved?
Does every graduate student in fact create 2 thesis, one of academic study and the other of self?
Considering one needs a PhD to teach at college, do professors, with a presumably greater understanding of self, teach students the art of finding oneself as well as the art of the Baroque period and other subjects?
No comments:
Post a Comment