Blog #11

Blog #11
Ross Reed
4/18/11

Oedipa’s desire to become something important and make something of her self puts her in possibly a government conspiracy. Who would have guessed that there could be such a plot behind postal fraud. Oedipa in this chapter acts like wonder woman using her beauty and personal connections to find clues from all sorts of important men on Tristero.
I enjoyed reading about her tour of the manufacturing plant she took on a stockholders tour. Thomas Pynchon did a very good job describing the paranoid office scene in which Oedipa is overwhelmed by the situation.
“ Somehow Oedipa got lost. One minute she was gazing at a mockup of a space capsule, safely surrounded by old , somnolent men; the next, alone in a great, fluorescent murmur of office activity. As far as she could see in any direction it was white or pastel: men’s shirts, papers, drawing boards. All she could think of was to put on her shades for all this light, and wait for somebody to rescue her. But nobody Noticed.”
-( pg. 66)

Oedipa’s super agent personality really came into use when she wondered up upon Stanley Koteks. He was sitting at his desk drawling the symbol. Oedipa wanted to extract information out of Koteks so she tries to sound conspiratorial. Oedipa acting like a Charlie’s Angles girl eventually get Koteks to say too much information about his knowledge of the “ sensitives” and he realizes he had made a mistake.
Mr Toth’s scene is very influential for the plot, she is trying to find out if he knows anything of mysterious men who were bandits too the riders on the Pony Express. He recalls something about men dressed in black. Pynchon forgets to put a period after the “Mr” In Mr. Thoth’s name, there may be a reason for this but then on the other hand I can see Thomas Pynchon doing something like this just to mess with us and it has no significance at all.
In this week’s reading there seemed to be a theme of all of her clues coming to together. With the WASTE acronym, and the horn symbol, all of the clues found of the stamps there is definitely a common feeling that oedipa may have uncovered something big.

I Hope First Impressions Aren't Lasting Ones

Blog #10

Ross Reed

Interpretation of lit

4/10/11

My first impression of The Crying Of Lot 49 is that this book seems very confusing, I am having a hard time figuring out what parts are supposed to be funny and what parts are supposed to be serious. 

I think the names of the characters describe their personalities very well. Oedipa Mass, our main character learns that her wealthy ex-boyfriend, Pierce Inverarity left her in his will and there is a messy situation regarding how to handle it because she has no knowledge on how to do it. She starts loosing her mental sanity and tries to get treatment from her doctor, Dr. Hilarius. He calls her in the middle of the night one night and talks about LSD. Then the next day she goes to see her lawyer about the will and he proposes to her. 

Based off of what I have read so far in this book I feel confident that there will be a lot of characters and relationships to keep track of in this book. Also I’ve noticed a theme for classical music and there must be some importance to that. 

Over and all, this book so far has not grabbed my attention at all and I actually found myself zoning out while reading it. I’m still optimistic that this book must get interesting somewhere because we are reading it in an interpretation of lit class, and we wouldn't read this book if there was no story to interpret. 

Blog #9
Ross Reed
Interpretation of Lit
Future Unclear

Adrian Veidt “ The Great” succeeded in accomplishing his goal to kill millions of people to save billions of people but the question remains was it the correct move? The biggest practical joke has been played on society and now there is the biggest secret to keep. If the truth gets out that the alien monsters were made by Veidt there becomes a downward spiral back to nuclear war tension and Veidt’s reputation would be shot.
Adrian sits in his study room all alone in front of a globe with the universe inside of it. He ponders humanity and his actions. He’s uncertain he made the right move even after he tries justifying his actions to himself. He tried telling himself that someone had to do it, so why not him since he is such a courageous bad ass. This doesn’t work because he realized he has killed so many innocent people and his reputation could be ruined if word got out he was behind it all. He looks towards Jon for answers, he wants Jon to look into the future and tell him if he made the right decision in the end. Jon responds with “ nothing ever ends”. Adrian is still left without a certain answer. Jon’s response could mean that Adrian’s plan might be found out or war will happen again regardless of this close call. It is up to the reader to ponder what the outcome will be because there is no certain answer given.
The last scene in the novel is when Rorschach’s Journal is discovered. There lies again the chance that everything will be made public. I believe eventually Adrian’s secret would be found out sooner or later.

Blog #8

Blog #8

Ross Reed

Watchmen

Interpretation of Literature

Chapter 10 really heated up the story, with Adrian acting very fishy about the worlds future and team Rorschach- Dan reliving their glory days and acting out of character. It left us hanging with such suspense to see how dan and Rorschach handle Adrian at his arctic fort. 

Quite possibly the strangest thing thats happened so far in terms of character change is with Rorschach this chapter. He seems as if he’s a new man coming out of jail. He is a lot more emotional and him and Dan have a few Bromance moments. Dan throws a little hissy fit in his ship and rather Rorschach responding with anger, he seemed actually emotionally hurt about what Dan thought. Rorschach acted as if he was going into a suicidal battle in this chapter and he even turned in his journal to the press so people could know his life story. Rorschach and the Night Owl come up with the idea of going to bars to use their typical way of extracting information out of the underworld by torturing them. During the bar raid Dan acts out of his norm and he gets physical with an innocent guy because he looks like the guy who killed his good friend, Hollis Mason. After leaving the bar they conclude that Adrian Veidt was behind all the chaos and go to visit him at his layer in Antarctica where he sits alone watching all the world news,  “just me and the world.” ( ch 10, pg.21)

Relapse

Blog #7
Ross Reed
3/23/11

     In chapter seven there seems to be a theme of a building relationship between Dan and Laurie, as well as a growing urge to break the law and be their old selves again by being masked vigilantes.

     Laurie seems to not be affected much by Jon being gone, which shows she was deprived of regular human contact and explains why she is enjoying being with Dan so much. Laurie is very curious about Dan’s equipment and she is very flirtatious towards him. She reminds me of a woman who had been married her whole life then got a divorce and lived the rest of her days like they could be her last. Its Dan that is the unsure one in this story, he is very worried about the mask murderer conspiracy because of the comedian being killed, Jon being exiled, and Adrian being shot at. He seems so concerned about the situation that when him and Laurie are about to have sex he has trouble getting hard which he seemed very embarrassed about. After the failed attempt with Laurie they go to sleep where soon after Dan is awoken by a bad dream where Laurie and him kissed and the world blew up.

     I think all the frustration with the mask murderer conspiracy and the nuclear crisis it lead up to Laurie and Dan to suit up and go out on a night on the town to release some stress. It is as if they relapsed and did what they vowed to never do again just because they felt that they should live their lives to the max and not just sit back and take every day for granted.

     After Dan and Laurie go out for a night on the town and save a building from a fire they seem much more relaxed and as a result they are now able to have sex.

Blog #6

Ross Reed

2-28-11

Gulliver’s Travels Come to a Halt.. Finally. 

Gulliver has found his dream world which is full of happiness and without corruption, only problem is that his fantasy land is full of talking horses and barbaric human creatures covered in poop.  

What Gulliver loved so much about the talking horses, other wise known as Houyhnhnms, was that they had no understanding of war, lying, money, opinions, and disease. They were an untainted culture in terms of their views.  The reason he appreciated these values so much is because he has been traveling so much and seen so many cultures that he viewed as dysfunctional, so he can no longer go back to sanity. I like to think of it as a kind of shell shock, as if Gulliver was a soldier shipped off to war and he was in a different world with death all around him and when his time is up he goes back to normal society but he cannot adjust because he has seen too much corruption.  

It is clear to us that Gulliver has lost all touch of reality. He has dehumanized the yahoo’s and used their own skin to build a boat. The Gulliver we first knew at the beginning of this book would never do such a thing to any creature. Also, when Gulliver eventually finds his way home he realized he is disgusted with just about every aspect of his people, including his family. 

“My Wife and Family received me with great Surprise and Joy, because they concluded me certainly dead; but I must confess the sight of them filled me only with Hatred, Disgust and Contempt, and the more by reflecting on the near Alliance I had to them.” ( Gulliver’s Travels pg.265)

He ends up spending the majority of his days with his horses instead of his family. My conclusion on what his final thoughts were about his journeys is that Gulliver has seen what the true world was like and he was ashamed to be alike any of the cultures he saw, so he isolated himself away.

Blog #5

Blog #5
2/22/11
Ross Reed


Gulliver’s gone mad

      I has a suspicion before that Gulliver was going insane, but now I am sure of it. He has gone insane in many aspects, for example he does not enjoy people that do things differently than his way of life. Also he his attitude toward life just seems gloomier and I think he has been traveling for too long and its time to retire, kind of like Brett Favre with football he is just not the same anymore.
      I first had my suspicions confirmed when he was talking among the great ancient figures of the world in Glubbdubdrib and he was disgusted with what he was learning. I figured he would have been sufficiently impressed with the opportunity to learn. That is why I picked this passage as the most important:

“ I was chiefly disgusted with modern History. For having strictly examined all the Persons of great Name in the Courts of Princes for an hundred Years past, I found how the World had been misled by prostitute Writers, to ascribe the greatest Exploits in War t Cowards, to Wisest Counsel to Fools, Sincerity to Flatters, Roman Virtue to Betrayers of their Country, Piety to Atheist, Chastity to Sodomites, Truth to Informers. How many innocent and excellent Persons had been condemned to Death or Banishment, by the practicing of great Ministers upon the Corruption of Judges, and the Malice of Faction. How many Villains had been exalted to the highest places of Trust, Power, Dignity, and Profit: How great a share in the motions and Events of Courts, Councils, and Senates might be challenged byBawds, Whores, Pimps, Parasites, and Baffoons: How low an Opinion I had of human Wisdom and Integrity, when I was truly informed of the Springs and Motives of great Enterprises and Revolutions in the World, and of the contempitible accidents to which they owed their Success.” ( Gulliver’s Travels pg. 185)

      After he left the disappointing land of Glubbdubdrib he traveled to a land called Luggnagg, where he came upon another great discovery of immortal humans called Struldbruggs. These very rare humans were born with a spot above their eye and they would live forever except they would age like a regular human. Gulliver has a conversation with one of these immortals and they talk about how Gulliver would live if he was immoral. Gulliver talks about how he would be a great scholar and he would educate people constantly and he would be a great man, but thats no surprise we could have guessed he would say that by the first time we were introduced to him. I disagree with what Gulliver says about how great he would live because recently in his journeys he seems to be gloomier and I think as he got really old he would not want to live anymore because he would be sick of the human race.
      When Gulliver traveled to the land of Horse people I stopped and thought about what this signifies. I think He enjoyed being with these animals, besides the food, because they were not as corrupt as the humans.