Final AP Lit Blog.......Ever!

Oh, blogging. How I won't miss you. It's not that blogging this year was the absolute worst thing that could have ever happened to me, cause it wasn't. Blogging more so wasn't my favorite thing due to the fact tha it was so tedious! Sitting, and thinking, and waiting, and thinking......it literally felt like forever until I finally was able to come up with something I wanted to say. Maybe, in the future, I'll turn into the blogging type; however, at the moment I've come to the conclusion that blogging simply isn't for me and I'm ready to have it off my back! This year has been filled with various blogs; blogs on summer reading, blogs on the books we've read in class, blogs on movies......the options were endless. Yet, through all of the topics one could have gone through in an attempt to make sure they'd completed the assignment by the last day of the month, one type of blog that always seemed to stay constant were the blogs that revolved around poems. One thing I've appreciated about blogging is the fact that I was able to find myself a favorite poet; if you can't tell by now, I happen to really fancy the poems written by Langston Hughes. I'm not specifically sure why, but something about his poetry is truly lyrical and makes me feel as if I'm listening to spoken word at a jazz club or something (nerdy, I know). So, I thought to myself, what better way then to end off the AP Lit blogs than with a poem by none other than Langston himself! My final selection was the poem "Harlem"; it goes like this:

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

Like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore-

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over-

Like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

I like this poem a lot due to the fact that it seems to currently reflect on our lives as we're leaving for college. A lot of us may not be going to the college of our choice due to lurking reasons (finances, not getting accepted, never actually applied, etc) and may begin to feel as if our dreams are becoming deferred or will never come true. This poem asks the questions I think most of us wonder when our dreams are actually deferred. Do our dreams shrink up like a raisin? or doe they simply become sweeter over time? No one knows. This poem addresses the idea of the feared unknown that is honestly one's life. No one knows how they're life will turn out, and when things don't happen at the exact moment that we want them to, people tend to freak out and stress over their beloved dreams. Within this poem Langston makes it clear that humans, regardless of their background story, want to accomplish the same things in life. When people feel as if their out of control of their own destiny they begin to feel as if they're dreams will never come true and fear of what their life will actually become. Ya feel me?

Scholarly Novels vs. Non Scholarly Novels: Can One Really Tell the Difference?

Soooo this school year has been filled with novels that one would consider "scholarly"; from Frankenstein, to Grendel, to the more commercially accepted novels like A Visit from the Goon Squad, it seems as if every pick of literature I've debriefed this past year has made more more aware of what one should consider scholarly and what one should consider mediocre. When the year first began, I can't lie, I didn't see what the big deal was about these so called "scholarly" novels. They're boring, too wordy, and dry.....right? What makes them so much better than a typical Gossip Girl book? After much practice (thanks to AP Lit) of coming into contact with novels that people would consider sophisticated, I feel as if I can finally tell the difference between a novel filled with literary merit and one that isn't. Recently, I read the novel Palo Alto by, non other than the Hollywood star, James Franco. Franco is known to be a celebrity who appreciates education; he's attended Columbia University, teaches English and acting classes at schools like UCLA and the University of Southern California, and even once stated that he refused to come to set one day because he didn't want to miss class. Seeing how the man is so into education, his novel was sure to be one to go down in history, right? Wrong. So wrong. I was excited to read the novel once I first started; it's an indie based book that follows different characters within each chapter, yet, they all intertwine as the novel unfolds. MY FAVORITE. Books with separate stories are what I absolutely love, and after seeing the preview for the movie (which comes out on Friday) along with getting a preview of the soundtrack (the soundtrack is pretty good......it fits the whole "distressed" teenager vibe the book gives off perfectly) I just knew this book was going to be something I would instantly fall in love with. Yah.......not so much. Let's just say that I never really plan on reading the book for a second time; once was enough. It's not that the book wasn't good or interesting, because it was, but more so the novel just lacked substance. You can tell that Franco really tried to give the book a deeper meaning than it actually has. He added curse words, sexual content, and even the intense moments where a character decides whether or not they should kill themselves or someone else. Super deep, right? Sadly, Franco failed to create a novel with literary merit, in my opinion, and after reading so many this year I feel as if I can easily state why. First of all, the novel lacks a central theme that it's attempting to convey. There was nothing that I can honestly and truly say that I learned from the book, other than the fact that I'm glad I'm not a teenager living in his depiction of Palo Alto, California. One thing I've learned throughout the entirety of this year is that if a novel truly has literary merit, one will be able to think of a central theme the novel is trying to teach it's readers. Secondly, the grammatical style of his novel was very simple.......literally the whole book was filled with simple sentences. It sounded like something a third grader could have written (aside from the curse words). How does Franco expect anyone to really think while reading his novel if his sentences lack any further interpretation? Lastly, the characters in the novel lacked depth. Sure, each one had it's own personal struggles and problems, yet, none of them we're actually developed characters with solid back stories. They were kind of just there. They simply existed. Not enough Franco. Once the movie comes out, I'm sure the novel will be depicted nicely on screen as some sort of hardcore indie story, however, as an actual novel it lacked any type of scholarly development. Ya feel me?

A Visit from the Goon Squad: Review

Nothing excited me more when we were told that we were allowed to choose our own novel for the first time ever this year in AP Lit. Don't get me wrong, the scholarly choices of Winesburg, Ohio and Frankenstein we're interesting in the sense that they were novels associated with literary merit, but most of the time the books put me to sleep or made my head hurt (when I'm not interested in a novel I actually get literal headaches.......it's so sad). Finally being able to pick the book I wanted to read for class was what I was looking forward to all year! First things first, the choice selections made it so hard to choose what exactly I wanted to read; I’m that person who walks around with at least 20 books at Barnes and Noble. Choosing just one book is literally impossible, so deciding which book to read as my final novel drove me insane. Secondly, the incorporation of a “self chosen" novel truly made me happy due to the fact that I was introduced to so many novels that I may have never ended up coming across on my own. Knowing about the books we talked about in class as options left me with future reading selections, which I always look forward too. The book I finally decided to read (after around 20 minutes of me debating back and forth with myself) was the novel A Visit from the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan, and I have to say that I'm very happy with the choice that I made. The novel revolves around an array of characters, some that know each other and some that don't, that are each facing various challenges in their lives and only seem to be connected through the concept of time. From the start I knew that I was going to enjoy the novel; I love it when books are more so a collection of short stories that intertwine together rather than one short and simple story line that get's the point across; this novel was no different from my usual preference due to the fact that it allowed each and every character to tell what was happening in their lives from their own point of view while also showing how they connected to the larger idea at whole. I specifically enjoyed this book over others that I've read in the past due to the fact that Egan wrote out each character's story in such a way that you truly felt connected to them while reading. From Lou's problem with women, to Bennie's feelings after Stephanie left him or Rob's internal conflict due to him denying the fact that he was gay, each story honestly through you into the life of that specific character in way that made you truly see how time was something that they longed for. This book made it clear that time is in fact a "goon" in everyone's life; no one is completely aware of what the future holds; only time will eventually tell. Yet, time may not end up giving you what you wanted in life, which is why the goon that is time may end up visiting you when you least expect it. It's for that reason and that reason alone, that I think Egan allowed her characters to connect in the sense that they each weren't ready for time to continue evolving. Every character longed for a moment in their lives where they were truly happy and had little worries, in an attempt to have control over the situations that were currently going on around them. Ya feel me?