MY CHOICE FOR "FRANNY AND ZOOEY"

Hi all!

Here I attach you the excerpt I have chosen from "Franny and Zooey": it talks about Franny break-down in the restaurant’s bathroom. I have liked it because, from my point of view, it reflects the anguish that everybody sometimes has felt (in fact I think that almost everybody has cried liked that in a bathroom).

“Abruptly, then, and very quickly, she went into the farthest and most anonymous-looking of the seven or eight enclosures -- which, by luck, didn't require a coin for entrance -- closed the door behind her, and, with some little difficulty, manipulated the bolt to a locked position. Without any apparent regard to the suchness of her environment, she sat down. She brought her knees together very firmly, as if to make herself a smaller, more compact unit. Then she placed her hands, vertically, over her eyes and pressed the heels hard, as though to paralyze the optic nerve and drown all images into a voidlike black. Her extended fingers, though trembling, or because they were trembling, looked oddly graceful and pretty. She held that tense, almost fetal position for a suspensory moment -- then broke down. She cried for fully five minutes”.

See you on Friday,

Neus

Franny and Zooey

Hi all!

After read the first part of Franny and Zooey, I post this first observation: "who is a good poet?" It made me think about what people expect about poets, what kind of poet reminds in our minds and why.

Franny said: "If you're a poet, you do something beautiful. I mean you're supposed to leave something beautiful after you get off the page and everything. The ones you're talking about don't leave a single, solitary thing beautiful. All that maybe the slightly better ones do is sort of get inside your head an leave something there, but just because they do, just because they know how to leave something, it doesn't have to be a poem, for haven's sake. It may just be some kind of terribly fascinating, syntaxy droppings".

All the best for everyone!

Esther.

Joining the blogg

Hi everybody.

I've just joined the blogg and I'll wite something when I have read something of "Franny and Zooey".

But, for the moment I just want to say I'm having fun throuhg literature with all of you and Oliver.

See you soon.

carolina

EXCERPT SELECTED FROM "HEART OF DARKNESS"

Hi all,

This is the excerpt that I have selected from Heart of darkness written by Joseph Conrad: I have liked because I think that it shows how white men became powerful and rich by abusing black men. For many years in many parts from Africa human rights were not respected and from my point of view these lines reflect the cruelty from that time. I also have liked because it shows how some people decide to join the powerful party in order to gain some power:

‘A slight clinking behind me made me turn my head. Six black men advanced in a file, toiling up the path. They walked erect and slow, balancing small baskets full of earth on their heads, and the clink kept time with their footsteps. Black rags were wound round their loins, and the short ends behind waggled to and fro like tails. I could see every rib, the joints of their limbs were like knots in a rope; each had an iron collar on his neck, and all were connected together with a chain whose bights swung between them, rhythmically clinking. Another report from the cliff made me think suddenly of that ship of war I had seen firing into a continent. It was the same kind of ominous voice; but these men could by no stretch of imagination be called enemies. They were called criminals, and the outraged law, like the bursting shells, had come to them, an insoluble mystery from the sea. All their meagre breasts panted together, the violently dilated nostrils quivered, the eyes stared stonily uphill. They passed me within six inches, without a glance, with that complete, deathlike indifference of unhappy savages. Behind this raw matter one of the reclaimed, the product of the new forces at work, strolled despondently, carrying a rifle by its middle. He had a uniform jacket with one button off, and seeing a white man on the path, hoisted his weapon to his shoulder with alacrity. This was simple prudence, white men being so much alike at a distance that he could not tell who I might be. He was speedily reassured, and with a large, white, rascally grin, and a glance at his charge, seemed to take me into partnership in his exalted trust. After all, I also was a part of the great cause of these high and just proceedings’.

See you on friday,

Neus

New Term - New Books

Hi all,

Added the new books. So now's the time to get posting. Don't forget - one page you like/don't like/find interesting - whatever - with a short commentary, explaining why.

Look forward to reading them,

Best,

Oliver