Blog Paper

When I first read books, to be honest it was for entertainment. I was not interested in the nature of the book in the sense of what it was about as it was to what it was about to my enjoyment. When I read books, I would reed it for what I thought it was and take myself out of the context of my current world environment. I have read books like: The Shinning, Dune, In the Heat of the Night, Things Fall Apart to name a few. Most of these books were for entertaining purpose rather than for education or thinking about things and how they can relate to the world we live in. Some of these books, like Apart did came from a class and they did have me think a bit about what the author was trying to say. When I finished reading the text, I did find myself enjoying or confused or glad it was over with. “I” was the word that was most common when I looked back at my readings and responses and what I took from those experiences. Thus, I would say that I was in stage 1, Text-Self of my development. The more I read, I did started to sense that I was comparing books with books, but I personally did not see myself doing that as much or going out of my way to think about it.

As I read back on some of my earlier blogs, you can see that while I did not use the word, “I” a lot, I still was referring to what I had read or seen in a Text –Self way. For example, the way I started my early blogs was like: “There was some interesting issues regarding this movie.” and “This was an interesting fantasy about a boy and his father who was this revered storyteller”. In these starting points, I was expressing my enjoyment of the movie and the book. It was as if I was a critic. That might be something to think about for a career, but for analysis that’s going deeper, this was not what I should I have stated. I was talking too much about the plot in the movie, Bride and Prejudice. Or at least I was not trying to make a bigger meaning out of what I saw and transform it to what I see in our society. The same can be said with Haroun and the Sea of Stories. This one was much worse in regards to my analysis. For example: “Haroun saw many things that started to make sense to why his father was the way he is and that made him understand his father better”, this quote from this first blog only told about the story instead of what was behind or a deeper meaning. After reading your responses, Paul, I knew I had to try harder to understand more what was behind these forms of media.

As of right now, I believe I‘m closer to the Text-World stage of reading, though I still have some text-self references scattered in there. When I looked back at some of my more recent blogs, I can see some improvements in this area. Take for example: A Wild Sheep Chase. This was a good example of what I’m capable of doing for understanding the text I read and transforming it to what I see in today’s society. With Boku and his journey to find the sheep, we notice how the author showed how one can go thru life as a rigid, maybe even soul-less person and how it can affect the people around you. What I found was that I was trying to relate this in ways I see in our society and try to see if the author was trying to make commentary on what he sees himself. I was trying to show what I understood what post-modernism writing is and I used examples of this. I showed some aspects and use examples like: irony is a big part of post-modernism and one piece of text I used was from my blog: “This all has got to be, patently, the most ridiculous story I have ever heard. Somehow coming from your mouth, it has the ring of truth, but I doubt anyone would believe me if I told them what happened today." Here it plays ironic in that the protagonist might see this all a dream, but he goes on. I wonder if this is a waking dream or maybe an alternative reality. “. Here, I had questions about what I was reading and what it meant and tried to find a meaning behind it.

As I read “Sheep”, I continued to try to read in a text-world way. I was following the disconnectedness of Boku more and relating it to what Murakami was trying to express. I used more examples of what I saw: “The disconnectedness seemed to drive the Rat crazy and maybe will Boku too. Is this a way Murakami is trying to say that disconnectedness can drive one crazy?” I tried to delve into what role the women played in this book and why they left. I was wondering about why the characters did not have names but more descriptions of themselves(Rat, woman w/ ears, the thin man, etc), were they symbols of people or how one acts? Was there more to what was being said? I can say that my blogs started to look more like someone that was trying to see more into what he read than what he was reading and enjoying.

What is my plan to continue to grow as a reader? Well, I first have to be open-minded. What I mean is not to read to enjoy, only. I need to read to understand what the author is saying and why he/she is saying it. I might want to do some research of the author prior to reading to get a better idea of the background and their way of thinking to understand better where they are going with their writing. I might try reviewing what other critics have said and characterize what these authors are writing about as in what themes or subject matter. This kind of research is critical to finding out where and what the author is trying to say and should make it easier for me to better understand what I need to look at. Hopefully, once I practice this, I can have better conversations in class about what I reading and grow more. Maybe even take from it something I can personally apply to myself and my way of living. I will be open and welcome any suggestions to better find a way to understand my readings.