Purity: Mental Illness

Well that was a wild ride from start to finish. As logical as it seems now looking back, I was so shocked when Andreas jumped off the cliff to his death. The whole section of him talking with "The Killer" and struggling for control was really interesting. It warped the narrative perspective of this novel …

A Tale for the Time Being: Shared Time Beings

There is so much to talk about in this last section of the book, but one thing I found interesting was the inclusion of 9/11 as a major part of the story. While I was just a child and therefore hardly remember the event itself, let alone what life was like beforehand, I thought it …

Self Identity in A Tale for the Time Being

As we've been reading more and more of the novel, I've been very interested in how Nao and Ruth define their nationality and how that then relates to their personality. On one hand, Nao, who grew up for most of her childhood in America, strongly considers herself to be American. There have been many occurrences …

A Piece of the Wall: Everchanging modern literature

Cole's writing really struck me, but what caught my mind in particular was the relevancy of the subject matter to current events. And yes, while the border between Mexico and the US has been in current news for years, certain specific details were much more poignant to today. At one point Cole writes through twitter …

10:04: Permanence in the Age of Social Media

After reading the first two chapters of Lerner's 10:04, and subsequently realizing I had then already read The Golden Vanity, I found it really interesting how "the author" contemplates the idea of what is permanent in our society, whether these thoughts come from the fact that he wants to expand his short story to become …