Close-reading BINGO!

Common Weaknesses:
Rule #6 Avoid the verbs "use" and "shows."
"Salinger uses boring, depressing words"


Rule #8 Punctuation goes inside the quotation marks:
"J.D. uses common words to describe his past, such as "crap" and "lousy"."


Rule #2 Don't use long quotations as the subject of a sentence:
""Turned toward the escalators, carrying a black Penguin paperback and a small white CVS bag, its receipt stapled over the top," describes the harsh clattering of the setting."


Rule #1 Avoid "he says" quote introductions:
"...he tells us that "On sunny days like this one, a temporary, steeper escalator of daylight, formed by intersections of the lobby's towering volumes of marble and glass, met the real escalators just above their middle point, spreading into a needly area of shine where it fell against their brushed-steel side-pannels, and adding long glossy highlights to each of the black rubber handrails""


Overall Best Response:
"Furthermore, sentence fragments, such as, "One of those little English jobs that can do around two hundred miles an hour," destroy any last vestige of formality, further developing the aura of simply telling a story to a friend."

Close Reading: Diction

Below is my take on the diction that is used in Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees
:

In The Secret Life of Bees Kidd exhibits a musical, soft diction that exemplifies the sad atmosphere that surrounds the main character, Lily. In statements such as “split my heart down the seam” and “felt the longing build in my chest,” Kidd’s diction expresses the emotion that swelling within Lily. The language that used is not over sophisticated, yet it is neither vulgar nor blunt. The words themselves are descriptive and informative, however there are metaphors displayed throughout the piece; especially in the references to the chest and the heart. Although the language is simple in usage, it builds upon itself and becomes figuratively advanced.

Currently

Books I'm Reading:
Devil In The Details by Jennifer Traig
Little Bee by Chris Cleave

Sentences I like:
Zengerine:
In contrast, Cormac McCarthy's figurative-language-heavy introduction to Blood Meridian balances both an earthy grittiness and an elevated vocabulary as McCarthy describes the surroundings.

Twilight:
In a passage from Cherry Adair's "Out of Sight," she uses blunt vulgarity, noisy and straight-forwardness to get her point across.

Look Up...(Now!):
Cabot uses blunt, familiar words to make her protagonist easy to relate to in these first few sentences, using denotative language and a bit of humor.

The Lurking Times:
Stardust is also more of a connotation having a poetic theme to it as well as being very lyrical about it.

Keep It Classy:
The language is humble, but it is suggestive of the culture and personality of the characters.

Overall I particularly like Zengerine's sentence, mostly because of the adjectives that she used. The way she described the work is matter-a-fact and extremely descriptive.

Pages this week: 240
All pages read:

Style Mapping: McCarthy, Gaiman, and Cleave

Neil Gaiman, Chris Cleave and Cormac McCarthy all express their works with different diction. No one work is exactly the same as the next, each ranging from high to low and from musical too harsh. Gaiman’s Stardust expresses a familiar yet rather plain diction that is combined with informative and clear language. This diction can be seen in phrases such as, “The house of Wall are square and old, built of grey stone, with dark slate roofs and high chimney.” There is no particular sound quality to the work; it is neither harsh nor musical. On the other hand, McCarthy’s Blood Meridian holds a musical quality to the words, as well as descriptive and distinct linguistics. The usage of words such as “dark,” “bitter” and “steel” all direct the passage to these assets. Much like McCarthy’s work, Little Bee by Cleave displays contrasting yet powerful language and metaphorical cleverness in the use of words. Cleave articulates this form of language in phrases such as, “Most days I wish I was a British pound coin instead of an African girl.” All of these use diverse language, but are similar in the sense that they express the emotions and atmosphere surrounding the characters.

Cute couples and Bees

I found these adorable little mushrooms in the woods the other day and I absolutely fell in love with them. For some reason these too remind me of a cute little couple :)

-ANON-

I've started a new book...whoa is me; I am never going to finish any of these books. The book is Little Bee by Chris Cleave, it's amazing. Basically a woman named Sarah, a widower struggling to cope, and an illegal Nigerian alien ,who goes by the name Little Bee, are living in Britian trying to live life. There's so much raw emotion in the book; oh, and the book is from both women's points of veiw. Although the book tends to be a bit confusing because of the jumps into the past and the changing of points of veiw. But, overall it's great, I guess it must be considering I'v read about 160 pages in around 2 days.

Quarterly

Independent reading has consumed my life as far back as I can remember. Some of my fondest memories of my dad reading Harry Potter to me and my sister. Because reading has been so ingrained into my life, reading for a class simply gives me an excuse to read rather than actually doing anything else. Lately, I think the most challenging book that I have read would probably The Vampire Lestat and that's only because of the sheer size of the book, not because it's a particularly hard book to read. As for what time of day I read, I read just about anytime I can. Recently I have been reading quite a bit at night. Also, I've taken up reading on the bus again...not one of my best ideas considering I get carsick, or bus-sick depending on how you look at it. Other than that my reading has been pretty similar to all of the reading that took my life before. Next quarter I hope to read more books than I have so far, maybe some more classics?
Pages this week: 154
All pages read: 1352

Words...

Have you ever run into times where you don't know what to say? You just sit there and wonder what the perfect words are for the situation and nothing comes to you. And then when the words do come, the moment has already passed and you're left sitting there staring off into space with the words sitting on your tongue. Or maybe nothing comes for so long and you look back and continue to play that conversation in your head over and over again still searching for those perfect words. I don't particularly know where this rant came from by I found this amazing poem that I think expresses that wonderfulness yet bitterness of words.


“Words”
by Anne Sexton

Be careful of words,
even the miraculous ones.
For the miraculous we do our best,
sometimes they swarm like insects
and leave not a sting but a kiss.
They can be as good as fingers.
They can be as trusty as the rock
you stick your bottom on.
But they can be both daisies and bruises.
Yet I am in love with words.
They are doves falling out of the ceiling.
They are six holy oranges sitting in my lap.
They are the trees, the legs of summer,
and the sun, its passionate face.
Yet often they fail me.
I have so much I want to say,
so many stories, images, proverbs, etc.
But the words aren’t good enough,
the wrong ones kiss me.
Sometimes I fly like an eagle
but with the wings of a wren.
But I try to take care
and be gentle to them.
Words and eggs must be handled with care.
Once broken they are impossible
things to repair.

OCD

Even though I have yet to finish my other books...I'm starting a new one. It's called Devil in the Details by Jennifer Traig; the book is about the author looking back on her teen years and how she grew up with OCD. Although I've only recently started (and by recently I mean this morning) I think the whole story is amazing. It is actually funny, which I didn't expect. I figured it would be sad or something of the like, but it's not. I think I'm going to like this book.

*Hours Later*

This book is absolutely amazing :D Oh, and yet another week has gone by and I have still failed to read more of Wuthering Heights, RAWR! I will read said book...eventually.

CURRENTLY

The Vampire Lesat by Anne Rice
The Boneshaker by Kate Milford

Previous Likable Quotes:

"Don't be a fool for the devil, darling!" The Vampire Lestat Truly I'm not to sure why I particularly like this sentence. Most likely it's because of the image I get in my head of Lestat. I see him surrounded by dozens of filthy, lowly vampires and him in his silk clothing and jewels; I see him yelling at the vampires that choose to worship the devil rather than live an vampire life.

"Good night, Westley. Good work.I'll most likely kill you in the morning." The Princess Bride The book itself doesn't focus on this part of the story too much. But this one sentence kind of sums up what exactly Westley lived through while he was captured by pirates. Of course he knew that the captain wouldn't kill him, but it must have been a little daunting going to sleep knowing that it was quite possible that you would die at the hands of a pirate. I think that if Goldman wanted he could develop a whole story simply around Westley and his time as a pirate.

"...maybe the strings break, or maybe our ships sink, or maybe we're grass- our roots so interdependent that no one is dead as long as someone is still alive." Paper Towns The imagery from this metaphor is extremely striking. John Green yanks at the fundamentals of life and pulls out a quote like this. I'm impressed.

Pages this week: 144
All pages read: 1198

Death and Decisions

I need to start reading Wuthering Heights. Almost everyone in book club is done with the book and I'm pretty sure that I'm still on page 80. I don't know why, but I can't get that into the book. I am determined to finish it though since I already know the ending. EVERYONE DIES! Well, almost everyone dies. So, it must be a good book, right?

Due to the fact that I can't stick to one book, I will probably start reading something new soon. Until that point I will be reading Lestat which continues to become stranger and stranger. I'm not sure if I will read anything else in the series after this book because...I guess I don't have a reason. Depending on the ending I might just stop after Lestat. I loved Interview with a Vampire and I like The Vampire Lestat. I guess I'm afraid that if I read the next book in the series I won't like it as much, which would consequently ruin the whole series for me. Uhh...what to do? What to do?

British accents and IQA

I finished The Boneshaker! I'm really proud of myself...and I have no idea why. It's not like it was a difficult read, but I'm pretty darn pround of myself. But mum's the word, I'll not be telling you the ending (I can't say that sentence without using a British accent). That's about it in the reading world for me though. Which leads me to telling you about my life...

I went to my first IQA game. It was amazing. For those of you poor souls who don't know what IQA is, it stands for Intercolliagete Quidditch Association. And now for the needed cliche...it was magical. Although some of the teams were brutal, there was tackling and hitting and other interesting forms of hurt going on. I loved it :D I would highly recommend going to a game.

Age Changes and Bob Dylan

THE BLOGGER GODS HATE ME! Ok, so maybe that's a little dramatic- but only a little. For some reason Blogger won't let me leave comments on other blogs, which means that I spent quite a long time writing out a comment, that was grammatically correct and everything, and then Blogger wouldn't let me leave it...GRRR!

Moving on...

I've been reminicing about my middle school years and one of the most distinct memories is this song...http://youtu.be/mw6yliZ75lg This song was a large part of my 8th grade year. One of my teachers had me and my class do a project on this song. Let's just say we spent most of our time making fun of the song that anything else. Listening to it now, it's not as bad as I remembered it to be.

Onward to the next topic! I still have no idea what age Armand is, at first I thought he was a little kid and now I don't think so. He told Lestat all about his life with Marius and yeah, I don't think he's a little boy. At least I really hope he isn't, you'll understand if you read the book. Now that I've gotten farther I think that he's probably in his 20's or so and Lestat calls him childish in appearance merely because Armand is younger that Lestat. If so, the a lot of other parts of the book make more sense, at least they do in my mind. But now that he's older in my mind, his whole appearance has changed. It's kind of odd, one page picturing a character as a small kid and on the next page he's 20 years old. Bizarre.

Nostrums and Weirdness

Dr. Jake Limberleg's Nostrum Fair and Technological Medicine Show. What's a nostrum fair or a technological medicine show, you may ask? I still haven't quite figured that out yet...BUT the magical, wonderful google has come and saved the day. A nostrum is a type of medicine that is prepared from an unqualified person and I'm pretty sure everyone out there knows what a fair is, right? The other part I kind of guessed on (mostly because google kind of failed me on this one), although I guess it is common sense if you think about it, technological means something do with technology, medicine is...medicine, and a show is a display or demonstration. Thus, a Nostrum Fair and Technological Medicine Show is essentially a Traveling Fair of made-up medicines with some technology-type medicines put on display. Ta-da!

This rambling definition does have a point, A POINT I TELL YOU! Sorry, I needed to get that out of my system (it's been a long day)...anyways, I have been reading The Boneshaker by Kate Milford for about a week, maybe more, and the whole basis is around this creepy man coming into town and then all of these weird things (for lack of a better word) start happening. The whole book itself kind of reminds me of A Series of Unfortunate Events, that odd kind of mystical yet not quite misunderstandable (is that word?). Despite the strangeness of the book, I rather like this book. Good night :)