“A Rose for Emily” is awesome. Awesome, being a word that I rarely use in describing a piece of literature, is quite a compliment; especially for a story about the South, a place I’d rather not describe. It is awesome due to the fact that I was not able to tell what was going on until it was all revealed. This is not how I read. I find most stories, especially those read in English classes, to be painfully predictable. This story should have been just as predictable when I look back on it, but I was completely off. Maybe I read it too late at night or just wasn’t thinking straight. I couldn’t even put the whole story together after finishing it. With the order of events as they were, my head could not put such a puzzle together. This was humiliating, but enjoyable as I could pretend that all the wholes filled by my peers were never there to begin with and that I was just as much on top of it as anyone else. I think I was just beat by this Faulkner dude and so I must admit that A “Rose for Emily” is awesome. Faulkner got me to enjoy a period story from a period that I despise. Now I actually look forward to reading more from him I only hope to be as pleasantly surprised as I was while and after reading “A Rose for Emily”.
“Everyday Use” is pretty funny. Not Eddie Murphy funny, not Jon Stewart funny. Just the past is a funny thing funny. It may have been meant to be looked at more seriously when it was written, but with the passing of time it has become a historical piece that is now very entertaining due to the generalization in most readers’ minds that sophistication is always a good thing. Through Dee (Wangero) I saw Alice Walker showing what she thought to be a false sense of sophistication setting her even below her mother and sister who were grounded enough to accept what had become of their daughter/sister. This acceptance is an amazing thing, as Dee has in the past been rather disrespectful to the way of life that her mother and sister choose to live. It is only the persistence of this disrespect that causes her mother to decide that enough is enough and give Dee a thorough telling off. None of these events are funny. What is funny is who is doing what. The college educated woman acts as a dirt farming southern hick should, and the southern hick acts like a real woman. Thus the story is pretty funny.
“Teenage Wasteland” is sort of horrible. Not horrible in the sense that it is written badly or on subject that should be stayed away from, just horrible in the sense that no enjoyment can come out of reading this story. Now maybe I’m wrong and some people enjoy reading about extraordinary mental pain, such as how there are those who enjoy watching or reading about physical pain in the genre of horror, but what Donny and his mother go through in this story will darken just about any reader’s day. Maybe I lack something that would make me understand why this story is necessary to be read ever or it just frightens me as I know many of the events are all too real in households around the world. It’s artistic I guess. Now I’m even more suspicious of the effectiveness of counselors. The great song “Baba O’Riley” will now bring back the sour memory of this story. I guess it had an effect on me. Not a particularly good one. I hope I will soon forget this story and never have to read it again.
"Interpreter of Maladies" is quite pointless. This story of unhappy marriage and dysfunctional families has been told so many times exactly like this that I really don’t care. Yes it is a different culture this time, but the problem is exactly the same. Married man wants married woman; married woman wants her previous problems to be alleviated. Maybe I’m missing something but I don’t see at all why Mrs. Das would think that Mr. Kapasi could help her and why Mr. Kapasi would find anything attractive about this wretched woman. She is lazy, slow, and very unappreciative and he is just a translator. Why write this. The only people I feel for at all are the children and Mr. Das who have to put up with Mrs. Das’ misbehavior and untrustworthiness. Its incredibly difficult for me to believe that Mr. Kapasi would still after hearing of her misdeeds be attracted to her in the least no matter how difficult his home life has become. Kapasi hopefully figures out that unfaithfulness will only bring more agony such as that of Mrs. Das, but we will never know. (816)
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