My Final Thoughts

In taking the class, Telling the Story Queer I have learned a great deal. I think our final discussion on our readings wrapped up my thoughts about the class. There are many definitions on what queer literature is. There is the definition of touching on the subject of the queer community and what it entails. Then there is the literal “queer” aspects of the literature, meaning odd or unusual. All of our texts fit into the definition that we drew up.

We have read some of the oddest materials I have read ever. I believe that the queerest story that we read was Love Might Be Too Strong A Word. It had both aspects of the queer literature definition. It definitely had the queer community aspects with Mab and yrs tendency to sleep with members of the same social class. Then you have the language and the way it is written that is queer as well. I think this story has set the bar high for the queerest text.

My thinking has changed a lot from the beginning of this class. My definition of what queer is changed to a more broadened one. When I started the class I had thought that it was just going to concentrate on the LGBTQ community. Yet upon finishing the class I know that it has a bigger definition than just concentrating on that one aspect. I loved being able to learn from a wide variety of texts that I do not believe that I would have come across in my spare time.

Final Thoughts

I enrolled in the FYSEM class Telling the Story Queer, because queer literature happens to be one of my favorite topics; whether the text is queer theoretically, sexually, or philosophically I enjoy writings which seek to annihilate limitations, “the arts, whatever their materials, pressed forward by the aesthetics of the sublime in search of intense effects, can and must give up the imitation of models that are merely beautiful, and try out surprising, strange, shocking combinations. Shock is, par excellence, the evidence of something happening, rather than nothing, suspended privation,” (Jean-François Lyotard). Although I don’t appreciate a lot of conceptual art (concept>aesthetic), I have come to be able to appreciate and respect it, for the vitality of art is dependent upon its ability to thwart a stagnant nature. Queer art does not imitate models; it divorces itself from what is thought to be “the best way of doing things” or a normative idea of “beauty”. And I want to suggest only queer art can be sublime, in accordance with Immanuel Kant’s idea of the “sublime”.

The detonation of the word sublime isn’t entirely foreign to Kant’s interpretation and connotation; sublime according to the Webster dictionary is “tending to inspire awe usually because of elevated quality (as of beauty, nobility, or grandeur) or transcendent excellence. A work of art is subjective; some works of art may inspire awe (or sublimity) in only a select few. But personally I do not think a literary work of art is of “transcendent excellence” if it stays within an archetypal story model or doesn’t suggest anything unfamiliar.

Parroting Lyotard, I want to be shocked and surprised; I want to feel my idea(s) of what and what doesn’t constitutes art, not belittled but disputed and altered.

Kant’s interpretation of the sublime is as follows: (when)… the mind feels agitated, while in an aesthetic judgment about the beautiful in nature it is in restful contemplation. This agitation (above all at its inception) can be compared with a vibration, i.e. with a rapid alternation of repulsion from, and attraction to, one and the same object. If a thing is excessive for the imagination (and the imagination is driven to such excess as it apprehends the thing in intuition), then the thing is, as it were, an abyss in which the imagination is afraid to lose itself,” (Critique of Judgment).

Why do I think (in accordance with Kant) only queer literature can be sublime? For me to feel inspired, be in awe of, or describe something with a quality of transcendent excellence I cannot simply be appreciative of a common aesthetic. It is only through a relationship between attraction and initial repulsion this can occur. If I am confronted with something beautiful (Kant’s definition) it does not press against my imagination.

For his audience, Kant writes a formula able to define the sublime, “The sublime is that, the mere capacity of thinking which evidences a faculty of mind transcending every standard of sense” and when one experiences the sublime, “ a feeling comes home to him of the inadequacy of his imagination for presenting the idea of a whole within which that imagination attains its maximum, and, in its fruitless efforts to extend this limit, recoils upon itself, but in so doing succumbs to an emotional delight”. Sublimity is relative and ephemeral but differs from the beautiful in that our imagination cannot fully comprehend the extent of its nature; the feelings produced from this experience are sublime.

I’ll leave this idea with a quote, “A masterpiece of fiction is an original world and as such is not likely to fit the world of the reader” (Nabokov).

I particularly enjoyed some of the short stories and Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas. And although I initially disliked Shiga’s Meanwhile I came to be able to appreciate it; perhaps I should read it again as it certainly provoked my imagination and ability to imagine. I enjoyed the blogs because in writing I can express with more lucidity what I intend to convey than I can in informal discourse. I am able to develop ideas more thoroughly than while talking, because I can see my thoughts recorded on paper and continue to build upon them while increasing the quality of them through editing. And thirdly I can better draw upon ideas from people across the world and across time; people who were and are more diverse and intelligent than I: people who have experienced things I have not yet experienced and am incapable of experiencing. I also enjoy reading the blogs from everyone on the same text I read, as not every idea a person has or wants to develop is shared within the time confines of class. Some of the most brilliant things I have heard, often come from people who do not usually speak, “A wise man speaks because he has something to say; a fool because he has to say something” (Plato perhaps).

I know there was some opposition expressed towards Valente’s In the Night Garden but rather than solely criticizing it, I would like to suggest, for those were not fond of the text, to recommend different texts they think manifest better a “queer text”.

I would personally like to recommend Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk about Kevin; it delves into controversial issues with brutal honesty and outstanding insight while remaining queer as an epistolary novel (contained in or carried on by letters). And while some may have read epistolary books prior to the class, the book remains queer in plot as the writer of the letters is the mother of Kevin, a boy who commits massacre in a shooting at his high school. The very thought of being a mother to such a person, I think constitutes with the idea of Kant’s sublime; it is alluring, repulsive and incomprehensible. Here is but a small taste of Shriver: ““It isn't very nice to admit, but domestic violence has its uses. So raw and unleashed, it tears away the veil of civilization that comes between us as much as it makes life possible. A poor substitute for the sort of passion we like to extol perhaps, but real love shares more in common with hatred and rage than it does with geniality or politeness” (We Need to Talk about Kevin).

What does it mean to tell a story queer? Simply stated, I think telling a story queer is telling a story well.

Closing Thoughts

 I want to reiterate what I said at the end of our final class: it has been an honor for me to think about our texts with you this semester. I have learned so much from your thoughts and ideas and appreciate your willingness to be in conversation together about difficult material. You asked for me to post the short, short that I wrote that was influenced by Cloud Atlas. I've pasted it in below. Although I hadn't read "The Ones who Walk Away from Omelas" before I wrote this, I can see some affinity between the narrators in these two stories. I appreciate feedback, if you've got any. Critical feedback is great; tho' it's always nice to hear when my writing works, I find my writing improves the most when people point out why and where it's not working.

The Carving

Along the top edge of the wooden carving there is a dark sky.   Darker brown, wavy lines depict wind blowing.  Against the dark sky there is a twig and sod hut.  It is where she lived, as a child.  A choppy river runs horizontally through the carving, filling in the bottom half of the block.  Really, all of this is just background.  It’s not what your eyes would focus on if I were to show you this carving.  Instead, what you would see would be a girl.  She sits on the dirt in front of the hut, carving. Her simple dress is sleeveless, her brown arms and legs are muscled.  She is small, petite. Shavings curl around her head, bouncing.  Her eyes, though crafted of wood, are vibrant.  She is a willow tree.  She is flowing water.  She is sap, coursing through xylem, pushing through phloem. 

In the spark etched into her eye is reflected another image, a sketch. At the top edge of this drawing there is a cloud-filled sky.  Against these clouds there is a metal shack.  Where she lived, as a child.  A stony path runs horizontally through the picture.  The stones are large; jagged edges rising up out of level.  Behind the path is a fire.  Really, all of this is just background.  It is not what your eyes would focus on if I were to show it to you.  Instead, what you would see would be a woman. At her feet, a whittled stick turns to coal in the embers of the fire.  The sleeves and hem of her grey dress are torn; her arms and legs poke out from it--harsh, black lines.  She is thin.  Her eyes are dark smudges.  She is a twig clutching one papery leaf. 

In her hands she holds another image, a photo of the apartment building where she lived as a child.  There is no background in the Polaroid.  There is no sky.  The foreground is completely taken up with red, sooty bricks.  The only thing interrupting this expanse of rust wall is a smudged window, through which you would see a woman with curly brown and grey hair and an open photo album.   The album is opened to the page containing the only surviving photograph of the townhouse where she lived as a child.  In this sepia-tinted photo, a group is gathered on the granite doorstep.  If I were to show it to you, you would see that at the very center is a baby, wearing a creamy baptism dress, an open locket around her small neck.  The rest of her family has faded into the background of the fading photograph.  The watercolor contained in the open locket is of the farmhouse where she lived, as a child.  She is standing to the right side of the pale yellow house, her palm held outward, shading her eyes, obscuring her face.  In the creases of her palm is imprinted the memory of the thatched roof cottage where she lived as a child.  On one of the stones that make up the walls of this cottage is a petrogylph of the cave where she lived as a child. 

You would see it clearly.  If I were to show it to you.

Final Reflection

I have learned many things from our first year seminar. Just being in class discussions opened my mind to experience how other people think. I also enjoyed the readings because in a normal setting I wouldn't have read these sort of books.

Presenting my research to the class was a objective that really made me motivated to do well. I didn't want to look bad in front of my peers, so I made sure I knew everything about the subject I researched.

Finally, I thought that the blogs became annoying towards the end of the semester. I think that they should have been graded, but I think it should have been less demanding because we are discussing our opinions.

Overall, I learned a lot from the class, but I am disappointed in my grade.

The Queer Experience

I wasn’t really sure what to expect when I heard the title of the course. I wasn’t sure how much I would learn from the class or how much I would gain from the class. I can say that I gained a lot more than a thought I would.

The different texts, especially the ones that centered around LBGT and gender equality, taught me how to be more open minded to different lifestyles. I like to think that I was already pretty open minded about things but this course helped me to become even more open minded.

One course material that really helped me was “Love Might Be Too Strong a Word”. It helped me because I had never really thought about the pronouns we use to describe gender. I was always one of those people that if I didn’t know if something was feminine or masculine I just called it “it” without a second thought about how the word “it” could be hurtful, especially when describing someone. I know see that people can’t always be so easily classified like I was taught in elementary school.

Telling the Story Queer means more to me that I thought it would. To me it describes not just the material taught in class but also the people that took the class. Queer for means something that’s different or can’t be easily labeled and that’s the people in the class for me. No one person in that class can be judged on how they look on the outside. From Piper Passages to the last actual day of class my first impressions of everyone changed drastically.

Above anything else the class taught me not to prejudge anyone or try to place a label on them based off the first impression they give off.

Cloud Atlas

One thing that really intrigued me about this novel is the way the context in which the book was written. I made many comparisons with this book and the books we read in the past. The books that i thought were similar to the Cloud Atlas were, In The Night Garden and Meanwhile. I thought In The Night Garden had the closest comparison to the Cloud Atlas with how the book jumped from story to story. Even though Cloud Atlas's story line was more like a pyramid, I made my connection based on the jumping back and forth to different stories. When comparing Cloud Atlas to Meanwhile, I saw their connection in how unique the concept of the two books where. With Meanwhile being unique in the way that you can choose your own story and destiny in the book. In Cloud Atlas being unique in the way that I have never read a book with a "pyramid" shaped timeline.

However, even though I found Cloud Atlas to be creative and unique I still did no enjoy the read because of the jumping of stories. I found myself having to go back and re-read what I had just previously read a lot.

I did however enjoy the section called Adam Edwing's arch because of how fact that the world was bare and just sitting there untouched. It made me think and wish I could of been around in that time period. imagine being one of the only ones around. that thought fascinates me, being able to live and truly do what you believe in or just want to do. I would really enjoy that

Cloud Atlas

The thing that most intrigued me about Cloud Atlas was the way society was shown deteriorating and then rising again. This is illustrated more literally by the ascending and descending of characters in each arch.

In Adam Ewing's arch, society was at its peak. The world was waiting to be explored and discovered, and this made it possible for people to live how they wanted. Well, except for slaves. That part wasn't so good. But apart from that, society was at its peak. After that things got worse with each new reincarnation until Sonmi-451, where it was at its worst, so then things could only get better and start from the bottom up again with Zachery and Meronym's arch.

I think that the theme of the characters ascending and descending is related to the theme of society's own rising and falling. I think each example of the characters ascension and descention was meant to mirror the rising and falling of the quality of society. Maybe this suggests that each reincarnation's society went through a little different graphing than what Lisa had drawn on the board, but it might have looked more squiggly on the way down. like it goes down, then back up a little, but then drops further for the next reincarnation's society. What do you think?

Cloud Atlas

First, I'll just state my opinion of Cloud Atlas, which is that, although it was a good book, it initially felt a lot like reading the introduction to the first Harry Potter book over and over again. It took a while to get into.

While I would love to say that the topic I'm going to write about is entirely my idea, I could not do so without lying. I did some research on Cloud Atlas while we were reading it, and something I came across was that each story reflected upon "Nietzschean matters of truth and perspective, the will to power, what it means to be a slave or a master, and the different methods by which one might narrativize one’s life."

Rather than analyzing how this is true, because that would be plagiarism, I will instead discuss why I find this so fascinating.

Mainly, I find it incredibly important to be able to understand someone else's ideas in terms of our own, because they will otherwise never become applicable to our lives. Mitchell manages to take Nietzsche's ideas into his own hands to create a novel that illustrates the central idea of eternal return. This is also interesting to me because he used Nietzsche's ideas to prove another one of Nietzsche's ideas, which isn't often done. Generally, we use one (or multiple) person's (or people's) ideas to support someone else's ideas.

I also just found it interesting that Mitchell managed to do this in such an interesting way, because I feel that a lot of people would rather not read a novel that pushes these ideas, but he managed to do so without anyone realizing that he was, in fact, trying to express/explain Nietzsche.

I will conclude this by saying that I'm not nearly as well-versed in Nietzsche's ideas as I could be, so I apologize if any of what I said is completely wrong or off-base.

An Unfettered Howl

David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas is a novel which says much about human nature; throughout the story, a soul is reincarnated throughout time, however the identities (personality, mannerisms, etc.) of the people, the soul inhabits, are not homogenous but rather like malleable vessels: shaped by nature, nurture, and occurrences in life (“You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.” C.S Lewis). But the various people the soul inhabits are human beings; human beings, however different they may appear to be, belong to one species. And every human being is always battling against his or her own nature (natural selection (selfishness). Mitchell rhetorically asks, “Why fight the “natural” order of things?” He answers, “Why? Because of this: - one fine day, a purely predatory world shall consume itself. If we believe that humanity may transcend tooth & claw... such a world will come to pass. And although your life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean, what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?” (507). Mitchell believes although our lives are limited in power, as a collective whole we can create change; it is possible for Adam Ewing to create a world, “ I want Jackson to inherit,” (508). (Children live in the same world we do. To kid ourselves that we can shelter them from it isn't just naive it's a vanity.”- Lionel Shriver).

Many writers, philosophers, and religious icons dedicated, and continue to dedicate their lives to understanding and shaping human nature. Upon reviewing Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde immediately came to mind. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was a novel published in 1886 about a man named Dr. Henry Jekyll, who seeking to separate his immoral desires (Mitchell would describe as the natural) from his philanthropic self creates a potion, transforming him into a malicious and menacing man, free from conscience, named Mr. Hyde. And although Dr. Jekyll enjoys his liberation from morality, he soon realizes he is involuntarily turning into Mr. Hyde when lucid and unconscious in sleep. Unable to concoct the potion which transformed Mr. Hyde back into Dr. Jekyll, Dr. Jekyll locks himself in his laboratory and commits suicide (It is ambiguous whether or not Mr. Hyde or Dr. Jekyll is the culprit of the suicide).

In Cloud Atlas, the duality of man is manifested metaphorically within the rising and falling in every story and in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde it is made visible through the physical transformation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. And if Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is read as an allegory about human nature, than David Mitchell's words, “the Devil shall take the hindmost until the foremost is the hindmost. In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul; for the human species, selfishness is extinction,” (508) are valid. Mr. Hyde is a consequence of an action, created by a desire; he is not the cause of Dr. Jekyll's death any more than smoke is the cause of suffocation. It is the desire (and failure) to transcend morality which is the begetter of the Dr. Jekyll's death; Mr. Hyde is an embodiment of Mitchell's ideas of human nature (selfishness). And if we attempt to divorce ourselves from a moral sense of life and descend into a character like Mr. Hyde, according to Robert Louis Stevenson and David Mitchell we will destroy ourselves. And the world presented in the chapter Sloosha's Crossin' An' Ev'rthin' After in Cloud Atlas may not be far off.

Thoughts on human nature which vary and/or oppose Mitchell's ideas are prevalent in the world and I don't desire to make a case which implies he is surely correct. C.S Lewis believes, "Human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and can't really get rid of it." The Dali Llama has a similar opinion, “Human beings are not intrinsically selfish, which isolates us from others. We are essentially social animals who depend on others to meet our needs. We achieve happiness, prosperity and progress through social interaction. Therefore, having a kind and helpful attitude contributes to our own and others' happiness.” But there are those who oppose this idea. Nietzsche writes, “ This is the antimony: Insofar as we believe in morality we pass sentence on existence,” and Marquis de Sade writes, “ Nature, who for the perfect maintenance of the laws of her general equilibrium, has sometimes need of vices and sometimes of virtues, inspires now this impulse, now that one, in accordance with what she requires.” I quote these writers and philosophers to make evident opinions on morality are as varied as personalities within human persons. But like the reincarnations in Cloud Atlas they are strung together by a similarity; they, like all of us, are concerned about morality, ethics, and how to best live one's life.

The last quote I want to leave everyone with (regarding morality) is from George Batailles, “The essence of morality is a questioning about morality; and the decisive move of human life is to use ceaselessly all light to look for the origin of the opposition between good and evil,” Rather than attempting to create moralities, which fans away asphyxiating smoke (not always in the right direction), perhaps we should attempt to locate and extinguish the fire, and its architect. One might argue such a feat is impossible and even if it wasn't, I am but a single person: a single drop of water, a shapeless cloud, or a small tuft of heated air. To which I would reply, have you ever witnessed a hurricane?

Morals in Cloud Atlas

Something we talked a lot about in class discussion about David Mitchell's "Cloud Atlas" was the concept of cruelty and selfishness found in each of the stories. Not only do these concepts come up a lot in the novel, but society today definitely exhibits these concepts often. It is more than likely that this is what David Mitchell wants the reader to see, that each of the stories in Cloud Atlas exhibit our own human history, present, and future of cruelty and selfishness. Perhaps a never-ending chain that is found in human history.

The first story in the "cloud" of stories in "Cloud Atlas" is that of Adam Ewing. Cruelty here is found in the treatment of the Moriori people by the Maori. The Moriori people are enslaved and treated as animals because they are "savages". However, there is light in the situation found in Ewing's treatment of the Moriori slave Autua. Ewing shows compassion and helps Autua out of slavery.

The second story, Letters from Zedelghem, most of the characters are cruel and selfish and feed off of each other for power. The main character, Frobisher, uses the old composer, Vyvan for power and money. Vyvan uses Frobisher for power and fame as well. Vyvan's wife uses Frobisher, and he uses her. None of these characters have outstanding moral values behind their decisions.

The third story involves murder mystery and nuclear negligence. Unfortunately, in today's society, and in the past, there have been incidents just like this.

Sonmi-451 emulates what are society is on the verge of becoming. Middle and lower class citizens will become the slaves of consumerist society and companies. Such as McDonalds in the novel. This seems to be a representation of the cruelty and selfishness found in consumer society itself.

Our Search for Knowledge

Within the story Cloud Atlas you learn about the story of Sonmi-451. I found this story to be the most interesting out of all of the stories to read. You learn of a society that depends on the servitude of clones. The clones that are named “fabricants” have no rights other than serving the rest of society. They are reduced to being in a pattern of going about their everyday chores and not questioning their purpose in life. Then you learn about Sonmi-451 who wants to learn what else life has to give her. She pushes the boundaries of society and wants to extend her knowledge.

In Sonmi-451’s push for knowledge she escapes from the McDonalds that was her “prison”. She gets exposed to the outside world which she tells the archivist that she had never known that there was such thing as green plants. She also was curious about the insects that were everywhere. Her search for knowledge extended past just the outside world. Soon you learn about her obsession with her Sony. She had a deep thirst for knowledge and this led her to connect with people that would give her access to such. She was given the ability to start attending classes at the university which was unheard of before and there was a shock to society that a fabricant could challenge the boundaries. She started to have the ability to learn about the beauty in the world.

As Sonmi-451 quenched her thirst for knowledge she was wrapped into many different situations that led to her destruction in the end. She immersed herself into the conspiracy theories of Hae-Joo and his people. In learning from him she learned of what really happened to her people. She discovered how each of the old fabricants were demolished as soon as they could not benefit from society. The purebloods feed the fabricants to each other to keep their society running without considering the rights of the servants. When she learned this she finally discovered how messed up the system was and that there was so much that could be done to improve the lives of her people.

What we learn from Sonmi-451 is that in our search for knowledge you can learn things that you never thought were imaginable. You can discover the beauty of the world and increase your appreciation for life and the way the world works. Then you can also be exposed to things that totally tear apart everything you thought about society and make you question whether or not there is hope for your own people.

Cloud Atlas

The way Cloud Atlas was written really intrigued me. The way each story was interupted by a new story kept me interested in wanting to find out more. I thought it was really cool how the story started in the 19th century and peeked in a post apocalyptic future, and then the story seemed to rewind to conclude the remaining stories. I related this part of the book to In the Night Garden and how the stories kept changing. Like I said before I seem to get a new motivation to read when a new story starts. Each of these stories can stand alone as its own, but when all of them are read they reveal the full story put together.

The moral of the stories are somewhat hidden. Mitchell "clouds" his points in a fog of ambiguity. This is why the story was confusing to me. Not because I didn't get the action in the story, but I didn't understand the deeper meaning behind each one. One of these meanings was the theory of recreation. Mitchell proposes that the universe doesn't advance but merely repeats itself.

In class we discussed the topic of reincarnation. This kind of makes me feel that people might not value their life as much if they believe that they can start over. In the novel the characters who were a part of Mitchell's theory of reincarnation they had the same inner beleifs and passions. Although they were different in certain ways they still carried the same beliefs that they had in the group. This brings up the discussion of Karma and what we do in our lives can change our "life after life."

What other morals/theories did you come across that some people might not have noticed.?

Meanwhile

I thought Meanwhile was an interesting book in the way that it lets you choose your own path through the book. The path I chose first was  the vanilla ice cream path, which shortly ended by the boy going home to his dad. So I gave the book another try and chose the  chocolate path which I ended up getting lost at after three pages. I must have gotten the colors mixed up. After I got lost I completely gave up on the book because I got frustrated. I never knew I could get stumped by a picture book is probably the main reason whyI stopped reading. Overall I liked the idea of the book but I did not enjoy it because of the complexity of the lines and where they go to next. Do you just follow them? or do you flip the page and go from there? Those where two main questions that I was asking as I was trying to follow the book. I later found out how to read the book when we went over it in class.

I Think the moral of the book Meanwhile is that you choose your own path in life (like the lines in the book) and you face, deal with, and overcome adversity. In class we argued that about how people were born into less fortunate families and how that made life nearly impossible to succeed in because of where they started. We also said the more fortunate people who are born into wealthy families where money is not an issue have a life on a platter so to speak and do not need to work as hard as the less fortunate.  I strongly disagree, my out look on life and success is: success is  loving what you do and being happy and thankful for everything you have, every single day no matter how much money you make. Success is your personal enjoyment of life and everyone who is involved, like family and friends. Just because you were not born into a more fortunate family does not mean you cant be successful in life. And to say that the people who were born in less fortunate families with not a lot of money are content with a low income job because they believe that they only have that job because of there families wealth during their upbringing? That is completely false. Every single person has the chance in some way or another to prosper in life, the only hard part about this is having the heart, motivation and the "never give up" attitude to find how to too. "there are no secrets to success. it is the result of preparation, hard work and learning from failure." Colin L Powell            

Reincarnation

Reincarnation is a concept that is present in many of the world's cultures. Perhaps most notably, reincarnation is traditionally accepted in Indian culture and in the religious communities that have their origins in India such as Hinduism. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell uses this concept to weave together the many internal stories.

The first protagonist presented is David Ewing, who has a distinctive birthmark. All the protagonists in the following stories have this same birthmark, except for Sloosha's Crossin in which Meronym, not Zachry the protagonist has the birthmark.

This is the main clue that these people are really the reincarnation of the same soul. But an interesting point is that though they have the same soul, they have very differing personalities and characters. But, a recurring theme is that they fight against oppression and evil in some way. This implies that one's personality is temporary and fleeting, but it's core goodness is inherent despite its physical manifestation.

This goodness may be little and insignificant in its time, but it adds up through the accumulation of lifetimes. This is what is addressed in the last line of the book; "only as you gasp your dying breath shall you understand, your life amounted to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean!' Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?" What this line essentially gets at is that each life may be fleeting, but collectively throughout time these short lives can truly be of great consequence.

Meanwhile

When reading Meanwhile you get the opportunity to choose your own path. There are many difficult decisions throughout the story. I got stuck in the time travel circle for a long time before I found the right path. Other than the confusing parts of the story, I thought Meanwhile was a good and interesting read.

In class we discussed equal opportunity. It is obvious that some people are given more opportunities to succeed in life. This makes it easier for these people to make more money but that doesn't nessecarily mean that they don't need to work as hard. No one is going to be able to step in and run a business without the knowledge needed to help the company succeed. You can argue that they are millions of other people qualified for the job, but who would be a better canidate than the ceo's son/daughter? They lived their whole life watching and learning how their parent ran the company. People have talents that are unique to them so naturally there can't be equal opportunity. Someone who is seven feet tall is going to have a better chance of being a professional basketball player than someone who is five feet tall.

We also discussed the past and future in class. This reminded me of the movie Butterfly Effect. In this movie he traveled back in time and changed one small part of his life. From doing this his whole entire future was changed. This relates to meanwhile and the discussion we had about free will.

Cloud Atlas

Cloud Atlas is definitely a book that either you love or you hate. There is really no in between with this novel. It’s a sort of acquired taste. In my own personal opinion I didn’t like the book. Don’t get me wrong I am in no way saying that the book was horribly written. Even though I didn’t like the book I can appreciate how well it was written. I liked and didn’t like the way it was written.

The plot line and the way there are multiple stories that span almost half a century is sort of a deal breaker for me. It reminded me a lot of In the Night Garden and how there were different stories. It was hard for me to keep track of the different stories and try to figure out ways that each story was connected to another. The same way I didn’t like In the Night Garden for the multiple stories I didn’t like Cloud Atlas for the same reason. As much as I didn’t like the book I can’t say that it was a bad book it just wasn’t my cup of tea in a sense.

Before the in class discussion it was hard for me to see the connections between the different stories but after hearing people's examples it makes a little bit more sense to me. For example the idea of raising and falling throughout the story never really stuck out to me until someone mentioned it during a discussion.

What do you think the purpose of the different stories was?