Camus Entry

"O my soul, do not aspire to immortal life, but exhaust the limits of the possible."

How will you exhaust the limits of the possible...and perhaps as a result, not become immortal, but leave a legacy?

Or

Write about something you felt, or thought about, during class today.

Nice job today, keep up the good work.

Alchemist Blog

Again you have three blogs due over the next two weeks:

1.) How is The Alchemist a hero journey?

2.) React to a review on mouthshut.com
http://www.mouthshut.com/product-reviews/Alchemist___The_-_Paulo_Coelho-925035707.html

3.) Comment upon Coelho's blog
http://paulocoelhoblog.com/

All of the outside postings should be pasted into our blog in order for you to receive credit.

Let me know if you have any questions...

More Extra Credit

A modern art interpretation of Borges Labyrinth principle--maybe or maybe not? You decide, if you would like...

http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/serra/index.html

More Fights

Here are some more options:

1.) What is the human sacrifice that Tyler starts performing?

2.) Is our narrator's name really Tyler Durden?

Talk amongst yourselves....

Blog Club

This week--you need to compose one more blog entry on Fight Club, by Thursday at the start of the class. Here are the topics I gave you in class on Monday, but please feel free to write about whatever may move you as an artist, person, bystander, punching bag--

1.) Marla—what is the role/function of Marla? Is she real, and how does her lie reflect the narrators lie? How is Marla the problem that will not heal, will our narrator not let it heal?
2.) Tyler muses, “the things we own end up owning us…I say lets evolve.” Is Tyler suggesting that evolution take place by society taking a step back? Is this similar to Thoreau’s notion of “simplify, simplify, simplify” or Dostoevsky’s arithmetic that 2 X 2 =5?
3.) “One can make all sorts of explosive items with simple household things.” Like what? Again, why soap? An obvious question but an answer that may be hard to articulate.
4.) Why have pornography, why have fantasy, is this necessary—is it a good thing? Burgess in the introduction to A Clockwork Orange writes, “I enjoyed ripping and raping by proxy.” Thus, are we all clockwork oranges composed of good and evil, grinding opposition, do we all have impish and evil desires and should we find a way to act on them in healthy ways?

Let me know if you have any questions....lastly, the posts as of late have been great, keep up the exemplary work.

NYT--Lives

I was the reading New York Times this Sunday, and I stumbled upon the following article; it is a poem a mother wrote to her son in Iraq...interesting how keep inventory on those things we hold dear, those things we hold close to ourselves...thought I would pass it along to you--comment if you so desire.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/magazine/02lives-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&oref=slogin

Extra Credit Club

Hello--if you would like extra credit, please visit the following link and read the article from USA Today:

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2006-05-29-fight-club_x.htm

Then respond to the following thought: are the people inspired by the film, and thus responsible for starting underground Fight Clubs, understanding the true nature, message, and themes of the film?

Is the movie Fight Club really promoting violent and aggressive behaviour?

Extra, Extra--More Kiefer

I like the following site so much more:

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.matthewlangley.com/blog/uploaded_images/ak47-703628.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.matthewlangley.com/blog/2006/07/anslem-kiefer-heaven-and-earth.html&h=320&w=277&sz=32&hl=en&start=1&um=1&tbnid=XF47EJWdjpR9RM:&tbnh=118&tbnw=102&prev=/images%3Fq%3DAnslem%2Bkiefer%26ndsp%3D18%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26rls%3DTSHA,TSHA:2005-13,TSHA:en%26sa%3DN

So go through this site--look at Kiefer's images but also Langley's commentary--then write how it makes you feel, what it makes you think, or why ___________?

Kiefer Extra Credit

Please view the following painting and comment upon the statement you believe Kiefer is trying to make through his visual demonstration:

http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/photos/12-01-06/Kiefer.jpg

The Club

Picking up on the thread that started with Paz yesterday and continued through with Fight Club today--

1. The issue of nameless narrators--which other narrator is he like?
2. How does the narrator want to reach/touch the center of his wave?
3. How is the essence of Tyler Durden distilled into little pieces of ice and put into people's drinks?

Think about Mamet's essay, "Secret Names"
"Names are powerful...but anything called a relationship must eventually result in sorrow, as the participants are willing to examine its name and nature."

On Monday you have one blog entry due--you can either write on one of these questions OR you can answer one of the three questions located on the top of the handout I passed out on Thursday.

Lastly, I will post the Kiefer extra credit assignment on the blog by the end of the day today, and I will also post a basic, albeit basic, blueprint for our plan of attack for next week.

Checking In

First, nice job today in class...I think it went very well.

For tomorrow--your essays are due at the start of class. Remember you can choose either option 1 or option 2--please include what option you select at the start of your paper.

For Monday--you will need to complete a blog response on the three questions we will go over regarding Fight Club

Extra Credit: comment, on the blog, on the Kiefer painting "Burned Books"--the link to this picture will be up by the end of the day tomorrow.

Lastly, if you have any questions about your "Araby" writing assignments please find a time for us to sit down and work through them one-on-one.

Rest and Relaxation over President's Day

I hope that everyone is have a nice long four day weekend...

For Wednesday--you will need to re-read and write down your thoughts on Joyce's "Araby." These should be typed out compositions--but they do not need to be essay form.

Also, sometime Tuesday, please stop by our classroom in order to pick up a handout I would like you to read for class Wednesday.

Lastly, if anyone knows of any good female "world" lit. writers, please pass along their names.

2 Options, 3 Days, 4 Posts

Many of you still need to write this week on the blog--tonight is your last night to do so and get credit for your weekly blog assessment.

You can either write on the previous prompts
OR
for those of you that prefer more literary analysis over self awareness--try this one on for size:
What is Paz talking about in his short story, "My Life with the Wave?" What is the wave?

Again, if anyone would like to meet with concerning your writing or our present condition, route, as a class, please feel free to email me in order to set up a time to talk.

Hoping everyone is having a nice snow/sleet/rain day.

See you tomorrow.

Conversations with Nansen

You can either write about the sound of one hand clapping

OR

Joshu asked Nansen: `What is the path?'
Nansen said: `Everyday life is the path.'
Joshu asked: `Can it be studied?'
Nansen said: `If you try to study, you will be far away from it.'
Joshu asked: `If I do not study, how can I know it is the path?'
Nansen said: `The path does not belong to the perception world, neither does it belong to the nonperception world. Cognition is a delusion and noncognition is senseless. If you want to reach the true path beyond doubt, place yourself in the same freedom as sky. You name it neither good nor not-good.'

Decipher and Discuss--good luck.

Vayas Con Dios Borges

Picking up on the thread of our discussion in class today, I thought I would give you one more chance to wrestle with Borges. Thus answer the following question:

"We all know the sound of two hands clapping but what is the sound of one hand clapping?"

One blog entry this week--and one question..

Labyrinths

Just a reminder--

Your 3-D Labyrinths are due at the start of class tomorrow.

We will be sharing them throughout the duration of the week.

Hope everyone is having a good weekend...

You Can Write if you Want to--but if you don't write...well then

Tomorrow's assignment in the form of a Haiku--

See using your hands
Discover where it can lead:
Construct a third world...

Heros???

Tonight's Blog Entry--two options:

1.) Is Kilpatrick a hero or a traitor? What is Borges saying about how we use the definitions of words? What is Borges saying about the relationship between history and fiction in this story?

OR

2.) Go to the following link and read the excerpt--comment freely on what you read and see. Are we all invisible men, people?

http://themasticator.blogspot.com/2007/03/jeff-wall-and-ralph-ellison-invisible.html

The Library of Babel

Reading for tonight--
"Fumes the memorious," "Theme of the Hero and the Traitor," and "Death and Compass"--due for Wednesday.

As for the blog--

What about World No.3--who creates? Why is it shaped in a unique manner?

OR

Write about the creature with eyes in his hands--why, oh why?

Lastly, very nice job in class today...well done and keep up the good work.

The Library of Blah

Just a reminder--you do not have any new reading due for Monday...however, if you want to get ahead on your blogging for the week, try wrapping your heads around this one:

What does Borges mean when he says, "The library is unlimited and cyclical?" How is this possible and what is Borges inferring from this statement--also why does he end this story with the sentence, "My solitude is gladdened by this elegant hope?" What produces the narrator's, Borges', "elegant hope?"

I hope that everyone had a very nice weekend. Lastly, I think you all did some very nice work during Friday's class. Good job.

See you tomorrow.

Oh Borges

Again, I repeat the sentiment--this is just a book, it is just a book, like every other book you have read, studied, written about...today in class I tried to create an element of frustration. Thus, you should feel frustrated with Borges, the book, class today. With fear and failure, forward progression is allowed to take place....thus,

1. What is Uqbar
2. Who creates Uqbar

Think but don't think--the true answer resides in you.

Best of luck.

Topics for Tonight

The prompts from yesterday are generating some good responses--so let's stay with them.

If you wrote last night and if you wish, your second entry, can be on one of the new questions.

Keep up the good work.

Borges--"The Garden of Forking Paths"

Link to find the story, "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Teritus" please have the story printed for class on Wednesday
http://www.coldbacon.com/writing/borges-tlon.html--

Blog Entry--you can write on any of the following questions:

1.) What does it mean to "crack up?" Is Fitzgerald right when he says, "I must hold in balance the sense of the futility of effort and the sense of the necessity to struggle; the conviction of the inevitability of failure and still the determination to 'succeed'--and more than these, the contradiction between the dead hand of the past and the the high intentions of the future.

2.) Who would Campbell say is a hero? What makes them heroic?

3.) Read a newspaper article about a current event happening in the world--write a response about how you feel about that event--can you relate to it, does it anger you, sadden you, does it not bother you in the least? Why? Is your life, your time at BA, reside in a different world than those people suffering social strife in Kenya? Or do we share on universal experience?

Good luck. Please let me know if you have any questions about what we did in class today or why we did it....I think it will make more sense as we move into our examination of Borges.

See you Wednesday.

Topics

http://www.hamilton.edu/writing/index.html

Choose one of the following topics--

How is our narrator a hero or anti-hero?

How does he view the writing process and books?

Why does he go underground or what is underground?

What is the function of Liza?

Why is our narrator sick?

Essay Questions

1.) How is the narrator a hero or an anti-hero?
2.) How does the narrator view the written word, the process of writing?
3.) How is the narrator sick?
4.) What is the function of Liza--what do we learn about our narrator though his interactions with her.

Choose one. No more than three pages. Good luck. Email me with questions.

http://www.hamilton.edu/writing/index.html

Last One

I am sorry this post is finding you so late—but here it is:

Why does Dostoevsky end “Notes from Underground” with the following passage, “This is not the end, however, of the ‘Notes’ of this paradoxical writer. He could not help going on. But to us too it seems that this will be a good place to stop. 1864.” What theme does quote tie back to and how does it relate to the start of the book? What is this saying about the relationship between the reader and the writer, but perhaps more importantly the role of the writer?

Nice job today in class—I am extremely proud of all you have accomplished thus far, and you should all be proud of the work, time, and effort you have put into the class. Well done.

I will have the links to Hamilton College, UNC, and Harvard up first thing tomorrow morning.

Lastly, there is no homework for tonight—unless you need to post a blog entry, get caught up on the reading, or for those who are feeling bold starting the extra credit assignment. Again, one last reminder, if you do more than the required number of posts on a given week, you get extra points. Yeah for extra points. See you tomorrow.

Extra Credit

Due Monday

Assignment:
Create an artistic rendition of what 'the underground' looks like or try and articulate what 'the underground' is through an artistic interpretation. This can be a movie, a piece of writing, a CD, collage, poem, painting, etc.

This is an open ended assignmentthat does not possess one answer. So be creative--don't fear the unknown or the ambiguous, let your thoughts wander and lead you to a true thought, an original idea.

Best of Luck.

Dostoyevsky and Emerson would have been friends

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today. 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' Is it so bad to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood."
--"Self-Reliance" by Ralph Waldo Emerson

How would the narrator of our text feel about this Emerson quote?

or

Is our narrator misunderstood--and thus, is he great?

or

....

See you tomorrow.

Notes For Tomorrow

I hope that everyone had a good first day back after the long weekend. I know I am struggling to get readjusted by am excited for class tomorrow. Again, another reminder that you only need to post one blog response this week.

For tomorrow--

Read and react to the reading due for tomorrow--what did you find interesting, how did you react to it on a personal/visceral level, what symbols or images is Dostoevsky repeating in order to establish a specific theme?

This is an open ended question, so be bold...be creative. See you tomorrow.

The Myth of Sisyphus

This week, due to our in-class writing exercise on Thursday, you only need to complete one blog entry. With that being said, if you complete more than one--you will obtain extra credit.

First question of the week, how do you interpret, decipher, and understand Camus' essay, "The Myth of Sisyphus." How does this essay by Camus correlate to the ideas present within "Notes from Underground" and/or your own personal experiences? Is Sisyphus' rock comparable to the walls our narrator runs into?

OR for those of you feeling rested and a little bold...

Discuss and explain the following quote:
"It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end. That hour like a breathing space which returns as surely as his suffering, that is the hour of consciousness. At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks toward the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock."

"I submit that an individual who breaks the law that conscience tells him is unjust and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the very highest respect for law." --Martin Luther King Jr.
Let's remember and celebrate Dr. King today, but more importantly, let us keep his words in our hearts everyday.

Stream of Consciousness

"For some reason I believe if I write it down, I can get rid of it."

Today in calls we talked about the process of recognizing, accepting, and then deconstructing the walls that imprison our true selves. "For some reason I believe if I write it down, I can get rid of it." Thus, is writing the ultimate tool that enables you to deconstruct the things, ideas, people that restrict you? So rip down the walls through writing--by deconstructing something someone has told you and you feel is not right...do not use a filter, do not suppress emotion--just think, emote, and write...the right way is the write way.

One of your peers said in a blog entry, "I myself have yet to rally up and fight; however, as I examine myself and my age group, I cannot help but cling to a hope that our anger is manifesting itself towards a brave voice."

You can fight through your words, you can let your anger be the catalyst for your thoughts--just make sure you give your ideas hope through expressing yourself in a brave voice.

Siddhartha

“Siddhartha had begun to feel the seeds of discontent within him. He had begun to feel that the love of his father and mother, and also the love of his friend Govinda, would not always make him happy, give him peace, satisfy and suffice him. He had begun to suspect that his worthy father and his other teachers, the wise Brahmins, had already passed on to him the bulk and best of their wisdom, that they had already poured the sum total of their knowledge into his waiting vessel; and the vessel was not full, his intellect was not satisfied, his soul was not at peace, his heart was not still. The ablutions were good, but they were water; they did not was sins away, they did not relieve his distressed heart…One must find the source within one’s own Self, one must possess it. Everything else was seeking—a detour, error.”
--Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

How does this quote connect to you Dostoyevsky's nameless narrator, and thus, to our own lives? Please, if you can, utilize textual support from Notes from Underground. Is total consciousness, total self-awareness, an acceptance of the fact that we feel pain and that things are not perfect? A total acceptance of our present state.

Notes On Notes

Hello--

So many good ideas were shared last period--however, I am struggling to understand how they fit together...so our goal for the start of class tomorrow is to find a way to put all of the pieces together in a logical manner. Thus, no new questions for the blog tonight--instead answer ones that have already been posted.

Our goal for tomorrow--take a step back in order to make sure we understand the essential ideas put forth in chapter one.

I hope you all have a good day--see you tomorrow.

If you like small liberal arts colleges...

http://community.middlebury.edu/~beyer/courses/previous/ru351/novels/UGMan/ugman.html

Here is a link to a study guide created by three Middlebury students...its is just okay, but the part at the end regarding the symbolism of the novel is pretty good.

A Story of the Falling Sleet

Two to chew over, taste, and digest if you would like--

1.) In the first chapter the underground man states, "Of course, boredom leads to every possible kind of ingenuity. After all, it is out boredom that golden pins get stuck into people, but all this would not matter. What is bad (again this is me speaking) is that fora ll I know people may then find pleasure in golden pins." Why would people like being stabbed with golden pins? What is a modern day example of this, how do you relate to this idea?

2.) The narrator spends so much time talking about, "l'homme de la nature et de la vertite." Does nature breed truth? How does a man of nature understand the laws that produce truth? Is this a contradiction? How might the laws of nature also create the society in which our narrator loathes?

Washington State University Study Guide

The following link, http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/hum_303/underground.html, will take you to a study guide created by a professor at Washington State University...for those of you that are struggling with the text, I think it would be very wise for you to use it on a nightly basis. You can use the link and its guiding questions in order to better understand the essential elements of the work.

Also the introduction does a nice job of establishing five larger ideas that makes Notes from Underground, "one of the most influential pieces of fiction in Western European History."

I hope this helps...Also remember that you are responsible for composing two blog entries this week and you must have those entries completed before class starts--we will go over this again tomorrow.

More questions to be posted by the end of the school day.

Notes From Underground

I just realized that we all might have different copies of Notes; therefore, let me make sure we are all on the same page. For Wednesday, at the start of class everyone should have read up to part two of chapter two. Start thinking about how chapter one and chapter two are different—is chapter one our narrator’s manifesto and chapter two the manifestation of those thoughts and his call to action? If you have any questions—please, please, please, send me an email, find me tomorrow, or throw up a smoke signal.
Hope everyone checks this and is having a good snow day…ok time to get back to shoveling.

“The hero, or rather anti-hero as Dostoyevsky calls him, of the text is a man turned in upon himself, a man of heightened awareness and self-consciousness, who sensitivity to slights drives him alternately to retreat into his corner, his underground, and to revenge himself for his humiliations by humiliating others.” How is our nameless narrator humiliating others and how is this a ‘heroic’ act? Can a man chastised by his generation and country be a hero? Is our narrator an example of Thoreau’s thought, “to be great is to be misunderstood?”

OR

The narrator deconstructs his society by breaking its inhabitants into two types of people—men of action vs. men of thought. From his isolation, musings about his liver, and introspective thoughts, it is clear that he is a thinking man; thus, why would he say, “I swear to you that to think too much is a disease, a real, actual disease.” How is thinking a disease? And is our narrator suffering from this illness? Do all artists, rebels, misfits suffer this disease and is this the reason why they take “up the pen?”

More questions to come tomorrow--remember you need to publish two posts of three hundred words by Friday.

The Arcade Fire Experience

First and foremost, well done today in class and last night on your writing assignment; I apologize for talking so much today during our long block and not allowing more time to hear your thoughts, comments, and ideas—this is a trend will not continue. For tonight, I would like you to write a minimum of three hundred words on the following thought:

David Moore’s, of Pitchfork Magazine, opening lines of his review for The Arcade Fire's record, Funeral, reads "ours is a generation overwhelmed by frustration, unrest, dread, and tragedy." Camus in his Nobel Prize Address says, "Each generation doubtless feels called upon to reform the world. Mine knows that it will not reform it, but its task is perhaps even greater. It consists in preventing the world from destroying itself. Heir to corrupt history, in which are mingled fallen revolutions, technology gone mad, dead gods, and worn out ideologies, where mediocre powers can destroy all yet no longer know how to convince, where intelligence has debased itself to become the servant of hatred and oppression, this generation starting from its own negations has had to reestablish, both within and without, a little of that which constitutes the dignity of life and death."

Life and death seem to be the two anchoring ideas in which the rest of the record, Funeral, is born out of. Thus, what needs to be reborn in order for your generation to no longer be "overwhelmed by frustration, unrest, dread, and tragedy" to ensure that you reform the world, your place within it, or how you view it. What themes, ideas, images, thoughts present within both Funeral and Camus' speech enable this process to occur?


Or…

Camus said, “but although this nostalgia explains many of my errors and my faults, it has doubtless helped me toward a better understanding of my craft. It is helping me still to support unquestioningly all those silent men who sustain the life made for them in the world only through memory or the return of brief and free happiness.” The issue of to be silent or to speak; but does the reader ultimately give the writer’s voice sound—is the writer only a mute without the reader putting meaning within his ideas? Is one of the themes running through both Camus’ speech and The Arcade Fire’s "Funeral"—the cathartic process of production, the self-saving satisfaction of creating? Please answer yes or no, using textual support from both sources.

Read and React

The following link, http://www.raimes.com/camus2.htm, will bring you to Camus' Novel Prize Acceptance speech--please read this address and comment upon the message he is trying to convey. Simply, read and react.

First Take

1.) Borges said, "any life is made up of a single moment, the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is." What is the moment for John Vincent Moon--and who does he find out he is?

2.) To quote Borges again, "time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along. But I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me. But I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire." How does this idea correlate with an assertion Borges makes in "The Shape of the Sword?" What is Borges suggesting about time and how we should utilize it?