Vote

The book that I think should be included in the next rendition of this course is My Most Excellent Year. The reason for this decision is because I thought the group did the best job in presenting their book. The group was very thorough and each member gave a very good reason why they thought the book should be included in the next class. The book sounds like it was a really fun book to read and it also sounds like it has the potential to create many good discussions. I also thought the group did very well because they seemed to have everything planned out really well for their presentation. If I were to take this class again I think I would really enjoy reading this novel and discussing it. My Most Excellent Year seems like it involves some things that are in society such as homosexuality and coming out. It sounds like people were very accepting when Augie came out and told people he was gay.

The novel sounds similar to some of the books that we read this semester that I thought were really good, such as My Year of Meats, which I really liked. I think it sounds like this novel would be a good way to start out the semester and it could potentially replace My Year of Meats. I really enjoy novels that switch the point of view, I find these types of novels more interesting then just following one point of view. My choice for the next time this class is offered is My Most Excellent Year. I personally want to read this book now and from what the group said during their presentation is sounds like this would be a great novel to include in this class.

Project Mayhem

Project Mayhem uses New York City's financial district as the nexus of their frustration because Tyler Durden's idea is that if the financial district is destroyed then all the credit history will also be destroyed. My thinking is that Tyler had some credit issues and maybe he did not have a very good credit history so rather than working on fixing the issues on his history, why not just destroy the financial district so he can start fresh. I guess for someone who has serious mental problems such as Tyler, this idea of destroying the financial district is probably the best solution to the problem.

I would imagine that after 9/11 a lot of people had issues with this movie for the reason that Tyler is involved in a terrorist group that goes around New York causing destruction to businesses. I think that the way the buildings in the financial district blew up was very similar to how the twin towers fell after being struck by the planes. There were so many people that perished in the 9/11 attacks that I could see their families and loved ones getting upset about this movie. The only thing I don't completely understand is that this movie came out two years before 9/11 happen so I find it a bit odd that people had issues with this movie. I guess it might be due to the fact that there was a terrorist group involved in the destruction of the financial district and a terrorist group was the direct cause of the 9/11 attacks. It could be that I do not completely understand why people would be so upset about this movie after 9/11 because I was a 15 year-old in high school and it did not affect me as much as is did others. It could also be that I did not see this movie until now so maybe if I would have seen it shortly after or before 9/11 occurred I may have viewed this movie differently.

In the Shadow of no Towers class discussion

I enjoyed the class discussion on In the Shadow of no Towers. I learned more after discussing it such as the the sections that were about comic strips that were some of the first comics to be published. I haven't ever really gotten into comics except for Calvin and Hobbs so I had no clue who these people in the comics were. I'm not sure if it is because when those comics were popular I was not born yet or I was very little. I think graphic novels are interesting since they make you work differently then other novels. I heard a lot of people in class mention about the work that this particular graphic novel required from the reader in order to understand. I was not sure if it was just me and the fact that I do not really read graphic novels, but it seemed as though there were several other people who felt that they were required to piece together the sections in order for it to make sense.

I thought it was fun reading this graphic novel, but I do not think I will be reading any graphic novels anytime soon. I like being able to understand what it is that I am reading and there were several times that I was completely confused, like the part where the author talks about being in different places when the planes hit the towers. That whole part threw me off and I was not sure what was true. It helped me a little after the discussion in class to understand that maybe because of all the chaos going on the author was also unsure about his exact location when the tragedy struck. I found that confusing still, but it helped me to understand why the confusion may have been there in the first place.

In the Shadow of no Towers

I have never read a graphic novel before, but I am really enjoying reading In The Shadows of no Towers. I think it gives you a little bit of a different perspective about 9/11. When it happened I read about it everytime I got on the internet, read the newspaper or in magazines. The tragic event of 9/11 was all over the media, but I had never really experienced it in this sort of a perspective. I can sense the fear in the characters and the panic when they are trying to find their daughter fearing that she had parished in the attack. I also think the way that there are drawings to go along with the text it allows you to not only read about what happened but you get to follow along with the drawings of the towers and the chaos that followed.

I had a little bit of a hard time reading the first part of the novel just because things are a bit scattered so I had difficulties trying to figure out which section to read next. I thought it jumped around a bit in the locations of the comics so I had to slow down and make sure I was following the right one and not jumping around from one to another. Once I figured it out it went a little smoother but there were times when I wasn't quite sure where I was suppose to go next to read since they were kind of jumbled together in places. Despite this confusion I did enjoy the novel and look forward to finishing it and I think I will probably re-read it since I think I missed some things in the first section.