Overbreak Reading: The Horse Whisperer

The first time I ever heard about the book "The Horse Whisperer," by Nicholas Evans must have been some years ago when I watched my Dad read it over the course of a weekend. When I asked him about it, the small review I recieved on the novel, went something like this: "It's really not a book for children. It's pretty depressing stuff."

My preteen self wasnt acustomed to hearing a review like that for a book with horses on the cover.
So I went on with my life, not really remembering about the book until it surfaced in my mothers bookshelf a couple days ago. I had originally signed up to read Catch 22 by Joseph Heller, and had originally gone to take it out of my mothers bookshelf. Instead I found Nicholas Evan's novel,and started reading it over the course of 48 hours. (Just like my father had done years before.)

Finally, I understood why a book with horses on the cover wouldnt be suited for 10 year old girls. Infact the first sentence of the book is haunting enough: "There was death at the beginning just as there would be death at the end" (Evans 1). Throughout the novel, the narrator takes an omniscient tone, tracking the lives of multiple people until their lives collide. In some lines, such as the opening of the book,the narrator forshadows events yet to come, letting the book take on an ominous tone.
The book encompases around a disfunctional family; the working class mother and father raising a mildy rebellious teenage girl.However, all the tension of the family rises to the surface when the teenage girl and her horse get into an accident leaving the girl with one leg, and the horse in a mental turmoil.

Although the main theme of the novel was loss of self-worth due to tragic events, the more important theme seemed to be reconciliation.
As the tragic event occurs, it brings the family closer together as they travel across the country in order to find help for the girl and her horse. The theme of the novel then becomes reconciling a broken mother-daughter relationship as the two seek help. This blending of themes advances the complexity of the nature of humans to rise above otherwise debilitating events in order to find a better place. Right after the accident, Grace goes from questioning "Who's going to want me now?" (53) to feeling a strong sense of self-worth and pride.

Hello everybody-
Sorry to be posting this so late. Please bear with me- im having some computer usage problems. Thanks!

Before I commence to talking about "Where I lived and What I lived For" I think it is important to talk about Henry David Thoreau himself. As we talked about in class today, Thoreau is almost Emerson's counterpart in his ideas of society. Whereas Emerson does put a heavy accent on the individual, he does not believe in completely rejecting society. This is cleary seen even in his personal life, as an industrious writer, publishing multiple works. He uses an epigraph from Honest Man's Fortune" to demonstrate that societal influince is perhaps- inevitable. The epigraph states "Command all light, command all influence," establishing this important point. (Beaumont & Fletcher).
What is the counterpart to this societal influince?
The answer of course must be isolation-
and Thoreau demonstrates this through the fact that he completely removes himself from society. For some period of the American author's life, he lived in the woods as to prevent himself from conforming to society.
His attitude is one in which "government is best [when it} governs least" (713). Thoreau analyzes society by brigning up an important rhetorical question. "The American government, - what is it but a tradition?" Is society based soley on tradition? And if so, where does this fit in with the individual?
Thoreau's ideas on society are extremely clear. He relates it to a weapon, demonstrating that societal influince is what wounds the individual. He says "It is a sort of wooden gun to the people themselves; and if they should use it in earnest as a real one against each other, it will surely split."
An important note to think about is that in this essay, Thoreau contemplates the meaning of life- but in simple terms. The "ordinary" everyday life.Throughout his essay, Thoreau puts emphasis on his simple everyday activities, such as reading books. What does this say about the meaning of life itself? Through analyzing the simplicity of everyday activities, Thoreau poses an important point: "That man who does not believe that each day contains an earlier, more sacred, and auroral hour than he has yet profaned, has despaired life, and is pursuing a descending and darkening way."

American Literature Pre-discussion.

American Literature:
It's a small small world.

As demonstrated in "American Literature," In the ninteenth century, the "literary world was very small indeed, so small that each of the writers of the period knew each other" (106). This of course, implies that the literary world was strongly influinced by the writngs of other authors. Some literature was even a mere immitation of earlier literature, and some authors had "legions of immitators"(335). The literary world almost relied on immitation. What does this say about society today? Is modern literature a mere immitation of the past? Is the American Literary tradition the same tradition that it was a century ago?
Although our modern literature does have many elements that were influinced by the literature of the past, I do believe that the American Literary Tradition becomes altered as years and generations go by. For instance, "Sex and Sexual Roles" in literature were often vague, if there at all, at a time where "sex was banished from all magazines and most books" (343). In modern times, sex in literature is almost a symbol of expression, and American pop culture.
Just like the ideas of transcendentalism in the 1800's, believe there will always be new movements in literature that define a current epoch. As transcendentalism was influinced by romantisism, and even Platonism, our movements will be influinced by a new way of thinking; ultimately giving bith to a new era.

Rhetoric Project Pre- Discussion Question

Is the whole novel of Housekeeping essentially an extended metaphor? If so, what is it a metaphor for, and how does this accentuate the themes that Marilynne Robinson intended to create?

Housekeeping: An Extension of Class Discussion

One important point touched on today during class discussion, was the question of whether or not Ruth was dead throughout the novel of Housekeeping. If she wasn't dead throughout the novel, then did she die when crossing the bridge, entering the threshold into another world entirely? Maralynne Robinson certaintly does a good job using language to create an eerie, ghostly effect. As Ruth crosses the bridge, she thinks of a hypothetical situation in which Sylvie has a newspaper clipping "pinned to the underside of her right lapel" (Robinson 213) describing her and Ruth's escape. The heading reads, "LAKE CLAIMS TWO" (213). Although this is all supposedly hypothetical, words in the passage such as "vanished" "drifting" and "creaking" evoke an ominous tone, implying that perhaps maybe the lake really did claim two.
I don't believe Maralynne Robinson intended one clear answer for this, as the novel can be interpreted in many, all equally haunting ways.

Perhaps when debating this question, a reader should take into careful consideration the themes of the novel. What I found essential to the question, was the theme of never being able to reach ones destination. This theme embeds quite early in the novel, when we are introduced to Ruth's grandfather. Her grandfather quits his "subterraneous house, walks to the railroad and takes a train West. He tells the ticket agent that he wants to go the mountains" (4). Due to unexpected catastrophe, the train plunges into the depths of the lake... and his death is final and complete. He is never able to reach his final destination.
However the deaths of Ruth and Sylvie are never final. As I mentioned in class discussion, there were times when reading the novel that I thought Sylvie and Ruth had physically died. When Sylvie stood on the bridge as Ruth is secretely watching her, I expected a suicide attempt, as it seemed like the proper final action to take. Even a natural action.
But for the sake of argument, perhaps Sylvie didnt die. There is always the possibility that crossing the bridge is what gave Ruth and Sylvie life. Unlike their grandfather, the fact that the two never reached their destination after crossing the bridge isn't certain. The only thing of certainty is the fact that Ruth and Sylvie were able to put "an end to Houskeeping" (209) by escaping the place where they were ghosts of society. Wherever the bridge leads to, whether other-worldly or not, Sylvie and Ruth's spirits seem to be liberated by crossing.

Rhetorical Analysis: "The Raven"

In Edgar Allen Poe's poem "The Raven," Poe uses the effect of language and tone to demonstrate that the raven is an extended metaphor for death. The language he uses is cacophonous, with words such as "dreary, dying, weak, weary, etc.." The tone Poe evokes is one of melancholia. Plus the fact that he uses a personal tone, referring to himself in first person, draws the reader closer to him. As the raven appears, he uses morbid language such as "grave, ghastly, and grim" to emphasize to the reader that the raven is symbolic of death. In his poem, he clearly asserts this by saying, "For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being/Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door/ with such a name as "nevermore." The fact that Poe uses the word 'nevermore' with such repetition, demonstrates that with the arrival of the raven, there will be nothing-more for the speaker himself. As Poe romanticizes this melancholia, he uses pathos, leaving the reader to assume that he will end up with the same fate as his beloved 'Lenor.'