Literary Kinds

I think it is very interesting that we started out the class talking about genre as a form of labeling and now we are talking about framing not only in genres, but in the world. Framing has come up as almost a necessity...this is how we see the world not only in literary work, but also in reality as well as dreams? Similar arguments were also brought up for labeling...is it a necessity? It makes life easier? 

My problem with the "House's Brain/Wilson's Heart" 2-part episode is thus: not a single one of those doctors recused him or herself from that case.  In the real world, I'm pretty sure that's called "malpractice."  I know that Amber was unconscious, and I'm sure she trusted all of them implicitly.  However, there's a saying in law that a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client.  In medicine, where it is often much more emotional, it is absolutely unexcuseable that none of those doctors took themselves off the case, especially as each of them at one point or another realized they shouldn't be working on it.

I have been watching House for many years but once I sat down to view the show for the class rather than pleasure I noticed a pattern in the episodes that is also seen in the series. Roughly every show begins with the patient performing a mundane everyday task and then suddenly some sort of seizure or abnormal activity occurs that leads the rest of the show to take place in the hospital.

I finally finished reading my translation of "The Arabian Nights."  My text did not include a closing of the story of Shahrazad and the king.  The final story within the frame was unusual in many ways.  "The Story of Jullanar of the Sea" contains four strong female characters that balance the power of the four male characters.  The plot is also atypical in that it has elements very similar to the frame story.  There is a powerful monarch who takes lovers for a limited amount of time and then permanently maims them.  However, in the story within the story, the gender roles are reversed; the woman is the powerful partner.  The male lover, the hero, is able to escape from her harm.  It is a happily after ending, not unlike the translator's note about

mkarol pointed out that these stories have attached to them pictures.

-       For Thursday’s class we are watching episode 14 of the current/6th season of House, M.D., which is about a blogger that gets sick. Her medical decisions are effected by the fact that she is a blogger.

When did it begin? A story that is told in bits and pieces, chronologically, unfolding piece by piece? We know where it has led --to the literary story magazines of early 1900s, to television series, to the 1001 Arabian Nights. Part of the fun of this story is how much is held back ("tune in next week for Batman's latest adventures!") and how much the audience is controlled by the dispensation. We talked about this a bit with graphic novels and audio-books, how much different platforms/media allow audience pacing and interaction. Television series provide this in an even more structured sense, giving the viewer very specific time slots in which to 'watch' the story unfold.

 After my initial readings of the Thousand and One Nights where I skipped out of order I then went through and read the introduction through the Story of the Third Calendar, Son of a King of the ELF Lang translation. While I enjoyed the stories, I couldn't help but to compare my reading of them to what I remember of reading them as a child- I have only a collection of some of the stories and they were in miniature books in a box set. I'm sure that they were much more simplified than the translation that we are reading for class, but I remember being completely enthralled with the tales.

Drawing a comparison between House and 1001 Nights feels really strange.  However, just like each story in 1001 Nights seems to function on its own but is in fact tied to the others, episodes of House have episodic "patient of the week" plots, but there are still ongoing plots related to the main characters, and those don't make as much sense of of context.

Anyway, I love House; it's probably the only non-cartoon/American television series I actually follow.  The main reason I like the show has to do with the dynamic of House and Wilson's relationship, and the character of House himself.

After watching the “Private Lives” episode of House I began to really analyze privacy as a whole. From this episode I interpreted privacy as being similar to a very exclusive club and once one is married another member is added. The problem begins to arise when  the club goes from being exclusive to all inclusive when personal blogs are added to the mix. Frankie says in the episode that people behave badly when they think no one is watching and that she would not be honest if she chose which parts of her life to blog about. Choosing to end her privacy is her choice, but bringing her husband's life into the blog as well makes me question the boundaries of personal blogs.