Literary Kinds 2012

Yesterday's discussion about passion encouraged me to share this video with you. I have provided a link to a brief biography of the speaker and the link to the video in case any of you are interested. 

http://www.ted.com/speakers/isabel_allende.html

http://www.ted.com/talks/isabel_allende_tells_tales_of_passion.html

When I left class today my head was buzzing with different random ideas that I didn't now how to fit in to the conversation we had today.  For starters, I know we had the question about the smell of Orchids.  I don't know if Orleans tells us what the ghost orchid smells like but she does talk about the scent of other orchids.

Some orchids have straight-ahead good looks but have deceptive and seductive odors.  There are orchids that smell like rotting meat, which insects happen to like.  Another orchid smells like chocolate.  Another smells like an angel food cake.  Several mimic the scent of other flowers that are more popular with insects than they are.  Some release perfume only at night to attract nocturnal moths. p. 46.

So that was the answer to one of the questions we didn't get around too.

I've also had a question buzzing around my head.  In class it was mentioned that the full title of the novel is The Orchid Thief  A True Story of Beauty and Obession...but how can you have a true story about beauty?  We've been talking about this idea of truth and fiction and perception and I think beauty is a perception that can have no truth.  Beauty varies between societies and between individuals.  I don't like that she calls this a true story about beauty, it leaves me with this big question like "Beauty according to who?"  

For the first time in a really long time, I don't have much to say. I find myself confused between what I thought was clearly the message of Slaughterhouse Five, and the discussions we had this past week.

I thought that Slaughterhouse Five clearly showed the effects of war and how it cannot be reversed, can never be properly addressed, and most certainly, that the very root of the problem, which is war itself, can never be stopped. This was done by what appeared to a lack of structure, by the juxtaposition of Billy Pilgrim's so-called "time travels" and his reality, by the clever invention of Tralfamadorians and what they have to say. It seemed as if on the outside, Billy Pilgrim has gotten over what he has seen at war, by merely saying "So it goes" for every death he has to encounter or remember, relive. In reality, however, he still cannot escape his tragic past, and the way which he copes with it is by imagining this world of Tralfamadore, where everything already exists, has already happened, where he is not accountable for anything he had no power over, and where the inhabitants seem to be nonchalant about even the most devastating events like death, because there's no other way to correct, alter or change them. Tralfamadore was his escape, where he need not feel guilty for how he felt, being unable to stop the bombing in Dresden. I thought the message was to show that these are inescapable effects of war, that there is no way of changing it, just as his imagined world of Tralfamadore perceives time and events.

In my computer science class, we have started to look at data visualizations and my professor showed us this one in class on Thursday:

The epitaph on page 156 states that free will was the deciding factor between Billy Pilgrim wanting to tell his wife about the war. Free will allow us to make the choice whether or not to tell people others about certain events that have taken place in our lives. We only know the reason behind our words and actions; free will allows us to put these thoughts out there in a coherent way. Trust involves another person, regardless if we trust him/her enough to share our experience with, it is our free will entitles us to keep quiet or not. 

After I finished reading Slaughterhouse Five on Sunday, I was mostly confused and just a little bit annoyed with Billy Pilgrim.  Throughout the week, I got successively more irritated with Billy...he became the epitome of the word pathetic.  In class today, I was thinking about Billy and all the other pathetic characters I’ve had to deal with in books and in life.  Mostly, I was irritated.  I would not let them question my understanding or my beliefs, I let their pathetic existence affirm me.  I told myself that sincerity is always better than satire.