Review

At first glance An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England by Brock Clarke might be some sort of cult’s “bible”. Just for the record other people may think this too and you could possible get some dirty looks out in public, so you might want to consider getting this one on Kindle. There is a possibility you even get reported to the police by one of these nosy people. In the case that you do get arrested, you will have more thrills in the jail’s holding center than you will get reading this book.

            Sam Pulsifer, a self-described “bumbler”, is the main character of the book. When he was eighteen he set fire to Emily Dickinson’s home in only a way a true “bumbler” can, accidentally. When all things were said and done Sam unknowingly killed two people in the fire, and was sentenced to ten years in prison. After he gets out of prison he completely starts over. He marries a beautiful woman and they have two children. He does this all while withholding his past life from his family. At this point in the book you probably have decided with the topic of either empathizing with him or hating him. What most will come to find out “bumblers” always will make you feel like they are begging for your pity, and this one of the reasons why you will hate him. With comments like “Where should I go?” after his parents force him to move out of their house after only a month of living there after his stint at prison, you will be leaning toward the sympathy side of things. After he later goes on to admit to cheating on his wife, which he didn’t do, you will struggling to conjure up any feelings of sympathy for him. This struggle between liking or a hating a character happens with many other people in the book also. If I had one word of advice to give to Brock Clarke and other authors in general, I would say to not let the reader decide if they should like a character or not, make the decision for them.

            When it comes to the writing craft something of it sizzles while other parts just fizzle and die like a poorly constructed campfire in a pouring rain. Many people reading may be expecting a book that is “wildly, unpredictably funny” like The New York Times promises, but what you will is a book that is only somewhat funny.  Many of the jokes fall flat, because of how Sam just keeps talking and talking in the manner of a person who thinks they are funny but they aren’t. You get the feeling of a bad sitcom where the audience is laughing at all the things that should be funny, but they aren’t.  It would be a lie if someone told you that this wasn’t funny at all, but it just isn’t as funny as advertised causing many people to be irked.  

            All in all I would give this book two stars out of five. Maybe if you read this book with lower expectations it would be more enjoyable, but when you expect an outrageously funny book and don’t get one, you feel let down leading this book to get the review that it got.  

Top Five

POST #7 Truth in Memoir

In my mind, if a book wants to be considered non-fiction it must be one hundred percent true. If a story with bent truths is being passed off as a book that is non-fiction, then I feel like I am being lied to and as the great Oprah Winfrey put it “duped”.  I think a solution to stopping things like this from happening is making the sub-genre of “memoir” more specific by classifying completely true stories as non-fiction memoirs and half true stories “novels that are based on a true story”.
Personally, I do feel that half truths that have good stories are alright. My issue is their classification. I think that you shouldn’t take something, and call it something else that is wrong. For example, what if I took a soccer ball and sold it as a football to people who don’t know it isn’t a football. Then I said that they both have “ball” in their descriptions so they are pretty much the same thing. People would say I’m a person who lies, so why do authors get to do this?

Post #6 READICIDE

I feel that Gallagher’s argument is very true. I do feel that schools are killing children’s love for reading. To solve this issue I think we should stop teaching the classics exclusively and adopt Gallagher’s idea of teaching genre fiction fifty percent of the time and literary fiction the other fifty percent of the time. To expand on this idea I think that we should pair a classic with a genre fiction novel and use to the two to compare and contrast styles of writing, ideas portrayed, etc. This could help give children an appreciation for the art that literary fiction is and the entertainment value found in genre fiction.

I think that genre fiction shouldn’t be undervalued when compared to literary fiction. I think that they both should be held to the same standards. I understand that literary fiction may be harder to write and more of an art form, but this shouldn’t mean that genre fiction is overlooked. For one, genre fiction usually has a better plot and story than most literary fiction. For all we know someone who can write good literary fiction couldn’t write an entertaining and interesting story as well a genre fiction writer can. On the flipside, a genre fiction writer may not be able to write a story that is rich in detail like a literary fiction author can. Another reason that genre fiction has the same value as literary fiction is that they both have their strong a weak points. Genre fiction does a good job of being relevant, enjoyable, entertaining, etc., while it can be lacking in terms of writing craft. Literary fiction is strong in terms of writing craft, having a lasting effect on society, conveying strong messages, etc., meanwhile it may be lacking in being relatable to modern readers and being as entertaining.

Fight Club Book Trailer

Presention: http://prezi.com/fwz8whvpyxa1/copy-of-book-project-2/

Adaptation (CAUTION: Spoiler Alert)

The major challenge that a filmmaker would have in adapting a Fight Club to a book would be showing how Tyler Durden and the Narrator is the same person. This is major challenge because it is so important to the storyline that you can’t just separate the two of them and make them two different people; they need to somehow mesh at the end and still make sense to the viewer.

·         The first scene that a filmmaker would need to keep is when they hold the first fight club. This scene is just too iconic to the book, to keep out of the movie,

·         The second scene that a filmmaker would need to keep is the scene when Tyler kisses the narrator with the lye. This is the first scene that shows how crazy and demanding Tyler actually is.

·         The third scene that a filmmaker would need to keep is when the narrator figures out that he is Tyler and Tyler is him. This scene really makes the book. It is completely unexpected.

o   The first thing that a filmmaker needs to cut out is the amount of emphasis that is put on the narrator traveling for work. A filmmaker would need to mention it because it contributes to how miserable the narrator is, but not spend so much time on the subject.

o   The second thing that the filmmaker would need to cut out is the amount of time the narrator doesn’t know where Tyler is. In the book it seems like the narrator can’t find Tyler for a long time and I don’t think that the movie can’t be too long.

Project for Book 1

Idea

I propose the idea of having a tour around the possible places the American troops may have seen in the city of Dresden, Germany. This tour would be Kurt Vonnegut’s personal choices of places to visit based on the book Slaughterhouse Five. At every place your may visit in the city the tour guide would read a personal excerpt from Kurt Vonnegut himself. Vonnegut’s excerpts could be written about why Vonnegut picked the particular place, what he remembers about it when he thinks of it, or something else. This would allow people on this tour to have a much more personal connection. This personal connection would make the tour much more than a tour and more of an experience.

Why Dresden?          

Dresden is obviously the best choice for having this tour because it is where the book takes place. Those who have read the book are probably asking, “Wasn’t this city horribly fire-bombed and burned to the ground?” Yes, the city was fire-bombed, but it has been rebuilt in the places in the city that were inflicted the worst. It has been returned to its former glory. In the book Slaughterhouse Five it says, “…the doorways framed the loveliest city that most of the Americans had ever seen.” This quote just shows how beautiful the city is.

Dresden has some of the most beautiful architecture in Germany and even Europe. It possesses a very classical style, because the city itself dates back eight hundred years. The way it contributes to the sky line of the city is described in Slaughterhouse Five when the narrator says, “The sky line was intricate and voluptuous and enchanted and absurd.” The way the narrator describes sky line makes it sound picture perfect. The city just seems like a city that everyone needs to experience before they die. This tour would provide many people the reason to visit and experience Dresden for themselves.

Other Benefits of this Tour

This tour has many benefits other than just being a great tour. One of these reasons is that it can be very educational. This tour would include a lot about WWII and its effect on Germany and other parts of Europe. Dresden was one of the worst affected cities in WWII and you can learn and see that first hand on this tour. You can also learn a lot about Kurt Vonnegut’s experiences in WWII because he experienced everything on the tour and in the book. Another benefit of this tour is that it could boost Dresden’s tourism industry. This tour would attract many fans of this book and of Kurt Vonnegut. Since Kurt Vonnegut is one of the most acclaimed writers of American modern literature, this tour would attract a lot of new fans of Vonnegut and old fans alike. A third benefit of this tour is exposing those who may not be able to experience such a beautiful city a chance. In Slaughterhouse Five, Billy Pilgrim describes Dresden by saying, “It looked like a Sunday school picture of Heaven..” A final benefit of this tour is that it can spark a new push for buying this book. Much like how movies that are based off books can spark a sudden interest n the original book, this tour could do this too. Since, this book was published around 1969 there is not a big interest in the book right now, so the tour could rekindle the fire to buy the book. Also, since this book was mainly released in America and the tour is based in Germany, this tour could start up a following in Germany.