Week 12, Maria Norén

Something that I've reflected upon now that I have finally finished book 1 is the character Julian Morrow. At first I got the impression that he was going to have a larger role in the book then he has so far, especially seeing how much attention was put on him in the beginning when Richard was trying to get in to his class, but after the first lecture/discussion that he held the book really only has some few scares encounters with him. Instead the majority, if not all of the focus has been put on the group studying Greek with the absence of their professor.

I wonder if you have any ideas as to why this is? Especially considering the book, in my opinion, made it seem as if he held some sort of control or at least influence over them since he only accepted like-minded individuals, when really he seemed to be quite absence. 

Maria Norén, w.12

Atmosphere among alcohol

Hey guys!  Sorry for the late post.

I got this feeling, after the dinner with Bunny, that something horrible is going to happen really soon. Any of you feeling the atmosphere has changed since Bunny “betrayed” our character and then they went to that odd house. Something is telling me that everything is going to turn out even worse than I thought from the first time. What do you think?

Another of my thoughts is around all the alcohol they use all the time and if there is any link between their behavior and the addiction of alcohol? I was not in school today so I don’t know what you did and maybe someone wants to tell me what you did in class?

Elin

Week 11, Maria Norén

I found a metaphor in a passage at page 87 where Richard describes changing his outlook on his earlier memories and experiences at Hampden College:

"The chronological sorting of memories is an interesting business. Prior to this first weekend in the country, my recollections of that fall are distant and blurry: from here on out, they come into a sharp, delightful focus. It is here that the stilted mannequins of my initial acquaintance begin to yawn and stretch and come to life."

As with most thing in this book, I'm not sure that I completely comprehend  what he means or is trying to say (perhaps you could help me out? haha). But I still found the sentence to be quite striking.

Maria Norén w.11

Week 10, Maria Norén

One thing that I noticed while reading the first chapter of the book was the amount of advanced words that were used, some of which I dont even think that I had read/seen/heard before. Some examples include: "accusative", "garrulous", "dative", "ablative", "reverberate" and so on.

This along with the very complex information about acient Greek which is presented and discussed in the book as well as non-english phrases which aren't always explained ("quod erat demonstrandum", "Epi tô karchidona", "L'histoire d'une de mes folies") makes me wonder whether or not I am the intended target of this book. It is possible that it simply isn't that important for me to understand every single sentence written by the author and that I'm sort of supposed to feel stupid when reading it as to make the characters seem more intellegent, But personally I feel like it creates a wall between me and the story as well as the characters. I dont know how you feel about this...

Maria Norén w.10