Throughout the course of this class and the novels we have read, I noticed a recurring theme among the experimental techniques used by the novels’ authors. It stemmed from the questions asked in class-how is this novel experimental? How is this other novel also experimental, and how do the experimental techniques differ from of complement […]
Beginning Eimear McBride’s A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing is no small task. From the very first paragraph, I could tell this was going to be a tough read: For you. You’ll soon. You’ll give her name. In the stitches of her skin she’ll wear your say. Mammy me? Yes you. Bounce the bed, I’d […]
There is always going to be that one book that someone reads that seems to be going in a certain direction fantasy/supernatural wise and the reader is absolutely positive that this direction will answer all of his or her questions, but then reality hits and all the fantasies and out-there elements that the reader wished would […]
Night Film is most definitely an edge-of-your seat novel that takes the reader into the dark world of journalism and the horrific truths that are uncovered. While the dark side of humanity is horrifying all by itself, adding an element of the supernatural just takes it to a whole new level of horror. […]
After analyzing this novel, it is evident many parallels can be drawn between Christopher from The Tattooed Map and Mersault from The Stranger by Albert Camus. While the two authors are nothing alike in philosophical backgrounds (Camus considered himself to be an “absurdist” which is very close in meaning to an existentialist) each has produced a character that […]
The all-powerful Network has very accurately become “God” in A Visit from the Goon Squad. It sees all, connects all. It is the thread that ensnares all facets of life into its web. As such, Goon Squad reflects real life concerns about networking. Nowadays, digital networking is the subject millions, if not billions, dote upon in […]
[IMAGE BROKEN] The word “Goon” may mean a great many derogatory things. Hearing this word we may instantly think of large, hulk-y brute or mentally-questionable oaf. But Goon may also mean something a little more. The book, which is entitled A Visit from the Goon Squad, gives the readers a preconception of what the book […]
(this is essay 2 of the Blogging project suite) If a pervasive sense of loneliness runs through Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad (in a way, I should add, gave me the good kind of sad feeling), so too does a desire from many of its characters to maintain control– control of each […]
Children. You love them or you loathe them. Without children, there would be no adults. Likewise, without adults, there would be no children. So where in this cycle does Jennifer Egan’s novel A Visit From the Goon Squad happen to fall? Egan focuses on children in a subtle but big way throughout her novel. The relationships that […]
Across its many characters, times, and settings, it quickly becomes apparent that in the world of A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, things are not as they seem, and are in fact the result of a carefully-constructed artifice from the characters, and perhaps even the reader. Within Goon Squad, numerous people across […]
Image: wafitz A question that has come up while reading The Last Werewolf is ‘Do we separate the man from the beast/monster. The word were-wolf would seem to indicate that we do. If we break this down further, when we think of morality we rarely will associate it with the idea of a beast. When it comes […]
I’ve really enjoyed trying out all the different projects with very different novels, even with them sharing the theme of experimentation. It was a mind-boggling experience between unconventional novels and projects requiring students to look at text beyond what the writer intended. I would definitely recommend doing the projects again, even with conventional books, because […]
Experimental approaches to interpreting literature can provide unique interpretations of that literature, and this is especially true when the literature in question is classified as experimental. What’s The Point? I work part-time at the Home Depot and I try to include my co-workers with the projects I do in class. I’ve shown several of them […]
I ended up gaining a lot from this class, and I think the format had a lot to do with that. The project suite was very helpful. Because the works we read were experimental in nature, interpreting them in a more experimental context was valuable. Sometimes interpreting literature can be a little predictable. That’s not […]
I signed up for this course entirely on a whim — in avoidance of a dreaded Shakespeare class, but an attractive aspect of this class was its foreign nature in that it was “experimental.” I had never considered reading things experimental, so this was a new experience that almost guaranteed it to be challenging. For […]
Whether or not the order of projects my group did were successful or not, the class itself definitely was a success. Going into the class I definitely did not expect what I got out of the class when I walked in that first day. I took the class initially because I knew it would be interesting […]
I was really excited this semester to be in a class with a focus on learning about a text in unconventional ways. A course where we get to tweet in class, and the teacher is totally fine with it? Sign me up! I realized pretty quickly that the projects we were assigned were, in fact, […]
This semester, the division into groups was very helpful in ensuring that projects did not get boring—primarily because no two groups were going to have a similar outcome—and by allowing groups to evaluate their own personal successes, without comparing them to that of another group. As a group, we had varying levels of success throughout […]
Oh man, how do I begin this. ………….I felt like above dude most of this class First off, I must say that for not working with anyone in my group before besides Jenny the projects went fairly smooth. For the most part everyone contributed equally. I’m still not sure if I even liked half of […]
Let’s start with the obvious: this class was awesomesauce. No, I’m not just saying that in hopes of earning a good grade. Frankly, I don’t much care about the grade; I’m being all postmodernist, throwing the conventional obsession with grades out the window, and just being glad for the experience. And you know what else? […]
For the final reflection for this course we were asked to talk about a number of things regarding the projects we took on, namely if we liked them, how well they did or didn’t work, and something we learned because of an insight brought on by the projects. I’m going to start by saying that, […]
Taking a course on experimental literature, I expected to encounter books with unfamiliar formatting, interesting graphic components, and quirky content (like footnotes and appendices). What I did not expect were experimental assignments. I am comfortable with traditional essays, so completing projects with components that were unfamiliar to me was pretty intimidating. And while some projects […]
Our group was fortunate in the line up of projects with book subjects. It’s actually a lot more difficult to pinpoint projects that did not lend themselves to highlighting and analyzing thematic aspects of their literary counterparts. Specifically, I’d like to explore how the following projects worked and did not: House of Leaves as a […]
When I first started this class, I was thrilled when I saw the variety of books that the syllabus had to offer. I paged through all of them, read all of the synopses, and got more excited as the semester grew nearer. I was even more intrigued when I found out that instead of writing […]
Overall my personal experience with the project suite was positive and helped me connect with the books in different ways than when I was just reading them to myself. I also found that I got much more from the projects that I helped work on rather than ones that people in other groups put together. […]
Before taking this course, I had never really tried to interpret text through anything other than thought, discussion, and writing. These projects really opened my eyes to different interpretations of the experimental novels that we read than I would have ever had by just writing or talking about them. One project that I really thought […]
I enjoyed all the projects a lot, and I think the books we had fit perfectly with their respective projects, which might not have been the case had we been assigned in another group and had the books and projects line up differently. I was glad I got to help out with each of them […]
“Experimental approaches to interpreting literature can provide unique interpretations of that literature, and this is especially true when the literature in question is classified as experimental.” From my experiences in this class, the statement above reads true in my mind. Experimental approaches broaden the spectrum of unique interpretations that can come out of a piece […]
Of all the projects done in our class this semester, I would have to say the one project that contributed the most insight into any book would have to be the mapping project. I could see many other individuals answering that the mapping project provided no extra insight into the book, but I feel that […]
I believe that working on these projects all semester was so helpful along with reading experimental fiction. Since experimental writing styles are so different from the traditional styles we, as English Majors, usually read, it was very helpful to be able to see the plot, characters, and themes in a more accessible and digital way. […]
I have not really had much experience with experimental literature until I took this class. This semester has been a huge insight to me, the books we read and the projects we did for them had me take a deeper look into what I was reading. Taking a experimental approach to interpreting the literature we […]
Near the close of last semester and the end of the Creative Nonfiction Writing Workshop, I asked Dr. Rybak about the books he would be teaching for this semester’s Experimental Fiction class. The adjective “experimental” can accumulate odd and frightening connotations in an imagination married to British classics and their complementary scholarly articles, and I […]
After finishing these projects, I felt I had a better understanding toward the novels because all the projects that I’ve done with my group fit along with the themes really well for interpretations. I don’t know if it was just luck, but using the programs provided such as Audacity, Google Earth and Prezi worked well […]
Final Reflection Assignment For each of the books we’ve read this semester, I was painfully aware of how I had previously had superficial understanding of language theory, and this course made me want to know more about how language evolves. Before this course I understood in theory what these great thinkers like Derrida, Wittgenstein, and […]
Throughout the semester we have encountered numerous experimental texts. At times these texts were challenging, and honestly made me want to pull my hair out, there were moments where I found myself completely lost with no hope in sight that I might ever see the light of day again. However, it was an exciting and […]
In an experimental fiction class, conventional projects and papers seem out of place. After all, what’s the point of taking a conventional approach to such a diverse area of fiction as experimental? The best way to approach experimental fiction is with an experimental approach to projects. Instead of having to go to the library to […]
Over the course of “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close”, there was one fantastical element that jumped out at me. Oskar sends letters to Stephen Hawking, getting a generic form letter in response. However, towards the end of the novel, Oskar finally receives a personal response from Hawking. The question that immediately came to my mind […]
When literature is classified as experimental, it only follows that one might want to interpret the literature in an experimental way. This could indeed lead to unique interpretations of the work. Such was the case with the English 331 Major American Prose Fiction class Professor Chuck Ryback PhD conducted in Spring of 2013, or as […]
“Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” is a book about tragedy. After all, it is set against the back drop of the World Trade Center attacks on September 11th, 2001. However, a question came to my mind when reading this book. There was a part of me that wondered why this book is so sad, why […]
I’d like to address Oskar’s mental status in terms of more than just grief. Grief, grief, good grief! It’s so overwhelming, it might actually blanket some other very serious aspects of Oskar’s character. For instance, I’d like to argue that Oskar has autism. Since he is highly functional, it might be more realistic to assume […]
If you’re like me, you probably wondered about a few scenes in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, specifically the scenes where Oskar asks to kiss a much older woman. You also probably wondered why Abbey said she would kiss with Oskar towards the end of the novel as well as why Anna and Oskar’s […]
I was about to contribute to in-class discussion when Professor Rybak took the wind from my sails and basically iterated what I’d been thinking about but hadn’t yet gotten a chance to vocalize. What kind of parent leaves a 9 year old unsupervised to wander around New York of his own volition? Even if that […]
The question was asked whether ‘Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close’ succeeds as an experimental work? Firstly, let’s think about that word ‘experimental.’ www.Thesaurus.com gives the definition: Main Entry: experimental [ik-sper-uh-men-tl] Show IPA/ɪkˌspɛrəˈmɛntl/ Show Spelled Part of Speech: adjective Definition: exploratory Synonyms: beginning, developmental, empirical, experiential, first stage, laboratory, momentary, on approval, pilot, preliminary, preparatory, primary, probationary, provisional, […]
While reading A Visit From the Goon Squad I couldn’t help but be reminded of the idea of six degrees of separation. This theory was first started by Frigyes Karinthy and it stated that everybody in the world is connected through six or fewer steps essentially making it the “friend of a friend of a friend” […]
aside from always wanting to start a conversation that way, I’m pretty sure it is human nature to codify, to seek meaning, to group things together in order to make sense of the world. Someone told me once (a moderately credible source, if you care) that if we didn’t create some… compartments, shall […]
A Visit from the Goon Squad uses lack of chronology as a characteristic of an experimental novel. Egan’s writing style, for this specific plot, uses many characters and different points of view that are not always directly connected to each other. However, as English Majors, we all know that a main character is a normal […]
After finishing A Visit from the Good Squad, I spent a lot of time considering Sasha’s character. I wanted to understand why the author uses Sasha as a common thread amid the other, more peripheral characters. I reached the conclusion that Sasha earns a central role in the novel because of her receptivity to—and retention […]
When I first started reading A Visit From The Goon Squad, I didn’t really like Sasha at all as a character. I thought that she was going to turn into a low life and not going to succeed. However, when we get to chapter 12, we see her as a mother with two kids and […]
This weekend, while reading the ending of A Visit From the Goon Squad, I went through a horrible crisis that some of the characters in this novel would agree with was nearly life changing; my phone broke. As many, if not most, of the people in our world today do, I have my “life” […]
From cover to cover any reader can feel the music pulsing from the pages of A visit from the Goon Squad. Not only is every band under the sun listed throughout but also the sounds of the city and the feelings that the characters (particularly Bennie) experience when they listen to the music. My favorite scene […]
A Visit From the Goon Squad highlights many of the important stages of life, one in particular being teen angst. Rhea, Bennie, Jocelyn, and Scotty all have their own struggles during high school, however, out of all of them, it seems as though Jocelyn is the one most affected later in life by her choices […]
Egan’s writing style goes against any traditional sense of chronology, but it is still easy to see the dysfunction of characters communicating across generational gaps. Egan seems to be using generational differences as a way to show the issues with society; possibly to unravel the reason for divorce, homelessness, or career shifts. This is evident […]
This semester, along with my English and biology courses, I am taking a class on contemporary Spain. The other day, while discussing the recent trends of Spain’s immigration and emigration—a discussion that naturally followed the semester-long discourse we’ve had on Spain’s national identity—, Dr. Saxton-Ruiz posed an interesting question: Assuming they had never stepped foot […]
Throughout A Visit From The Goon Squad, Egan has chapters where each one has a specific point of view. For instance, we have the first chapter told in third person as the narrator voices Sasha, the fifth chapter told in first in Jocelyn’s voice and chapter ten told in second person seeing through Rob’s perspective. […]
Does Nona believe everything that happens in Demon Theory is real or is it a matter of her living this imaginary world in her head? When looking at the novel this way I think back to the movie and the book Fight Club. There are differences between the two, but there are also many similarities. […]
“Demon Theory” plays on the idea that is common to most humans in which we believe ourselves to be the superior beings on the planet, in terms of their intelligence and their spot at the top of the food chain; however, to introduce humans to a new species, one who can attack from the skies […]
In “Demon Theory”, the characters Hale, Con, and Nona each represent one of Sigmund Freud’s elements—the id, the ego, and the superego—that are fundamental to his structural model of the human psyche. The ID focuses on basic, human instincts; is present from birth; it is the source of wants, needs, and desires; when following it, […]
The word Eunoia translates to “well mind” or “beautiful thinking.” Sometimes it is also used as a medical term referring to normal mental health. In Christian Bok’s anthology he demonstrates freedom but also restriction. Each chapter, restricted to one vowel, develops its own voice. We find U to represent grotesque, instinctual, and comedic traits; I to represent masculinity […]
It seems there just isn’t enough time to talk about the inticracies and multitude of themes within Demon Theory. One thing I found interesting that was touched on in class, is the relationship of the book to the movie starring Leonardo Di Caprio, Inception. Inception, which was made after Di Caprio’s hit, Shutter Island share many similarities […]
What We Know Stephen Graham Jones’ novel demonstrates experimentation in a variety of ways but most obviously in its division of three parts rather than chapters. Unintelligent, stereotypical dialogue is starkly contrasted by the eruditeness of footnotes. As opposed to developing three-dimensional characters and a profound sense of horror, Jones mimics the shallowness of […]
I find myself reading Demon Theory at the most inconvenient of times. For example, I finished up the first section right before I went to bed. I figured that haunted houses scare me to death, and scary movies are cause for some sleeplessness… but I had no doubt a book would not affect me in that […]
Demon Theory has a variety of different major literary themes. Some of those themes include fear of the unknown, people are prey, antihero, and survival instinct. As this novel first started out, it reminded me a lot of House Of Leaves as in the story plot is all over the place. I then realized that Demon […]
Major literary themes in The Tattooed Map are assumed to be travel, self discovery, and relationships but there is another theme encompassing the story in it’s entirety. Transformation of the human body is found throughout many genres including mythology, fairy tales and fantasy but is not as common in fiction; because of the experimental nature of the […]
In Chris’s continuation of Lydia’s journal, he records that he can suddenly see the map tattoo in Lydia’s photographs of her arm after having read an account of a man (who we understand to be Layesh) with a map tattoo growing on his own arm. Chris wonders, “Has something happened to the photographs, or to […]
Christopher and Lydia express that they were once lovers but no longer are which leads some readers to wonder why they still travel together. Lydia has complaints about Christopher but can also see the purpose for those traits in other situations, such as his inability to go up and speak with people or how he can […]
Chances are, if you read Tim O’Brien’s In the Lake of the Woods, you found it easy to conclude that John Wade suffers from at least some amount of PTSD. In fact, the entirety of Chapter 16 is seemingly devoted solely to making a case that John Wade is a victim of PTSD. But our […]
In the Lake of the Woods is experimental and similar to House of Leaves. Framing Style Tim O’Brien has a unique set up to the story as a whole. The novel jumps from the present, to flashbacks for John, for Kathy, to interviews, and back to present. For me, this is what stands out the […]
Never before in a book have I been so struck by references to smell. The word and related terms and actions appear in the book at least 40 times. This frequency is strange for a sense that we use so comparatively little in our everyday lives. So why is it so prevalent in In the […]
I’m pretty sure you can’t talk about Vietnam without a certain level of horror, but what really gets me in In the Lake of the Woods is how frequently it references dead kids and abortion. Now, regardless of where you stand on the issue, abortion is not a happy or normal subject. By default, fetuses […]
Choose your empathy shoes: Chapter 5: Hypothesis 1: Kathy ran away with a secret lover in an attempt at a passive, non-confrontational escape. Chapter 9: Hypothesis 2: Kathy panicked when she saw John boiling the houseplants and ran away. “Maybe she lost her way. Maybe she’s still out there.” Chapter 14: Hypothesis 3: “The […]
Forgiveness is the only way to reverse the irreversible flow of history. ~Hannah Arendt Black and White Picture a war hero. Starched pressed suit pasted with badges to honor his courage, his righteousness, his virtue. What if you found out he had a past. A foggy past of shadowed images crawling about a […]
Although most readers are assuming John killed Kathy, there is enough support to show he might not have. The two pieces of evidence that stand above the rest are that John is literally obsessed with her and also her history of already cheating, so maybe she left for another man again. First of all, Kathy […]
“You feel this sizzle happening inside you; that’s where evil comes from. It comes from not just badness or not just from fear. It comes from a combination of these things, boiling inside you and stewing together.” ~Tim O’Brien, PBS Special Purpose At first it seemed like a tropical vacation for the men of […]
At the end of chapter 20 in Tim O’Brien’s In the Lake of the Woods, it is very clear that not all of John Wade’s behaviors are entirely typical even before he goes away to Vietnam. The most obviously problematic thing Wade continuously does both before and after their marriage is stalking Kathy. The fact […]
I decided to investigate the significance of the various names used in the House of Leaves. Since there are so many hidden messages and meanings within Danielewski’s work, the names themselves likely carry some sort of significant meaning in this novel as well. Starting with Johnny Truant, the first thing that comes to mind is […]
Hostile Environments as a Reflection of Nature and Nurture Within the first four pages of In the Lake of the Woods, there is a distinctive sense of “wilderness.” On the first page of the text, in the first chapter, “How Unhappy They Were,” I was struck by how many references to nature appeared. […]
What I thought I would do for my second blog post would be to take a slightly different look at something we have talked on extensively in class, trying to discern just what is real. This site contains an observation that, as a class, we may have briefly touched on. It is the idea that we […]
Having finished House of Leaves I still find myself begging for the answer to one question. Why all the colors? From first opening up the book, it quickly became apparent that colors were a huge part of the story, even if all that was noticed was the word “House” in blue. This I found was the easiest of the colors […]
Being well-read and knowledgeable students, I am sure that most of us are familiar with the story of Jonah and the Whale. There are a lot of parallels to be drawn between this story and House of Leaves, like how the house is prone to swallowing people up until they think the way it wants them […]
There are multiple disturbing stories or aspects in The House of Leaves, and there are a few parts that continue to haunt me. Near the end of the book in the appendices, several letters from Johnny Truant’s mother, Pelafina, were included. Throughout the book, there is mystery that shrouds Johnny’s broken past venturing from one horrible foster […]
“Self-Exploration,” we’ve all heard and used this term over the course of our lives. Typically using it to explain away our short comings, and flounderings in the great sea that we call life. We accept this as an aspect of growing up and learning, and we tuck it away as quickly as we had called it […]
In chapter X of ‘House of Leaves’ we are introduced to a new stylistic choice by the author, Mark Danielewski. It is the inclusion of vast white spaces between very brief lines of text, or even individual words. As I read this and watched it continue in subsequent chapters I found myself comparing those open […]
“House of Leaves” is a very physical novel in many ways and essentially causes us to rethink the way we read and interpret texts in general. It is very different from other reads, in that it makes us literally turn, shift, move, and jump from page to page in order to follow the text and […]
Between pages 74 and 75 of House of Leaves lies the curious Chapter VI. Curious because it only spans a page, really, unless you count the quotes at the beginning by Ernest Becker (from his Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Denial of Death) and Christian Norberg-Schulz (whose source I could not pinpoint, although he is a […]
In The House of Leaves, it is quite evident that while Johnny Truant’s mind is almost entirely focused on The Navidson Record, Zampano, and his own private hauntings, he has a very specific trend in regards to his extracurricular activities: sex. Truant is either obsessing over The Navidson Record, getting high, or having sex. Most […]