From my dad's suggestion, I started The Big Short, by Michael Lewis. It's about these guys who predicted the stock market crash of 2008 and found out that a lot of subprime lending companies committed fraud. It's kind of interesting because you get to see these guys' personality flaws and irregularities. These 'weird' characteristrics allow them to focus on something, and be really brilliant, but weird in social situations. My dad really liked this because he's a commodities trader and he says he's really good at it because he's a little weird (I agree). Unfortunately I was struggling with the vocabulary because it was a lexicon of a profession that I am not a part of. I knew the definitions of the words, but I didn't understand how they were applied, and the motives of companies for doing things a certain way. I told my dad of my problem and he told me to read it beside him and ask questions as they formed. This is how it went:
I read: "Subprime mortgage lending was still a trivial fraction of th U.S. credit markeets-a few tens of billions in loans each year-but its existence made sense, even to Steve Eisman."
I asked, "Dad, what does that mean?"
Next sentence: "I thought it was partly a response to growing ineuality. The distribution of income in this country was skewed and becoming more skewed, and the result was that you have more subprime customers."
I asked, "Dad, what does that mean?"
I did learn a lot, but because it happened about every sentence, I only got to page 30 in 3 days. I'd like to read it sometime, maybe when I'm not under an obligation to read 100 pages a week. Also I would like to have finished economics so I can be familiar with the voabulary.
I quit. Sorry :(
Monday, September 12, 2011
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Currently #3
Pages this week: 306 : 287 (all) pages of The Road, and 19 pages of Ragamuffin Gospel
Pages this semester: 788
Sentences from The Road
1. "There is no prophet in the earth's long chronicle who's not honored here today."
2. "When we're all gone at last then there'll be nobody here but death and his days will be numbered too."
3. "Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it."
4. "This the day to shape the days upon"
Favorite: Number 4. I like this because the man logically knows that he and his son are going to die, but he persists despite the fact.
Pages this semester: 788
Sentences from The Road
1. "There is no prophet in the earth's long chronicle who's not honored here today."
2. "When we're all gone at last then there'll be nobody here but death and his days will be numbered too."
3. "Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it."
4. "This the day to shape the days upon"
Favorite: Number 4. I like this because the man logically knows that he and his son are going to die, but he persists despite the fact.
A Road to the Physical Nowhere
McCarthy didn't reveal the names of the protagonist or the boy throughout the entire novel. There were no chapters, which gave it a monotonous feel. It was like one big story with no different parts, just a continuous drag of dreary life.
The characters finally reached the shore, their destination for no reason other than that it was warmer there, and nothing great happened. They still lived in fear of cannibalistic cults finding them. When they saw a Spanish ship and looked in it, there wasn't anything great enough to end the story with. It was still cold, so they continued walking south and finally the foreshadowing of the man's cough came to action. When they were walking a man aimed a bow and arrow at the characters. The protagonist leaped to cover his son and was shot in the leg. This led to excessive bleeding which weakened him a great deal. He knew his days were numbered long before that but now his death date sped up. He told his son that he must go on without him. He gave him advice and love and told him to not give up hope in such a hopeless world. That night the boy wrapped him in blankets and hugged him while he slept but in the morning the man was cold. Thus, the author confronts the finality of death. The boy sobbed but a man appeared and offered to take the boy with him and his 'clan' which included another little boy. The boy wanted to take his father with him but the new man said he couldn't. The boy gave in, because he knew his father would want him to go.
McCarthy showed the strength of love between a father and son, and the power of not losing hope or sensitivity in a place that insists on bruising you to the bone.
The characters finally reached the shore, their destination for no reason other than that it was warmer there, and nothing great happened. They still lived in fear of cannibalistic cults finding them. When they saw a Spanish ship and looked in it, there wasn't anything great enough to end the story with. It was still cold, so they continued walking south and finally the foreshadowing of the man's cough came to action. When they were walking a man aimed a bow and arrow at the characters. The protagonist leaped to cover his son and was shot in the leg. This led to excessive bleeding which weakened him a great deal. He knew his days were numbered long before that but now his death date sped up. He told his son that he must go on without him. He gave him advice and love and told him to not give up hope in such a hopeless world. That night the boy wrapped him in blankets and hugged him while he slept but in the morning the man was cold. Thus, the author confronts the finality of death. The boy sobbed but a man appeared and offered to take the boy with him and his 'clan' which included another little boy. The boy wanted to take his father with him but the new man said he couldn't. The boy gave in, because he knew his father would want him to go.
McCarthy showed the strength of love between a father and son, and the power of not losing hope or sensitivity in a place that insists on bruising you to the bone.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
How to Kill Your Son
The Road is a novel set in a postapocalytic world. I'm not sure how or what happened, but a man and his son are alone, traveling south while hiding from other humans. Almost everyone is dead so they go through empty house to try to find food or blankets for survival. They have to hide from the "bad guys", though, the word bad does not do them justice. These men take humans of all ages and genders as sex slaves. They eat other people and the protagonist's wife kills herself out of fear from getting caught by them. She urges the protagonist to do the same to himself, after first shooting his son. He doesn't follow either of her wishes.
There is a scene (that reminds me of the movie Brothers) in which the man and the boy are hiding from the bad people and the man believes that they will be caught. He makes a plan to give his son the gun, and run in the other direction so they catch him and not his son. He tells his son how to kill himself if they find him but then he realizes his son won't be able to do it. He stays with him. He fears that the gun wont work when he tries to kill his son, and wonders how else he could crush his son's precious scull.
That's hard to write.
I wonder how old the boy is, and hope he is older than 10 because the younger he is the more horrific the tale.
An interesting note about McCarthy's writing style is his dialogue. There are no quotation marks and it helps develop a simple, lethargic mood. The two characters comments are sad and accepting of the horrible, shown by the over usage of the word "Okay".
I hope the ending isn't so depressing!
There is a scene (that reminds me of the movie Brothers) in which the man and the boy are hiding from the bad people and the man believes that they will be caught. He makes a plan to give his son the gun, and run in the other direction so they catch him and not his son. He tells his son how to kill himself if they find him but then he realizes his son won't be able to do it. He stays with him. He fears that the gun wont work when he tries to kill his son, and wonders how else he could crush his son's precious scull.
That's hard to write.
I wonder how old the boy is, and hope he is older than 10 because the younger he is the more horrific the tale.
An interesting note about McCarthy's writing style is his dialogue. There are no quotation marks and it helps develop a simple, lethargic mood. The two characters comments are sad and accepting of the horrible, shown by the over usage of the word "Okay".
I hope the ending isn't so depressing!
Friday, September 2, 2011
Currently: Week 2
Pages this week: 341
Pages this semester: 482
1. "if France is to be calm again, two hundred thousand heads must be cut off."
2. "Cultivated people have caught the fever of critizing the governement."
3. "But his heart, like mine, will remain in another realm entirely, a realm we share together."
I like number one the best because it is morbidly funny in its irony.
Pages this semester: 482
1. "if France is to be calm again, two hundred thousand heads must be cut off."
2. "Cultivated people have caught the fever of critizing the governement."
3. "But his heart, like mine, will remain in another realm entirely, a realm we share together."
I like number one the best because it is morbidly funny in its irony.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
A Violent Revolution
The peasants are becoming violent and wreckless. They want a revolution to end the monarchy. King Louis tries to get the people on his side by saying he is on their side. He wears their symbols and colors which is comically ironic. But Marie Antoinette does not honor The National Assembly or the Parisians, so she does not flatter them. When addressing the people, the king tells her to wear her simplest clothes but she wears her most elegant, and wears a beautiful diamond. A fake diamond, because it was sold to pay the debt of France. So oddly enough she doesn't want the people to know she has sacrificed for them, yet she has. Her husband was so cowardly that she had to make all the decisions. And the people call her nasty things, making up rumors about sexual taboos that she hasn't done. But she doesn't want the people to know she is helping them, because then they would think she is on their side, and then they would think she didn't believe in the monarchy.
Advisors tell the king that he should move with his family to a safe place, but he wants to act bravely and say, 'my people need me', which is strange becasue he never wanted to be king in the first place. And he isn't a good one. Eventually the people take over the castle and many people are killed. Marie and her family are put in a sort of prison and then her husband is executed. She still has hope that she will get out because Axel will save her. Axel has been seeing her and intends to save her but the plan goes wrong. Marie is split up from her family and hears about the awful rape and torture of her best friend.
Marie Antoinette is executed.
Advisors tell the king that he should move with his family to a safe place, but he wants to act bravely and say, 'my people need me', which is strange becasue he never wanted to be king in the first place. And he isn't a good one. Eventually the people take over the castle and many people are killed. Marie and her family are put in a sort of prison and then her husband is executed. She still has hope that she will get out because Axel will save her. Axel has been seeing her and intends to save her but the plan goes wrong. Marie is split up from her family and hears about the awful rape and torture of her best friend.
Marie Antoinette is executed.
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