I really enjoyed Living the Narrative Life: Stories as a Tool for Making Meaning, by Gian S. Pagnucci. It brought me back to the simplicity, or the heart of writing and storytelling. I especially liked his argument that events from our childhood make us who we are.

            Professor Block is a Professor at Rowan University. In his Creative Writing II class, he gave us an assignment that would help us remember stories and events from our childhood. In this “I don’t know why I remember Assignment,” Block was trying to help us see why we remember certain events, or what makes them significant to us. Similarly, Pagnucci argues that we learn who we are from the stories that form our lives (71).

            This essay really reminded me that I need to write down events, people, and incidences. There are too many times I will say to myself, “Oh, I’ll remember this,” and then I never do. Pagnucci emphasizes telling these stories so that we never lose those memories.

            I need to start carrying around a small journal and writing down things that interest me or things I want to remember, such as smells, or even the way my second cousin used to imitate facial  features when he was six-months-old. I know that this will make me a better writer. Next stop: Target.  

I’m not exactly sure how I feel about From Paris to the Moon, by Adam Gopnik. In The Winter Circus: Christmas Journal 1, the narrator talks about his move from New York to Paris, and the culture shock that ensued. I found the essay confusing because the narrator seems wishy-washy on the effect of globalization. He accredits globalization to the fact that there is no Regulon in the Semiosphere, or “no natural predator to stop the proliferation of movies and television” (44). Then, later in the piece, he goes on to say that there is Regulon: a plug. Different countries have different voltages. The only thing I can be sure that the narrator is saying is that America is ungrounded (54).

            The narrator uses different examples to show that America is ungrounded. For example, he mentions that it is the American way to “go for the big brass ring”—he uses this example from the carousel scene. However, for Parisian children, there is no big prize at the end. Their prize is entrusting that spinning is a reality. Gopnik also makes many references to rings, circles, and even lassos. All of these things are representative of Europe, or the French culture. The rope makes a complete circle; it is connected. The rope example that he gives is what is typical of the American Christmas: a strand of lights on a rope. But, in France, they do not use strings. They use garlands that are circular. Here is a quote about said garland that helps emphasize this point, “…a closed circle, desire and fulfillment meeting in a neat French ring, and just shining” (53).  

            Another way that America is ungrounded is in its currents. Plugs in Europe feature a third grounding element, while American plugs do not.

            Overall, I still remain ineffectual about the piece. Maybe the Regulon ate my ability to feel any type of emotion for this essay.

The Collected Works of Billy the Kid, by Michael Ondaatje, was intriguing. I had Professor Block at Rowan University for Creative Writing II, and he taught us how to search out patterns. Some of the ones that I found are: light vs. dark (white and black), animals, blindness, the colors blue and yellow, ghostliness, and eyes.   

            First, the work makes several references to the sun, the moon, and lamps. It is apparent that Sallie favors the darkness, as demonstrated in this line, “So that at eleven in the morning all she did was close and lock them [the doors and windows] all until the house was silent and dark blue with sunless quiet” (32). I feel the theme of this story deals with Sallie’s fear of the realities of the world. Ondaatje uses fire as a metaphor for the outside world, or reality. She is afraid of being burned, and that’s why she remains in the darkness. She may be cold in the darkness, or a ghost in the darkness, but she cannot be consumed by fire. I feel that Ondaatje had the narrator’s legs burned in a fire to juxtapose Sallie’s fear; she keeps him in the black and the cold darkness to heal him. One line that helped me come to this conclusion is, “…to avoid fire danger when the sun took over the house and scorched it at noon, or dropping sideways in the early afternoon sent rays horizontal through the doors and windows”(31).

            Also, there are recurring elements of blindness and darkness. Sallie’s face is “blind as a bird” in dark when Chisum leaves, and the narrator feels as though he is “going blind twice a day.” This is possibly due in part to how dark Sallie keeps the house, and his “madness.” (Relating back to my interpretation of the theme, he may be “mad” because he was burned by the harsh realities of the outside world; perhaps this blindness is an effect of the shock from being in the “fire” to being in the dark—his eyes are trying to adjust.) Also, the narrator mentions seeing two owls both blind in one eye.

            Even though I only read some excerpts from the work, I still enjoyed them. The pages I read in the piece are 28-37. Some of the noteworthy lines from the piece that really captivated me include:

“…the suction as an arm lifts off a table breaking the lock that was formed by air and the wet of the surface” (30).   

“…the fists of her feet against her thighs trying to discover which was colder—the flesh at her feet or the flesh at her thighs” (31).

“…until it splayed and withered like eternal smoke halfway between the shoulder blades and the base of cobble spine” (32).