meh, book reports! *spoilers*

[Ava]

i just started my book report on "A Farewell to Arms."

i'm already an UNromantic who was forced to read it, but now i have to write about it!

PSH!

[GirlinContempt]

1. OH NO NOT FABULOUS LITERATURE

:hide:

[Ava]

6. blah!

:P

[GirlinContempt]

24. And, it wasn't a romance

[Ava]

26. AFTM? blah! it is too!

i don't care what you say, anti-war novel or not, it a bunch of lovey dovey BS!

[GirlinContempt]

28. Uh, no, it really really wasn't a romance

He was actually thought to be pretty bitter about the character she was based off of.
Just because it HAS romance, doesn't mean it IS romance.

[Ava]

29. ok. so the entire book is about love, sex, and love.

but it's not a romance? :shrug:

then what the heck type of book is it?

[GirlinContempt]

34. I'm starting to think you didn't actually read it

He uses a lot of things in the book allegorically.
A huge part of it is the telling of a story that happened to him, while exploring his own philosophy on life and the brutality of war.

[Ava]

35. ooh, trust me i read it!

[GirlinContempt]

39. Well,

if you have to do a book report, I'd at least re-read the first couple of chapters and look for the messages.

[Ava]

40. oh, the first couple chapters where fine!

but once he met catherine it all went downhill. especially when he was in the hospital.

[GirlinContempt]

43. So, you don't see how

Catherine was used to advance the underlying message of the story while at the same time providing counterpoint to his philosophy?

[Ava]

44. hmm.. i guess you have a point

but it's hard to see that through all the sappy love stuff.

[GirlinContempt]

46. The 'love stuff'

was necessary, though. As well as a somewhat accurate representation of his true experience in the great war. However, she left him instead of dying.

[Ava]

45. oh my god! are you my mother?

:rofl: :P

[GirlinContempt]

47. oh my god!

Are you not worried about writing a book report on a book you don't seem able to say anything about? :P

edit:
That sounded meaner than I meant it to. All I mean is, based on what you said down thread, you seemed to need a little assistance finding material. Thats all.

[Ava]

48. don't worry, i'll write up some BS

:rofl:

nah, my mom knows i didn't like the book.

[GirlinContempt]

50. updated previous message

[Ava]

51. yeah, i do need assistance. lol

:rofl:

like i said, i'll manage to write up some BS. ;) :P

[GirlinContempt]

52. I didn't realize the act of assisting was hilarious

:shrug:

[Ava]

53. well i figure instead of being frustrated and stressed

i'll find humor in it :)

[GirlinContempt]

54. Don't be frustrated and stressed.

If you REALLY didn't like it that much, take the 'bs' that other people say about philosophy, allegory, etc and explain how you thought he did a shitty job, and that the romance distracted you from the main points of the book, and how you think it could have been done better.

Write about what you know. What you know is you didn't like it. Now find a good teacher-acceptable reason and go to it.

[Ava]

55. thanks, i'll try it.

:hi:

[GirlinContempt]

56. Anytime

[xmas74]

57. I always thought the supposed "romance"

was rather spiteful in nature.

Hemingway was known for taking real people in his life and throwing them in his novels. Usually when this happened it wasn't pretty.

[miss_american_pie]

2. I hate that book

Good luck. :)

[hfojvt]

3. is that the one with the tenante

who has a bucket of crap poured on his head at the end?

What a totally horrid book. Typical Hemingway, cannot figure out how to end a story because he is determined to have it end badly. That was the last Hemingway I ever read but it was enough to have a negative influence on my life.

[Ava]

4. it was about that bad!

grr!!! :grr:

[Ava]

5. yeah, i've only got 1 paragraph written so far

i want to just write:

Frederic loves Catherine
Catherine loves Frederic
They run away together
Catherine dies.
boo hoo hoo.

[miss_american_pie]

7. LOL

:rofl: You need to somehow work in "misogyny misogyny misogyny" and you'll be good to go. ;)

[Ava]

8. hmmm.. now only if my mother would accept that!

:rofl:

[skygazer]

18. That's "accept" dear

If you're going to write book reports, you must mind your spelling! :spank:

[Ava]

19. what are you talking about?

:rofl:

just kidding. :P

[Ava]

9. what i've got so far:

A Farewell to Arms is a love story set during WWI about a young American ambulance driver for the Italian army and an English nurse. Lieutenant Frederic Henry is a young American who volunteers as an ambulance driver for the Italian army in World War I. When he returns to the front after a winter leave, his friend Lieutenant Rinaldi introduces him to Catherine Barkley, an English nurse who works at the town’s British hospital. Miss Barkley’s fiancée was also in the war and died before she and Frederic met. Frederic’s best friend Lieutenant Rinaldi is a surgeon with the army and a heavy drinker.



can you tell i hate the book yet? :rofl:

[miss_american_pie]

10. It could be worse

You could be stuck with "Hills Like White Elephants" ;)

[Ava]

11. ah!

my eyes! they burn! :rofl:

[miss_american_pie]

12. Yep

Wanted to lobotomize myself first time I had to read that. Blech.

[Ava]

13. hey, will you write my book report for me?

:rofl:

[miss_american_pie]

14. And cheat you out of your education?

I couldn't. :P

[Ava]

15. but, but, but!

ah! phooey!

[skygazer]

16. Ugh!! Book reports!!!

:scared:

Ugh!!! Hemingway!!! :scared:

I love to read but I always HATED writing book reports, even on stuff that I enjoyed. And Hemingway never did much for me.

Good luck!

[Ava]

17. i LOVED writing my book report on "FDR and the New Deal"

but it was pretty much like writing a history report :shrug:

[npincus]

20. Try reading "Johnny Got His Gun" by Dalton Trumbo

one of the best, most powerful (and upsetting) anti-war books I've ever read. Highly recommended if you haven't read it.

[Ava]

21. i'll check it out

as long as it isn't some sappy love story! :P ;)

[JohnKleeb]

22. I got a recommendition for you

Probably my favorite all time........ok the only book I've ever really read on WWI but it's a classic. All Quiet on the Western Front. It's so moving and sad and it is a classic for a reason. Don't have to worry about sappy ass love stories in this one I promise but I liked Hemingway when I read some in 11th grade, now Faulkner I couldn't get.

[Ava]

23. cool! i'll check it out!

i'm such an UNromantic. my mom said watching me read "A Call to Arms" was like watching "The Exorcist" i was rolling my eyes the whole time! :rofl:

[JohnKleeb]

25. I can be both

Romantic when it comes to ideas and history yeah but meh when it comes to cheesy love stories. They can put a love story in to anything. I bet if Hollywood ever made a movie about the Haymarket Riot or the Homestead Strike they'd put a love story in there somehow thus ruining the film for me.

[Ava]

27. there was some movie i saw one time

where the man and the woman who were in 'love' were stepping on grapes to make wine together. all the other women and girls there were all teary eyed and crap and i started laughing. they all looked at me like i was crazy and the guy i was with didn't know what to think! :rofl:

[JohnKleeb]

30. That is lame

Oh if I were the guy you were with I would have laughed too. That's the problem honestly too many things can be made in to a love story. For fuck sakes you have love stories with animals. Nothing wrong with love I'd love to be in it but sometimes it's just so lame.

[Ava]

31. sometimes it is stupid and annoying

ugh! i went to see the movie "the notebook" and wasted 2 hours of my life on complete CRAP!

[JohnKleeb]

32. Hah I never saw that one

I don't see much romance films because I can't land myself a date.

[Ava]

33. DON'T!

it was so stupid. come to think of it i can't think of a "romance" movie that i've seen and actually liked. :shrug:

[JohnKleeb]

36. I liked Cold Mountain

:hide: Ok maybe because of the scenic shots and the fact that the most hottest actress had a small role in it.

[Ava]

38. i didn't see that one.

maybe i'll check it out. isn't it really long?

[JohnKleeb]

41. about 2 1/2 hours I recall

It's actually a neat movie and a friend of mine was going to be a reenactor in it but he would have had to miss the whole year due to the filming in Romania.

[Ava]

42. cool. my uncle was supposed to be in "remember to titans"

but he stood them up! he didn't show up. :rofl:

he told me he was too busy!

[npincus]

37. here's an excerpt I found online:

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/General/JohnnyGotHisGun.html

Definitely not a love story! It might haunt your dreams.

[Goblinmonger]

59. One of the best

anti-war books ever. Still comes to mind often and I read it over 20 years ago. Didn't some shitty big-hair band do a song/video about it?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

61. Big-hair band?

I think that was Metallica, dude. Before they got all shitty.

[Goblinmonger]

62. Yeah, that's who it was

Sorry, just lump with with all the other shitty bands in my mind now. I will agree that this song in discussion was before they took the exit to Suckville.

[xmas74]

58. Fantastic book.

It should be a must-read for all high school students.

[ismnotwasm]

49. "A farewell to Arms"

Best scene in "Evil Dead 2. Ash puts that book (title prominent) on a bucket on his own hand he cut off, because it's trying to kill him...

A haunted hand.

Suppose I should read the book again, it's been years.
Nah, I'll just watch Evil dead 2 again...

I'm such a slacker.

[Goblinmonger]

60. As a High School American Lit teacher, just let me say

that I really hate Hemingway. OK, I can appreciate his simplistic style. I can realize that without Hemingway we probably wouldn't have had Capote and a lot of other major American authors I DO like. But I just don't like reading him.

And the fact that he was such a woman-hating prick never leaves my mind when I read his "love stories."

[Haole Girl]

63. Funny you should say that...

because I was just thinking, as I read through these posts, that one benefit of reading Hemingway is the insight into a misogynist! Also, he is credited with being the master of what a sentence is-- something I still have not accomplished, in the least!

[Goblinmonger]

64. I will give him his props on both accounts.

I COMPLETELY agree that his sentence writing is flawless. The deceptive simple sentence that conveys so much was clearly a painstaking task. So few writers ever perfect it. I just can't stand what he is writing ABOUT.

[Haole Girl]

65. Hemingway was a reporter and reporters often write in short

and succinct sentences. I got in trouble, in college, for my abbreviated writing style. So, I know, first hand, it doesn't always take a lot of effort. But, can take a lot of effort to change! I think, from what I remember about Hemingway, his most difficult challenge in life was living with himself.

[Goblinmonger]

66. It takes a lot of effort

to convey what Hemingway did in so few words.

From all I have read about him, his fight with his own demons was clearly his biggest problem. Though he talked a lot about "writing the perfect sentence." His editing was obsessive; it wasn't just abbreviated. That would be like saying that Ezra Pound just didn't use a lot of words. Choosing the PERFECT word is a long, hard process.

[Haole Girl]

67. Well, you are clearly the expert,.

I stand corrected.

[Goblinmonger]

68. I didn't mean to be bitchy.

And remember that I don't like Hemingway. I've read narratives from his kids that said he would go into his guest house to work on writing for 8-10 hours a day and the kids knew that they couldn't disturb him or he would go apeshit on them.

[Haole Girl]

70. I realize that. I happened to like him as a writer.

But, then, I tend to compartmentalize. It sounds like, it's not good to know too terribly much about a writer's personal life. I always did wonder why we had to know Emily Dickinson was a recluse in order to read her poetry! Maybe you could tell me the reasoning behind it...?

[Goblinmonger]

71. One of my favorite Simpsons quotations

"Solitude never hurt anyone. Emily Dickinson lived alone, and she wrote some of the most beautiful poetry the world has ever known…then went crazy as a loon."

I usually talk a little about authors and their lives because people don't write in a vacuum. Dickinson wrote some pretty powerful stuff about love and seperation. Those messages become even more powerful when you realize that she never went out and couldn't see her "love" on a constant basis. It also helps amplify her obsession with death.

William Burroughs was a prick, too, but I LOVE his stuff. Naked Lunch is a fabulous work of literature, but was written while he was completely wasted on junk and was fucking an underage boy.

[miss_american_pie]

69. Thank you!

:standingovation:

[Goblinmonger]

72. It's hard teaching stuff to kids

when the main pull is that they have to have exposure to the author for cultural and literary reasons, but you think it is crap. If I have to teach Farewell, I think I would scream on a daily basis. We teach Old Man and the Sea and at least that is short. I think we are getting rid of it (I'm the department chair and the district Language Arts curriculum director now ;) ) and replacing it with Sherman Alexie. Much more important for the kids to read him.

edit: for spelling, because, even though I am an English teacher, sometimes my spelling sucks.

[miss_american_pie]

73. Old Man and the Sea is the only one I can tolerate

:)

[Haole Girl]

74. If they don't read Hemingway in High School, they'll have

...double the reading when they take an upper level English course in college. Now, I know, I can't blame it on the teachers (I could have mysteriously known to create my own reading lists) but that is one reason I couldn't take upper level literature courses in college. How could I compare one novel to another when I didn't have the basics? I couldn't read twice as much. It was physically impossible for me to catch up.

Please don't take the classics off your list because you personally don't like an author. OK?



Edit: spelling

[Goblinmonger]

75. That is a pretty hard task to place on HS English teachers

So what should we teach? Even if we just focus on Hemingway, which novel? Old Man and the Sea "got" him the Nobel but Farewell and Sun are clearly better books. And why Hemingway and not Faulkner? Or Mitchner? Or Maugham? Do see the problems. Here is what I think my role is as a high school Literature teacher (not counting in the writing component) should be for classroom content:

1. I am NOT a college prep teacher. I think too much of what we do is predicated on getting kids ready to go to college (if you think about it, the classic high school research paper is just a prep for the undergrad research paper, which is a prep for the masters thesis, which is a prep for the dissertation--I refuse to do something so I can be a cog in a wheel toward PhDs).

2. I want kids to leave high school with a desire to read. Anything.

3. I want kids to have some basic skills to be able to "get" good literature. What does that include? At a basic level they need to understand metaphor (which isn't all that basic) because most of literature is based on that. They need to REALLY get that literature is about exploring the human condition and getting a chance to view the world through someone else's eyes. They need to feel comfortable taking risks and reading something outside their comfort zone even if they don't like it (and they need to know that it is OK not to finish a book if it doesn't ring their bell--unless I assign it).

4. I want kids to have a basic understanding of who the major American authors (for my American Lit class) were/are. They need this of all major authors in general. A lot of this can be done through anthologies that give short stories, poems, and excerpts from larger works.

5. That's it.

Outside of the classroom, I recommend books like a bastard. I have a personal library that I loan out to kids that have the desire to read. But I can't possibly give kids exposure to every book that they need to read to effectively take higher-level english classes.

Plus the other problem I have is that if I just teach the classics to get them ready for college (other than just plain sucking for them to read), they are basically just reading dead old white guys (we call them DOWGs for short) and that is an injustice. The good kids will pick up some Hemingway along the way. But I think every kid needs exposure to some Native American perspectives (Sherman Alexie) and, god forbid, some women.

[Haole Girl]

76. You're the teacher, not I.

A little of both would be good, I'd think. :)