4/08/13

I think the structure of the stories tell me as the reader that I can't just read one story and skip over a few then read a next one. I realized that I had to continue reading to end of each story in order for the next story to make even a little sense. The structure is a bit different from the usual structures that I'm used to so it wasn't the easiest thing for me to read. There were some things that I didn't get and I felt I had to google them to make more meanings of it. Where the Mobius strip was concerned, I think it both complicated and clarified the meaning of the series. It clarified it by showing me that the stories weren't going to be the  easiest to read. I found that the stories wouldn't be the typical straight forward stories I'm accustomed to. The way in which I saw it complicating the series is that it left me with questions I had to search the answers to. As I read it I immediately remembered the first thing I learnt in Sociology, "everything is not as it seems". I realized that I had to apply a deeper thought when reading the rest of the book. I believe Barth used such a strange object to serve as the narrative structure because he thought readers were accustomed to having a particular frame of mind when reading novels. This was his way of showing that there are different ways to approaching books where reading is concerned. He wanted to be different in his own way and creative at the same time.

4/01

     I believe that in Tortilla Flat the author was trying to show that people don't just value material things. People want to feel that they have other people around them that care about them. That's what they value most. The characters were depicted as thieves and wine lovers (which was true), but they proved to have some sort of moral values through the way they treated others. They  formed friendships that were very thick. I did see that if you didn't have money you didn't have certain advantages but that didn't bother Danny nor Pilon, nor the others who lived in the house.
     At one point everything was centered around money but in the end what mattered was the friendship formed by the men and their will to help others who they saw in the same social position as them. When they were around each other there wasn't any separation with status, it was them being free in society without rules and governing. The American Experience affects me in the same way I described before. I often want to be free from rules and do what I want but society requires that I work and follow instructions in order to "make it". Tortilla Flat depicts that perfectly cause I myself want to help others who are travelling the same road as me.