Another Study Blog

and to think. life is only going to get worse for mariam

sarah/akira parallels in when we were orphans

my first year of university i had bought a copy of seamus heaney's poems secondhand and the person who had it before had annotated some poems, and they were much more intelligent than I could be. but the poems i read and would have to annotate i would add my analysis around theirs (in a different colour to not mix us up) and would sometimes try to add to their points and that experience with dialogue endeared me to seamus heaneys work much more than the actual poems themselves could.

this author goes to therapy and not that there's anything wrong with that but every character in this book also goes to therapy.

the year of magical thinking is not a book I could really critique or review because of how personal of a narrative it is. what can i say? i think the way didion expressed her grief after the sudden death of her hushand is uncompelling (for the record that's not what i think at all) but one thing i can say is, in citing the literature of grief that came before her, i enjoyed how she solidified her place in the canon. the book was very much: freud, klein and lewis said this, and didion says this. i think it reaffirmed this idea throughout that grief is simultaneously an incredibly personal and unique thing while also something most everyone in the world has gone through. in her establishing of a canon she uses her personal experiences to become a definitive voice on the topic / theme. is this anything?

reading the year of magical thinking (likely thing for woman who wrote her dissertation on grief to be doing)

i know a reoccurring comment people will say about reading lolita is that you have to be a vigilant reader because hh is so charismatic and manipulative it's easy to fall for ehat he's saying but I think the opposite and you have to be intentionally stupid and deliberately obtuse to think he even actually properly cares for and loves dolores. i understand being confused maybe regarding if she did come onto him initially and believing him when he tells the reader the order of events. but all you have to do is read the words on the page to think this guy sucks, like without the being a pedophile thing, he sucks ! he's cruel and manipulative and abusive and cowardly and he ends a 12 year old girls whole life just to rape her. if you're a fully capable person reading this book and falling for it? you might be stupid?