O'Brien

I loved this story, but then again I love other stories I've read by O'Brien as well.

The truth in "How to Tell a True War Story" is that the stories aren't always 100% true.  They're typically based partially on what the reader wants to hear, as well as a mixture of what actually happened and what seemed to have happened.  In justifying the way the stories are told to the listener he states:  "You'd feel cheated if it never happened".  However, to defend the soldier he states:  "What seems to happen becomes its own happening and has to be told that way.  The angles of vision are skewed".

My favorite quote from this story was during the beginning when O'Brien stated:  "If you don't care for obscenity, you don't care for the truth; if you don't care for the truth, watch how you vote.  Send guys to war, they come home talking dirty"--the attitude and demeanor reminds me of movies like Full Metal Jacket and Jarhead.

Blog #4

I really enjoyed reading "My Father Always Said" by Mimi Schwartz.  The essay describes how she gained a concept of what it meant to be Jewish from her adolescent years through her adulthood.  Schwartz divided the essay into 6 different segments.  Overall, the purposes of the gaps were to help the reader navigate her thoughts throughout the essay.

The first segment opens with the phrase, "In Rindheim, you didn't do such things!"  Schwartz’s father repeats this phrase often throughout the essay as he is condemning the brave or abrasive attitude his daughter has acquired, growing up in a different generation than he had experienced.  His statement simply signifies the fact that the behavior his daughter displays would not have been tolerated while he was growing up in Rindheim.

Segment two is significant as it is apparent that Mimi lacks any form of appreciation for her culture, even while visiting Rindheim.  While Mimi’s father is proud of his heritage and where he came from, Mimi refers to it as a “bust” as she observed the horse flies attacking the cow dung.  My impression of Mimi during the second segment was that she was a typical, bratty kid—I also felt sympathetic for her father as he expressed how proud he was of where he came from.

Finally during the third segment I gained a sense that Mimi’s cultures were unified as she visited the synagogue with her father.  Later, Mimi seems to dig into her cultures roots even deeper with her father as she learns about Kristallnacht during segment four.

Mimi appears to somewhat mature during segment five as she learns about the Jewish tradition of placing stones on graves, by her father.  Mimi is more insightful as she asks her father questions about the tradition.  As the reader, I was please with the 5^th segment, noticing that Mimi is finally acknowledging her father as well as her culture.

Segment six concludes with Mimi fully comprehending the sacrifices her father made for his family.  My favorite line is when Mimi states, “ ‘In Rindheim, we didn’t do such things!’ suddenly carried more weight, giving me a history and legitimacy that would have made me not mind, as much, if my father continued to say that line”.  I was pleased to learn that Mimi gained an appreciation for her father as well as her culture.

Blog #2

Without my opinion being portrayed as offensive, I have to be honest: I found Kinkaid’s essay to be extremely monotonous. I tried to give it a chance, but the continuous usage of “I was powerless then (though not so now)” was distracting. I felt that the fact that not one sentence was written without the use of parenthesis caused the essay to not flow very well. I presume that if Kinkaid’s essay adds anything to the ideas of creative nonfiction, it’s the idea that CNF can be written with no boundaries. As a classmate said, her essay seems like it was written by a child and I agree. It’s as though she wrote exactly how she felt and without editing her essay, left it the way her thoughts came to mind.

Lott’s essay in comparison was much more interesting. I felt I could relate to Lott as I realized his definition of creative nonfiction was similar to the idea I had in mind. Lott’s definition made me feel comfortable to approach creative nonfiction writing: “Creative nonfiction can take any form, from the letter to the list, from the biography to the memoir, from the journal to the obituary.” His statement made me look at CNF writing in a free-spirited manner. Overall I enjoyed reading Lott’s definition of creative nonfiction writing in comparison to Kinkaid.

Definition of CNF

Reading "Out There" provided me with a better sense of what creative non-fiction writing is. It seems as though individuals have the freedom of having fun while writing CNF, mainly because they have the opportunity to be creative! CNF writing also allows for the writer to include personal experience or facts to their story because of the fact that it is non-fiction. Overall, CNF writing seems to be an enjoyable form of writing.

First Post

Hi!