I apologize for the late blog posts! But anyways,

With that being said, I thought that Survival in Auschwitz was undeniably, a remarkable piece. Not going to lie though, upon initially reading it, I was definitely a bit spooked.. like in the sense of, “whoa, this is a dark read.” Prior to reading Levi’s work, I did have quite a bit of background knowledge on the Holocaust, and the genocide. However, finally getting the chance to read a primary account was really touching. I was able to better recognize the struggle of the Jewish people, how they were completely disregarded simply because of the fact that they were not of the Arian race.

What I would say best stood out for me, was Primo Levi’s unyielding strength. In spite of it all, he still managed to find something to believe in. He believed in a better world, and ultimately, I think that is what enabled his freedom in the end of it all. Strength like that, in a place like that? I find that greatly admirable. Levi’s piece was by far, one of the darkest reads we have done thus far, obviously for the fact being that this isn’t some fictional piece that we can just shed off… but rather, this is history. We are reading an account from a man who went experienced the unimaginable and came out on top. I think that Survival in Auschwitz was one of my favourite reads this entire year. In spite of the fact that it was heavy and at times graphic, I thought the message was remarkable. Levi doesn’t write this account as a means of getting sympathy in return, or even as a means of making the reader hate the Germans for what they did. He wrote Survival in Auschwitz for the sole purpose of educating the reader; helping one understand history in more depth.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I felt privileged having gotten to read it from an individual who exhibited such immense strength during the Holocaust. I think that Levi’s piece is one that I will never forget, and it has also taught me to never take things for-granted as well. Reading this first hand account was an eye-opener, which makes this one of the best, at least in my opinion, thus far.

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Regarding Borges and Daisy Dolls, I thought that his and Hernandez’ works were equally entertaining.

First though, I would say that Daisy Dolls was definitely a rather odd piece. The concept was no doubt intriguing, but I do think that at times, it had me feeling weird and eerie.. if that even makes sense. In some instances, I would say I found this piece to be rather sadistic, and the protagonist creating the scenes with the dolls a bit deranged, but nonetheless interesting. Hernandez definitely found a way to draw me back into the story time and time again. However in spite of Horatio’s odd, definitely weird ways, this piece is great. In spite of it being super strange and awkward, I did greatly enjoy it— and for whatever reason.. Horatio finds immense entertainment with dolls (I guess that’s respectable)…. to each his own I guess?

Now as for Borges, I’d say that he is one of the more complex and “deep” authors we have encountered. Now I say deep, mainly because of the Library of Babel. I found this to be my favourite Borges story, for the main reason that I thought the concept in itself, of a library carrying an infinite amount of books, some not even created yet, carrying each and every idea thinkable is truly remarkable. I found that this complex and revolutionary concept is what really drew me in to this particular story. I guess I just can’t seem to get over the whole idea of overlapping books.. of an endless abyss of books upon books upon books.. thoughts upon thoughts. Looking up several depictions of what this labyrinth of books would look like also didn’t help my obsession with this story and the way it would be in reality. Overall, I would say that I enjoyed this story a lot because of its idea. Not to say that Borges’ other stories didn’t intrigue me.. which they did.. but not nearly as much as this particular one did.

All in all, these stories are all intriguing and captivating in their own ways. They all have a rather strange and bizarre, yet enticing feature to them.. which is generally why I think they are so popular and renowned. The stories manage to convey a story that grasps the reader’s attention (like the Daisy Dolls and Library of Babel to me!) Thus, Daisy Dolls and the Library of Babel were of greatest interest to me.. probably because I enjoyed the concept and the peculiarity of their stories the most.

After reading “Survival in Auschwitz”, I can easily say that it’s my favorite of all the books I’ve read so far this year. While the subject matter Levi was writing about was horrifying and tragic, the way in which he writes it all is beautiful. His writing reflects the bleak tone prevalent throughout the events, yet certain descriptions are so vivid that Levi brings this now dead world back to life. One of my favorite passages has to be the one in which he describes the rest siren of the camp:

“And at last, like a celestial meteor, superhuman and impersonal like a sign from heaven, the midday siren explodes, granting a brief respite to our anonymous and concord tiredness and hunger.”

And it’s not just this small passage which is so vividly described, every memorable instance Levi lived through in the camp is meticulously described. Reading the book, it was a constant experience of not wanting to read on (due to the tragic nature of everything written), but having a drive to know more about what had happened. Part of this is also due to the way the book is put together, while it is constantly fairly depressing, certain sections are thrown in (like the chapter entitled A Good Day) which give a sort of break to what could become monotonous and bleak descriptions of a horrible existence.

What I found incredibly interesting (after having read the book) is that Levi wasn’t a writer by profession. He was a chemist, who after these dark experiences in Auschwitz began telling stories of what he’d been through. Little by little, he began to write more, and using the years of suffering he’d been through, he channeled that into his poetry and other works. While this bit of biographical history might seem fairly uninteresting or not useful, I feel like it really shows the importance of writing.

I got this sense from reading “The Yellow Wallpaper”, and especially the small explanation Charlotte Perkins Gilman included with the story about her writing it. Writing truly seems like one of the few outlets for our mind. The way we cope with certain things is to write, probably because talking to yourself out loud seems like a fairly strange method. It’s something we have in common as a species which is becoming more literate, as it’s our way to communicate, share, reveal, and express what we feel. It seems like that’s a very important part of how Levi managed to write these amazing works, as it was his only outlet.

I didn’t mind reading this story because it was quite short, but I really didn’t enjoy reading this book at all. After already reading Robinson Crusoe earlier in the year, the last thing I wanted to read was another story about Crusoe and Friday. Not that I didn’t enjoy Robinson Crusoe, I just wanted to read something different.

I don’t really understand why the author decided to write a “new” story that included elements from a very old story. Reading Foe felt similar to watching a poorly done sequel of a movie that did not need to be revisited. It felt like the majority of the story surrounded the fact that Friday was unable to speak because of his tongue being removed, and while that tid bit of info was interesting for a little while, I became uninterested pretty quickly. Too much time was spent on wondering what Friday was thinking during different scenarios, even though clearly we were never going to be able to get any insight into his thoughts. There was a glimmer of hope of seeing Friday express his feelings when Susan tried to teach him how to write, but even then, we still knew nothing about Friday’s inner thoughts. Basically, I thought too much of the book was filled with pages talking about Friday, who is an incredibly uninteresting character, because he seems to have almost no emotions at all.

I also don’t fully understand what was happening with the girl that claimed to be Susan’s daughter, or the woman Amy that accompanied her. Hopefully my questions will be answered in the lecture on Thursday.

This was one of my least favorite reads of the year, partially because I don’t enjoy reading fiction all that much, but mainly I just did not want to read a reworking of a story that we have all already read.

Well, that was unexpected. Before last week I’d had no idea that Foe was a remodelled version of Robinson Crusoe. Interesting. I find it ironic that Susan struggles so much with her story being distorted by Foe, when the very book itself is a distorted story. I’m trying to figure out if I should be getting more of a statement out of that than just irony. Also, Defoe? Foe? Coetzee is just playing with us here. I just don’t know what to make of it. I mean, Foe is the writer, but he’s also the, well, foe! We’re led to dislike him, Susan dislikes him, she calls him a spider! He wants to turn her story into something she doesn’t want it to be. But are we meant to think of Defoe when we think of Foe? I have no idea, I feel like I must be reading too far into this.

Foe, the character, was just so incredibly frustrating. He felt condescending and forceful, I really just wanted Susan to ditch the whole thing and either do it herself or find someone else. The light repetition of “at last I could row no further” was significant in expressing the struggle she has with encountering so much resistance to the way she wants to do things. She struggles to find her daughter. She struggles to live. She struggles to tell her story. That’s something that the reader finds impossible to avoid, and it’s frustrating in many ways. Without this struggling there would not be much of a novel, but still, I couldn’t help thinking, what’s the point of all this? Couldn’t this all be avoided? However, I’ve heard it said, and I think I agree with it, that people write because they have to. When you have something to write about, you simply have to let it out and, often, show it to the world. I’m sure most of you know the feeling I’m talking about, a sort of need to get something down on paper, to let the gates down and have your words flow out? Susan has to tell her story. Foe becomes the vessel through which she can tell her story, and he attempts to bar her story. He forces parts that she doesn’t want to tell, and mutes the parts that she needs to have written in detail. That’s why I felt like he is the foe, the opposition. But I’m open to opposition here, does anyone feel like Mr. Foe was really not a foe at all?

This is a novel with good themes. It has you consider the reality of isolation, the value of civilization, the fallacy involved in creating compelling literature, and, of course, the great mystery of the unknown, the dissolution of knowledge, and the ever-flowing substitute of imagination. Good themes—if only they weren’t presented so poorly.

Like many, I began this book expecting a tale mostly centered on the island with the new character offering a change of perspective, and I expected that her interactions with Crusoe would result in a change of Crusoe’s character (possibly Friday too) and their overall situation. What I got, however, was a character who was Crusoe in name only and a woman who effectively accomplished nothing in terms of anything. This is the first problem. People talk about Foe as a reimagining of Robinson Crusoe, but if Crusoe—the protagonist of the original story—gets such a different character, he isn’t Crusoe anymore; he’s just some random stranded guy with a random stranded servant who just so happens to not have a tongue and be named after a weekday. Imagine if I write a book about a young wizard with a scar on his forehead who everyone calls the “Chosen One” and portray him as a narcissistic serial killer with drug problems and then call the book “a reimagining of Harry Potter.” What would the reaction be (besides lawsuits)? I guarantee you that if Defoe was still alive, he would be suing.

That aside, I understand Coetzee’s intention in creating such flat, boring characters and an even more flat and boring plot. He or she is trying to give us the theme—that reality is flat, boring, and mostly consequential. I’m fine with that. However, there are ways of doing this without being so annoyingly blatant and seeping it in melodrama. The protagonist (forgot her name) cannot go three pages without questioning some fundamental human truth or looking at the sky and going on mundane allegories about the meaning of life. Yes, so much symbolism, so much apparent subtext, so much careful use of words—but it just isn’t interesting. Even worse, this book has no pacing at all. There’s one droning text dump about the island, one even more droning text dump about the time in the Foe’s house, a somewhat less droning text dump about the journey, and finally, a nice not-as-awful-as-the-rest text dump with the ending (excluding IV, which I have no comment on).

In the end, Foe both sabotages itself and perhaps proves itself. It’s a boring book about how the world is boring and how what could be interesting (i.e. Friday) will never be revealed no matter how much we try. Perhaps I haven’t read deeply enough. Perhaps I’m missing some very subtle undertones. Perhaps I need to read it again. Unfortunately, however, I will not read this book again. A rereading is something I only grant to novels that I’m interested in, and in no way, shape, or form has this book ever really interested me. 

I’m not really sure how I felt about Foe. Most of the books that we’ve read this year have left a definitive mark in my mind, but I felt rather “eh” about this one. It was definitely interesting and intriguing, but nothing really mindblowing.

I did, however, love the idea of the corruption of truth via media. Obviously, in the day and age where this story takes place, media was mostly in the form of text, but the message still rings true. The complete shift from the truth of Sarah Barton’s story to this great, heroic tale show the importance of the almighty dollar, and how we truly are willing to do anything just for money. I suppose that this story doesn’t just apply to the creative spirit, but to any aspect of life where the truth is altered just for monetary gain. The most prominent image in my mind is the slaughtering of sharks by the Japanese. The Japanese people market their senseless killing of thousands of innocent animals by stating that it is for public safety, yet more people die every year by having vending machines fall on top of them… If we’re really that concerned about public safety, I guess we better torch all vending machines.

I also found Crusoe himself to be a rather intriguing character. I far preferred the Crusoe of Foe to that of Daniel DeFoe’s classic tale. In the original piece, Crusoe appeared far too perfect of a castaway, really. He just didn’t seem plausible. The Crusoe of Foe appeared far more realistic, and he showed this real mental shift from the “civilized” world to complete isolation. After spending however many years on an island all by one’s lonesome, I feel that one would almost become more content in solitude. As well, Crusoe of Foe showed far more mental and emotional complexity. I really could see Crusoe as a human whose lost all sense of authority and structure in life. Daniel DeFoe’s Crusoe just didn’t sit well with me…

I did not like this story.  I mean, I have not enjoyed some of the readings in Arts One, but I still had a hearty respect for them.  Mainly I just had a problem with the rhetoric, or these were simply works I would not always read.  For Foe though, I vindictively hate this story (though not the discussions that it brings up).  So much, that I honestly consider it to be a little more than glorified fanfiction. It certainly begs me to question on how did this story gain the Nobel Prize for Literature, for while the discussions and the points it eventually brings up are interesting, the character of Susan Barton just makes me want to scream.

To be up front, I set some higher expectations when I went into this story.  I expected this alternate version of Robinson Crusoe to be quite interesting.  Mayhap a discussion on the role of women.  What I read, is about a quarter of the story in which Barton basically throws herself into Crusoe’s arms.  Crusoe, painted as this flat, ornamental, deranged man who can’t seem to care for himself.  His backstory on how he came to the island is interesting and I liked the references to the original Robinson Crusoe.  However, I was mortified to see the original character reduced and twisted literally a shadow.  I much rather preferred the original.  The entire island sequence, was so boring, why is Barton even bothering to ask Foe to write this story?  Friday, is far more interesting, but this does not compensate for my dislike of how in my opinion, how the author twisted DeFoe’s text.  I mean yes, the plot is that Foe relentlessly distorted Barton’s tale and I find it rather disgusting that the author’s character takes advantage of Barton like this.  However, there are events within this story that do not make sense, that I see no purpose in being there.  The entire tale on how Barton details her travels with Friday, was useful in showing how alienated she was, but that went on for a quarter of the story!  Then after this extraordinarily interesting discussion with Foe about literature, one of the few parts in fact of this book which i found worth reading, Barton, is so disillusioned she mistakes a stranger for her daughter, and then throws herself into Foe’s bed… .  … What?  Just. what?  The story does get a little interesting when they start discussing stories and literature again, but events like those simply make me go what the hell just happened.

Now why do I hate Barton.  For a multitude of reasons, she’s weak-willed, delusional, her perception of reality non-existent, proven by the fact she thinks this girl Foe hired is her daughter.  She’s so distorted, so… lame.  That’s the word, lame.  for a person who wants to record her and Crusoe’s experience, she does a horrendous job of it.  She has some interesting things to discuss with Foe, but that’s it.

Is there anything I enjoy about this story?  A few.  Friday in particular.  His character was quite wonderfully developed and I loved reading about the discussion between Barton and Foe about him being a slave or a cannibal.   He was the highlight of this story for me, while Barton was useless, Foe was an ass, Crusoe an ornament, I found Friday quite refreshing and the discussion that revolved around him brought out the more interesting parts of the story.  The imagery was good and the use of repetition was neatly done. In fact, the general discussions between Barton and Foe were the parts of the story I most enjoyed.  They brought up some interesting issues in the telling of literature and of stories.

Still, I consider Barton’s character lame and thus, the story in general to be basically glorified fanfiction with some interesting arguments about literature.  For some reason, I’m not sure why, but my hate stems from my view that the author twisted DeFoe’s text, in a way I dislike and took it in a direction that I disliked.  I consider, that Defoe’s text is the original, the author built her story from it.  If the circumstances were different, my opinion would be different, and that is interesting, because the originality does affect how I see these works.  Moreovoer, I read Robinson Crusoe a long time ago before Arts One, and I liked it, as boring/repetitive some parts were, I found it a good story.  Of course the story is that Foe distorted Barton’s tale… but the original fragment that Barton had… was so… pointless, that I think that if the events of this story were true… I’d prefer reading Defoe’s version.

P.S… Jon, if you chose this text by any chance. FORGIVE ME!!! I just really could not sympathize with Barton.

Well, I gave it another shot, and all in all I can whole heartily say I didn’t like this text. This wasn’t my first time reading Foe, and honestly, both readings have given me a great deal of dissapointment. I must admit though, that the first 120 pages sparked my interest and I found far more enjoyable than my first reading, but the last 30 pages completely turned me off and left me unsatisfied. You can’t rob me of my ending and expect me to like it.

What I hated on my first reading was how much the story was an unfair alteration from a personally beloved text. Robinson Crusoe was an adventure with character development, charm and humbleness. This story is a retelling that molests all that I  once loved. Friday and Crusoe’s platonic relationship is reduced to nothing more than a slave and a master. Crusoe’s ambitious endeavours for colonizing his island are hued in a light of stubbornness and futility. And Friday’s nationality, charismatic entity, and worst of all his own voice are literally cut away from this retelling. Coetzee, why’d you have to rape my story?

Okay, but there were some things that I did like. Robinson Crusoe inspired me. It made me believe that under enough duress, any ordinary nobody could accomplish anything. It made the fate of a castaway seem noble and enchanting. Coetzee slaps me in the face, and spits the harsh reality on me. Being stranded is no adventure. Robinson Crusoe is a fairytale. Foe has a very subtle way of unraveling this truth. The clothes Crusoe creates easily fall apart in time, due to their mediocre construction from the ape skins, and the makeshift clothes he produces smell vile- just as they should. And while Crusoe is able to live in isolation almost peacefully with hardly any inner struggles in Defoe’s version, it’s clear that such a circumstance would drive any real person insane. It wouldn’t make a man work tirelessly to pursuit noble endeavours, it would beat him into a hopeless sense of idleness and submission! It’s a sad truth, I prefer the fairytale to be honest, but everyone needs a harsh slap in the face every now and then to see things how they really are.

Another theme is the idea of isolation. Crusoe survives a life sentence of hardly any companionship and absolutely no women as comfort in the original book. But in telling that his solitude has broken his humanity, making him feel no compassion toward Barton or a will to ever leave his island. But Barton only suffers Crusoe’s fate for a mere year, yet her return to civilization finds herself in no better condition. Coetzee proves that isolation is so much more than the literal separation from humankind. Back in England Barton is more of a castaway than she was on Crusoe’s island. She only has one friend, and ironically he’s a mute. Everywhere she goes she is ignored or shunned. It least she had Crusoe for company; some form of a lover or companion. People see her as a nomad, a whore (she kind of is), and a gypsy. This is the strandedness that every reader can relate. Despite the fact that we live surrounded by human beings and civil enclosures, many social barriers can serve as the same distance as sea spans between islands.

I don’t hate this story, it just confuses and pisses me off. Ugh, I have nothing more to say.