Last Blog

I just wanted to thank everyone in class for a great Maymester. The
discussions that we had were really fun, sometimes heated, but fun. I
enjoyed all of the books we read, some more than others, but all were
interesting. I'd also like to thank Dr. B for putting together a great
class and keeping it interesting. I must admit that I hate group work,
but our presentations were pretty fun. I enjoyed watching everyone's
presentation and hearing what they had to say on their resepective
subjects. Well, I hope you all have a great summer! Thanks again!

BMB#3

Boy Meets Boy #3
You have got to be kidding me with the ending of this book. “What a wonderful world” may be the absolute worst final line of any book I have ever read. I realize this is a YA work with the intention of making young people feel comfortable with the idea of homosexuality and also make young homosexuals feel comfortable with themselves, but I believe this takes it a bit far. Kids today need to realize that everything doesn’t always work out perfectly. The only negative aspect of the final pages of the book is Chuck’s displeased look outside of Tony’s house. To me, this is completely cheesy and unacceptable. I may be being pessimistic here, but the ending of this book left me with a very sour taste in my mouth. I simply cannot believe that “serendipity” came to be and EVERY negative and unhappy aspect of the book came to be positive and jovial. Once again, this may be pessimistic, but I feel that the negative aspects of the book are the only redeeming qualities to the complete sense of ridiculousness the book gives me. Can you tell I am not the biggest fan of Boy Meets Boy in the world??

BMB#2`

Boy Meets Boy #2
So, Paul’s parents are a dentist and a director of philanthropy. They do not fight, they are 100% accepting of Paul’s homosexuality, exclaiming, “Paul’s learned a new word” when he tells them he is gay, and the only thing Paul worries about with them and his gayness is them embarrassing him in front of his boyfriends. This whole situation seems a bit too perfect for me. The people make pancakes in the shapes of countries and states for God’s sake. In the scene with the pancakes, the only aspect of true reality is Paul’s brother. He is completely rude, making fun of his little brother and his friends like an everyday older brother. I also find a bit of reality in Noah’s sister, Claudia. She is a bratty, outspoken sister who is cautious of her brother being hurt in relationships. She reacts in the same way most would when dealing with parents who are away and a new person comes into the house. Paul calls her a “glum diva” where I see her as nothing more than a spot of flawed commonness in an otherwise flawless society.

BMB#1

Boy Meets Boy #1
In Boy Meets Boy, Levithan created a society resembling a homosexual “utopia”. Everyone seems to be accepted and with the exception of Tony, no one seems to encounter and sort of resistance to being homosexual. Tony seems “grounded” in the “real” world. In the fantastic world of Levithan, Tony is the only representation of current society. Even Noah, who admits to not always having an easy time dealing with others dealing with his gayness, is written as being too good to be true. OF course, this may be because he is shown through the eyes of Paul, who has an insanely big crush on Noah. At the very end of the section, Chuck goes off on a rant describing his negative feelings for the ever flamboyant “Infinite Darline”. This rant, although filled with prejudice, still does not reflect our current prejudice society because of the character it comes from. Chuck is a very confused character, once having a thing for Darline and now being with Joni, and, as Paul said, is most likely saying all of the bad things about Darline to show he could never have feelings for a person like him…or her.

P&P#3

Pride and Prejudice #3

The final parts of the book were very enjoyable to read. Pride and prejudice, finally dissolved, allow Darcy and Elizabeth to get engaged. I enjoyed this book because it contained many different characters, some very much enjoyable, while others I absolutely hated reading about. I have to say that Darcy was the character that I related to and enjoyed the most. His brutal honesty and inability to express his feelings was something I found to be both comical and appealing. My least favorite character was definitely Mr. Collins. As stated before, he reminds me too much of a Screech/Steve Erkel character, except much, much less comical and endearing.

P&P#2

Pride and Prejudice #2

As I am sure it is noticeable, I tend to focus on characters and situations I do not like in my blogs. This blog’s victim: Mr. Collins. Mr. Collins to me just reminds me so much of Steve Erckle from Family Matters, it is unreal. The man cannot take hints. I also do not like the fact that he first “fancied” Jane and as soon as he realized she was not available he quickly turned his attention to the next best thing: Elizabeth. It is like a process of elimination to Collins. His advances are neither graceful or witty and he lacks any aspect of class. Following Elizabeth’s rejection of his advances towards her, which I throughouly enjoyed reading, Collins immediately turns again to a new girl, Charlotte Lucas. The courting of Elizabeth may have been the worst proposal I have every read or heard of by the way. I am happy that he finally is off the market and married to Charlotte, but I cannot help but think of how awful of a life the two will lead. Granted, the situation is exactly what each desired, but he is absolutely repulsive in every respect of the word.

P&P #1

Pride and Prejudice #1
I absolutely cannot stand Mrs. Bennet. Personally, I have known mothers who act in the same ridiculous manners, overreacting to nearly every commonplace event that could possibly impact some minute detail of their lives and ever those events that have no bearing on them at all. I do, however, enjoy the reactions of both Elizabeth and Mr. Bennet to her absurdness. They treat her with the very highest level of sarcasm possible, usually playing along with her dramatic rants and tirades. The two seem to bond over this aspect of their lives and it is very enjoyable. However, I question the motives for the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet. I believe it had to be simply for “looks” because I personally could not spend the rest of my life with a woman like Mrs. Bennet. I do believe that the character of Mr. Bennet is a much better man than me, due to his ability to accept his wife for who she is and take all the drama she brings to the house with a grain of salt.

Class

I just wanted to say how much I've enjoyed this class. Of all the lit classes I've taken, the discussions in this class were the best. Everyone always had interesting things to say that made me think about the texts and the issues in the texts in different ways. I thought it would be agony waking up for a 9:50 a.m. class every morning the first few weeks of summtertime, but surprisingly, it wasn't difficult at all, because I always looked forward to our discussions:)
Anyways, hope everyone has a good summer. Thanks for an enjoyable maymester:)

I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed this class. It was so refreshing to come in to class each day with such brilliant and witty people. I've greatly enjoyed getting to know a little of each of you and hope that we'll all be friends again sometime soon. Thanks for imparting some wisdom on me.

Take Care.

Cheers,
Alison

All Smiles

Just wanted to say thank you to everyone for making class so enjoyable.
I feel like I really grew during the course of the class.
Thank you to everyone and have a great summer!

My Last Post :(

I love Pride and Prejudice. I love Colin Firth. I also love acting, so when the opportunity came to watch movies and discuss the acting I am all for that. Yes, I had already watched the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice and yes, I will own it soon ($30 on Amazon) but I had never really thought about Bridget Jones Diary as a modern version of the novel. Of course I had seen it before (mmm Colin) and I loved it, actually it is on TBS superstation this weekend, but the fact had never occurred to me that the screenplay was adapted off a novel from over a century ago. Honestly as an actor I still get excited when that happens. So of course I looked up Colin and now have him as my desktop but did you know that he was in The Secret Garden? I had forgotten. Anyway I just wanted to thank everyone in class for being great people and making Maymester so fun. Dr. B- I will never forget you and a personal thank you to you for like everything from popcorn to group projects. You all will make great teachers (those of you who want to be) and I wish you all the best. See you in class.

Bridget, Elizabeth and Cayce...

I've never seen Bridget Jones diary and I have to say I loved it. The humor was wonderful and, obviously, a lot of the female jokes were hysterical.

I do think that Bridge was pretty intrepid, but I am not sure that Elizabeth would have gone to so much trouble...the "he likes you just the way you are" is so similar to what Darcy finally perceives about Elizabeth that it really does make the connection. However, Bridget goes to a lot of trouble to change the way she is and Elizabeth never does that.

Then I looked at Bridget and Cayce, contemporaries if you will. Both of them go after cosmetic changes in their lives, Bridget losing weight and wearing her short skirts, Cayce putting on makeup, styling her hair and wearing logos. However, Bridget does go back to believing that she is good the way she is, while Cayce never quite comes back to the person she was. Kind of interesting.

Bridget Jones Diary

Well I was pleasantly surprised that we got to watch Bridget Jones Diary. I thought it was a great representation of the novel Pride and Prejudice. The film makers did a great job of putting this classic book in to our common era where marriage is looked at in a totally different matter. Hugh Grant's character in some way was scummier than Mr. Wickham. And was it just me or was the perverted Uncle supposed to play the role of Mr. Collins. Because if that is so that is a great job of matching the characters together.

Bridget and Austen

I had no idea that Bridget Jone's Diary was a loose interpretation of Pride and Prejudice. While I wasn't a fan of the movie, i did catch myself laughing here and there. Some of my friends love the movie, and I could swear that they said it was a book of the same title, not P&P. Either way, Bridget Jones is a great example how Hollywood can take a story and throw even more drama into it so to attract more audience members.

The character of Elizabeth/Brigdet definitely lost her power. No long the powerful, independent women, the protagonist now googles over men and passively falls into a lustful romance with her smarmy boss. Not exactly what Jane Austen had in mind when she was writing back in her day.

Darcy

I am very annoyed right now! My post did not publish as I asked it to!
Now, to my blog...
Basically, I like Darcy. His inability to express his emotions is something that I find very endearing. I knew that Elizabeth was just what Darcy needed when he insulted her at the dance. Her ability to keep her head in difficult situations mirrors his inability to show his emotions to others. I think it was a good thing for Bridget Jones's Diary to use the same Darcy as the Pride and Prejudice movie. It helped to draw together the ideas for all three works of art.