Week 6- Entry B

I love Jasper Fforde's word choice. It is often absolutely silly. Here are a few words and phrases that made me smile-

Mad as a barrel of skunks.
I'm pretty flummoxed by it all.
Within ten minutes they were on the road again, the Vicar's increasingly aggressive offers of scones and tea notwithstanding.
No conspiracy is worth a button unless someone is murdered over it- preferably with clandestine overtones and just enough ambiguous facts to be tantalizing.

Oh man, Fforde knows just how to write things to make them funny. He can even turn serious situating comical. When Jack and Mary are uncovering blown up pieces of Goldilocks from a bomb area, I actually laughed. That shouldn't be funny! He also makes hidden jokes. When a man went missing after an enormous explosion, the vice president of Quangtech says, "He cost us over thirty million pounds, and all for nothing. Project Supremely Optimistic Belief was abandoned soon after." I found it pretty funny that the search project was called that.

I'm not in love with this book so far, but I do laugh sometimes while reading it. Fforde is very funny and clever. I'm glad I'm reading something uplifting this quarter after our last few depressing books.

Week 6- Entry A

Vocabulary-

(p 226) clandestine- characterized by, done in, or executed with secrecy or concealment, esp. for purposes of subversion or deception; private or surreptitious

(p 229) egalitarian- asserting, resulting from, or characterized by belief in the equality of all people, esp. in political, economic, or social life.

Figurative Language-

1. (p 229) "'Welcome to QuangTech,' said the giant, whose voice seemed to rumble after he had spoken." The word giant is a hyperbole exaggerating the man's size.
2. (p 242) " Mad as a barrel of skunks." This simile refers to his madness compared to a barrel of skunks.
3. (p 251) "A sense of foreboding closed over both of them, a feeling of danger that seemed to roll in from the forest like a wave." There is a simile between the sense of foreboding a wave.

Quote

(p 242) "Mad as a barrel of skunks." Do I need to say more? This phrase is very silly and I laughed for a little bit after reading it. I know it's not an incredibly important quote, but perhaps it will make you laugh as well.

Theme-

The most unlikely theories can sometimes be the correct ones.

Week 5- Entry B

People just love good drama. This quote is kind of long, but I can't imagine how to explain this without writing out the whole thing.

"European nation with the highest politician/lover ratio: Few European states can hope to compete with France and Italy in this department, and the two nations have been battling for European political lothario supremacy for over thirty years. The contest has been increasingly acrimonious since 1998, when France was initially the clear winner but somehow "lost" sixty-eight illicit lovers in the recount and had to concede defeat. The following year was no less rocked in scandal, when the Italians were disqualified for "stretching the boundaries" of their elected representatives to include senior civil servant- and the crown was tossed back to France. No one was quite prepared for the disgraceful scandal the following year when it was discovered that one French minister had no mistress at all and "loved his wife," a shocking revelation that led to his resignation and ultimately to the fall of the government."

Why do people like to hear about scandal and misconduct? The French minister who "loved his wife" was chastised for being moral. Our society embraces the wrongdoing. I mean, why do people like Grey's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives so much? It's all about the drama, the pain, and the adulatory. I'm not going to lie, I'm a big Grey's Anatomy fan, but should our society really be so focused on these attitudes?

Week 5- Entry A

Vocabulary-

(p 203) constituents- a component

(p 200) inextricably- incapable of being disentangled, undone, loosed, or solved

Figurative Language-

1. (p 209) "He still had a few days to prove that the Allegro was self-mending before the metaphorical straitjacket began to tighten." The straitjacket is a metaphor for the pressure of the situation Jack faces.
2. (p 218) "The glass from the phone-booth windows had melted and then cooled in midflow, like icicles." This simile compare the melted windows to icicles.
3. (p 218) "The cast-iron lamp standard had melted like a soft candle." This simile compares the cast-iron lamp to a candle.

Quote

(p 217) "They found his dentures embedded in a tree a quarter mile away. It took a crowbar to get them out. But they don't think he was wearing them at the time; his bedside lamp was also found close by." After Stanley Cripps is caught in a deadly explosion of a bomb, he and all of his property are blown to bits. I just found this quote hilarious. I can just imagine people trying to pry dentures out of a tree. I hope anyone reading my blog enjoys this as much as I did.

Theme-

People love drama. They just can't get enough of bad things happening to other people.

Week 4- Entry A

Vocabulary-

(p 163) constitutional- beneficial to one's constitution; healthful

(p 165) ursine- of or pertaining to a bear

Figurative Language-

1. (p 171) "Before Jack could answer, there were two more dull thuds and two more plumes of earth shot skyward, this time with greater force- and closer." The word thud is an onomatopoeia because the noise a thud makes is thud.
2. (p 171) "They had both started to search the ground for anything more when there was a loud whompa!" Whompa is also an onomatopoeia.
3. (p 171) "He stared back into the barrage, the rising column of soil and the pebbles bouncing on the ground in front of his and the dry dust in the summer hear drifting like a smoke screen." This simile compares the dust and a smoke screen using the word "like".

Quote

(p 178-179) "After twenty minutes Jack made the first discovery. It was a woman's shoe, with the foot still inside it. [...] In two hours they had found several parts of her bag, assorted scraps of clothing, eighty-seven parts of her laptop and sixty-two pieces of gristly bone, the only recognizable parts of which were her foot, a finger and half a jaw, all of which were sent to the labs." This shows how police officers and detectives must separate their emotions from the job so they can get things done efficiently even when gross and sad moments occur.

Theme-

War is a horrific experience which should not be taken lightly.

Week 4- Entry B

SommeWorld is a First World War themed amusement park in my book. It's an incredibly clever idea for a park used to sober those who glamorize war. The visitors to this park experience explosions caused by air pressure. These bomb like explosions could take your arm off, but the visitors wear wristwatches that stop explosions from happening in their proximity. Although this is a very extreme park, I think something like this in the real world is a good idea. Although most people fear war, there are those that glamorize the experience. In A Prayer for Owen Meany (you should all read this. it's the most powerful book i've ever read!) there is a character towards the very end that sees war this way. He's underage for the draft, but he can't wait until he's old enough to join the army and kill. This demented outlook on life seeing killing as fun, should be prevented. Maybe a park like this, putting visitors into a soldiers shoes, would make these type of people understand the horrors of war. However, it could very well have the opposite effect. It could give them a taste of war, and make them hunger for it even more. Perhaps, the drama and danger is what they are looking for. Because they can't die in this amusement park, they may not realize how near death they truly are. I like this idea for a park, but it would be controversial and difficult to build. It could have wonderful effects though.