Reflexive essay #3

Helen Rubenstien reflects upon the benefits of free internet available via unknowing neighbors generously sharing their Wi-Fi, throughout her apartment block, in her essay Won’t You Be My Wireless Neighbor? Rubenstien opens with a sentimental, Oscar acceptance like speech, thanking all the previous givers of wi-fi; identified comically by their wireless addresses.  

Rubenstien sets the tone in the opening paragraph. It is clearly light hearted when she begins thanking the anonymous and naive neighbors for aiding in her job, social life, and online TV watching, “So, to linksys of Park Slope, in 2005, for allowing me to do my first freelance work from home; to Netgear 1 and Netgear 2 of the same neighborhood, in 2006, for supporting my electronic application to several graduate schools; to DHoffma, from 2007 to 2008, for letting me pay my taxes online and stream new episodes of “Friday Night Lights” each evening for a whole winter;” etc. But she continues to explain of their termination and eventually she explains how she winds up with no generous neighbors, of the various Wi-Fi – “Thank you. And may you rest in peace.” This is a shift, she goes on to lament losing something she took for granted.

Rubenstien maintains her well developed voice and tone remains jocular but the purpose of the piece becomes clear, a critique of paid internet in world of networks that can support five or six computers. Rubenstien is disconnected and she describes the ensuing silence saying, “Then—crickets.” But goes on, in a more serious tone “The era of unintentional, unasked-for or simply unacknowledged Internet sharing, it seemed, had come to an end.” Setting the scene for her commentary.

I saw a change a change in her tone when she began writing of life after being disconnected, she became even more informal. She tried to justify her previous action and intentions. She talked directly to the reader, and at one point I thought the essay was about turn from a lamenting essay on internet debacles to a stream of conciseness when Rubenstien said she would imagine her “anonymous benefactors, those people behind Netgear 1 or belkin54g, thinking, ‘Well, I have Internet to spare.’ ”

Rubenstein’s tone, and in fact her entire essay goes sour from this point. She struggles from paragraph to paragraph, clearly unsure whether she should write a purely reflexive essay or critiquing commentary.

Due to her light hearted, comedic tone and her direct relation with the author, this essay would not be a great AP Essay.

Outside Reading #3: Book Review

Janet Maslin opens her review Stoking the Fire Larsson Ignited with a slightly confusing and completely irrelevant passage from the subject of her review, the book Three Seconds. Already the reader is put off by Maslin’s writing style; a glib introduction and a pointless quote followed by a dizzying paragraph of sentences of one word and sentences 32 words.

After introducing the reader to the already well known and popular Stieg Larsson, Maslin goes on to compare the two authors of Three Seconds, Anders Roslund, a journalist, and Borge Hellstrom, an ex-criminal, to the famous author; but it is clear that any connection is a stretch. She uses pleonasm too often and her style seems like a young high school student attempting to impress peers with flowery language, “But “Three Seconds” is the first Roslund and Hellstrom book that has been wishfully packaged to suggest that “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” has a second cousin.” And again the constant comparison to Larsson’s novels. It quickly becomes clear that Maslin is not reviewing Three Seconds as a stand alone novel but as a ‘cousin’ to Larsson’s trilogy. This presumes the reader has 1) read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and 2) they enjoyed it.

In the next paragraph Maslin goes on to list all the awards to book has won and how long it spent on top seller lists, “Three Seconds spent the better part of a year on Swedish best-seller lists. Its authors won a prize — the Swedish Academy of Crime Writers’ Award for Swedish Crime Novel of the Year — that has also been awarded to Larsson and Henning Mankell.” Note the reference to the ever present Larsson. This information does not need to be included in a book review, in fact including this paragraph is completely against book review etiquette. The article should just be a subjective review of one book. A list of statistics makes for a boring read.

Maslin finally touches on the plot but she fails to go into any depth, instead she focuses on the length, “So this is a nearly 500-page book with a many-faceted plot, and the authors are in no hurry to bring their story into focus”. Thank you, Maslin, we now know the book is ‘nearly 500 pages’. What about that plot, Maslin, unsurprisingly fails to elaborate, she says “There’s a nugget of social criticism at the heart of this plot idea” and she gives a nugget of critique. I have not even read the book and I can say the is more than “a nugget of social criticism” popular crime and mystery novels set in a changing Sweden are full of social criticism. I just got the impression Maslin was too lazy to write anything substantive; and laziness does not score well on an AP essay. Her lack of evidence also makes this a weak candidate for an AP essay. 

Towards the end of her essay Maslin tries to makes amends, or more accurately- excuses. Stating “Perhaps something is lost in translation”. Or perhaps the entire meaning of her critique was lost in her obsession with Larsson.

Class Notes: 12/13 - 1/07/11

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead


Theatre of the Absurd:

1 no logic
2 no horizon of significance 
3 worlds that the character can't understand.
4 characterized by the absence of things.

Also inspired by "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock":

1 both have a reliance on romantic irony
2 characters have no heroic aspirations




Death of a Salesman
Stuff we discussed:

Ben's function: a father figure to Willy
1 reinforces the father-son dynamic that is present throughout Western Literature
2 Willy chases him throughout the play to impress him

going to Alaska/Africa = extracting resources
    o "A man is not a piece of fruit," says Wily, but he was

Willy constantly contradicts himself

Miller structures his play in accordance with Willy's mind, so flash backs and dreams and such.



Difference between success and happiness:

1 Biff realizes it; Willy and Happy never do.
2 Willy defines success as money and respect and material goods

Brothers motif: Ben/Willy, Biff/Happy

* one brother becomes a salesman, while the other goes away
* Willy/Happy, frozen in boyhood, adopt irrational boyhood dreams

Linda:

1 if she respected Willy, would she allow him to fool himself like this?
2 and the dairy product motif = breastfeeding!
3 Willy as a mothered child:
    o Biff calls him a "prince"
    o the use of the word "gee"
    o his name is not William or Bill but "Willy"
3 Linda mothers him like a small child
    o lets him see things the way he wants to see them; doesn't challenge him
    o tolerates his outbursts like they're tantrums of a child