Nil's Magic Carpet Ride

Kindred has definitely been one of the most intense novels I've read. I think Octavia Butler did an incredible job of using time travel to explore the relationships between every character living within antebellum south. In particular, I think Octavia Butler is insanely good at creating dread. One of the many scenes that got me feeling dread was when Rufus finds both the map and the modern book about slavery. It's scary to think that the course of history could have been so much more different if Rufus had told his father or if it was found by him. Along with the book, Dana was also kinda forced to burned the map and Rufus basically says, "you don't have to worry because you are home". It feels creepy and even more so when you realize what his character thinks of Dana towards the end of the story. Dana is also tied down to saving Rufus because if she doesn't, she'll also be wiped from existence. As a reader, I just wanted Hagar to be born as soon as po...

Alright so this blog post is going to be a little unordinary. My friends and I randomly started talking about the topic of Tralfamadorians and their perception of time. Eventually we all kind of got into an argument about the existence of time and what time truly means and thought this could be fun to read and comment on. Slaughterhouse Five really got us thinking about time itself and it was a fun argument/discussion. I made a video to show the full conversation and put Rushes by Frank Ocean in the back to make it more enjoyable.

In 3rd period, Elizabeth and Erin brought up a really good point about how Ishmael Reed doesn't include any seriously relevant female characters. The ones that do get included get shown in a negative light. Like at first Reed depicts Jes Grew as an anti-plague that infects people with scandalous forms of dance and sheds a good light on sexuality and having fun. However, the scene with Earline becoming possessed by a loa feels sexually repressive and almost 'Atonistic'. PaPa Labas seems kinda embarrassed and is apologizing but I would think his character would be more appreciative of this happening? I also think it's kind of really disappointing how Isis is an extremely powerful goddess and is believed to be the most powerful magician in the world (according to Wikipedia) and Reed just writes her as easily seduced by Moses and gives away the Book of Thoth. Reed had a lot of room to develop her character and include her in more important ways in the 'alternate' ...

So far into reading this book, I've derived that the main conflict is going to be between the Wallflower Order, representing western society, and Jes Grew, representing black and African culture. Throughout the book, Ishmael Reed likes to prove that African culture deserves recognition and shouldn't be thrown away as "mumbo jumbo". I noticed that Reed takes jabs at western society and I enjoyed some specific lines. One of the first few lines I noticed where Reed makes fun of western society is when he is describing the symptoms of Jes Grew. Up until this point, we know of Jes Grew as a epidemic causing people to dance and feel lively. Soon after we get another description of how Harry (a person 'infected') felt with Reed saying, "he felt like the gut heart and lungs of Africa's interior. He said he felt like the Kongo: "Land of the Panther"." and "he felt like he could dance on a dime". These are just some of the many beauti...

In class, we went over why the title of the book was called Ragtime and I had an interesting thought. Each of the characters, especially the famous ones, are crafted by Doctorrow with elements of history and fiction that weave together. I like to view this "weaving together" of history and fiction similarly to a ragtime piano song with one hand playing history and the other playing fiction. There might be more aspects of history or fiction present in one character but without either you can't play a full Ragtime song.  I did some research and I first looked into Houdini since I really liked his character. Based on what I read, Houdini really did become very interested in mediums and trying to talk to the dead after his mother's death. Originally while reading this part of the book it kinda reminded me of a horror movie and how a bunch of them have a common thread of some type of communication with the dead. With this in mind, I thought the whole part was fictitious...