Book Rant!!

(Semester’s Narrative blog)

Out of the five fictional narratives we’ve read, I enjoyed Oedipus Rex the most. I have no idea why I enjoyed it so much, but it was the most enjoyable for me to read. I really liked that I had to dig into the writing to understand it, but I didn’t have to put in a lot of work to do so. I wholeheartedly admit that I am lazy. My group and I were constantly trying to find memes that worked with Oedipus Rex which made the reading a lot more fun (I have those linked in my Oedipus Rex/Fences post). I am also a fan of Greek mythology, thanks to the Percy Jackson series, so a few aspects of Oedipus Rex were familiar to me. Also, Oedipus was so  dramatic and Creon and Tiresias seemed so sassy and I really liked the characters. Oedipus Rex was just a fun read for me, and although I would never reread it, I enjoyed our time together.

I disliked Crime and Punishment the most (surprise surprise). I couldn’t find anything to relate to in the book and reading it was tough. I feel like my life has gone unchanged since reading it. At least after reading Things Fall Apart, I gained the knowledge of traditions and yams. After Fences, I gained an understanding of family relationships and baseball. I gained nothing from Crime and Punishment except for a fear of Russian literature. I’ve already ranted so much about this book, so I’ll move on.

Second on my list of disliked literature is Fences. Again, not a lot resonated with me within the play. I understand the complexities within families better, but I didn’t enjoy reading it. A lot of the baseball metaphors went over my head, and I couldn’t stand Troy. He just seems like a bad man. Gabriel and Rose were sweethearts though and I would kill for them no questions asked. Troy just cast a shadow over the entire work and because of that, I didn’t enjoy Fences. The other books we read, The Kite Runner and Things Fall Apart were alright. Again, not books I would reread but they were enjoyable when I read them.

I think I connected to The Kite Runner the most because Amir was on a hunt for redemption that he was on for most of his life. He also let the past and his guilt control most of his actions. I feel like I do the same thing but at a much more basic level. I haven’t been on a 20 year-long search for forgiveness, but there are still decisions I’ve made that I regret because they’ve hurt other people. I still struggle with finding forgiveness for myself for the choices that I made, even though it happened years ago. This is definitely not at the same level as Amir returning to Afghanistan to save Hassan’s son, but it is still something I struggle with. Because of this, I feel like I relate to Amir’s search for redemption in The Kite Runner.

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