It Matters: Rhythm, Writing, and... DVRs?

"I wish there were a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence. There's a knob called 'brightness,' but that doesn't work." ~Gallagher


When I was in kindergarten my mom started reading me novels. By first grade, I was reading them to her. For years, we sat, every night, on my mom's bed, and read to each other, indulging our imaginations and filling our minds with the words, sentences, paragraphs, and chapters of stories that neither of us ever wanted to desert. By middle school, life was too complicated and our nightly ritual was too extracurricular to carry on, yet I still found solace in that world of literature, learning from those years, and my mom, that a book is the greatest companion for any occasion, and that one's list of future literary pursuits is infinitely long.

In class we have been talking a lot about the rhythm of words, the excitement of writing, and the importance of literature. Although, I fear, that many of my classmates don't find it useful or interesting, our analyzing of the works of great authors, and our examination of their technique, fuels my mind, body, and soul. The careful craft and deliberate placing of sounds, words, and phrases is fascinating and eye-opening. All of those years that I felt an intense love for the writing that I was reading, but couldn't place my finger on the reason, are beginning to make sense. It's this "stuff" that we're being educated on that induces the, what I like to call, "Paperback Coma" one sinks into after putting down an intricately and artfully constructed novel, one that makes you mystified, yet leaves you contemplating anything and everything you already know.

On the other hand, in our world today, this new generation, my generation, rarely reads for pleasure. And if we do, it's not the craft and meaning that matters, it's the ending. Terribly written novels are lounging atop the best-seller list because the plot is so ridiculous that you never see what's coming next, as exemplified by the Twilight phenomenon. These novels have neither rhyme, rhythm, nor reason, the very things that, as we are learning, make a book a masterpiece. In fact, literature is being reduced to such diminutive crap that anyone can write a book, including Kathy Griffin. Novel writing is no longer an art; it's a hobby, or a way for people, who no one cares about, to tell a story... about something that no one cares about.

Thanks to television, our attention spans are shrinking so steadily that these "horror stories" are all that we can handle when regarding written word, that is if people are even sitting down to read something. It seems like people are more concerned and interested in the new season of "Gossip Girl", who Paris Hilton's new BFF is, and whether or not that blond girl dies on "Grey's Anatomy," than what Khaled Hosseni is trying to say about modern Afghanistan in The Kite Runner, or how How To Kill a Mockingbird is a microcosm for an important part of American history. Television has become the major focus in peoples' lives, a space that was previously occupied by family, religion, enlightenment, or social obligations. These LCDs and flat screens have hounded our intelligence into such prostration that our minds will only accept novels like The Clique or television shows about celebrities. I'm not trying to say that watching TV and reading Twilight is going to kill you or render your status as a functioning member of society false. But if all you do is sit in front of the screen and have never read Shakespeare in your life, a not so uncommon fate, I can't say the same... Some critics will argue that television is a great invention. I agree, it is. They will say that it doesn't hurt you. Depending on the amount and how you spend the rest of your life, not really. But I will ask them, are we smarter because of TV? No. Are we happier? No. Has it, that little black box we love so much, caused a demise in the quality of written word and our thirst for it? Absolutely, one-hundred percent, yes.

If you take a poll of ten high school students I bet you any money that at least seven of them don't like to read. I'd say that eight of them have never heard of Jane Austen. Four of them probably don't know that The Da Vinci Code was a book before a movie. And you know what? I feel bad for them. I pity them because they are missing out on the wondrous, illuminating world that is great literature. If, in thirty years, my generation has achieved world peace and ended poverty because we watched television and read Red Carpet Suicide by Perez Hilton, I'm going to eat my words. But, on the other hand, in thirty years, if our world falls apart at the seams because my generation was too addicted to television and blinded by appalling literature to read War and Peace, I'm going feel at fault for not stopping us on our destructive path. In the meantime, I'm going to continue my literary and scholarly quest to greater knowledge and understanding, while a lot of my compadrés watch "Whose Line is it Anyway?". I may not have all the answers for the world yet, but for right now I'll busy myself with writing a letter to my mom, explaining to her why the most important thing she ever gave me was her love of reading good books. It will start something like this: Dear Mom, I am so glad that my happiness does not depend on the competency of our DVR...

Best of the Week: Afghanistan

Our class discussion on Friday with both Mr. Williams and Mr. Allen really forced me into pondering territory and war. How does it affect people? Since I've never lived in a war zone myself, it's a foreign, yet intriguing concept.

I believe that it was Jordyn who started the discussion on how Amir's two only vivid images of Afghanistan are of the Soviet occupied chaos of the late 70s and 80s and the Taliban ridden streets of his homeland twenty years later. The one question that kept popping into my mind was, what can Amir possibly view home as? Is it a safe place? Because personally for me, it's a haven. Because, for Amir, there must be constant images of men with guns and people lying in the streets for him to remember. Call me crazy but that's definitely not an "Eden-esque" picture of home. So, if Amir's view of home really is twisted, how is it affecting his adult-self? Does he feel at peace with his wife? Is he ever relaxed?

Furthermore, I must say that I am totally and utterly empathetic towards the Afghan people. How dare these outsiders, these British, these Russians, these Pakistanis and Saudis, come into their cities, their country, their homeland, the land of their fathers (and mothers :) ) and stake claim, pretending like it's not Afghan property. How dare they insult the Afghans by insinuating that they don't know how to govern and use it? I've never lived through a war and the last time that America was invaded was something like the War of 1812, but I can feel the blood pulsing through my veins and the outrage writhing about inside when I read, or even think of, the Red Army marching through the streets of Kabul with their sky-high tanks just because they can, pretending as if it is rightfully theirs. It's called Afghanistan for a reason, it's the land of Afghans.

As for me, in my life, I'm the kind of person that acts and thinks about it later. But next time I think of taking something that is someone else's in any way, shape or form, I'll bet you that I will think twice. Because, you know what? If I do take claim of their property, however little it might be, they have the all the right in the world to fight me without thinking twice, or even once.

Change of Mind: The Dialectics of Choice

So far, in the Kite Runner an underlying theme has emerged. Choice. Baba chooses to not understand Amir. Amir chooses to run away from the atrosity that transpired in that alley. Hassan chooses to keep his mouth shut and be loyal to Amir until the very end. Without the choices these characters make there would be no story. Without the choices they make, there would be no reason for this book.

Prior to reading this book, I thought that good people, when confronted with a life-altering choice in which right and wrong were lucidly apparent, would always choose to do the right thing. If they didn't? They, simply put, weren't good people. And I hate, bad people. Looking back on the chapters we have already read in Hosseni's fake memoir, I'm struck by two incompatable feelings, that of the former and that of bottomless empathy for Amir, a phenomenon in its own right, because I am quite often the one who critizes the character and despises their choices. Yet, for some odd reason, I don't hate Amir. I don' think that he's an indulged, pompous brat. In fact, I think that he is genuinely a good person. We've actually had some heated discussions on the bus about him, and I'm the only one who's playing defense. I know that Hosseni is intentionally creating an enviorment where the reader thrives off of their hatred for the main character, but I'm just not taking the bait. I hate his pipe-smoking, soccer-loving, overtly goddless, hipocritically philanthropic father, but I sympathize with Amir, the story-writing boy who stood by and watched his childhood-playmate get raped.

So then how can I still believe that good people always make the right decision when faced with adversity? There, lies the key to my change of mind. I can't. There's no way that I can fully believe in that and Amir's righteousness. Consquently, I have come to the dialectic conclusion that good people, which I believe Amir to be, will make the blatantly wrong choice in some grave situations. Yet, the defining characteristic of their true virtue versus malevolance, is that they recognize their error and its gravity, it haunts them, and from that disturbance, they grow. Amir, I can confidently say, has picturesqly exemplified this, giving a story for those mere words.

I honestly don't know how this realization will affect my daily life or interpretation of literature. But, in terms of the Kite Runner I hope that it will give me solice in my compassion for Amir. Hopefully, I will no longer feel hypocritical in my unwavreing loyalty for the bookish boy who made the wrong choice, and belief in his morality.