I Am the Cheese

Robert Cormier wrote I Am The Cheese back in 1977. I just finished reading it for the third time. The first time was several years ago, and I really believe that I didn't get it. I mean I understood the story, but I didn't see the brilliance behind Cormier's writing. The second time was only a couple of years ago, and it finally began to make sense. Now, reading it for the third time, I see so many things he's trying to do in the text.

The back of the laurel leaf edition says, "A boy's search for his father becomes a desperate journey to unlock a secret past. But it is a past that must not be remembered --if the boy is to survive." I wish that wasn't there. It gives the book a level of intrigue that takes away some of suspense Cormier builds in.

Wolfgang Iser writes about reader response theory, and how texts have certain gaps in them. I Am The Cheese is all gaps. That's the point of the text. The main character has blanks in his memory and he's trying to fill them in while simultaneously having an adventure on a bicycle. However, these two happenings are explained through different voices, so the reader doesn't know, do they happen simultaneously. Are they related one to another?

I'm trying to decide how I feel about difficult texts addressed to young adult audiences. This text is often censored for its content. People argue that it makes the government look bad. Fiction is fiction; I don't think this is making some big statement about fake government offices that we supposedly dissolved before the novel even began. I'm not sure young adults will understand the split in the text. Maybe they will understand it better because they are not married to the idea of a unified text.

I don't have a solution today. But I do have a question? What should we do with "difficult" texts? Why do we like them so much?

Tristram Shandy

i want to write mostly about children's literature on this blog, because that's my favorite type of literature. but, this week i had to read tristram shandy for a graduate class, so it's on my mind. the novel is supposed to be about the life and opinions of the title character, tristram, but by the end of the novel, the reader actually knows very little about him.

the false allusion the title gives isn't what strikes me most about the text. what i notice is that while i am reading, i feel like i am reading someone's blog. the narrator rambles on about things that are important to him, the night he was conceived, the night he was born. he talks about his father, his uncle, and his uncle's friend. all things that seemingly shouldn't interest a paying audience, and yet the book has remained in print for hundreds of years. as i keep reading this book about random events, i also wonder why i read other people's blogs. somehow i think all of the randomness makes us feel connected. we read and post hoping to find others that feel the same way we do, but we're too busy to go and meet them, we just want to connect with them during some moment of someone's free time.

tristram shandy's an interesting read, mostly because it just tells a normal, random story with interjected moments of humor.

New Blog

I like the idea of being able to journal and get some feedback about what I'm writing. Also, I know that if I write about what I'm reading about I'll have an easier time keeping track of how I feel about various fun books and theoretical texts. I'm hoping to use this blogspot to write about books related to Children's Lit.