Thursday, March 27, 2014

The Sirens of Titan

I love Kurt Vonnegut's work and have read many things by him since high school. I have read Slaughter House five, Cats Cradle The Sirens of Titan and Jailbird.

I love this story because it is about the worlds richest man who goes on a trip from Earth to Mars, Mercury and Titan, a moon of saturn.  Malachi Constant and his american time and space flying partner Winston Miles Rumfoord start a new civilization on mars which leads to a mission to take over the planet earth and kind of do what we did with the native americans and other cultures and brainwash them to take on a new religion and change Mankind. Rumfoord uses Malachi as a god or Jesus in his religion.

What I find funny about the book is that after reading about them going all through space and to all these planets and doing things only people can imagine, the book goes in to detail about how Winston had his own ship which has changed shape to something called "chromo-synclasic infandibulum," Talking about how Winston materializes and breaks free from physical substances of materials when he is in different places he travels throughout the solar system. One of the places I thought was funny to include was his and his wife Beatrice's huge house in Newport Rhode Island. It is such a different way to go from space to Rhode Island.  The richest man gets invited to the estate which will make him the first person to be able to travel with Winston to his estate. They go bankrupt and whats funny is two martians that joined their faith bought the estate which happens many times in todays world.

Kurt Vonnegut usually incorporates things that are going on in todays world in his writing which I find really fascinating because he wrote most of his works many years ago which means he is writing a head of his time period.  I didn't like this book as much as other readings I have read by Vonnegut but his style is so different than most readings that I usually choose.

Dark is Rising

For this week, I chose to write about Dark is Rising.

I liked this reading because it is the way I always wanted to start my day as a child. I always wanted to wake up in another work or dimension and explore. When Will wakes up on his birthday and he is in another time, he wanders with a magical horse that helps him. His journey is to collect the six signs. The dark attacks him and he fights back.  I think this plot line is very popular with young children's fantasy because they always believe that there is another world because of their imagination. Will goes through any battles to get all six signs with the help of friends.  I love Merriman's role as a character because of the roll as Wills helper. Many kids play games like this with their friends so I think many kids can relate. That is the great think about fantasy.

This adventure is also well known in older movies, for example, the princess bride and many others. Journey to the Center of the earth, Eragon and many other movies are based on the same idea. A child needs help to complete his quest to get back to his own work.

I was never really into fantasy as a really young child but as I got older, I started to get more into reading and thinking into fantasy and the ideas behind everything I read.  Even in movies that show the same thing, they don't leave to to have your own idea or picture because the movies show these things to you. The great thing about reading a book like The Dark is Rising, is that you can picture the characters as you like.