Author Archives: susan

LITERATURE: At Swim-Two-Birds – Hypertextual Structure

Posted on February 4, 2007 by susan

Okay, I admit that I had to check this out so I did just some quick research to figure out what was going on here.  While at another time in life I might have joyfully accepted without question, or perhaps … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: The Haunting of Hill House – Finale

Posted on February 2, 2007 by susan

Finished this last night, and despite picturing Julie Harris as Eleanor throughout the reading, I still can see how Jackson has written the character skillfully as a troubled young woman who in fact was exactly what Harris portrayed. I had … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: The Haunting of Hill House – Adverbial Abuse

Posted on February 1, 2007 by susan

In a previous post I complained about Jackson’s somewhat inappropriate use of adverbs.  Here’s another… After coming into her bedroom and finding it streaked with blood, Theodora opens her wardrobe and finds her clothes covered with stains and ruined as … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: The Haunting of Hill House Organized Stream of Consciousness

Posted on January 31, 2007 by susan

After learning to understand Faulker’s Benjy in The Sound and the Fury, Jackson’s Eleanor is a piece of cake.  Thinking quickly over the evening before, she could remember only that she had–must have–seemed foolishly, childishly contented, almost happy; had the … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: The Haunting of Hill House – Language Use

Posted on January 29, 2007 by susan

While there’s a lot to learn from Jackson’s writing style, there are a few peccadillos, it seems, and they do bother me. An overuse of adverbs:  "I know," Elinor said tiredly.  He snickered disagreeably.  Anyway, she thought obscurely, it’s my … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: The Handmaid’s Tale – Another Look

Posted on January 28, 2007 by susan

Good literature keeps you thinking about it.  There’s an obvious theme and message here that Atwood wants to get across regarding men and religion:  be very, very afraid of either, and especially both.  I don’t agree with her, but I … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: The Haunting of Hill House – Classic Show vs. Tell

Posted on January 27, 2007 by susan

Here’s how Jackson gives us Elinor, one of the main characters on her way driving up to meet the others at Hill House: On the main road of one village she passed a vast house, pillared and walled, with shutters … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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NEW MEDIA & LITERATURE: The Haunting of Hill House – Form

Posted on January 27, 2007 by susan

The title was familiar, the back cover blurb somewhat confirmed it:  I’d seen the 1963 movie based on this novel many times.  The minute I came up upon the character of Eleanor in the book, I thought of Julie Harris’ … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: The Haunting of Hill House – Hooks

Posted on January 26, 2007 by susan

Just a page or two into this, but I’ve learned to try and post thoughts as quickly as possible (except in the case of Barthes, whose words I spend days disentangling to roll into some kind of ball that I … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: The Haunting of Hill House

Posted on January 26, 2007 by susan

Figured that something like Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House would put me in the right frame of mind for facing the monsters of Silent Hill again.  It’s been a while since I dealt with anything scary–aside from the … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: The Handmaid’s Tale – Finale

Posted on January 25, 2007 by susan

As I said, I wasn’t nuts about Offred, the main character in this novel, and while I’m open-minded enough to accept what an author is laying down as setting, environment, language, etc., I did also have a small problem suspending … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: The Handmaid’s Tale – Character Empathy

Posted on January 24, 2007 by susan

So as I mentioned, I’m not enthralled with Atwood’s main character and my general feeling was one of her first being a wimp (even her best friend Moira felt this way) for going along with everything so placidly–even while Atwood … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: The Handmaid’s Tale – Atwood at Her Best

Posted on January 23, 2007 by susan

Finally getting the time-consuming computer problem solved (with a fax machine, second hard drive, and scanner to hook up still plus a camcorder to fiddle with), I’ve gotten back into sitting around eating bon-bons and reading some of the days … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: The Handmaid’s Tale – Metaphor

Posted on January 23, 2007 by susan

Atwood is fairly open with her metaphors, and pretty versatile about the way she uses them. It’d be hard to say that the whole novel is a metaphor, and yet in certain ways it is: Feminism, religious extremism, government control, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: The Handmaid’s Tale – Style

Posted on January 18, 2007 by susan

Ah, here is where Atwood comes up with language use that lures the reader back into a literary frame of mind, straight into the dangers of her world: I can’t think of myself, my body, sometimes, without seeing the skeleton: … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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