Week 5 respond

   It is kind of boring for me to read Aunt Maria at first because the book is a bit slow at the beginning part. The book slowly talks the story about MIg and his brother go to visit their aunt homes with his mom since their father drive off. The book isn’t so exciting but become interesting while MIg finally realize aunt Maria is not a good person she seems like to be. The story keeps letting the tension grow between the kids and Maria. It is so clear there is will be some real conflict between Maria and the kids. This is the time when the book get interesting.

  About the witch, I am not so surprised the total set is pretty stereotype. The book is marked as a kids book and then a more traditional and popular witch character will receive more favor. The main character goes in to some place that is new and weird to her. Then meet a person who is evil but pretend to be a nice to everyone at first. The main character first got tricked and then realize the truth of the evil. After some adventure and then defeat the evil with the secret or power gained during the adventure. An example of this could be Hansel and Gretel, a German fairy tale.

Week 4 Respond

The book I read this week is the Monster Island. I think generally talking about the story, it is not weird at all. The story is about finding medicine in a zombie world and our protagonist is fighting for his daughter’s safe. It is pretty heroic and the zombie became a common story after the success of the Walking dead. However, the book do give people a weird feeling when reading it. I think it is because the whole setting of the book is in a kind of weird way. First, the place that our protagonist come from is Somalia. All the develop country is fallen. Our main character is trying to fight for his daughter’s place in Somalia. It is kind of ironic for me to compare to that people come from the less developed country are trying to fight for a place in developed countries now. Second, the elite soldiers that sent to the New York are groups of girl soldiers. They are trained to follow orders and not afraid to die. However, this also causes a lot problem during the journey in New York city. The immature and education cause those girls not really rational at sometimes that we and the protagonist can’t really understand. An example could be in chapter 15 and they refuse to leave but fighting against zombies. The setting of the whole book could be seen as a reverse for a organic American hero novel setting. The combination of American style story and a totally not fit background create the weird feeling.

Week 3 respond

  I heard a lot of confusion during the class when we discuss the J-Horror. Since I am an Asian myself and I have interested in japan culture long time ago, I think I do understand a bot more about J-Horror.

  First, I think both the novel (I read A Wild Sheep Chase) and the movies we watched are not typically horror for them. In Japanese, these kind of stories are called ”怪談”. The word means a strange and weird story. It is kind of close to horror but not really. Since Japanese traditional culture believes that there are “soul” for every thing in the world, these kind of story are kept produced through out the history. There are many different kind of purpose of the story. It could a scary story for kids, it could be story that teach lesson to people. Most of these may relate to the fear and respect of the nature. And also, sometimes it may helped  Some may be connected to the moral and royal concept at the time. The book A Wild Sheep Chase are kind of a new type of ”怪談” at modern time Japan. The ungiven names for all the character in the books increase the mysterious feeling for the readers. This is another aspect of the word ”怪談” since ”談” only means a story or a talk. It should be the little story that whisper between peoples. Therefore, don't give character a name is make A Wild Sheep Chase enhance the story. Another interesting part in Japan culture that affect their movies and TV shows is they believe that no one is true evil. They believe everyone has their own reason to do something even it is a bad thing. Therefore, there is not always a bad guy or good guy in their novels or movies. The metaphor is also another interesting part I noticed in the first movie. The female character was called YUKI which means snow in Japanese. This gave viewers a lot hint and also reduce the level of horror.

Week 2 vampire writing:

  It is actually really kind of new experience for me to read a book about empire because I never read a vampire book before. All my knowledge before this, it is coming from movie and TV series. The vampire I most learned is the classic one----evil, strong, pale and thirst for blood.  The TV series Twilight got pretty popular for a time and the series did portrait a different vampire image. However, compare to human, the vampires in the series are still a lot different form human. They have many different culture and traditions. However, it is a real surprise for me when I read the Interview with the Vampire since the vampire in the book is human like. It gives people a new way to think of the vampires. In the book, vampires are not the true evil anymore. They share the same kind of thought with human. They live like human too. The vampires does have conflict with each other, they do revenge and they also enjoy their spare time. 

  The relationship between Louis and Lestat could never be good since they have different purpose at first. Louis become vampire all because the death of his brother. He is kind of good person at the start. Therefore, He is always guity about his brother’s death and others. The belief in god make him scared of the penalties and future. He is kind of not clear what he want when he become a vampire. However, Lestat, he lives too long and all he want is another “person” with him. Therefore, we might see the end of their “friendship”. At the end, Louis is mad enough to attack “the boy” since the boy asked to turn him into a vampire. He is mad that the boy doesn’t learned anything from his story. However, it is such ironic since he is one had the dead wish at first and he become immortal at the end and prevent others who eager to. The book Interview with the vampire isn’t a book just tell a story about the vampire but also some deeper ideas we should think of between life and death.