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- Reading responses must be AT LEAST 200 words.
- Include your full name at the end of your comments. Unnamed comments will be deleted.
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- Reading responses are due by midnight on the night PRIOR to our discussion of the required reading.
While reading the assigned short stories, I found myself relating to the authors and their personal experiences with the fine line between fiction and non-fiction. In author James Brown's "My Papa's Waltz," he states that as storytellers we tell the same story of our lives over and over, but from different angles. Every time we are asked to write about our own story, we go over it in our heads a million times to make sure we get the details right, but unknowingly, we can exaggerate the truth or make up thoughts and feelings that weren't there to keep the same story from being boring. Both Brown and Danticat question the validity of the details in their memories towards the end of their stories as a result of over-telling and picking/choosing what they remember. From personal experience, I know that I subconsciously apply filters to some of my memories, whether it's to make them appear gloomier or happier than they really were. I thoroughly enjoyed these readings, even though they left me questioning the truth within my own thoughts and memories.
ReplyDeleteKayla Garza
After reading those essays I had to take a minute and realize how important it is for the author to be able to relate with the audience through different senses. Diane Ackerman went into detail describing how the sense of smell is present all day in our lives, and that at the end it comes out being the most important one. Smells are able to take us back to certain places, or make us transport to specific moments of our life. Looking at “ My Papa’s Waltz”, I like how he brought up the perspective or “angles” that the same story may have. The way he relates the song to his father, is most likely very different how his dad thinks and feels about that specific moment. As far as “Westbury Court” I was caught off-guard at the end when she starts to question the simple fact if it was two brothers involved or many another combination of siblings. It made me start thinking about how possible it might be that some of the memories that I have from when I was younger, may not even be the exact way I remember. The mind is able to play many tricks on us, and the further we look into the past the most likely it is that we may be recalling details wrong. Or even question the whole essence of the moment or situation we are talking about. I enjoyed all of these readings, and was able to go through them without having too many questions, if any about what they were trying to say.
ReplyDeleteAndrea Videgaray
After reading the short stories it drew a mental image thanks to the details implied by the author. In the short story “ My Papa’s Waltz,” the author used his memory to tell the story, but that he can’t seem to know what the truth is or what he fabricated. He talks about how disgusting he feels when he can’t recall what actually happened, changing between autobiography and fiction. In a way I can relate to the author, the mind fabricates its own truth, the alarming sensation of not knowing what the truth is, is scary, you definitely don’t want to lie to your readers by exaggerating the reality. Then come in Diane Ackerman chimes in with the fact that scent is a valid form of remembering, but it can also affect how we remember things. On page 214 she states,” We can detect over ten thousands different odors, so many...that our memory would fail us if we tried to jot down everything they represent.” then Edwidge Danticat chimes in with the story of the fire and how he can’t even recall what the specific genders of the children. In the last paragraph he questions the gender, or if the kids even pass due to the fire. “ Or maybe I am struggling to phase them from my memory altogether,” stating that his memory is flawed and that no matter what the question of what’s real, and what’s fake runs around in his brain.
ReplyDeleteIngrid Cano
"The Mute Sense," "My Papa’s Waltz," and "Westbury Court" were three beautiful and touching short essays. All three authors talk about a subject that is meaningful to them. In "The Mute Sense," Diane Ackerman emphasizes that there is more to a smell than we realize. Ackerman demonstrates her adoration for smell when she mentions that there is nothing “more memorable than a smell” (Ackerman 214). She then continues to point out the memories that are usually reawakened with the sense of a smell. Furthermore, In "My Papa’s Waltz," James Brown writes about a confused seven year old child who doesn’t understand why his mother left. The fact that Brown asserts that he was “left to wonder” and “to make up stories” reveals that he was only a child who didn’t understand the ways of the world (Brown 216). Brown was then left to create his own conclusions. In his essay, Brown shows how his inability to understand his abandonment and the world around him has affected him in the long run. Moreover, in "Westbury Court," Edwidge Danticat writes about a traumatizing experience, and how that affected him growing up. In his essay, Danticat blames himself for how absent minded he was during the time his apartment complex lit up on fire.
ReplyDeleteJulissa Balderas
The 3 short essays that were assigned have some similarities and differences between each other. Starting with “The Mute Sense”, I noticed how Ackerman used many poetic features to convey the message to her audience. I found myself noticing a lot of rhythm between the words that she used, as well as figurative language; for example, when she explained that when we breathe, we pass the world through our bodies, or when she compares the brain with being a good stagehand. I think she did this with the purpose of helping the reader use their senses, since it was what she intended on focusing. On the other hand, in “My Papa’s Waltz”, James Brown uses less poetic features throughout the essay. However, Brown makes himself more apparent in his narrative as he struggles with the concept of telling the truth as a writer. The mind creates its own truth, and as he mentions, it may cross the boundaries between reality and fiction. But what really matters, is that as a writer, you stay true to what you believe that is. Lastly, in “Westbury Court”, the author Danticat is writing about a personal event that occurred in her life. Like Brown, this author struggles as well with her memory and how she couldn’t recollect the incident of the fire correctly. This reinforced the notion that what is embedded in our minds is a version of our reality, of our truth.
ReplyDeleteAna T. Flores
I really enjoyed all three of the readings, if I had to pick a favorite it would be “Westbury court” because I think I can relate to it more because I have siblings I got to grow up with and I remember that as a child life was great even though we were poor. Like in the story, the author describes the surroundings as being filed with graffiti and piles of trash. However, the author never uses negative adjectives toward the setting. Because when you’re a child you don’t see anything as a negative thing until something terrible happens and you now see both sides. “The Mute Sense” also reminded me of when I’m walking around any random location and suddenly, I get a smell of what my head start class used to smell like and it reminds you of how certain smells can mean so much and how important scent is. Finally, as I was reading “My papas Waltz” I started realizing how normal it must have been to the little boy for his father to get drunk and beat him. It happened so much that he referred to his papa beating him to a waltz. “My papas Waltz” and “Westbury Court” give off the normality concept while “The mute sense” gave me a realization of something.
ReplyDeleteMarissa Sanchez
In “The Mute sense” by Diane Ackerman short story paints a picture of how important scent is and letting the audience know a certain smell can “detonate softly in our memory”. We can’t really explain a certain smell to someone unless they also have smelled it. I like how Ackerman mentions “Cover your eyes and you will stop seeing, cover your eyes and you will stop hearing, cover your nose… you will die” which made me think because meaning a deaf person can still be able to smell a flower and a blind person may not be able to see the flower but can smell the flower and know what it is due to its scent. James brown short story “My Papa’s Waltz” we notice the narrator is trying to jog up the memory of his drunken father and mother being in jail. We can see at the end of the story that his life seems normal with the routine of his father and knowing that his mother isn’t coming home, “Dance you mommas coming home tomorrow. That’s fiction but, in fact it doesn’t matter” conveying that his father is drunk enough to think the mom is coming home and the son is going along with it by dancing with his father. “Westbury Court” by Edwidge Danticat is a dark story about how many certain disasters happened with the boys dying in the fire and a cabdriver who was shot late at night at the end we notice she not sure about the fire, in this story is made me question if sometimes we think a certain memory and may not have remembered the full story so we end up changing little things about it that actually happened or not.
ReplyDeleteAlyssa Duque
The senses of the human body and the fragility of human memory were of utmost importance in the anthology of short creative nonfiction. Diane Ackerman skillfully teleports the reader to each beautifully detailed scene that she captures by focusing on scents, “ ...while the night-blooming cereus drenched the air with thick curds of perfume.” The imagery that Ackerman is able to create makes every word feel tangible. The author is able to relate with the reader in the nostalgic effect that smells can have on us. Whilst reading, even though I have never smelled blueberry bushes my mind ran rampant trying to recreate what I was taking in. The authors James Brown and Edwidge Danticat utilize a combination of the sense of touch and sight to bring into question the authenticity of memories. As Brown analyzes the memory of dancing with his drunken father he states, “ I find myself confusing what actually happened with how I imagine it.” The feel of his fathers rough hands in one version of the memory annoys him, but in the ideal version of it, he is unbothered. The author disguises his memories. Danticat also reinforces the fragility of the mind in his nostalgically reflective work “Westbury Court.” When recalling the children who died in the father Danticat honestly admits, “I question what I remember about the children.” Though both memories are very important events in the lives of the authors the mind is still unreliable in truly retaining the fullness.
ReplyDeleteNick Torres
In the short stories “The Mute Sense,”” My Papa’s Waltz,” and “Westbury Court” I noticed that all three share the commonality that they are all memories. In creative writing memories are especially prominent in creative non-fiction because it is based upon your experience. However, in “My Papa’s Waltz” I found it intriguing the way she states, “I’ve done it so often that I find myself confusing what actually happened with how I imagine it.” In this statement there is truth because creative non-fiction is limited to what we remember but is lenient on what is consider our truth or how we remember our memories. In “The Mute Sense” the memory was interesting because it was based on smell. Although it vividly described the memory as a happy one, it reminded me of people that have PTSD because something like a smell could trigger that traumatic memory. For example, in “The Mute Sense” it says “Hit a tripwire of smell, and memories explode all at once” which means that smell is a constant sense we use when we breath, so it makes sense that the scent of a flower could help you remember something in your past. When I smell cactus, it reminds me of the times I stayed with my grandma in Mexico where she grew her own cacti. This connects to “Westbury Court” because the smell of fire could easily trigger the memory of the fire in the apartment to the author. All these memories were completely different but they shared each one in great detail because it was significant in their lives.
DeleteKevin Esparza
The readings given were gorgeous in their formatting. The one I gravitated to heavily was "My Papa's Waltz," and it's clever way in incorporating the ever interesting trope of the unreliable narrator. Author James Brown toys with the idea that every story we tell can always be retold in one manner or another in such that they are viewed from different perspectives. There's a line in Doctor Who, a TV show about a time traveling alien, that reads" we're all different people in our lives...so long as we remember who we used to be." And I think in the story, that message is very resonant, as it reminded me of the quote. At the aging vestiges of our lives we tend to experience time all at once, in the form of memories, and sometimes they can be seen from different viewpoints and ideas that grow with the knowledge we learn as we get older. When we are young these stories can evolve from short anecdotes to tall tales, often portraying our selves with such exaggeration that we paint a hero or a moral figure in some of our darker moments to the listener, and with age, we are humbled by life's ever merciless hand, and begin to tell the story in a more truthful manner. Although some pieces may be absent, the core idea and the message of the story remains the same, and that's what I've learned to appreciate in this week's past reading assignments overall, especially "My Papa's Waltz."
ReplyDeletePadini Paolo Santiago