Nadya Sugiarto LMST345

Week  9: SPACE OPERA For this week, I read Vintage Season. To be honest, sci-fi and space stories are not really my cup of tea. So, reaching this topic for this class doesn't really excite me. When I looked at the reading resources, I skimmed through some of them and decided on which one I wanted to read based on the writing style. Vintage Season seemed okay for me. So I gave it a shot. Vintage Season has an interesting beginning. "Three people come up the walk to the old mansion on a perfect May morning" sounds like something that  I would read in any other genres. "Okay, that sounds interesting", I thought. As I continued reading, I found myself feeling curious about these three people. The story itself felt really slow. I don't really like the main character, but my curiosity about these three characters kept me going. Until half of the reading, it still doesn't feel like a sci-fi and more like a mystery story. So that's good for me. Relation ...

WEEK 8: MYTHIC FICTION AND CONTEMPORARY URBAN FANTASY For this week, I choose to read Neil Gaiman's "The Ocean at The End of The Lane". I bought this book about a year ago, while waiting at an airport, but I never got to read it until the end. I think part of the reason was the beginning/opening that felt kind of slow. After reading it again, I guess it's not that the beginning is slow. Maybe I was just impatient, haha. When the narrator returns to his childhood memory, for some reason, I couldn't really understand his personality, but not really? I understand that he loves his kitten, Fluffy. I understand his feeling about burnt toast, and his old bedroom... But his narration feels kind of monotone for me. In contrast to Lettie, Lettie feels more alive. Midway through, I start to feel more comfortable reading his narration style. The part when he pulls out the worm from his foot was intense, it scared me. The story overall is so weird and unpredictable. ...

Week 7: The Tale of Spiritual Education For this week, I read the Night Circus. I've seen the book on the top ten shelf for so long every time I went to bookstores, but for some reason I never gave it a chance. So, when I start reading the opening of the book, I wondered why I never read this book before. The writing style at the opening is something that would make me keep going. I really like the mysterious and magical feeling I got when I read it. And the structure of the book, going back and forth between characters is also my favorite kind of structure. I love it when I can follow stories from different perspective and root for different characters. For this book, I like both characters, Celia and Marco. I root for both character and so of course the ending satisfied me. They are such a sweet couple. Story wise, some parts of the book made me cringe, and confused too. Like when Hector slices open Celia's finger so that she heals herself. I'm always weak to gory stu...

Week 6: THE HEROIC JOURNEY For this week, I decided to re-read The Hobbit. I was starting with The Essays on Middle-Earth when I realized that I had no memories of the names of the character or of the places mentioned in it. So I decided that I had to start with The Hobbit, since it has been, maybe 7 or 8 years since the last time I read The Hobbit and LOTR trilogy. Reading The Hobbit brought back a nostalgic feeling of the times when I have the time to read novels after school or before I sleep. I have always love adventure books, especially the Heroic Journey type. I never knew that that kind of adventure books is called "The Heroic Journey" until I came to Ringling and learnt about it in Film and Narrative class, but back then, I did realize that there was the same pattern in those type of books. I've always loved the "Mentor" or "Guru" type of characters. That's why Gandalf was my favorite character. There is something enchanting about ch...

WITCHES For this week, I read “Akata Witch”. I think it’s really interesting. It’s my first time reading a novel that brings an African culture and package it with the fun adventurous magical experience. “Akata Witch” does follow the formula of typical Young Adult novel, though. For me personally, the same formula kind of tires me a bit, but it is still a fun read. It is so similar to Harry Potter. I don’t know if that’s a good thing. I’m a fan of Harry Potter and I appreciate the elements of Harry Potter in Akata Witch, but I guess I wish it can be more different than that. The Leopard and The Lamb concept is basically the Witch and Muggle system. The fact the Sunny is an unwanted child in the house is so much like Harry in Dursley’s family. The knife and the wand. The Leopard Knocks and the Diagon Alley… and of course the magic school. Oh, and soccer and Quidditch too. I do like the issue that the novel brought. The belief in some societies that son i...

Week 4: The New Weird For this topic, I read "A Souvenir from Japan", "The Neglected Garden", and “The Snow Child”. Like the title, they are pretty weird stories. I started with "A Souvenir from Japan" and I didn't really understand it. That's why I tried something else and I read " The Neglected Garden". I still didn't quite get it, but maybe a bit better compared to "A Souvenir from Japan". “The Snow Child” feels like a more metaphoric version of the Snow White story. "A Souvenir from Japan" seems to be a story about a Caucasian lady that lives in Japan and feels like an alien? A lot of the descriptions are observations. Even during the intimate moment in the hotel, it feels more like an observation too. She talked about the legend of Momotaro as something really alien for her, not just foreign. It feels kind of weird for me. Maybe because Momotaro is one of the folktales I grew up with ...

18 Feb 2019 I'm just catching up... For Asian Horror reading, I read Kwaidan. I think it’s really interesting that it doesn’t feel like the horror story I expected. It feels more like folktales with moral message, and specifically has ghosts or spirits in the story… or sometimes just death. Reading Kwaidan brings me back to childhood memories when I spent a lot of times reading folktales, either local or from other countries. I remember when I was in elementary school, I was always excited to get my Indonesian text books every beginning of the semester. I would go through all the pages and looked for any folktales reading I could find. Also the times when I would go the school library with my friend after class and read different folktales. I don’t know how I would feel if the younger me read Kwaidan. I wonder if I would feel scared? I want to say that I wouldn’t because it doesn’t feel scary at all now. Maybe as a kid, the weird moments like when the s...