This
week I thought I’d highlight Riley’s blog.
For one, I taught Riley last year, and I think his writing in this blog
is some of the best that I’ve seen from him.
I’m really happy that he’s making progress in such an important skill! I also loved reading this entry because I
thought he did a nice job not just setting up the book and explaining the quote
but also making connections to other areas of his life. It’s especially rewarding to see Riley’s
classes overlapping in this way, and I hope that will occur for other students,
too!
Prey by
Michael Crichton is a science fiction novel about a cloud of nano-particles
that are programmed to be the scientist.
These particles are designed in a lab located in the Nevada desert, and
unfortunately this cloud of nano-particles just so happens to end up escaping
from the lab. This book certainly fits
with my science fiction topic, and I have enjoyed it so far even if it has
started off kind of slow. I’m about two hundred
pages in, and the book is just starting to get to the meat of the plot. The book starts by developing the protagonist
Jack Forman and his family for the first half, while it subtly hints that
things are off with Jack’s wife Julia, who works at the lab. I really like the suspense in the book, and I
think I made the right choice by reading this for my topic. I truly believe it will answer some of my
questions about the genre, while it manages to keep me entertained.
Prey. Digital Image. Wikipedia.
N.p.,14 Apr.2014. Web. 15 Sept. 2014
There
is a quote from this book that definitely caught my eye. “We are one of only three species on our
planet that claim to be self-aware, yet self-delusion may be a more significant
characteristic of our kind.” (Michael Crichton, Prey xiii). What Chrichton
is saying here is that we as humans may think we are intelligent and are very
capable, but we are most likely just arrogant.
This idea could stem from humans being the most intelligent species on
Earth, while humans are also the most destructive species on Earth. I feel like this quote really fits Prey
really well. What Chrichton is trying to
get across in the book I think goes hand in hand with the quote, and in a way I
think this quote relates not only me, but also everyone else.
I
see an interesting parallel between this quote and I. This year in school I’m taking a philosophy
class, which the class is about thinking about things with a deeper
meaning. Given what I’ve experienced in
that class, and after reading this quote when I first read the introduction to
the book it kinda got me thinking a bit.
We may appear to be the most intelligent, and self-aware species on this
planet, but we may not be. Certainly the
human race has done a lot wrong, and made many mistakes as we are the most
destructive species on the planet. Like
in the book the scientist create the cloud of nano-particles, and they escape
from the lab. The scientist didn’t truly
know the dangers of what they were experimenting on yet in the book it comes
back to haunt them. Crichton brings up a
very intriguing point with this quote, and I think this book is supportive of
it.
This
morning I finished reading The Hundred-Year House. It ended up being more complicated and somewhat
darker than I had initially expected. I
don’t want to give it away, but the author has a great style, and that’s part
of what kept me engaged. Because I am
focusing on social class, next I’m going to start reading The Vacationers,
by Herman Koch. I read his first book, The
Dinner, and though it was a very dark read, as a high school teacher, I
found the basic premise, what adults will do for their children, even perhaps
to get them out of trouble, intriguing.
However, for now I’m putting aside Summer House with Swimming Pool. Although I do think that it’s at least
partially about social class and has more than an element of mystery to it, the
first person narrator made me so uncomfortable (purposely on Koch’s part) that
I decided against it for now. I’ll
highlight another student and update about The Vacationers next week!
CJF
No comments:
Post a Comment