tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8785065039608350318.post4702074795407224464..comments2023-09-07T04:49:10.648-07:00Comments on Literature and the Contemporary: What Will Die With Me The Day I Die?--The Witness—RevisionAdamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16302919444091859459noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8785065039608350318.post-46828555131596359552011-04-10T11:03:16.793-07:002011-04-10T11:03:16.793-07:00The visual element was certainly interesting. I&#...The visual element was certainly interesting. I'm embarrassed to admit that I was pretty much ignoring it until I read Luis's commentary - so this is a good example of an occasion when a student comment kept me from slipping into some degree of error.<br /><br />My reaction to this has a couple dimensions. I obviously loved the original, and I continue to do so. I also think that it does add substantially to the original; it flows a little better, it has multiple dimensions (the repetition-with-a-difference of the various violent men, which makes the theme of violence work better for me than in the previous version, where you seemed to be in some danger of cliche), and the visual dimension, while hardly transformative, does work well.<br /><br />So, this is an improved version of an excellent piece of work.<br /><br />My other comment is that it isn't exactly an ambitious revision. It adds and improves to an excellent piece of work, but it at least walks close to the edge in terms of maybe not doing quite enough. The work is excellent, but as *revision*, it's not quite excellent.<br /><br />What could have made it stand out more, strictly as a revision? I wanted more in the pool. Because the pool is such a striking visual departure, it seems like an opportunity for a striking departure in terms of content (something Borgesian, maybe - a short quasi-essay on criminal psychology, a discussion of weapons, a Danieleski-like analysis of the physical characteristics of pooled blood. Those ideas might be lame, but they're just an attempt to gesture at the possibilities offered by a radical <i>formal</i> departure for a radical departure in <i>content</i>.Adamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16302919444091859459noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8785065039608350318.post-61456139713041269322011-04-06T06:07:51.296-07:002011-04-06T06:07:51.296-07:00The beginning speaks of how you may impact someone...The beginning speaks of how you may impact someone or even your own life: And as you say if it (you) would even matter at all given certain circumstances and choices. <br /><br />Did the police officer have to take the kill shot of the guy with the AK-47? Or is it just another switch off to some other story? It was just a little unclear; at least to me.<br /><br />It seems however that you switch after the first few parts of the water droplet forms (the snowball effect) that you speak of some possible and plausible chain of event/reactions.<br /><br />Is the “ruby necklace” a drop of blood? If so, it was a good choice of simple and select vivid word choices.<br /><br />I feel like these passages are somewhat too similar? Perhaps if you could think of another example or way to portray this snowball effect of things it could greatly benefit your paper<br /><br />“What if you wake up late one morning and in the rush to get to work on time, you cut someone off who was going no place in particular at no particular hurry? What if that same motorist was someone who all their life has been bullied and harassed and belittled and when one car cuts them off, it is the last straw? What if they decide they have had enough and decide to stop and pick up an AK-47 for a special surprise at work the next morning for their bosses?”<br /><br /><br />“What if he thought he was okay to drive one night and wasn’t? What if the father of the children who were killed because of that accident was a man who was bullied and harassed and belittled his whole life and now that he has nothing to live for, decides that this was the last straw and goes out the next day in search of vengeance?”<br /><br />I thought that “the stain widens” was a wise choice of words to show that, however in this “vicious cycle” that one may have started, there may be something more and beneficial from it. A wider meaning and outcome from the one stain (vicious cycle).<br /><br />Are all these water droplets that fall the people who have done bad?<br /><br />The increasing word size from droplet to pool were visually stimulating<br /><br />I thought it would have been creative at the end, like in The House of Leaves, if you would have exchanged “morning” for the word “mourning”: A deeper meaning – something that an intellect would enjoy in its simple w;t.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com