Week 13 Review- "Kingdom of the Blind"

E. Phillips Oppenheim wrote "The Kingdom of the Blind" in 1916. One thing I have noticed about him as an author is that he often tries experimenting. He is exceedingly aware of how the minutiae of the story are affecting the readers predictions of the outcomes, opinions of the characters, and such. He occasionally will try flipping it and playing with them. Which is what he does with this book.

It starts with a dinner party, at which we are introduced to some characters- namely, Geraldine Conyers, Surgeon-Major Thomson, and Captain Granet.

Geraldine Conyers is typical of Oppenheim's books and the books of the time period, the fashionable young lady of society.

Where Oppenheim turns the book strange is that the normal way books are, is that the good character often will be likable, outgoing, friendly, with a cheerful disposition. Something that draws people away from a character, is things like being reserved, cold, emotionless, cruel, devious, lying. Things like being reserved can be portrayed in an enigmatic sense, so it is not necessarily a bad trait for a character to have. But often, the good traits will be with the good character, while the bad traits that direct the reader into disliking the character is given to the person who ends up being the bad character.

It is a devious way to direct the reader subconsciously into liking a character or not without openly making them likable or not. So if a character has some of the negative character traits, and turns out to be the main bad person in the book, I generally am content with the ending.

What Oppenheim does in "Kingdom of the Blind", is entirely flip this common notion that he and many other authors used all the time on its head.

That was my main problem with this book. It is experimentation by Oppenheim to make you like the bad person, and dislike the good one.

Surgeon-Major Thomson all along is shown to be cold, calculating, and emotionless. He lies constantly, even to Geraldine Conyers who he is courting.

Captain Granet is cheerful, friendly, polite, and nice to everyone he meets. Throughout the book he shows no negative personality traits, and did nothing except to make me like his character more as the book went along.

Surgeon-Major Thomson openly accuses him of being a traitor to England, by informing Germany of military things, in spite of an honorable time in the British army, in which he was was captured.

He does this without any evidence. Captain Granet handles this well, and politely. Geraldine is naturally indignant at the absurd claims, and breaks off their engagement.

She then, maybe feeling some degree of regret, makes a heartfelt and emotional plea to him.

"I think that the real reason why I lost some of my affection for you was because you persisted in treating me without any confidence at all. And you told me nothing. There were things which seemed to demand an explanation with regard to your position. You ignored them. You seemed to enjoy moving in a mysterious atmosphere. It's worse than ever now. I am intelligent, am I not — trustworthy?"

She asked him if there was anything he wished to tell her, any sort of explanation of his recent actions at all.

All he does is say "Thank you for saying this. You are trustworthy. I have nothing to say to you."

Captain Granet on the other hand, is openly in love with her, though very respectful of Thomson.

It gets to the point that about halfway through, I am disappointed that a sniper's bullet, which you later find out was from Granet, just missed Thomson. But because he is such a rude, unfeeling character.

Captain Granet finally gets exposed by Thomson when Granet is coming to save the life of Geraldine. Of course, it was because of something he did, but he was going to help her, and Thomson exposes him and essentially tells him to go kill himself.

That is basically what ends up happening, and the character I have grown to despise gets the nice, happy ending off with the girl happy ever after.

By the end of the book I was practically throwing it into the wall. This was the utter paragon of one character to hate and one character to love and he picked the one I hated as the one to end up happy.

But it is masterfully written in terms of even though Granet did some very horrible things, I did not care. I hated Thomson, because of all the hints, subconscious or obvious that Oppenheim gave, that is what he wanted. He wanted to experiment, to see what would happen if he switched the personalities of the typical good and bad characters. And the result to me is just that, and experiment. Also, my least favorite book by Oppenheim. And an experiment that I will not be interested in reading again.

Week 12, book intro, "The Ostrekoff Jewels"

When I find an author I like, I stick with them. Most of the authors I like are from the early nineteen hundreds. Once I run out of one author, I can scour the library for more older looking books that catch my eye.

I started off with Jeffery Farnol and J. Jefferson Farjeon, moving on to ones such as Mary Roberts Rinehart, who lived in Bar Harbor. Finally, I found E. Phillips Oppenheim.

Oppenheim wrote stories alternating between love, espionage, the World Wars, society, or a combination of the four. Just before WWI he began writing of it, and he predicted WWII two years after WWI ended.

This book, "The Ostrekoff Jewels", is from 1932. Oppenheim in this book, writes of an American working for the U.S. Embassy named Wilfred Haven, who is stuck in Russia during a revolution with his good friends, the Prince and Princess Ostrekoff, who are the targets of the revolution. He agrees to undertake a perilous journey for them, to take the Ostrekoff Jewels, worth millions, that the revolutionary party the Bolshevists desperately desire, to the Ostrekoff's daughter, the Princess Elisaveta Ostrekoff, who is safe in Florence.

In terms of what will happen to the Prince and Princess Ostrekoff stuck in Russia?

"What they find... will be our bodies. That is arranged" the Prince Ostrekoff says.

On his way out, Haven, unable to control his anger at the actions of a mob, runs in to save a woman, who he ends up meeting several times later, Anna Kastellane.

Haven uses the privileges he has as a junior to carry the jewels in his embassy briefcase, chained to his wrist, through many countries, constantly pursued.

Haven is good-natured, and does his best to live up to his honor and reputation as the son of one of the richest men in the world. He is very confident and maybe a little conceited. But he also has difficulty determining who he can trust. He is not helped by any other characters.

"Can I trust you?" Wilfred Haven demanded of Anna Kastellane.

"These are not the days to trust anyone," she responded.

The story flows really well, and what impressed me most is that Oppenheim is always a step ahead of the reader, at least, the reader who thinks the way he directs the reader to. As soon as I think I figured out the solution to the story's problem, Oppenheim throws in a red herring, to prove to me that I am wrong. He saw where people might suspect what will happen, so as soon as the average early twentieth century person realizes where the story is headed, Oppenheim will either lead the reader towards a wrong answer, or give definitive proof that is later rebutted.

This sort of awareness is very difficult, especially with a book that is written by yourself, but Oppenheim does it flawlessly. Altogether, it has stood up as the best book I have read, and is what I think of when I think of deceptive writing.

Week 11 Points of Authority

Face it. The majority of our society would agree that they have the most fun when there are no authoritative figures around. Because generally things that are fun often are things that are different, new, and probably would be discouraged by our peers.

This is no different with baseball teams. One thing with coming to a baseball practice is that the players will stand in a circle and talk until the practice starts. However, when the coaches are not there, as one time that a coach was late, then of course we have to think of other things to do besides just talking.

It was a very cold day, and everyone was wearing at least long sleeves. We were standing in the parking lot waiting for the coach. Talking got boring, and one player had the idea of trying something else. So they started a sort of chest bump sumo wrestling, where you had to keep your hands behind you, and try to push the other person over the line. One player took a while to figure out the rules, using his hand, shoulder, and head.

After we got tired of that, the player who had difficulty with the last one had a brilliant idea. If the coach came, he would make us take a lap and stretch. So, since we normally ran a lap, stretched, and then threw, in that order, we would run out and start throwing, and say that we had already run a lap.

"Come on, hurry up!"

"What if coach doesn't come?"

"What if he does? We'll give him fifteen minutes. That's what you're supposed to give in a class."

So we went out and sort of had a free for all throwing until the coach came.

Another time, we were somewhere else for a game, and we were between games. We were parked right beside a football field, and the coaches had gone off for a minute. On the football field, was a giant ball, about maybe four feet tall, and probably about thirty five pounds or so. So of course, what else would we do but go out and push it around.

One player started pushing it, and another sprinted over and hurled himself into it and they both toppled over. Someone else picked it up, and threw it at someone. That person picked it up, and the one who threw himself into the ball before tried to do it again, and the person holding the ball threw it at him, flattening him.

This went on for a while, with that same player getting drilled repeatedly by it, then getting back up and throwing himself into it again. Another player said "I haven't had this much fun since third grade."

As this was going on, another player had also brought out a softball, and was trying to throw it from a distance into a trash can that also for some strange reason was in the middle of the field.

A few other players joined in with that, while others were still chasing each other with the huge ball. Things culminated when the same player that had been getting hit got pasted again (he was a little sore in the morning, but did not regret it at all), and someone else picked the ball up and threw it into the trash can, and smushed it. We picked the trash up off the football field for the most part, then:

"The coach is coming!"

We nonchalantly strolled back over, as if nothing had happened. And in the long run nothing had, except for something that was lots of fun for the players, and shows how without the coach, things can get much more interesting in a hurry.

Week 10 Opinion

People have always been influenced by the media. I can not remember which book, but in one by E. Phillips Oppenheim, a character says "Whoever controls the newspapers, controls all of England."

That was in the 1910s, now it has expanded even further. People are controlled by the media, which now encompasses the aforementioned newspapers, but more prominently news programs, and the internet.

With any newspaper, the people who write it will always have an opinion on what they are writing, especially if it has something to do with politics. They might think they don't, but it is lurking in their subconscious. The worst part is that they try so hard to be impartial, that all they do is conceal their prejudice so that the reader does not notice it, but is only influenced subconsciously themselves.

As an example, the Bangor Daily News for example admits that they are wholeheartedly Democrat. But when the BDN staff is writing an article about a Republican, their phrases and selection of information to publish is going to be harsher on him then on a Democrat, just because the first thing that comes to mind will be more negative of him.

News stations do this even worse. They focus on things like the upcoming "Fiscal cliff" months beforehand, and make a huge media and social deal about it. As soon as the election was over, they needed something else, so all of a sudden the stocks plunge and the media starts panicking and overreacting purely to get the viewer's attentions. Did the panic start after the election because if Romney won then there would be no danger of the cliff? No, because Democrats and Republicans still would have argued and not compromised. They wanted to save it for when they would not have anything to make a big deal about, after the election was over.

 They also do things such as with this fiscal cliff. They talk of how Obama wants to raise taxes to 39% from 35%. The really interesting thing they do not talk about however is the Laffer Curve, which explains both sides' opinions, that taxing more on the rich will bring in more money and be fair, and that taxing them less brings in much more in the long term.

Regardless of which is right, this difference from 39 to 35 is not the only fighting point with this bill. The Republicans have things that they are making demands on like Obama is demanding the 39 percent. They do not get publicized however, only Obama's got shown on the news. So as a result, as opposed to Obama demanding something and the Republican's demanding something, It now is at Obama demanding something and the Republican's not wanting it.

As a result, the media and Obama can use this to turn it into "The Republicans need to compromise". Obama, after getting the publicity on that, then challenged the Republicans to compromise. The Republicans will not get the attention if they challenge Obama to compromise on what they want. This way it gets turned into a case of Obama making a request and the Republicans being unreasonable. This way they can turn it into a one on one battle between Obama and Speaker Boehner, when really it is not near so much of a one on one struggle between them. But the media wants to turn it into an entertaining soap opera type of fight between two men, who will emerge victorious?

They do this with whatever party President is in, Republican or Democrat, they ignore most everyone else, and twist the information so that the viewers get fed opinions, whether they realize it or not.

The news industry is one that rules our country, and the opinions of most people in it. It is ruining our country, and sometimes, all it makes me want to do is read some real undramatized, unbiased, interesting and just as likely to be real news, such as The Onion. At least it does not try to form your opinions for you.

Week 9 Speculative

In my first semester, I did not sign up for courses until a month or so until it started. That was not very helpful, as many sections of classes were entirely filled in, and I had to make a pretty much instant decision on what classes to take.

Since then, I have always attempted to sign up as soon as possible, as the myemcc makes it easy to sign up for a course. I just select the course, click on the add button, and I am now taking that course that semester. I do not have to deal with people this way. I generally avoid the people at the desks, because even the older looking people in the information windows that look like they are in charge seem clueless, such as telling me that dropping a course after the semester started would mean the class would appear on my transcript with a "W" next to it. It did not of course.

So I circumvent them as much as possible, and the myemcc website is perfect for that. The new course listings were just put up, though adding them is not possible on the website yet, and I looked at some to see what I might be interested in.

In my time at EMCC I have figured out a couple of things- that I am devoted to English of almost any sort, and that I am fascinated by Geographic Information Systems, a type of computer mapping. Considering that I have been here three years, two technically in a program and over full time, I should leave soon and go off to do something else. What that other thing would be I have not yet figured out. I always try to keep a laid back attitude, in that if I decide to do something, such as go to another college, when that time is half a year away, then if I plan it all out and commit myself to a routine, then I will limit myself in my abilities to maneuver if another opportunity or twist comes along. 

Also, I always think of why many people are not dreamers, why many people just do not believe in, for example, becoming a well known author. The majority of people, if they decided that they wanted to be a famous author, or anything of that sort, would then think of how they would do it. And they think of how "I would have to be really good, which I'm not, and it would have to appeal to everyone and I would probably have to devote a lot of time to it, and it might not work at first, and who would like what I do anyhow? I might as well not do it."

I avoid all of this such above-mentioned though process, by if I decide that I want to do something, I do not think about how to do it until I am committed to it, and then I go through with it. As opposed to cutting myself off like many other people.

Would it help me to know which courses to take if I knew what I would do after this and where I would go? Sure, but after I decided how I would go about it, I would be less likely to alter my plans when situations changed.

That is why I had difficulty with this assignment, there is hardly anything that I think about that I plan into the future much with. I am careful, and am not reckless, as I do consider the future, I just do not plot it all out.

But after that one time in my first semester, I am always careful to get my classes chosen as soon as possible. One course that stood out to me were ENG-162, with Lesley Gillis. I am taking 221 with her now, True Crime, but I think the one thing I have not really taken yet for English at this college is fiction writing. This English course with Gillis does have a lot of work, but I am enjoying it a lot and managing it well.

Another one was Carol Lewandowski's Journalism class. I had looked at her paper every now and then, and was a little disappointed when it was off for this semester. But I thought that it might be interesting to take it myself. Someone from her class did a story on our GIS class once, and just emailed the teacher so we could email him things he could take useful quotes from. I do not really know what it would entail, but public speaking would be my least favorite subject next to dissection, and she taught it enjoyably to me a couple of semesters ago, so I figured that it would surely be an enjoyable class with her teaching it.

Other than that, I have taken many classes that are basic ones, except for ones like chemistry (which I dropped out of this semester), biology, and physics, all of which I have generally found I am distinctly disinterested in. But I would want to be full time, especially as baseball here requires it.

So two english classes, another class, and tack on whatever class is after Calculus III, and baseball? I think it will be a good semester next year. Except for no Mr. Goldfine. :(  

Are you certain there isn't an ENG-362?