The book to vote for...

Even only going through 4 groups of our presentation projects, I'm pretty sure that I have heard the book that I find most interesting. The book is the post-apocalyptic novel The Road. It really doesn't have anything to do with the fact that it was written by the same man of the book that me and my group tried to "sell" to you Cormac McCarthy's, No Country for Old Men; it is because that is the kind of story that I find very interesting. End-of-the-world type fiction has always interested me. From the stories, to movies, even video games. The tale of humanity having to start over and survive in a newer, harsher world trying to prevent the same mistakes that got them in their predicament in the first place. The dark themes and usually very tight, exciting writing styles that surround such type of media would keep me interested. It took me awhile to get used to McCarthy's style of no quotations or punctuations of any kind spanning the entire novel, but after your eye is trained to ignore the need for it, you will realize he writes description of places and things very brisk and at the same time, very descriptive. It makes me almost see exactly what he is writing about (I think so anyways) and it gives it a movie quality. It's not the disaster part of disaster novels that really hook me; it's about the struggles of the characters in the wake of the catastrophic, world-ending event that keep me reading, or watching. I will probably go and buy the book myself for my own enjoyment.

Fight Club

In the movie Fight Club, we see concepts like the idea of masculinity and how does a grown man in this day and age (or at least the ideals a decade ago when the movie was made)are challenged. I found a great exert that really defines what the movie ment to me... "Fight Club parallels Rebel Without a Cause by probing into the frustrations of the people that live in the system. The characters, having undergone societal emasculation, are reduced to 'a generation of spectators',while a culture of advertising defines society's 'external signifiers of happiness' and causes an unnecessary chase for material objects that replaces the more essential pursuit of spiritual happiness" It's a shame that the movie Rebel Without a Cause was never a book (as far as I know...) because it would be the perfect film to watch in relation with Fight Club. It is so strange that men of this generation (our generation) are so confused, bored, stripped down of any moral value and replaced with only consumer need, it makes you feel hollow and terrified because the fact is soon that many of us will be raising a new generation unprepared. What will the men and women of tomorrow be like? I shudder to even think about it.