Yang Yang Wu Period 03
Interview I
Name: D.Y.
Recommends: The Sound and the Fury
By William Faulkner
Gender and Year: Female, senior.
Interests: Photography (black and white, portraits, mainly of people); Writing (non-fiction, realistic)
Clubs/Teams: Photography Club, Key Club, ARISTA, ex-Editor for Spectator
You mentioned photography twice, so I am assuming that is it highly among your interests. How does this affect your recommendation of the book?
Response: Well it doesn’t directly, but I think that just like how photography can reflect the different perspectives of something based on the person that takes it, the different voices in the book also shows how each person is thinking. Especially if there is only one voice; you may not know the “truth”. I think that it helps a lot more if you know these different views. Also, there’s a lot about details in photography, and that goes for the book too -I like focusing on “small details”.
What kind of details?
Response: Well it’s kind of difficult to explain without having read the book. But I really like how the author is so descriptive and adds so much detail to his writing.
A lot of detail? Is the book difficult to get into then?
Response: Well I like the amount of details so that’s not an issue for me. The author’s writing is kind of dense too. It’s not hard to read, just that there is often more meanings to the words.
Whom would you not recommend this book to? Is there anything controversial that may make someone uncomfortable reading it?
Response: Anyone with short attention spans. I found nothing that is offensive in the book, but that’s just me.
Speaking of things you find, how did you enjoy the book? Did reading it affect you in any way?
Response: Again, this is difficult to explain without you reading it. But it’s something like this: the book “highlights the meaningless of most events”.
I think I got that, but can you explain further?
Response: The book implies something like… things happen, but nothing really significant develops from that. Kind of like the saying, “life goes on”; even if something happened, it doesn’t really seem that important. It’s hard to explain this without spoiling the book.
The story seems a bit bleak then. Does this connect to you in any way?
Response: Well there’s the decay of the family in the book -this kind of relates to my family actually. But I would rather not go into that.
Interview II
Name: L.H.
Recommends: Brave New World
By Aldous Huxley
Gender and Year: Male, senior.
Interests: Reading fan-fiction (of anime and of the comedy genre), swimming, playing games (MMORPGs)
Clubs/Teams: None
The book title. It is some kind of science fiction book?
Response: Yep, exactly. How’d you know?
Well “New World” and you seem to like fiction stuff, the fan-fiction and RPGs, so I just assumed. Anyway, what do you most enjoy about the book?
Response: There’s a lot in the book about clones. I really like how the book portrays the effects of having hordes of clones of yourself.
What do you mean by “effects”?
Response: I mean how that you would think that having clones of yourself would make you lose your individuality, the book actually shows that they eventually develop their own personalities. I thought that was kind of a surprising turn. The books I like to read are a bit “eccentric”.
Explain more on that. I know the idea of having clones has been done, but do you mean that the book is weird?
Response: In my view, yeah. I feel that “the more strange it [the book] is, the closer I can get to the author’s imagination. Take biographies for example. It’s all hard facts, and you can’t really get into what the author is thinking. It’s just not as interesting. Brave New World isn’t about the “normal clichéd clones” you see a lot in other books but there’s the thing with the clones getting their own personalities, as I said before. It’s freaky.
How is the book’s ease of reading? With all this eccentric stuff, is it difficult or confusing to read?
Response: No not really. It’s just that you may not understand some of the descriptions. There’s the part where they [some of the characters] take “happy-pills” and that is described. Since I have never taken these, I can’t really understand for sure the descriptions -I can’t “feel” it, is what I mean.
Even so, do these characters affect the way you think at all?
Response: Yes. The world these characters live in is supposed to be made “perfect”: anything that we find bothersome in our world are removed from the world in the book. I hate this.
You wouldn’t want to live in a perfect world then?
Response: Of course not; that world “stinks”. You’re ignorant to so many things because you’re “just living in comfort everyday in a perfect world”. There’s a lot that you’re missing out on. I mean, all the experiences that make you “human and alive”, it sucks if you can’t go through them.
Huh, you obviously would not prefer the whole “ignorance is bliss” bit then?
Yeah, that “stinks”; you’d just be living through your life “like an idiot”.
Interview III
Name: P.H.
Recommends: Alanna
By Tamora Pierce
Gender and Year: Female, senior
Interests: Drawing (anime-style), reading novels (fantasy fiction), and playing games (Fantasy and RPGs)
Clubs/Teams: Bollywood Bindaas (view Indian movies in order to learn about their culture)
As you’ve found the book to be interesting, what exactly in it draws you to recommend this? Describe the main character, for instance.
Response: The main character is a rather “strong” female, both physically and also in terms of her personality.
So she’s powerful as in strength? What about the personality, do you mean that she is enduring, or something along those lines?
Response: She’s actually from a male dominated society, so all the females take a backseat role to them. She’s different though; she tries to bring about equality between the two groups and I found this really admirable. For example, she is able to become a knight, a position that was filled with males until her.
Since you are so fond of her, are you affected at all due to both of you being females in a society that’s also somewhat male-dominated in a way?
Response: Well yeah, especially in today’s society where so many women try to make themselves equal to men. I guess you can say that she can be considered kind of like a hero.
Speaking of society, when does the book take place?
Response: I would say the Middle Ages.
Oh, so what she is doing would seem especially noble, considering the time period -being a fantasy book, how do your interests of fantasy-genre games and books affect your views of this book.
Response: It made me like it more I guess, as in, it kept me more interested; I mean you wouldn’t really enjoy something if you don’t even like it.
So would you say that liking the fantasy genre is important for enjoying the book as well?
Response: Not necessarily. The book also has romance -”so you’d like it too, haha” -and it touches on militaristic stuff too.
What about the author’s style of writing? Is it engaging, dense, and so on- since it does take place in the middle ages.
Response: No it’s pretty easy to read; the vocabulary used isn’t a problem. You probably wouldn’t want to put it down once you start reading.
Interview IV
Name: K.H.
Recommends: Jane Eyre
By Charlotte Bronte
Gender and Year: Female, senior.
Interests: Cooking/Baking (mainly cookies), Watching cartoons (American and Japanese animation), Traveling (Asia)
Clubs/Teams: Building with Books
Oh, Jane Eyre. It’s about that traveling girl and her aunt right? Since you mentioned traveling, can you connect yourself to her?
Response: Well, I found it interesting of her that she is changing everywhere.
“Changing”? That sounds kind of awkward, can you clarify on that?
Response: I meant her personality and mentality, in that how she is able to experience so many things -despite good and bad- from everything she has seen. Especially the different “beings” of people, for one.
Well I do remember Jane’s searching for the one thing she truly wanted -I’m a bit fuzzy on the book, it’s been a while. I know that everyone probably can relate to this in one way or another. How about in your case?
Response: I guess I am similar with her in the way that even though her life was harsh and difficult, she was still able to “pull through”, overcoming the things that were holding her back. Her confidence issues, especially. Being lonely was also another problem for her too. Like you said, I think that most people have experienced these feelings too. Since I can say that I have, I can really commiserate with her. Having similar feelings makes you so much more interested in the book. I know it’s clichéd and all but, I really like the whole idea of “follow your heart” that the book makes.
Is there any example you can give about this, since it did affect you?
Response: There’s the whole inspiration I get as a result of reading it. Again, these are really “clichéd” and overused but it’s just so simple and true. “Don’t give up”, is another example. You can really relate this to your own life in a lot of cases. My “AP Bio”, for one. I am really hoping to go into the medical field and become a doctor, so I am trying really hard to “succeed in bio”. Similar to how Jane evolved through the book, that’s something I really want to follow too.
Interview V
Name: YYW
Recommends: Pride and Prejudice
By Jane Austen
Gender and Year: Male and senior
Interests: Video Games (JRPGs), reading doujinshi, watching anime (sci-fi, fantasy)
Clubs/Teams: Contributor to StuyStrive, ex-DDR club
Pride and Prejudice? Isn’t that for girls?
Response: Gender is a rather irrelevant; I think it’s moreso depending on your interests, no? There’s plenty of anime that’s aimed for males (shounen) but they effectively draw plenty -though not as many- females too.
Then why do you like it?
Response: Preferences. I suppose books of romance and angst are more of my thing. Pride and Prejudice isn’t a simple romantic novel about people making googly-eyes at one another. The entire “taboo” or negativity centered around the two Bennet sisters and their object of desires due to sociological barriers adds turmoil to an otherwise simple and plain novel about some lovebirds.
Could your interests have affected your preference in the book in any way?
Response: It’s difficult to say exactly which influences what. I suppose JRPGs could have opened me up to stories of romance since many of these games do include something of the sort. But as I have mentioned, I do not enjoy simple, lovey-dovey works, which unfortunately, is what most of these JRPGs encompasses. I suppose that’s where the doujinshis come in then, as I find these superior often. Don’t get me wrong, though. While Pride and Prejudice can be easily broken down into the usual clichéd plotline of: A meets B, A immediately dislikes B, or vice versa, then finally AB, I think it’s that special resonance that one receives from reading a story that sparks off a connection to the book (yeah, I can’t really explain this too well).
What persons would enjoy this book?
I think that since this [emotions] is something that everyone -ideally, assuming one is capable of interpreting feelings- can experience, it adds on to the possibility that the book can be enjoyed universally -especially since Pride and Prejudice is not heavy at all on the subject of romance, there are times of comedic moments as well. If this does not apply to you, there’s also the wonderful spin-off, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (collaborative work by Jane Austin and Seth Grahame-Smith). Unlike the first novel where Elizabeth is preoccupied with fighting off Mr. Darcy, she is busy dealing with the undead in this one. I have to say that since these two books are nearly at the polar ends of one another (though the romance and sociological struggle is retained), the latter can most likely sway any non-takers for the first.
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