Anyways, I really enjoyed all three of the essays. I found "Goodbye to All That" the least relatable of the three, but still found some passages that stood out to me. On page 684, she says, "I could make promises to myself and to other people and there would be all the time in the world to keep them. I could stay up all night and make mistakes, and none of it would count." This is my favorite passage of the essay, along with the one on 685 of similar effect but where she has realized that it all really does count. I find it to be incredibly relatable. I have gone through the "I'm young so this doesn't count" phase too many times, with too many things.
Moving on, "In Bed" was a wonderful essay. It was a perfect balance of factually interesting and insightfully interesting. Apparently insightfully isn't a word because the red squiggly line is under it but I'm leaving it. Take that society. Anyways, I am well acquainted with the migraine, having had them since I was very young, but this essay was the first time I had ever heard of a "migraine personality" which is FASCINATING to me. Also, the section about how LSD was first synthesized while looking for the cure to migraine, on page 690, was really interesting. I'm not sure if it's entirely true, as I have learned elsewhere that LSD was synthesized while trying to create a respiratory stimulant, but oh well, what's "truth" anyways? The migraine personality is, as she says, "ambitious, inward, intolerant of error, rather rigidly organized, perfectionist." I absolutely fit into the migraine personality, however I have never been able to embrace the pain as she has, which I find to be both admirable and a bit annoying. Good for you that you turn a bad thing into a good thing, but fuck you for making me feel weak because I can't look at a migraine like yoga.
"Late Victorians" was a very interesting read. I'm not sure if I really grasped the entire message of it because there was a lot going on in it. The first lines really brought me in though, "we are restless hearts, for earth is not our true home. Human unhappiness is evidence of our immortality. Intuition tells us we are meant for some other city." Beautiful. The idea of the Victorian house paralleled with the homosexual lifestyle was a very interesting concept. I definitely learned a lot about the advancement of the Gay community from this essay, as well as about the advancement/culture of San Fransisco. I'm not entirely sure what the overall message of the essay was, but what I took from it was that Rodriguez tried to suppress who he was in the interest of trying to be a good Catholic, but he missed the fact that he was surrounded by so many accepting people, and successful Gays that were happy and not ashamed to embrace who they were like he was, like he made himself.
Snape embraced his homosexuality, so why couldn't Rodriguez? hahahaha just kidding, Snape!!!
Nice response, Katie! :)
ReplyDeleteThat is really interesting about what you said about Didion. I really enjoyed "In Bed" as well and was intrigued by the migraine personality too. But I liked how you could relate to it - I was wondering what people that migraines would think of this, because I have never had a migraine (knock on wood). But I do think it is interesting that she tied being a perfectionist to this personality, because I definitely am that way. I guess there are always exceptions, which I believe she admits.
With "Goodbye to All That" I definitely see where you are coming from, because I didn't initially relate to it. Or I wish I couldn't relate to it sometimes, but I definitely do in other ways. Like have you ever been really depressed in the winter time? I usually didn't until freshman and sophomore year of college when I got extreme cabin fever . . . It was not the best. So I guess in a minor minor sense I did relate to that one.
With Rodriguez, he was more complex, but I do think you hit the point right on. It was to describe the inner dilemma that he was facing? At least that is what I got out of it as well?
Good job! :)
Thorough response here Katie. You bring up excellent sections from both essays, especially the Rodriguez line.
ReplyDeleteAnd I like your comment that Didion's migraine essay combines research and personal insight, which is something I've been pushing for the last few weeks.
Dave