John Cena Fan 33

I was doing a little bit of outside reading on the background of the book and I was struck at the reason why Butler decided to write this. A young African American man told her that he was ashamed of his ancestors and their subservience and wishes he could kill them. She wrote the book to illustrate how someone from the future would have done the same. We touched on this a little bit in class by looking at the loss of her sense of self over the course of the book and how we agreed we would probably have done the same in her position so this motive makes a lot of sense.  I just think this outlook is so foreign to me. In school we were always taught about the subtle forms of resistance that slaves performed to rebel against the owners like intentionally breaking things or doing their tasks slowly. The teachings of slavery before this was that they were all submissive and allowed themselves to be subjugated. In fact, this was a time when a lot of people didn’t even want to teach about...

As dense as this book is, this would make a great cartoon episode from the 60s. I know Mr. Mitchell mentioned that Reed himself referred to this book as cartoony but I just cannot stop reading this book like a Scooby-Doo episode. The pacing and goofiness just lend themselves to the medium so well. I was adding my own sound effects to every scene throughout the book. Firstly, Hinckle Von Vampton and Hubert “Safecracker” Gould are two of the most stereotypical villains I have ever read. Vampton even wears an eye patch. Vampton even has the wacky maniacal laugh that every villain written for 5-year-olds has. “Heh heh. He laughed. Heh heh, Hinckle laughed. Passersby stopping to watch this man double up on the street HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEH.” It is just impossible not to see him and his evil henchman as the most basic antagonists ever devised. Their schemes for villainy are also very reminiscent of Doofenshmirtz's plans, just the most surface-level logic being applied. The scene w...

I am not sure if this is a Skylar from Breaking Bad moment but Mother gives me bad vibes and I feel bad for Father in some respects. I know in class we have been painting Mother as the good guy and Father the bad guy in a lot of the domestic issues. I know why we have been painting Father out to be bad obviously but Mother is very judgmental and guilty of some of the same things that Father is. It rubs me the wrong way and I have grown to dislike her.  I think this is the passage that made me dislike Mother: “He came in staggering through the waves, laughing, his hair flattened on his head, his beard dripping and his costume clinging to him immodestly; and she felt momentary twinges of dislike, so fleeting she didn’t even recognize what they were.” After Father comes home from an expedition for years and goes along with everything she throws at him, Mother has beef with him for living his best life? I just don’t get it. Father is trying his best. He may be resistant to new ideas a...

This book is interesting but I feel like Doctorow is saying very little novel. Because postmodernism is the setting and worldview in which we have all been raised, ideas that were once new and foreign are now commonly accepted. This book suffers as a result and I find myself following Doctorow’s bland characters that are intended to be vessels for his ideas rather than the ideas themselves. (I will say the book is picking up a lot with the introduction of Coulhouse though.) The main message of the book appears to be that exploitative capitalism is bad. Oh no! Really? I was under the impression that people getting their hands chopped off at the end of their 16 hour shift was a good thing. I don’t think a single person went into this book with an opposing opinion on the gilded age. I mean maybe these themes were subversive and crazy at the time when the US was the economic powerhouse in the world but I am not impressed with this thesis by Doctorow. Anyone with an education past the 4th g...