Hadiyah's Blog

I really love reading  Kindred . It’s one of the best books I’ve read. Mr. Mitchell wasn’t lying when he said it’d be hard to put down, I’ve often caught myself reading ahead. It’s a mixture of the plot and the way that Butler writes that makes it such a good book. Kindred is able to do more as a fictional narrative than a strictly factual historical account.  Dana’s account of her time in the past are much better at talking about slavery than a history textbook, at least in my opinion. A history book is usually very detached from what it’s describing and doesn’t really get at the full reality of the situation. It also doesn’t evoke the same feelings that a book like Kindred does, which I think is vital for a person to understand the extent of the atrocities. One example of this is the scene where Dana witnesses the beating of Alice’s father. It’s one thing to read that slave patrollers whipped slaves, and another to read “I could literally smell his sweat, hear every rag...

The article for my panel presentation on  Slaughterhouse 5  talked about how Billy’s most pleasant memories were ones where he had all the necessities of life and wasn’t anxious about anything. Unfortunately, most of the time, Billy would be happy for a bit but then be jolted back to a reality filled with horrors.  The author of the article compared Billy’s pleasant memories to him trying to retreat to a womb-like state. The author says that Billy reacts to the horrors of the world around him by withdrawing totally from reality. Billy’s not the ostrich that sticks his head in the sand when in trouble, he crawls back into the egg itself.  The zoo on Tralfamador that Billy is put is supposed to be a successful escape from the horrors of reality. The Tralfamadorian theories free Billy from his anxieties. Billy wants is scared of looking back to the past and seeing Dresden, but he’s also scared of looking forward to old age and death. So, the whole “so it goes”...

In class, we talked about the current state of Jes Grew. Something that stood out to me was how Jes Grew would probably be a part of popular culture and could be mistaken for just entertainment. I started to think about how some movies, shows, music, etc could be a form of Jes Grew. To me, current day Jes Grew would probably be any form of protest art. Art is a form of entertainment, and if it’s protesting anything, it’s usually for something “natural”, and Jes Grew is pro-natural stuff.  One of my favorite musicians is Grandson. I’d classify most of his songs as protest art. His song “Blood // Water” is about political corruption, “Thoughts and Prayers” is a critique of American gun laws, “6:00” is about police brutality, and “Overdose” is about drug abuse. The list goes on and on. I really like listening to his music because it not only has a nice sound, it also addresses these social issues. Grandson is able to make fun music while getting important messages across. He also...

When we were discussing the difference between history & fiction and what a postmodernist history might look like, one of the things that came to mind was a book I had read,  The Man in the High Castle  by Philip K. Dick (it’s also a TV show now). It’s basically an alternative history. It follows different people living in a reality where Germany and Japan won World War II. That’s already an interesting idea but to make it even wackier, there is a book in the novel that different characters come across,  The Grasshopper Lies Heavy . That book is about an alternate reality where Germany and Japan lost the war. So, I’m reading a book set in an alternate reality in which people are reading a book set in an alternate reality which is my reality? Can it get any weirder? Spoiler alert – yes. Apparently, the author of  The Grasshopper Lies Heavy  consulted the I Ching to write his book. The I Ching is a source of divine fate and inner truth, so its predictions alw...

In  Ragtime , Houdini has an encounter with Harry K. Thaw in the Tombs. Houdini is trying to escape his cell as part of a performance, and his cell is across from Thaw’s, who is there for killing Stanford White. Houdini’s encounter with Thaw is pretty wacky but you can glean a lot from it.  Houdini’s cell is a normal one. He starts off naked then after escaping puts his clothes back on. Thaw, on the other hand, starts off clothed and decides to undress. His cell isn’t really a cell because of all the stuff he has. Thaw’s living a great life while in jail.    There are a lot of differences between Thaw and Houdini. A major one is who is free and who isn’t. Houdini may have escaped from his cell, but he isn’t really free. Thaw doesn’t need to escape because he’s living the life in his cell. Thaw also knows that, because he is so rich, he’s not going to lose the trial. In reality, thanks to his wealth, Thaw is the free one, even though he’s the one in jail...

all posts from now on will be for history as fiction