“Men in prolonged battle are not normal men. When afterward they seem to be reticent- perhaps they do not remember.”
John Steinbeck
Monthly Archives: May 2015
Who Needs an Epigraph at the Front of their Novel?
“Never use epigraphs, they kill the mastery of the work.”-Orphan Pamuk
Is Pamuk right? Are epigraphs necessary before a great work of art? Do I need to hear a completely different artist sound the most prominent note of a masterpiece before the featured artist plays?
Continue reading
Paper Towns and The Idolatry of Imagination: Part 3—The Vessel
“Forever is composed of nows.”-Emily Dickenson
Part 3: The Vessel
[read Part 1: Strings and Part 2: Grass]
Quentin Jacobson had been searching for Margo Roth Spiegelman, but he had yet to go on a journey. Like Whitman, he needed to travel across the country, become exposed, truly listen for Margo. He needed to experience and understand that paper towns existed all over, with paper people living in all of them. “The world is full of people,” he comes to say, “full to bursting, and each of them imaginable and consistently mismanaged.”
Continue reading
Paper Towns and the Idolatry of Imagination: Part 2—Grass
PART 2: Grass
“You shall no longer take things 2nd or 3rd hand…nor feed on the specters in books.”-Walt Whitman
Who is Margo Roth Spiegelman? Is she a popular elite brat? Is she a culturally hip closet poetry nerd? Is she a deviant runaway? Is she a selfish drama queen? Is she damaged goods? Or is she just a tangled up girl whose strings are broken?
Continue reading
Paper Towns and the Idolatry of Imagination: Part 1—Strings
“Doing stuff never feels as good as you hope it will feel.”
Part 1: Strings
John Green’s novel, Paper Towns, soon to be a film, can be read as a kind of spiritual parable. With the exception of TFIOS, his three other novels seem to follow a similar formula: Eccentric yet normal teen boy falls for unattainable and eccentric girl because she is such a mystery, and she becomes a puzzle for him to solve as much as a love interest to pursue. Academic references must follow. Were it not for the occasional sexual controversy, Green seems to be begging for his books to be taught in school, pushing aside bulky classics less relevant to teens.
Continue reading
10 Reasons I am not a Hipster
10 Reasons I am not a Hipster:
1. My bike has gears, and the maintenance I do on it consists solely of pumping the tires.
2. I did like the Avett Brothers before they were cool, but I also still like them, and do not believe they have sold out.
3. I have never voted Democrat, and just because I’ve been fair to Obama doesn’t mean I like him. Continue reading
CALEB COY 