Lit Analysis #2 "The Devouring"

  “The Devouring” is a charming tale about a Teenage girl named Reggie and her encounter with terrifying creatures known as Vours. These are nightmarish creatures that feed off the fears of humans and are able to take control of their bodies. The worst part is you can’t tell the difference between Vours and normal people. When Reggie unleashes the evil of the Vours during the winter solstice and they take control of her little brother it’s up to her to save him from the nightmare realm known as the Fearscape. The overall theme of the novel is that even the darkest of fears can be conquered with a strong will. Throughout the entire novel the author keep s and extremely dark and grotesque tone. Rarely does it stray from this. For instance when Reggie first enters the Fearscape in her brother’s mind she finds herself in a twisted carnival, where the author goes on to describe the children in this place, and there is a very detailed description of maggot infested, horrifying faces.

  Reggie is described right off the bat as an awkward teenage girl with messy hair and not too much going on in the looks department.  However a lot of the time the reader is given a lot of little tidbits about her through her actions and interests. For example she a maternal nature due to her mom leaving her family, this is explained by the way she treats her brother. No the authors syntax and diction basically stays the same when revolving around the human characters however whenever a Vour is encountered the language takes on an extremely cold a nature. Reggie changes drastically   between the beginning and end. During the beginning Reggie is described as an introverted cowardly girl who kept to herself and buried her nose in horror novels, but by the end she is a brave, strong individual who isn’t afraid to speak her mind. By the end of the novel this is one of the few times I came away feeling the characters as real people because they were written so realistically there for allowing me to connect with them because of their relate ability.  

Lit Analysis #1 "Kafka on the Shore"

“Kafka on the shore” follows the journey of both the fifteen year old Kafka who runs away from home on a mission to find his lost mother and sister, and the elderly Nakata who as a child slipped into a coma and came out with the strange ability to communicate with cats. The entire book is something of a modern retelling of the Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex. There were two main themes that this book had one of them is breaking the molds that run your very existence allows you to live and discover the vast world around you and sometimes expectations don’t match up with reality. Haruki Murakami I believe wrote this novel to allow the reader to introspectively look and compare their own lives with the twisted nature of the characters. The tone of the novel jumps many different times thought but I think I keeps a somber yet misty tone stream lined throughout.

While introducing the two main characters the author uses two kinds of characterization, direct and indirect. Towards the beginning he explains the generally look of Kafka and Nakata.  He States ages and other features to key the reader in to who they might be imagining in their heads. But the author does something clever when it comes to how he indirectly characterizes them. With things such as when he mentions they’re in japan unless stated otherwise the reader can assume that the characters are of Asian descent, another instance can be when Kafka first reaches the library the way the character takes it all in and enjoys the literature around him really shows the reader who he is. Come to think of it both the syntax and diction changes subtly when switching between the characters. In chapters where the focus is Nakata the language is a lot more whimsical, and when on Kafka the diction is much more colorful and descriptive.  Kafka is a mix between a static and dynamic character its strange to say nut he is about 50-50 in both what I mean is he is static in his actions and reactions to things but his way of thinking and looking at things is completely changed from beginning to end. Unfortunately the way my mind works it keeps fiction fiction and reality reality so I came away from the novel only having read a character however it is one of the better things I have ever read and connected with on such an eye opening and intellectual  level.