Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Post #6

Book: The Fourth Hand
Pages: 191-238

Not yet done with my second book, so I've got to do a lot more reading. I've been slacking.

But in the bit I did read, Patrick Wallingford has slept with Mary, a coworker, because she wants to get pregnant with HIS child. She turns out to have been promoted to be the news editor and has been manipulating him by telling him half-truths and omitting rather important details.

He then acts on his attraction for Angie, the makeup girl, and sleeps with her, upsetting Mary. (And he is not sorry at all.) I stopped reading at the point where he travels to Winconsin to visit Mrs. Clausen, the wife of the man whose hand he had for a year before his body rejected it.

I am definitely going to write about the way Irving depicts the attitudes on sex. Mary's reaction of Wallingford sleeping with Angie would be one of my prime example, as she seemed to think it meant more than it was supposed to.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Post #5

Book: The Fourth Hand
Pages: 182-191
Chapter: 9

I think I mentioned in a previous post that John Irving likes to reel in the reader by dropping a line of what will happen, and then spend pages explaining what led up to that event. I'm sure there's a name for this technique, but I can't recall it. It's not exactly foreshadowing... I've always thought of foreshadowing as subtler.

I haven't read much recently, but in the pages I did read, the main character, Patrick Wallingford met a woman who called herself Sarah Williams, and befriended her, despite the fact she publicly and verbally attacks Wallingford's work as an news anchor. When she leaves, Wallingford discovers no one in the hotel they both were staying at had the name of Sarah Williams, and wonders if anything she said was true. He thinks it was, as she only hesitated giving her name.

Monday, March 3, 2008

Post #4

Book: The Fourth Hand by John Irving
Pages: 120 - 182
In the recent turn of events, the main character, Patrick Wallingford gained a soul by loving widow Doris Clausen and her not loving him back. There's a dramatic change of character- he's no longer a ladies' man, he's far more sympathetic to the world, and in general, he's a much more decent human being.

As far as symbolism goes, I can't say I'm really good at picking it out unless if it's throw into my face. So no, I can't say I have noticed any symbolism in John Irving's works. Chances are, he is using a character or a character trait to symbolise something, but I'm not good at picking those out. He does use a lot of foreshadowing, leading the reader to know what will happen (like how he stated right off how a man would lose his hand) but keeping it ineresting enough to hold the reader's attention.

A big theme of Irving's is the view on sex from the different genders. It'd be a good paper topic. The thesis would probably be: In all of his books, John Irving's explicitly uses sex as a way to eccentuate the differences between genders.
Something like that, maybe.