Semester Review

Of all the reading we have indulged in this semester, I must say Atonement and Watchmen are by far my favorites. I really enjoyed Atonement but honestly could not tell you why. I did see the movie when it came out so maybe I enjoyed it because the movie made the novel easier to comprehend. As far as the Watchmen is concerned, the graphic novel was a new and interesting experience for me. Comprehension has always been my problem, and the pictures really helped me in following everything that happened. It also had a good story line and interested me in how similar the events in the novel seem to real-life events today.

Sula was hands down my least favorite novel, probably of all time. The story line just seemed all mushed together and there were so many characters intertwined that it was really difficult for me to follow; not to mention I found it just plain boring.

Obviously from the previous paragraph, Sula is the novel I would choose to leave off the list. I think a good idea would be to include a biography of an author we read; such as an Ian McEwan. I understand biographies are nonfiction but it would be interesting to understand the life of an author of contemporary literature. This could also help grasp the idea behind this category of literature better as well.

The Watchmen

I think my experience reading The Watchmen was probably the stark opposite of this author. The author seems to maintain anxiety about reading a comic book, like it is some document that is not meant to be read. Going in to the book, I was actually looking forward to it. I have never really been a big reader, mainly because I do not have the patience to sit down and read, but also because I have never read a book that really interested me; not to mention I have never read a comic book. So going in to The Watchmen I was optimistic that I would find a piece of literature I enjoyed, and what do you know, I came out with a new perspective on reading. I never really looked in to the deeper meaning of literature, but after realizing how much underlying meaning The Watchmen contained, I developed a whole new opinion on reading. Overall I feel the author that wrote the personal assessment and myself both came away rather surprised of our new outlook on comic books, but I was definitely more optimistic going in to the process.