Outside Reading Post 4

Well....
I think that Ill continue my character description of Catherine Staples, she is becoming ever more important in the novel so it might be a good thing if I did a real characterization of her. Catherine is introduced into the novel after Marie escapes her captors. Marie is looking for somewhere to hide out and somewhere to get help with her situation. She remembers a friend from the Canadian consulate that she had met at a seminar somewhere and vaguely remembers that she was stationed in Hong Kong. She surreptitiously contacts Catherine and they meet to discuss Marie's situation. Catherine is appalled by the actions of the American government and becomes wholeheartedly involved in the situation. She focuses not only on keeping Marie out of the eyes of the government but also on solving the mystery of David Webb.
Catherine Staples is a Canadian woman about 50 years of age. She is an assistant director of the Canadian consulate in Hong Kong and has been stationed there for an undefined period of time. She still keeps her connections to Canada but seems to have fully embraced Asian life. Catherine actually resembles Bourne a great deal and is very serious, quick thinking, and instinctive. She seems to have a burning passion for all of her 'missions' and is very persistent, not giving up until things are settled.
"The solution?" Asked Haviland
"There's only one... "said Catherine, "Hardball"(421).
This quote is a perfect description of how Staples thinks. It is in response of how to deal with a corrupt political figure in the People's Republic(China). She gets to the point and is ready to play "Hardball" right away. No nonsense. Make the kill.
There is one other character that is beginning to see plenty of action in the novel and that is Philippe D'Anjou. He is Frenchman who came from the same background as David Webb. They fought together in the Black Ops program "Medusa" during the Vietnam war. D'Anjou is as highly trained of a killer as Bourne is but he thinks in a much different manner. He is very calculative and very cautious and is not willing to take much risk. He acts as a calming figure to Bourne and prevents him from doing rash things. D'Anjou is also very self serving and again will risk little of himself. He is often referred to as Echo because that was his name in Medusa. He will also almost always call Bourne Delta, because that was Bourne's name during the war. Way back on page 246 he says, "Ultimately the motives don't really matter do they? Only the results"(246) This is a good description of how D'Anjou thinks. If he is doing something only for his own purposes he's fine with that. If he gets what he wants, he doesn't care how he got it. This does not make him a bad person though. The war may have instilled slightly messed up morals in him but he still keeps good intentions at heart.
Most of the time.

Outside Reading 3

Four Narrators dominate the scene of Robert Ludlum's Bourne Supremacy. Two happen to be the same person. Each narrator tells their stories in different ways and gives a different feel of what is happening. While none actually tell the exact same event from their eyes they all do give accounts of events that have happened. This is reminiscent of the novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer in the way that the story is told through multiple narrators.


"Breathing is breathing! Insisted Jason Bourne. "Being is being and thinking is thinking, added David Webb"(346). These two narrators are what makes this book so different from many books but also what makes it very similar Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Whenever there is direct, fast paced, action going on Bourne takes over telling the story. As I've mentioned in previous posts this gives the story a choppy, excited feel. What the reader sees is what Jason Bourne would see. When there is more rational thinking going on or one of the rare lulls in action Webb narrates the story. We think more about what is happening and what has happened which may make us remember something different than when we originaly saw it from the eyes of Jason Bourne. This is quite similar to how Foer uses Oskar, his granpa, and his grandma. Each of them will tell a story and often times it will be told again by one of the other characters. Oskar will always tell a story in an inquisitive way while his grandpa will tell it in a slightly more dry fashion. Grandma makes everything seem tragic which makes us see yet another story. Just like how Webb and Bourne will make the reader remember a story in a different way.

Now, because somehow I've avoided saying anything about plot, I'll give a summary of what has happened. The novel starts out by showing David and his wife Marie living the normal life that they longed for in the previous novel. Quickly though this life is disrupted when Marie is kidnapped by the government. David suspects it was the government and immediately does what they tell him to to get her back. The story moves to Hong Kong, China where David believes Marie is. He starts to make plans of his own but is aprehended and forced to cooperate. He is set on a mission to capture an assaassin that has been plaguing the east. The government thinks that he is the only one that can stop the assassin which is why they kidnap his wife. He would do anything for her and they take advantage of this.
Meanwhile Marie is not taking her situation sitting down. She quickly and cleverly finds a way to escape their custody and goes on the run with a friend fom the Canadian consulate named Catherine. The story continues following Bournes and Marie's quests to find each other.
Catherine is yet another strong individual that reminds the reader of Jason. She says, "You're a friend and a countrymen, my dear. And I am an angry woman"(277), in as Marie begins to question her quick thinking. We can tell from the tone of her writing that she is a serious woman and this, just like the multiple narrators above, give the reader a different picture of the event.

my picture!

Outside Reading 2

Jason Bourne has taken over the story and is rushing through all problems that he encounters like there is no tomorrow. Bournes mindset dictates this quick course of action and although actions seem to be taken without thought Bournes instincts have taken over and are in general, correct. When he is in the Jungle searching for an assassin we see the action flashing by. "Spinning, Bourne leaped to his right then to his left, then fell to the ground, his eyes on the running man. He could not let him get away"(240) We see the fast paced way that Ludlum tells Bourne's story and this gives the reader a feeling of how the character of Bourne is thinking, or isn't. This is how Bourne handles many conflicts in the novel and gives these same conflicts a different feel.

Bourne's wife Marie becomes caught up in a similar situation to her husband and acts in a way that reflects her husband but also her own personality. She is a very direct woman but is less active and quick than Bourne. Because of this she is able to think more about her actions and make more calculated decisions. This does not always yield better results than Bournes instinctive actions but makes the reader feel like things are less risky and will definitely succeed. For instance she says to herself, "Oh you're all doing exactly what I wanted you to do. Predictable Bureucrats."(172). She says this in reaction to the guards and doctors that are holding her captive in a hospital. She had been working for days on making the doctors think she was going crazy by refusing to eat, randomly moving and walking around the hospital, and manipulating her bodily functions to abnormal levels. She is able to escape because of this but it took quite a long time and a great amount of thought. This is a much different approach than her husband would have used but was no less effective.

Jason Bourne and his wife have two very different ways of handling conflicts both of which are very effective but take a much different approach. While Marie takes time to think, plan and act, Bourne uses his instincts and acts quickly without considering many of the consequences. Bourne's approach works well for him because he has effective senses and is able to make decisions quick and Marie's works well for her because she can see whats coming.

Why to write a Memoir

Memoirs are something that are set in between two styles of writing; biographies and novels. They combine the aspects of each to produce something that is completely different. In auto/biographies the facts are reported, the events told, and a life captured in a pile of paper. Everything is a real event and things are told as they happened. This has a certain power because the reader knows that the subjects are actual events happening to actual people. It can bring the reader closer to the story because they can relate much easier. A memoir has the same idea but it takes the events and focuses in on them to a greater deal. Things are told how they generally happened but can be slightly exaggerated and enhanced to add more meaning to the story. This still gives the reader the powerful connection to reality that a biography gives but with a more palatable story and writing style. More fun, same events. This small element of fiction is what relates it to the novel. Novels are all fiction which gives the writer more power to make an impression on the reader but because readers know that the events are not real they may not feel the same way about the book as they would if it had been a memoir. Memoirs have so much power because of this ability to combine small amounts of fiction with a great deal of fiction. They give the reader something that they could not get from any other style of writing.

Authors may have many reasons for choosing to write a memoir over some other style of writing.(Or just writing at all.) Often times it may be because of their proximity to major events or their position in them. The author can tell a story from up close and this gives it some of the power of reality spoken about above. They may want people to know what they saw in addition to what the news saw and what the government saw. It gives the reader a new viewpoint that they may not have previously had. Also, an author may write a memoir because they feel something important, meaningful, or downright amazing happened to them. In Richards case it was growing up in the South in such a different way than most blacks did. He felt that he had a story to tell about his life, so he told it. Many people have amazing experiences and don't choose to tell the world about them. Many do tell these events in the form of memoirs and this gives their event a chance to show itself to the world. It give the author a chance to show what happened to them. They may be showing us to express a point or a need for change. It may be a way to remember the past or those long gone. Or it may be a way to just tell a good story to the world. Memoirs are written because something happened and someone has something to say about it, whether its events big or small, private or public, memoirs are here to tell a story.

Outside reading Characters(post one)

David Webb is a college professor at a small college in Maine. Jason Bourne is an infamous assassin. They are the same person.
David Webb exhibits the classic characteristics of a thriller protagonist. He shows traits such as affection, courage, and shrewdness regularly and becomes the character that everyone wants him to be. He does everything he can to protect his wife and even something as small as when a man from the government shows up he rushes home preparing to take on whatever the world has coming to him. He is always thinking about the welfare of his wife and loves her enough to do anything for her. He also shows his courage in this instance because he does not even think about what he is getting into when he bursts the door open but has prepared himself to take on the worst. Although this may seem rash and rather stupid David also tends to be very clever. When he meets this man he analyzes the best way to get what he wants out of him and uses every trait of the man to do this.
Bourne seems to be a different man altogether. When David Webb switches to Jason Bourne we see drastic differences in personality and mindset. Rather than the loving affection of Webb, Bourne has more of an animal desire towards the same woman. Although he still loves her very much he talks about her like an object wishing to be recovered, not a woman that may be able to help herself. Webb's courage is replaced in Bourne by something not short of fearlessness. He is able to complete any task including things such as diving on a man to save him from a bullet and blowing up an arms warehouse without so much as a backwards thought. He does not have to overcome his fears because there are none. Jason also seems much more capable at making decisions than David. He does not think but is able to pick out a course of action and act on it quickly in contrast to Davids slightly more calculated decisions. Although David and Jason are the same person, from here on I, like Robert Ludlum, will refer to them as separate characters. They are two totally different personalities inside the same body and only one of the two will ever be able to act at one time.
Ludlums use of Jason and David creates a feel for the book that the reader would not get if they were referred to as one character. Depending on which name is used a different image is painted in the readers mind. We get a fast paced, almost blurred picture of events from Jason while David shows us things in more detail with a slower but more discerning eye. Each event is only told once, through the eyes of one character, but when reading the opposite character, the reader remembers the events past from a different point. This style shapes The Bourne Supremacy by Robert Ludlum in a way unique to this book.

Hunger part 2

Sorry I forgot to put in the effects of hunger in my original post so...
Richards life is plagued by these hungers and they shape is life in a way that little else could. His hunger for knowledge makes him choose to go against society and be a smart black man. This could be considered very positive for him because he will not necessarily be committed to serving white people all of his life. His hunger also effects him in a negative ways though. For instance his hunger for freedom from his family drives him to start to steal just to make a few extra dollars. He sells bootlegged liquor to prostitutes and starts to steal tickets from a movie theater. He is highly opposed to these actions but he is forced to do them so that he can escape and satisfy this hunger for freedom. Hunger makes many decisions for Richard and although he has the veto, it will shape is life until it is satisfied.

Hunger

Although Richard is often times very hungry for food since his diet consists of little more than grits and salad, he also hungers for much more. For all of his life he has been neglected in some way. First by his father, then his mother and now his whole family. His grandma thinks he is totally lost and to his aunt he is dead. Richard does not get the attention that he needs and although he says that he does not want to see his family some attention would do him some good. At school he seems to be an outcast and is always looking for ways to be with his classmates but his family restricts his life so much that he cannot satisfy this hunger.
Richard is also very hungry for knowledge and a way to say what he wants. He is always trying to read as much as he can and whenever he can get it around his grandma, he will read fiction rather than the bible. Also tries to improve his writing by submitting his story to the local paper. This shows that he is willing to do whatever he needs to write what he wants. People try to discourage him from this to but he presses on just the same. Finally when Richard is selected as valedictorian of his class the principle gives him a speech to read. Richard refuses this offer and is prepared to give up his title to read his own speech. He wants to learn how to write and wants the people to hear his voice, not the priciples, this shows his hunger for knowledge.
Hunger plays a prime role in Black Boy and shows how wanting life was for Richard growing up. His many hungers give off this sense of great need and help the reader to feel more for Richard and his causes.