The Pink Institution

At first i didn't really like "The Pink Institution" but then i noticed that i was halfway through the book. At first the form is weird and annoying but once you get use to the tabs in between every word you start to get the pacing and it becomes easier to read. I've thought about why Selah Saterstrom would write like that. This is what i thought. Either it was similar to what the confederate ball pamphlets and the text smears or that she chose to remove the excess wording and just give the bones of the sentences. While reading i though that there could have been more words as filler in between the open spaces. I also thought it might have something to do with the age of the narrator at that point and if they were a child they would take things slow and spaced out like that. Or there is a implication that the writing would be due to the result of trauma.

Overall I really enjoyed the book, though i feel it was due to the characters and more so the things that were happening. To me this is a weird place to be. Because i'm not really following because i like the character, being invested in them, but more so reading to see what happens next. To me it reminds me of one of those Animal SPCA commercials. They are designed to be sad and make you feel horrible, its not because you have and actual connection to what your seeing its just that they are playing very sad music and sad pictures... an unbeatable combo... and as to why they play these commercials on comedy central i'll never know..

So when you read about a family that is so broken and having rapes occur from grandfather to cousin its kind hard to walk away. So you don't and you read to see what happens next.

Another thing that is i didn't like was toward then end we lose our characters and it just becomes a bunch of one to two paged short stories about different scenarios. I would have liked it more if it stayed with the characters we were introduced to. Then we would have more opportunities to become invested in them. But out of these short stories i found two of them to be my favorite out of the entire book. The Repetition excerpt on page 95 was one of my favorites. I liked it because to me it seemed so real. It also made me laugh so i don't know what kind person that makes me but i'm not so sure its for the better. The other one was Eraser on page 100. I thought that it was brilliant and i cant come up with anything else. To me it was so pure in the expression of childhood and thinking that an eraser is God.        

Blog 4

In my creative writing class we were directed to a website where people could share their work. Brevitymag.com is an online magazine for creative non fiction. I've read a hand full of pieces and they were all very good. Every so often there is a new issue, meaning that they update the pieces that are shown. Its a pretty good site and i would recommend looking into it.

Blog 3

The story i read was "The Fireman's Wife" by Richard Bausch. Although the beginning to me was a little slow and confusing with some confusion in dialogue it turned out to be a great read. The actually writing isn't grand nor does it have a certain appeal, but that's not a bad thing. The writing focuses less on description and more on content. I don't mean that a lot of things happen but some significant events do take place. In a quick summary Its about the main character Jane. She figures out that she doesn't love her husband like she use to. Its not due to his or her fault its just how she feels. Certain things are revealed to us and i personally thought it was going to end with one of them cheating on the other but it didn't. It actually has a sweet ending, at least i think its sweet, maybe. The one line that i hated the most, not cause it was just a bad line but its content, "She knows she's going to leave him, but just for this moment, standing among these things, she feels almost peaceful about it."(50) this kinda makes Jane seem evil. But another line saves it for me, "she had been thinking in an abstract way, almost idly, as though it had nothing at all to do with her, about how people will go to such lengths leaving a room-wishing not to disturb, not to awaken, a loved one."(51) The ending was also very good. One of my favorites so far.