sing me back home

Although it isn't a book that I would pick up and read at my own leisure, I can see how someone with a deep heartfelt appreciation for music of any genre (not necessarily country) could read Sing Me Back Home and relate to the idea of certain songs and artists narrating one's daily life. Although I do love music, I personally can't relate to one music genre or artist setting the tone for my entire childhood, and perhaps it's that fact that makes reading Sing Me Back Home a difficult task for me to undertake. However, while I may not necessarily agree, I can certainly appreciate both the undeniable outpour of pure emotion that Jennings  has penned in his autobiography, as well as the unique writing style of a comprehensive country music guidebook infused with humorous and jolting personal anecdotes. 

Catching up #4(Last one, Bookseller of Kabul)

I think that Bookseller is really effective in showing not just that women are oppressed, but that women are REALLY oppressed in her country. It makes all other life struggles seem trivial compared to the daunting task of trying to overcome something to deep rooted as the Muslim way of life. She really goes out of her way to dehumanize the woman to the farthest extent. What particular struck me was her use of synechdoche. She dehumanizes the women to the point where they are nothing more than "burqas." The Burqa is a symbol of oppression, of inequality and of similarity. The women are closed off from the rest of society, all made to look the same, but different from the men. It makes them stand out, but all look the exact same. The Burqa takes away all that amkes them unique and human, their facial features and expressions. It's truly a devastating image that the author uses to shock the reader and expose the horrible conditions that women are forced to live under.

Catching up #3 (Anythign English)

I know it's totally late to be talking about the appeal of the androgynous man, but I'm going to any way. I think it was a really ineffective peace.Gross starts out her essay with a false promise. Her first 2 lines seem to hint that a personal anecdote will follow, but none ensues, thus making the audience skeptical of her writing. She proceeds to describe a lot of qualities without making any connection to her reader, just a simple list. She has a purely factual tone which eliminates most appeal to pathos and thus lessens the effectiveness of the work. She then continues to generalize about all men, thus making any male reader feel, frankly, like crap. She says that all men are pretty much brutes who only care about beer and pretzels. It is full of sweepy generalizations that detract from the ethos of the work. The piece seems to be a scathing review of men in general with no personal stories, no wringer to hook the audience, just a list. If she can be this critical of men, I can be this critical of her list of qualities.

Catching up #2 (First they killed my father)

I know all the close readings are in and the book is done with, but my blog account was not working for a while. So i think that in First They Killed My Father, Ung uses her rhetoric purely to show the insights of a scared child. While most people imagine something happier, Ung continues to stay trapped in her imagined scenes. These scenes provide insight and establish a connection with the audience. She lets them into her world, into her thoughts. This is very effective because the audience feels important and connected to the writer. In the scenes that she imagines, she imagines death and strife, not the usual escapist thoughts that most would imagine. She uses scenes that would only prove how trapped she is. Not only does her imagery convey this, but so does her diction. She uses words that covey a sense of hopelessness and entrapment. "My mind chases me." her sentences are brief and crisp in order to show the brevity of the situation, how she only has a moment to reflect.

Sing me back home!

So I'm a bit late to submit this, but I think that the best aspect of Sing me Back home is the connection that the author forms with the audience. He's constantly using italicized words in order to put an emphasis on them. When he says "Listen!" the word physically stands out from the rest of the page, thus making the reader see it very clearly. It's obviously something that he wants them to pay attention to. By doing this, he creates a very strong and authoritative voice that the reader is obligated to listen to. However, this does not only make him credible, it also engages the reader in the text and makes him/her feel important and involved. This device makes the audience feel more connected and the book can not relate on a more personal not than most memoirs.When a reader feels more engaged on that personal level, the following text is definitely going to hit closer to home.

So far we have read three books, The Bookseller of Kabul, First They Killed My Father, and the "Country Music" book Sing Me Back Home, and of all the three First They Killed My Father was my favorite. What put this book above the other was the response that I had. No genocide is not a familiar subject to me that I can personally relate to, but the emotions Ung describes in her novel are easy to understand and vaguely parallel to hypothetical scenarios (i.e. losing a sibling or parent). On the contrary, in Sing Me Back Home, i can't make parallels to country music. However this doesn't create a barrier disabling my perception of Jennings' purpose throughout the novel. Music, no matter what genre, is expressed through it tone and most importantly lyrics. The lyrics of songs serve as the backbone and foundation of most music. And lyrics are decoded to tell stories and express emotion. This is what Jennings is basically doing, using his stories as lyrics to create the "ultimate" country song. Mentioning other country songs and country artists could also serve as helping to guide his story (country song).

sorry that this post is somewhat jumbled.

Reaction to classmate post

            I think that it should be okay to expose the issues in one family and give them problems in order to expose the problems of an entire people. It is okay for both historians and journalists to do this because there are instances where this is the only way to shine a light on some problem in society. The basic question here is do the problems of many outweigh the problems of one, and the answer is that they absolutely do. Although the bookseller himself might not like this, Seierstad had apparently helped a large amount of Afghan women. With regards to the limits of documentary and fiction, I believe that if you cannot add specific facts with evidence and proof to back them up, and if you aren’t drawing on secondhand stories and narrators with personal bias, then and only then you can call you work documentary or nonfiction. If you present ideas or stories that cannot be substantiated by something concrete, you have to call your work fiction.

Description in Bookseller

            I think that it should be okay to expose the issues in one family and give them problems in order to expose the problems of an entire people. It is okay for both historians and journalists to do this because there are instances where this is the only way to shine a light on some problem in society. The basic question here is do the problems of many outweigh the problems of one, and the answer is that they absolutely do. Although the bookseller himself might not like this, Seierstad had apparently helped a large amount of Afghan women. With regards to the limits of documentary and fiction, I believe that if you cannot add specific facts with evidence and proof to back them up, and if you aren’t drawing on secondhand stories and narrators with personal bias, then and only then you can call you work documentary or nonfiction. If you present ideas or stories that cannot be substantiated by something concrete, you have to call your work fiction.

Bookseller Controversy

            I think that it should be okay to expose the issues in one family and give them problems in order to expose the problems of an entire people. It is okay for both historians and journalists to do this because there are instances where this is the only way to shine a light on some problem in society. The basic question here is do the problems of many outweigh the problems of one, and the answer is that they absolutely do. Although the bookseller himself might not like this, Seierstad had apparently helped a large amount of Afghan women. With regards to the limits of documentary and fiction, I believe that if you cannot add specific facts with evidence and proof to back them up, and if you aren’t drawing on secondhand stories and narrators with personal bias, then and only then you can call you work documentary or nonfiction. If you present ideas or stories that cannot be substantiated by something concrete, you have to call your work fiction.

First they killed my father

            First they killed my father was a great book to read. One thing I really liked was that her writing was easy to understand. The everything was pretty brief and to the point, which helped the book flow better. The one thing that really jumped out to me was at the beginning of the book how quickly her life changed. She was not someone who was previously living in poverty or someone who didn’t live in the modern world. Her family was middle class, her father had an important position, and her life from day to day was stable. But in the blink of an eye all of that disappeared and she had to go through an impossible ordeal. This stuck out to me because I could see myself in her situation at the start of the novel, but I could not imagine what it was like to lose every material thing I had in a matter of a day. Another thing that really made the novel great were the imaginary sections. They were so effective at putting the audience into a situation because they were extremely descriptive and contained vivid imagery. Even though all of these stories were not actually witnessed by Ung herself, her vivid description of events built ethos; I trusted everything she said in those sections. The imaginary sections allowed me to put myself right into the situation and into the shoes of whoever she happened to be talking about.  

            First let me start of by saying I really, really hate country music. I do not understand what people see in it, I can’t listen to it without dying a little inside. The beginning of the book is not very riveting; in fact, I had to struggle to keep reading the book. But although I don’t particularly find the book interesting, I do like the way that he integrates various country songs and artists into the novel. He uses country to parallel what goes on in his life and what goes on in rural America. He shows how country music paints a real image of the lives of rural Americans. I think this is an original strategy, and I think if you were into country music, the book would appeal to you more. The book did help me have a greater appreciation for country music though. I can see how important and influential it was for him, and how important it must be for millions of other people who grew up like him. That said, I still don’t like the music.

Conflicting Feelings About Sing Me Back Home

I feel like Jennings' book can be divided into two types of writing: the fluid, flowing poetic style that he employs to describe his life in the country and the heavy, sluggish lists of country music titles and singers. When mixed, the occasional reference to a famous song or singer meshes well with the other sounds, sights, and events the author. However, when he launches on a page long list of song titles and country singers, I immediately become a unattached and disinterested reader. Despite the heavy focus on his "country" heritage, I find his prose to be extremely skillful and the rhythm of his writing addictive. However, my interest and admiration for his skill wanes at the mention of another ten or fifteen writers and singers that I don't know about. I think that if these types of writing that are apparent in his novel were more cohesive, this memoir would retain my interest more effectively. 

Impressions on Country Spiritualism

One of the things that has made an impression on me most from reading Sing Me Back Home has been Jennings development of spiritualism surrounding the music in his life. Devoting such reverence to Johnny Cash and other artists like him is almost like giving them sainthood in his eyes. Even his diction in reference to them changes, almost as if they're too good to be real. I was really surprised that Jennings would put this much faith in a musical artist or song. The book was prefaced for me by several classmates indicating that "[the book] was terrible because it talked about country music", and I expected some reference or parallels, but not with this much fervor. I'm enjoying the book even more with this newly "enlightened" understanding of Jennings's view on the artists that shaped his childhood

Lost in Country Music

In the first few pages of Jenning's book, I became lost in a sea of unfamiliar comparisons, references, and music. I feel that an author ought to engage his reader, take his reader along for the journey through the book; however, I feel as if I am an outsider looking into a world that is unfamiliar and strange to me. Although not every book, whether novel, short story, or biography, relates to the specific "world" we live in, something about it draws us in and resonates with us. It is what keeps us engaged. In Jenning's book, that something isn't quite there. I feel completely isolated from this little "country-music-lovin'" world, and the book doesn't make me interested in this world either. This book is written for someone, but it's not me. Maybe this is because I can't relate to the story at all, but I think Jennings changes his tone too often. As he switches from a history lesson on country music to his experiences in rural New Hampshire, his tone transforms from formal, historian-like, to real, uncensored, "country." Maybe this is another reason I find it hard to relate to and become engaged in. 

Books about Genocide

I'm going to backtrack a little to Ung's "First They Killed My Father." It made me think of other books we've read about genocide, like "What is the What?" When comparing the two, I immediately recall Ung's skillful manipulation of description and specific details that I enjoyed. I think I'm able to remember Ung's story more clearly because it was paced expertly, keeping the reader captivated and involved. I was able to read the book in pretty much one sitting (on an airplane). When I think about "What is the What" I cannot even remember what the "what" was. I remember the joyous feeling I had when I managed to escape failure on a plot quiz. I remember feeling like the book was endless, especially when the protagonist was going through the desert. While the style of writing really made the reader FEEL like they were traveling through an endless desert, I constantly found myself tuning out. Like in "the Bookseller of Kabul," the author of "What is the What" didn't narrate historical explanations very well. I think the length of Ung's story intensified the pathos that the text evoked in me because I felt like the characters were being torn from the story. This was a pretty unorganized rant but my point: Ung's story about genocide was more effective than that of "what is the what." 

All About Subject Matter

I've been thinking about what makes any given reader like the book they are reading. Like Rob, i think it comes down (quite obviously) to what the central theme of the book is. In the case of "Sing Me Back Home," from reading posts I can see that many people find themselves in direct conflict with the focus of the novel: country music. This can prevent them from ENJOYING the novel, but i don't think it has to stop them from appreciating what Jennings has to say. I think what is going to help me through the dense country music portions of the book will be the deep appreciation i have for Jennings passion for music and his rhetorical skill. When I prevent myself from overanalyzing some of his rather grand statements, I find myself enjoying the dramatic flair of his writing. Chapter One concludes with, "I will tell you why it's my music, but also why its emotion-drenched wisdom also belongs to you, belongs to all of this." The dramatic repetition at the end of this line is encourages me to continue reading, even though I'm not particularly enthused about the core of the book. 

Jennings and Country Music

I've heard a lot of negative comments about Jennings's book. The interesting thing about these comments is that few of them are about the way he rights or about his rhetoric. Most of them are simply about the subject matter: country music. I think that a lot of people had problems getting into the memoir simply because the subject matter is dense and, for some, hard to relate to. As for me, I really enjoy this memoir. Reason? I really enjoy country music. So when I read Jennings's thoughts on Johnny Cash's first album and Hank Williams and other country music staples, I can't help be interested. I think that this says a lot about what people want out of their reading material. In the end, the readers must be interested in the subject matter. Some people loathe the very core of country music. Those people may very well loathe the very core of Jennings's memoir. That's just how it goes.

Dana Jennings

I think that my favorite part of Dana Jenning's book so far is the way that he uses description. For example, in the first chapter when he describes his background he uses a number of images to help the reader identify with an upbringing/ lifestyle that they may be unfamiliar with like "record ripe with country darkness." I also thought that the analysis of Johnny Cash's "I Walk the Line" was really great, because it showed how someone who didn't have a country upbringing might interpret a country song differently, that the people who have real country roots get more out of the music than those who listen to it purely because its on the top 100 hit list. 

reactions to jennings book

i feel like i shouldn't say this because we have a connection to the author, but i don't really like this book. i think its interesting when he talks about his family, but the long stretches of analysis of country music is just not interesting to me. i find it very repetitive and like i'm getting better acquainted with Johnny Cash than Dana Jennings.
what i do like about this is that the writing style makes me think in a country accent. it's very distinct however it does make it dense and hard to read at times.

Sing Me Back Home Reactions

I started the book after most people and had already heard how difficult it was to get through. While I admit I am still in the beginning and not finding the specific references too fascinating, the content connects to large enough themes that to a certain degree, I can relate. I found the extended metaphor opening work to intrigue the reader, but left a lot up to interpretation. Being pretty ignorant in the field of country music, I was hoping for a more clear cut, explanatory introduction. However, what I got was something better. By page 20 I understood completely the appeal of country music, not through his passion, but through his ability to relate it to a certain lifestyle and a certain identity. I feel one of the most powerful statements was that country music could provide such amazing escapism: "for a few minutes you could forget that you were a few months behind on the rent and that the light company was threatening to shut the electric" (12). The strength of country music comes through in this passage. Although country music doesn't have this amazing effect on all of us, most of us have a favorite weekly television show that we allow ourselves to get completely sucked into until we forget reality. While country music is more in tune with specific communities and cultures, the idea of desperation and escapism is universal.

Love, Death and Country Music

In Jenning's novel, he describes a force that has raised him, has defined him... one that identifies him while simultaneously instilling a pride in his people, and uniting them through a common love. It was easier for me to read this book without thinking of that "force" as the country music that I know -- the somewhat goofy, bucktoothed cartoon-like figure playing a broken banjo. Thus, instead of hearing the "twang" of actual country music while I was reading, I heard the "twang" of Jenning's voice: the voice he tried to give country music, to legitimize it in the eyes of others, and to bring people to understand that it is much more than "hick".

The amount of pride that Jennings writes with, combined with the fact that his prose reads like lyrics and has a "hymnlike hum" itself, made it easy to hear Jenning's unique voice.

I haven't finished the book, but I haven't yet been convinced of Jenning's argument. I think the thing that bothers most of us is that Jennings is trying to make us all identify with country music, trying to argue that it is inherently American and thus applies to all of us. This is hard for me to believe mainly because I think country musics isolation is its main source of power.

It reminded me of my mother's family -- they were all born and raised in Jamaica. You can always tell when we have family over because true country Reggae will surely be playing (not the kind anyone would ever hear on the radio -- the kind only people who have lived in the country would have heard). The fact that most can't identify it, that most don't understand its lyrics, makes it more unifying for us. We find power in the fact that only we can understand it. I feel like country music has the same sort of power, that although Jennings is spending time trying to make us relate, and translating this genre for us, we will never truly understand. And I think that's ok.

Sing Me Back Home

Well, I don't want to speak for anyone but myself but having read some of the other blogs, it appears that the common consensus is indicates that most of us are struggling to feel connected to the text. Certainly for me, establishing a connection with this book has been challenging. I think it was easy for us to throw ourselves into the readily emotional prose of First They Killed My Father--Ung's simple, passionate honesty made it easy to feel as though we were a part of the action, although the situation she presented to us is something wholly alien to most American high schoool students like ourselves. But at the same time, Jennings offers us what seems to be a story into which his emotions are equally as invested, and about a situation (rural New Hampshire and country music) that, however ironically, I know less than I do about the Cambodian genocide. It strikes me as odd that It was so easy for me to become enveloped in Ung's description of a foreign country but I feel as though I'm an outsider looking in on Jennings' account of somethign that's actually a large part of my own country's culture.