Week 1: Famous Last Words

My best writing for this week probably came in the form of my comments on the blogs of other students. I’m in another online class, and the professor is adamant about the respect and courtesy shown by students to each other online. So, I’m trying to be more cordial and polite this semester, while also beneficially critiquing.

I’m also reading something really cool right now for my other online class. Arthur Hertzberg is the author of The Zionist Idea. It depicts the history of Zionism throughout Jewish culture, and I find it fascinating to place a religion / people into a context politically and in world history.  It describes Zionism as an assimilation into outside culture while still remembering the past traditions of previous generations of Jews. I’m also in a class called History and Memory, which observes the relationship of what we remember and what we write down. So, this book is really relevant to my studies right now.

            I’m also reading a book called This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald. He is my favorite author, and this is one of my very favorite books. It’s a semi-autobiography about a boy named Amory Blaine (who represents F. Scott Fitzgerald). He grows up in Minnesota, just like Fitzgerald, and goes to boarding school in the northeast. After boarding school, he attends Princeton, just like Fitzgerald. It’s interesting because it is a fiction book, but it loosely depicts the life of Fitzgerald. I’ve often thought about writing one myself, mostly for my enjoyment in my later years. But this is also a discussion from my History and Memory class. How much of a semi-autobiography is embellished? How much of a regular autobiography is embellished? Is it deliberate, or is it simply the dreamlike state in which we remember things? These are all interesting perspectives on history, memory, and biography.

Image Information: This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Source: The Literary Snob