NOVEL PROJECTS
NOVEL PROJECT REFLECTION
Our two novels for this semester were Misery by Stephen King, and Snow Falling On Cedars by David Guterson. I’d never read a Stephen King book before, and I found Misery fantastic. King has such a way of getting inside the heads of his characters, and bringing their stream-of-consciousness onto the pages of the book. At times reading the book, I felt so hopeless; it seemed that the main character would never get a happy ending. I was happy when the character ended up surviving through the end.
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Snow Falling On Cedars really surprised me. Usually I don’t enjoy historical books, (although I did enjoy Memoirs of a Geisha last year) but I learned so much and grew to appreciate the genre. The historical settings didn’t simply feel like a backdrop the author chose for added flair; it was essential to the storyline. Guterson crafted such an elaborate, beautiful story.
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For my first novel project on Misery, I wrote about the media’s misrepresentation of crime. I had to change my topic a couple times, and even after that I didn’t enjoy writing the article too much. The main thesis felt a little muddled—I wasn’t sure whether I was talking about media misrepresenting specific races and ethnicities, or media misrepresenting crime. I think next time I’ll take a little bit more time to select a topic and be clear on my message.
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For my second novel project, on Snow Falling On Cedars, I researched and wrote about Chinese internment camps. This was my favorite novel project of the two. I had heard about the internment camps the previous year from some of my friends’ posts on social media, but I hadn’t read any articles on the issue. I was shocked to discover the conditions in the camps, the outright discrimination and prejudice that led to their installation, and the fact that they continue to run today, even with their disconcerting parallels to the Japanese internment camps described in Snow Falling On Cedars. The article involved quite a bit of research; it took me most of an afternoon. I was proud of the end result; especially a paragraph I added with multiple students quotes.
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I definitely learned from my mistakes with the novel projects this semester. After writing a relatively bland (and confusing) article for my first novel project, I turned in a more polished relevant article with more of a student focus for my second novel project. Hopefully, I’ll continue the trend next semester!
