Feed

By -
M.T. Anderson's novel Feed was very interesting. It is set in the future where people can take a vacation to the moon or other trips in space. In the novel the kids are on spring break and they decide to go to the moon for their vacation. The kids were guided by the feed in their heads that they received at birth. The author has created a vision of what life will be like in the future, and the language will involve a lot of slang. The author builds his own reality using the possibility of what the future may hold.

There are many different things that the author made his own. For example, life on the moon is one major thing that is not likely to happen in the near future. The author made it seem as though life on the moon had been around for centuries. The moon had hotels, and clubs where parties were thrown. The kids in the book went to a place called the Rumble Spot, and they also went to the Ricochet Lounge. While they were there all of the kids got hacked except for one. This cause them to have to disconnect from the feed.

The feed is a system that is inserted into everyone's brain at birth. The feed is like their own personal internet in their heads. It had anything from social media to a dictionary and they could access it at any time. The kids would even chat using the feed. They used it for GPS, finding a place to stay, and communication. For example, when they got to the moon Titus was talking about the feed and he said "When we got off the ship, our feeds were going to fugue with all the banners" (pg 8) The banners were the ads that gave the kids ideas about where they may want to visit. The author has created his own type of language in this reality also.

The next thing that the author made his own was the language in the novel. The language was a little different that what most are used to. He used a lot of slang in his novel especially when the characters were speaking. The characters would use words such as "whatev" "null" or "meg." An example of this would be when they were in the Ricochet Louge, a no gravity or low gravity place, playing and Link was upset because he does not like losing. So he looks at Marty and says "This is null, this sucks" (pg 13). These are just a few examples of how the language differs in the novel.

Overall, this novel was decent. It was not my favorite because of the language. Every time the author would use one of the slang words, I would have to stop and re-read the sentence. I liked that the fact the novel was based in the future, and the technology was so advanced.  I also struggled with when they were chatting on the feed, and when they were speaking out loud. I had to go back and make sure that I was reading it correctly.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Growing Pains - The Symbolism of the Tree in Speak

By -
I have felt the paralyzing pain of internal disease. The kind of trauma that causes your mouth to curl in and swallow you whole. I, like so many other women, are walking the halls in Melinda’s shoes in “Speak.” I thought Laurie Anderson did a phenomenal job of twisting all of the tribulations a high school girl goes through, into the tree that Melinda is. Whether we’re as strong as an oak or weak as a bush, we have all gone through the disease that strikes Melinda from the inside out. Melinda is like a half-dead tree. Some parts of her strive to blossom and create beauty. Other parts are broken and diseased. Like a dead tree, Melinda needs to save herself and “cut off the damage, [so it] is possible for the tree to grow again” (187). The symbolism of a tree is significant in “Speak.” Trees reflect her growing process. In the beginning, Melinda is a sick and lifeless tree. Her view is negative and dark. She’s so far past repair, bursts of sunlight do her no good. Sunlight would be pe
Read more

How Starr Goes from Acting to Embracing in The Hate U Give

By -
In The Hate U Give, Starr Carter is caught between two worlds. She lives in a predominantly black neighborhood, but her father sends her and her brothers to a private school where she is surrounded by white people. She talks about acting differently depending on what group she is around, which can create some identity problems. She says on page 11, "Funny how it works with white kids though. It's dope to be black until it's hard to be black." When at Williamson, she sees white kids that think it's cool to engage in black culture, but she knows they don't understand what she goes through in her Garden Heights community. She witnessed her friend Natasha's death when she was 10 years old, and she sees gang activity in her community all the time. When she is among her black friends, like at the party, they tease her for hanging out with the white kids. This reminds me of a Drake song where he says, "I used to get teased for being black, and now I'm
Read more

Postmodernism in Curious Incident

By -
Before I start writing, I first want to acknowledge that I just really loved this book! It seemed like a lot of the class had trouble enjoying or appreciating the novel because it's so different stylistically, which is understandable, but all of those unique elements helped make the novel more authentic. The main topic I want to focus on (also what I'm writing my paper on) is how a lot of postmodernist elements were used in the novel to make Christopher come to life. While obviously not every postmodern novel is about an autistic kid, I think Haddon really used a lot of these elements to his advantage and they ended up working out really well to characterize Christopher. One of the major postmodern elements which helps this book really craft an authentic portrayal of autism is the fact that it's metafictive. Basically, this means it's a "story within a story." Readers would be extremely limited just reading the parts of the novel which are meant to be C
Read more