Response to “From No One Is Here Except All of Us”

Response to “From No One Is Here Except All of Us”

      Ramona Ausubel’s novel “No One Is Here Except All of Us” uses stories that she once heard from her grandmothers since childhood. The first part of the novel focuses on the history of Jewish and how they move families again and again. In the second part, a remote Jewish village decides to create a new world for themselves by their own abilities.

     This is a good fiction because it makes my heart sinks. The background of the story was during the World War II when Nazis possessed most of Europe. The violence was everywhere, and the murder is everywhere. I cannot help thinking the horrible scene of the holocaust. The sorrow fills my heart, in the meantime, I actually driven by the strong power of the remote Jewish village. They try their best to ignore the exoteric danger, to forget the death of their loves, and to isolate them from the war. Building up a new society to protect all villages is their faith to live in peace. “It’s the night before the world begins,” as the narrator says, “Everything is getting ready. Everything is waiting to be alive.” The beliefs of the villagers make me realize that no one should give up life even though being at danger. Maybe it’s to naïve to think about the empty things, but the rebuilding is a kind of support.

     Besides the content, the language Ausuble uses is very magical, mesmerizing, lyrical and evocative. She uses poetry, fairy tales and fables. The language is organized to convey deep meanings from long family history, imagination, and terrible war.

Here Is a Big Carnage

I didn’t know why Ann didn’t want me to join in her “little gang” although we were good friends. I felt like that someone I loved betrays me. When anger welled up with my heart, I struck her on the nose, and I just escaped.

       Now, at the night, in the sitting room of Ann’s home, the atmosphere is quiet strange. Six people sit at the dinner table having the meals. One side, there are three people, my father Arno, my mother Nancy, and me, the troublemaker; another side was sat the Ann’s father Mike, her mother Paula and Ann.

       Then, the conversation begins. Mrs. Paula thinks that our family should make sincere apology to Ann’s pain, and she continue saying, “Yeah, of course, we should use a civilized way to deal with their fight, but I need your apology…” Mrs. Paula is a famous writer and an advocate of freedom. Her face seems to be gentle, so gentle under the warm light.

       “No.” says my father, the lawyer who cannot live without his phone, try to use a set of his own unique skills to protect me. “Children have their own world, and they can deal with the problem in private. “ Another side, Ann’s father Mike, a private developer with shiny head just nods without any words.

       Things become worse. I never imagine that there is a scissors under that gentle face. Paula suddenly has an outburst, and other three adults are going to have a cow. Their twisty faces make them like monsters to tearing at each other’s flesh. Only Ann and I sit still looking them in silence.

       My parents criticize the food made by Paula and Mike, while Paula and Mike attack that my parents are hypocritical double-sided people.

       Mrs. Paula and my mother Nancy laugh each other at their appearances, and Mr. Mike and my father Arno satirize their careers.

       Mr. Mike complains to Paula about the family pressure; my mother complains to my father about his everlasting business.

       Two men insist they have to live chicly while two women insist that all men are bustards.

       Time seems to be not enough. The world out of the house is especially quiet and refreshing. Ann and I wink at each other, and slink away hand in hand.

       Ah, what a cool air!

The Explanation of Our Journal Titles

     The first title is "The Door". The audience may asks what the specific meaning of the "door", and that why I comes up with the idea. Door has many difference kinds of aspects. One refers to the entities, the physical door. Writers may have the description of the door in submissions, and the door actually symbolizes something else. Another refers to the unreal doors such as the door of world, culture, religion, race and belief, which means our journal contains various submissions without borders. The journal will bring audience different kinds of new feelings. The door also refers to the door of heart. The door open, then the heart soars; the door close, then the heart sinks.

     The second title is "Cure". The definition of the cure is that a medicine or a therapy to make people recover or to release the pain, and our journal exactly is the medicine or a therapy. Audience can empathize with the submissions in our journal, and their heart can be healed. However, it doesn't mean that our journal only have happy ending stories. There may be some sad stories with profound significance so that audience can see the light of hope.

Response to Our Presentation Virginia Quarterly Review

In our today’s presentation, April and I recommend a journal Virginia Quarterly Review to the classmates. April focuses on the history of this publication, and introduces the editor in detail. In my part, I tell about some elements and pay more attention on a story we chose before.

There are many aspects that I think we should emulate from this journal. The first one is its design. The home page uses many pictures that bring audience strong visual effect. For me, the most impressive picture is the picture of story “pain”. People stand together in the darkness, but there is a little light in the background. The second good aspect is about the organization. Although the publication uses a lot of visual arts, we can see the content clearly because they are in order. The first part is the newest submissions, and then the most popular submissions. It’s easy for readers to search more information of the author or stories. It’s a pity that readers just can read stories ten times for free. If more than ten times, we have to pay for it.

       The story we choose is “Teacups”. The protagonist Eva lives in high social status, but unfortunately, she does not have a baby so that the marriage problem comes to her. She goes to clinic to get therapy. She meets a group of people, and they are Claire, Yves and Elena. Claire is a housewife, and she has a stereotype man. Every time she goes to therapy, she brings her youngest child Nedi. Yves is the only man among them. He has a wife, but he is a homosexual. Elena is a 25-year-old young woman, and she decides to divorce with her husband. The protagonist Eva really wants to have a baby, so she always hug and play with Nedi. Her husband husband Toby makes many rules for her. The special one is that she cannot drink coffee. At the end of the fiction, she decides to adopt baby, and she drinks a cup of coffee. It is a sample of good fiction because it makes me heart sink. The story reflects the process that a woman gradually gets away from her husband’s control. She tries to have the equality. The story contains many social problems such as culture, equal rights and religion. These problems are worth thinking. 

My Opinion about "Trolley"

     There are two options that I can choose: Let trolley run directly to kill 5 people, or change the routine to kill one person. 

      For me, I will choose to let trolley change its original routine to kill one people. The first reason and the most important reason is depended on the quantity. Five people are more than one people. Although I must feel guilty about the one person who dies, I can comfort myself that I save five people's life. The five people's living can support me to keep going. If five people dies, I cannot stand being condemned from the whole society and five families. The second reason is that I think five people bonded together are by someone who is very awful. If I save five people's life, they can tell the truth whether or not they are victims, and the police can have cues to catch the criminal. Maybe the criminal is just the one who dies. Third, I believe that the five people will remember to be good when they survive, and they may return back to society.

      Some people may choose to let five people dies because it's five people's destiny. Yeah, that's also an appropriate reason, and I cannot deny that. Therefore, It's very difficult for us to face a ethical dilemma. Choosing each one side seems that we will lost something about the other side, and so the life it is. 

Response to “The School”

       What make this a good fiction?

The school by Donald Barthelme is a short story about death. The trees, snakes, herb gardens, food, gerbils and white mice, salamander and the tropical fish just die one by one. Later, the death comes to the human body, which is start from an orphan, some parents and through the Matthew Wein and Tony Mavrogordo. The last dead person is Billy Brandt’s father who was killed by the intruder at home. At the beginning of the story, students may not concern too much because some death can be explained. However, the more deaths happen, the more questions they have. They cannot help doubting that what death is and whether death is an inevitable thing that they should accept.

This is a very “good” fiction because it makes me think the complexity of the life. The whole story seems to be based on a serious and depressive keynote. Many living things are likely to go to the unavoidable result. The perspectives of death vary from different groups of people, which reveals from the young children and the narrator Edgar. The young children have the deep thoughts about death. For example, they ask the question “Is death that which give meaning to life?” By contrast, Edgar can easily accept the truth of death, and he may not be willing to know the meaning of truth. For me, I just cannot take that easy when someone I love dies.

        Although the story is kind of black and makes my heart sink, it also brings me the aspect of hope and optimism. Among the accidents of death, the narrator tells a story about puppy. The appearance of puppy brings vitality to the school, and everything becomes meaningful. At the end of story, the students require Edgar to make love with Helens, and Edgar does it finally. What shocked me is that the gerbil can knock the door. The ending reflects that love, satisfaction, interaction and hope are opposed to death. The students should have a positive attitude toward their life instead of giving the life up. 

Response to "As We May Think"

1. What is research like for Bush in 1945? What are the problems with it?

       According to the background of the year 1945, America was experiencing the World War II. All the scientists dedicate themselves to the scientific application to make the country stronger and to win the war. The research for Bush in 1945 is focused the information science. The new equipment developed from research not only helps people increase self-control, but also helps people to better understand the life process, which brings many long-term interests. People communicate with each other, and also utilize and extract information from information research.

There are some problems following the scientific research. First, the way of spreading and summarizing research conclusions is too antiquated to satisfy the society, so it’s hard for people to extract the significant result among a large number of things. Second, although the speed of people to gain the knowledge is rapidly increasing, people cannot remember everything. People are likely to be lost in the maze of knowledge. Third, most people at that time are not aware of the importance or the benefit of information science.

2.What is the memex?

       Memex is a kind of “private library” based on the microfilm where people can store all the books, records and communications. The mechanized system can record new information through Cyclops, Vocoder and touchscreen. Memex provides the connection between various data so that people are able to create links and to add their comments. Memex joins net with libraries to help people get the huge amount of information retrieval. Besides, memex reduces the storage space, accelerates the retrieval and expands the memory.

3.Do we have anything similar to the memex today?

       Bush’s idea about memex makes a great contribution to today’s world of technology. The hypertext is very similar to the Memex. Hypertext uses hyperlinks to organize a lot of different spatial data together. When we surf on the Internet, the webpage transition is achieved by the hypertext.

Tess/Tang Siwen