Summer Reading Response

My summer reading was interesting, to say the least. I worked on the mythology sources on and off through-out the whole summer, because it was something that I could to on partial auto-pilot, which was the state that I remained in for the six weeks when I was working, stage managing and acting. I would do a few here and a few there, and even though I would complete nearly half a page to a page every time I worked, the list was so long that I never seemed to make any progress. Those, I think, were the worst part of the summer homework.

The rest of the homework, the reading, although it appeared to be considerably larger and a lot harder, was actually the most enjoyable part of the homework. I started a little late in the summer, so at first I was feeling pressed for time and slightly stressed. However, once I started Frankenstein I was less worried. I found the language a bit dull and difficult to muddle through to the point sometimes, but I really and honestly enjoyed the book. It was so different than the pop-culture view that I had always been receiving, where Frankenstein is the monster’s name and he is green and moans a lot. It was interesting finding the parts where the novel’s matched up with pop-culture and yet how truly distorted today’s view of it is.

The part of Frankenstein that I did not enjoy was the part were I had to muddle through the language to get to what turned out to be a fantastic plot. There were parts where I had to pause and take a breath to keep myself focusing too much on the language and not enough on what the language was saying.

East of Eden was the last part of my summer homework that I did, partially because it is so intimidatingly huge. However, once I got over my fear of reading it, I found that it was so much better than I was expecting. I would get into the story and the description and then look up and find that I had read thirty or forty more pages than I had intended. The characters seemed much more real than in Frankenstein and the language was not only more modern – and therefore easier to understand- but also more inviting. I wanted to pay attention more. There were pleasant plot twists and moments when I felt horror at what might becoming up around the corner. It had been a while since I really set down a book I was reading and went, “Wow.” I couldn’t wait to discuss it, because there was so much that I saw in it, and I was sure there were a thousand and ten things that I had missed. Out of the summer homework, the scariest part was the best.

If I had the option to read-do the summer homework, changing the curriculum as I saw fit, I would drop the list of mythological figures, and opt for a packet or email or website of some kind, with those sources, that we could read. The sources were the most tedious and most difficult part of the work and made me dread the reading, which turned out to be a million times better.