Over the summer, my friends and I planned to go down to
Myrtle Beach for vacation. Every day leading up to our departure we would talk
about what we would do when we got there, get tattoos in our lips (wtf?), all
these people we were going to meet, how shitfaced we were gonna get blah blah
blah. We were so excited. Everyone on social media knew and trust me they wished
we would just leave already so we’d shut the fuck up about it.
When we finally arrived in Myrtle Beach, we didn’t take in
to consideration this huge factor: we were all under 21! I have no idea how we
thought we were going to get “shitfaced”. We tried so hard to find people to
party with and get us in to bars, clubs, anything, but nothing worked. All the
other kids in our condominium were over 21 but wanted nothing to do with us,
they were too busy shoving their legality in our faces saying “you’ll have your
chance one day”. It was a bust.
Within just the first 50 pages of M.T. Anderson’s novel, Feed,
I am able to relate to the characters and because of this understanding, I can see
myself learning from them—even though they’re not your ideal role models.
“Then
we went back to the hotel. There were parties there, but mostly college kids.
Usually we can get in, because me and Link and Marty and Calista, we can turn
on the charm […] That didn’t work this time. We tried to get in and we were standing
in the doorway and they were all, “Who the hell are you?” (Anderson 11).
Okay. What?! This quote is literally the definition of my
unfortunate underage life. When I read this I started chuckling like okay. That’s
me. I feel your pain, unit.
Even a little bit later in to the book, when they all tried
to break in to the minibar and were throwing it against the wall so try and
open it so they could get drunk before going to the club (33,34). Anderson didn’t
directly say it but c’mon they were trying to pregame before they hit up the
club.
Anderson’s ability to capture the commonalities among young
adults is what’s so captivating about this book. I can see that these characters
are exactly like me, even though it’s hundreds of years in to the future. My
relation to the characters is what draws me in to the story and for the first
time, like ever, I am excited to keep on reading and see what happens to these
crazy kids.
Anderson, M.T. Feed. Cambridge: Candlewick Press, 2002. Print.
Nicole S.
Anderson, M.T. Feed. Cambridge: Candlewick Press, 2002. Print.
Nicole S.
I really enjoyed this post. I actually chuckled a bit. Great voice, great use of anecdote, nice job drawing a strong text-to-self connection to the novel. I could see you developing this into a longer blog post or academic paper where you compare and contrast the characters of Feed to the youth of today to demonstrate how the novel acts as a satire--something to think about.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this post, the voice was captivating and your points were expressed well and were easily understood. Your use of relating feed to an actually real life story made seeing the underlying themes of feed a little bit easier. Also your use of a quote was nice, its always good to see direct quotes from the text its something i struggle to do when looking for just the write quote. Humor is a powerful tool in writting and saying things like, "Anderson didn’t directly say it but c’mon they were trying to pregame before they hit up the club", really draw in a readers attention. I also chuckled at the fact you use done of the slang words form the book I feel you ,unit. Anyway i do agree with you that I also cant wait to see what kind of trouble theses crazy kids get them self into because we all know this little mess up will not be their last.
ReplyDelete-Richard P.
I really like the comparison that you made with the book and your real life. It reminded me of a certain sentiment. The sentiment being that, those who came before us were not stupid for on the contrary they were smart in different ways. To me this quote means that there were aspects where our predecessors succeeded while there were aspects where they…well didn’t. This sentiment will be applied to our generation in a few years. For example, if our world ends up being like the world of Feed they will look back on us and think we were stupid. Literally. Seeing as we don’t have feeds in our heads, we supplement the feed with memorization. Our response time compared to theirs would be way longer. They would see us obsolete, yet in some if not most ways they are still us. You touched upon this idea in your post. Even though Feed is set however many years in the future the teenagers are still essentially the same as teenagers today. Always trying to get in an altered state no matter the decade. While you were trying to get “white-girl wasted” the kids in feed were trying to get “mal”. The only things that change from generation to generation are the faces and the names. The trends are the same, just "reinvented'.
ReplyDeleteBriana W.