2013 Tournament of Books Discussion BILLY LYNNs LONG HALF-TIME WALK by Ben Fountain

2013 Tournament of Books Discussion BILLY LYNNs LONG HALF-TIME WALK by Ben Fountain We here at Book Riot are huge  Tournament of Books fans, so this year were going to discuss each of the finalists in the weeks before the Tournament gets underway, in alphabetical order. You can find the  schedule of our discussions here. Read along with us!   Today, Kit Steinkellner and Nicole Perrin discuss Billy Lynns Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain. ____________________________ When I first started reading Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, I couldn’t figure out where I had heard the author Ben Fountain’s name before. A quick Google search later and I had it. Fountain was the hero of the opening anecdote of Malcolm Gladwell’s 2008 New Yorker essay “Late Bloomers.” In the piece, Gladwell details Fountain’s story, an associate at a real estate practice who quit his job to spend the bulk of the next 18 years sitting at his kitchen table working on short stories that would eventually form his sensationally-reviewed 2006 collection of short stories Brief Encounters With Che Guevara. Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk , a novel detailing one day in the life of Specialist Billy Lynn on the last day of a media-intensive tour with his universally-acknowledged to be national heroes Bravo Squad, was published this spring to over-the-moon reviews. It ended up being a National Book Award Finalist. On my blog Books are my Boyfriends, my summation of the book was “ if this novel isn’t shortlisted for a Pulitzer I will punch myself in the face and put it on YouTube.” I still stand behind that statement. If I’m going to be completely transparent, I think the novel has a better shot at winning the Pulitzer than it does at winning the Tournament of Books. If I were a competing book I would not want to tango with fan favorites Gone Girl and The Fault in Our Stars. Plus. Billy Lynn also has the handicap of having to play in against two other modern war novels, Fobbit (by Book Riot’s own David Abrams!) and Kevin Johnson’s The Yellow Birds. I’ve not read either, though both are on my TBR list. Below, fellow Rioter Nicole and I discuss. ____________________________ KS: So what do you think about Billy Lynn having to earn its place in the tournament by competing in a war-novel play-in? (We all know Jeff O’Neal is not a fan of the “war novel ghetto,”) and honestly, I think it seems like this was the play-in idea the gamemakers had one or two ideas before they were going to have the REALLY GOOD play-in idea. NP: I think it’s intriguing but ultimately unfair. The three war novels chosen, Billy Lynn, Fobbit, and The Yellow Birds, spent much of last year being compared to one another, which makes sense. I myself plan to do a series on my blog discussing the three of them, once I’ve read The Yellow Birds. One of the questions everyone has been asking and attempting to answer is how far down the road we are to creating a real “post-9/11 literature,” and a narrative of the post-9/11 wars. It makes sense to look at war novels as a group to answer that question, but limiting their presence in the wider culture of books to a single “war-novel slot” seems to do the opposite. Further, it divorces those wars from the rest of the culture, when part of the whole question these books ask is how they fit into the rest of the culture. So I think the comparison is a worthwhile exercise in its own right, but to shoehorn it into a larger tournament falls somewhere between “contrived” and “ discriminatory” for me. Since you’re a big fan of Billy Lynn but haven’t read either of the other books in the mini-category, what would you say is Billy Lynn’s biggest flaw, and what are your thoughts about how it contributes to a cultural narrative about the war? KS: Well I know it would be cheating to say I think the biggest flaw was that the book was “too short,” and I am no cheater! I think that the third-person voice of the novel is electric and shocking, no qualms there, but in the dialogue the soldiers voices tended to bleed together (I know there’s some authorial intent there, indicating the dominance of group-think, but still) and every once in awhile the skewering of Texans felt like cheap shots. As far as how it contributes to our cultural narrative of war, I deeply appreciate that this is a war novel that takes place at home. The most hilarious and horrifying insights in the novel come from how Billy and his squad are received during their heroes’ tour, by everyone from family members to Hollywood execs to Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. Reactions vary, but there is an unnerving undercurrent running through all their encounters with civilians: no one REALLY knows how to deal with these boys. Home no longer feels like home. Bravo Squad is the only place where these young men feel safe. And Bravo Squad is going back to Iraq at the end of the novel. The questions this novel raises regarding where young military people belong once they’ve experienced the arena of war, are so weighty and complicated and so worthy of fiction. What about you, Nicole? Biggest strength of the novel and biggest flaw? How do YOU feel it contributes to the war narrative? And if you were a gambling man, what kind of odds would you place on Billy Lynn in the Tournament? NP: Your last question is the hardest one, since we don’t yet know how the pre-game aspect of the tournament will really work. I think it has a solid shot of making it into the main round, but I think the field of war novels is going to be close. My bet is that Billy Lynn will win because it is, as you point out, a war novel that takes place at home. I think the novel’s biggest strength is in its absurdity and overall gonzo-ness. The Bravos don’t just star in any halftime show, they star in a Dallas Cowboys halftime show. And not just any Cowboys game, but the Thanksgiving Day game. Billy doesn’t find just any girl to connect and make out with, but a Cowboys cheerleader. And of course, they’re not just any group of soldiers, but one with a serious possibility of having a movie made about them. And that deal hangs precariously not just for all the usual reasons a movie deal might, but also because they’re about to get sent back into a war zone where they might die before they can sign on the dotted line. But that “no one REALLY knows how to deal with these boys” was a major weakness for me. Billy certainly feels that way, and he rejects the poor attempts at a connection with him from everyone he meets. But Billy, of course, isn’t writing the novel; Ben Fountain is. I read this as a civilian basically saying that no civilian can ever hope to have a connection with the soldiers they employbut a civilian puts himself in a soldier’s shoes to make that point. I think that many Americans do feel that way. Many people are certainly aware of the small segment of the population that makes up the military, and feel culturally divorced from that side of the country. “We,” in some sense, seem to be afraid that we can’t understand these men and women, no matter how hard we try, and Billy Lynn confirms and reaffirms the separateness of civilian from soldier. I wasn’t completely satisfied with how Billy resolved this for himself at the end of the novel, so it remains a weak point fo r me. What do you think about Billy’s voice? Do you think it comes across as unrealistically introspective and articulate (he is a young guy, after all), or did you buy that these were his thoughts, and not those of a novelist writing about a young soldier? KS: What I liked so much about Billy’s voice was that he was clearly an unusually perceptive young man, but didn’t have the liberal-arts-graduate-speak to communicate his ideas, so the result ended up feeling like a fractured self-awareness (as opposed to a witty, bantery, and ultimately irritating self-awareness.) I really like him as a character who feels like he could be book smart if only someone was making him do his required reading, I thought that was an original, honest, and ultimately heartbreaking choice. Sign up to Unusual Suspects to receive news and recommendations for mystery/thriller readers. Thank you for signing up! Keep an eye on your inbox.

Top 14 Best Sharpe Novels by Bernard Cornwell

Contemporary Literature And The Postmodern Condition

Miriam Marty Clark gives many â€Å"strategies† for identifying a piece of contemporary literature in her article â€Å"Contemporary Short Fiction and the Postmodern Condition†. One of these strategies is the lack of epiphanies in a short story. Clark says, â€Å"The end of epiphany and the exhaustion of familiar reading strategies and genre definitions call for new ways of reading and for redefinition of both the narrative and the cultural logic of short fiction† (147-148). Raymond Carver’s short story â€Å"Gazebo† implements this contemporary strategy by removing any epiphanies from the work. From the beginning, â€Å"Gazebo† throws the reading right into the middle of a troubled situation. The first line sets up a specific image, â€Å"That morning she pours†¦show more content†¦There is no further epiphany within the story after Holly breaks down from the news. Duane does not have a grand revelation of his wrong doings to his wife and that he must stop in order to keep her. â€Å"I’d open my eyes and look at the ceiling [...] wondering at what was happening to us. But maybe I should be looking at the floor† (33). Though Duane attempts through his words and actions to save them, for her sake, â€Å"I get down on my knees and I start to beg† (35), his mind tells another story, â€Å"But I’m thinking of Juanita† (35). His grand epiphany about their relationship and his true desires also occurred pre-writing, leaving only a story that Clark describes as â€Å"[...] not [containing] durable or ultimate knowledge, but narr ativity itself† (157). Carver has started the story right in the thick of Holly and Duane’s relationship problems and in doing so, has â€Å"[surrendered] [...] the [reader’s] expectation of epiphany† (147) and has left the reader to only wait for the outcome. Clark goes on to mention Raymond Carver specifically when talking about another key strategy in determining a contemporary work, â€Å"Carver’s characters negotiate the wreckage of social discourse, of community and institution† (150). While locked away together discussing their relationship’s fate, Duane remembers back when the â€Å"community† between them was still tenable, â€Å"Holly took care of the books. [†¦] I saw to the grounds

Show through the movement of verse Brutus’ thought process at 2.1 lines 10-34 Free Essays

This is a soliloquy, designed to reveal Brutus’ thinking and feelings, and also to give the audience a chance to judge his motives. By delaying the action of the play, it increases suspense as the audience enter the mind of a killer and his plotting. Throughout his speech, rhythm, rhyme, repetition and imagery are used to reveal Brutus’ need to justify himself. We will write a custom essay sample on Show through the movement of verse Brutus’ thought process at 2.1 lines 10-34 or any similar topic only for you Order Now The whole speech is in iambic pentameter. Iambs occur when, of two syllables, only the second is stressed. Here, â€Å"death† is most stressed, followed by â€Å"must†. Must† and â€Å"death† contain hard-hitting consonants (â€Å"t† and â€Å"d†) and the combination, along with â€Å"must†, sounds threatening, intent and violent. This rhythmic effect in the first clause sounds determined and final – so why does Brutus run on? The colon before â€Å"and, for my part† suggests that he feels he needs an explanation for this decision, one that he can justify in â€Å"general† terms (meaning for the general good of the people), if not on a â€Å"personal† level, why he is, quite definitely, going to kill Caesar. The iambic rhythm set up so far is interrupted by lines 2 and 3, with â€Å"personal† and â€Å"general† going from one stressed followed by two unstressed, creating a trickling sound, and supporting a very thoughtful tone. One can feel that Brutus is just trying to persuade himself that killing Caesar will look like the right thing to do, once he can find a story to justify it. It’s not a vicious tone of a murderer – and that makes it all the more chilling, as we feel that Caesar’s life is being weighed in this man’s hands. The repeated last syllable is situated in the same place in both lines, creating rhyme. At first, it seems that Brutus values the â€Å"personal† friendship with, and knowledge of, Caesar above the â€Å"general† – but as he continues, the echo of these two rhyming words is in conflict. The bulk of this speech is spent talking in general terms, never really directing his speech at Caesar at all except to talk of his being crowned and killing him. This explaining of Caesar’s life would create sympathy for him in the audience, and without this justification Brutus would be simply a base murderer. The poetry of line 5 is typical of Brutus. He mixes beauty with an argument for murder – and for a short time, the extraordinary truth about adders in the summer, hidden dangers becoming clear when the grass is mown and the sun is high, might make the audience believe that Caesar is like an adder. This is the longest line so far, free of pauses, reasoning and worry. But the poetry whips up Brutus’ own fears. The words â€Å"bright† and â€Å"brings† and the interruption of the iambic skip, with â€Å"bright day† and â€Å"bring forth† both being stressed, creates the effect almost of a drum-roll, erasing any doubt in Brutus’ mind that the adder, in the shape of an Imperial Caesar, is not far away. Through lines 6 – 12 Brutus is again trying to justify killing Caesar. He dehumanises Caesar firstly as an â€Å"adder† and then later as a â€Å"serpents egg† which isn’t so different from the disjoining of remorse from power that Brutus suspects Caesar to be potentially capable of. Although Brutus is trying to persuade himself that this is a political assassination for the good of Rome and the Republic, it’s easy to notice Brutus is slightly jealous that his old friend, once an equal, is now a god among men. Therefore this is an insight into the possibility that the murder was also personal. These lines are also a period where he is deciding whether or not to kill Caesar. In line 6 he says â€Å"Crown him! – that! † hitting an emotional peak after which he calms himself down speaking in a much lower, less erratic tone. The word â€Å"But† on line 12 is a major turning point in the text. This is where the whole of Brutus’s argument lies on common belief not proof. Once again to persuade himself killing Caesar is the right thing to do, he uses a weak argument that says Caesar is using people to get to the top of the political ladder and when he reaches the top will turn his back on everyone who helped him get there. The weakness of this argument is that there are no signs of him ever being evil to his friends before. Brutus describes it as a general model of the â€Å"common proof† that all men grow greedy with power, which if true would justify killing Caesar while he was in his â€Å"shell† before he could â€Å"hatch† Throughout the soliloquy Brutus appears to be contradicting himself and making remarks that he isn’t entirely confident about. To me this shows that Brutus had quite a weak personality and was probably a man under great pressure. How to cite Show through the movement of verse Brutus’ thought process at 2.1 lines 10-34, Essays

Organizational Learning and Strategy Differences

Introduction The purpose of this study is to critically analyze organizational learning and strategy differences in the Chinese Based firms in Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong.Advertising We will write a custom critical writing sample on Organizational Learning and Strategy Differences specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Review of literature Many writers have provided information focusing on the Asian Policy Makers. Focus is given to the new strategic developmental strategies resulting from the economic Downturn that was been prevalent in the Asian countries for the last three decades. Economic success of the Chinese based Firms is used as a Benchmark of these developmental strategies due to their Economic success despite economic downturn in the region. Unlike their regional competitors such as Japan and South Korea, with big Firms operating on a large scale, the Chinese firms have resilience (Dierkes et al, 2003, p 716). There is a new focus shift from the Large Firms to small and medium sized ones on Market. Characteristics of Chinese Based Firms At present, the firms are mainly found in Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan. In the first place, these firms are small and medium in sizes. (Yeung, et al, 2011, p. 34.). Additionally, they are viewed as late comers to technology, thus they lack access to modern and advanced technology of large Western based firms. The firms have a high tendency of integration into global and local production networks. Learning strategies and processes Despite the economic down turn in the region, the firms remained a success. They have become a central focus due to their, economic progress. Chinese Firms uses adoptive and imitational forms of knowledge transfer (Yu, 2007, p.18). Imitations resulted to drastic growth, instead of using an innovative process despising the western concept of product life cycle. This is coupled with creation of learning in networks Learning in networks The firms are incorporated into regional as well as the global corporations networks based in the western enterprises of Japan Europe and the USA. The Chinese based firms have a characteristic of incorporating other highly developed western based firms in their technology and management systems unlike Japanese and other western based enterprises whose allied enterprises are centrally attached only to their mother companies/firms. Interfirm cooperation thus takes their center in learning.Advertising Looking for critical writing on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Interfirm cooperation The firms in this region of the world being late comers to the technological world of production strive to make their products better through knowledge accumulation and internalization leading to knowledge of producing goods already on market (Dierkes et al. 2003, p.721). There exist also strategic alliances. Strategic alliances Fo rming strategic alliances is also another learning strategy employed by Chinese firms as their Learning process. They target brand name leaders of through formation of joint ventures with these innovative Firms. Their governments also give them some support. Government support It is also characteristic of the Governments in these regions to provide and create favorable organizational learning conditions through provision of basic human resource training, provision and spreading required production and marketing knowledge and giving subsides to research and development targeting majorly, strategic industries and Firms for knowledge transfer. Despite this, these firms still face some barriers to organizational learning Barriers to organizational learning These firms have are vulnerable to under financing due to lack of technological underdevelopment thus they are exposed market fluctuations as compared to large enterprises found in Japan and South Korea. On the overseas perspective, C hinese firms In Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore lack access to advanced technology used by large western enterprises, as well as large advanced markets of enjoyed by the western based models of organizational learning. The conclusion is therefore made at last as: Conclusion Chinese based firms are small and medium sized enterprises. Organizational learning characteristic to the through imitation of already existing technology in production and market conquest Reference list Dierkes, et al., 2003. Handbook of Organizational Learning Knowledge. NY: Oxford Publishers.Advertising We will write a custom critical writing sample on Organizational Learning and Strategy Differences specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Yeung, et al., 2011. The Globalization of Chinese Companies: Strategies for Conquering International Markets. Singapore: John Wiley Sons. Yu, F.T., 2007. Taiwan’s economic transformation in evolutionary perspective:Â   Entrepreneurship, innovation systems and government. NY: Nova Publishers. This critical writing on Organizational Learning and Strategy Differences was written and submitted by user Jaylyn B. to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

Billy Graham Essays - Billy Graham, Free Essays, Term Papers

Billy Graham Essays - Billy Graham, Free Essays, Term Papers Billy Graham This is the Hour of Decision with Billy Graham, coming to you from Minneapolis Minnesota Billy Graham, has preached to more than 210 million people through a live audience, more than anyone else in history. Not only that, but Mr. Graham has reached millions more through live televison, video and film. This has led Billy to be on the Ten Most Admired Men in the World from the Gallup Poll since 1955 a total of thirty-nine times. This includes thirty-two consecutive more than any other individual in the world, placing him as the most popular American for about forty years. This essay is going to talk about Graham's personal life, and what kind of family he grew up in and im also going to talk in detail about how he became an evangelist, because I feel it is very important yet interesting. His accomplishments in the fifties are uncomparable, so I will be including a considerable amount of information concerning that topic. Finally I will be talking about his personal achievements, books written, and how he has been a companion to some of the American Presidents. William Franklin Graham Jr. was born in Charlotte, North Carolina on November 17, 1918. Graham was raised on a dairy farm by William Franklin (deceased 1962) and Morrow Coffey Graham (deceased 1981). In 1943 he married his wife Ruth McCue Bell, and had four children Virginia 1945, Anne Morrow 1948, Ruth Bell 1950, William Franklin, Jr. 1952, and Nelson Edman 1958. At age eighty, he keeps fit by swimming, playing with is nineteen grand children, and from aerobic walking, in the mountains of North Carolina, where he currently lives. (Billy Graham Best Sellers, 1999) Billy Graham told Time Magazine in one article about his life before becoming a preacher. I lived on a farm. The only difference was I had to get up early in the morning and go milk cows. When I came back from school that day, I had to milk those same cows. There were about twenty cows I had to milk. By hand. That was before they had those machines. I loved being a farmer. But God called me to this work that I'm in now. I knew it was God calling. I said, Yes. I will follow what God wants me to do. And so I went to two or three schools to get education. Then I became a pastor of a church. Then I went into evangelism. (Graham, 1999) Graham got his first lesson of the worlds way of the mysterious God, while he was a teen working on his father's farm. Graham's father who was a working man had a calling to go out and to become a preacher, but because of the farm, he never got the chance to do so. Instead he tried to live his own passion through his son, Billy Graham. He was raised by two strict Calvinist parents, who showed him that hard work and honesty was the way all people should live in Gods World. Although Graham rejected these views by his parents, he was still influenced spiritually from his upbringing. At age seventeen, Graham was in the position just like many other seventeen years old's he knew. Graham was popular in high school with the girls, played sports such as basketball and baseball, but was lost on what his future would have in store for him. During this time an evangelist named Mordecai Ham came to Charlotte, to have a three-month revival. He never took too much to the idea, because he did not want to be stuck in a long and boring job that would make him sorry he was ever born. When all of Graham's options for summer nights ran out, he decided to go to the revival, and to see what it was all about. All the time keeping in the back of his mind how he grew up in such a religious family, and how his father always wanted him to take up preaching. One night Ham was speaking out against sinners, and Graham felt that he was talking directly to him, although he was considered a good kid. So to escape the direct gaze of Ham, he joined the revival

3 Types of Misplaced Modifiers

3 Types of Misplaced Modifiers 3 Types of Misplaced Modifiers 3 Types of Misplaced Modifiers By Mark Nichol Poor placement within sentences of words that provide details can hamper comprehension. Take care to avoid the various types of pitfalls demonstrated in the following examples, which are followed by discussion and a revision. 1. The company has been an extremely integral partner for our organization over the past years, both from delivery and leadership perspectives. Because the conjunction both precedes the preposition from, the construction assumes that a complementary preposition will precede â€Å"leadership perspectives† in order to fully parallel the phrase â€Å"from delivery,† but placing from before both allows it to serve as the preposition for delivery and â€Å"leadership perspectives† alike: â€Å"The company has been an extremely integral partner for our organization over the past years, from both delivery and leadership perspectives.† 2. The photographs evoke a time when samurai swordsmen and silk traders found refuge from a bloody uprising against Japan’s shogun in California’s Gold Country. This sentence erroneously suggests that the bloody uprising occurred in California’s Gold Country. Relocating the geographical information so that it immediately follows the key word refuge resolves the issue: â€Å"The photographs evoke a time when samurai swordsmen and silk traders found refuge in California’s Gold Country from a bloody uprising against Japan’s shogun.† 3. From time immemorial, writers have drawn on these syndromes to tell stories, from Lewis Carroll to Philip K. Dick. In this case, an adjectival clause, a parenthetical phrase that provides more information about a noun, has been relegated to the end of the sentence, appearing to nonsensically modify stories, instead of being immediately adjacent to the pertinent noun (here, writers): â€Å"From time immemorial, writers from Lewis Carroll to Philip K. Dick have drawn on these syndromes to tell stories.† Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Grammar category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Cost-Effective vs. Cost-EfficientDeck the Halls150 Foreign Expressions to Inspire You