This is the last day of the rest of your life

I'm blogging about a graphic novel I finished a week or two ago called "This is the last day of the rest of your life." It was a story about two 17 year old girls who hitchhike their way around Italy. Along the way the main character, Ulli learns a lot about herself and her morals. She has encounters with gangs, drugs and fellow drifters such as herself. It was pretty dark at times, but overall it was an uplifting story about growing up and being confused and frustrated with who you are. Because Ulli is a young woman, the issue of being mistreated by men is a problem in some situations. She goes from being an innocent carefree girl in the beginning of the story to a more conscious, worldly, but also colder young woman. Her transformation is very apparent at the end of the book and it perfectly capturing the essence of growing up.

Today is the Last Day of The Rest of Your Life

This book is a graphic novel. My favorite type of novel. It's an autobiography of an artist named Ulli Lust. At the age of 17 she travels through Europe accompanied by her friend Edi. I am really liking it so far. The illustrations are great, but the writing is very strong as well. It is set up in a graphic novel format which is very different from what we've been exposed to in school, but it is still very well written. The way the story is constricted mainly into short, significant dialogue bubbles gives it a very fast paced feel that I feel like I can use even in writing that isn't a graphic novel. Dialogue helps you to really get to know and understand the characters. In graphic novels and a lot of flash fiction dialogue is used to quickly and effectively portray a character to the reader. Instead of just describing them you can hear what the character has to say. You really get to know the character.

Tanto and the Lone Ranger Fistfight in Heaven Blog #3

The chapter I just read in this book was by far my favorite so far. It really made me think. It was about how imagination is so essential to life. The whole chapter continuously alludes to 7-11 which I found a very interesting subject to reference while speaking about imagination. The narrator refers to his imaginary 7-11 as the "7-11 of his dreams where is is surrounded by five hundred years of lies." The way he connects the repression of native americans to a 7-11 is very clever.
The chapter begins with a series of scenarios in native american history where the outcomes were different. The first is, " Imagine Crazy Horse invented the atom bomb in 1876 and detonated it over Washington D.C. Would urban indians still be sprawled around the one-room apartment in the cable television reservation?" It really makes the reader think about how an event so long ago can shape the present and future. The scenarios are strange and slightly humorous to think about, but they are very powerful statements. Alexie is very good at wording things in a sarcastic way, but still maintaining the full force of his powerful statements. He doesn't sound angry when he writes, but he really makes the reader put things in perspective. Almost every chapter in this book has left me with some question or theme to think about. He ends things in a very open ended manner.

The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven #2

As I have gotten further into this book it is apparent that the narrator has aged and matured. Although each chapter is a completely new story there is and apparent pattern that gives the reader a sense of moving time. His problems have gotten more intense. In the section I am currently reading he is almost constantly drinking. Almost every story starts the same. He is either alone at a bar or with a friend drunk and then some event happens. I don't know if he repeated this pattern on purpose, but it develops his series of stories into more than just a random compilation of stories. It gives the reader a sense of the direction his life is moving in. Obviously, right now in the story, Alexie is at a very low point in  life. He spends his nights getting drunk and picking up women he doesn't truly care about at all. One very interesting event that just happened in the story is Alexie has just taken an orphan into his care. A friend of his and Alexie went to a burning house after a night of drinking and attempted to save the family who's house was burning. Only their baby survived. Alexie took the child to the hospital and was given the duty of it's caretaker because he was the one that saved the child. It is interesting that in native american culture it is so simple to be put in charge of a child. The child's name is James and he does not speak. It creates a very interesting relationship with Alexie because although they spend most of their time together they never talk.

Tanto and the Lone Ranger Fist Fight in Heaven Post 1

I am currently reading the book Tanto and the Lone Ranger Fist Fight in Heaven. So far it has just been a collection of short stories based on the memories of the author, Sherman Alexie. Through his narratives, he brings up common issues that occur in American Indian reservations. He discusses his parents alchohalism, the constant bickering within the tribe, and his relationships with his friends on the reservation.
 The first story that Sherman Alexie shares with his readers is about the time him and his friends Junior and Thomas experiment with a new "very indian" drug. The causes them to hallucinate. During their hallucinations they bring up a number of allusions to old native American Rituals such as story telling, and horse riding. It is interesting how Alexie portrays the proudness of the characters in the book about their American Indian heritage. He brings up a lot of the negative things that people on the reservations face, but also the beauty in the simplicity of the reservation. He seems to know all of the problems, but has learned to accept them. His writing is so light it is almost humorous. He talks about very intense subjects like how his father abandoned him and the violence that goes on in the reservations, but his writing style isn't angry or terribly depressed. It is very matter of fact. You can sense that they are emotional topics, but the writing itself is very collected and calm.
Something that I find Alexie does very well is his time transitions. I personally find it very difficult to smoothly transition from the present to another time or place. The short story about the hallucinations is comprised of many different scenes being set and memories being conjured. It is an extremely difficult to jump from memory, to story, to preposterous hallucinations without completely losing the reader due to sensory overload. During the trip him and his friends have it seems almost as if every paragraph is an entirely new scene and story. When I first read the chapter I found myself rereading sections so I could better comprehend the story, but upon doing so I saw that he placed each scene  very intentionally and symbolically so they flowed well. He would often jump from first person to third person narration and it felt a little bit like a movie where there are parts when an ominous voice is speaking over the film.