Author: Joanne Mosuela

So it’s true. Disaster themes pop up everywhere. While discussing a disaster-related poetry chapbook that I hope to be finished with in January, a friend of mine sent me the following link: The Center for the Study of the End of Things Inaugural Symposium. Charlottesville, VA. February 5, 2010. Highlights (excerpts from the “Call for… Continue reading “An end can also be a beginning”

*Project Realism: This post is indebted to Sara who introduced the idea that Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is a work of psychological realism. I was inspired by her re-naming. Is the peculiarity of the novel a matter of language? I propose that it can be understood as a work of poetic realism. In addition… Continue reading Poetic Realism

On pg. 161, the boy embraces a stranger “distant on the road,” “a traveler not one for looking back.” By the time this old man sets out on his own again, the boy is similarly described as not “looking back at all.” This parallel detail bookends Ely’s time with the The Road duo and (excluding the… Continue reading Ely

It’s no secret that our current society aspires to have racially diverse neighborhoods, schools and workplaces. In Butler’s cautionary tale, does Lauren continue to hope for this? If so, how does racial diversity play into the Earthseed verse, “Embrace diversity. / Unite– / Or be divided, / robbed, / ruled, / killed / By those… Continue reading Embrace diversity / Or be destroyed

Is it Lauren’s hyperempathy that inspires the renaming of her father’s god? Without saying it outright, is she asking: Does my father’s god share the joys and suffer the pains of human beings like I do? And if this god is filled with the same debilitating fear and misery that I feel – infinityfold –… Continue reading Suffering: of God, of Lauren

In the first few pages of White Noise, Jack and Murray head to the country. The men don’t linger in the romantic landscape of meadows, apple orchards, white fences and rolling fields. Conventional intentions of a pilgrimage – the wish for understanding and peace – is upset right away by the crowd of photographers and… Continue reading The Postmodern Sunset

It’s designed to be a gradual descent underground. With grace, the walls slope downward, the escalator slowly progresses. Most opt for the left-hand side option and follow the line of people in a hurry: run down the escalator! No handrails for the hurried! I’m tempted to steady them, invade their personal space, pat the quick,… Continue reading Metro Opens Doors

Fed up with the interjections by that unaccountable narrative voice passing judgment on characters in Lucifer’s Hammer and yet a huge fan of subjectivity, I was glad to read the first-person P.O.V., “I” on the first page of White Noise. Almost immediately we read Jack Gladney’s penchant for a Whitman-esque catalog technique to describe his… Continue reading White Noise & Catalogs

Placing the production of a documentary – run by a well-connected news director and observant filmmaker, no less – at the center of an end-of-the-world novel is a smart move. The plotlines surrounding Harvey Randall’s documentary are intimately connected with the approach of the comet (I know, no kidding! Bear with me!). Follow Harvey, follow… Continue reading On Harvey Randall, Narrative and Letting Go