The part of the book that spoke to me was on page 25. The quote was speaking about how the things she treasure are blue yes, but she doesn't go out of her way to find these items. She treasures blue things that are rare, or have sentimental value. I think this speaks to a larger part of the book because she is trying to pass on a message about how things that are valued shouldn’t be based on monetary value, but instead based on sentimental value. Throughout the book she talks about her obsession with the color blue, and how she loves it. I thought this really stuck out to a larger part of the book, because although she is speaking about how she does love blue things, it’s the smaller things that should have the most meaning. Like a blue dye that someone gave her a long time ago, that she has to remember them by, or different blue rocks that she has dug up. I think she is trying to pass along the idea that people should truly cherish things they possess for the effort it went into to get this item, or the thought behind it, but not just the price that was paid to acquire it alone.
Magic Lantern
Sunday, February 21, 2016
Bluets Blog Post
The part of the book that spoke to me was on page 25. The quote was speaking about how the things she treasure are blue yes, but she doesn't go out of her way to find these items. She treasures blue things that are rare, or have sentimental value. I think this speaks to a larger part of the book because she is trying to pass on a message about how things that are valued shouldn’t be based on monetary value, but instead based on sentimental value. Throughout the book she talks about her obsession with the color blue, and how she loves it. I thought this really stuck out to a larger part of the book, because although she is speaking about how she does love blue things, it’s the smaller things that should have the most meaning. Like a blue dye that someone gave her a long time ago, that she has to remember them by, or different blue rocks that she has dug up. I think she is trying to pass along the idea that people should truly cherish things they possess for the effort it went into to get this item, or the thought behind it, but not just the price that was paid to acquire it alone.
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ReplyDeleteI found your passage that you referenced to be interesting because in a way it contradicts a passage near the end of the book, while still reinforcing other stances that Nelson holds.
Passage 230 reads, “Holed up in the north country for the month of May, a May which saw but four days of sunshine. The rest of the month was solid gray, drizzling or pouring rain, rendering everything green. Rushing and verdant. In short, a nightmare. Each day I took long walks in my yellow poncho, looking for blue, for any blue thing. I found only tarps (always tarps!) pinned over stacks of firewood, a few blue recycling containers kicked over in the streets, a grayish blue mailbox here and there. I came back to my dark chamber each night empty-eyed, empty-handed, as if I had been panning fruitlessly for gold all day in a cold river. Stop working against the world, I counseled myself. Love the one you’re with. Love the color green. But I did not love the green, nor did I want to have to love it or pretend to love it. The most I can say is that I abided it”.
In this passage Nelson contradicts her statement earlier on in the book where she says that she doesn’t go out of her way to find items that are blue. But at the same time she reinforces the notion that things that are valued shouldn’t have monetary associations with them. This can be detected through her use of the “(always tarps!)” parenthesis. It is clearly seen that she is achieving some sort of joy or happiness by seeing blue tarps, something with very little monetary value. I also found this passage to be interesting because you can see her internal conflict she is dealing with. She believes that she must put on this perception that she enjoys another color, green, but truly wants nothing to do with it. This perhaps is a way to portray being in love with someone or some type of person but being surrounded by people who you don’t care for. I think that this type of writing might be able to add meaning and complexity to projects that might have emotional roots.
I agree with you in that the message she is trying to convey is that smaller things have the most meaning. I think that in a way she illustrates this idea by breaking up her book into numbered sentences and paragraphs. If she would have used a more traditional story method, her book might not have been as effective. The smaller, bite-sized chunks give her book as a whole a greater meaning. This is something that I would like to incorporate into my own story. I’m really focusing on trimming excess because often times less is more. In the last half of the book, the part that stood out to me the most was number 238 where she seems to be addressing her previous lover. You really don’t see that anywhere else in the book and so I thought it was very powerful. She writes, “I want you to know, if you ever read this, there was a time when I would rather have had you by my side than any one of these words; I would rather have had you by my side than all the blue in the world.” I think I might try to work this into my project somehow (whether in picture, video clips, or sounds) by breaking the pattern of my project when I want to make a point. Maybe I’ll use silence… who knows?
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