Reading Response Week Uno

First off, I will easily say I was really bored by ‘Library of Babel’. It was a painful read and I just did not get it. It didn’t really feel like an actual story as much as a very long description. I very readily admit I am not a fan of philosophical or allegorical short stories. I decided to google what Library of Babel was about and got about thirty different interpretations. Yikes. I found myself thinking “is this even a story?” 

I found the “Hills Like White Elephants” story much more interesting. First off, I really like when characters act exactly as you see regular humans do. Real girls are more likely to say, “yeah, I am fine” when they are not rather then give long, heartfelt speeches. I also like how, though he did not say it out right, I was able to guess that the girl was pregnant and the man was trying to persuade her to have an abortion. I was thinking the whole hills as white elephants was some sort of metaphor for pregnancy of something, but I wasn’t really sure. 

The thing I found interesting about the characters was that the girl seemed to be more in a fantasy state of mind, while the man was more of a realist.The girl is constantly is talking about the hills and looking at the bead curtains, while he is talking about “the beer’s nice and cool” or “it’s really an awfully simple operation.” The girl seemed so optimistic about things, like maybe she wanted to be pregnant, while the man was more along the lines are, here are the facts.

On top of that, I thought it was interesting how he was able to make the girl seem to avoid towards the man, “she looked at the bead curtain”, “the girl looked at the ground”, and really did showing rather then telling, much more interesting then “she couldn’t look at him.” This also reflected onto the man, because I think it developed him as a more shady character. 

Sorry if my reader response is a little rusty, I haven't done one of these since middle school! Doing this did make me want to work on responding to stories better though, particularly ones that take me forever to get though, like 'Library of Babel'