My Outside Reading Book: The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

I chose to read the book The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell because I am interested in the different types of people in the world. I also find social phenomenon very interesting, and have read The Outliers, another book my Malcolm Gladwell.

The Everyday God

Quote a Quote

There is an excerpt from the book Tortilla Flat, by John Steinbeck, that I wish to discuss. The excerpt is:

The afternoon came down as imperceptibly as age comes to a happy man. A little gold entered into the sunlight. The bay became bluer and dimpled with shore-wind ripples. Those lonely fishermen who believe that the fish bite at high tide left their rocks, and their places were taken by others, who were convinced that the fish bite at low tide. (33)

This shows the reader a lot about the style of Steinbeck, and the voice of this novel. This excerpt is written very poetically, and the words seem to flow together. Steinbeck is usually not too direct in his writting, and this leads to the lazy atmosphere of many of his novels. Also, there is a strong emphasis on setting, which seems integral to many of Steinbeck's books. He almost always sets up a scene with the setting at the beginning.

The voice also has many elements of comedy in it, and in this case it is the reference to people that are convinced that fish bite at low tide, and the people that are convinced that fish bite at high tide. Steinbeck tends to view the people and world around him as silly, and he generally portrays events in a comical light. He later drives the point home further by mentioning the people that think the fish bite at night are taking over the shift for those that think that the fish bite in the morning. Thank your time.

Tortilla Flat: The Positive Side of Life

V.S.

Sam Priven

English 3H

P.7 Purdom

Oprah: So, what was the personality of the main character in your book? What was his perspective on the world around him?

Steinbeck: I tried to portray, through the character of Danny, that people are good. I achieved this by having Danny himself be a believer of this perspective. I had the character of Pilon interact with Danny, because Pilon is constantly posing the other opinion on this subject, and this only helps prove Danny’s point further.

Oprah: Ah I see, would an example of this be in the beggining of the book, when Pilon assumes that Danny’s possession of property will lead him to think that he is better than Pilon? Danny instantly opposes this, assuming that people are, and will remain good in most circumstances.

Steinbeck: Yes, that is an excellent example of this positive perspective. Another example of this is simply in the way that many of the events are described throughout the book. For example, fights that many would view as bitter are described as ending in peace, and usually do not have too much weight behind them. The fact that the people are usually drunk adds to the overall lack of severity of many of these fights. (haha from the audience)

Oprah: You have the characters talk in a biblical fashion throughout the novel, using words like “thou” and “art”. Why is this?

Steinbeck: Well I set out to show that people are good, and I believe that speaking in this way ties it to the bible. The people in this novel are generally poor, but they have very good intentions, and in a similar fashion to how some read the bible, I wanted this to be viewed as short stories with little morals sewn together.

Oprah: Oh I see, well thank you for your time and wisdom.

Steinbeck: Thank you, and I would like to take this moment to advertise the upcoming film of this novel, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn3K9tUjGEA&feature=related. Thank you all, and good night.

Junior Summer Reading

Junior year is a year of hard work and long hours, so it may seem that our novels should reflect this. One could argue that we should read books regarding the benefits of hard work and wasted time memorizing vocabulary words for a slightly higher SAT score. The truth however, is that as honors students we have a good understanding of these frivolous hours of work, and so it is good to read a book now and then that is focused on reflection on the world around us, an activity that most of us don't do nearly enough of. For this reason I believe these books, the Log of the Sea of Cortez and Cannery row should be read. Even though the log was boring, and neither of these novels had much overall plot direction the beauty was found in the subtleties and the thoughtful tangents rather than the epic plot or heroic endeavors. I think that a book written with these goals also lends itself to deeper discussion and writing themes than that of epic plot.
thanks for reading,
sam