Sri's Blog

  In Sag Harbor , one thing Benji and I share in common is our love for ice cream. Benji and his friends ate a concerningly large amount of ice cream at Jonni Waffle in the book. They always tried different flavors every time, with a dedication that most would only have to do something really important, which to teenage boys on summer break is probably loading up on as much ice cream as humanly possible. While this idea of stuffing yourself with ice cream is a cool detail to add in the plot, I kind of found a deeper meaning to it by the end of the book. It symbolizes having to fill time doing something, even though you really don’t know what you want to be doing with yourself in this newfound free time. This is something that I can especially relate to, being on summer break without something to study for or work towards. The aimlessness of just eating ice cream seems to be the point. Benji is two generations post the people who made Sag Harbor what it is in the novel, from Maude ...

 While reading Black Swan Green, something that I found really interesting was the tension being created between parts of Jason’s life which he keeps a secret from the rest of the world, and part that he is comfortable with people knowing. An example of this is his interest in poetry and music. He cares about both, however each one is part of different identities of Jason. The identities that each hobby takes form in show how what things people are and are not able to express about themselves in Black Swan Green’s society. Jason keeps his forays in poetry a complete secret. His poems, when published in the newsletter, are always under the name “Eliot Bolivar” as he is completely against being known as the true author of the poems. This speaks volumes about the environment he lives in. If something as simple as wearing a certain type of hat can label you as “gay”, Jason can only imagine what being known for loving the art of poetry would make his peers think of him. The only person ...