tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8692381608294018617.post5363896580197635984..comments2023-11-05T07:27:43.837-05:00Comments on Narrative and Technology: prompt #1Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16302919444091859459noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8692381608294018617.post-369120702871692792012-01-28T11:09:49.554-05:002012-01-28T11:09:49.554-05:00Dear Julia,
You do a good job of taking Marcuse&#...Dear Julia,<br /><br />You do a good job of taking Marcuse's quote and applying to the society in Dick's novel, but I think your argument would be stronger if you included a quote from <i>Android's Dream</i> that made you conclude that Mars was as just as bad as Earth. I was confused by the sentence "...even in the manner in which they 'allow' their citizens to manifest artificial animals." Perhaps a quote from the book that equates animals to products would be stronger. Your discussion of "specials" is spot on, but I think a direct quote would tell more in less space.Dana Edmundshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11380526555444702741noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8692381608294018617.post-56251676876116377542012-01-27T22:05:04.448-05:002012-01-27T22:05:04.448-05:00Your comparison to the Matrix is, at least in a wa...Your comparison to the Matrix is, at least in a way, a circular one, although you didn't intend it as such - Dick's work in general, and this novel in particular, is of enormous importance to the Matrix, and to similar works in that same vein.<br /><br />This essay seems both somewhat short and somewhat slow moving - either one would be fine, but you want to either write at somewhat greater length, or get more done faster. What I mean in particular is that you are doing a good job of zeroing in on the parallel interest in advertising and the mass media in both books, and that we can understand Dick's portrayal of mass media and advertising through Marcuse. But this line of thinking develops somewhat slowly - it struggles to move into a particular argument (how do we read Dick differently with Marcuse before us? Why does it *matter* that we can bring the two authors together? Etc.<br /><br />Your point that the categorization of specials enhances the desirability of emigration is really fantastic, and seems like it should be important - but how do you take it beyond being an isolated observation? How does it turn into a different, or simply enhanced, way of understanding the novel? There is potential there which isn't fully exploited/developed.<br /><br />Short version: a series of good and great thoughts, which struggle to cohere into a single argument.Adamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16302919444091859459noreply@blogger.com