Reading Response #1

Both Hogg and Black effectively demonstrate multiple features of the form that Ballenger talks about.  First of all, both of the stories are written as Personal essays in the first person and show no “pretense of scientific objectivity”.  Both stories are easy to connect with and follow because of their accessible underlying themes and “down-to-earth” vibes.  Since they are both written about a personal story that actually took place in the author’s life, the stories are easy to relate to and also interesting to read.  Ballenger also talks about how “the subject is often commonplace” in a personal essay.  In both “I’m a Believer” and “The Joy of Mud” the subjects very much deal with the drama of everyday life and the events presented throughout the stories are quite tangible to the reader.  The topics in both stories are “humble” and not too “out there”.  In “I’m a Believer”, Hogg describes herself as a giddy young girl with a juvenile crush on a “big” rock star named Davy from ‘The Monkees’ back in the day, only to discover in her future that he really was only as great as she dreamt him up to be.  In the beginning of the story, she writes, “I listened to the Monkees Greatest Hits album nearly every day, playing the songs where Davy sings lead, pulling the record needle again and again to the beginning of “Daydream Believer” where he speaks with his British accent…”, expressing her sheer admiration and child-like crush on the British Rock-star. As the story nears the end, she describes the last concert she attended, when she was much older, where he gave her an autograph. “As I watch him write ‘David’ not ‘Davy’, I accept finally, that this person I know so well I don’t really know at all, and I, the daydream believer, am just a fan.”  The topic is not overly dramatic and is actually quite amusing once you finish the story.  In “The Joy of Mud”, the title says it all.  The story is actually about just that; the joy of mud to the author, Catherine Black.  The theme of her story is how working in the mud opened her eyes and presented her with a deep and passionate connection between her and her hometown that she had never experienced before in her sixteen years of living on the island of Hawaii.  Although the subject is indeed “commonplace”, the story is quite intriguing and provides a much deeper main idea to the reader.  Another commonality that both stories share with the ideas of Ballenger is the narrative aspect.  Both stories are written as personal narratives and include their personal experiences and observations.  In “I’m a Believer”; Hogg describes events that go on in her life from when she was just a child all the way to her mid-twenties.  In “The Joy of Mud”, Black talks about the life-changing epiphany that she experiences while working in the fields of Hawaii and what it means to her.  “I had always prided myself on being rootless, yet here I was experiencing rootedness in the most literal sense of the word, and loving it in spite of myself.  Dirty, sweating, and sun-burned, I felt solid and more connected to the living, breathing world around me than I could remember.”  Both of the stories also share the quality in which “the thesis can be implicit, and it frequently emerges late, rather than at the beginning of an essay.”  Both of the stories are about coming to know something and learning a lesson and in both of the stories, insight is earned later rather than at the start of the story.  In Hogg’s narrative, it takes her twenty-something years to realize that her childhood idol is not all that she cracked him up to be.  In Black’s piece, the author goes sixteen years before discovering how truly special her island that she calls home really is.  Both of the pieces tell stories and rely “heavily on details” of their experiences in life.  I would also agree that both stories are based mostly on the author’s memories and observations, like Ballenger describes.  Hogg talks about her admiration for Davy when she was younger and then follows through with a concert she excitedly attends when she is much older and wiser, which leads to the main idea of the story and the dying-down of her childhood obsession with the British rocker.  Black discusses how she spent most of her life growing up in Hawaii disconnected from the island and longing to expand her horizons, when ultimately she realizes that the most beautiful horizon is the one she’s been lucky enough to view every morning for the past sixteen years but hasn’t realized it until now.  I didn’t really find any differences between Ballenger’s features and the two pieces.  To me, the “so what” of Hogg’s and Black’s essays is something that you spend chasing (in Hogg’s case) or trying to escape (in Blacks case) your whole life, might not be what you think.  Hogg spent her childhood daydreaming about dreamy Davy and obsessing over his British accent and later found out that he really is just another person like her and everybody else.  But instead of leaving the concert with shattered dreams, Hogg realizes that maybe her childhood fantasy will always be better than reality when she finally comes face to face with him.  “I realize that I could probably drink and gamble with Davy all night long if I tried to.  But of course I already know that would ruin what magic remains.”  Black on the other hand spends her adolescents avoiding her Hawaiian roots “floating on the peripheries of an island home (she) never cared for…” and ends up “…(snapping) straight back into its cool green heart,” after working in the Hawaiian fields one sunny, summer day.