By Esther Santiago It’s the second time this week I wake up thinking it’s Sunday, but it’s not. It’s almost a month now since I’ve been back home in quarantine, and many days feel like they’re meshing into one. We’re all adjusting to our new routines of staying home and…
Month: April 2020
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The Person Behind the Face: Review of Elif Batuman’s ‘The Idiot’
By Samantha Bertolino The title Batuman chose is emblematic of Dostoevsky’s 19-century novel, in which Knyaz Myshkin’s goodness and simplicity fool others into believing that he lacks intuition and intelligence. In much of the same manner, Batuman’s central character, Selin, appears at times to be kind and uncomplicated, while in…
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The Key Elements of a Dystopian Novel
By Kathryn O’Donnell Times are weird, there’s no doubt about that. The government is ordering citizens to stay at home. Traveling is limited. People are walking around grocery stores with masks. Businesses and universities have shut down. Places that have never shut down in their history are closed. Honestly, things…
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Nostalgic Novels: Revisiting Childhood Stories Alyssa Grimaldi
By Alyssa Grimaldi Self-isolating has not been easy for me, as I know it has not been for many people. While physically distancing from friends and unable to leave the same house for weeks on end, mental health can be negatively impacted. It is essential during these times to reach…
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Treating the Quarantine Blues: Where to Read for Free
By Jordan Shaw It’s been a few weeks since quarantine started, and we’ve all had to make some major adjustments. Many people have begun working remotely, classes have been moved online for students, and we’ve all been instructed to stay indoors in order to “flatten the curve” — or in…
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The Beauty of a Narrative Death
By Jose Paz Soldan The Fool’s Journey is represented by 22 cards in a tarot card deck and is often used in fortunetelling and symbolism in fiction. Each cards is an “arcana,” representing the different stages of life a person goes through. The 13th card is the Death arcana, which…
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‘Twilight’ characters on ‘Big Brother’
By Lili Fishman For my blog post I decided to do a little experiment: running the characters of Twilight through a Big Brother simulator. Big Brother is a reality TV game show where several “houseguests” live in the same house, with no contact with the outside world for weeks (sound familiar?) and compete in competitions…
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Historical Fiction to Remind Us That This Too Shall Pass
By Natalie Baliker History is written in black and white, words on a page. Often, the darker parts of history are so many years removed from the present that we can safely regard the deaths of many as an “event” rather than the tragedy it was for those who lived…