UNIT 5 Book Review: The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down - Final Essay

In this unit, you will read the entirety of Fadiman's The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. That is, you will theorize about Fadiman's book. Consider how it relates to the insights you've gained from our other class readings, films, assignments, discussions, this semester. Then you will put them into a cohesive whole. Cite pages, and quote as necessary. I am more likely to have the impression that you were actually interested in this book and your reactions and ideas about it, if you tell me what you are actually thinking and feeling and what connections you are making to our course content. Take Fadiman's book as a work of literature. What does it tell us about the human condition? Show me how this book has generated and cultivated and sustained your interest in immigrant narratives. So, essay from an interested perspective. Tell me what your thoughts are about this odd world you have just walked through.

Remember: literary writing is supposed to be difficult. Its difficulty isn't a design flaw or somehow indicative that you are uneducated or a poor reader. No, the difficulty arises from the fact that literary language is purposefully strange for a very practical reason: its strangeness is intentional. It is intended to pull you, the reader, out of your common habits or perceptions, so that the world appears new to us again. The idea with this purposeful strangeness is that we tend to live our lives in routine ways and, as such, we have a tendency to not see or feel the world around us. Art's job is to show us the wonder of the everyday. So that we can live better lives.

GENRE: Book Review - Ethnography

WORKING FOLDER COMPONENTS:

A substantial rough draft of your Unit 5