8 Followers
6 Following
Lizreader

Lizreader's Blog

Also known as Liz on GR. I am here, but really just planting the seed. I am a student who likes all kinds of books, and I'll be honest about what I think about them.

Currently reading

The Mists of Avalon
Marion Zimmer Bradley
Dream Jungle - Jessica Hagedorn Updated 10/20/12To begin, Dream Jungle is pretty much telling the story of various characters and there encounter with two fictionalized events that really happened: the finding of the Lost Tribe in the Philippines and the filming of the Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse Now." That's the story in a nutshell, however it is the subtleties of the narrative where the story is written.Now onto what I really think.After finishing this book I was left with only one question, what exactly happened? Sure I read about the various characters, the two events, and how all of them interact with their environment but I was at a loss what the author wants me to get out of this book.Is the author's intention to look at finding identity of a young Filipino woman, to go through a psychological reckoning when thrust into an unknown environment and thus mirror "Heart of Darkness" (in the style of Freud) with the director of the movie as well as Vincent Moody?, or to write about the interplay of writing the empire back? Like all post-colonial modernist writers, Jessica Hagedorn, I think, is trying to find a purpose in finding identity after the damage of colonization has already been done. Dream Jungle is an interesting concept of confronting this question, and in all respects in craft is a well written book. However, from a storytelling perspective it does not give me a lot to really digest or get my self involved with. I just find a lot of the characters uninteresting or rather annoying, however Vincent Moody was probably the most compelling. It gets three stars for craft and concept.