Week 2: The Road to Oz

I unfortunately was a bit late to class on this day and missed out on the writing assignment so in stead I am choosing to talk about the world building within the land of Oz.

I’ve always known who Dorothy Gale was, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, the Lion, I understood the “ignore the man behind the curtain!” reference yet I’ve never read a single Oz book nor have I completed the film. The Wonder Wizard of Oz has become a big part of modern day pop culture and for a good reason, Baum gave us a world not to hard to grasp but allowed millions of children to expand their imagination, he created a simple, fun and believable world. To me, when a story becomes that ubiquitous, it moves out of the realm of being a “really great kids’ book” and moves into the realm of folklore, myth, and legend. I think this is exactly what Baum had hoped would happen.

Week 1: Veronica Roth's Divergent

Let me start of by letting you know that I am not a fan of the book and will definitely not waste my time watching the movie if it is anything near what the novel was. I’m usually very iffy about reading through most fantasy novels of this kind simply because at best they are a shell of a novel, I had the same issue with the Hunger Games series I personally think that these books are meant to be read by someone with a low reading level, way over hyped especially if a movie is in the works and when read by me lack the proper amount of depth to keep me interested. 

Beatrice our main character lives in a fictional Chicago where everyone is divided up into six groups or factions. These groups all have their own predictable attributes: The Abnegation (selfless people), Dauntless (brave people), Erudite (intelligent people), Amity (friendly people), Candor (honest people), and the Factionless. When a child reaches sixteen, they must take a test that will tell them what faction they belong to, but still get to pick the faction they prefer. Pretty simple and straight forward right? Ugh. 

On top of having one of the most predictable and basic narrative structure I’ve ever read in a book…ever, Roth insults me by failing to properly build her own world. One would assume Roth would give us the basics, what is the economy like in this world? Roth doesn't bother telling us that. So what event led to the formation of the factions in this world? Roth tells us they were formed by different people who believed those were the most important traits, but never why…come on. No weather disasters or even a description of the present one at that. No nuclear war. Not even civil war. Famine. Genocide. Nothing. Why is Lake Michigan a marsh? Not only that, but based on its location why aren't other surrounding cities a factor, how? Maybe I'm over thinking a bit but it proves my point. Divergent is totally void of any proper world building. I've seen more world building on the side of a cereal box. This is no dystopia, you cant just tell me a world is “post-apocalyptic” with no conflict or oppression and just expect me to believe it. On top of the lack of information about the factions, some of the weakest and blandest protagonists I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting I the reader am told almost nothing about this “society” Roth has created for me…yeah no thanks.