blog Topic# 5: Personal Rievew

Blog #5: Personal Review

I did overall enjoy this novel. However I definitely enjoyed the first half more than the second half. I believe as a teenager I could relate more to the experiences she was going through during those times rather than her adult year.
I was not excited to read this story when I heard it was about a girl who had a strong passion for cuisine; however I was greatly surprised by the realness this story addressed and Reichl grabbed my attention as it was revealed that her father’s first wife was admitted to a mental institution. I was further interested as she was sent away to a French boarding school and I was able to understand her conversations as a French student myself. However, my favorite part of Reichl’s story was her spiral downward and association with the “wrong crowd.” I most closely identified with this section of the autobiography as I am going through the same period in my life as well. This middle section of the book was a page-turner for me and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The second part of the book I did not enjoy as much because I did not identify as much with it. As she began to approach married life I began to lose interest in the storyline and found myself zoning out and having to reread my paragraphs. Although her life began to become more stable and happier, I found it to be less exciting and dull. I found her fear of driving on the bridge at the end of the story confusing and cliqué. Despite the tail end of the book, I found Reichl’s story very compelling and exciting overall.

Blog Topic# 4: Symbol

Blog#4: Symbol: Alcohol

Alcohol provides an escape for Ruth during her teenage years as she begins to feel abandoned and unloved by her parents. This is also a symbol of her rebellion against her parents who know that she drinks and simply ignore it or maybe do not care at all. Her drinking also maybe linked to a cry for attention from her absent parents who are too wrapped up in their own lives by taking vacations and eating at fancy restaurants.

Ruth describes one night in which her parents are out of town so she decides to have a few friends over to drink. At one point her friend asks her if her parents will notice that all of their liquor is gone and she replies, “I fill the bottles back up with water…But it probably wouldn’t matter if I didn’t. They don’t notice anything” (78). By saying “anything,” Ruth is implying that her parents do not notice her sadness over their absentness. So, she chooses to drink to rebel against their rules for abandoning but also trying to fill the void with a drunken binge.

This failed cry for attention is greatly shown as her parents walk in the morning after when the house is barely cleaned up. The house still smells like alcohol and smoke and there are many teenagers sitting in the kitchen “breathing as if they had just ran a race.” However, Ruth’s mother’s only response is, “Oh…how nice. You’ve matzo brei for your friends. I’m so glad you’re not alone” (87). Ruth’s parents mostly likely know that Ruth and her friends were doing bad things the night before. However the choose to take a blind eye to the situation and do not see it as a desperate plea for their attention and love.

Blog Topic# 3: Theme

Blog Topic #3

As an insecure person, Ruth struggles throughout her story with self-confidence as her love for feed establishes the underlining theme of the book. This theme is finding comfort through food in order to deal with problems. Ruth first displays this theme as a young girl when she is sent away to Montreal to attend a boarding school where no one speaks English. With no friends and little communication, Ruth decides to venture out and she finds comfort in the various food stores that remind her of home. This also leads her to make her new best friend, Beatrice, a rich French girl who shares Ruth’s appreciation for fine cuisine.

Another example where this theme of finding comfort through food is displayed when Ruth as her friends over to drink. She becomes nervous when the boy she likes arrives and believes the only thing she has to offer him is her cooking. She feels insecure about her body-type and looks and attempts to find acceptance through food. This same situation is brought up again when then Superstar visited her loft after she has married Doug. The Superstar asks, “’Did he marry you because you cook so good?’” (206). Ruth avoids the question because it appears that she believes it to be true. She is so self-conscience that she truly believes the only reason people like her is for her cooking and so she often resorts to it and food itself for help.

A final time this theme is brought up is in the last chapter when she attends the party for James Beard. Feeling out of place, Ruth writes on the experience, “Out of sheer nervous shyness I ate too many deviled eggs” (270). As she becomes nervous around these older, fancy people, she decides to turn to food for comfort. Whether this is healthy or not, it leads to her career as a writer and creates the theme for her story.

Blog Topic# 2: Character

Blog Topic #2: Character: Ernst, Ruth’s father

As a child, Ruth believes she has the strongest connection with her father. She believes they are band together to defend themselves against the horrible food and mood swings of her mother. As a book designer and “detached” man, Ruth sees her father as a bland figure whose only interest is repairing and building, which he takes much pride in. Ernst appears to be a weak character in the exposition of the story: greatly controlled by his wife and, “blind to [her] failings” as a cook (13). An example of his inferiority to his wife is when they decide to take a vacation to Europe when Ruth is six and Ernst, “was not eager to leave me for such a long time, but that he didn’t know how to say so to my mother” (24). Whether Ruth’s father is afraid to speak for himself or is afraid to trigger a mood swing is unknown, however what is for sure is his unwilling acceptance of his wife’s every command.

Ruth’s father is not discussed much throughout the course of the novel. However, a different side of Ernst is revealed when Ruth’s future husband, Doug, accompanies his girlfriend on a trip home to meet her parents. Ernst takes a shine to Doug and tells him stories that not even Ruth has heard before. He explains to him how he once flew with a Wright brother and how he was a pacifist and draft dodger in Germany before he met Ruth’s mother. While this upsets Ruth, her father explains to her that he never truly had a son and was forced to live his life in a home with two women. This special bond shared with Doug reveals that Ernst is not the bland character that Ruth was saw him as and is actually a very interesting man. This “male bonding” also appears to give Ernst more confidence as he begins to have a more dominance in the relationship with his wife by not allowing her to interrupt his stories and deciding on their plans for lunch.

Blog Topic# 1: Rhetorical Strategies

Blog Topic #1: Rhetorical Strategies

“The first time it tasted like cat toes and rotted barley” (4).

“Then I swallowed and my whole mouth and throat filled with the echo of a rich chicken stock” (65).

“It was like autumn distilled in a spoon” (66).

“It looked like a lump of coal, completely covered in black mold” (100).

“We went down a few steps and found antipasti winking and glistening on a table in the front, as beautiful as jewelry” (193).

“…and the olive oil was singing with flavor. It was hard to image that four simple ingredients could marry so perfectly” (197).

“It was like eating fragrant clouds” (278).

Reichl does not use a lot of figurative language throughout the course of her autobiography. This seems appropriate for this genre and the time period in which she is telling her story. If she were to include more rhetorical strategies, I believe it would have seemed a little forced and unnecessary.

Reichl mostly restricts her figurative language to similes and personification. These are most elegantly displayed through her passion for food. Whenever the author is describing either the food she is experiencing or the food she is preparing, she seems to rely on these strategies to reiterate to the reader the extraordinary tastes she is experiencing. This is an effective way to add to her very descriptive imagery and appeal to the reader’s sense of taste. By saving these strategies for mainly her description of food, it expresses her love for it and also highlights the theme of the book.