Jennifer Tabasco 11-2
English III
Mr. Fiorini
May 1, 2009
The Soloist - Chapters 1-6
So far, I have developed an interest in The Soloist written by Steve Lopez. Lopez's writing for the first six chapters is mainly focused around how Steve Lopez, also the narrator, is managing to save Nathaniel Anthony Ayer's life as a homeless person living out in Los Angeles' Skid Row section of Southern California. Right now, I feel sympathetic towards Ayer because he basically has nothing valuable except in his life but his immense passion for playing the violin and the cello. As for Steve Lopez, I feel humble by how much he wants to rescue Nathaniel Ayer's crumbling life from the horrific ruins of homelessness and into a safe, loving environment where nothing horrible could possibly occur to him or to his precious musical instruments.
Before the homeless journey began, Nathaniel Anthony Ayer attended the prestigious Julliard School for beautifully perfecting the musical art of playing the violin and even the cello. For this reason, I believe that Nathaniel Anthony Ayers is truly a master at his craft, and whenever he begins to play his instruments, it’s almost as if the instrument and him emerge together to unite into one musical person or one musical object. This action merely fascinates Steve Lopez, and I believe that this is the real reason as to why Steve keeps coming back to visit Nathaniel. “I like it right here in the tunnels, where I can play all day and nobody’s going to bother me.” (30). Quoted from Nathaniel in Chapter 3, this one quote and many others really stuck out to me because this quote proves to the reader how independent Nathaniel wants to be from the rest of the real world. Nathaniel believes that in that tunnel, that is his own personal work place to do whatever his “musical” heart desires, which in this case, is to play classical music all day, every day. Nathaniel really wants to disconnect himself from the rest of the world because all he knows in life is that he has an immense passion for playing classical music wherever he may be. He feels the massive freedom to persistently keep playing his instruments because that’s the right kind of emotion that Nathaniel is feeling when he’s wrapped up in his own little world. Yes, Nathaniel does have schizophrenia, but that mental disorder obviously hasn’t stopped him from doing the thing that he loves the most in his lifetime.
Steve Lopez: this man just won’t stop asking or hoping that Nathaniel will come to the Lamp program. I mean, I understand that Nathaniel has schizophrenia and is living out on the streets with no kind of proper protection from thieves or murderers, but I believe that Steve should allow Nathaniel to do whatever he wants to do for himself and not for no body else. I believe that Nathaniel will come around some time to join the Lamp program, but I think that he just needs a little bit more time in order to fully trust Steve. Currently, Steve and Nathaniel’s relationship is very demanding. They both want things from each other, but both of them aren’t willing to sacrifice to meet those demands for each other. Steve wants Nathaniel to come join the Lamp program to receive support, and Nathaniel just wants Steve to enjoy his life with music to accompany it. In the schizophrenic mind, the mentality is cluttered, and I think that Steve has to really help organize Nathaniel’s mind or unless Nathaniel will never join the Lamp program.
In conclusion, I believe that so far, this novel has touched me personally because of the immense sympathy that I have for Nathaniel’s mental disease, and it has made me think of ways that I never thought I would think of. I’m curious as to what’s going to happen with Steve and Nathaniel’s relationship. Will they ever see eye to eye with the touchy issue of joining the Lamp program? To summarize this up, I admire Nathaniel for standing up for whom he is and who he wants to be, a passionate musician. I enjoy reading Steve Lopez’s description of how he feels when Nathaniel begins to play his instruments. It’s almost as if Nathaniel emerges both the reader and Steve Lopez into the instrument’s musical sound, and Nathaniel’s speaking his mind through the instrument about Steve Lopez or anything. In addition to this, I hope that Steve will learn to let Nathaniel do his own thing because that’s Nathaniel’s character.
** For The Soloist Post: **
- Do I have enough developed ideas that make logical sense to the reader?
- Is my grammar and sentence structure correct?
- What do you mislike about my post?
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First off, yes, I believe that you've developed enough ideas, however I feel that you should state your thesis more directly. I felt like I didn't know exactly what you wanted to talk about. It seemed like you were writing this in an persuasive essay format, but you wrote about your thoughts on the book.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, there looks like a couple of syntax errors in your paper. It momentarily disrupts the natural flow of your paper, but not very much.
Thirdly, I felt that there is a lot of things that you could remove from your paper. For example, most of the first paragraph.
Overall I'd say that you did a pretty good job. Keep the good work.
Very good job Jenn! Your thoughts are very organized and flow very nicely together. There are some parts of your post that are a little incorrect grammar wise, at least to me. "As for Steve Lopez, I feel humble by how much..." I believe that humble should be humbled. It makes the reader not have to pause and reread the sentence, thinking they read it wrong. Also, another thing you could do to make the reading easier on the reader is to skip another space between each paragraph. It makes it easier to see where each paragraph is and doesn't make it seem like everything is one great, big paragraph. Overall, very good job! =)
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