<p>So what did/are you guys/girls think/thinking? i got it almost 2 weeks ago and just started reading it. i'm about halfway done, but i just can't bring myself to want to read it anymore. probably laziness mixed with some procarastination and loathing of literature (a little exageration). anyway, so far i think it's pretty, i don't know, dull. not really interesting to me. seems like an annoying diary filled with too many details that i don't care about. and the fact that i don't really like lit or poetry doesn't help. the fact that i did poetry analysis on robert frost last year is the only thing that kept me somewhat involved. then again i haven't finished it so hopefully it gets better.</p>
<p>i thought it was pretty average. yea kinda dull... i thought it'd be interesting, like "I am Charlotte Simmons"-level interesting. it definitely wasn't. At one point, the book/main character really reminded me of Catcher in the Rye/Holden Caulfield, A LOT. Or maybe im just making things up. The last chapter was really weird, like totally independent of the rest of the book.</p>
<p>I actually liked it a lot. It could have helped, though, that all of my friends have left for college and I have nothing to do on the weekends :-).</p>
<p>Yeah, the main character reminded me of Holden Caulfield too! Except I can remember Holden's name and not his.... what was it?</p>
<p>I thought it was a pretty good book though, very literary and poetically written.</p>
<p>M. Butterfly is definitely the most exciting/shocking out of the three if you're looking for excitement :)</p>
<p>yeah, i really loved m. butterfly;some books have titles that have nothing to do with the book, but the title is so ... clever. and i like how it only took me like 2 hrs to read it. i'm glad i didn't read the back cover b4 hand, tho, cuz they tell all the secrets on it.</p>
<p>deepdown... The narrator of Old School is never named. So I guess we just call him "the narrator" or something to that effect. </p>
<p>I couldn't find M. Butterfly anywhere... None of the bookstores or libraries around here have it, and I don't think I would get it in time if I order from Amazon... Which reminds me... I think it's great how M. Butterfly, Old School, and Annie John are all now considered "related searches" on Amazon because of all of the Stanford frosh looking for/buying all three.</p>
<p>Yes! I thought that was hilarious too. I finally ordered M. Butterfly off Amazon a while ago because I realized it wasn't going to come from my library... it's supposed to come on the 17th, so I'm crossing my fingers.</p>
<p>As for Old School, I really liked the writing style, but I wasn't too impressed by the content. So I enjoyed reading it... I guess we'll see if hearing the author speak improves my opinion of it at all. And I <em>hated</em> Annie John. I've got high hopes for M. Butterfly, though... hoping it comes in time!</p>
<p>oh man, i definitely got all 3 books at the local library... definitely not spending my money on "optional" reading material... im cheap like that.</p>
<p>The narrator is never named in Old School? No wonder I couldn't remember his name :) Actually, I read it earlier in the summer, before it was even assigned---because I saw it at Borders and I was like, "Ooooh, author from Stanford!" I am nerdy like that. It gets worse, because yesterday I was flipping through channels and I came to this show on the WB called "Supernatural," where one of the main characters goes to Stanford... so I watched it.</p>
<p>I blame this on us starting school so late. I am getting tired of waiting. I want to be there already!</p>
<p>indeed, the narrator of old-school is very reminiscent of holden. except that holden is just more... well, memorable :P the book is very nicely written, but i agree that some parts are pretty dull, and especially the end, which was so totally unrelated to the rest of the story that i really had to push myself to finish.... </p>
<p>then again, i read annie john afterward, and compared to it, old school is a real trip in excitement! (annie john = zzz)</p>
<p>m. butterfly is short and good:)</p>
<p>i dunno, i decided that i just don't like all these "teens coming of age" books.......</p>
<p>That's funny, I had an opposite opinion of most of you guys.</p>
<p>I LOVED Old School and thought M. Butterfly, with the ridiculously complex narrative structure, was a little overdone. I liked the ending of the latter book but I couldn't get over how little actually happens in the book and how annoying Gallimard's narration was. </p>
<p>I thought the prose in Old School was some of the best I've ever seen and I liked the literary themes. The last chapter, I felt, wasn't needed, although it sort of fit with the book's feel as a collection of vignettes. </p>
<p>I, of course, also liked "I Am Charlotte Simmons" a lot, so whatever.</p>
<p>I liked Old School a ton more before it hit the last chapter, which really didn't have the same feel as the rest of the book. I guess the aftertaste it left in my mouth soured me on the rest of the book too... before that it was a lot better.</p>
<p>And what's the connection with "Charlotte Simmons"? (Besides the similarities between the authors' names)</p>
<p>I really liked old school, but i'm kind of an english nerd so the whole hemingway/frost thing was interesting to me. Old School made me think more of a separate peace, the movie the emperor's club, and dead poet's society...but i liked all those so i liked this too. Really liked the writing.
Annie John was decent. I also liked the writing a lot, but the plot not as much. i had difficulty placing the setting and picturing it, but the mother/daughter stuff was insightful.</p>
<p>haha, i'm glad i'm not the only one waiting on an m. butterfly amazon order! <em>crosses fingers it's here by friday</em></p>
<p>On a really unrelated note...for those who know the Stanford area well, i found out Kepler's (big bookstore near campus) is closing...</p>
<p>I also was disappointed with the ending of Old School. But I think there was some sort of underlying message in the contrast with the rest of the story: something like how the stories of two people can be the same at heart even though they appear totally different (the girl author of Summer Dance is to the Narrator as the Narrator is to Dean Makepeace).</p>
<p>Or maybe I'm just rationalizing to make myself feel better about the book.</p>
<p>I just thought the end was kind of unrelated to the A Separate Peace-like mood of the rest of the book, and it didn't really add to it.</p>
<p>Yeah, did anyone get the ending of Old School? It seemed pretty irrelevant. I'm sure there was stuff there, but I was in a hurry to finish the book, lol.</p>
<p>I don't like literature that much, but old school was tolerable (heck, at times even enjoyable) until the last chapter. It just seemed like it didn't have anything to do with the story. I'm sure there is some deep and higher-level thinking connection with the rest of the book, but for the average reader (me) it wasn't really relevant.</p>
<p>M. Butterfly was really shocking and exciting. As for Annie John, I'm not even gonna bother. I've just read too many books on its genre, and frankly they're all the same.</p>
<p>Unforunately, I had M Butterfly ruined for me (I read the back cover) but it was very enjoyable nontheless. I can't believe it's a true story....</p>
<p>I don't think knowing "the shocker" in M. Butterfly totally ruined it. I thought of it as dramatic irony, like in Oedipus Rex---you're supposed to know that IT'S HIS MOM, so that you can be like, "Oedipus, what are you doing?!?!" the whole time. It's more discomforting...?</p>
<p>I just read M. Butterfly today and am SO GLAD it didn't get spoiled for me. If it had been, I would've spent the whole time internally fuming about how much fun it would have been to read the book without the spoiler!</p>