The Activist

This week we were asked to read the first half of Renee Gladman's "The Activist." At first, like other classmates, I was rather confused about what exactly was happening. The confusion I felt though was also what intrigued me about the story because it kept me turning the pages to try and decipher what exactly was going on within the work. Another aspect that kept me thoroughly engaged was the constantly changing texts. The book is a clear example of what experimenting with form can look like. With one chapter being conversational and the next looking as though a newspaper was cut up. This book to me seems like it is somewhat a critique of political reality shown through distorted newspaper prose. The man question so far seems to be whether or not a city bridge has been bombed and destroyed or not. The first feeling I got from this book was that of paranoia and it seemed to me like all of the text dealt with perceptions instead of evidence. Overall I'm very interested in seeing where this story will end up.