Get me out of here

Having been down in Miami all weekend for my father's birthday, I looked forward to returning to Orlando today. 'Twas not to be. Instead my brother's car broke down, and I am now sitting in an Econo-Lodge in Ft. Pierce. We got a ride from a tow truck, whose driver informed us of the dangers of hooker and blow, and told us which parts of town to avoid - helpful information. So after ordering a pizza and discovering that there is, in fact, an internet connection in this motel, I thought "What a perfect time to blog about The Power of Sympathy. So now I sit, listening to the soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas, and pontificating on the seduction novel. I have, admittedly, not gotten too far into the book, but I hope to be done with the novel by the end of the week (this, combined with Hope Leslie and my French midterm, seems poised to eat up my week, reading-wise). Being a creative writing major, I'm always more interested in the form and writing techniques of a novel than, say, any "lit theory" aspects. So I've become interested in the form of this novel - the epistolary - which seems to be one of the major literary techniques in the early days of the novel. Of course, this has somewhat died out, with few exceptions ("The Color Purple" and the oh-so popular with hipster kids "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" being notable recent examples.) So for my research I primarily focused my attention on learning about this form - why it was used, why it fell out of widespread use, and how it evolved with the advent of computer technology. E-mail and instant message novels have become somewhat popular among young adult novels. I'm guessing it works well for youth novels... I don't think IMs would serve Don DeLillo novels well, but you never know...

Well it has been an incredibly long day, and my day tomorrow will certainly be unpleasant as well - unfortunately I'm gonna have to miss all my classes. I'm hoping to be back in town by the afternoon/early evening. I'll post more regarding my feelings on the actual text soon - so far I'm enjoying it, more than Charlotte Temple and The Coquette.

- Mike Hicks