Blog posting #6 (due Sunday 4/1, 11:59 P.M.): Tell me who do you love? Getting into (a) STATE OF FEAR

Michael Crichton's State of fear is, in our opinion, the hardest book we're reading in this class. Nevermind that it's written at about a fourth-grade reading level and the plot and characters are cliché as hell. Crichton has produced an extremely tight, often inscrutably knotted hybrid of literature, research, rhetoric, ideology, history, 'publics,' seeing devices...and a whole lot more. Our task, over the next three weeks, is to untangle it and figure out how it works. Here, we make the first step.

Your assignment: react to the book -- or what you've read of it thus far.

(Try to get about 300-400 pages into it before responding, to get a decent grasp of the whole. It shouldn't take too long.)

Your reaction may take many forms, and go in many different directions, but it should include each of the following:

-- at least one passage from the text of the novel itself (see the work schedule for the passages we found most noteworthy),
-- at least one term/concept from science studies ('incorrigible propositions,' hybrids, paradigms, seeing devices, issue selection, circulating reference, non-human agents, talking corn (or bacteria), etc.), and
-- a term/concept from literary studies (remember?--high school stuff?):

CHARACTER(S) [the ethical argument]: In Omnivore's dilemma, we noted a cast of characters who end up making much of Pollan's argument—the saintly, crusty, pure Joel Salatin; the ambiguous organic capitalist Gene Kahn; the manly-man / hunter Angelo; the hard-working George Naylor.  Almost all of An inconvenient truth works by character, starring the good-hearted, pony-owning, commercial airline-riding, scissors-lift elevated Al Gore.  Nice guy.  Not like George Bush, or Senator Inhofe, who we see saying dumb things in public.  In classical rhetoric, making an argument by presenting yourself as a good and reliable character is called 'ethical argument': believe me; I'm a nice guy.

Get into the science, literature, rhetoric and politics of State of fear by reacting to one or more of the characters we meet in the early parts of the novel.  How did you like them? (be honest; it's OK to like shallow cliché character; don't take the easy, snarky low road). 

Don't-bore-your-friends (or your instructors) directive: when you post, do look at what's been posted already and try to add to the discussion, bringing in new passages and concepts and ideas, rather than rehashing points that've already been made. There's no shortage of material here -- be bold!