The Goon Squad

Amy Tan was born in Oakland, California, in 1953. In 1970, Tan majored in English at San Jose State, in California. Tan began a carrier as a technical writer after she graduated, at the University of California. However, she changed her writing because she was inspired to write fiction book after reading of Louise Erdrich's novel “Love Medicine”. As a result of this, language has helped Amy Tan in becoming the successful writer she’s today. It helped her express her complete thoughts in a way that everyone who reads, understand. Additionally, the type of language that she uses in her writing makes people take her seriously and as important as everyone else.

The use of specific detail and ethos helped McBride in writing a powerful book since readers would be able to know what is being read actually happened and considering that McBride collected several information about his mother like where she was born, her religion and her two divorces. The book is

Rarely does a person come across a book with alternating points of view, an endless stream of characters, and powerpoint slides. Yet, all of those different structures intertwine within the novel, A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. Without its structure the novel would be unremarkable. The ever-switching points of view and types of prose carry the different perspectives of the main characters, and the division of the book into two sections symbolizes the flip sides of their lives. Ultimately, the structure unravels as its own character, which illustrates the main theme of the novel, that time is a goon tied to music.

There are many styles of writing authors use to captivate their readers. One style in particular is the epistolary style. The epistolary style of writing seduces its readers by using the character’s documents or letters to tell a story. Ursula K. Le Guin wrote the book The Left Hand of Darkness using the epistolary writing style, in return he captures his readers by making them feel the experience one would have if they lived on the planet Winter and understand the planet’s history. The story is told by Genly Ai, a person from earth who is sent to Winter to study their forbidding, ice-bound world.

Time is constant. No one has the power to stop it or to go back in it. Time cannot be changed for it is timeless. With time being everlasting there is a mystery within time’s boarders; why cannot one change time? Arcadia by Tom Stoppard explores the lives of many individuals in two different time periods but within the same setting, Sidley Park, which is a stately home. Within the first four scenes of the play there is a shift between the two time periods 1809 and contemporary time period. Time is omnipresent throughout the play, whatever happens will happen and time is constant regardless how you measure it. In Geraldine Cousin’s Playing for Time, Cousin explores the mystery of time’s immutability. She also explores the ideas of how the past always has a lingering effect on the future. Then in John Fleming’s Tom Stoppard’s: Arcadia compliments on how time is equally woven between the past and present. He also provokes the idea that one could split the play into two plays by splitting up the two times. The mystery behind time in Stoppard’s Arcadia is well defined. Time is inevitable and connected, you cannot have the past without the present and future. Tom Stoppard depicts that tie overlaps itself in order to show how chaos enables freewill.

Throughout the book the author writes the story from Libby’s and Jack’s point of view. Niven writes the book as though Libby is writing in her diary and then in the next chapter Jack is writing in his diary. The author also uses flashbacks in the story. We get a deeper understanding of the story and why things are happening in it because we can see that in the past all of these events lead up to this event. Another way the the author uses craft is how she uses figurative language to also add deeper meaning to the story. The author uses craft to make the story much more interesting to read. If there was no figurative language in the books it would not have gotten the ratings it did or be the book that no one wants to put

To me, what made this book most fantastic was simply the author’s choice of words and how she was able to reveal so much through about a character’s emotions while never simply stating them. So much power comes in an author’s ability to truly make you feel everything the character does, as this keeps the reader engaged in the story and always want to know more. One of my favorite examples of how Egan does this in A Visit from the Goon Squad is during chapter eight when you learn the story of La Doll, or Dolly, as she rebranded herself to escape the shame of her past mistakes. Her daughter Lulu, a young girl who has grown up with no one but her mother, tagged along on one of Coco's risky business trips to take Kitty Jackson, a washed up actress, to her new fake boyfriend, General B. "Twenty checkpoints presaged their arrival at the general's compound. At each, two soldiers with submachine guns peered into the black Mercedes, where Dolly and Lola and Kitty sat in the backseat. Four times, they were forced outside into the scouring sunshine and patted down at gunpoint. Each time, Dolly scrutinized her daughter's studied

The next literary device the author utilizes is foreshadowing. The author hints at the reader in numerous ways, which builds curiosity, anticipation, and

For some people, time matters more that it does to others. They believe that time signifies something, like experience or ability. In A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, time is looked at as a hindrance instead of a way to classify people. Switching narration every chapter, the novel follows Bennie and his secretary, Sasha, along with others in the music industry, through their journeys of change in life. Throughout the chapters, time is regarded as a goon, meaning that the institution of time is both silly and foolish, and is the equivalent of a bully because of what time does to people. In this passage, Sasha’s daughter, Alison, makes a powerpoint journal in which she includes a quotation from her mother about her brother’s obsession with the pauses in Rock and Roll music. Sasha’s input on the importance of pauses in songs clarifies how time is a goon. Egan utilizes dialogue,

4. Application/ Synthesis- we learned how to take gained knowledge coupled with new information and synthesize it into an expression of our own learning.

Although many may not believe it until it happens to them, time can pass by so swiftly that one won’t even register it at first. Yes, time passing is a part of life, but the realization of it is another story within itself. “Forgetfulness,” a poem by Billy Collins, and an excerpt from “Once More to the Lake” by E.B. White both provide a clear example of how fast time can go by. In Collin’s piece, he puts together many various ideas one can forget as their life moves incredibly fast. Likewise, in White’s “Once More to the Lake,” the narrator struggles to understand how quickly time really passed and how his son is so similaralike to him. Both of these pieces of writing use X syntax and X diction to develop the common theme of annihilated time.

The author uses pacing throughout the story to help the reader connect to the story. In the story

ways as the each author’s intentions are to direct the reader to the main plot by describing the

For example, when the audience learns that Somesh dies, it is very shocking because there was no back story, and the author was writing the story as if it were to have a happy ending, Somesh and Sumita were just beginning to fall in love. When the author abruptly breaks the audience’s hearts, she then goes back to explain what happened to Somesh. Doing this puts the audience on an emotional rollercoaster and captures the reader’s attention, drawing them deeper into the story. The author does not always use this skipping ahead wisely; it can be confusing at times and catches the reader off guard. It forces the audience to go back and reread until they understand what she is

Just like any author she achieves storytelling in a simple and straight forward manner. Some of