Hola: Mark II

I'm Xander, a wonderful man who's pretentious enough to name his blog after a
Rene Magritte painting. Besides that, here's the rest of me: I'm a second semester Senior who still has to decide whether he'll wallow the next four years in Madtown or the Windy City, I made a decision a long time ago to dedicate my life to the stage, and I'm in a race to catch up with my blogs. AP Comp wore me out, I must admit--so here I go.

My favorite book honestly changes all the time, but I can honestly say that the current placeholder was my book for AP Comp last Quarter, All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren. I advise all of you not to watch either of the film versions, but the novel is simply extraordinary. In short, it's a political and philosophical drama that is meant to imitate the rise and fall of the life of Huey "the Kingfish" Long, the infamous Governor and Senator of Louisiana during the Great Depression who ruled on a Populist Doctrine. This description may sound like it only appeals to history and political junkies, but my reading of the book finds this is not so. More than anything, it is actually an analysis of how a a well-meaning, and yet meek and pathetic man can quickly turn into a bombastic and charismatic figure who wallows in corruption. Like the historical tale, it too takes place in the South and has a very poor, and yet not so Dixie feel to it. It is not necessarily a tale of history, but of moral dilemnas ranging from Willie Talos (the alternative to long in this book), the struggles of the protaganist and Talos's close associate Jack Burden, and the complicated role of his partner Ann Stanton in the book. I'll stop here for the sake of exposition's sake. My favorite book will undoubtedly change very soon, but for now, this is it.

Time to catch up...