tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7348815.post8735315163844888811..comments2024-03-18T03:28:01.889-06:00Comments on Gossamer Obsessions: "Speechless," by Hannah HarringtonAnimeJunehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18229748454410488167noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7348815.post-62638083943789868442017-06-01T13:20:58.703-06:002017-06-01T13:20:58.703-06:00On Take Free Bitcoin you may recieve FREE satoshis...On <a href="http://claim-btc.syntaxlinks.com/r/FreeBitcoin" rel="nofollow"><b>Take Free Bitcoin</b></a> you may recieve FREE satoshis. <b>8 to 22</b> satoshis per <b>5</b> minutes.Bloggerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07287821785570247118noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7348815.post-75104909533050790382013-01-21T17:49:24.088-07:002013-01-21T17:49:24.088-07:00Have ever had a worked as a dishwasher? It does re...Have ever had a worked as a dishwasher? It does require speaking, although not much. ;) I guess you could grunt and point but at some point you would annoy your co-workers. She'd also have to find an employer willing to take on someone who had decided to be mute. If you were a busy manager and had a choice, would you take someone on joansing on some emotional backstory and pointing all the time? I'd take the applicant without all that emotional baggage any day. <br /><br />"Her decision process was: my speech hurt people (the gay student who got bashed, and her two friends who were jailed on her testimony, and the literally dozens of students she squealed on), so I won't speak."<br /><br />And unfortunately this is not a mature thought process (to me anyway). Certainly one a teenager might have, but choosing silence doesn't atone for the past sin or solve any of the problems long term. The heroine simply dashes from one extreme (no filter whatsoever) to another (speaking is beneath me/too risky until I have something profoundly important to say). It's very possible to learn to listen and not gossip without a vow of silence and it might have made a much better story. :(<br /><br />"I fail to see why remaining silent is selfish - her silence doesn't hurt, offend, or even affect anyone else in the story."<br /><br />Yes, and that's my point. It's not realistic at all that her choice did not impact someone else. If your someone in your family suddenly became mute because of some horrific event wouldn't you calling every therapist you could think of? Wouldn't you be worried sick? <br /><br />At the very least, wouldn't be annoying to have a friend (I'd give it a week) who wrote on a white board, making every bit of communication about 3 times longer than it needed to be? Every single attempt at communication would totally be about Her Terrible Emotional Woes. Ugh. <br /><br />A vow of silence like that really should have had a huge impact on her personal world. The moral sounds solid but it still sounds to me like the plot and the writing style have a lot in common. :(Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7348815.post-26723478739370025272013-01-20T10:54:31.025-07:002013-01-20T10:54:31.025-07:00Anonymous - she gets a job as a dishwasher at a di...Anonymous - she gets a job as a dishwasher at a diner, so speaking for that role is not necessary. She also communicates with others via her actions, gestures, and a handy portable whiteboard. She also finds that when she cannot speak, she has to LISTEN - and this actually deepens her friendships with her new friends because she has a chance to learn and observe more about them. <br /><br />And face to face communication only relies partly on speech - a HUGE amount of communication comes from tone, gestures, social context, and facial expressions.<br /><br />In the heroine's case, her decision to take a vow of silence is more to remain silent until she finds she has something worthy to say. Before her vow, she used verbal communication in a very shallow way, as a kind of popularity currency. Again - she was a gossipmonger. She loved telling dirty secrets and spreading rumours about people and fawning over her awful BFF. She never really contributed anything positive with her speech.<br /><br />Her decision process was: my speech hurt people (the gay student who got bashed, and her two friends who were jailed on her testimony, and the literally dozens of students she squealed on), so I won't speak.<br /><br />I fail to see why remaining silent is selfish - her silence doesn't hurt, offend, or even affect anyone else in the story. So I don't even understand why it's the opposite of gossipmongering. She doesn't "remain silent" in the sense of ignoring or avoiding speaking out about evil - after all, she goes to the cops about the attack and chooses to end her vow of silence by defending a fellow student against bullying. So it's not remaining silent in that sense.<br /><br />I would suggest you give the story a try. It's about how words aren't the be-all and end-all of communication.AnimeJunehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18229748454410488167noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7348815.post-65668746284271439502013-01-20T10:21:09.440-07:002013-01-20T10:21:09.440-07:00How does she semi-realistically gets a job and ref...How does she semi-realistically gets a job and refuse to speak at the same time? Or make and keep new friends the same way? *head-shake* Refusing to speak is selfish act - it's just the mirror image of gossiping about others. Sadly, the writing might be juvenile and the ending weak precisely because there's no real meat on the bones of the plot as presented here. It's possible I'm missing something though, as I haven't read the book. :(Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com