I enjoyed some of the presentations the past couple of days. I thought that Lindsay's presentation was very interesting and I like that she used Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley to emphasize her point. In listening to the song again, it seems to hold more meaning. Also, I like the fact that she took an original viewpoint on the relationship between Wanda and Jacob in The Slave, as it is infinitely more interesting to listen to creative new ideas than to have someone rehash what you've already read in Frye or Bloom. I

I am, however, not certain that I agree fully with the idea that the relationship between Wanda (or Sarah) and Jacob was necessarily not a love relationship, I look at the story as a kind of reconciliation between the pious Jew and the purity of the heart of someone trying to fulfill some very legalistic aims and the power of human affection. In this way, I think that the book exists as a marriage of religion and some of the themes of humanism. One of the reasons that I say this is because of all of the characters in the novel, Sarah is perhaps the most innocent. She only sins when she is trying to help Jacob or express her love for him. In the end, even the faithful villagers conceed that Sarah is "a daughter of Moses" and allow the lovers' bones to buried alongside one another. I think that if Singer would have wanted to emphasize that love expressed by the primary narrative of The Slave was really a fraud, he would have been far more explicit.

As I said though, I thought that Lindsay had a very interesting presentation because of the fact that it was not only original, but it put the Jeff Buckley song into a whole new context for me. (And no, I am not just complementing her presentation so I could disagree with it, I genuinely found it very interesting.)

I also liked Kim's original use of visual aides, very clever.