When we were first assigned to read a book for class I was upset and I thought it would be just the usual college text books. To my surprise I was wrong. This has to be one of the best books I've ever read. I always share with my friends and my family how good this book was. I was so glad that we learned what the main themes were because they were so clearly stated throughout this whole book. Reading this can help me with my ethnography project because it taught me that description is everything. Reading this book was like watching a movie in my head. Michael Patrick MacDonald made sure the reader had a clear image about everything. Whether it was the people from Southie or the look of his apartments, his descriptions were so accurate.
When I first got the book, I didn't think that I would like it based on what the story was about. I love to read but I'm very picky about what I read. As I got deeper into the book, I was surprised as to how much I liked it. I think MacDonald did a really great job with describing his life, the events that occurred, and his surroundings. I think that by reading this book, it helped us with understanding how important it is for us to focus on our observations while we go to our locations for the ethnography project. By paying attention to our surroundings, it will help us write better essays on our locations and it will help the reader get a good sense of what we are encountering.
I definitely have to agree with you on that fact that its very important to focus on our observations and being able to vividly describe them. Not only will it help us better with our essays, but it will also allow all readers to actually visualize our observations.
I agree with the comment you made of how MacDonald did a great job in describing his life and events around him.It helps us realize how that can make all the difference in a story.
I've already read this book in high school and was thrilled to read it again. When I read it in high school, I thought," Oh god, another book I have to read." But it was such a fascinating book that I was happy to read it again. This book can help me with my enthography project because Michael MacDonald did such a great job describing all his locations. He made such a clear picture in my head and I think that is what I need to do in my essay. Make people think they are in the surronding space.
I wrote about this too, I think that it's important to do what Mcdonald did and add descriptive details while writing your ethnography so the readers reading it can paint a picture in their minds on what your ethnography looks like.
Angela, I agree with this. Michael MacDonald did an very thorough job describing all his surroundings. I could picture all his descriptions it clearly in my head.
This book really helped me understand the use of description better. MacDonald uses his vivid thoughts that were accumulated over his childhood to paint a picture for his readers. This is one thing I do not put a lot of attention on because I like to focus on pure facts and rarely include the details. The in class exercise that we were given really helped me expand my descriptive through process along with reading All Souls. I know this will help when I am finishing my ethnography to give my audience a complete picture.
I agree, this book gives me a better understanding of description. I'm a person that also focuses a lot on facts and not really detail. I think my paper is going to be a lot better knowing these techniques that MacDonald uses.
I like how you are someone who just writes down facts without. I am the same way. I think this book will help us both understand and give us a better picture to give to our audience on the aviation culture.
I thought that All Souls by Michael Patrick MacDonald was a great book. I was surprised to find myself in these stories and how relatable this book is to me and where I came from. I even knew exactly the people or places he described. I also found myself sparking a lot of interesting conversations. Through these conversations I get a lot of history and how each side felt, which was interesting. This book was written in my opinion very nicely I kept having hope for his family, but as it went a long. Some terrible moments were expected. Other then the sad stories I felt as though this book helped me to make my research interesting when interviewing people. I can always imagine what MacDonald was describing and I think if I put that energy into my paper it will be very successful with my audience.
I like how you mentioned that when you read this book you thought about where you came from. This must have been easy for you to read because you knew the places he discussed. Also, I agree with you about having hope for his family. I was thinking the same way throughout the story.
I was intrigued by the book the entire time reading it. I felt as if I was going through these events with Michael and his family and I was hoping for the best for them. It's sad that they cannot escape this continuous vicious cycle of violence, as hard as they try. Michael did a really nice job describing his surroundings and events he witnessed. It made it easy to visualize what was going on, as real as possible, and to feel the emotions the people were feeling. This helped me understand that to become a better writer while writing my ethnography I should be as descriptive as possible so that the readers can visualize and feel what I do.
I agree that it felt like you were going through the events with Michael and his family. I became attached to the characters in the book and always hoped for the best. I think Michael's descriptions made you feel like you were part of the family
When I first got this book, I wasn't sure what to think about it because it didn't seem like the type of story that normally interests me. However, once I started reading, I became really interested and I ended up enjoying the whole thing. I think this is one of my favorite books I have read in school. This is also really going to help me write my ethnography because Michael MacDonald focused so much on description and detail. Description is something I need to work on improving and this book really inspired me to work harder at it. Michaels descriptions always painted a clear picture in my mind and I want to be able to do that in my ethnography.
I have to agree with you, I never expected that I would ever favor a book that assigned by a teacher. The way the author express his feelings and tells the story makes it unique. A clear picture is always will come to mind when talking about the author. His technique is definitely very helpful to use.
I thought the book was pretty good. It was really cool to actually get a first hand account of how bad south boston really was. I feel like hearing and reading are two completely different things. The book had a lot of great detail about a tough life lived by a family in the south boston. There was a surprising amount of details because I would imagine is must been hard to retell very personal and sad times in Michael MacDonald's life. What really interested me about the story was that I have family members that can kind of relate to theses stories. I have a good amount of family in Boston and even though not a lot of them lived in south boston most of thier stories still sound like some of the thing MacDonald went through. The way that this story could help with ethnography is because it is basically an ethnography of south boston. Macdonald's story had really good detail, descriptions, observation and many others things, which I must do on my ethnography. So when I am writing mines I know what kind things I need or things that should be the ethnography.
In the beginning i though I wouldn't be able to finish this book because i'm not supportive of racial acts, but then i realized that it wasn't MacDonald's fault of being raised in that community. The more I read, the more I became familiar with his perspective of life. This was all possible because of his perfect way of describing everything based on great observations that would make the reader feel as if they were part of the story. His technique is a vital example for us to use when doing our ethnography because we want to grab the reader's focus by focusing in our observation in order to give a very detailed description of everything.
I agree the racial acts in the book did have me a little worried that it was going to be throughout the whole book. I don't really like books that deal with race. However, the book to me was powerful. I showed a family that is trying survive with hard times and that was something I really enjoyed about the book.
I thought All Souls was one of the best books I have ever got assigned to read in an English class. Usually the books I am handed are very boring and don't catch my interest at all, but this book was very different. After every chapter I was very anxious to read the next and I just couldn't wait to see what was going to happen next. Throughout the book their were a lot of descriptive details on characters and what was happening. By adding those specific details Macdonald would create an image in my head so I could actually feel like I was there in the book when this certain event was happening. For my ethnography I definitely have to do the same as Macdonald and add descriptive details while writing because it's important that the reader reading my ethnography can paint a picture in their mind of what my ethnography looks like.
My final thoughts on All Souls is that it was a very good book. At some parts, it would get confusing, considering Michael MacDonald was one of nine. There were just so many names. But, All Souls taught me all about themes and descriptions. Making a clear description to your audience will really help them understand and create a mental image. This will definitely help me with my ethnography project.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading All Souls. Prior to my reading in high school, it still felt almost as if I read the book for the first time. I believe reading this book can help me with my ethnographic project because MacDonald was very descriptive. Without using a wide range of vocabulary, he was still able to extensively detail people, places and things. Reading his book showed me, I can better myself as a writer just by simply paying much more attention to detail, as well as when I go to regurgitate those details, rather than using the most common or unheard adjectives, I need to vividly describe to my readers what’s going on. Rather than having my audience simply read about a person, place, or thing I'm describing - I need my audience to actually see, feel and hear what I'm saying. Through this book, I've learned I actually need to make an impact. I want to audience to feel as though, whatever I'm describing, they're right there next to me. MacDonald has taught me, instead of proving to your audience you know how to use big words, prove to your audience that you can paint a picture. Not only that, but you can actually relate to your readers.
I have many thoughts on at the end All Souls. It was depressing hearing all the stories of Michael’s siblings passing away and all the hardships the family encountered. However, even though the MacDonald family encountered several catastrophes they stayed true in loving their home of Southie. They made the best out of their neighborhood. This book could help me with my ethnographic project dearly. Michael MacDonald presented a diverse amount of detailed descriptions. The ethnography project is all about observing your surroundings and Michael MacDonald gave thorough descriptions of his environment. He also talked about the diverse types of people who surrounded Southie and in doing my ethnography project I must describe the different types of people involved in my site.
After reading All Souls, I thought that the book was overall gloomy, but still had a great message to it. It taught the valuable lesson that color and wealth shouldn't define who you are; its whats on the inside that counts. Another message that I took from this book was, if you stay out of trouble, then you won't get into trouble. This book can help with my ethnographic project because it discusses the different types of cultures and social groups around them. It gave us a clear idea of how different social groups are. The author wrote everything that he observed in his environment, and that is what we have to do for this ethnography project.
After reading All Souls,by Michael Patrick MacDonald, I thought the book was overall sad. You have this poor kid telling us about how he lives in a bad neighbor and how his brothers died.I would say tha growing up he was meet with uncertainty , that why his life in the book seems to be so chaotic, but to him he was living everyday as though it was last. One character I did like was Ma. She was glue that keep the family together during all the hard times. Every time her kid died, a piece of her died as well, but she didn't completely give and become depressed like most people would in the situation. Michael Patrick MacDonald had great description when it came to describing the scenes. His descriptions will help me on my ethnography, by using the right words to tell what something looks like, without having a long paragraph filled with fluff.
Yes Kerwyn I agree with the overall sad in All Souls especially towards the end of the book and i agree that fluff needs to be left out and it is good that we learned and saw how to do that.
My final thoughts of All Souls is that it was a really interesting book and I think it touched based on a lot of the past and present for people that grew up in and around Boston. The themes are also current problems and things that we all deal with today and here about on the news. I think this will help me with my essay because we got a lot of examples and first hand looks on how to really describe and paint a mental picture.
When we were first assigned to read All Souls I thought to myself "oh great another book to read. I don't have time for it". But after I read the first chapter I really felt a connection with the book. I was able to get a vivid picture of what really was going on in South Boston at the time and due to the fact my mother grew up in South Boston at this time and she had told me stories of the riots. However it did hit you in many ways emotionally such as the violence and the deaths of Ma's Children. The story has had many themes such as Family, violence, drugs, toughness, etc. and it showed you with very detail how each trait was played. After reading this story I have a better understanding of culture and I know this will help me more with my ethnography project...understanding the culture in the field I am getting to know more of.
I had that same thought. When she first told us to get a book to read for the class i was like why? we already have enough work. But every chapter i read i got more and more into until i even have to admit i throughly enjoyed it.
I really enjoyed reading All Souls, in the beginning I just thought it was going to be the same old books about racism but while reading it, I found out the it's much more than that and that's what I liked about it. This book had tons of description on objects, people, and even places and I think that it helped understand the importance of description and how ill need to use it in my ethnography.
I enjoyed reading All Souls, at first I couldn't really get into it but after getting into it it really gets you to keep reading. The themes of family, death, hope, and many others really made you feel for the characters. But the fact that this book was so descriptive and focused on a lot of observing of where they lived and the people that surrounded them everyday. It certainly helped me and i bet many others after reading it understand just how important being descriptive is to your ethnography paper. The reader of your paper was not with you at your site. We were not in Southie going through everything the characters were but we can surely visualize everything Mcdonald was trying to portray to us. We need to do just that. Make a picture for our readers.
Reading this book has really opened my eyes what lower class city life was like. It always seemed bleak and depressing. It seemed it was filled with violence, drugs and racism. I usually don’t really like reading books but I will admit I loved this one. Every chapter kept you on your twos wondering what was going to happen next, every chapter was a mystery you didn’t know who was going to potentially die next. Every character was at all times a potential target for the violence that surrounded them in their neighborhood. However I don’t think iv every heard of such a tightly knighted community especially in a city. Throughout the book it describes how helpful people were to each other if they came from the same neighborhood, family defiantly seemed to be on the top priority list for every family that lived in Southie. I think the main reason how this book could help me write my paper is, showing me every aspect of a place you can describe in a paper. You could talk about the people, smell, the general feel of the area and what the place your describing even sounds like.
All Souls was one of the few books i read front to back. I really enjoyed it. I liked how it described Southie back when MacDonald lived there. Even though it was not good for MacDonald, i liked how it was full of violence and surprising scenes like when Frankie died. I believe this will help me with my ethnography because it shows how MacDonald uses so much detail to describe even the little things. Like in the part when they moved in with the grandparents, he described in detail about what the couch ma was sleeping on looked like.
I agree I don't enjoy a lot of books as much as I did with this one. There were a lot of sad moments but the detail and ending was great. Even with all the sad things that happened to Michael it is amazing the man he became.
As sad as this book was I really enjoyed reading it. It kept me interested throughout the book and the observational detail was great. This book will help me with my ethnography because it showed me when it is important to go into detail about certain things and not. It also showed me how to go into detail and give a great image of what you are trying to say. Once I read through my ethnography I will make sure that the readers could get a good mental image of what I am trying to say.
My final thoughts on the book All Souls was over all I liked it. There was never a boring part, something was always going on. The way the author went through his whole life even the horrible parts. It felt like he didn't hold anything back from the most emotional things like having most of his family dying there. Its going to help me with my ethnography because of the dept the author went into describing the events and people. He went into the smallest details about everything.
I also really liked how there was always something happening in this book. There was never a slow part because their lives were not boring or slow. I also said that the amount of description and how he didn't leave much out would help me in my ethnography.
In my opinion, All Souls is an amazing book. Even though it is tragic and has an unbelievable amount of death, sadness, and drugs, it is still a book that would keep anyone's interest. I was sad to see how all the characters suffered, but it was an all-around good book. In it there was a great use of adjectives that really made you feel like you were there with Michael when you were reading, and I think that will help me when writing my ethnography.
My thoughts on the book about All souls was that it was a great book. It taught me alot about South Boston that i didn't know before. It showed how racism and violence was a big thing back then. To be honest i knew about Whitey Bulger but i really didn't know that he was from Boston and everything he did was in Boston. This book was a great book in my opinion and i would seriously read it over again. This book can help me with my essays because it shows me how to be really descriptive. He uses alot of description in this book and not everything is simple. The experience he had during the time helped him be descriptive because he was there and witnessed everything. So if i visit my place more i think i can do really good on my essay and it will be really helpful.
This book gave me a new perspective on how rough some people's lives were not too long ago, and how racism effects so many people in different ways. The author captures the reader's attention on every page, and includes so much detail that it could be made into a movie. As the book progressed, it was getting more and more difficult to read because of all of the violence and hate and death. I was constantly waiting for another person to die, so that definitely kept me reading and kept me interested even though I didn't want any more people to die. Frankie's death was the most shocking and the most disappointing for me because he had to much potential and could have earned a lot of money as a professional boxer. He could have helped his family escape Southie. The amount of detail and description that Michael used will definitely influence how I write my ethnography. His writing shows me how much detail that I need to use and how descriptive it must be to make the impact and create the images that Michael managed to make and create. It helped capture the reader's attention and I want to be able to do that for my readers.
I think that All Souls was an amazing book because not only did the author tell the story from one perspective he told it from multiple. What made me more interested in the book was because it was from my own hometown of Boston. All souls was way more different then I expected because reading the first two chapters at first, didn't really catch my attention but as I read on and realized what the point of the book was, I was really into it. I think that this book can help me with my ethnographic project by focousing on detail and theme. Going into detail and describing the importance of my topic.
When I was first assigned to read this, I wasn't interested at all. While reading it I wanted to know what was going to happen next and ended up reading the whole thing rather quickly. I liked how he used personal experience and brought in the struggle of everyone around him as well, really painting a picture in the readers mind of what he was talking about. I think it is important to take his aspect of descriptions and using them in my ethnography because I want to convey to my audience exactly what I'm talking about as if they were already there.
When we were first assigned to read a book for class I was upset and I thought it would be just the usual college text books. To my surprise I was wrong. This has to be one of the best books I've ever read. I always share with my friends and my family how good this book was. I was so glad that we learned what the main themes were because they were so clearly stated throughout this whole book. Reading this can help me with my ethnography project because it taught me that description is everything. Reading this book was like watching a movie in my head. Michael Patrick MacDonald made sure the reader had a clear image about everything. Whether it was the people from Southie or the look of his apartments, his descriptions were so accurate.
ReplyDeleteI agree that his descriptions is what made his reading the most enjoyable.
DeleteWhen I first got the book, I didn't think that I would like it based on what the story was about. I love to read but I'm very picky about what I read. As I got deeper into the book, I was surprised as to how much I liked it. I think MacDonald did a really great job with describing his life, the events that occurred, and his surroundings. I think that by reading this book, it helped us with understanding how important it is for us to focus on our observations while we go to our locations for the ethnography project. By paying attention to our surroundings, it will help us write better essays on our locations and it will help the reader get a good sense of what we are encountering.
ReplyDeleteI definitely have to agree with you on that fact that its very important to focus on our observations and being able to vividly describe them. Not only will it help us better with our essays, but it will also allow all readers to actually visualize our observations.
DeleteI agree that MacDonald did a good job with his descriptions of events and his surroundings.
DeleteI agree with the comment you made of how MacDonald did a great job in describing his life and events around him.It helps us realize how that can make all the difference in a story.
DeleteI've already read this book in high school and was thrilled to read it again. When I read it in high school, I thought," Oh god, another book I have to read." But it was such a fascinating book that I was happy to read it again. This book can help me with my enthography project because Michael MacDonald did such a great job describing all his locations. He made such a clear picture in my head and I think that is what I need to do in my essay. Make people think they are in the surronding space.
ReplyDeleteI wrote about this too, I think that it's important to do what Mcdonald did and add descriptive details while writing your ethnography so the readers reading it can paint a picture in their minds on what your ethnography looks like.
DeleteAngela, I agree with this. Michael MacDonald did an very thorough job describing all his surroundings. I could picture all his descriptions it clearly in my head.
DeleteThis book really helped me understand the use of description better. MacDonald uses his vivid thoughts that were accumulated over his childhood to paint a picture for his readers. This is one thing I do not put a lot of attention on because I like to focus on pure facts and rarely include the details. The in class exercise that we were given really helped me expand my descriptive through process along with reading All Souls. I know this will help when I am finishing my ethnography to give my audience a complete picture.
ReplyDeleteI agree, this book gives me a better understanding of description. I'm a person that also focuses a lot on facts and not really detail. I think my paper is going to be a lot better knowing these techniques that MacDonald uses.
DeleteI totally agree with you. I am someone who generally writes down facts. I need to learn how to describe more.
DeleteI like how you are someone who just writes down facts without. I am the same way. I think this book will help us both understand and give us a better picture to give to our audience on the aviation culture.
DeleteI thought that All Souls by Michael Patrick MacDonald was a great book. I was surprised to find myself in these stories and how relatable this book is to me and where I came from. I even knew exactly the people or places he described. I also found myself sparking a lot of interesting conversations. Through these conversations I get a lot of history and how each side felt, which was interesting. This book was written in my opinion very nicely I kept having hope for his family, but as it went a long. Some terrible moments were expected. Other then the sad stories I felt as though this book helped me to make my research interesting when interviewing people. I can always imagine what MacDonald was describing and I think if I put that energy into my paper it will be very successful with my audience.
ReplyDeleteI like how you mentioned that when you read this book you thought about where you came from. This must have been easy for you to read because you knew the places he discussed. Also, I agree with you about having hope for his family. I was thinking the same way throughout the story.
DeleteI was intrigued by the book the entire time reading it. I felt as if I was going through these events with Michael and his family and I was hoping for the best for them. It's sad that they cannot escape this continuous vicious cycle of violence, as hard as they try. Michael did a really nice job describing his surroundings and events he witnessed. It made it easy to visualize what was going on, as real as possible, and to feel the emotions the people were feeling. This helped me understand that to become a better writer while writing my ethnography I should be as descriptive as possible so that the readers can visualize and feel what I do.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it felt like you were going through the events with Michael and his family. I became attached to the characters in the book and always hoped for the best. I think Michael's descriptions made you feel like you were part of the family
DeleteWhen I first got this book, I wasn't sure what to think about it because it didn't seem like the type of story that normally interests me. However, once I started reading, I became really interested and I ended up enjoying the whole thing. I think this is one of my favorite books I have read in school. This is also really going to help me write my ethnography because Michael MacDonald focused so much on description and detail. Description is something I need to work on improving and this book really inspired me to work harder at it. Michaels descriptions always painted a clear picture in my mind and I want to be able to do that in my ethnography.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with you, I never expected that I would ever favor a book that assigned by a teacher. The way the author express his feelings and tells the story makes it unique. A clear picture is always will come to mind when talking about the author. His technique is definitely very helpful to use.
DeleteI thought the book was pretty good. It was really cool to actually get a first hand account of how bad south boston really was. I feel like hearing and reading are two completely different things. The book had a lot of great detail about a tough life lived by a family in the south boston. There was a surprising amount of details because I would imagine is must been hard to retell very personal and sad times in Michael MacDonald's life. What really interested me about the story was that I have family members that can kind of relate to theses stories. I have a good amount of family in Boston and even though not a lot of them lived in south boston most of thier stories still sound like some of the thing MacDonald went through. The way that this story could help with ethnography is because it is basically an ethnography of south boston. Macdonald's story had really good detail, descriptions, observation and many others things, which I must do on my ethnography. So when I am writing mines I know what kind things I need or things that should be the ethnography.
ReplyDeleteIn the beginning i though I wouldn't be able to finish this book because i'm not supportive of racial acts, but then i realized that it wasn't MacDonald's fault of being raised in that community. The more I read, the more I became familiar with his perspective of life. This was all possible because of his perfect way of describing everything based on great observations that would make the reader feel as if they were part of the story. His technique is a vital example for us to use when doing our ethnography because we want to grab the reader's focus by focusing in our observation in order to give a very detailed description of everything.
ReplyDeleteI agree the racial acts in the book did have me a little worried that it was going to be throughout the whole book. I don't really like books that deal with race. However, the book to me was powerful. I showed a family that is trying survive with hard times and that was something I really enjoyed about the book.
DeleteI thought All Souls was one of the best books I have ever got assigned to read in an English class. Usually the books I am handed are very boring and don't catch my interest at all, but this book was very different. After every chapter I was very anxious to read the next and I just couldn't wait to see what was going to happen next. Throughout the book their were a lot of descriptive details on characters and what was happening. By adding those specific details Macdonald would create an image in my head so I could actually feel like I was there in the book when this certain event was happening. For my ethnography I definitely have to do the same as Macdonald and add descriptive details while writing because it's important that the reader reading my ethnography can paint a picture in their mind of what my ethnography looks like.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, I thought this book would be boring also because that's what teachers usually gave in high school.
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ReplyDeleteMy final thoughts on All Souls is that it was a very good book. At some parts, it would get confusing, considering Michael MacDonald was one of nine. There were just so many names. But, All Souls taught me all about themes and descriptions. Making a clear description to your audience will really help them understand and create a mental image. This will definitely help me with my ethnography project.
ReplyDeleteI agree, it was hard trying to keep up with all the characters.
DeleteI thoroughly enjoyed reading All Souls. Prior to my reading in high school, it still felt almost as if I read the book for the first time. I believe reading this book can help me with my ethnographic project because MacDonald was very descriptive. Without using a wide range of vocabulary, he was still able to extensively detail people, places and things. Reading his book showed me, I can better myself as a writer just by simply paying much more attention to detail, as well as when I go to regurgitate those details, rather than using the most common or unheard adjectives, I need to vividly describe to my readers what’s going on. Rather than having my audience simply read about a person, place, or thing I'm describing - I need my audience to actually see, feel and hear what I'm saying. Through this book, I've learned I actually need to make an impact. I want to audience to feel as though, whatever I'm describing, they're right there next to me. MacDonald has taught me, instead of proving to your audience you know how to use big words, prove to your audience that you can paint a picture. Not only that, but you can actually relate to your readers.
ReplyDeleteI have many thoughts on at the end All Souls. It was depressing hearing all the stories of Michael’s siblings passing away and all the hardships the family encountered. However, even though the MacDonald family encountered several catastrophes they stayed true in loving their home of Southie. They made the best out of their neighborhood. This book could help me with my ethnographic project dearly. Michael MacDonald presented a diverse amount of detailed descriptions. The ethnography project is all about observing your surroundings and Michael MacDonald gave thorough descriptions of his environment. He also talked about the diverse types of people who surrounded Southie and in doing my ethnography project I must describe the different types of people involved in my site.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading All Souls, I thought that the book was overall gloomy, but still had a great message to it. It taught the valuable lesson that color and wealth shouldn't define who you are; its whats on the inside that counts. Another message that I took from this book was, if you stay out of trouble, then you won't get into trouble. This book can help with my ethnographic project because it discusses the different types of cultures and social groups around them. It gave us a clear idea of how different social groups are. The author wrote everything that he observed in his environment, and that is what we have to do for this ethnography project.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading All Souls,by Michael Patrick MacDonald, I thought the book was overall sad. You have this poor kid telling us about how he lives in a bad neighbor and how his brothers died.I would say tha growing up he was meet with uncertainty , that why his life in the book seems to be so chaotic, but to him he was living everyday as though it was last. One character I did like was Ma. She was glue that keep the family together during all the hard times. Every time her kid died, a piece of her died as well, but she didn't completely give and become depressed like most people would in the situation. Michael Patrick MacDonald had great description when it came to describing the scenes. His descriptions will help me on my ethnography, by using the right words to tell what something looks like, without having a long paragraph filled with fluff.
ReplyDeleteYes Kerwyn I agree with the overall sad in All Souls especially towards the end of the book and i agree that fluff needs to be left out and it is good that we learned and saw how to do that.
DeleteMy final thoughts of All Souls is that it was a really interesting book and I think it touched based on a lot of the past and present for people that grew up in and around Boston. The themes are also current problems and things that we all deal with today and here about on the news. I think this will help me with my essay because we got a lot of examples and first hand looks on how to really describe and paint a mental picture.
ReplyDeleteI agree and i like how you connected it to the themes that to this day are current problems.
DeleteWhen we were first assigned to read All Souls I thought to myself "oh great another book to read. I don't have time for it". But after I read the first chapter I really felt a connection with the book. I was able to get a vivid picture of what really was going on in South Boston at the time and due to the fact my mother grew up in South Boston at this time and she had told me stories of the riots. However it did hit you in many ways emotionally such as the violence and the deaths of Ma's Children. The story has had many themes such as Family, violence, drugs, toughness, etc. and it showed you with very detail how each trait was played. After reading this story I have a better understanding of culture and I know this will help me more with my ethnography project...understanding the culture in the field I am getting to know more of.
ReplyDeleteI had that same thought. When she first told us to get a book to read for the class i was like why? we already have enough work. But every chapter i read i got more and more into until i even have to admit i throughly enjoyed it.
DeleteI really enjoyed reading All Souls, in the beginning I just thought it was going to be the same old books about racism but while reading it, I found out the it's much more than that and that's what I liked about it. This book had tons of description on objects, people, and even places and I think that it helped understand the importance of description and how ill need to use it in my ethnography.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, i thought that it was just going to be about racism and i did not want to read it anymore, but it got better as i kept reading.
DeleteI enjoyed reading All Souls, at first I couldn't really get into it but after getting into it it really gets you to keep reading. The themes of family, death, hope, and many others really made you feel for the characters. But the fact that this book was so descriptive and focused on a lot of observing of where they lived and the people that surrounded them everyday. It certainly helped me and i bet many others after reading it understand just how important being descriptive is to your ethnography paper. The reader of your paper was not with you at your site. We were not in Southie going through everything the characters were but we can surely visualize everything Mcdonald was trying to portray to us. We need to do just that. Make a picture for our readers.
ReplyDeleteI agree, All Souls had the perfect way of describing everything and made you visualize everything so easily.
DeleteReading this book has really opened my eyes what lower class city life was like. It always seemed bleak and depressing. It seemed it was filled with violence, drugs and racism. I usually don’t really like reading books but I will admit I loved this one. Every chapter kept you on your twos wondering what was going to happen next, every chapter was a mystery you didn’t know who was going to potentially die next. Every character was at all times a potential target for the violence that surrounded them in their neighborhood. However I don’t think iv every heard of such a tightly knighted community especially in a city. Throughout the book it describes how helpful people were to each other if they came from the same neighborhood, family defiantly seemed to be on the top priority list for every family that lived in Southie. I think the main reason how this book could help me write my paper is, showing me every aspect of a place you can describe in a paper. You could talk about the people, smell, the general feel of the area and what the place your describing even sounds like.
ReplyDeleteAll Souls was one of the few books i read front to back. I really enjoyed it. I liked how it described Southie back when MacDonald lived there. Even though it was not good for MacDonald, i liked how it was full of violence and surprising scenes like when Frankie died. I believe this will help me with my ethnography because it shows how MacDonald uses so much detail to describe even the little things. Like in the part when they moved in with the grandparents, he described in detail about what the couch ma was sleeping on looked like.
ReplyDeleteI agree I don't enjoy a lot of books as much as I did with this one. There were a lot of sad moments but the detail and ending was great. Even with all the sad things that happened to Michael it is amazing the man he became.
DeleteAs sad as this book was I really enjoyed reading it. It kept me interested throughout the book and the observational detail was great. This book will help me with my ethnography because it showed me when it is important to go into detail about certain things and not. It also showed me how to go into detail and give a great image of what you are trying to say. Once I read through my ethnography I will make sure that the readers could get a good mental image of what I am trying to say.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more, it always kept me interested till the last page.
DeleteI agree with you because this book does teach you when to go in detail and when not to.
DeleteMy final thoughts on the book All Souls was over all I liked it. There was never a boring part, something was always going on. The way the author went through his whole life even the horrible parts. It felt like he didn't hold anything back from the most emotional things like having most of his family dying there. Its going to help me with my ethnography because of the dept the author went into describing the events and people. He went into the smallest details about everything.
ReplyDeleteI also really liked how there was always something happening in this book. There was never a slow part because their lives were not boring or slow. I also said that the amount of description and how he didn't leave much out would help me in my ethnography.
DeleteIn my opinion, All Souls is an amazing book. Even though it is tragic and has an unbelievable amount of death, sadness, and drugs, it is still a book that would keep anyone's interest. I was sad to see how all the characters suffered, but it was an all-around good book. In it there was a great use of adjectives that really made you feel like you were there with Michael when you were reading, and I think that will help me when writing my ethnography.
ReplyDeleteMy thoughts on the book about All souls was that it was a great book. It taught me alot about South Boston that i didn't know before. It showed how racism and violence was a big thing back then. To be honest i knew about Whitey Bulger but i really didn't know that he was from Boston and everything he did was in Boston. This book was a great book in my opinion and i would seriously read it over again. This book can help me with my essays because it shows me how to be really descriptive. He uses alot of description in this book and not everything is simple. The experience he had during the time helped him be descriptive because he was there and witnessed everything. So if i visit my place more i think i can do really good on my essay and it will be really helpful.
ReplyDeleteThis book gave me a new perspective on how rough some people's lives were not too long ago, and how racism effects so many people in different ways. The author captures the reader's attention on every page, and includes so much detail that it could be made into a movie. As the book progressed, it was getting more and more difficult to read because of all of the violence and hate and death. I was constantly waiting for another person to die, so that definitely kept me reading and kept me interested even though I didn't want any more people to die. Frankie's death was the most shocking and the most disappointing for me because he had to much potential and could have earned a lot of money as a professional boxer. He could have helped his family escape Southie.
ReplyDeleteThe amount of detail and description that Michael used will definitely influence how I write my ethnography. His writing shows me how much detail that I need to use and how descriptive it must be to make the impact and create the images that Michael managed to make and create. It helped capture the reader's attention and I want to be able to do that for my readers.
I think that All Souls was an amazing book because not only did the author tell the story from one perspective he told it from multiple. What made me more interested in the book was because it was from my own hometown of Boston. All souls was way more different then I expected because reading the first two chapters at first, didn't really catch my attention but as I read on and realized what the point of the book was, I was really into it. I think that this book can help me with my ethnographic project by focousing on detail and theme. Going into detail and describing the importance of my topic.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was first assigned to read this, I wasn't interested at all. While reading it I wanted to know what was going to happen next and ended up reading the whole thing rather quickly. I liked how he used personal experience and brought in the struggle of everyone around him as well, really painting a picture in the readers mind of what he was talking about. I think it is important to take his aspect of descriptions and using them in my ethnography because I want to convey to my audience exactly what I'm talking about as if they were already there.
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