Day Two of Group Presentations

Wow! Another great day of presentations!

My group presented first. We showed a film we made about chess and how Nabokov constructs chess problems that the reader must solve by reading through his novels. Adam was the technical genius behind the whole project, and I would like to thank him especially for all the work he put into our movie. He brought together quotes, voice overs, still images, different angles of the scenes we shot, and music into a great finished product. Thanks Adam! Joan was great as Kinbote and added some....twitchiness to the role which made me laugh at least. The more we looked in Nabokov's novels, the more chess references we saw. We could have spent an entire semester simply talking about that! Still, I'm happy with how our project turned out, and I hope everyone else enjoyed it too.

Group Five went after us. Each of the group members composed a different written piece in the style of their characters. Humbert Humbert journaled, Lolita wrote a poem from the road, John Shade did a dramatic reading of a recent poem =) , and of course, Kinbote commented on that poem. I was particularly impressed by how well everyone in the group captured the personalities of each major character in their individual writing styles. The unifying theme to their presentation was our own class list. I liked that interplay between "reality" and fiction along with the extra layer of the fictional characters as well. Also very impressive was the amount of blogs this group referenced. They must have read them all! Great job! And what an amazing poem by John Shade. It was beautiful, just as Pale Fire is, and the performance was excellent.

Finally, Group Six did a skit showing the fairy tale connections in Lolita. What a great final presentation! You guys had me laughing the whole time, and I was amazed at just how many references you were able to get in in such a short time. Using the projector to set the scene was a great idea too; it really helped to have a backdrop, music, something multifaceted like that. Here are some of the fairy tales referenced: Little Red Riding Hood, Venus and Actaeon, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Ariel, Beauty and the Beast, and Frankenstein. Wow I just don't know what to say...you guys did an amazing job, and your performances were really enjoyable.

Now its on to individual presentations. Good luck to everyone presenting tomorrow! I wasn't sure if I had to go tomorrow, but if I do, I may be entirely too sleep deprived as I was up all night putting the finishing touches on the paper. Try not to hold it too much against me if I'm barely conscious. =)