American dream and other things

I completely agree that Bringing Down the House says a lot about the American dream, especially how there more variations on the American dream in today’s society. Kevin and all of the team members are excited by the prospect of easy money.  I feel like that has become the increasingly popular “American dream.” However, Kevin still wants the original American dream of having an education, a 9-5 job, and a girl who his parents would approve of. This also brings up the idea of family. Kevin wants his parents’ approval, and because of that has not told his dad about his Vegas lifestyle. One last topic that I noticed was brought up was the power of the individual. I would say these particular individuals, seemingly harmless college students who are able to tip the odds in their favor to win huge amounts of money from casinos, are very powerful. 

My favorite thing about the book is that while non-fiction, it reads like fiction. The characters are endearing and the plot is interesting and easy to follow. I don’t like the random chapters about the author rather that the story, they are a little disruptive and distracting. I agree that he should have written those all together and stuck them at the beginning or the end of the story.

I also think it is funny and ironic that Kevin often says he lives a double life. Generally, a “double-life” makes me think of undercover agents, or maybe Hannah Montana. Usually people live double lives and go out to catch the bad guys while keeping their loved ones out of danger, or sing songs, but Kevin and the team are viewed more as “bad guys.” I personally don’t think that they are doing anything wrong, but some do think of it as cheating. 

The most powerful part of the text had to have been his change from a naïve college boy to a professional gambler. The book is structured around this transformation, but it is a true story of how money can change a person, for the better or worse. It is really surprising that it is a non-fiction book because I got really into it and couldn’t put it down.  The most instantly exciting would have to have been when they were going on a big run in the MGM Grand and then got caught and almost backroomed. It was also really a big rollercoaster of emotions with Fisher ditching them, him visiting his family, and understanding he needed to leave the "game". 

The thing I liked most about the book was how it was a fiction non-fiction. There is no way that Kevin would remember all those hands that were described in this book, but there would be no way to make this interesting without putting made-up hands in the book. It was a great job by the author to make the whole thing a lot more realistic and less boring. I couldn't put it down at all and I finished it within a day.

The whole book was like an in depth, vegas-style, "Clean Well-Lighted Place". Kevin and the rest of the team started as the young waiter and Mickey started as the older waiter. Later on Kevin became the older waiter when he left gambling, Mickey became the old man and was abandoned and forgotten, and Fisher's team stayed the young waiter because they wouldn't learn. 

What was the most powerful part of the text?  The most exciting?

At the point that I'm at in the book, the most powerful part of the text was when Kevin went home for Thanksgiving and he seemed to see that everything had changed, and that nothing could go back to the way it was. He may have pondered telling his dad about his trips to Vegas and telling Felicia in an attempt to save their dying relationship, but it was obvious that in the back of his mind, Kevin knew that he couldn't tell anyone, it was too much of a risk to to the lifestyle and that if he planned on continuing this, he'd have to keep a secret from everyone who's not in the kind of black jack club.

The most exciting part was when Kevin first traveled to Vegas and met those baseball players and went to the fight and he was just completely breathless and while it all seemed to go by all too fast for me to read but it was still really exciting. 

What do you like best about your book?
         I like how this book brings up the moral issue of "cheating" a casino out of its money. The counting club justifies their actions in two ways. First of all, they would argue that they aren't cheating or stealing from the casino, just strategically playing their odds to maximize their profits. I agree completely with this statement, and think that they are simply using their abilities and resources to their benefit. The second point that might justify card counting is that the casinos are practically stealing money from the general public. However this is not true, people that go to casinos go by choice and need to understand that most likely you will loose everything. If a person is not able to understand this fact, then of course somebody somewhere is going to cheat him/her out of his/her money. What I'm saying is that casinos are also taking advantage of their resources and abilities just like the group does.

Which of our central questions (American dream/possessions, nature, race and equality, individual power, etc.) does your text address most thoroughly?
       I think it addresses both the american dream/possessions as well as race/equality. First off, the idea of card counting is a altered version of the american dream, where you still work hard to earn an ideal life, but you work in an unconventional sense. Yet it is still a very close version, where individuals are being creative and using ingenuity to make their jobs easier. How could anyone argue that the american dream isn't about being progressive and working to make your future comfortable? The book also addresses race and equality through some people having "the look" or rather being able to blend into any crowd. The look comes from having usually tan to fair skin and being of a foreign decent (preferably Asian). The look takes advantage of stereotypes that casinos hold on people. If some 22 year old Asian kid strolls around in an electric blue getup throwing around hundreds of thousands of dollars, its assumed that his dad is some big business owner overseas. But a middle aged white man? He has no place betting that much green. Stereotypes can be used both ways.

American Dream

In the story Kevin is college kid at MIT who is tired of doing the same thing at the lab everyday. He sees his 2 friends Martinez and Fisher having enough money to go to Vegas every weekend and becomes curious. He goes to Atlantic City to see a fight  and while there he and his friends go to the nearby casino. When going there Martinez used an alias Kim not using his real name with the employee. Kevin learns of what Martinez and Fisher do and select him to join the blackjack team. Kevin wants the excitement and agrees.
This ties in with the American Dream because Kevin wants more money and he knows his job in the lab is nothing compared to what he could get.

Bringing Down the House-reflection

I love that Bringing Down the House feels like fiction, but is based on a real event. I hate reading nonfiction 99% of the time, so dressing it up as a compelling narrative with more-or-less a traditional plot triangle makes it much more enjoyable to read. I don't like how the narrative of the author is interspersed with the main story. I wish he had put it all at the beginning, and let the story in the past continue in one chunk.

Obviously, Bringing Down the House addresses issues regarding the American dream and the importance of maximum acquisition of wealth with a minimum of labor. The American Dream has always been about easy money, and progress has always been about making advances to have to work less and get better results in the future. It also looks at the issue of race and gender a bit, but only as a practicality, as Caucasian men are most likely to be pegged as card counters. They take advantage of the white patriarchy, just as shamelessly as they take advantage of the way Vegas casinos work.

What do you know about the author of your book?  Are you curious to know more about the author's story?

 The author of Bringing Down the House is an actual author, who's just telling the story of the M.I.T. students who 'took Vegas for millions'. He met Kevin, the person he's telling the story of, and experienced how the M.I.T. essentially smuggled money past airport security and onto a flight. So, I don't really know much about the author himself, more about the people who's story he's telling. 
I am curious to know more about the author, but not enough so that I would want to venture into a book about the author's life as a writer, but enough so that I'm curious as to how he got into this type of writing or how he kind of felt about coming across a chance like this- to write a book that reads like fiction but is in reality nonfiction. I'm really more curious to learn the rest of the story that he is telling, as opposed to his own story. 

Bringing Down the House

In Bringing Down the House, my favorite thing was how even though it was a true story, it read like fiction. It made it really easy for me to enjoy the literature. Also, just the main idea of the book was really intriguing, especially that these students were able to do such a difficult thing and get away with it for a while. I loved the different people that the students had to become and how they created different personalities for each of them. I thought that was super creative.

I think that there is a huge underlying theme of the American Dream in this book.  Many times throughout the book, Kevin questioned whether or not a life of cheating casinos out of their money was what he wanted or not. He had all this money that he spent on partying and women, but he wasn't always happy. It was not a job, and it was not something he was going to do forever. Because he felt this way, he ended up getting another job to make him happier. I don't think that he ever achieved full happiness though, because he wasn't able to tell as many people as he wanted to. It shows that the American Dream is an empty illusion.

I know that the author of the true story, interviewed the people in it to get more reliable information. I wonder though, if any of the people he interviewed were weird about it. Some of them might not have wanted others to know what they did/were doing for fear of getting caught. Also, he said that he played a round of Black Jack himself, as a gorilla. I want to know if he ever got more into card counting and continued pursuing that.

    

The Assignment and the How-To

Hi Everyone,
In order to post, you need to click that Blogger logo in the upper left corner.  See it? The orange box with the squiggly thing in it?  Then, click on the pencil next to your blog title.  That will allow you to write your post.  When you are done, click "Publish."

Here's Your Assignment:

One thing that we have said repeatedly in our class is that American literature is an ongoing conversation about a few central topics.  These topics are ingrained in our national narrative, the story of who we are as people.  This week, you will begin thinking about topics that connect to this American narrative, and these topics will become the focus of your research after winter break.

To get you started generating topics for research, use your lit circle books.  I'd like two written responses from you this week, both posted to your group blog.  I also expect you to read and respond to each others' posts.  If you were to type your response in Word first, it would be about a page.  DO NOT JUST ANSWER A LIST OF MY QUESTIONS.  Instead, generate two or three paragraphs on the questions that interest you most.  The questions to consider:

• What do you like best about your book?  What do you like least?
• What was the most powerful part of the text?  The most exciting?
• Which of our central questions (American dream/possessions, nature, race and equality, individual power, etc.) does your text address most thoroughly?
• What questions does this book raise for you?  What does it make you wonder?
• What are some topics that you could research (based on your book)?
• What place do you think your text has in the body of American literature?
• How does the text "talk back" to some of the authors we've already read?
• What do you know about the author of your book?  Are you curious to know more about the author's story?