Week 1 Storybook Favorites

When I think of the word storytelling, I tend to imagine not only the literary content of the story but also the act of telling the story. Hence, I Am Not my Brother's Sister: A Changeling's Journey  caught my eye thanks to the author's ability to give the storytelling itself a setting. It gives the author the ability to insert his or her own writing to highlight certain parts of the story and creates continuity among the stories. I myself have a tendency to implore narrative in whatever I write, even if it's a essay for a scholarship or campus award. In my opinion, it gives life to the words one chooses. 

Perhaps I've subjected myself to a type of determinative nominism by naming this blog after Boccaccio; I can't seem to stop myself from looking for ways in which I can draw connections. In any case, Remember the Alamo! evokes the Italian humanist's use of la cornice narrativa in the Decameron. As I scrolled through the different pages, I was both surprised and delighted to discover that the author had included letters written by characters in the stories. Just as members of the brigata tell their own stories within the plague-induced plot of the Decameron, these letters are the products of authors who are characters of a larger story themselves. Furthermore, imbedding character-produced writing in a story adds a sense of realism and seems to add credibility. 

As a language major, I LOVE seeing multiple languages in writing even if I can't read the foreign language myself. Finals Week: Death Notes  does this with Latin in a way the reminds me of Dante's Commedia. I understand a bit of Latin just based upon my knowledge of Italian, but for the most part, I'm left in the dark. Not knowing a language adds an element of mystery when the language in question is set within a story. Plutus' nonsense words in the beginning of Canto VII come to mind as an example. The psalms sung by the penitents in Purgatorio are another. There's a good chance that I'll incorporate untranslated language in my Storybook, and I'm interested how I'll use it to enhance my writing.