All right, so I’m a little behind. Between juggling essays/readings for other classes sometimes I have a hard time keeping everything up in the air. Rasselas is a pretty interesting read. I know that it was mentioned in class that the Arabian theme is fairly weak and that it could have just as easily have taken place in Joe Blow’s apartment or an amusement park, but I thought that it was good regardless. What I thought was really interesting about it was that the book is about a philisophical quest for “happiness” and that it never really defined what “happiness” was for any of the characters; they all just kind of wandered around waiting for it to catch them by surprise. It’s kind of funny when you think about it. It’s like the #1 commandment of philosophy: “define what you seek or else you will not find it”. What I enjoyed the most was that it didn’t feel like Johnson was trying to cram his ideas down our throat, instead it was as if he wanted to expose us to a bunch of ideas and tell us that none were right. Memories of Dr. Jones saying that Johnson said that it was impossible to be happy come leaping to mind, perhaps that is why it leaves such an empty taste in our mouths.
At the beginning when Rasselas was searching for a way to escape Happy Valley I was absolutely certain that Johnson was going to pull something straight out of Greek myth and have them sail away with man made wings of wax and feathers. Although it became clearer and clearer as the novel went on that nothing like this was ever going to happen it helped keep things going.
http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/English_Literature/englit_1/images/rasselas.jpg
P.S I have no idea what I’m doing when it comes to pictures and videos here. This is just an alternate (better) cover for Rasselas.
