Blog Entry #9

Option Two :
How do both of these writers use the landscape of Los Angeles in their stories? Both writers use the landscape of Los Angeles very well, and in depth, in The Kidnapper Bell, by Jim Pascoe, I did not truly see Los Angles, may be because I did not know the area, or the story did not provide a certain locations with more detail. Thus, toward he end of the story the writer did use a landscape that I felt was part of Los Angeles. The one quote that graved my attention was as follows, "He turns onto San Fernando Road...He puts his window down, even though the late-night air is cool. He wants to drive forever"(266). Yet, the writer does use the Los Angeles River most. Neal Pollack, writer of City of Commerce, gave me a perfect example of Los Angeles, because the narrations always illustrated its surroundings, by giving the name of different cities, the descriptions of a location and how you would feel if you happened to be there. It remind me of the city of angels. One perfect description that Pollack gave was in page 233, as he wrote, "Still, I'd drawn the perfect table mix of sour middle-aged Korean ladies, old dudes who bore the perfume and hairstyle of late-era William S. Burroughs, a couple of Persian frat boys from UCLA, and a pockmarked chole who leaned so far onto a cane when he stood  that he fell to a sixty-five-degree angle"(233). Here, Pollack showed the diverse culture that L.A. has, and from there we can imagine a part of the city. The other part I thought was interesting was how he used the freeways' to name major parts of Los Angeles: like Glassell Park, Downtown, and Gardena. The writers' in these two stories, depict L.A. due to the fact that we see lonely dark streets in one and a fast moving environment in the other, making the reader feel parts of Los Angeles we all can recognize. I can clearly feel like am in L.A. at a certain point in both stories. These two stories illustrate parts that can only be found in L.A. not anywhere else I've been-in.