Sharks and Fire

While reading the Burn Journals I couldn’t help but notice the author’s unique styling of writing in his memoir compared to other books I have read. The texts simplicity and unsophisticated style took me by surprise, so much that I realized if I didn’t know the author I could easily label it as a 5^th grade paper written out of mere imagination, yet I believe this is what makes it so special. The way Runyon is able to look back and remember every detail of the accident and still writes as if he were writing in that moment, being 14 and in middle school is quite impressive. It reminded me of Bethany Hamilton’s autobiography Soul Surfer, written after a shark bit off her arm while surfing in the beaches of Hawaii. Clearly the plot is similar; Brent’s memoir is mainly focused in the hospital as he relives his surgeries, his nurses, and his visitors. The same way Bethany recalls some of the same events while she was recovering both physically and emotionally from losing one of her limbs.

It’s pretty hard to explain in words what I mean so I will show you two paragraphs of each book while both Bethany and Brent are in the hospital in their own scenarios.

                        Soul Surfer

“So they hooked me up to lots of machines- I’m not sure what they were all for, but I know they were giving me fluids and taking lots of X-rays and blood levels. Later I would learn that I had lost nearly half of my blood volume.”

-Bethany Hamilton Pg. 96

                      The Burn Journals

“Everybody is worried because of my temperature is so high, but forty doesn’t seem very high to me, or maybe it is because it’s not in Celsius or it is Celsius, I’m not sure which.”

-Brent Runyon Pg.36

These two paragraphs are a perfect example of how the writing is expressed din both books. My point is that they were both 13, 14 years old when tragedy struck and even though they published the books years after the actual events they still sound like innocent kids living through a nightmare. They don’t understand very well what’s going on and they don’t have the right words to express the pain of being burned alive or the shock of having a Tiger Shark bite off your arm from the shoulder. They were very scared and confused, but the writing makes you believe you are in the present, so basically it becomes they are scared and confused. It’s what gives each text originality and essence in every word, it may seem simple but the importance of their descriptions is valuable for the reader to understand them.