Cooper's Maps to Anywhere

In "Rain Rambling Through Japan," Cooper describes the importance of words. He notes, that in Japan, it is believed that everyday sounds such as rain contain a "syntactical message." This is interesting because it is hard to express the sound of rain through words, yet the sound of rain can have an impact on a persons mood.

One thing that stuck out to me during the beginning of the book was in "Chapter after Chapter," when Cooper proposes that the further we get from original events, "the less truthful these stories become." As time goes on, people start to add more detail to make the story they tell, over and over, seem more interesting. This, I believe, is what writing creative essays is- taking real life events that happen to you, and adding detail to further describe the situation, and emotion, and to make it interesting enough to catch other's attention.

One of my favorite lines in the book so far is from "Capiche?" when Cooper writes, "But lies  are filled with modulations of untranslatable truth..." By this, I think he means that even when we make up lies, there is some event or memory, or truth if you will, behind it that created the idea.