Journal 5/5

3) Describe the mood of your novel so far. Use quotes from the novel to support your claim.

I want to provide an explanation for how the book works before I go into the details of its content. World War Z is an anthological book, a string of different, generally unrelated stories tied together by a host/ omnipresent figure who has the stories at his/her disposal. Anthologies aren't too popular- especially in film- and it isn't often that you see them in mainstream works (as an added note, Pulp Fiction isn't an anthology film just because it isn't in chronological order). In World War Z's case, it is the "published" collection of a journalist's interviews with veterans of a zombie apocalypse, complete with a foreword addressing the fictional fabrication of the book and how its contents came to be compiled into a single, cumulative piece. That being said, the mood of the book varies depending on the person telling it. Although this variability exists the book's interviewees all come across as frantic, scared and adrenaline-fueled at one time or another, emotions which should all be givens considering what the book is about. I mean, zombies are supposed to be scary. In what is undoubtably one of the best stories from the book, a former U.S. Army infantryman sums up a battle in which all of the New York City's zombies were led through a choke point along a freeway in Yonkers, NY:

"You think that after watching all the wonders of modern warfare fall on their high-tech hyper ass, that after already living through three months of the Great Panic and watching everything you knew as reality be eaten alive by an enemy that wasn't even supposed to exist that you're gonna keep a cool f*cking head and a steady f*cking trigger finger? Well, we did!"

Don't get the idea that the whole book is just different military campaigns, but I'd say that quote has the same emotions that each different story has somewhere within it. This especially rings true for some of the more intense parts, as the feeling of fear and the gravity of the situation can really be felt. There are parents, scientists, workers and more-  different stories with different personalities and tones to them. In the time that it would take you to watch the movie, which is around two hours, you could get through at least a third of the book. I highly recommend the latter.