I found that blog (I love people who don't update their blog rolls. Seriously): http://professorme.blogspot.com/
A big thank you to the Grumpies for introducing the Hull family to Gunnerkrigg! Sir John stayed up till the small hours were no longer so very small, reading it. I'm still going through the archives very, very slowly because I don't want it ever to end.
Leonard Cohen is bringing out a new album. And he's releasing it on vinyl as well as on CD. I'm not actually such a geek as to get the vinyl version, but I love that there are such geeks and that Leonard is catering to them.
Someone left a link to Apartment Therapy in the comments to New Kid's decorating post. Cool stuff. Only I think you'd really have to get rid of a lot of stuff before their ideas would work, and that is precisely the hard part. I also read with great interest the post on how to pack lightly for a trip, as I always enjoy such advice, but, again as usual, I found that I actually pack lighter than the advisors do. That is, when I'm flying I pack that lightly. Driving to Kalamazoo? You'd think I was moving in.
Showing posts with label fun reading. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fun reading. Show all posts
25 January 2012
30 November 2011
The Place: Babylon-5
When it was first on television, Sir John and I watched B-5 regularly, and soon started taping episodes if we couldn't watch them live. We loved that show. Several years ago, he gave me Season 2 on DVD. We were on vacation at the time of the gift, and although we watched a few of its episodes then, once we were home again we lapsed. For the last couple of years, there's always been so much on the DVR that we rarely watch anything on DVD.
But over the Thanksgiving break, we broke out B-5 and have been galloping through that second season (I'm hoping to get more for Christmas this year). It's a great show. Watching a lot of episodes all at once makes clear how carefully planned it all was, and how significant clues were planted early on. You forget that kind of thing when you see one episode a week.
I'm loving it, but there's one thing about the show that's really making me crazy, and that's how . . . chick-flick-ish it is. I can't think of any better term for it. The human characters are always going on about their feeeeeelings. Every episode, someone says some variation of "Do you want to talk about it?" ("I'm here if you want to talk about it. If you want to talk, I'll listen. How do you feel about that?") Tough guys always have a marshmallow interior and have to reveal their vulnerabilities. Dysfunctional family situations can be fixed if a victim of bullying will just tell the bully s/he loves him. People in dysfunctional relationships of any kind regret not telling the other person they loved them before it was too late.
Well, I'm not that much of a chick. I'd like the humans to shut up and kick some alien ass. Or at least conspire and back-stab and mutter about dark political plots, or even dark mystical forebodings, the way G'Kar does. The "aliens" (except for Delenn) are way better about getting on with things instead of emoting.
Maybe it was a nineties thing. Maybe the writers read too many self-help books. Maybe it was an attempt to get female audiences into sci-fi series. Whatever. This female was begging Steven Franklin to grow a pair and tell his dad to fuck off instead of longing for his approval. Acting like a victim is the perfect way to get a bully to keep bullying you. With some people, using your words just doesn't work.
I guess there's a reason sci-fi and fantasy are shelved together.
But over the Thanksgiving break, we broke out B-5 and have been galloping through that second season (I'm hoping to get more for Christmas this year). It's a great show. Watching a lot of episodes all at once makes clear how carefully planned it all was, and how significant clues were planted early on. You forget that kind of thing when you see one episode a week.
I'm loving it, but there's one thing about the show that's really making me crazy, and that's how . . . chick-flick-ish it is. I can't think of any better term for it. The human characters are always going on about their feeeeeelings. Every episode, someone says some variation of "Do you want to talk about it?" ("I'm here if you want to talk about it. If you want to talk, I'll listen. How do you feel about that?") Tough guys always have a marshmallow interior and have to reveal their vulnerabilities. Dysfunctional family situations can be fixed if a victim of bullying will just tell the bully s/he loves him. People in dysfunctional relationships of any kind regret not telling the other person they loved them before it was too late.
Well, I'm not that much of a chick. I'd like the humans to shut up and kick some alien ass. Or at least conspire and back-stab and mutter about dark political plots, or even dark mystical forebodings, the way G'Kar does. The "aliens" (except for Delenn) are way better about getting on with things instead of emoting.
Maybe it was a nineties thing. Maybe the writers read too many self-help books. Maybe it was an attempt to get female audiences into sci-fi series. Whatever. This female was begging Steven Franklin to grow a pair and tell his dad to fuck off instead of longing for his approval. Acting like a victim is the perfect way to get a bully to keep bullying you. With some people, using your words just doesn't work.
I guess there's a reason sci-fi and fantasy are shelved together.
30 October 2011
Reading Comprehension
A couple of books recently entered this house (actually, books enter this house on a regular basis, and few of them ever leave), and I was struck by the contrast in their style. I have mentioned my reading tastes before: Pamela Dean, Lois McMaster Bujold, Amanda Cross, Angela Thirkell, C. J. Cherryh, and so on. But when I'm not reading mindless fluff, I'm usually deep into something peer-reviewed. I have little patience with jargon-filled obfuscation, but on the other hand, I do expect serious reading to have serious vocabulary.
So when Sir John brought home Willpower (Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney), which has been well-reviewed in such august places as the New York Times, I was surprised by its chatty tone and pop-culture references. Here's the first paragraph of chapter one, in its entirety: "If you have a casual acquaintance with Amanda Palmer's music, if you know about her banned-in-Britain abortion song or the 'Backstabber' video of her running down a hall naked holding an upraised knife while chasing the equally naked guy in lipstick who was just in bed with her, you probably don't think of her as a paragon of self-control."
I have no idea who Amanda Palmer is, nor does this (what I take to be an appeal to popular taste) want to make me read on. I was hoping for a serious treatment of willpower, which is what the reviews led me to expect.
Now, for contrast, here's the first paragraph of A New Stoicism (Lawrence C. Becker) acquired at the same bookstore, same shopping trip: "After five hundred years of prominence in Greek and Roman antiquity, stoic ethics was pillaged by theology and effaced by evangelical and imperial Christianity. A few stoic philosophers survived, most of them by providing analgesics for use in pastoral counseling, the military, and what then passed for medicine and psychotherapy. Only those shards of our doctrines were widely seen during the Middle Ages, and the term stoic came to be applied merely to people who used remedies. This confusion persists."
I would have expected serious non-fiction to sound more like example two than like example one. In fact, I am amazed that Willpower has had such good reviews, when it seems to be written for people with a sixth-grade reading ability. But if that's what we're reduced to, then no wonder my students don't know the words "bough," "clad," and "boisterous."
So when Sir John brought home Willpower (Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney), which has been well-reviewed in such august places as the New York Times, I was surprised by its chatty tone and pop-culture references. Here's the first paragraph of chapter one, in its entirety: "If you have a casual acquaintance with Amanda Palmer's music, if you know about her banned-in-Britain abortion song or the 'Backstabber' video of her running down a hall naked holding an upraised knife while chasing the equally naked guy in lipstick who was just in bed with her, you probably don't think of her as a paragon of self-control."
I have no idea who Amanda Palmer is, nor does this (what I take to be an appeal to popular taste) want to make me read on. I was hoping for a serious treatment of willpower, which is what the reviews led me to expect.
Now, for contrast, here's the first paragraph of A New Stoicism (Lawrence C. Becker) acquired at the same bookstore, same shopping trip: "After five hundred years of prominence in Greek and Roman antiquity, stoic ethics was pillaged by theology and effaced by evangelical and imperial Christianity. A few stoic philosophers survived, most of them by providing analgesics for use in pastoral counseling, the military, and what then passed for medicine and psychotherapy. Only those shards of our doctrines were widely seen during the Middle Ages, and the term stoic came to be applied merely to people who used remedies. This confusion persists."
I would have expected serious non-fiction to sound more like example two than like example one. In fact, I am amazed that Willpower has had such good reviews, when it seems to be written for people with a sixth-grade reading ability. But if that's what we're reduced to, then no wonder my students don't know the words "bough," "clad," and "boisterous."
27 September 2011
Book meme
I got this from the Little Professor. But I’m answering these questions selectively—just those I had a strong reaction to.
1. Favorite childhood book?
Just one? Childhood lasts awhile, you know. Tastes and abilities change between 5 and 12. They change between 11 and 11 1/2, come to that. But if you insist, I think I was and am particularly fond of Noel Streatfield’s Ballet Shoes.
2. What are you reading right now?
A blog, you silly person.
5. What do you currently have checked out at the library?
More than 60 books, on assorted medieval topics.
6. Do you have an e-reader?
Yes. It was a gift. I haven’t put anything on it in the, um, year and a half? that I’ve had it.
8. Have your reading habits changed since starting a blog?
Not since starting my own one. Since starting to read blogs, yes: I read fewer novels.
10. Favorite book you’ve read this year?
What is it with the favorites? I like different things for different reasons, in different moods and circumstances. It’s not as if I keep a pile of this year’s books around organized from top to bottom in order of how much I loved them. It’s not even as if I can remember what I’ve read this year or last year.
15. What is your policy on book lending?
Fuck right off! Put that down, now!
17. Do you ever write in the margins of your books?
In pencil, lightly. I find it difficult to write in books, even my own. Post-it notes are very common, though.
22. Favorite genre?
Again with the favorites. I am not such a simple character.
26. Favorite cookbook?
Get a grip! Depends on what I’m cooking.
30. How often do you agree with critics about a book?
Depends on which critics (is this a “favorite” question in disguise?). I encourage grad students to get to know the works of scholars in their field so they’ll know whether they can count on their reviews. From some people, a bad review means I know I’m going to want to read the book.
32. If you could read in a foreign language, which language would you chose?
Modern language? I already read fluently in French and Spanish; with a dictionary I can get through Italian and German adequately. So I think I’d go for something more exotic, like Arabic or Japanese. Dead languages . . . I’ve made a couple of attempts at classical Greek, so it might be nice to get a shortcut to fluency there, but then again, if I’m taking shortcuts, I’d probably pick hieroglyphic Egyptian. Or cuneiform.
33. Most intimidating book you’ve ever read?
For the love of . . . listen, a book is an inanimate object. It’s not even a dangerous object, like a gun or a guillotine. I have never been intimidated by a book. And neither should you be. No one can intimidate you without your consent.
35. Favorite Poet?
W. H. Auden. Or Louise Labé. Or A. C. Swinburne. Diane Wakoski has her points. So does Charles d’Orléans. And Francis Jammes. I think I should go back to my “that’s too simplistic” stance on the topic of “favorite.”
36. How many books do you usually have checked out of the library at any given time?
I decline to answer this on the ground that it may tend to incriminate me.
38. Favorite fictional character?
39. Favorite fictional villain?
Go away, I’m tired of these.
40. Books I’m most likely to bring on vacation?
Take. Unless you are currently on vacation, in which case you have indeed brought books, you will take a book or books on vacation.
41. The longest I’ve gone without reading.
You mean, while I’m awake? I can’t read after an eye doctor has dilated my pupils for that one test they do . . . that may last 4-5 hours.
43. What distracts you easily when you’re reading?
Comma splices.
46. The most money I’ve ever spent in the bookstore at one time?
La la la la la. Not answering. You don’t want to know, anyway. But I’ll tell you this: two years ago I spent $250 on a single book and knew I had a bargain, though the people I was traveling with gasped when I answered their question about the cost.
55. Favorite guilt-free, pleasure reading?
Why would you feel guilty about reading? This is like the intimidation question. Whoever thought this thing up has some psychological problems.
1. Favorite childhood book?
Just one? Childhood lasts awhile, you know. Tastes and abilities change between 5 and 12. They change between 11 and 11 1/2, come to that. But if you insist, I think I was and am particularly fond of Noel Streatfield’s Ballet Shoes.
2. What are you reading right now?
A blog, you silly person.
5. What do you currently have checked out at the library?
More than 60 books, on assorted medieval topics.
6. Do you have an e-reader?
Yes. It was a gift. I haven’t put anything on it in the, um, year and a half? that I’ve had it.
8. Have your reading habits changed since starting a blog?
Not since starting my own one. Since starting to read blogs, yes: I read fewer novels.
10. Favorite book you’ve read this year?
What is it with the favorites? I like different things for different reasons, in different moods and circumstances. It’s not as if I keep a pile of this year’s books around organized from top to bottom in order of how much I loved them. It’s not even as if I can remember what I’ve read this year or last year.
15. What is your policy on book lending?
Fuck right off! Put that down, now!
17. Do you ever write in the margins of your books?
In pencil, lightly. I find it difficult to write in books, even my own. Post-it notes are very common, though.
22. Favorite genre?
Again with the favorites. I am not such a simple character.
26. Favorite cookbook?
Get a grip! Depends on what I’m cooking.
30. How often do you agree with critics about a book?
Depends on which critics (is this a “favorite” question in disguise?). I encourage grad students to get to know the works of scholars in their field so they’ll know whether they can count on their reviews. From some people, a bad review means I know I’m going to want to read the book.
32. If you could read in a foreign language, which language would you chose?
Modern language? I already read fluently in French and Spanish; with a dictionary I can get through Italian and German adequately. So I think I’d go for something more exotic, like Arabic or Japanese. Dead languages . . . I’ve made a couple of attempts at classical Greek, so it might be nice to get a shortcut to fluency there, but then again, if I’m taking shortcuts, I’d probably pick hieroglyphic Egyptian. Or cuneiform.
33. Most intimidating book you’ve ever read?
For the love of . . . listen, a book is an inanimate object. It’s not even a dangerous object, like a gun or a guillotine. I have never been intimidated by a book. And neither should you be. No one can intimidate you without your consent.
35. Favorite Poet?
W. H. Auden. Or Louise Labé. Or A. C. Swinburne. Diane Wakoski has her points. So does Charles d’Orléans. And Francis Jammes. I think I should go back to my “that’s too simplistic” stance on the topic of “favorite.”
36. How many books do you usually have checked out of the library at any given time?
I decline to answer this on the ground that it may tend to incriminate me.
38. Favorite fictional character?
39. Favorite fictional villain?
Go away, I’m tired of these.
40. Books I’m most likely to bring on vacation?
Take. Unless you are currently on vacation, in which case you have indeed brought books, you will take a book or books on vacation.
41. The longest I’ve gone without reading.
You mean, while I’m awake? I can’t read after an eye doctor has dilated my pupils for that one test they do . . . that may last 4-5 hours.
43. What distracts you easily when you’re reading?
Comma splices.
46. The most money I’ve ever spent in the bookstore at one time?
La la la la la. Not answering. You don’t want to know, anyway. But I’ll tell you this: two years ago I spent $250 on a single book and knew I had a bargain, though the people I was traveling with gasped when I answered their question about the cost.
55. Favorite guilt-free, pleasure reading?
Why would you feel guilty about reading? This is like the intimidation question. Whoever thought this thing up has some psychological problems.
26 July 2011
Oxfam coincidences
I'm sure no one remembers this post, or cares. But what I'm pretty sure was this book came into my hands in an Oxfam book shop in York. Of course I'd mis-remembered some details, and totally forgot the drunken writer. I probably imported some bits from other fluff I'd either looked at the night I didn't buy the book when it was new, or found elsewhere, or just thought would make a better story. After all, I decided not to buy the book when I first ran across it, and when the York copy came into my hands, I soon knew why: I can't read anything with basic punctuation errors of the sort I regularly and repetitiously explain to undergrads.
But it was in Oxfam, which is a good cause; I acquired it, read it in the tub to decompress from a very intense (and wonderful) conference, and left it behind. So it'll probably turn up back in the Oxfam shop soon enough.
Hmm. Maybe I should write the version I came up with.
But it was in Oxfam, which is a good cause; I acquired it, read it in the tub to decompress from a very intense (and wonderful) conference, and left it behind. So it'll probably turn up back in the Oxfam shop soon enough.
Hmm. Maybe I should write the version I came up with.
07 April 2011
Awesome!
I've forgotten how I got here. I was wandering around the Internet one night, and some link to someone I don't usually read got me to a mention of this book, which I loved as a child and had completely forgotten about. At least, it may have crossed my mind from time to time, but in shreds utterly devoid of useful information like author or title, as so often happens with books I read in my youth, although if you put me back in my grade school library (as it was then, not as it is now) I could go straight to them. I sort information spatially, and remember how to get to things even if I can't tell anyone else how to do it.
Anyway! My uni library has a great section of juvenile books, because it took over some elementary/junior high libraries at some point, and keeps adding to them. So I went and checked out Jade after I left my office yesterday, started reading it at dinner, and stayed up past midnight to finish it. It was even better than I remembered it. In brief, a girl in 1719 Virginia refuses to be groomed as a belle, is sent away to live with relatives, releases a cargo of slaves from the ship she's on and is flogged for it, then rescued by pirate queen Anne Bonney. It ends hopefully if not wholly happily (clearly Jade is going to come to a bad if glorious end sooner rather than later, but she'll go down fighting slavers; Anne Bonney marries a nice doctor and seems to succumb to pregnancy hormones . . . maybe she'll get feisty again once the children are in school).
I checked out only the one book, because I . . . really . . . must . . . grade . . . must . . . but I am looking forward to reading not only the other Watson books I remember but also ones my elementary school library didn't have. Highly recommend, people! If you don't have to grade, or you need fun procrastination material, check out Sally Watson.
Anyway! My uni library has a great section of juvenile books, because it took over some elementary/junior high libraries at some point, and keeps adding to them. So I went and checked out Jade after I left my office yesterday, started reading it at dinner, and stayed up past midnight to finish it. It was even better than I remembered it. In brief, a girl in 1719 Virginia refuses to be groomed as a belle, is sent away to live with relatives, releases a cargo of slaves from the ship she's on and is flogged for it, then rescued by pirate queen Anne Bonney. It ends hopefully if not wholly happily (clearly Jade is going to come to a bad if glorious end sooner rather than later, but she'll go down fighting slavers; Anne Bonney marries a nice doctor and seems to succumb to pregnancy hormones . . . maybe she'll get feisty again once the children are in school).
I checked out only the one book, because I . . . really . . . must . . . grade . . . must . . . but I am looking forward to reading not only the other Watson books I remember but also ones my elementary school library didn't have. Highly recommend, people! If you don't have to grade, or you need fun procrastination material, check out Sally Watson.
03 April 2011
Another one bites the dust
Women of a certain age (and other scholars) have been leaving us right and left lately: Liz Taylor, Geraldine Ferraro, and now Sara Ruddick. I am not a philosopher; in fact, if phrenology were a science, there would be a large hole in my head wherever the bump for philosophy ought to be. The only work of Ruddick's I ever read was the essay collection Working it Out. But that book was so important to me that it is still on my shelves, though I can't remember the last time I handled it. It's at the office, not at home, so I am working from memory today.
I acquired a copy while I was still in college in the 1980s. Not for a class; it must have come from a used book store, of which there were many in town. The essays by women, many of them academics, who had struggled to claim lives that included work and the rest of what they wanted, whether or not that included children, travel, a partner of either sex, inspired me as I was trying to work out what I wanted in my life and how to get it. That book said to me, There are options. It said, You can do things if you figure out how. It said, Yes, there will be challenges because you are a woman, but your sex doesn't define your relationship to work.
Without having the book to hand, I can't remember many specifics about its contents. I think I recall a scientist's essay about her lab work, and I know I had the sensation, reading it, that I could try on various lives: what would it be like to be a writer, an artist, a scientist, a mother who was devoted to something other than child-rearing, Girl Scouts, and the PTA? At the beginning of each essay was a picture of its writer, usually in some characteristic place or pose, and I remember poring over those for clues to what the adult life I wanted might look like. Reading it was the same sort of pleasure that reading blogs is, now: the chance to discover other possibilities, and that others face similar obstacles, and can advise on how to overcome them.
The essay that over many years meant the most to me, the one that I do remember by author, is by Virginia Valian, about solving a work problem, that is, getting oneself to start working (writing) when one has not been working. The author lived with a man who suggested starting by working for three hours. Three hours! The very thought triggered an anxiety attack. Two hours! The very thought . . . . But she could cope with 15 minutes, so she set a timer for 15 minutes, and when she was comfortable with that, added another 15-minute session, and so on. (I found that there is a PDF of this article available, at maxweber.hunter.cuny.edu/psych/faculty/.../1977workingItOut.pdf; there's also a table of contents, so now I'm thinking, "Wow, how did I forget that Alice Walker was in here? And Tillie Olsen?" But anyway . . . )
Now we're all familiar with such techniques, but this (in the 1980s, remember) was the first time I had seen anybody address both the specifics of what you needed to do and the larger context of anxiety and expectations that make it so difficult to tackle some projects. What do you do when you know you "have it in you" but can't figure out where to start? Valian had always thought of herself as someone who would become Someone, but getting down to brass tacks was harder. She wanted to get away from the fantasies of what could happen, and focus on the enjoyability of work for its own sake.
I'm going to re-read the essay now that I've found it, but I treasure my memories of it, as well, however vague or imprecise they may be. It was useful in college, in grad school, pre-tenure. The whole book was a treasure, at least to my college self, and I want to pay tribute to the woman who co-edited it and thereby showed a lot of women what might be.
I acquired a copy while I was still in college in the 1980s. Not for a class; it must have come from a used book store, of which there were many in town. The essays by women, many of them academics, who had struggled to claim lives that included work and the rest of what they wanted, whether or not that included children, travel, a partner of either sex, inspired me as I was trying to work out what I wanted in my life and how to get it. That book said to me, There are options. It said, You can do things if you figure out how. It said, Yes, there will be challenges because you are a woman, but your sex doesn't define your relationship to work.
Without having the book to hand, I can't remember many specifics about its contents. I think I recall a scientist's essay about her lab work, and I know I had the sensation, reading it, that I could try on various lives: what would it be like to be a writer, an artist, a scientist, a mother who was devoted to something other than child-rearing, Girl Scouts, and the PTA? At the beginning of each essay was a picture of its writer, usually in some characteristic place or pose, and I remember poring over those for clues to what the adult life I wanted might look like. Reading it was the same sort of pleasure that reading blogs is, now: the chance to discover other possibilities, and that others face similar obstacles, and can advise on how to overcome them.
The essay that over many years meant the most to me, the one that I do remember by author, is by Virginia Valian, about solving a work problem, that is, getting oneself to start working (writing) when one has not been working. The author lived with a man who suggested starting by working for three hours. Three hours! The very thought triggered an anxiety attack. Two hours! The very thought . . . . But she could cope with 15 minutes, so she set a timer for 15 minutes, and when she was comfortable with that, added another 15-minute session, and so on. (I found that there is a PDF of this article available, at maxweber.hunter.cuny.edu/psych/faculty/.../1977workingItOut.pdf; there's also a table of contents, so now I'm thinking, "Wow, how did I forget that Alice Walker was in here? And Tillie Olsen?" But anyway . . . )
Now we're all familiar with such techniques, but this (in the 1980s, remember) was the first time I had seen anybody address both the specifics of what you needed to do and the larger context of anxiety and expectations that make it so difficult to tackle some projects. What do you do when you know you "have it in you" but can't figure out where to start? Valian had always thought of herself as someone who would become Someone, but getting down to brass tacks was harder. She wanted to get away from the fantasies of what could happen, and focus on the enjoyability of work for its own sake.
I'm going to re-read the essay now that I've found it, but I treasure my memories of it, as well, however vague or imprecise they may be. It was useful in college, in grad school, pre-tenure. The whole book was a treasure, at least to my college self, and I want to pay tribute to the woman who co-edited it and thereby showed a lot of women what might be.
27 March 2011
Looking down
http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2011/03/26/diana-wynne-jones-1934-2011/
Nooooooo.
Even with two more books to appear . . . noooooo.
Nooooooo.
Even with two more books to appear . . . noooooo.
17 February 2011
Still lame, in more ways than one
I've never been one of those multiple-posts-a-day bloggers, or even (except for short stretches), a once-a-day blogger, but really, what has happened to my blog-brain? I seem to be living IRL instead of online. That can't be right.
I feel like I'm just starting my day at sundown, not my usual schedule at all. The beginning of the week was intense, with my on-campus days running 11 hours each (plus the commute on either end). Because I was so tired, I stayed up too late last night (you know, just couldn't get myself to go to bed, too tired to make sensible decisions about how to use my time), slept late this morning, got up for breakfast and cat-wrangling, and then went back to bed for several hours. I feel vastly better for the sleep, but so much for all the things that were supposed to get done during daylight hours. I will still write tonight, though; and even if I don't put in a planned two hours on grading, I'm at least going to sort the papers into piles based on which topic their writers chose.
This is how I wind up working on weekends. If I had to show up at an office, obviously I'd have dragged myself through today; but since I spent the day asleep, the time will have to get made up somehow, and Saturday/Sunday are the obvious times to do that. Actually, I've started feeling a sense of relief when the weekend rolls around, because I can finally get my work done without interruption, sort of like wanting to get to the office early or stay late so you can do your job without people wanting things from you all the time, whether via e-mail, phone calls, or popping in "for just a minute."
I could just declare that my "weekend" is some non-standard set of days, like Thursday and Friday, and take Saturday and Sunday as working days. But of course e-mail still comes around from people on campus during the week; and Sir John works a more "normal" schedule; and the New York Times Sunday edition only comes out on Sunday. And people tend to schedule social events for Friday and Saturday nights, or Sunday afternoons. So some weekend stuff is still going to happen on the regular weekend.
But really, I like the non-standard, flexible, work-whenever schedule that academia makes possible. Sometimes it's good to have a day or two totally free of work, but a lot of what I do goes better if I do it every day. Writing, for instance. Grading, too, is better done either in large chunks or in very steady regular sessions, so that I can be reasonably sure I'm applying the same criteria to all the papers. Reading. Recently I tried reading fiction a chapter or so a day (well, okay, maybe 1/4 of a book per day, let's be honest: less than that is only possible if I really hate the book). I found that I forgot key plot elements and spent a lot of time paging around trying to find where they were. Binge-reading is much more satisfying. I don't read for a half-hour's enjoyment; I read to plunge totally into the world of the book. I don't want to come up for air. I follow the story better, notice more details, if I'm completely submerged.
So while I'm happy with the write-every-day habit (it's sticking; I really do feel twitchy till I get it done, and better afterward), I'm going to keep some of my other "bad" habits, like working on weekends and binge-reading when I discover a book or author I like.
As for the "more ways than one" part, remember my ankle problems? I would have sworn I had the damn thing totally rehabbed. I was on the cross-trainer for an hour at a time, even running a little bit (a mile or two at a time, on a treadmill). All was fine. And then a couple of weeks ago, I stood up to walk across the kitchen floor and suddenly the ankle hurt and felt weak. So I'm back to bracing it and trying to do just-enough exercise in the pool and on the exercise bike, until it's better again. I am annoyed. I have much more energy when I can exercise for longer periods.
Cat update: the Scot seems to have trouble with an eye again, so we'll be going to the vet tomorrow, second vet-trip in a week (different cats). He's been off-color since his last chemo dose, too. The Shakespearean Heroine is struggling with constipation again. TMI? She's an old lady, with old-lady problems. The other cats are well, knock on wood and all that.
I feel like I'm just starting my day at sundown, not my usual schedule at all. The beginning of the week was intense, with my on-campus days running 11 hours each (plus the commute on either end). Because I was so tired, I stayed up too late last night (you know, just couldn't get myself to go to bed, too tired to make sensible decisions about how to use my time), slept late this morning, got up for breakfast and cat-wrangling, and then went back to bed for several hours. I feel vastly better for the sleep, but so much for all the things that were supposed to get done during daylight hours. I will still write tonight, though; and even if I don't put in a planned two hours on grading, I'm at least going to sort the papers into piles based on which topic their writers chose.
This is how I wind up working on weekends. If I had to show up at an office, obviously I'd have dragged myself through today; but since I spent the day asleep, the time will have to get made up somehow, and Saturday/Sunday are the obvious times to do that. Actually, I've started feeling a sense of relief when the weekend rolls around, because I can finally get my work done without interruption, sort of like wanting to get to the office early or stay late so you can do your job without people wanting things from you all the time, whether via e-mail, phone calls, or popping in "for just a minute."
I could just declare that my "weekend" is some non-standard set of days, like Thursday and Friday, and take Saturday and Sunday as working days. But of course e-mail still comes around from people on campus during the week; and Sir John works a more "normal" schedule; and the New York Times Sunday edition only comes out on Sunday. And people tend to schedule social events for Friday and Saturday nights, or Sunday afternoons. So some weekend stuff is still going to happen on the regular weekend.
But really, I like the non-standard, flexible, work-whenever schedule that academia makes possible. Sometimes it's good to have a day or two totally free of work, but a lot of what I do goes better if I do it every day. Writing, for instance. Grading, too, is better done either in large chunks or in very steady regular sessions, so that I can be reasonably sure I'm applying the same criteria to all the papers. Reading. Recently I tried reading fiction a chapter or so a day (well, okay, maybe 1/4 of a book per day, let's be honest: less than that is only possible if I really hate the book). I found that I forgot key plot elements and spent a lot of time paging around trying to find where they were. Binge-reading is much more satisfying. I don't read for a half-hour's enjoyment; I read to plunge totally into the world of the book. I don't want to come up for air. I follow the story better, notice more details, if I'm completely submerged.
So while I'm happy with the write-every-day habit (it's sticking; I really do feel twitchy till I get it done, and better afterward), I'm going to keep some of my other "bad" habits, like working on weekends and binge-reading when I discover a book or author I like.
As for the "more ways than one" part, remember my ankle problems? I would have sworn I had the damn thing totally rehabbed. I was on the cross-trainer for an hour at a time, even running a little bit (a mile or two at a time, on a treadmill). All was fine. And then a couple of weeks ago, I stood up to walk across the kitchen floor and suddenly the ankle hurt and felt weak. So I'm back to bracing it and trying to do just-enough exercise in the pool and on the exercise bike, until it's better again. I am annoyed. I have much more energy when I can exercise for longer periods.
Cat update: the Scot seems to have trouble with an eye again, so we'll be going to the vet tomorrow, second vet-trip in a week (different cats). He's been off-color since his last chemo dose, too. The Shakespearean Heroine is struggling with constipation again. TMI? She's an old lady, with old-lady problems. The other cats are well, knock on wood and all that.
04 January 2011
More about Colin
(Spoilers ahead, if you've not read Blackout and All Clear.)
Clio's Disciple quite rightly points out, in a comment on my last post, that Colin Templer (now there's a name for a medievalist) does engage in serious archival work. He really gets a twofer, since in order to do it, he has to time-travel to a past where the archives still exist; or maybe a threefer, since he also makes carefully calibrated visits to WWII. In short, by the time All Clear is over, he has all the background necessary to be THE World War II historian of his generation: hands-on experience and archival research in more than one decade (let's hope he wrote things down and didn't rely on memory).
But the decade of research Colin undertakes is glossed over in a few sentences; clearly it was tedious, dusty, worrisome work, punctuated by occasional depressing discoveries and only briefly enlivened by a drink with an attractive fellow-researcher. A. S. Byatt does a better job of conveying the romance of the archives, but perhaps for Willis's purposes, the archives need to be boring, because Colin isn't doing the work for its own sake but so he can find Polly. The romance has to be front and center; archival work is the test-quest the fairy-tale prince undergoes to win the princess.
While I'm being critical, though, let's think about who Colin is, why he can do this, and what the results are likely to be. White male, check. Privileged background, check: educated at Eton and Oxford. Connections, check: his dead great-aunt was a close friend of Jim Dunworthy, who supervises the time-travel lab in 2050's Oxford; Colin has grown up in and out of the lab, and knows the technicians and other useful dramatis personae. Supposing the boy in love with Polly had been almost anyone else? A townie, her hometown sweetheart, an immigrant, a person of color? Supposing the lover had been a girl? Would anyone but someone with Colin's privileges be able to spend so much time badgering the techs to recompute possible drop sites? Wouldn't anyone else get kicked out of the lab?
If the job situation in 2060 is rosier than it is now, then Colin and Polly might turn into the academic power couple of the decade: she has over a year of actual lived experience of WWII, while Colin has done all the research I listed earlier. Polly, of course, will still have to do the writing-up part, while Colin . . . hang on . . . thanks to time-travel, Colin has had ten years to do research and, conceivably, write up a spin-off article or several, while Polly has been stuck in 1941 expecting to die in the Blitz. Can you say "post-traumatic stress syndrome"? How about "patriarchal equilibrium"? I'm afraid that I foresee not a relationship between academic equals, but Colin waltzing into a high-profile position and negotiating some sort of trailing-spouse job for Polly. Or maybe she'll become a faculty wife.
I hope not. I hope I'm being too gloomy and early-twenty-first-century about this. And I want to make it clear that I like Colin, and was glad to see him back, and I love Willis's books. One of the things I like about them is how much food for thought they generate.
Clio's Disciple quite rightly points out, in a comment on my last post, that Colin Templer (now there's a name for a medievalist) does engage in serious archival work. He really gets a twofer, since in order to do it, he has to time-travel to a past where the archives still exist; or maybe a threefer, since he also makes carefully calibrated visits to WWII. In short, by the time All Clear is over, he has all the background necessary to be THE World War II historian of his generation: hands-on experience and archival research in more than one decade (let's hope he wrote things down and didn't rely on memory).
But the decade of research Colin undertakes is glossed over in a few sentences; clearly it was tedious, dusty, worrisome work, punctuated by occasional depressing discoveries and only briefly enlivened by a drink with an attractive fellow-researcher. A. S. Byatt does a better job of conveying the romance of the archives, but perhaps for Willis's purposes, the archives need to be boring, because Colin isn't doing the work for its own sake but so he can find Polly. The romance has to be front and center; archival work is the test-quest the fairy-tale prince undergoes to win the princess.
While I'm being critical, though, let's think about who Colin is, why he can do this, and what the results are likely to be. White male, check. Privileged background, check: educated at Eton and Oxford. Connections, check: his dead great-aunt was a close friend of Jim Dunworthy, who supervises the time-travel lab in 2050's Oxford; Colin has grown up in and out of the lab, and knows the technicians and other useful dramatis personae. Supposing the boy in love with Polly had been almost anyone else? A townie, her hometown sweetheart, an immigrant, a person of color? Supposing the lover had been a girl? Would anyone but someone with Colin's privileges be able to spend so much time badgering the techs to recompute possible drop sites? Wouldn't anyone else get kicked out of the lab?
If the job situation in 2060 is rosier than it is now, then Colin and Polly might turn into the academic power couple of the decade: she has over a year of actual lived experience of WWII, while Colin has done all the research I listed earlier. Polly, of course, will still have to do the writing-up part, while Colin . . . hang on . . . thanks to time-travel, Colin has had ten years to do research and, conceivably, write up a spin-off article or several, while Polly has been stuck in 1941 expecting to die in the Blitz. Can you say "post-traumatic stress syndrome"? How about "patriarchal equilibrium"? I'm afraid that I foresee not a relationship between academic equals, but Colin waltzing into a high-profile position and negotiating some sort of trailing-spouse job for Polly. Or maybe she'll become a faculty wife.
I hope not. I hope I'm being too gloomy and early-twenty-first-century about this. And I want to make it clear that I like Colin, and was glad to see him back, and I love Willis's books. One of the things I like about them is how much food for thought they generate.
01 January 2011
Blacking out
This year, I dealt with Christmas by reading. I checked out a tall stack of Charles Todd’s mysteries featuring Ian Rutledge, the haunted WWI vet, and started working through them a couple of days before the dreaded 25th. For a change, after Christmas, I moved up to WWII, thanks to a gift of Connie Willis’s Blackout and All Clear. Yeah, despite my being a medievalist, somehow my fun reading list seems to come from the History Channel; the American Civil War is all that’s missing.
Willis’s two recent books have the same background, and pretty much the same plot, as The Doomsday Book: “historian” from mid-twenty-first century Oxford gets stuck in a harrowing period of history while things go wrong in 2054 or 2060; eventually the complications on both ends of the story get sorted out, although, history being what it is, some people die. I enjoyed these books. In fact, I found them riveting, and recommend them if you like stories about time travel (physicists probably should steer clear). But the academic in me looks for elements that are not there. The time-traveling historians not only don’t spend any time writing up their research, most of them don’t even have clear questions they’re trying to answer about the past. OK, Mike in the recent pair does have a clearly stated topic, and even thinks about how to write it up: he’s interested in what makes a hero, why an apparently ordinary person can perform heroic acts at a crisis point. However, this strikes me more as a question for psychology or philosophy than for history (a historian friend of mine says this topic would never get approved for dissertation research). As for Polly and Eileen, they observe people (shopgirls in the Blitz, evacuated children), but it’s not at all clear what the results of their observations are, or what questions they’re trying to answer. Are they at the “reading-around” stage of research, where you know you want to work on, say, Anglo-Saxon legal history, but not what your specific topic is? But since time-travelers can’t go back to a period they’ve already been in, it seems to me that “reading around” should still be reading, with fieldwork done after they have determined a hypothesis to test.
The same friend says that Willis engages in real history: she is interested in how the past affects the present, and simply avoids the academic politics that don’t make for a good story. As a literary scholar, I appreciate the need to develop a good plot and avoid bogging down in the sort of academic controversies that drive us professors crazy. And yet it disturbs me that Willis’s “historians” never get past “what was it like?” (which my friend assures me is a reasonable starting question, especially for social history) to “what does it mean?” which is what I think of as a required question, or questioning attitude, for those of us who study the past.
It’s true that I am the sort of reader who likes character-driven stories with lots of atmosphere, and I’m willing to sacrifice rapid plot development in exchange. Sir John is the other sort of reader; the atmospheric, character-driven novels I love make him crazy. So I know there are other ways of looking at this. Nonetheless, in the interests of verisimilitude, I would like more background on the way historians work in the mid-twenty-first century. In The Doomsday Book, we do see some turf wars between modern and medieval, “academic,” document-driven (or linguistics-driven) scholars vs. “practical,” time-traveling historians; but these focus on rivalries within Oxford colleges and faculties, not the larger scholarly conversation. The scholars with whom Jim Dunworthy engages, in Blackout and To Say Nothing of the Dog, are Japanese theoreticians concerned with the possible paradoxes and problems of time-travel: they seem to be closer to physicists than to historians. And, of course, it seems obvious that the Japanese would not be able to do fieldwork studies of medieval England.
To Say Nothing of the Dog makes a couple of references to race: it would be risky to send Badri Chaudhuri to WWII because he might be taken for a Japanese spy (WTF? Why couldn’t Badri be a soldier in the Indian Army?), and the entire past is a 10 (most dangerous ranking) for blacks. So Willis is aware that most of her historians are white, and for certain times and places, could only be white: otherwise they either couldn’t get to the place and time they were studying (the continuum will not allow disruptions to history as it has happened), or they would need a damned good legend to account for their presence. The corollary, which she does not explore, is that for other times and places, only historians of the appropriate race and sex could manage to observe the past.
Only someone of Asian descent would be able to study most of Chinese history, for example. Bill Jordan would not be able to visit medieval England. Meso-American history could be observed only by people with the appropriate features and skin color. Female scholars interested in the history of the Catholic Church could study only convents and lay people, not monasteries and the institutional Church. The identity politics that already shape our departments, fields of study, and scholarly discussion would become even more central, and even more virulent, as the study of history would divide between field-work historians and archival historians. I can imagine the fights: “My observations show X about attitudes toward taxation; you only know the archives.” “On the contrary, you have observed attitudes in one village, whereas I have read all the documents relating to the central administration’s collection of taxes; your study is woefully incomplete.” It would degenerate from there.
To be sure, students are usually less aware of the scholarly controversies and politics than are practicing scholars. But drawing graduate students’ attention to these is part of the job of teaching graduate classes, and making students read quantities of historiography (or literary criticism, for some of us) is another crucial component. What are the supervisors of Polly, Eileen, and Mike thinking? In preparing to go to the past, the time-travelers wind up focusing on grade-school “history,” memorizing dates and places (for example, when Tube stations were bombed). There is obvious practical application for this information, of course, if you’re actually going to be in the Blitz. But it is ironic that a writer whose central question is “how does the past influence the present” forces her “historians” to commit facts to memory, rather than asking searching questions about the significance of those facts.
I am curious to know what some historians think: ADM? John Jarrett? Anybody? Comments very welcome.
Willis’s two recent books have the same background, and pretty much the same plot, as The Doomsday Book: “historian” from mid-twenty-first century Oxford gets stuck in a harrowing period of history while things go wrong in 2054 or 2060; eventually the complications on both ends of the story get sorted out, although, history being what it is, some people die. I enjoyed these books. In fact, I found them riveting, and recommend them if you like stories about time travel (physicists probably should steer clear). But the academic in me looks for elements that are not there. The time-traveling historians not only don’t spend any time writing up their research, most of them don’t even have clear questions they’re trying to answer about the past. OK, Mike in the recent pair does have a clearly stated topic, and even thinks about how to write it up: he’s interested in what makes a hero, why an apparently ordinary person can perform heroic acts at a crisis point. However, this strikes me more as a question for psychology or philosophy than for history (a historian friend of mine says this topic would never get approved for dissertation research). As for Polly and Eileen, they observe people (shopgirls in the Blitz, evacuated children), but it’s not at all clear what the results of their observations are, or what questions they’re trying to answer. Are they at the “reading-around” stage of research, where you know you want to work on, say, Anglo-Saxon legal history, but not what your specific topic is? But since time-travelers can’t go back to a period they’ve already been in, it seems to me that “reading around” should still be reading, with fieldwork done after they have determined a hypothesis to test.
The same friend says that Willis engages in real history: she is interested in how the past affects the present, and simply avoids the academic politics that don’t make for a good story. As a literary scholar, I appreciate the need to develop a good plot and avoid bogging down in the sort of academic controversies that drive us professors crazy. And yet it disturbs me that Willis’s “historians” never get past “what was it like?” (which my friend assures me is a reasonable starting question, especially for social history) to “what does it mean?” which is what I think of as a required question, or questioning attitude, for those of us who study the past.
It’s true that I am the sort of reader who likes character-driven stories with lots of atmosphere, and I’m willing to sacrifice rapid plot development in exchange. Sir John is the other sort of reader; the atmospheric, character-driven novels I love make him crazy. So I know there are other ways of looking at this. Nonetheless, in the interests of verisimilitude, I would like more background on the way historians work in the mid-twenty-first century. In The Doomsday Book, we do see some turf wars between modern and medieval, “academic,” document-driven (or linguistics-driven) scholars vs. “practical,” time-traveling historians; but these focus on rivalries within Oxford colleges and faculties, not the larger scholarly conversation. The scholars with whom Jim Dunworthy engages, in Blackout and To Say Nothing of the Dog, are Japanese theoreticians concerned with the possible paradoxes and problems of time-travel: they seem to be closer to physicists than to historians. And, of course, it seems obvious that the Japanese would not be able to do fieldwork studies of medieval England.
To Say Nothing of the Dog makes a couple of references to race: it would be risky to send Badri Chaudhuri to WWII because he might be taken for a Japanese spy (WTF? Why couldn’t Badri be a soldier in the Indian Army?), and the entire past is a 10 (most dangerous ranking) for blacks. So Willis is aware that most of her historians are white, and for certain times and places, could only be white: otherwise they either couldn’t get to the place and time they were studying (the continuum will not allow disruptions to history as it has happened), or they would need a damned good legend to account for their presence. The corollary, which she does not explore, is that for other times and places, only historians of the appropriate race and sex could manage to observe the past.
Only someone of Asian descent would be able to study most of Chinese history, for example. Bill Jordan would not be able to visit medieval England. Meso-American history could be observed only by people with the appropriate features and skin color. Female scholars interested in the history of the Catholic Church could study only convents and lay people, not monasteries and the institutional Church. The identity politics that already shape our departments, fields of study, and scholarly discussion would become even more central, and even more virulent, as the study of history would divide between field-work historians and archival historians. I can imagine the fights: “My observations show X about attitudes toward taxation; you only know the archives.” “On the contrary, you have observed attitudes in one village, whereas I have read all the documents relating to the central administration’s collection of taxes; your study is woefully incomplete.” It would degenerate from there.
To be sure, students are usually less aware of the scholarly controversies and politics than are practicing scholars. But drawing graduate students’ attention to these is part of the job of teaching graduate classes, and making students read quantities of historiography (or literary criticism, for some of us) is another crucial component. What are the supervisors of Polly, Eileen, and Mike thinking? In preparing to go to the past, the time-travelers wind up focusing on grade-school “history,” memorizing dates and places (for example, when Tube stations were bombed). There is obvious practical application for this information, of course, if you’re actually going to be in the Blitz. But it is ironic that a writer whose central question is “how does the past influence the present” forces her “historians” to commit facts to memory, rather than asking searching questions about the significance of those facts.
I am curious to know what some historians think: ADM? John Jarrett? Anybody? Comments very welcome.
03 September 2010
Not dead yet
I have not fallen off the face of the earth; I'm not even all that overwhelmed with the beginning of classes and trying to finish a draft of the Current Project before getting on with that pesky R&R (countdown in the sidebar). I just haven't had anything I wanted to blog about. Classes look okay so far, though I'm still struggling to retain some sense of denial that they have started. I'm working my way through the print-out of the CurPro, revising and expanding as I go, and finding considerable satisfaction in this work.
And I recently read a book I loved, and that I want to tell you about, although of course my musings probably won't make much sense until you read it. I found Rachel Ferguson's The Brontes Went to Woolworth's through a reference in a biography of Barbara Pym, which seemed to me an excellent recommendation. The Amazon summary is all right, but the comments there and some other online reviews seem to me to miss the point in various ways (the book was published in 1931, okay, so it's not describing 1930s London. Or maybe it's just that I am sufficiently steeped in 1920s British culture (thanks to my near-obsession with the Mitfords, Dorothy Sayers, and other high spots of the era, and my mother's obsession with the Brontes) that I don't read altogether as a twenty-first century reader. Or maybe being an English professor is good for something, even though professionally I deal with rather older texts.
Or maybe being a sci-fi/fantasy fan helps. The Brontes Went to Woolworth's reminded me very strongly of Diana Wynne Jones's The Time of the Ghost, another book I'm very fond of (and where I would quibble with the School Library Journal's review of it, quoted on the Amazon site). Why do people seem to think books should start with a clear expository statement of what is going on? Have they never heard of the principle in medias res? Part of the fun of reading is figuring out what's happening. "Cryptic communication" (SLJ about TotG)? Huh. If you divide your time between reading Middle English and reading Cherryh's Er-Series (as I call it: you know, ForeignER, DefendER, etc), with a dose of Mitfordiana somewhere along the line, the in-jokes of either book are no trouble at all. So, okay, that does rule out a lot of middle-schoolers, but I don't think I have any of them reading along here. And even if I do: learn to figure out what's going on from the context! Imagine that you're over-listening to a conversation you ought not to be hearing: how would you figure it out IRL?
Anyway, what strikes me most strongly about Ferguson's book is how much a product of its time it is, even as in many ways it anticipates current YA interests. In a world gone mad for vampires and other such critters, The Brontes Went to Woolworth's seems remarkably wholesome. I kept expecting it to be more menacing, to slide over into real spookiness, but instead its point (or one of them) seems to be to domesticate the uncanny, to say, "Look, whatever you call up with your imagination you can also tame, using your imagination." Despite my protests above, I do not read wholly as a 1930s reader: more recent fantasy literature, especially, has conditioned me to expect certain conventions being put into play. But those conventions were not in place for Ferguson. She's working with the conventions of her time, in which séances were a popular party game (see Unnatural Death), pierrots were glamorous figures (see Murder Must Advertise; and I must point that the pierrot figure is not the same as the lower-class comedian), and the music-hall was still a viable form of entertainment. The music-hall atmosphere is one of the elements that keeps this novel comic. As is the domesticity: the setting is definitely this-world, not other-world, mostly indoors or in the garden; and the girls' mother is a significant figure, in contrast to many similar stories where parents are dead, ill, or hopelessly distracted.
Byatt's The Game, to which she alludes in the introduction to the Virago re-issue of The Brontes Went to Woolworth's, is far more frightening in its treatment of where the imagination can take you, even though (or because?) it is a wholly realistic novel. Her short story about the little girls in war-time England who encounter Malory's Questing Beast (sorry, I can't remember its title) is a good example of how literature, reality, and imagination can intersect in the sort of chilling way I expected of Ferguson's book.
As for its classism, well, duh—what would you expect? Read as an anthropologist: this is how people of this time, class, and education thought. Byatt says when she first read Brontes . . . Woolworth's, she was hoping Love Would Conquer All, so Katrine would marry Freddie. I get a bit tired of that narrative. I thought the sisters had a good point about the lower-class in-laws Katrine would have had to cope with all her life (read the Mothers-In-Law thread over at the Chronicle if you don't think you marry a family as well as a spouse). Some people wouldn't mind that, but if you do, then you do, and better to think about it beforehand than to regret it afterward.
Basically, everything the reviews I've linked to criticize is IMO a point in the book's favor, and if you like Diana Wynne Jones and Dorothy Sayers, then you would probably like Ferguson. Or at least this book. I need to order myself some more Ferguson to find out if her other books are similarly delightful.
And I recently read a book I loved, and that I want to tell you about, although of course my musings probably won't make much sense until you read it. I found Rachel Ferguson's The Brontes Went to Woolworth's through a reference in a biography of Barbara Pym, which seemed to me an excellent recommendation. The Amazon summary is all right, but the comments there and some other online reviews seem to me to miss the point in various ways (the book was published in 1931, okay, so it's not describing 1930s London. Or maybe it's just that I am sufficiently steeped in 1920s British culture (thanks to my near-obsession with the Mitfords, Dorothy Sayers, and other high spots of the era, and my mother's obsession with the Brontes) that I don't read altogether as a twenty-first century reader. Or maybe being an English professor is good for something, even though professionally I deal with rather older texts.
Or maybe being a sci-fi/fantasy fan helps. The Brontes Went to Woolworth's reminded me very strongly of Diana Wynne Jones's The Time of the Ghost, another book I'm very fond of (and where I would quibble with the School Library Journal's review of it, quoted on the Amazon site). Why do people seem to think books should start with a clear expository statement of what is going on? Have they never heard of the principle in medias res? Part of the fun of reading is figuring out what's happening. "Cryptic communication" (SLJ about TotG)? Huh. If you divide your time between reading Middle English and reading Cherryh's Er-Series (as I call it: you know, ForeignER, DefendER, etc), with a dose of Mitfordiana somewhere along the line, the in-jokes of either book are no trouble at all. So, okay, that does rule out a lot of middle-schoolers, but I don't think I have any of them reading along here. And even if I do: learn to figure out what's going on from the context! Imagine that you're over-listening to a conversation you ought not to be hearing: how would you figure it out IRL?
Anyway, what strikes me most strongly about Ferguson's book is how much a product of its time it is, even as in many ways it anticipates current YA interests. In a world gone mad for vampires and other such critters, The Brontes Went to Woolworth's seems remarkably wholesome. I kept expecting it to be more menacing, to slide over into real spookiness, but instead its point (or one of them) seems to be to domesticate the uncanny, to say, "Look, whatever you call up with your imagination you can also tame, using your imagination." Despite my protests above, I do not read wholly as a 1930s reader: more recent fantasy literature, especially, has conditioned me to expect certain conventions being put into play. But those conventions were not in place for Ferguson. She's working with the conventions of her time, in which séances were a popular party game (see Unnatural Death), pierrots were glamorous figures (see Murder Must Advertise; and I must point that the pierrot figure is not the same as the lower-class comedian), and the music-hall was still a viable form of entertainment. The music-hall atmosphere is one of the elements that keeps this novel comic. As is the domesticity: the setting is definitely this-world, not other-world, mostly indoors or in the garden; and the girls' mother is a significant figure, in contrast to many similar stories where parents are dead, ill, or hopelessly distracted.
Byatt's The Game, to which she alludes in the introduction to the Virago re-issue of The Brontes Went to Woolworth's, is far more frightening in its treatment of where the imagination can take you, even though (or because?) it is a wholly realistic novel. Her short story about the little girls in war-time England who encounter Malory's Questing Beast (sorry, I can't remember its title) is a good example of how literature, reality, and imagination can intersect in the sort of chilling way I expected of Ferguson's book.
As for its classism, well, duh—what would you expect? Read as an anthropologist: this is how people of this time, class, and education thought. Byatt says when she first read Brontes . . . Woolworth's, she was hoping Love Would Conquer All, so Katrine would marry Freddie. I get a bit tired of that narrative. I thought the sisters had a good point about the lower-class in-laws Katrine would have had to cope with all her life (read the Mothers-In-Law thread over at the Chronicle if you don't think you marry a family as well as a spouse). Some people wouldn't mind that, but if you do, then you do, and better to think about it beforehand than to regret it afterward.
Basically, everything the reviews I've linked to criticize is IMO a point in the book's favor, and if you like Diana Wynne Jones and Dorothy Sayers, then you would probably like Ferguson. Or at least this book. I need to order myself some more Ferguson to find out if her other books are similarly delightful.
24 January 2010
DJW Quiz!
http://firedrake.org/cgi-bin/quiz.cgi?quiz=dwjcharacter
If I answer as myself, as accurately as the questions allow, I come out as Sophie from Howl's Moving Castle. Answering as someone I wish I were, I'm Luke in Eight Days of Luke, which I have never read.
In real life, I'm slightly depressed (weather has been gray for a week) and highly procrastinatory and this really must stop.
If I answer as myself, as accurately as the questions allow, I come out as Sophie from Howl's Moving Castle. Answering as someone I wish I were, I'm Luke in Eight Days of Luke, which I have never read.
In real life, I'm slightly depressed (weather has been gray for a week) and highly procrastinatory and this really must stop.
07 September 2009
Review, having finished the book
I think how a person feels about The Magicians might depend on how that person feels about Narnia. The main character, Quentin, and most of his friends read their version of Narnia (called Fillory) when they were kids, and some of them seem to have remained quite attached to it. At first I took Fillory more as a stand-in for Any Fantasy World You Once Loved, but in the second half of the book I started to think that the Narnia-ness of it actually mattered. And while I enjoyed the Narnia books as a child, whenever I figured out the Christian allegory (about age 11, I think), I went right off them. I still have time for Lewis as a scholar, but I do not care for his fiction. I waded through all the Silent Planet trilogy, in my late teens, because someone I thought well of recommended them, but I thought they started out bad and got worse.
I have no interest in debating whether or not Lewis could write fiction—de gustibus non disputandem est—but I am curious as to what a Narnia-Lover would think of Grossman's book, so if you fall into that category and have read The Magicians, let me know.
[09.19.2011: It is no longer the case that the rest of my thoughts will appear "below the fold," because something's gone screwy with the HTML so I just took it out. I hope that by now anybody who would have minded the spoilers has read the book.] I can't explain what I didn't like without spoilers. What's more, I can't make sense of the book without getting all English-professor-y on its ass.
We meet Quentin as he's about to take the entrance exam for a college of magic; part of what entices him to do so is having a brief encounter with what purports to be a sixth Fillory book, when there only ever were five that anyone knows of. However, it disappears before he can read it. During his years at the college, he periodically re-reads the Fillory books, thus filling readers in on their plots: English kids, a grandfather clock, talking animals, not-too-threatening villains, animal-gods who send the kids back at the end of each set of adventures, you know the drill. College is good: learning magic is very hard, but Quentin makes some friends, attracts a lover (Alice, a super-smart young woman), and passes some seriously hairy exams. The first half of the book worked, for me. There were some obvious Plot Points to Be Developed, like the missing Fillory book, the Girl Left Behind, the Beast (a Terrible Invasion from Another World, when Quentin plays a prank during a lecture), and the Mysterious Death of Alice's Brother. But that's okay; I know that if there's a gun on the table in the first act, it'll get fired in Act III. Anticipation adds to the fun.
After graduation, it's all downhill. Quentin and his friends don't seem to know what to do with themselves, except move to New York and do drugs. Even brilliant Alice hangs out with these losers instead of going to Glasgow for graduate school. (Alice, darling, men are like streetcars; there'll be another one in ten minutes if you just dump Quentin. Quite possibly one with a fabulous Scots accent! Well, there's no telling a 21-year old such things. They just say you're a cynical old bat.) Then one of their not-exactly-a-friends turns up with a magical button that can take them to Fillory. Yes, one of The Magical Buttons that were thoroughly hidden at the end of the fifth book. Not peyote buttons. Just to thicken the plot, Quentin cheats on Alice and then she cheats on him, so everybody can be thoroughly distraught and distracted, and see Fillory as some sort of magical happy potion that will solve all their problems. (The cynical old bat says: wanting to sleep with someone else is Nature's way of telling you it's time to break up. Get the break-up over with first. Can't face it? Okay, then don't sleep with the other one. Grow the fuck up.)
Eight people from this world go to Fillory and have harrowing adventures. Bad Shit Happens. It's all because the Beast (remember the Beast?) is actually one of those English kids from the stories who figured out a way to stay in Fillory. It involves unsavory magical practicies, and he's after Quentin and his pals because he (the Beast) needs to collect all those Magical Buttons so nobody can ever make him go back home. This is significant: apparently staying in Fillory makes you into a monster. Okay. Alice sacrifices herself to save the others, killing the Beast; Quentin is seriously injured and passes out.
Six months later, he comes out of his coma, still in Fillory. The others hung around for a couple of months and then left him. The mysterious sixth book of Fillory turns up again; as he reads it, its author, the youngest of the English kids and sister of the Beast, appears in Quentin's room, so they can talk over what happened. Thanks to a time-travel device, she has been trying for a very long time to kill her brother; every time she or her minions has failed, she undoes everything. This is the only time he's ever wound up dead, so she's not willing to go back and try to make it so Alice survives. She breaks the device. Quentin goes on a quest to find the magic beast that can grant a wish and send him home.
Back in this world, he plans to renounce magic. Uh-huh: then why accept a job through the magical school, even if it's in a big corporation? I mean, if you're going to renounce magic, go whole hog and get an accounting degree from Large Regional U, instead of surfing the internet and collecting a paycheck for doing it in an office in a suit instead of at home in pyjamas. He meets the woman who was involved in the Mysterious Death of Alice's Brother; she thinks Magic is Evil. Quentin can't quite agree.
And the next thing you know, two of his friends from the ill-fated Fillory expedition turn up, along with the Girl He Left Behind, and say they're going back, does Quentin want to come? Yeah. Yeah, he does. The End.
And I said, "What?"
I don't get it. Fillory was awful. The talking bunnies were violent. They had to be killed. And while it's bad enough killing nasty orcs, killing oversized talking bunnies is worse, in my view. Apparently wanting to stay in Fillory, or at least doing what it takes to allow you to stay, turns you into a magical monster. Alice died there. Another guy lost his hands and can no longer do magic. Any sensible person would never want to see the place again. It's not as if there's any hope of restoring Alice, or fixing anything else. They just want to go to Fillory and be kings and queens there. In my view, graduate school would be a much better option.
So what's going on? I have two theories. One is that the ending is "about" the powerful pull that fantasy literature has on its fans; given the opportunity to leave the ordinary world for the fictional one, they'll go, no matter how marvellous their real lives (even if they're powerful magicians!), no matter how awful the fictional world turns out to be. This makes the book a cautionary tale.
The other is that the ending is "about" the powerful pull of Christianity: no matter how atheistic and sophisticated people are, given the chance to enter a Christian orbit, they'll do it. I can't tell if this makes the book cautionary or celebratory. Sir John points out that it seems a bit odd for a writer named Lev Grossman to take the celebratory point of view, so maybe it's cautionary. (I never put too much stock in people's names. I used to know a Filipina called something analogous to Christmas Feinman, okay? You just never know.)
Anyway, there is a minor character, a practicing Christian magician, who is one of the few people with any sense; he helps Quentin's pals prepare for the trip to Fillory, in practical terms, stays out of the doomed expedition, and turns up (after Quentin passes out) to get everybody else out of the maze they were in. This makes Christians look like the good guys, or at least, like the sensible, responsible grown-ups. Moreover, the fantastically irritating animal-god (a ram, get it?), who keeps telling people that there are things beyond their understanding (I cheered when one of Quentin's friends said she'd heard just about enough about her understanding, thank you), does say two wise things before the Beast kills him: one, that Fillory is not a theme park for the Children of Earth to dress up and play with swords in, and two, how can Quentin expect to save Fillory when he can't even save himself? Alice has said similar things to Quentin at various points, so this seems to be a theme in the book.
But I suppose it could be along the line of even a stopped clock being right twice a day: everybody from Alice to the the ram-god is telling Quentin the same thing, and he still doesn't want to hear it.
Maybe it's just supposed to be a dark fantasy where there are no good guys and nobody wins. Well, that's not what I read fantasy for. And I sure don't want to have to get all English-proffy on my brain-candy's ass in order to make sense of it. Indeterminate endings work fine for lit classes, if that's what floats your boat, but when I read for fun I want a clear-cut happy ending where good triumphs. If Narnia and talking animal-gods are bad, boring, unsophisticated, whatever, then let's have Quentin & Co. grow up. If they're good, then let's have them take Fillory and its problems seriously.
Maybe this is a weird homage to Narnia from someone who enjoyed the books as a kid and then, though Jewish, found they were Christian allegory and that really screwed him up. Maybe.
I don't know. The hell with it. I think I need to go read some Vorkosigan space opera to clear my mental palate. Let's kick some Cetagandan ass.
I have no interest in debating whether or not Lewis could write fiction—de gustibus non disputandem est—but I am curious as to what a Narnia-Lover would think of Grossman's book, so if you fall into that category and have read The Magicians, let me know.
[09.19.2011: It is no longer the case that the rest of my thoughts will appear "below the fold," because something's gone screwy with the HTML so I just took it out. I hope that by now anybody who would have minded the spoilers has read the book.] I can't explain what I didn't like without spoilers. What's more, I can't make sense of the book without getting all English-professor-y on its ass.
We meet Quentin as he's about to take the entrance exam for a college of magic; part of what entices him to do so is having a brief encounter with what purports to be a sixth Fillory book, when there only ever were five that anyone knows of. However, it disappears before he can read it. During his years at the college, he periodically re-reads the Fillory books, thus filling readers in on their plots: English kids, a grandfather clock, talking animals, not-too-threatening villains, animal-gods who send the kids back at the end of each set of adventures, you know the drill. College is good: learning magic is very hard, but Quentin makes some friends, attracts a lover (Alice, a super-smart young woman), and passes some seriously hairy exams. The first half of the book worked, for me. There were some obvious Plot Points to Be Developed, like the missing Fillory book, the Girl Left Behind, the Beast (a Terrible Invasion from Another World, when Quentin plays a prank during a lecture), and the Mysterious Death of Alice's Brother. But that's okay; I know that if there's a gun on the table in the first act, it'll get fired in Act III. Anticipation adds to the fun.
After graduation, it's all downhill. Quentin and his friends don't seem to know what to do with themselves, except move to New York and do drugs. Even brilliant Alice hangs out with these losers instead of going to Glasgow for graduate school. (Alice, darling, men are like streetcars; there'll be another one in ten minutes if you just dump Quentin. Quite possibly one with a fabulous Scots accent! Well, there's no telling a 21-year old such things. They just say you're a cynical old bat.) Then one of their not-exactly-a-friends turns up with a magical button that can take them to Fillory. Yes, one of The Magical Buttons that were thoroughly hidden at the end of the fifth book. Not peyote buttons. Just to thicken the plot, Quentin cheats on Alice and then she cheats on him, so everybody can be thoroughly distraught and distracted, and see Fillory as some sort of magical happy potion that will solve all their problems. (The cynical old bat says: wanting to sleep with someone else is Nature's way of telling you it's time to break up. Get the break-up over with first. Can't face it? Okay, then don't sleep with the other one. Grow the fuck up.)
Eight people from this world go to Fillory and have harrowing adventures. Bad Shit Happens. It's all because the Beast (remember the Beast?) is actually one of those English kids from the stories who figured out a way to stay in Fillory. It involves unsavory magical practicies, and he's after Quentin and his pals because he (the Beast) needs to collect all those Magical Buttons so nobody can ever make him go back home. This is significant: apparently staying in Fillory makes you into a monster. Okay. Alice sacrifices herself to save the others, killing the Beast; Quentin is seriously injured and passes out.
Six months later, he comes out of his coma, still in Fillory. The others hung around for a couple of months and then left him. The mysterious sixth book of Fillory turns up again; as he reads it, its author, the youngest of the English kids and sister of the Beast, appears in Quentin's room, so they can talk over what happened. Thanks to a time-travel device, she has been trying for a very long time to kill her brother; every time she or her minions has failed, she undoes everything. This is the only time he's ever wound up dead, so she's not willing to go back and try to make it so Alice survives. She breaks the device. Quentin goes on a quest to find the magic beast that can grant a wish and send him home.
Back in this world, he plans to renounce magic. Uh-huh: then why accept a job through the magical school, even if it's in a big corporation? I mean, if you're going to renounce magic, go whole hog and get an accounting degree from Large Regional U, instead of surfing the internet and collecting a paycheck for doing it in an office in a suit instead of at home in pyjamas. He meets the woman who was involved in the Mysterious Death of Alice's Brother; she thinks Magic is Evil. Quentin can't quite agree.
And the next thing you know, two of his friends from the ill-fated Fillory expedition turn up, along with the Girl He Left Behind, and say they're going back, does Quentin want to come? Yeah. Yeah, he does. The End.
And I said, "What?"
I don't get it. Fillory was awful. The talking bunnies were violent. They had to be killed. And while it's bad enough killing nasty orcs, killing oversized talking bunnies is worse, in my view. Apparently wanting to stay in Fillory, or at least doing what it takes to allow you to stay, turns you into a magical monster. Alice died there. Another guy lost his hands and can no longer do magic. Any sensible person would never want to see the place again. It's not as if there's any hope of restoring Alice, or fixing anything else. They just want to go to Fillory and be kings and queens there. In my view, graduate school would be a much better option.
So what's going on? I have two theories. One is that the ending is "about" the powerful pull that fantasy literature has on its fans; given the opportunity to leave the ordinary world for the fictional one, they'll go, no matter how marvellous their real lives (even if they're powerful magicians!), no matter how awful the fictional world turns out to be. This makes the book a cautionary tale.
The other is that the ending is "about" the powerful pull of Christianity: no matter how atheistic and sophisticated people are, given the chance to enter a Christian orbit, they'll do it. I can't tell if this makes the book cautionary or celebratory. Sir John points out that it seems a bit odd for a writer named Lev Grossman to take the celebratory point of view, so maybe it's cautionary. (I never put too much stock in people's names. I used to know a Filipina called something analogous to Christmas Feinman, okay? You just never know.)
Anyway, there is a minor character, a practicing Christian magician, who is one of the few people with any sense; he helps Quentin's pals prepare for the trip to Fillory, in practical terms, stays out of the doomed expedition, and turns up (after Quentin passes out) to get everybody else out of the maze they were in. This makes Christians look like the good guys, or at least, like the sensible, responsible grown-ups. Moreover, the fantastically irritating animal-god (a ram, get it?), who keeps telling people that there are things beyond their understanding (I cheered when one of Quentin's friends said she'd heard just about enough about her understanding, thank you), does say two wise things before the Beast kills him: one, that Fillory is not a theme park for the Children of Earth to dress up and play with swords in, and two, how can Quentin expect to save Fillory when he can't even save himself? Alice has said similar things to Quentin at various points, so this seems to be a theme in the book.
But I suppose it could be along the line of even a stopped clock being right twice a day: everybody from Alice to the the ram-god is telling Quentin the same thing, and he still doesn't want to hear it.
Maybe it's just supposed to be a dark fantasy where there are no good guys and nobody wins. Well, that's not what I read fantasy for. And I sure don't want to have to get all English-proffy on my brain-candy's ass in order to make sense of it. Indeterminate endings work fine for lit classes, if that's what floats your boat, but when I read for fun I want a clear-cut happy ending where good triumphs. If Narnia and talking animal-gods are bad, boring, unsophisticated, whatever, then let's have Quentin & Co. grow up. If they're good, then let's have them take Fillory and its problems seriously.
Maybe this is a weird homage to Narnia from someone who enjoyed the books as a kid and then, though Jewish, found they were Christian allegory and that really screwed him up. Maybe.
I don't know. The hell with it. I think I need to go read some Vorkosigan space opera to clear my mental palate. Let's kick some Cetagandan ass.
05 September 2009
Magical reading review
I probably shouldn't review or recommend a book till I've finished it. I'm only about halfway through Lev Grossman's The Magicians, but so far I think it's the best thing I've read since Pamela Dean's The Secret Country, which longtime readers will recognize as my highwater mark of fantasy literature.
Normally when I like a book I gallop through it, often ignoring somatic calls for food, sleep, or bathroom breaks, completely submerged in the world of the book, resentful if I have to put it down and re-engage with the world around me. Now I'm trying to slow myself down. I'm hoping not even to open the book today, to think about the first half of it and allow myself to remain suspended partway in the book-world, enjoying the idea that it will be there waiting for me tomorrow. I am, for once, acutely aware that I have only one opportunity to read this book for the first time, and I wish I were somewhere away from home so I could, in future, remember the occasion more precisely. (As, for instance, I remember reading Dracula in a friend's apartment in New York City, with a party going on around me, because I could not put it down.)
I saw a brief notice of The Magicians in the Times' Book Review last weekend (debuted at number nine on the hardback best-seller list), and thought I'd go to a bookstore and take a look. It might be something I would like, I thought, something like Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. But it might also be simply fun, or actually stupid: my standards are high, and perhaps quirky.
I read five pages and handed over the hardcover price without hesitation. The book does deal with the study of magic. But it's something else entirely. Not to knock JS and Mr. N, which I enjoyed very much, and have read twice. The Magicians has a density, a gravity, a conviction that goes beyond any other fantasy literature I have ever encountered (and I include John Crowley and other masters of the fantasy novel, the novel that is a novel and not, say, a yarn, an epic, a children's story). It belongs to what I consider the hardest sub-category to write well, the magic-enters-the-modern-world type: this is part of the reason I would rank it above Bujold's Chalion books, which I found completely compelling on first reading and to which I have returned frequently. They take place entirely in another world, with its own laws and religion; Bujold doesn't have to make magic square with cell phones and the Internet.
If The Magicians ends badly or clumsily, like His Dark Materials (and really, how was Pullman supposed to get out of the hole he dug himself? he probably did as well as could be expected given the set-up), I will be disappointed. This may be one reason I'm trying to spin out the reading experience; I want to live in hope of an ending that matches the build-up. But if it ends well, I have a new masterpiece on my shelf.
Please don't include any spoilers if you comment.
Normally when I like a book I gallop through it, often ignoring somatic calls for food, sleep, or bathroom breaks, completely submerged in the world of the book, resentful if I have to put it down and re-engage with the world around me. Now I'm trying to slow myself down. I'm hoping not even to open the book today, to think about the first half of it and allow myself to remain suspended partway in the book-world, enjoying the idea that it will be there waiting for me tomorrow. I am, for once, acutely aware that I have only one opportunity to read this book for the first time, and I wish I were somewhere away from home so I could, in future, remember the occasion more precisely. (As, for instance, I remember reading Dracula in a friend's apartment in New York City, with a party going on around me, because I could not put it down.)
I saw a brief notice of The Magicians in the Times' Book Review last weekend (debuted at number nine on the hardback best-seller list), and thought I'd go to a bookstore and take a look. It might be something I would like, I thought, something like Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. But it might also be simply fun, or actually stupid: my standards are high, and perhaps quirky.
I read five pages and handed over the hardcover price without hesitation. The book does deal with the study of magic. But it's something else entirely. Not to knock JS and Mr. N, which I enjoyed very much, and have read twice. The Magicians has a density, a gravity, a conviction that goes beyond any other fantasy literature I have ever encountered (and I include John Crowley and other masters of the fantasy novel, the novel that is a novel and not, say, a yarn, an epic, a children's story). It belongs to what I consider the hardest sub-category to write well, the magic-enters-the-modern-world type: this is part of the reason I would rank it above Bujold's Chalion books, which I found completely compelling on first reading and to which I have returned frequently. They take place entirely in another world, with its own laws and religion; Bujold doesn't have to make magic square with cell phones and the Internet.
If The Magicians ends badly or clumsily, like His Dark Materials (and really, how was Pullman supposed to get out of the hole he dug himself? he probably did as well as could be expected given the set-up), I will be disappointed. This may be one reason I'm trying to spin out the reading experience; I want to live in hope of an ending that matches the build-up. But if it ends well, I have a new masterpiece on my shelf.
Please don't include any spoilers if you comment.
02 August 2009
Fiendish quizzes
So I recently read The Mysterious Benedict Society, which was good fun, and I'd recommend it if you like kid lit. In it there is an exam whose structure I admired.
It begins, of course, with the instruction to read all the questions before you answer any. It's multiple choice, fairly long, and opens with complex questions involving arcane knowledge. When you reach question 21, however, some of the arcane terms sound familiar . . . and if you look back at question 1, that question provides the information you need to answer 21, and vice versa.
Sadistically brilliant, I thought; or maybe brilliantly sadistic. I supposed it would not be fair to use such a structure (even reduced in length) for anything but a course on children's literature in which The Mysterious Benedict Society was required reading. But I was tempted.
Tempted or not, I think my students are safe. I wanted to post some sample questions of inspired sadism, and after an hour of trying to invent a suitable pair, I'm giving up. I think the trick is to have fairly long questions, more along the line of reading comprehension passages than simple multiple-choice questions, and likewise, fairly long answers, so that information can hide in them. Feel free to try your hand at this.
Considering all the complaints I've had about quizzes, ambiguous questions, being unreasonable about expecting people to retain obscure details, and so on, I'm rather relieved about my inability to devise a good set of inside-out (so to speak) questions and answers. I may be given to ambiguity, but I'm not naturally sadistic.
It begins, of course, with the instruction to read all the questions before you answer any. It's multiple choice, fairly long, and opens with complex questions involving arcane knowledge. When you reach question 21, however, some of the arcane terms sound familiar . . . and if you look back at question 1, that question provides the information you need to answer 21, and vice versa.
Sadistically brilliant, I thought; or maybe brilliantly sadistic. I supposed it would not be fair to use such a structure (even reduced in length) for anything but a course on children's literature in which The Mysterious Benedict Society was required reading. But I was tempted.
Tempted or not, I think my students are safe. I wanted to post some sample questions of inspired sadism, and after an hour of trying to invent a suitable pair, I'm giving up. I think the trick is to have fairly long questions, more along the line of reading comprehension passages than simple multiple-choice questions, and likewise, fairly long answers, so that information can hide in them. Feel free to try your hand at this.
Considering all the complaints I've had about quizzes, ambiguous questions, being unreasonable about expecting people to retain obscure details, and so on, I'm rather relieved about my inability to devise a good set of inside-out (so to speak) questions and answers. I may be given to ambiguity, but I'm not naturally sadistic.
11 October 2008
What I'm reading
The confession: for awhile now, I haven't been able to enjoy reading fiction written for adults (I started to write "adult novels" and realized that would be prone to misinterpretation). I feel like my English-professor license may be revoked at any time.
Even genre fiction, otherwise known as brain candy, hasn't appealed. I've been right off mysteries, once my preferred escape fiction. When I visit my family, I read romance novels, as they provide the right level and kind of escape (look, a fantasy situation where all the interpersonal conflicts get resolved! they live happily ever after!), but as soon as I get home, I can pick up another romance by the same author and think, "Why in heaven's name would I want to read this?" Fantasy/science fiction, usually my old reliable, isn't working for me either.
A lot of this is because I'm spending a lot of my time, mentally, in the fifteenth century (with a few excursions a little bit forward or backward in the abysm of time). And I want to spend my time there. I really enjoy my current research projects. But there are limits to how much time one can spend reading work material, even fascinating, well-written scholarly work or charming, original medieval tales. Thus, children's literature to the rescue.
When I got back from England this summer, I acquired all the Swallows and Amazons books I didn't already have and read right through the whole lot. After all, there's nothing half so worthwhile as simply messing about in boats. As I've said before, I love re-reading my favorites.
But I'm branching out. This week, I've read three kids' books that were new to me and liked all of them, though they're all quite different. Sylvia Waugh's The Mennyms is a strange and charming book about a family of life-sized rag dolls living in present-day (well, now about a decade back) England, trying to keep anyone from noticing that they aren't human. Very little really happens; that is, what's advertised as the big conflict turns out to be a non-event, and the real drama lies elsewhere entirely. Rather like life, now I think about it.
I discovered a Diana Wynne Jones novel I hadn't read yet, Hexwood. Its form is almost experimental, as events take place in a non-linear fashion, which confuses the characters; but Jones motivates these temporal shifts by a science-fiction device. Somewhere past the middle it dawned on me that Hexwood is an Arthurian novel (with most names changed to protect the guilty). Arthur has a fairly small role, but I think I should have noticed Merlin sooner. On the other hand, there's competition for the Merlin role. I can't quite decide if Verrian is Vivianne/Nimue; probably, but she seems much nicer than her avatar. I'll have to put this on the list of Outside Arthurian Literature I assign to students in my Arthurian Lit classes. It's a lot more complicated than most YA Arthurian books; more "inspired by Arthur" than a close follower of that plot.
And my favorite from the week: Pat Murphy's Wild Girls. I read a review of this last year and thought I might read the book, but then forgot about it till I saw it on a library shelf. I loved the book, and it went somewhere quite different from what I thought the review suggested. I loved it partly because it's set in my old stomping grounds (the characters are just a few years older than I am), and it's a pleasure to re-visit my very own childhood in this way. I also like the way life in the book continues past the climactic moment that ends the first part, and the way the characters invent personal myths knowing that that's what they are, but recognizing that sometimes you need to believe in something crazy because the truth hurts too much. You deal with the truth later, but the myth is sustaining in the meantime.
Happy reading.
Even genre fiction, otherwise known as brain candy, hasn't appealed. I've been right off mysteries, once my preferred escape fiction. When I visit my family, I read romance novels, as they provide the right level and kind of escape (look, a fantasy situation where all the interpersonal conflicts get resolved! they live happily ever after!), but as soon as I get home, I can pick up another romance by the same author and think, "Why in heaven's name would I want to read this?" Fantasy/science fiction, usually my old reliable, isn't working for me either.
A lot of this is because I'm spending a lot of my time, mentally, in the fifteenth century (with a few excursions a little bit forward or backward in the abysm of time). And I want to spend my time there. I really enjoy my current research projects. But there are limits to how much time one can spend reading work material, even fascinating, well-written scholarly work or charming, original medieval tales. Thus, children's literature to the rescue.
When I got back from England this summer, I acquired all the Swallows and Amazons books I didn't already have and read right through the whole lot. After all, there's nothing half so worthwhile as simply messing about in boats. As I've said before, I love re-reading my favorites.
But I'm branching out. This week, I've read three kids' books that were new to me and liked all of them, though they're all quite different. Sylvia Waugh's The Mennyms is a strange and charming book about a family of life-sized rag dolls living in present-day (well, now about a decade back) England, trying to keep anyone from noticing that they aren't human. Very little really happens; that is, what's advertised as the big conflict turns out to be a non-event, and the real drama lies elsewhere entirely. Rather like life, now I think about it.
I discovered a Diana Wynne Jones novel I hadn't read yet, Hexwood. Its form is almost experimental, as events take place in a non-linear fashion, which confuses the characters; but Jones motivates these temporal shifts by a science-fiction device. Somewhere past the middle it dawned on me that Hexwood is an Arthurian novel (with most names changed to protect the guilty). Arthur has a fairly small role, but I think I should have noticed Merlin sooner. On the other hand, there's competition for the Merlin role. I can't quite decide if Verrian is Vivianne/Nimue; probably, but she seems much nicer than her avatar. I'll have to put this on the list of Outside Arthurian Literature I assign to students in my Arthurian Lit classes. It's a lot more complicated than most YA Arthurian books; more "inspired by Arthur" than a close follower of that plot.
And my favorite from the week: Pat Murphy's Wild Girls. I read a review of this last year and thought I might read the book, but then forgot about it till I saw it on a library shelf. I loved the book, and it went somewhere quite different from what I thought the review suggested. I loved it partly because it's set in my old stomping grounds (the characters are just a few years older than I am), and it's a pleasure to re-visit my very own childhood in this way. I also like the way life in the book continues past the climactic moment that ends the first part, and the way the characters invent personal myths knowing that that's what they are, but recognizing that sometimes you need to believe in something crazy because the truth hurts too much. You deal with the truth later, but the myth is sustaining in the meantime.
Happy reading.
27 December 2007
Performing Reading
So, no one's interested in showing off their languages. Moving on, then.
Stephanie Trigg, in responding to the Books You Loved meme, turned the question around to ways you performed reading in 2007. An excellent question . . . particularly as one of my Christmas presents responds to both halves of the meme: it should be on the original list as a book I loved in 2007 (and which actually came out this year), and I have been performing from it to anyone who will listen (mainly Sir John and the cats). The book is Decca, the letters of Jessica Mitford, and it has me (as the Mitfords would say) in shrieks.
Performing reading comes in two flavors, for me: private and public. Private performance happens at home, when Sir John and I read bits we like to each other (from newspapers, magazines, books). I probably read to him more often than the other way around. We don't do extended reading-aloud sessions, like some of our friends. (We know a couple who take turns reading a chapter or two aloud every night, often from young-adult fiction.) But snippets are a good way to share our reading interests.
Then there's public performance of reading, which happens in the classroom. I read to my students, and make them read aloud, quite a lot. In Middle English classes, it's a way to work at pronunciation and comprehension, demystifying some of the spelling, insisting on the difference made by the Great Vowel Shift. In other classes, I hope to train students to listen to the rhythms of prose and poetry, to get away from reading for plot and hear the language. (Suddenly I am very conscious of the clunkiness of my own prose.) Many students read aloud very flatly, slowly, dully; I aim to change that, to make them lively readers.
I am planning an assignment sequence that begins with preparing a reading performance. Rather than my calling on people randomly in class, students will pick a passage they want to read aloud, and practice it, figure out what its rhythms are, what words should be stressed, what they want to convey, and then read it to us. I guess I'm trying to mimic private reading performance, in this: "Here's a bit I love and I want to share with you." I will use the reading-aloud prep to segue into the Close Reading: why did you stress these words, what's important about them, how do pieces of this passage work together to create the whole?
I hope this will work. I believe in Close Reading as a tool: it's worth paying attention to details, thinking about all the layers of meaning in a selection of prose or poetry, unpacking metaphors and images. And for some reason, my students have a lot of trouble with the concept. They tend to read for the big picture---plot, themes---not details. Maybe working on presentation first will make clearer why the details matter.
The drawback here is grading. Grading close readings is easier if everyone does the same passage; then I look to see if they hit most of the high points, or at least some of them, comment on writing style and mechanics, and move on. If everyone does an individual passage, papers will take longer to grade. However, hearing them read in class will make me fairly familiar with their passages. I might also do this as an "informal" assignment, checked off rather than formally graded, as a preliminary to a formal paper for which everyone would work on the same passage.
Stephanie Trigg, in responding to the Books You Loved meme, turned the question around to ways you performed reading in 2007. An excellent question . . . particularly as one of my Christmas presents responds to both halves of the meme: it should be on the original list as a book I loved in 2007 (and which actually came out this year), and I have been performing from it to anyone who will listen (mainly Sir John and the cats). The book is Decca, the letters of Jessica Mitford, and it has me (as the Mitfords would say) in shrieks.
Performing reading comes in two flavors, for me: private and public. Private performance happens at home, when Sir John and I read bits we like to each other (from newspapers, magazines, books). I probably read to him more often than the other way around. We don't do extended reading-aloud sessions, like some of our friends. (We know a couple who take turns reading a chapter or two aloud every night, often from young-adult fiction.) But snippets are a good way to share our reading interests.
Then there's public performance of reading, which happens in the classroom. I read to my students, and make them read aloud, quite a lot. In Middle English classes, it's a way to work at pronunciation and comprehension, demystifying some of the spelling, insisting on the difference made by the Great Vowel Shift. In other classes, I hope to train students to listen to the rhythms of prose and poetry, to get away from reading for plot and hear the language. (Suddenly I am very conscious of the clunkiness of my own prose.) Many students read aloud very flatly, slowly, dully; I aim to change that, to make them lively readers.
I am planning an assignment sequence that begins with preparing a reading performance. Rather than my calling on people randomly in class, students will pick a passage they want to read aloud, and practice it, figure out what its rhythms are, what words should be stressed, what they want to convey, and then read it to us. I guess I'm trying to mimic private reading performance, in this: "Here's a bit I love and I want to share with you." I will use the reading-aloud prep to segue into the Close Reading: why did you stress these words, what's important about them, how do pieces of this passage work together to create the whole?
I hope this will work. I believe in Close Reading as a tool: it's worth paying attention to details, thinking about all the layers of meaning in a selection of prose or poetry, unpacking metaphors and images. And for some reason, my students have a lot of trouble with the concept. They tend to read for the big picture---plot, themes---not details. Maybe working on presentation first will make clearer why the details matter.
The drawback here is grading. Grading close readings is easier if everyone does the same passage; then I look to see if they hit most of the high points, or at least some of them, comment on writing style and mechanics, and move on. If everyone does an individual passage, papers will take longer to grade. However, hearing them read in class will make me fairly familiar with their passages. I might also do this as an "informal" assignment, checked off rather than formally graded, as a preliminary to a formal paper for which everyone would work on the same passage.
16 December 2007
Books!
I’m afraid this became my favorite books: though I did read some fun books that were new to me in 2007, I don’t think I loved any of them. And to quote my tagger, Medieval Woman, "When I read for fun (i.e., not obscure Middle English romances), I read trash. Yep, that's right. Trash. . . . I also read my favorite books over and over again. 4 or 5 times means nothing to me." So my responses might be the same as they would have been last year. And may be again next year.
What I mostly read for fun, though, is fantasy, children’s literature, and mysteries. But I think this list will be all the first two, as I’ve been a bit off mysteries in the last year.
1. Susanna Clark, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. I read it when it first came out; this year, I liked it even more than the first time. Fantasy with footnotes: what could be more fun?
2. Pamela Dean, The Secret Country trilogy. Not at all new, but topping the favorite list. I originally read it in grad school, when a friend lent me her battered paperbacks. After I got a job, we mailed each other her copies across the country, several times, because both of us are re-readers and for a long time it was impossible to find these books. Finally they were re-issued a couple of years ago. The Secret Country, The Hidden Land, and The Whim of the Dragon. Reading these always makes me happy.
3. Lois McMaster Bujold, The Curse of Chalion. And Paladin of Souls. These are brilliant. I love the world of Chalion-Ibra. (I’m also fond of her Vorkosigan series. Not so much the new series—too long-winded and goopy.)
4. Arthur Ransome, Swallows and Amazons. There’s nothing so worthwhile as simply messing about in boats, and being trusted by parents to behave sensibly while you’re camping out, without them.
5. Pamela Whitlock and Katharine Hull, The Far-Distant Oxus. Two schoolgirls were inspired by their love of Ransome’s books to write their own series, back in the thirties. The children in this one imagine themselves in Persia, inspired by Matthew Arnold’s Sohrab and Rustom. It’s a little weird to read this now, as the kids shop in "Cabul" for camping provisions. But if you like Ransome, you’d like these.
I'm not sure of the etiquette of tagging people. Should it be those who have commented here? People on whose blogs I have commented? Can it be people I read but haven't commented on? I am inclined to spread this to the Southern Hemisphere and tag Stephanie Trigg and StyleyGeek. But I don't think Styley knows me, and Trigg has been here only once, recently.
What I mostly read for fun, though, is fantasy, children’s literature, and mysteries. But I think this list will be all the first two, as I’ve been a bit off mysteries in the last year.
1. Susanna Clark, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. I read it when it first came out; this year, I liked it even more than the first time. Fantasy with footnotes: what could be more fun?
2. Pamela Dean, The Secret Country trilogy. Not at all new, but topping the favorite list. I originally read it in grad school, when a friend lent me her battered paperbacks. After I got a job, we mailed each other her copies across the country, several times, because both of us are re-readers and for a long time it was impossible to find these books. Finally they were re-issued a couple of years ago. The Secret Country, The Hidden Land, and The Whim of the Dragon. Reading these always makes me happy.
3. Lois McMaster Bujold, The Curse of Chalion. And Paladin of Souls. These are brilliant. I love the world of Chalion-Ibra. (I’m also fond of her Vorkosigan series. Not so much the new series—too long-winded and goopy.)
4. Arthur Ransome, Swallows and Amazons. There’s nothing so worthwhile as simply messing about in boats, and being trusted by parents to behave sensibly while you’re camping out, without them.
5. Pamela Whitlock and Katharine Hull, The Far-Distant Oxus. Two schoolgirls were inspired by their love of Ransome’s books to write their own series, back in the thirties. The children in this one imagine themselves in Persia, inspired by Matthew Arnold’s Sohrab and Rustom. It’s a little weird to read this now, as the kids shop in "Cabul" for camping provisions. But if you like Ransome, you’d like these.
I'm not sure of the etiquette of tagging people. Should it be those who have commented here? People on whose blogs I have commented? Can it be people I read but haven't commented on? I am inclined to spread this to the Southern Hemisphere and tag Stephanie Trigg and StyleyGeek. But I don't think Styley knows me, and Trigg has been here only once, recently.
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