Looking out for the Ladies -- Jacqueline Kelly's The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly is a timeless ode to girls, especially those with an interest in science.  Needless to say, I loved it.  As the daughter of a science teacher (and the sibling of an honest-to-God rocket scientist), I have spent my life surrounded by the joys of discovery.  While I can’t say that I know all the elements listed on the periodic table or understand all of what Stephen Hawking writes, I get the appeal of the scientific method – to discover something completely new and life-changing would be the greatest moment of one’s career. 

Kelly frames each chapter with a brief excerpt from Darwin’s The Origin of Species to connect the action of the story – a look into the year of a twelve-year old girl named Calpurnia (or Callie) Tate at the turn of the 20^th Century.  Faced with a decision whether to follow her parents’ desires to be a typical lady or to learn from her eccentric grandfather – Civil War hero, retired pecan farmer, and naturalist – Calpurnia struggles to balance all of her family’s expectations.  However, even in the midst of all the adventures with moth specimens, wine-making, and the discovery of what may be a new plant species, the book really isn’t just about science.

            Instead, the story gently tries to reassure all girls who differ from society’s vision of femininity that, someday, they too may eventually be accepted with a little effort on their part.  From Callie’s studies of the natural world, she sees everything has a role to play, no matter how odd or different from the other animals they may be.  For Callie, her difference comes in the form of her tomboyish, nerdy scientific nature, which her mother, her girly best friend, and her other female mentors are painstakingly trying to eliminate from her personality.  As much as Calpurnia’s grandfather encourages her to keep him company while traipsing around rural Texas backcountry, even he isn’t too confident she will make it as a scientist.  By the end of the novel, the girl is starting to be deeply troubled about her future.  To this reader, Callie would be well-placed in any time period – she’s a feminist waking up to the world.   

Finally, to Kelly’s credit, she does not sugar-coat the ending, with Callie striding off into the sunset with a future clear of difficulty for the budding naturalist.  Instead, the novel ends relatively soon after she gets a Christmas gift of the ironically titled nightmare The Science of Housewifery, making Callie feel as if she is condemned to knitting, cooking, and piano lessons for eternity.  While I won’t give away much about the semi-ambiguous final chapter about New Year’s Day in 1900, I will say I was left thinking about a quotation offered a bit earlier by Calpurnia’s grandfather, “The lesson for today is this: It is better to travel with hope in one’s heart than to arrive in safety.  Do you understand?” (233). Yes, we women do understand, and that’s what makes this novel a great example of historical fiction.  

Just Give Me That Ol' Time America....

I've always had a deep fascination with what is quintessentially "American" -- that pull yourself up by your bootstraps, god-fearing, adventuring spirit that used to be represented so frequently in pop culture.  (In my opinion, today's American spirit is a little harder to define as we have become so fragmented in our views / beliefs).  I also wonder why the appeal of this American image – a lone cowboy standing tall in his dusty jeans and boots, his hat at a rakish angle as he squints off into a distant horizon – has lasted so long.  After all, didn’t we create a world of office buildings and air conditioning to prevent all that effort?  While I’ve talked before about probably not being able to make the grade in frontier agrarian society, I still find the whole concept wildly appealing and so do the writers Jeannette Walls and Wendy McClure.

Jeannette Walls, more famous for her memoir The Glass Castle, also wrote a true-life novel about her grandmother called Half-Broke Horses.  Lily Casey Smith had a wild ride in the American frontier, from living in a mud dugout in Texas and learning to break horses, teaching in rural schools, and working a big ranch with her second husband in Arizona.  She was not a woman to look back at her mistakes or to whine about her situation – Lily just packed up her stuff when the going got impossible and got back on her horse thinking of new ways to make her life work, no matter what the effort required.  It is obvious that Walls deeply respects her grandmother and sets up her story as a model for what Americans could achieve with a lot more elbow grease. 

And yet, rather than make Lily seem like a grunt suited only for work, Walls also gives in to the chance to romanticize the time, to the point where I felt about ready to join in on the long range rides.  When Lily does briefly move to town, Walls specifically emphasizes her distaste of the confined world of the ‘burbs and the dissatisfaction that comes from an office job that leaves a worker without a worn body or a satisfied mind at the end of the day.   

To get a real sense of Walls’ interpretation and glorification of her forbearers, you need go no further than a reflection “Big Jim” (Lily’s second husband) has about the water he’s collected in his manmade pond:

The water you kids were playing in, he said, had probably been to Africa and the North Pole.  Genghis Khan or Saint Peter or even Jesus himself might have drunk it.  Cleopatra might have bathed in it.  Crazy Horse might have watered his pony with it. Sometimes water was liquid.  Sometimes it was rock hard - ice.  Sometimes it was soft - snow.  Sometimes it was visible but weightless - clouds.  And sometimes it was completely invisible - vapor - floating up into the sky like the souls of dead people. There was nothing like water in the world, Jim said.  It made the desert bloom but also turned rich bottomland into swamp.  Without it we'd die, but it could also kill us, and that was why we loved it, even craved it, but also feared it.  Never take water for granted, Jim said.  Always cherish it.  Always beware of it. (148-9)

Now, granted, I’ve never known a real “cowboy” but somehow I think at the end of a long day they aren’t exactly waxing poetic about their water supply.  However, for Walls in a way, that’s the point.  Looking back, we can see the beauty of a simpler life where people focused only on the literal “big picture” – survival and sustenance – and found it to be enough.

This “back to the basics” approach is certainly attracting interest in our time.  Granted, going green in America has been more about lining the pockets of savvy companies who know how to confuse consumers with all sorts of hippie-sounding labels, but this longing for a simpler lifestyle certainly comes from somewhere. 

And that’s where Wendy McClure steps in.  Her book, The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie, explores her utter obsession with Laura Ingalls Wilder’s life, books, and the world that her writing represents.  McClure, along with her incredibly patient husband, spend a year travelling around in “Laura World” and seeing what insights can be culled from seeing the places Wilder lived.  Along the way, McClure churns butter, stays in a covered wagon, and buys enough prairie bonnets to show a fresh accessory every day for at least a month. 

As McClure sees it, her longing is not necessarily for Laura’s situation itself, but more of what it represents.  As she explains:     

Sometimes, Laura's World wasn't a realm of log cabins or prairies, it was a way of being.  Really, a way of being happy.  I wasn't into the flowery sayings, but I was nonetheless in love with the idea of serene rooms full of endless quiet and time, of sky in the windows, of a life comfortably cluttered and yet in some kind of perfect feng shui equilibrium, where all the day were capacious enough to bake bread and write novels and perambulate the wooded hills deep in thought (though truthfully, I'd allow for the occasional Rose - [Wilder’s daughter] style cocktail party as well).  All of it was the stuff of my imaginary Laura lifestyle magazine, my own rendition of sweet and simple. 

Probably most people who came to visit Mansfield had some version in mind, too.  While we could all certainly appreciate the pioneer ordeals, the covered wagons, and the long winters, somehow Sweet and Simple had become our own dream frontier, our Oregon that we'd like to reach someday, always just beyond the horizon.  We were looking for it wherever we could.  Most of us had no use for someone like Rose, whose Bitter and Complicated life was at least as imperfect as our own. (172)

In the end, McClure experiences a sort of emotional exhaustion from chasing after this lifestyle.  She searches so deeply to find meaning in these houses out in the middle of nowhere that she leaves the last few frontier festivals early because she is simply overwhelmed.  However, as in all good books about journeys, in the end she feels Laura has provided her a taste of her own “sweeter” world.  

For me, these dreams of a different life, become just that: dreams.  We may be able to change our external situation to match the description of the book, but the real “pioneer spirit” is something that must be found not in a historical reproduction or bought off a shelf.  Instead, it is discovered, as McClure realizes, in an evaluation of what the American spirit means to each one of us, even if those thoughts are not written out longhand in a cramped little cabin, but typed in a condo in a big city.  Both of these books gave me something to think about, but maybe that’s not the point either.  To find that spirit, one doesn’t need to analyze or evaluate, but just look with fresh eyes, over yet another horizon confident that a different (perhaps better) life will always be out there.     

  

Old MacMelville has a farm? Eee-aye-eee-aye-OH?

April is normally known in literary circles as National Poetry Month but unofficially in my mind it has a second, even better title – Read and Grade Outside Month.  I always find that I am less productive in the spring but much more poetic / drowsy (which is not necessarily a bad thing). 

During those tentative spring weekends, at the first sign of glorious Bay Area weather, I sprint outdoors, laden with piles of paper, my trusty colorful felt pens and a tall glass of apple juice, vowing that the time away from my computer will turn me into a lean-mean grading machine.  Instead, I morph into some suburban sighing Wordsworth who spends all her time marveling at the flowers blooming, the sound of her neighbor’s wind-chimes tinkling softly in the distance, and the sweet-smelling breeze gently playing with her hair, knocking her long-forgotten papers to the ground.  It takes a good ten minutes of watching a spider crawl up a wall or staring down a squirrel trying to plant a peanut into a flowerbox to realize that my mind has wandered entirely away from my students’ own efforts at creation. 

But more than just grading outside, spring is the time when my reading habits change.  Just as I peel off my thick knitted sweaters to expose my luminescent arms and skim off the serious comments on their essays; once I see that first hint of green, I start searching for that perfect farming / outdoorsy work book to read.  In this mood over the past few years I’ve polished off works like Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Kingsolver); Little Heathens (Kalish); The Maine Woods (Thoreau), and well, you get the general picture.  This year it’s been two books for me – The Blueberry Years by Jim Minick (recently finished) and The Dirty Life by Kristin Kimball (just arrived today in the mail). 

Now, as much as I love to say my emphasis is eco. lit., anyone who knows me relatively well also realizes that I am not the world’s greatest expert on flora, fauna, camping, or farming, so obviously I’m not looking to brush up on my areas of expertise.  The biggest kitchen garden I’ve worked on so far fit into my parents’ cramped suburban backyard and the most exotic vegetable we ever planted was a string bean.  My idea of hiking is puffing along a beaten dirt path with clearly labeled signs and my favorite stories of “roughing it” involve going to a camp-ground that featured whirlpool tubs in the “rustic” heated cabins.  I couldn’t tell you how to use a fancy piece of farming equipment if my life depended on it, and yet, I can tell you plenty about the wonderful world of farming memoirs. 

I just can’t get enough of these stories of people who have turned their backs on the bland, season-suffering cities to dig their fingers, toes, and souls into the dirt to uncover a more satisfying and meaningful life.  I love to hear about the brush they clear, the acres they plant, the hours and hours of pruning / picking / cleaning / shelling / canning / cooking and selling that they devote to their produce.  The technical details are easily ignorable – the farming jargon, diagrams, and schematics roll past my eyes without even a blink – but I find something so comforting in the telling of these utterly different lives.  I see myself identifying with these “gentlemen farmers” (as one of these memoirists once called he and his fellow farmer-writers) even though I have never once tried one of the recipes so lovingly typed out in the final chapter. 

I think my “spring” love for this very specific genre can be summed up in a very specific story.  Jim Minick in The Blueberry Years reflects about the many people who came to his pick-your-own organic blueberry farm and what the bushes mean to the masses.  In one of his many short chapters, Minick writes about (what seems to be his favorite story) a mother who shows up early one day in the family sedan, breathing in the country air with eager lungs.  She explains to Jim that she drove her young daughter from several states away to his rural Virginia farm so she could have the chance to live out her favorite book – Blueberries for Sal.  He expected them to last quite a while but was surprised when they simply delighted in spending a few minutes losing themselves into this sweet little acreage.  It was enough for them to have a few blueberries, take a few pictures (sans bears), and head back home enriched by the “farm life” with their imagination to fill in the rest.    

Just like that little girl, it’s enough for me to head outside, read a few chapters about rich farmland, grade a few papers, listen to a few birds chirp and be enriched.  Right now, I don’t have the time or the inclination to fully grasp at this lifestyle, but my creativity can push me out of the suburban landscape into the world of bountiful acres and open sky.  After all, in the first signs of spring, what could be better than having the best of the natural / thinking world to fill in my own green space?  As long as I don’t get a farmer’s tan from my lounge-chair plowing, I’ll be perfectly happy; right after I finish this grading…        

A Place to Call My Own

I'm always surprised by what my students find interesting, for even though there is only little over a a decade between the youngest of them and me, things that I find fascinating (classic films, graphic novels, Etsy, indie music, etc.) are met with a yawn, or, worse yet, an eye-roll.  But this week has me particularly scratching my head.

When I was in high school, I distinctively remember feeling like I was a person lost in time.  I didn't feel like a child of the millennium -- I didn't want to get jiggy with it, or have anything to do with whatever "it" was.  If I had to articulate what I wanted -- I would have given some heartfelt but entirely convoluted explanation of how I felt like I belonged in a quiet small town, somewhere in rural California, hearkening back to a world where things were hand-made and small wonders were still a way of life.  I have no idea what time period I was precisely longing for (I was, after all, a raging feminist / tomboy who wasn't afraid to announce that Rochester should have died in Jane Eyre so she could be free) but I just felt that the past was far more interesting than anything this generation was going to come up with.

And I wasn't alone.  One of my friends in high school had a family ranch that had been passed down for generations, a place so authentically OLD that you'd have thought Anthropologie adapted their kitschy throw-back style from their white-washed walls and rusted, once-brightly painted, useful tools strewn about.  She loved that place and was proud of her family's ties to rural California, and, by God, our whole group jealously fantasized about the sort of life that ranch represented -- especially after it had graced the pages of Martha Stewart Living as an homage to a better time, a better style.

So what I don't get is -- why don't my students feel that same sense of disconnectedness and longing for a different, quieter, gentler life? 

This week as my students work on descriptive pieces, I assigned them to write about a house.  (Now, keep in mind, I've had many of these students before and have heard their expressions of dissatisfaction about the way technology consumes their lives.)  Out of all the thrilling, creative, and opportunity-laden options they had to write about, the most popular choice was an office. 

Yes, you read that right -- an office.  

While I'm praying that commenting on homogeneous furniture and cubicles is the hipster thing to do now, I was even more surprised by their least favorite choices -- a tie between a rural farmhouse and an English estate.

"But Ms. Melville, I don't know HOW to describe those places...I wanna switch" was the story I heard all class, no matter how many different ways I tried to make those places sound interesting.  For the farmhouse, I can understand their confusion -- it's not something they would be familiar with in their suburban environment. Few, if any of them, have ever been on a working farm and if they have, I'm sure their main memory would be the smell of the manure or too-close encounters with animals, but not the homey details. 

But that still leaves me with the estate conundrum.  Besides my bucolic California fantasies, the other world I was utterly obsessed with was Europe.  I went through several reading phases as a teen -- one year I read every single Agatha Christie mystery the library system had, another was spent lost in the world of Russian novels, but finally, the one that still lingers in my imagination is that of the English estate.

Frankly, if you take them at face value (trying to ignore the class, women, environmental, etc. concerns), there is something about these estate stories that appeals to every generation.  I've read them all -- from the classy Austen to the incredibly dramatic (and citified) Foresyte novels by Galsworthy.  My students at my school have been subjected to many of them as well.  So why aren't they interested?  Who wouldn't want to live in one of these worlds, where you can spend your days wandering through the gardens, playing the piano, writing reflective letters, and falling in love with dashing young Byronic heroes? And according to the new PBS show, Downton Abbey, that world also involves a lot of sexual situations, intrigue, and gossip -- which is pretty much any teens' three favorite topics.  So that leaves me wondering -- is it just not cool anymore to admit you like what you read?  Have they not noticed every delicious morsel of Colin Firth when he was Mr. Darcy?  Have they lost their ability to transport themselves into the world of fantasies?

I don't have a simple answer to these questions, but I may start asking in class about their reading habits and encouraging a healthy dose of BBC miniseries as an antidote.

News getting you down? Let these stories lift you back up!

I, Herman Melville, am addicted to the news.  I read The New York Times, my local paper, and often check other news websites each day for the latest tidbits.  I post articles that truly intrigue me on Facebook and that’s nearly a daily occurrence.  I read Time Magazine every week and find myself watching the evening news, even when their top story consists of viewer submitted photos of the latest snow storm.  Although I can’t say I’ve read every front page article in the last year by any means, I am deeply attracted to what makes a story – what others find interesting or trendy or newsworthy.  Many of these human-interest stories often wind up in some form in my own writing – sometimes in obvious ways or even just in the mind-set I’ve adopted after reading a feature article. 

But I’ve found that lately, I’m burnt out on the news.  I don’t want to know who wore what to the Golden Globes or what new technology will change my life forever or the 50 places I need to go in 2011.  I especially don’t want to read the front page articles highlighting all the sorrow that’s happening in our world today.  Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s hugely important to stay informed, but I’ve reached information overload.  I don’t want to hear another stat or fact or expert telling us that the world is falling apart.  It’s not that I care any less; it’s that I care too much.  Sometimes I just need to read something good and without a thick layer of sarcasm or bias to break through.

I’ve found my antidote, however, in my recent pleasure reading.  (Note to self: Never read about environmental catastrophe again before going to bed!)  Two series in the last few months have been a soothing escape from the questions too large for us to answer in compartmentalized reporting.  When you need that time-out, here are the series for you:

-- The Penderwicks Series by Jeanne Birdsall.  While there are only two books in the series thus far, they are delightful.  The plot follows the adventures of four sisters, their friends, and their mischievous pets.  As a sort of update of Little Women, these four sisters slowly grow up under the not-so-careful watch of their absent-minded Professor/Father.  I was already charmed on page 1.  While you can see every plot development coming a mile away and the girls each embody their own “classic” female stereotype (the wanna-be writer, the dramatic/angsty one, the clever but young one, and the macho girl who finds her feminine side), I didn’t mind.  Instead, I was rooting on the happy ending and for the girls to continue to live in their world of rambunctious, innocent fun.

-- The Sisters Grimm by Michael Buckley.  I’ve recommended these books to just about everyone I’ve met over the last few weeks.  I got started on the series during my students’ finals and have already gotten through Book 7 (of 9 planned I believe).  The plot -- a fantasy world where fairy tale characters (and Shakespeare’s Puck) are real, immortal, and bent on committing petty crimes in the small town of Ferryport, New Jersey while being investigated by various members of the Grimm family -- is even loonier than it sounds.  Fast-paced, clever, and not afraid to tackle the real feelings of teens, I’ve literally laughed out loud at their capers.  It doesn’t hurt that Buckley takes none of those fairy tale plots too seriously and can mix them with aplomb for intriguing results.

Now, I’m not suggesting that these books will change your life forever, but they will certainly still please you for a few days after your reading.  In fact, the plots in their series can seem interchangeable and I had to confirm on Wikipedia to make sure I’m not checking out the same book again from the library.  Can I read these books forever?  Hardly.  But they are helpful when you need some perspective to realize that the sky isn’t quite going to fall today so you might as well enjoy a few quiet moments before entering back into the fray.

New Year -- New Post

[Reading in our world is] an act of resistance in a landscape of distraction, a matter of engagement in a society that seems to want nothing more than for us to disengage. It connects us at the deepest levels; it is slow, rather than fast. That is its beauty and its challenge: in a culture of instant information, it requires us to pace ourselves. What does it mean, this notion of slow reading? Most fundamentally, it returns us to a reckoning with time. In the midst of a book, we have no choice but to be patient, to take each thing in its moment, to let the narrative prevail. Even more, we are reminded of all we need to savor – this instant, this scene, this line. We regain the world by withdrawing from it just a little, by stepping back from the noise, the tumult, to discover our reflections in another mind. As we do, we join a broader conversation, by which we both transcend ourselves and are enlarged.

-- David Ulin

I haven’t read David Ulin’s new book yet, but this excerpt on one of my favorite blogs caught my eye.

As I write these words, I am deep in the heart of the Santa Cruz Mountains on a two day faculty retreat.  It’s the perfect time to reflect on the meaning of reading/teaching and how it has become a form of resistance against the constant social desire to keep up by throwing out the old “iThis” in favor of the new “iThat.” 

It also seems that just as Ulin is thinking about a need to slow down and rebel against the prevailing culture, this movement has been going on for quite some time.  This morning a woman spoke who spent the last forty years in missionary work around the world.  She was not afraid of the conditions she lived in but was truly frightened (her word) by the extreme culture shock she encountered when returning back home to the U.S.  She argued that we move so quickly now that something as simple as a daily greeting has become a mere formality and not the most basic form of human connection.  So I ask, do we really want to know how anyone is doing, much less take the time to learn about the lives of imaginary people?  While this woman’s reaction may seem like an exaggeration, no matter where one lives, “progress” and all the extra stuff that comes with that slippery concept invariably creeps in.  How much time do we save in new methods of productivity?  Where does our time go?

I think that’s why the concept of this blog and the responses we’ve gotten are such a comfort and support to we three bookers.  I am not a seasoned teaching veteran, by any means, but even I see a marked difference between my reading habits as a teenager and that of my students.  These students may never have the attention span for a Trollope novel, much less Dickens at his most verbose.  What’s the point?  Why should I care about it when you can’t even explain it in less than a paragraph?  Can’t you summarize it for me?  I hear those complaints all the time.  Now, I could go on all day about their need to focus or the broken state of the educational system, but I wouldn’t be adding anything new to the white noise of ideas that fall in and out of fashion like waves.  Instead of discussing more ways to test their deficiencies, I think my most effective “weapon” against a lack of motivation is my own passion for the subject, exhibited each and every day in the classroom.  Ultimately, my students know that my deepest frustration is not out born out of anger at my seemingly futile task but because I want so desperately for them to see the beauty or the concept despite their own blinders.

Therefore, my goal this semester (and beyond) is much simpler:  I will teach every student that I love to read because I want to learn about the world.  My soul is refreshed when I realize that I am not the center of the universe.  I can learn from the characters populating my favorite novels that I can be nobler, more caring, and more thoughtful if only I take the time to consider their positive (or negative) examples.  I am hopeful about humans when I realize that we can connect across time, across cultures, and across political lines by celebrating the same breath-taking, life-changing, wondrous piece of art.  The joy of reading for me is not necessarily about the overall story line anymore, but it is about the discoveries along the way. 

As Thoreau once said in Walden, “We should come home from adventures, and perils, and discoveries every day with new experience and character.”  While Thoreau was waxing poetic about these large grandiose changes we can make to our lives, I’ve taken his lesson to a much smaller place in mine.  A beautiful sentence can make me pause for days.  A great final paragraph can change my life forever.  Opening oneself up to the thought that a book or a writer can transform you brings so many different possibilities to one’s own life.  After all, as William Carlos Williams so quietly pointed out in his poetry, “so much depends / upon / a red wheel / barrow / glazed with rain / water / beside the white / chickens.”  Simple adventures in reading equal simple adventures in living.

So, why go in greater depth than what Ulin so beautifully expressed? 

New years are a time of great reflection.  It is the only time of the year when every person, no matter if they read or not, takes a quiet moment to think about their goals for the next year or next phase of life.

For me, I am going to continue to look at those little stitches in time and instead of despairing about the big picture, focus on those quiet flashes of joy.  Besides trying to feed my reading habit as much as humanly possible, I’m going to start using some of my favorite quotes as springboards for my yoga meditations this year. 

For all of us at Thrice Booked, we’ve been so grateful for the chance to share our own experiences and thoughts with a larger audience.  We’ve been forced to sit down and really think about what we are reading and why it has mattered to us.  And while we may not have been the most faithful bloggers during our most frenzied teaching times, you have our firm reassurance that we aren’t going anywhere.  We’re still reading and we’re still contemplating what is important to us, one book at a time.

So, you fellow rebels out there, won’t you join us for another great year here at Thrice Booked? 

From Milton to Melville...

I never do get tired of our author pennames and so here is an intriguing article about Melville to keep you going as the bloggers at Thrice Booked push their way through their work.  New content is coming soon!

Keepin' the Juices Going

Never fear, Melville has not been lost at sea, but rather is mired in the belly of a far more fearful fish – swarms of essays…and they are particularly biting this year.  (Oh, I crack myself up!)

While Wollstonecraft draws her abundant energy for research and doctoral applications from her beloved Milton, I, too, have been spending the last few weeks being reinvigorated by an outpouring of creativity. 

As a teacher, sometimes it is difficult to take personal inspiration from my class discussions.  After all, while I am trained to “plumb the depths” in my studies – of literature and, often by extension, my own life – I am constantly reminded that my students are still learning the basics of analysis and cannot fully journey with me yet.  They are perfectly complacent skimming the surface of the content because that is all they have ever really done and all that has ever been expected of them.  So: how do I reverse that classic Stones song and get my satisfaction?  How do I find those moments that keep me jazzed?

I’ve talked before on “Thrice Booked” about the need to focus on the little moments in teaching and my careful scrutiny has really been rewarding this semester.  I’ve been delighted by some flashes of insights from students that I tuck away for those low moments.  My favorite so far:  a student who professed to hate reading and got off to a bit of a slow start but then discovered her passion for drama.  Who knew? 

But besides those moments, I keep hearing over and over that the best teachers are those who keep learning and stretching themselves, so I’ve been making a concerted effort this year to not shut down my own growth as I teach.

Here’s what’s kept me going (outside of the books!) this semester and kept me thinking:

-- Mondo Guerra from Season 8 of “Project Runway” – I am the first to admit that I cried when he revealed that he is living HIV+ after years of keeping his diagnosis a secret.  What astonished me was that in the midst of all his own emotional angst he kept going and created yet another beautifully quirky outfit each week.  I was continually struck by his ability to reach deep within his creative well and create something entirely different from the rest of the designers with color, pattern, and, frankly, a lot of joy.  Most importantly to me was his ability to take inspiration from the simplest, most everyday ideas but see them in an entirely fresh and playful way.  To riff off an old cliché, Mondo makes some damn fierce limoncello from a life of lemons. 

-- “Giselle” the ballet – I hadn’t been to the ballet in years and I was reminded once again of the inherent beauty of art.  I spent years studying art history but to see art in motion is another experience entirely.  When I was little, I was fascinated by ballet but I also balked at the ruthlessness of dance as it slowly breaks down one’s body (and one’s feet!)  However, this effort is even more valuable for the cost of time, energy, and effort that these dancers exert to show the fascinating possibilities of our bodies to help express ourselves.      

-- The SF Giants: Now, granted, I am a Northern California girl who has spent her share of summer afternoons sitting in the Stick eating chocolate malts and now at AT&T park gulping down some of those mouth-watering garlic fries.  In a weird way, I connect baseball with Walt Whitman’s “everyman” poetry – the joy of the time outdoors, the songs for the local teams, the thrill of a home run getting lost in the stadium lights.  The world of baseball is bigger than any ballpark because the games and the players’ stories have become the poetry of the people.  In fact, my favorite episode of my favorite show of all time involves Chris Stevens of “Northern Exposure” reciting his version of “Casey at the Bat” out in the Alaskan snow.  For Chris, appreciating literature is like that moment in the snowstorm as you play out “Casey” and you feel the drama reaching off the page.

So, like every Giants’ fan, I spent October and the start of November dying from torture but also bursting with pride as I sounded more than a few Whitman-esque yawps over the rooftops.  The Giants especially have all the makings of a legend that will only grow after this year – after all, they were a team of underdogs, rookies, and veterans who had their fair share of personal disappointments (not to mention a long Series draught for the team).  But the Gigantes’ appeal also lies in their ability not to take themselves too seriously and to just be themselves.  From the rally thong to the long hair to that ridiculously fabulous beard, they were out there to have fun and see how far they could advance as a team.  These members were not following some corporate agenda but rather they reminded us of those bygone hometown, homegrown teams -- best exalted by the simple joy for the game from their broadcasters Kruk and Kuip.  I could go on but I think nothing says it better than their unofficial theme song – “Don’t stop believing.”  Well, that, and the inevitable: Fear the Beard. 

Of course, these examples may not seem like much, but when you are looking for that indescribable flash, for joy, for the possibilities of poetry in the everyday, you can find inspiration just about anywhere you look deeply enough.  I’ve needed those moments of recharging energy to keep me and that classroom buzzing.  And these sparks of creativity and human possibility have led to some great progress in my own reading, writing, and crafting.  But more on that later…I’ve got some grading to do. 

RoundBlog: The Complicated World of YA Fiction and Incarceron

Wollstonecraft:

If you have read my post on The Hunger Games series or YA fiction, you already know in more detail my thoughts on the young adult genre and why we chose a YA book for our RoundBlog. In short, what I have found so fascinating about these series is the fact that they explore large and relevant themes, have complex characters, and treat young adults as intelligent human beings, AND that they still have creative stories that are so entertaining. Although, much of YA fiction is disappointing or just bad (just like there are many disappointing “adult” fiction books), there are many series that do not rehash different versions of the hero’s journey and many that do not feed into teen romance. In fact, with some searching, I have found many books that are incredibly imaginative and interesting, creating new and interesting worlds that can help us see our own from a different perspective. 

In The Immortals series (which admittedly does have some teen romance), one of the adult characters criticizes the moral absolutism of the young; and the books themselves think about (and make their readers think about) what it means when we divide our world into absolutes and how often this division fails to fully explain our gray reality. The main “bad guy” believes with his whole self that he is doing God’s work, and the series explores how different people can interpret events in completely different and often devastating ways.  There is also a gay teen struggling with his identity and a not so subtle theme examining people’s inclination to hate anything different and to create hierarchies of power wherever they can. Also, it deals with many themes from Paradise Lost, and the author even uses many quotes from the poem in chapter epigraphs. And, I *hope* that it is books like these that can lead teens to the harder stuff of Paradise Lost.  

And, as I read Incareron, that quote denouncing the moral absolutism of the young resonated with me. The novel occurs through two different narrative perspectives: Claudia, the girl on the outside used by her father as a pawn for power, and Finn, the boy inside Incarceron, the prison, trying to break free. Society created Incarceron as a sociological project; they thought they could create a kind of Utopia wherein they would put all the unwanted criminals, political and otherwise, and the poor or underprivileged. The prison has unknown dimensions (but is described as vast) and is ruled by a computer program and a single warden—mostly it is left to “run” on its own. The story follows both the outside world, which runs on a corrupt political system, and the prison, which has been corrupted by an all too objective and merciless computer system—as you might expect, the prison turns out to not be such a great idea (unbeknownst to the outside world). 

 What I found most fascinating was the fact that there was no clear Villain, which gives the reader freedom to judge and question the various (and often unclear) motives of the many characters involved. The boy “hero” kills (or causes an innocent to be killed) within the first chapter, and the girl hero is a cold and calculating soon-to-be royal. Neither is completely innocent and both are struggling to make sense of a world wherein they are pawns for everyone else’s games of power. Everyone is using everyone else for some end, and they struggle to find warmth and compassion in a world where compassion can get you killed. They struggle to make themselves happy while also considering the lives of others, leading to questions like, to what extent do we sacrifice our lives for another’s happiness? When does caring about our own life become selfish? Can we sacrifice the ones we love for the greater good? Why should we be responsible for others? And though many readers are not fighting for survival in a deadly prison, we daily fight (often against ourselves and our morals) for our own happiness, and these questions are ones we seek answers to everyday. Can we or should we think about our own life before the lives of others? Should we give up something important just to avoid hurting someone close to us? 

When I was teaching, many of my kids struggled with deciding to please themselves or please their parents. One student wanted to become a math teacher, but his parents were expecting him to become a doctor. At 14, is it really selfish for him to disappoint his parents? He thought it made him selfish (though I basically told him he should do what he wants). And, these choices and decisions only get harder as we get older, and our choices do not just affect our over-bearing parents, but affect our spouses and friends. Basically, I think that these books can even give adults something to think about. And seeing these moral quandaries through the eyes of teenagers, I think can bring a different perspective to our own problems.

 In the “outside world” of this novel, after a devastating war, the king has decreed that society needs to retreat into the past, “back to a simpler time” in order to avoid another disaster. The king declares he “will make a world free from the anxiety of change” and it will be “Paradise.” His decree: “We forbid growth and therefore decay. Ambition, and therefore despair. Because each is only the warped reflection of the other. Above all, Time is forbidden. From now on nothing will change.” Like in our world (which seems really relevant during election week), the king and the adults of this book look to blame the all abstract “change” and “time” instead of looking at the real causes of society’s unrest. Obviously, there is a backlash to the decree as the world becomes stagnant and frustrated in an unchanging world. It is not about change for change’s sake, but about finding names for those goals and seeing that progress is necessary for survival—that creating something new and changing our perspectives is just human nature. And, this is what our “heroes” struggle to do: find real solutions and name those nameless problems. And, in a court where politics is an illusion and they all act their parts, it is hard to find sincere answers and helpful solutions. Especially when the blame is placed on ideas and labels instead of where it should be:

“…or is it that man contains within himself the seeds of evil? That even if he is placed in paradise perfectly formed for him he will poison it, slowly, with his own jealousies and desires? I fear it may be that we blame the Prison for our own corruption…”

Essentially, the book also questions the abstract ideas of Utopia and Paradise, as they mean so many different things to different people. And, as the world does change, the notions of Paradise change with it.

Although I didn’t think that this book was amazing and there were parts I thought were lacking, overall, I thought the storyline interesting and unique. There were definitely “holes” in the story and there were moments where I had to ignore the logical fallacies. In a fantasy, you know you have to suspend disbelief, but on occasion, the logic of the world was hard to grasp. Because it is the first in a trilogy, I am sure that certain holes will be filled, but the prison’s abstract dimensions were just left to be believed.  The author seemed to take for granted that her young readers wouldn’t think too hard about whether something made sense...

Melville:

First of all, I have to say that I was thrilled we selected a YA book.  In the last few months, it seems the only thing I have time to read besides the books I teach are YA novels (aside from the blogs I follow religiously).  I love YA novels because with them, you have the freedom to really explore the real (and fantastic!) possibilities of life -- to imagine scenarios where worlds are inside wardrobes, boys can be wizards, and young Canadian women grow up to be famous writers.  As a younger reader, there is that sense that so long as you are willing to trust the writer, you can experience ANYTHING and that is an incredibly joyous feeling. 

With this idea in mind, I was immediately delighted with Incarceron's ability to draw me into a world completely unlike my own.  As Wollstonecraft covered so thoughtfully, I enjoyed the lack of moral absolutism and the questioning of traditional expectations of Paradise/Utopia and our understanding of how these visions shape our understanding of our own lives.  It was a clever book and one that I think that readers will appreciate even more in this increasingly complex world of ours.   The plot itself was a rollicking adventure and let me tell you, I would never want to be trapped in that prison world after going through those scenes with the Jabba-the-hut like character who sucked the life out of others to fit his whims.  

However, while I appreciated all the new reflections on how we can view the world, I was, truth be told, disappointed by the world itself.  Having grown up with a brother who is literally a rocket scientist and always demanded that my explanations be logical, factual, and involve way fewer fluffy unicorns named Marvin, I have learned to appreciate a certain amount of credibility in a story (this from someone who wrote her undergraduate thesis on Isabel Allende).  I was disturbed that my general understanding of the prison world was that the author cobbled together her explanation from the final scene of one of the most well-paid actors of my generation -- Will Smith in Men In Black.  While I like Men In Black as well as any teen of the 90s, I think there are many more inventive ways to explain the ability to jump from one world to the next and how they fit in with each other.  And when that realization set in, I started to look back at other scenes and the plot holes started to yawn open and languish on the pages of an otherwise great novel.  

I understand now that these plot contrivances (like the better-than-gold servant girl) must have significance and further depth in later books but I see that as problematic.  Too many books (and far too many films) settle nowadays for the cliff-hanger, the threads of unresolved storylines, and remain well past their prime, ingratiating themselves to an audience who has to go home and have their parents explain the jokes.  Some writers are clever enough to re-imagine some of their characters in new scenes, but I think that the focus should be on getting the first book right before cranking out more novels to help close these narrative loopholes.  Now, don't get me wrong, these assessments are not aimed solely at Incarceron, for it was a page-turner and a great first effort (I would even be curious to read the sequels), but I think these issues were probably suggested (or not corrected) by a publishing house that was thinking about short-term profits rather than long-term literary perfection.  

Be that as it may, it was a great pick for October -- for there were plenty of ghoulish characters both internally and externally.  Well-done Wollstonecraft!

Our next pick will be The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell.

http://www.thousandautumns.com/

Because it is a relatively longer novel and November continues to get busier, we will actually be discussing this book in our December RoundBlog. The November RoundBlog will feature a poem. And, if you have any suggestions, please write them below... 

Quote of the Day

Stumbled upon this gem earlier on today and felt like it would be good to share:

The artist is a receptacle for the emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web. - Pablo Picasso 

So, on this ordinary/extraordinary Wednesday, I ask: what inspires you? 

Round Blog: The Whistling Season and our longing for those simpler times

Melville: I know my comments lately have relied heavily on reader response for this blog and that trend is going to continue yet again today because, frankly, I adore this book. Ivan Doig's "The Whistling Season" was a treat to read. I love any novel that not only celebrates the art of teaching but ALSO manages to allude to Yugoslavians (some of the kids in the school were Slavs -- and frankly, this is the first book I've read in about five years that actually mentions anything remotely related to my Slovenian heritage)!

With that said, Doig is a master of regional literature. He so effortlessly captures a sense of place with turn of the century Montana -- a land of homesteads, open sky, and men with big dreams. To show us this place from a child's perspective also helps make Montana seem like a wondrous adventure -- from the daring backwards horse race to the marvels of a snow day. The older voice of the narrator effectively unmasks the unhappy truth that these small towns are slowly withering away and giving in to the pressures of a globalized (and, consequently, a homogenized) world. The narrator leads us to the conclusion that we must look back and treasure our gifts from the past.

My favorite character, and I'm sure my fellow "Bookers" will agree is Morrie -- the former crooked boxing manager who turns into a master one-room schoolteacher. His scenes in the classroom motivate me to be a better teacher and to want to bring that sense of vast possibilities of life back to my (mostly) already-worldly students. Doig cleverly set the plot of this novel as the same year as Halley's Comet appearance -- 1910. Morrie himself is like the comet, a brilliant visitor who flies through and sparks new life into the community, and disappears just as quickly. After all, what student wouldn't like a teacher who so comfortably fits in among scholars and schoolyard boys? I thought it was very clever that this Latin-spouting, Spat wearing, mustacchioed Morrie was also a man who can slip on a pair of brass knuckles to fight. What a teacher!

Anyway, before I talk about how much I wish Morrie was a flesh and blood man...I better turn this conversation over to Shelley.

Your thoughts Shelley?

Shelley: Great comparison of Morrie to the comet, which, until you so beautifully pointed out, I hadn't really put together. I also think the comet bears some significance in relation to Doig's perspective about memory, which is obviously inextricably bound with the past. Like the comet, the older Paul describes memory as being "magical" and "faithful," and exuding "radiance": "The Rembrandt light of memory, finicky and magical and faithful at the same time, as the cheaper tint of nostalgia never is. Much of the work of my life has been to sort instruction from illusion, and, in the endless picture gallery behind the eye, I have learned to rely on a certain radiance of a detail to bring back the exactitude of a moment" (152). Although viewing the comet (which I remember doing as a wee kindergartner) is vivid and impressionable, it does happen quickly and sparsely (like every 75 years). Such an experience is a memory in itself, but it also mimics the general experience we have while remembering a moment--certain parts are vivid and detailed, while most of the occurrence surrounding the details we remember are not (similar to the many dreams/nightmares Paul has growing up); at the same time, despite the more "illusive" parts of it, aspects of the experience and soon-to-be memory--essentially, our past--hugely influence the rest of our lives.

And this brings me to one of the most significant themes of The Whistling Season: the experience of our past as children growing up--and more particularly, the memory of that experience (the feelings and emotions associated with it)--greatly shape who we are for the rest of our lives, during the time in which we are "being introduced to ourselves" (5). This may seem like an obvious statement, but, as Melville mentions, Doig is a beautiful regional writer; as such, he emphasizes the importance of place--specifically, the schoolhouse--in the significance of our experience, the memory of that experience, and then the ultimate construction of who we are and how we contribute to society as adults because of that experience and memory. The happenings of the country school is not only central to the novel, but it is central to all of the students' lives: because they live so far apart on their homesteads and such, the school is not only where they learn their subjects, but it is also where they learn to socially interact, and become educated about the morals enveloped within such interaction. Take Eddie, for instance: without the aid of his experience at school, there would be no doubt he'd end up with the same destructive and selfish tendencies of his dangerous father; it would be difficult for him to know differently. Although his circumstances might not prevent Eddie from following in his father's footsteps, Doig stresses the beneficial effect the schoolhouse has had on this apparent bully: he sways his father to not beat up (kill?) Morrie because doing so would be unfair and illogical. In this way, Doig not only celebrates the actual place of the schoolhouse, but the leader within it (a leader who affects Eddie in such a way): "All points of the plains: without my ever having said a word to him about it, Morrie was conjuring paths beneath the paths that had arrived to my eyes back there at the schoolhouse pump" (127). Like Paul, the reader's eyes, or perspective, are led to the importance of the schoolhouse and the teacher within it. Consequently, Doig honors the significance of being educated at a school, as well as the monumental power and impact teachers hold; but, as older Paul's title as school inspector implies, Doig is concerned about how society is progressing, perhaps about the loss of memory in relation to a time long since past, or the loss of a simplified life and place which could shape individuals so beautifully. What do other readers of this text think? Paul is obviously remembering his education and how his beliefs were shaped, but is he worried about the future of education, progression, or a loss of place (as emphasized by the older Paul's point of view)?

Like Paul, I remember moments of my childhood schooling in extreme detail, and can see how it has contributed to my present self. Like Paul and Doig, I also remember the beautiful region that is Montana: "the pesky...whistling" (1) wind that would wake me in the summer mornings, a "homestead etiquette" (97) that most citizens abide by, the ever-present dust following fields of wildflowers and green meadows, and the starriest, clearest skies I've ever seen. Now, as someone experiencing and greatly enjoying Montana summers throughout her entire life, these memories might be more nostalgic in nature, however true they really are. One thing is for certain: Doig captures how beautiful simple homestead (family) life can be and was in the American West, with all of the Millirons' sorrows, struggles, and complications. They are intelligent, honest, mature, and caring natives of the country, not slow hillbillies or backcountry neanderthrals. Like the land they inhibit, and like the pace of the novel, the Millirons nurture and embrace their simple, faithful, magical, and radiant lives.

Your thoughts, Wollstonecraft?

Wollstonecraft: I mostly agree with my fellow bookers. My favorite character was Morrie and I found his character inspiring. Today, because we all experience so much media and so much of the world through the internet and television, it is hard to feel that wonder he created in his students for the comet. I think most teachers can agree that it seems harder and harder to get students amazed by anything because they have seen so much already. Even though the lights of the city block out the stars, they can go online and see pictures of the Milky Way. They can watch Gladiator and gain a version of history more exciting than the one I can tell them. Our visual media and wealth of information take away from our ability to give students something they’ve never seen before. And, I think this can be applied to adults as well; we all live in such a “seen it” age, it is harder to find that sense of wonder in our everyday lives. And, in this sense the book made me nostalgic for a piece of that “simple” past.

However, once I realized I like my right to vote, I like that more kids have a chance at education, and I like running water, I no longer feel nostalgic for the past.

Though, for the most part, I did enjoy reading the book, I felt torn about Doig’s longing for this era. The book champions these one-room school houses as a piece of not just the character’s past but that of America, and a piece that we need to remember. However, the problems of this nostalgia that bubble under the surface are left unexplored. Although Morrie was ultimately able to diffuse Eddie’s violence, the fact that it existed points to a problem with this kind of simple past: the lack of access to a quality education and knowledge. Before Morrie, the students were not getting that great of an education and many of the students will just be recycled through the small town. And, the lack of education produces the ignorance and violence of Eddie’s father. With the simple life of the past also come the problems of the past: ignorance, racism, inequality, etc. The only female character in the novel was the “perfect” Rose: charming, sweet, pretty, but oh so stupid. I may be taking the book too seriously, but I couldn’t help but feel annoyed that part of her charm that captured all the men in the novel was that she was a little bit stupid.

Doig also seems to vacillate between advocating the simple life of the “honest laborer” and supporting a life of the mind, or the intellectual. And, I do not think the book decides if there is a “better” way; perhaps he seems to say we need to appreciate both. (The book felt like it was written by an intellectual who wanted to find “real” life in the hard-working small town citizen.)

That said, I liked how the book criticized the education system today. Our schools are in no way perfect, and the current obsession with standards and statistics is diverting attention away from the real problems in our system (as Doig demonstrates in the novel). The book begins and ends as we enter this era of standardized testing, which comes with a different set of issues. We label all changes as "progress" without really understanding if this progression is any more effective. I also think it is interesting how he criticizes the unfortunate relationship between politics and education; the narrator is superintendent during the cold war where “science will be king, elected by panic.” And, the loss of the schoolhouse the narrator feels is all the more poignant with such a terrible setting as the McCarthy era.

However, education is only a small piece in the complex experience of Paul, our narrator. He is coming of age, and the book shows how seemingly small moments impact us and our characters forever, as Shelley has already discussed. More than anything this book is about childhood, the confusion inherent in growing up, the wonder at new adventures, the realization that adults aren’t always what they seem, the feeling that this moment will change the rest of your life—everything that comes with discovering where you fit in, which transcends the place and time of the novel. In a sense, even though times have changed, “childhood is the one story that stands by itself in every soul.”

Lastly, looking back through my notes, I wonder how nostalgic the book is meant to be about the past. I am always skeptical of hoping for the “good old days” (unless I was a white rich male), and there are moments in the text that show perhaps Doig is too. It is always dangerous to wish for previous moments in times of nostalgia because we gloss over too many of the problems and only see the good. We tend to romanticize these moments, which skews the reality of it.

Overall, I thought it was prettily written, though I wish he further explored some of his themes. For me, it is hard to long for the days Doig writes about, though I see the value of them as a piece of our history. I am too much of the information, blogging and Facebook age to really wish to live in the time and place he writes about.

Where have all happy endings gone?

“And so they lived happily ever after.”

While that’s a common enough ending for the younger readers, I can’t think of a single modern novel off the top of my head that ends completely happily for all/most of the characters (with the notable exception of genres like chick lit/romance where the inevitable Shakespeare comedy plot plays out or those stories that turn abruptly at the end to give an almost false sense of hope). Why is that? After all, if some critics believe that novels are meant to mirror real life, where are the stories documenting loving marriages, healthy children being born, or even just successful careers coming to a happy end? Granted, there is quite a bit of tragedy in the world – both large and small – but some of the greatest stories ever told are all about good triumphing over evil. So where is that other “happy” percentage of the population being represented with quality lit. and the small joys of their lives? Is happy lit. too boring or too close to life?

To that end, I was chatting with some Russian friends a few weeks ago and they said one of their major issues with Russian literature is that it is ALL political and depressing. Their lives were bad enough at times in Russia, “why read more about tragedy, poverty, and suffering when we already know all about it from history?” they asked.

I really didn’t have a good answer for them as I’ve been wondering the same thing myself. While I am all for realistic fiction and love dark, tragically beautiful novels as much as any bibliophile, I’m surprised by how imbalanced the current publication market seems to be – with the most graphic, devastating books reaping in all the praise while anything that seems to be positive about life gets relegated to that “inspirational” / “book club” / “beach read” pile that doom it to huge success with the general public but largely ignored by the literary elite.

On the other hand, many of the nonfiction memoirs that are popular now are all about the “happy path” – most notably, the recent film adaptation of Eat Pray Love. It certainly does not surprise me to find out that many women have tried to follow Gilbert’s same itinerary to a more peaceful, blissful existence. These followers rationalize that it worked for one, it can work for them. And, after all, books like Gilbert’s are almost an extension of that bookstore staple – the advice/lifestyle section. When I worked at a major retail bookstore the latest celebrity fad diet/exercise/lifestyle book would fly off the shelf (on the other hand, those clever, dreary fiction books may only be sold one every few hours).

So what happened to those classics of literature that managed to combine both in a brilliant and beautiful way? Why don’t we want advice or keys to a happy life in our fiction anymore? Why can’t we model our lives on fictional characters who have the space, opportunities, and ability to find a better life?

I wonder if partially we have so many other avenues for these “happy” stories (from “feel-good” TV comedies to fuzzy newscasts that “salute” the good people in our communities every week to the heartfelt and real outpourings of love and support after the many major tragedies that have rocked our nation along with the world in these last few decades) that fiction is perhaps one of the last places where people can freely explore these corners of darkness and call it art. “Let’s be realistic in our fiction!” was the clarion call for the 20th Century American writer (and many of the world writers) and certainly their outpouring about their lives has lived up to that cry – focusing on war, atrocities, and the seedy underbelly of our urban centers.

So, in a way, my questions boil down to these incredibly open-ended questions: are today’s fiction writers just so unhappy that no realistic fiction can end well or only with a small sliver of hope? Or, are these would-be happy writers moving their stories to another genre where it can be taken more seriously as advice is coming from honest-to-God experience and not a fantasy world of what could potentially work out for someone?

Or perhaps I’m missing the point entirely. Perhaps I should be focusing on the changing readership that reflects the common morality and perspective of their times which helps define what constitutes a “good story.”

However, it’s certainly something to think about before I get to answer that question from yet another student asking me why most of their reading lists are full of “super depressing people who just super depress me.” I wish I had a better answer. Or, at least, a happy one…

Banned Books Week

Welcome to Banned Books Week!

I've been sharing links from the official ALA site to my students and I enjoyed the discussion so much I'm sharing it with you...

Here's a list of the Top 100 Banned Books from 2000-2009

Take a look at that number 1 book!

I'll be posting my regular post tomorrow.

Thought of the Day

Readers, a Category 1 maelstrom of literary doom and gloom has snuck up on me this week. Normally I can keep myself on an even keel about the prognosticators offering a dire view of our future, but currently I feel as if I have morphed into a Grinch with an academic heart two sizes too small.

Why?

Exhibit A: At the mall over the weekend I overheard a girl comment to her friends that she gets confused between The Grapes of Wrath and Fruit of the Loom underwear brand. Her friend commented the underwear was probably better than the book. And waaay hotter. The first girl agreed.

If my soul hadn't already sunk through my shoes, then this did it in.

Exhibit B: I read this article today. That's right, not only can the largest corporate bookstore in America not maintain a strong presence in a literary city in NYC, but the charm of the used bookstore is rapidly losing its appeal.

What happened to heady intellectualism? A culture of consciousness? Simply put: where my nerds at?

I wonder sometimes if I am pining for a lost art, a passion that is only shared by those who are just as obsolete or old-fashioned as my friends and I have apparently become. Is this the case? Our blog's motto, while conceived in some flippancy, also seems a little more accurate tonight -- "being literate in an increasingly illiterate world".

Now, lest you think I spend my time sitting alone in a dark room and silently writhing my hands in distress, I am cheered by the recognition that my fellow bibliophiles will not go gently into that good night as they have fought before for a rebirth of reading. A new twist on an old tale, if you will.

I also just stumbled upon this quote from Emerson to a friend about the power of reading which has helped:

"It happens to us once or twice in a lifetime to be drunk with some book which probably has some extraordinary relative power to intoxicate us and none other; and having exhausted that cup of enchantment we go groping in libraries all our years afterwards in the hope of being in Paradise again."

Perhaps Paradise is slowly becoming a little less crowded, but that doesn't make it any less precious... Does it?

You've Lost that Lovin' Feelin'

Although I’m still getting my “school legs" back under me, I am thrilled to say that this year I am actually managing to carve out some time to read non-teaching books in drips and drabs.

To wit: I finally finished reading The Poisonwood Bible last week and I must admit, I’m not falling all over myself and raving about the majesty of the text. Now don’t get me wrong; I adore Barbara Kingsolver (goes with the territory, really, since I teach two of her novels and frequently reference Animal, Vegetable, Miracle in class) but I think one of the problems is that I went into the second half of the book with far too high expectations (even the real Melville probably couldn’t meet them when I’m in that reading mode). Most of the time I find to read now is while I’m at the yoga studio and my fellow yogis (and their mothers, one of the rare times I can be literal with that phrase!) were crazy about this book, telling me that it would change my life, my perspective on Africa, and make me want to be a better human being.

Well, I’m still good ol’ crazy Melville in California. I haven’t bought a plane ticket to Africa. I haven’t denounced all material possessions, nor do I find myself trying to pick up another language because of the sheer beauty of the words on the page. But I don’t think the problem lies in the book. As they say in relationships – “it’s not you, it’s me.”

The Poisonwood Bible is a beautifully written text that thoughtfully grapples with those tough philosophical and spiritual questions that I love to analyze. The characters are pitch-perfect and their narration kept me gripped to the edge of my seat. I even, at one point, dreamt about the novel – a mamba snake with glistening green eyes was my new daemon (yes, I’ve read Philip Pullman too often).

So what is it then? Why am I not in the throes of a passionate love affair?

I think I’m just not loving enough right now. Or, put it another way, I’m far too analytical.

Unless the book is designed to grab a reader simply based on plot and take you along for the emotional roller coaster of your life, I find myself comparing all new literature to those that I already love. In a way, because I fiercely worship a very small list of books, it becomes increasingly difficult for other novels to work their way into my top shelf – the inner sanctum of my books. I may spend the entire time reading a new book and thinking about how that same idea, that same style, that same attempt to move me was done so much better by one of “my authors.”

Now, granted, I don’t have the world’s greatest taste in books. Despite my M.A. and voracious reading habits in the summer, I generally fall in love with a book because it finds me at the right time in my life – I am searching for whatever message it is ready to impart. In fact, my list can seem a little odd or even a little shabby if you look at it from a purely literary point of view. But, it is what it is, and I stand by it.

So, until I can bring one of these books down a notch, or I re-read The Poisonwood Bible again with fresh, loving eyes, my list shall remain untouched.

While I don’t have the time or energy tonight to reveal them all – I’ll give you an eclectic sneak peek at my all-time life list:

(in no particular order and not the full list)

-- Matilda by Roald Dahl
He made school seem magical and I wanted Matilda’s magical powers oh-so-badly. And who doesn’t want someone with Dahl’s wit to keep you entertained all day?

-- Ex Libris and At Large and At Small (both books of essays) by Anne Fadiman
I would give my left hand, heck, the entire left side of my body to write even half as well as Fadiman. If there is one regret in my life, it is that I missed meeting her when she visited my undergrad university.

-- The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
I’ve met the man and I can’t figure out which is more charming – the man himself or his books. I’ve decided both are hilarious.

--Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
Everything and nothing at once. Pure Genius.

--The Emily of New Moon trilogy by L.M. Montgomery
I re-read them every summer for about five years because I felt that transcendental “flash” she described so well…

--Any poetry book ever by Mary Oliver
The woman speaks to my soul.

--Eva Luna and Stories of Eva Luna by Isabel Allende
Try to read the story “And of Clay We are Created” without being moved. I dare you.

And these are just a quick sampling. If I gave you the full list, I’d never get to re-read another of my favorites tonight (and the one I am teaching tomorrow) – Thoreau’s Walden.

But I’m not going to be too hard on myself. There’s always another book in the sea.

The next book I’m reading for fun is our next book club pick so stay tuned. I’m ready and raring to rave ….

A great article on imagination

A friend shared this great article from The Atlantic about creativity/imagination by Tim O'Brien.

Check it out!

To LoL or not to LoL?

I’ve been thinking a lot about productivity and our reliance on technology recently. Due to an electrical problem last week, I had no internet, cable TV, or a functioning landline for three days. (The first five minutes were the worst. I was basically in the fetal position moaning for my Project Runway fix).

As I pulled myself off the floor, I realized that, as some friends also noted, it was the perfect chance to be like my literary buddy Thoreau. Granted, I was a Thoreau with indoor plumbing, electricity, a still-functioning DVD player, a computer, and a car … but, on the other hand, I had no pond to hear my thunderous yawp and no woods to wander through to inspire some of the most eloquent reflections on nature America has ever read. (Some people would consider that comparison a draw…)

It was an especially interesting opportunity for me. Over the years, I have been mercilessly teased by various people about the sheer amount of time I spend on the net (and from those who know me well – watching endless repeats of my favorite shows on TV). If I just stopped reading about those cats who lol and posting articles on Facebook, they reason, I would be able to write that novel or go to bed earlier or read French (Bonjour mon amie!) or whatever else they feel is more worthwhile. Talking on AIM is too distracting and makes you work slower than you are capable of, they say, or I don’t go on the internet when I go home and my life is better for it! I hear. But mostly, aside from the Charlie Brown voices I use to cover their accurate assessments, I realize that all of them are essentially saying the same thing – we’d be better off without technology!

Now that this small, unintentional experiment is over, I was surprised to see that I was not more productive. If anything, I spent more time figuring out how to do things without the fast speed of the internet (and without James Roday on Psych to help me have sweet dreams). Simple emails that would set my plans were replaced by (albeit delightful) 30-minute long cell conversations. I had to use a phone book to look up an address. I had trouble working on my syllabus because I couldn’t pull up the school calendar online. I’m not alone in that realization. James Strurm, a columnist for Slate Magazine who has gone four months without the internet found rather similar results. While we are addicted to our internet, being without it doesn’t necessarily mean that our lives will automatically be better or more productive.

For me, that was a bit of a revelation. When I read biographies of writers before the modern technological era that I am mystified by the sheer amount of work they leave behind. Consider Anthony Trollope, for example, who not only wrote seemingly hundreds of books that, when combined, weigh more than seven President Tafts and their bathtubs combined, but also managed to hold down a full-time job as a postal clerk. Or what about an earlier writer like Samuel Richardson, who wrote Pamela and Clarissa (the latter of which took several cocktails and several months to finish because the font was so small)?

These examples are impressive, no doubt. But I haven’t even mentioned that most authors, no matter the number of volumes published, were prolific letter writers who managed to be insightful even in their everyday correspondence. (It’s a good day if I even bother to use capital letters and proper punctuation in routine email.) Let’s not also forget that they spoke multiple languages even as children, could accurately quote their extensive reading, and were probably in better physical shape than the vast majority of people today. Frankly, I’m exhausted just thinking about it.

Have we just gotten dumber, slower, and lazier by comparison? (If we’re basing it solely on reality show contestants, then yes, a thousand times yes.) Some critics have argued that these writers had shorter life expectancies so every day was “carpe diem” day so to speak. But I don’t necessarily know if that’s the only reason.

In thinking about my weekend, I’ve reached a few, incredibly unscientific conclusions.

Those people who bemoan the internet/all the tech advancements could change their perspective. There’s not going to be a movement where we destroy everything that has been created and forget all the things we have accepted as the status quo (why give up the ability to play Scrabble online?) Doing so would only set society back to a new Dark Ages. Instead, rather than comparing ourselves to the past, we need to see what values/skills have emerged and embrace those.

For example, we’ve got a breadth, but not necessarily a depth of knowledge today, much of which can be accessed at our fingertips, unsurpassed by those writers of the past. (Could Shakespeare perform CPR like I can as I renewed my certification on Sunday? Would Hawthorne be able to set up my internet like the nice Comcast guy did?) We are called upon to be more adept and skilled in multiple ways that most of those writers could even dream.

With these new fields of knowledge, some of the people who may have been philosophers or writers or critics in the past now have the chance to be on the cutting-edge of future technologies, some of which may save lives or improve our lifestyles. Our brilliance hasn’t diminished -- it’s simply being dispersed and disseminated in new ways. On the other hand, in terms of our stupidity, we’ve simply made it more readily available and more thoroughly documented through these technological avenues. There has always been an undercurrent of society, but today it is more prevalent through the idea that anyone can share their desires online in the comments section on a news site or on a reality TV show.

However, from a personal perspective, I also do realize that some sort of balance is needed to help us feel more productive. We are still in the beginning of the computer revolution and figuring out what to make of all the possibilities, but haven’t quite figured out the side-effects of a multi-tasking, sedentary and solitary life (look at the Industrial Revolution – slowly we figured it out that it was causing pollution and debilitating workers).

Without technology this weekend, I didn’t turn into a snarling animal nor did I become a brilliant scholar. I just noticed that I stopped relying on technology and turned back to myself – for knowledge, for entertainment, and for insights (without input from the Facebook peanut gallery), as anyone of any generation would do. Thoreau went into the woods to find himself away from society, but as our culture moves away from the neighborhoods and onto the information highways, we can find a slower pace quite easily -- simply get into areas without internet service to embrace the quiet. (Not that I would ever be against exploring the natural world, but that is another day, another post.)

I also realized we have a tendency to sell ourselves short. We are so focused on crossing things off our list (most of which are inconsequential in the long run), that we don’t let things grow organically out from our own interests, thus ensuring better quality work. Nor do we see personal growth or time spent in reflection as productive. Think about it – my online conversations with friends serve essentially the same purpose as those lengthy letters. We are trying to deepen our relationships and also expand our understanding of the world around us, through the help of our friends. My time online can be productive in ways I haven’t figured out yet because they are still fermenting – I figure so long as I’m reading articles or talking to friends, I am improving myself.

However, previous generations knew more about how to wade through the muck and find what mattered, because there were fewer necessities or options that demanded their time. After all, when I’m really focused, the music, the TV, the internet all melt away and I can do what I would like to get done. But it’s a luxury to do what I love – no matter how in/efficiently I work because there is that societal view that with all these great new technologies comes even more meetings, paperwork, and protocols to complete first. In other words, we’re tired before our real work of the human soul has even begun to be uttered, thought, or even written down. We just want to survive through the muck by making it more enjoyable through online or televised distractions.

So, rather than bemoan that humans are better off without technology, we should be asking the question, What is really important to us as a society and how can we focus on that instead?

But until that question becomes asked and answered with greater frequency, you’ll have to excuse me if I let myself coast on the information superhighway. I’ve got some lolcats to visit.