An Unexpected Turn of Events.
23 February 2010
So not really a read-along, was it? Well, this is all about discovering what works, and I can rule out read-alongs…for now.
I read Through a Glass Darkly, and my one word conclusion is that it was entertaining. At first, I was very excited because Koen really starts out with some great historically accurate details woven into the story (socks embroidered with clocks). But that element seems to get overtaken by the soap opera of the story, and as a reader I was left with a thoroughly predictable “plot twist” and a heroine (Barbara Montgeoffry, the Countess Devane) that I think I was supposed to admire, but I just felt she was spoiled and thoroughly unremarkable. Apparently, I would not have fit in with Barbara’s society – people who were all essentially rendered helpless and inadequate by her stunning beauty and uniquely remarkable character. Additionally, I felt that there was some homophobia threaded through the novel, and that really soured my experience. Regardless of what the social views on homosexuality were in the eighteenth century, phrases such as “effeminate monstrosity” peppered the novel with a seemingly anchor-less context and ruined my ability to be entertained.
And amidst all that, I started reading the sequel to Through a Glass Darkly in the hopes that maybe some improvements had been made in the portrayal of Barbara and the predictable plot lines. Unfortunately, I was unable to really get past the fifth chapter…I found Barbara, Countess Devane (or the “fragile black butterfly” as she is known at her plantation in Virginia) to be even more grating and tedious in her new surroundings than she was in London. Maybe someday I will pick up Now Face to Face again and give it a second shot, but for now, it acts as a paperweight on my bedside table.
Right now I am reading The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. I know the outline of the story, but I have never read it. (For those of you who have read it, go ahead and laugh when I say now that I think Lord Henry Wotton may be the Devil that tempts young Mr. Gray out of his soul.)
Two versions of Dorian.
Oh, and the unexpected turn of events? I haven’t really felt like reading lately. I think it is because I am preoccupied by the fact that my life is dominated by waiting – waiting to hear about grad school, waiting to hear about jobs, waiting to hear about graduation. One would think that reading would be a much needed respite from it all, but apparently, I can’t concentrate when there isn’t “A PLAN.” Huh…
Read-Along
26 December 2009
Now that the Holidays are coming to a close, the semesters have ended, and the pajamas are a permanent uniform, I introduce the first read-along.
I will be reading Karleen Koen’s Through a Glass Darkly, and oh…how I am looking forward to something that I do not have to read because a syllabus tells me to!
I hope that everyone’s holidays have been filled with laughter and warmth. Now go grab a copy of Through a Glass Darkly and dig in with me this week!
Botanical Daydreaming
21 November 2009
When I was a kid, I would, on rainy weekend afternoons such as this, take the large color copy of Audubon’s Birds of America off the shelf and spend hours flipping through the color plates of fancy birds (and some not so fancy birds).
Maybe that is why I was so delighted when I discovered that the Missouri Botanical Garden Library has digitized over 3,000 volumes of historic botanical literature. Access is totally FREE and can be found at Bonaticus.org. You can browse by subject, author, year (the earliest being 1480!! Fifteenth Century plant research!! Am I the only one who thinks this is astonishingly cool?), or region which is presented as a great big map and you can just click on the area you are interested in. Very user friendly. I particularly like that their subject browsing page utilizes the subject cloud, which I am sure we have all seen on one blog or another. (wink wink. I use one here – it is at the bottom of the page.)
So here are three highlights, in no particular order. But oh…the choices! There are so many amazing texts and prints available in this archive.
Les Fleurs Animees (The Animated Flowers) by J.J. Grandville, from sometime during the 1840’s. From Paris. The title of this print is Bleuet et Coquelicot. (Blueberry and Poppy.) I love the playful fairy-like quality of these prints, and I am enamored with the serenading insects.
Edward’s Botanical Register, Vol. 15 by John Lindley from London,1829. I particularly like these prints because they remind me so much of the Audubon plates. I may have to print some of these off and frame them. 
Finally, the cover page of a text titled Adam in Eden,or, Nature’s Paradise by William Coles, from sometime in the seventeenth century. I just love, love, love the fact that we are still reading books of the same subject as the people in the 1600’s. Also, the title page is just a lovely example of how our language evolves. Overall, this page is a wonderful juxtaposition of the constant and the changing. 
What a discovery. And what a project this must have been for the folks over at the Missouri Botanical Garden Library. I am giving them a round of applause.
If anyone knows of other archived treasures, share them with us! I would love to explore more sites such as this.
Required Reading For Your ‘Destination Vacation’
9 November 2009
Jamaica Kincaid’s book A Small Place, reminded me at first of a travel journal, and then of a personal journal. The function of the beginning ‘chapter’ which mimics a travel journal, is to put the reader in the position of tourist. In doing so, the reader is implicated with the ignorance of all the non-native people who visit Antigua. This got me thinking. I thought that I needed a vacation. And then I instantly felt terrible for that, and realized that this book has quite possibly changed the way that I am able to view destination vacations forever. I have never actually taken a ‘destination’ vacation: those are only things that I daydream about, but now that blissful ignorance has been taken away and Kincaid’s book has held up a mirror to the entitlement and suppression that permeates the western idea of ‘holiday.’ It is similar, in effect, to a picture by Banksy:
It seems that there is nothing that this society takes for granted that can be simply separated from its role in the world. Everything has its equal and opposite balance, so a ’simple’ vacation carries with it the suppression and exploitation of a region and its people, in order to create a false paradise. At every All-You-Can-Eat Buffet, there are people starving in the alley behind the restaurant.
The end of Kincaid’s book changes from an anti-travel guide to a personal journal of frustration, and I feel that as the reader, I have followed that model. The more information that is given, the more complicated and upsetting a situation can seem. The question of what to do next, and how to fix past mistakes, seems so important once the curtain has been lifted, but the answers remain elusive. Kincaid writes about the assassinations of leaders in Antigua with a confusion that translates to the reader. The events and actions are all interconnected, but we cannot see the threads to cut: there is no clear path to rectification. Other readers might say, at this point, that Kincaid is unjustly passing blame to her readers (and alienates the very readers that buy her books) for something that happened before their time. Although Antigua’s history with colonization is not something that the average reader can control, Kincaid’s direct confrontation of the reader asks them to look at what they CAN control.
Kincaid’s book ends with a description of the ‘European Disease’ – the use and exploitation of other people in order to feel better about one’s own lonely and empty existence, and I am left to ponder the cure for this disease. If I never take that ‘destination’ vacation, am I sufficiently doing my part to counter – act the effects of suppression and exploitation? Probably not, but as J. Kincaid writes, we are all just human beings: we do what we can and hope that it will make a difference.
This Blog = Punishable by Death or Imprisonment
4 November 2009
There is a distinct irony inherent in the power of the Party’s control in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. The crux of their power lies in the naiveté of the general public: their willingness to believe uncritically what is told to them, a willingness born of fear, and yet the execution of the Party’s power relies heavily on the sharp minds of the very public that Big Brother is trying to control. For instance, the act of writing is not allowed. Recording events, like keeping a diary (or writing a blog), is not “illegal” in the technical sense of the word, but could result in death or imprisonment, so any attempts to “communicate with the future” are highly risky to say the least. And yet it is Winston’s job to communicate and craft a reality for the future that is in compliance with the Party’s doctrines. The difference is that the diary promotes individual thought and subjective, uncontrolled reality, while the other is a highly crafted conformist reality. The thing is, Winston could do neither of these acts without an element of creativity and free thought. The very seed of individualism and creativity that leads Winston on his journey with the diary is the very thing that he draws upon when he fabricates fictionalized realities like that of Comrade Ogilvy.
Additionally, the double standard of control and reliance is seen with the character of Syme. Winston knows with certainty that one day Syme will be vaporized because he lacked “a sort of saving stupidity.” Unfortunately for Syme, the very thing that makes him so good at his job of language de-creation, if you will, is the thing that will get him killed in the end. Syme’s analytical and philosophical grasp of Newspeak with the implications and possibilities inherent in its execution provide Syme with an artistic reverence toward his job. While he crafts the language into simplicity, his knowledge of what he does ensures a finely crafted framework for future expressions of reality; this is exactly what Big Brother would like. And yet this insight is dangerous in one person, and so Syme’s insight and linguistic artisanship solidifies his fate.
In the world of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, the characteristics that ensure a functioning role in society are also the ones that the Party seeks to suppress. There is a contrary nature in the reality of the novel; “even to understand the word DoubleThink involved the use of DoubleThink” and so there exists a simultaneous suppression and reliance on the individual members of the society to be able to access the very abilities and thought processes that they are told to control.
