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.
November Sightings
3 November 2009
Some fellow book-bloggers have some really cool things going on right now.
First up, The Literate Housewife Review is doing a Neil Gaiman read-along for the month of November in honor of his birthday. I am completely jealous of all who can participate in this. I will be the kid stuck inside on a snow day procrastinating on graduate applications doing her homework while you all have snowball fights, and make igloos that transport you to a world where time and temperature are frozen, and make snow cats that howl at the moon. Luckies.
Anyway, go check it out. It sounds like great fun. And come to think of it – birthday aside – what a perfect month to be reading Gaiman.
And then. And then! Head on over to The Book Lady’s Blog to check out a reading by Audrey 
Niffenegger of her new novel Her Fearful Symmetry. This is exclusive content folks! And if you are interested but you have not bought the book yet (like me), you can enter to win a hardcover copy by visiting HFS Facebook sight and following these instructions.
Have fun everyone, and enjoy the view!
