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…
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.
Random Beings: Modernism, Categorization, and Virginia Woolf
2 November 2009
I see the concept of “random” coinciding with the quote by D.H. Lawrence that “Individualism makes the mistake of considering the individual a fixed entity.” I see these two concepts as being related in such a way that an individual is an ever changing being that experiences things differently during each moment or event. In other words, they have random experiences and thoughts; they do not have a fixed perspective that is impervious to change. I do not see random thought as a negative description; it is, in my opinion, a mode of expression and experience from moment to moment; One moment being cheese sandwiches or the color of a pencil, the next moment having the possibility of an epiphany or the contemplation of a leaf.
Generalizing the random experiences of females and relegating that experience to only times of stress is, to me, an assumption that one person’s experience is the fixed experience of all who “fit” into that category, which in this case would be females. I would like to take it one step further and argue that not only are we random beings with the ability to create a whole new world of thought within any given second, but that this random existence applies to all of us, men and women. Now I am the one making a generalization, but I assert that the generalized randomness would allow for each experience to be unique; one person would think random thoughts when stressed precisely because they are a random being.
This assumption of fluidity and possibility extends to the writers as well; we would be correct in saying, for example, that Virginia Woolf is a Modernist writer, and we would also be correct in saying that she is a feminist writer. She exists simultaneously in both worlds, and possesses a random existence. She would exist as both or neither, a feminist or a modernist depending upon who is looking at her and through what lens.
It is my opinion that the assumption of a fixed entity reinforces the binary system that determines an either/or definition for every aspect of our existence. Random beings, as defined for this post, have the capability of defying the binary system in such a way that it is hard to define them as either this or that. Because a woman is a feminist, it does not follow that she is unhappy in her marriage, (as evident in Virginia’s suicide note to her husband in which she writes “I don’t think two people could have been happier than we have been.”). Because a woman is married, it does not necessarily follow then, that she is a heterosexual, as evident with Virginia’s life-long friendship and love affair with Vita Sackville-West. The possibility of existing as a both/and is also evident with the correspondences between Woolf and Arnold Bennett; Even though they vehemently criticized each other regarding the do’s and don’ts of literature, upon meeting each other, neither could honestly say that they disliked the other. In fact, they had a sort of mutual respect for one another; they existed as both adversaries and equals.
The description of one as a random being allows for the next moment in our lives to contain possibilities limited only by our imagination. It allows for writers to create new modes of expression, and it allows for everyone, as an existing individual, to experience the world as it really is; ever-changing and confusing. We are not either a critic or a creator, a this or a that; we are capable of being both, and we are confusing, complex beings.
A Bountiful Samhain
29 October 2009
This weekend is Halloween. I will be dressing up as an academic professional and infiltrating the MWPCA/ACA conference on Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror and Humor this weekend in downtown Detroit. I hope there is candy.
This fall is proving to be incredibly hectic, and I do want to keep in touch amidst the chaos, so over the next few weeks, I am going to be posting some short “thoughts on file” from various books that I have read. I say this because one day I may post something about World War Z, and the next day may be a reflection on Anna Karenina. You might get whiplash from the topics flying out of opposite ends of the spectrum with no warning, and so here is a little heads up.
My long term goal – to begin after the upcoming holidays – is to begin conducting read-alongs. When that starts, I will announce a book (or you can suggest one!), and we can all read along together.
For now, let’s all ambrace the randomness…and have a happy and safe Halloween weekend!
