Other Reading

I was much comforted to have some responses to my last post! I agree that it is important to re-evaluate why I chose to be an English major, even if I had negative feelings associated with it.

I have not been able to do any reading outside of class in the past few weeks, but I decided to list some of my in-class readings, though none of them are novels. That is about to change actually, I'm on schedule to start reading Gargantua and Pantagruel for Sixteenth Century tomorrow.

In Sixteenth Century, we've covered:

The Defence of Poesie by Sir Philip Sidney, which I greatly enjoyed, even though poetry isn't always my cup of tea. Sidney, one of Elizabeth I's best known courtiers (also Leicester's nephew), wrote this essay defending the occupation of poetry that he has fallen into, first, because, obviously, his occupation must be the best, and then a host of other reasons including that all learning (philosophy, math, science), originally stemmed from the writing of poetry, which stemmed from written language, which stemmed from language itself.

Sidney's Astrophel and Stella sonnet sequence, in the grand Petrarchan tradition. Some of them are pretty funny, I did an analysis paper on Sonnet IX where Astrophel compares his beloved Stella's face to "Queen Virtue's Court," basically saying, "Hey, your face is a building, but I'm
your straw anyway."

Edmund Spenser's sonnet sequence, Epithalamion, also in the Petrarchan tradition. In this one though, the lover actually gets the girl. Ooo subversion! Spenser, also an Elizabethan courtier (sort of, I think he wrote for one of her courtiers, but he was associated with the court), is my old friend from The Faerie Queene, which I haven't yet read in its entirety. I appreciate it, but...it is dense, and very metaphorically confusing.

Shakespeare's sonnets to the Golden Boy and the Dark Mistress. I've read them all before. A lot. But I do think they're better than Sidney's or Spenser's.

Christopher Marlowe's epyllion Hero and Leander. I sort of just read it without thinking about it, and then my teacher made us re-read the descriptions of Hero and Leander, and it's ridiculous. Hero has little mechanical birds chirping on her boots that her maidservant fills with water, a veil of artifical flowers, and bees constantly swarming around her. What a beauty.

In Theatre, we read parts of Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed.His writing style is very clear and well-organized, but that doesn't make his ideas that traditional theatre is oppressive much easier to understand.

What Do You Do With a BA in English?

My Advanced Writing teacher punched me in the gut this morning. Not literally, of course. But, as is his wont, he likes to question and in class he likes to question the structures of literary education and literary criticism and what we as students are used to.

Today, he decided it would be a great idea to show us a list of undergraduate students who received research grants at our university. We made the observation he intended, that is, in at least the past three years, no English majors have received grants. The majority of recipients were engineering and health sciences majors. Of course, in perspective, there are many more engineering and health sciences students at this school than there are English majors. He didn't even have data on how many English majors had applied versus been rejected for grants.

It's just that then, the conversation devolved, as I'm also sure he intended, into a discussion of how English majors are marginalized at this school, the English department doesn't encourage undergraduate research, and in literary criticism, there's a general turgidity and a perception from the world at large that literary criticism is irrelevant and literature is too accessible or irrelevant to require a profession surrounding it.

I fell right into the trap. The discussion dredged up all my feelings and insecurities about not being considered relevant, being jobless and hopeless and voiceless, all because I'm bad at math, and while I love and respect science, I could never be very successful in it as a career. I just don't work that way. So what's left for me? Is my life meaningless?

I'm pretty sure my teacher didn't intend THAT to happen, but it's the natural progression of questioning English as a field. It's questioning my choice to be an English major and my ability to contribute to the world.

I thought about it and came up with an existential answer. If the world blew up tomorrow, who was more important, the engineer or the poet? Neither, they're both dead and everything they worked for is gone.

I just read an entry on Reading Dangerously from Tales from the Reading Room. It was just what I needed to hear. She's talking about how some books force you to think and evaluate yourself, and how literary training helps to understand difficult literature. She reminded me how books can shock you, hurt you, make an impression, and open your mind. That's why I'm an English major, that's why I love literature. Reading (and writing) is how I work through, process, and deal with life, and how I learn to relate to others.

I want to use this blog to connect with other readers and writers. Thus far, I have been content to keep a record of book reviews, mostly for my own amusement and posterity. From now on, I plan to read and comment more on other literary blogs and hope they will return the compliment. Because we share something precious and we need to contribute to the preservation not only of literature, but discussion and understanding of literature.

Boston Book Festival

I just got back from the Boston Book Festival. What comes to mind first is how well-executed it was for a first time event. I was nervous about there being enough space in panels, especially since it was free and "just show up" instead of even having people RSVP (except for the writing workshops, which I didn't attend). There were certainly a lot of people there, especially for the keynote speech, but I managed to squeeze in every time. I supposed it helped that interesting panels ran concurrently, so people had to decide what to go to. The Old South Church sanctuary was a lovely setting for most of the panels I went to, I didn't go to any in Trinity, which is a little disappointing, because I don't know when else I could get inside Trinity for free!

The panels I attended were; Ties that Bind, Boston Roots, Power of Place, Beyond the Margins, Eat Your Words, and the keynote speech by Orhan Pamuk. The schedule can be found here, if you're interested; http://www.bostonbookfest.org/index.php/events/

The one I actually enjoyed the most was Beyond the Margins, which I didn't even plan to go to. There were a couple of panels on new media, Amazons, Kindles, the future of books etc, which I didn't get to attend. This was about "transmedia," or using different kinds of media to form a unique "fandom" experience. The presenters were Reif Larsen and Tim Kring. Larsen interested me the most, he discussed his fascination with the stories told by maps and diagrams and how different people read them, which of course ties into his new, and I believe, first published book, The Collected Works of T.S. Spivet. I want to read it now, and I almost bought it, but I had already bought Day After Night by Anita Diamant (who spoke on the Places panel), and I already have plenty of new books I haven't read yet.

Tim Kring is a producer of the TV show Heroes, and he talked about how it isn't just on television, but online, with commentary and interviews, mobile with texts and games, in print with graphic novels and a magazine, and with several alternate websites that tie into the universe. Being a Star Trek geek myself, I can appreciate this sort of engagement. It reminded me how new technology can bring us together, and how change in the industry isn't necessarily a bad thing. Who knows, maybe there'll be more small, indie writers with audiences due to the internet, just like in music? It's already beginning to happen.

I was happy to see representatives of Harvard Bookstore, the Brattle Bookshop, 826 Boston, the Boston Review, and more Boston-based literary organizations present. Thanks to Brigham Ice Cream too, for the free Rocky Road!

Grokking Stranger

57. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein

I've been squeezing my "pleasure reading" book in between class books for the past two months, and I finally finished it-by turning it into a class book. We got to choose our own text in Advanced Writing, so I decided to try my rudimentary critical hand at Stranger.

My interest in this book originated in a number of places. I was aware of it as a foundational work of science fiction, it was discussed in The Jane Austen Book Club (oddly enough), and the title is a famous quote from Moses of Exodus fame (which I know because of Fiddler on the Roof).

So Stranger in a Strange Land is about Valentine Michael Smith, the child of human astronauts who was raised by Martians. Smith speaks and thinks in Martian, and has absorbed Martian values and culture. He cannot understand humans and in his attempt to 'grok' humanity, tries to bring Martian culture to a select Nest of "water brothers" (i.e. disciples).

I found the concept of grokking very interesting, used in context, it seems to mean 'to understand, ' but as described in the book, to grok is to become one with a concept or person or object. A similar message perpetuated in the book is the phrase "Thou art God," the idea that human beings are, collectively, God. It seemed very realistic to me how Mike first uses the word, and other characters pick it up from him.

Free love is another idea that the book, published in 1961, helped propel into momentum. In the second half of the book, sex becomes very important, and orgies and nudity are frequent occurrences, though all seen through a sort of higher purpose. I don't know if I can agree with this extreme elevation of sex, and I don't know how seriously it is meant to be taken. I guess I can see why Mike might think it is the "greatest good," since Martians don't have a similar sexual experience, but is Heinlein really suggesting that people can only 'grok' each other fully through sexual activity? Another way of grokking, of course, is cannibalism, but I won't get into that...

There is a lot to work with in this text, the treatment and representation of women jumped out at me. On the one hand, the women are intelligent, powerful characters, on the other hand, they're treated as cooks and secondhand citizens at points. There could also be an argument that the women are reduced to sex objects, but due to the elevation of sex, that could be a compliment? I'll be working with these ideas and more to form my argument.

I recommend this book to science fiction fans, and those interested in cults and especially the 1960s in the U.S.

More Soon...Maybe

56. The Laramie Project by Moises Kaufman

So...I did decide just to continue the count for this year. Especially because I haven't reached my goals for # of books published this year to read, etc. I don't know if I will though, since I'm so busy reading for class. That said, no reviews since I should be doing homework.

54. Fences by August Wilson

I read this for theatre class and we went to see it at the Huntington. I recommend it, though I saw a better version at Arena Stage in D.C. a few years ago.

55. Utopia by Thomas More

I read a different translation several years ago. I thought I hadn't finished it, but everything I remember came from later in the book, so now I think maybe I did. This time, the book made me angry because it sounded so impossible, people just don't work like that, they're not so selfless and humble and obedient. I did like their style of war though, making their enemies fight themselves, and putting out warrants for a few people instead of full-scale war. It is understood to be idealistic, however, I don't think More actually thought people could live like this, he just wanted the ideas to be considered. I still prefer the Machiavelli.

53. The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli

Machiavelli is officially my hero. The Prince is so straightforward and honest, and, yes, brutal, I want to give him a hug. He sees clearly. Especially in contrast with Castiglione, who stuck to ideals and praised virtue at all costs, Machiavelli blithely exposes the truly successful machinations of rulers.

And yet, despite his base view of human nature, despite his advocacy of war and vice, he is much more humanistic than usually given credit for. The manifesto is succinctly laid out, with sections on how to manage new and old principalities, how to manage armies and people and nobles, how to maintain money and property, and gain power over other principalities. He illustrates each section with an example from antiquity and an example from modernity, demonstrating his education and perception respectively. He values the stability of the state above all, the state that will actually benefit the greatest number of people, even if it need be assured through the destruction of the old royal line.

Machiavelli addresses his book to Lorenzo de Medici, who reconquered his principality from under a government in which Machiavelli held a large amount of power. Machiavelli is unemployed and exiled, and decides to beg for a job through a book so honest, his intentions cannot be misread. He died before it was published, but his last section makes me wonder about the true purpose of the manifesto. He exhorts de Medici to "rise up against the barbarians" and unite Italy, a feat, of course, that will not be completed till nearly three centuries later. Is this Machiavelli's true aim? is his brutal manifesto only a tool to gain the beloved country of the ancients and restore confidence to the people of Italy, so that perhaps he, the clever statesman could rule, or, as before, establish a republic? Did Machiavelli fully believe his own rhetoric?

I read my own views into his work, and my experience of humanity has been much the same, and yet I still see potential, I am still optimistic for change. Was he, too?