The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, May 13th and runs through Sunday, May 19th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure, and the only reading competition is between you and your usual number of books read in a week. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 7.0 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. - From the Bout of Books team
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Bout of Books
I have hit a bit of a reading rut. Of course I've been reading for my essays - so much reading that I thought my eyeballs would fall out. As such, my reading of late has consisted mainly of feminist literary criticism. Nothing wrong with feminist literary criticism but I am itching to stick my nose in some actual literature as opposed to criticism. I made a massive Amazon order to celebrate successfully submitting my essays, so I now have a plethora of books to read (to add to the astounding number of books sitting in my flat also waiting to be read). What better way to get back into reading than a read-a-thon. And so...I will be participating in Bout of Books:
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Rambling Thoughts
I am at home, sick with a perfectly ordinary cold with some extra flu-like symptoms thrown in to make me extra miserable. Naturally, I am using this as an excuse not to work on my coursework and instead taking the opportunity to write a little something for this blog. I don't have anything specific to write about because I am too lazy to review the book I've read most recently (and I need a second read-through to form more coherent thoughts on it). So today I will just settle for writing out some rambling thoughts.
My MA program is drawing to a close in a few weeks - my taught courses will end and I will be sent off for 6 months to write the dissertation. I have a supervisor of course to guide me along so I won't be on my own, but it will definitely be a whole new challenge. This is my test-run for PhD study - as of now I'm planning to apply for programs starting in fall 2014, but first I have to complete this dissertation and make the final decision. Is academia really what I want to do with my life?
As usual I am quaking in the face of uncertainty. Another stage of my life is winding down and this time I don't have a new academic prospect waiting at the end. As of September 31 I will no longer be a student, at least for a year. I will have two degrees to keep me warm, but there's a very real possibility that I will be unemployed. Maybe I will travel. Maybe I will do volunteer work abroad. Maybe I will find a secluded cottage by the sea and write for a year, completely isolated from the turmoil of the outside world. Well, ok that last one is a bit far-fetched.
Before then, I am going home to Baltimore in 2 weeks time for a much-needed recharge. Hugh will be coming with me and it feels as though this will determine whether my family will accept our relationship as something more than just a youthful fling. We're young of course - I'm only 22 and he's only 21 (yep I'm dating a younger man, only 10 months though; it's the curse of the fall birthdays - same year in school but he's a young September and I'm and old November) so we're only just starting our lives. But for the first time, I'm not completely on my own. Who knows where I'll end up or what my life will be, but for now I have a partner with me. There's still a lot uncertain, but I'm thinking about the future. And as I think about where to live next year and the path of my life in the near future - proximity to the people I love is a major consideration.
If I'm completely honest with myself, I am fairly certain that I will be living in England for the majority of the next five years - maybe a few months at home next year, but after that it'll most likely be England. As of now I am still planning to go for my PhD and ideally I will be either in London or Oxford. But really who knows? Plans can change at the drop of a hat. It's hard to imagine the future when everything feels so uncertain, but it's still worth thinking about. And some things I do know - I love my family and I love my boyfriend; I love literature and I love writing. I know that I feel at home in both America and England. I know that I want to live in the country with lots of dogs and horses. I even know that I want to be a wife and mother one day. It's not a lot, but it's something. The rest is unknown and another thing I know is that not knowing is ok.
And so I'll finish my Masters and then I'll take a year off - hopefully I'll be able to focus on becoming healthy and happy; I'll take time to write and foster the important relationships in my life; and maybe I'll get to know myself and what I want more fully.
But first I need to write 2 essays, a critical survey, and a dissertation.
My MA program is drawing to a close in a few weeks - my taught courses will end and I will be sent off for 6 months to write the dissertation. I have a supervisor of course to guide me along so I won't be on my own, but it will definitely be a whole new challenge. This is my test-run for PhD study - as of now I'm planning to apply for programs starting in fall 2014, but first I have to complete this dissertation and make the final decision. Is academia really what I want to do with my life?
As usual I am quaking in the face of uncertainty. Another stage of my life is winding down and this time I don't have a new academic prospect waiting at the end. As of September 31 I will no longer be a student, at least for a year. I will have two degrees to keep me warm, but there's a very real possibility that I will be unemployed. Maybe I will travel. Maybe I will do volunteer work abroad. Maybe I will find a secluded cottage by the sea and write for a year, completely isolated from the turmoil of the outside world. Well, ok that last one is a bit far-fetched.
Before then, I am going home to Baltimore in 2 weeks time for a much-needed recharge. Hugh will be coming with me and it feels as though this will determine whether my family will accept our relationship as something more than just a youthful fling. We're young of course - I'm only 22 and he's only 21 (yep I'm dating a younger man, only 10 months though; it's the curse of the fall birthdays - same year in school but he's a young September and I'm and old November) so we're only just starting our lives. But for the first time, I'm not completely on my own. Who knows where I'll end up or what my life will be, but for now I have a partner with me. There's still a lot uncertain, but I'm thinking about the future. And as I think about where to live next year and the path of my life in the near future - proximity to the people I love is a major consideration.
If I'm completely honest with myself, I am fairly certain that I will be living in England for the majority of the next five years - maybe a few months at home next year, but after that it'll most likely be England. As of now I am still planning to go for my PhD and ideally I will be either in London or Oxford. But really who knows? Plans can change at the drop of a hat. It's hard to imagine the future when everything feels so uncertain, but it's still worth thinking about. And some things I do know - I love my family and I love my boyfriend; I love literature and I love writing. I know that I feel at home in both America and England. I know that I want to live in the country with lots of dogs and horses. I even know that I want to be a wife and mother one day. It's not a lot, but it's something. The rest is unknown and another thing I know is that not knowing is ok.
And so I'll finish my Masters and then I'll take a year off - hopefully I'll be able to focus on becoming healthy and happy; I'll take time to write and foster the important relationships in my life; and maybe I'll get to know myself and what I want more fully.
But first I need to write 2 essays, a critical survey, and a dissertation.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Reading Week!: Academia is a pain in the ass (but I love it anyway...I think)
So I've been away for a few days. I never said that I would posting every day - just that I would be featuring book-related content this week. I always leave myself loopholes for the days when I just want to watch films and eat ice cream and wallow in my very minor cold pretending to be on the brink of death. Today in the real spirit of reading week, I thought I would write a bit about my academic reading life.
I am currently studying for my Master in English literature with a concentration in the early modern (my time period is roughly confined to the 16th & 17th centuries). So basically the English Renaissance, made famous by all of the big name dudes you're forced to read in school - Shakespeare, Sidney, Donne, Marlowe, Herbert, Jonson, etc. Of course I love all the famous guys, but I also have a soft spot in my heart for my boy, Thomas Middleton. I'm writing my dissertation on Jacobean drama and so I spend most of my time with the later Shakespeare plays, some Jonson, Beaumont & Fletcher, Webster, and of course Middleton.
I have a love-hate relationship with my reading for school. I'm not really sure when the edging of hatred came into the picture, but there's no mistaking the fact that sometimes I just loathe the reading I do for my weekly seminars. Sanne, of YouTube fame as booksandquills, recently posted a video about Reading and Guilt that is also linked to this love-hate feeling I have been experiencing.
As you can tell from these Reading Week! posts, I love to read and have been a serious bookworm ever since I was a little kid. It wasn't until university, however, that I started to fall in love with critical reading and literary analysis. I was an English major, but my undergraduate career was a bit schizophrenic (dabbling in journalism, public relations, & public policy as well as the usual liberal arts curriculum that forced me to take math and science courses when I would rather have been filling up my schedule with English classes). After two years of the unfocused jumble of liberal arts, I took a year abroad at Oxford where I focused entirely on English and history, specifically the early modern period. Then, I graduated and started my Masters this fall. So my university life has been a bit weird. And it's only recently that I've really come to experience this strange guilt and love-hate feeling attached to my academic reading.
As a Masters student, I only have 4 hours a week of classroom time. Apparently I am supposed to spending the other 36 hours of the work week reading and studying independently. Yeah...that doesn't happen. On a good day, I can usually get a solid 3-4 hours of reading done for school but those good days are few and far between. I'm always astounded by people who can put in full 8 hour days because I am just not at the level of motivation or intense focus. Recently my good days have been made even more rare because of this complicated love-hate, anxiety-ridden experience that has somehow become attached to my academic reading. Today I went to the library and checked out 6 books for some early reading for my dissertation, which I won't start writing in earnest until April after this semester's modules. I'm looking at the books right now and I'm filled with my favourite feeling - excitement for reading, specifically exciting for learning and for new ideas on a topic I love. What I want to know is how this feeling can turn so sour?
When I was writing the final essays for my courses last semester, I experienced this disintegration of excitement into anxiety, then bitterness and eventually overwhelming guilt and fear. It was the worst experience of my academic career. Literary analysis, whether at the undergraduate or post-graduate level, is hard. It's not like math or science when there are quantifiable facts that lead to indubitable answers. In literature courses, we are asked to come up with ideas to contribute to a discussion. Part of the problem is that I'm always intimidated by the fact that I'm not as well read as many of my classmates. And then I spend half my week reading secondary materials from experts in the field, which just makes me even more convinced that any of my ideas are not nearly intelligent enough. This is especially heightened at the post-graduate level - we are supposed to be the people that have excelled thus far, we've chosen to devote our lives (or at least a portion of it) to academia so we're expected to be quite intelligent from the word go. So here I suppose my problem is, as ever, my feelings of inadequacy. But I think there are other reasons for this problem among students - once we learn how easy it is to get by on just skimming the reading, we'll then slack off knowing we can eke our way through the course with the least amount of effort (more time for Netflix). Of course then, this leads to guilt for abandoning our passion for learning and to the deterioration of confidence in our academic abilities.
I'm not really sure what I'm saying of worth here. I suppose what I mean to say is that I wish I could keep my excitement about reading from the pollution of my anxieties. Of course all of this is tied up with all of my other anxieties about life in general (here again I can reference Sanne and also Rosianna of missxrojas, who made a video together about their life crises after graduating with English degrees and not knowing what to do). I'm just fighting against this stem of anxiety at the moment and searching for some inspiration.
In case you're curious my dissertation will be looking at chastity, sexual desire, and female self agency in Jacobean drama (and how it is performed on stage). And these books I checked out of the library today:
The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500-1800 by Lawrence Stone
Domestic Dangers: women, words, and sex in early modern London by Laura Gowing
The Body Embarrassed: drama and the disciplines of shame in early modern England by Gail Kern Paster
Desire and Dramatic Form in Early Modern England by Judith Haber
Hymeneutics: interpreting virginity on the early modern stage by Marie H. Loughlin
Domestic Life and Domestic Tragedy in Early Modern England: the material life of the household by Catherine Richardson
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| Tommy Boy |
I have a love-hate relationship with my reading for school. I'm not really sure when the edging of hatred came into the picture, but there's no mistaking the fact that sometimes I just loathe the reading I do for my weekly seminars. Sanne, of YouTube fame as booksandquills, recently posted a video about Reading and Guilt that is also linked to this love-hate feeling I have been experiencing.
As you can tell from these Reading Week! posts, I love to read and have been a serious bookworm ever since I was a little kid. It wasn't until university, however, that I started to fall in love with critical reading and literary analysis. I was an English major, but my undergraduate career was a bit schizophrenic (dabbling in journalism, public relations, & public policy as well as the usual liberal arts curriculum that forced me to take math and science courses when I would rather have been filling up my schedule with English classes). After two years of the unfocused jumble of liberal arts, I took a year abroad at Oxford where I focused entirely on English and history, specifically the early modern period. Then, I graduated and started my Masters this fall. So my university life has been a bit weird. And it's only recently that I've really come to experience this strange guilt and love-hate feeling attached to my academic reading.
As a Masters student, I only have 4 hours a week of classroom time. Apparently I am supposed to spending the other 36 hours of the work week reading and studying independently. Yeah...that doesn't happen. On a good day, I can usually get a solid 3-4 hours of reading done for school but those good days are few and far between. I'm always astounded by people who can put in full 8 hour days because I am just not at the level of motivation or intense focus. Recently my good days have been made even more rare because of this complicated love-hate, anxiety-ridden experience that has somehow become attached to my academic reading. Today I went to the library and checked out 6 books for some early reading for my dissertation, which I won't start writing in earnest until April after this semester's modules. I'm looking at the books right now and I'm filled with my favourite feeling - excitement for reading, specifically exciting for learning and for new ideas on a topic I love. What I want to know is how this feeling can turn so sour?
When I was writing the final essays for my courses last semester, I experienced this disintegration of excitement into anxiety, then bitterness and eventually overwhelming guilt and fear. It was the worst experience of my academic career. Literary analysis, whether at the undergraduate or post-graduate level, is hard. It's not like math or science when there are quantifiable facts that lead to indubitable answers. In literature courses, we are asked to come up with ideas to contribute to a discussion. Part of the problem is that I'm always intimidated by the fact that I'm not as well read as many of my classmates. And then I spend half my week reading secondary materials from experts in the field, which just makes me even more convinced that any of my ideas are not nearly intelligent enough. This is especially heightened at the post-graduate level - we are supposed to be the people that have excelled thus far, we've chosen to devote our lives (or at least a portion of it) to academia so we're expected to be quite intelligent from the word go. So here I suppose my problem is, as ever, my feelings of inadequacy. But I think there are other reasons for this problem among students - once we learn how easy it is to get by on just skimming the reading, we'll then slack off knowing we can eke our way through the course with the least amount of effort (more time for Netflix). Of course then, this leads to guilt for abandoning our passion for learning and to the deterioration of confidence in our academic abilities.
 |
| Look how excited this kid is about reading! |
I'm not really sure what I'm saying of worth here. I suppose what I mean to say is that I wish I could keep my excitement about reading from the pollution of my anxieties. Of course all of this is tied up with all of my other anxieties about life in general (here again I can reference Sanne and also Rosianna of missxrojas, who made a video together about their life crises after graduating with English degrees and not knowing what to do). I'm just fighting against this stem of anxiety at the moment and searching for some inspiration.
In case you're curious my dissertation will be looking at chastity, sexual desire, and female self agency in Jacobean drama (and how it is performed on stage). And these books I checked out of the library today:
The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500-1800 by Lawrence Stone
Domestic Dangers: women, words, and sex in early modern London by Laura Gowing
The Body Embarrassed: drama and the disciplines of shame in early modern England by Gail Kern Paster
Desire and Dramatic Form in Early Modern England by Judith Haber
Hymeneutics: interpreting virginity on the early modern stage by Marie H. Loughlin
Domestic Life and Domestic Tragedy in Early Modern England: the material life of the household by Catherine Richardson
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Reading Week!: the inevitable e-reader issue, review of the Kindle Paperwhite
For Christmas this year my mother surprised me with the new Kindle Paperwhite. I felt like I did at age 6 when I received my beloved Bitty Baby doll - pure joy and immediate love. Up until this past year, Rosie, my Bitty Baby, was hands-down my all time greatest Christmas gift. Now poor Rosie has been demoted and I am completely infatuated with the Kindle, making her (yes, she's a girl - she has a pink case so obviously) my new favourite Christmas gift.
Not-so-quick and dirty review
Aesthetically this Kindle is very pleasing - small and slim, sleek, very minimalist with a screen just slightly smaller than an average mass market paperback page. I'm not sure how it compares in size to the other Kindles but I love its compact size. It feels as though I'm carrying a small paperback book, especially when I have it in my bright pink case (by Marware). I also love the paper and book themed images on the resting screen - pencils, fountain pens, etc. (the one I don't really get are the children's blocks - they have the alphabet on them, but still not particularly book related). As far as I know, these images are different from the other Kindle models, which show pictures of authors on the resting screen. The touch screen is a great feature as I never liked the older versions with keyboards. Also, obviously I need to comment on the unique "paperwhite" screen - it's very nice. Didn't say I would have a particularly useful comment, did I? I like that I can adjust the lighting of the screen and it is very easy on the eyes. In a dark room, it is actually suggested to use a lower light setting so you can read without straining your eyes, which I think is fantastic.
Using the Kindle has been very use-friendly. I like that I can organise my library into collections as I am a total organisation freak - also keeps the home screen from becoming cluttered, which is one thing I really hate. I won't go into detail about every little feature, so I'll just go over a few of my favourites and a few of my not-so favourites.
The good:
- At any point in the book you can touch the top of the screen to pull down a menu, from which you can navigate throughout the book or back to the home screen or store. You can also search the book for certain words (great for students analysing texts). There's also an X-ray feature that I don't really use, but it shows how often a certain character appears in that chapter or on that page.
- I actually really like the highlighting and note-taking features. I am definitely someone who marks up books, and honestly I'm not going to lie and say this is the same thing because it's definitely lacking in comparison to my intricate system of annotation. However, I do really like that all of your notes and highlights can be viewed together in one place. This is really useful for students writing essays who don't want to be constantly flipping through the book to find that passage to quote - just go to the Notes page for the book and they're all there.
- I like seeing the percentage of how much of the book I've read. When I'm reading a book, I constantly close it up to see how far along my bookmark is. The Kindle just gives me that information right away - something I never would have thought of as a part of my reading experience but appreciate now that they've included it.
- I also love that you can get samples of books before buying them. When I'm browsing through a bookshop I often want to sit down and read the opening pages (sometimes I do!) but feel to awkward or rushed, like the booksellers will come up and charge me for reading the book without purchasing it first. This feature is just so great for indecisive people like me, very big thumbs up.
- The lending library for Amazon Prime members is also a really great perk. I'm a big fan of Amazon Prime in general because I'm very impatient when it comes to delivery times. The Kindle library is just another reason I'm glad I subscribed to the service. Perfect for those books you just want to read for fun even though you know you won't love them enough to pay money to own it.
- I have also been using my Kindle to read documents quite a lot - if I'm assigned an article to read for class, I can download it on my laptop and then send it straight to my Kindle. I don't have a printer so this is a real life saver. I can highlight and make notes for class and then bring it to seminar bc it's a lot less of a hassle than carrying my laptop across town.
Ok, now onto the few complaints I have and they are all minor.
The bad:
- The touchscreen mechanism for turning the page is a bit iffy for someone like me who is very imprecise with all movements, even when it comes to touching a screen (seriously, how was I so good at the piano?). So I'm meaning to touch the right side of the screen to move forward, but I'm an imbecile and think just poking the screen anywhere will suffice so I end up going backwards or pulling down the top menu. Obviously I am just a little impaired, so for any normal human being the system should be very easy - left side to go backward, right side to go forward, top for the menu. Although I suppose it would be a bit confusing for someone reading in Hebrew or Arabic...
- The page number is not displayed unless you pull up the top menu - again a minor complaint, but annoying enough to notice. Yes, I like to see the time remaining and the percentage left in the book, but to eliminate the traditional mode of signifying your place in a books just seems stupid. I know we aren't holding a physical book with pages to flip, but if I were to cite a quotation on this page I would need the number. Not to mention the fact that we habitually think of books as made up of pages, that's how we mark our progress. Just because the format has changed, doesn't mean the ingrained way we comprehend the reading experience (or the book itself) has changed.
- My only big complaint with my Kindle experience is the battery life. I was told the battery would last as much as 8 weeks and I've found that to be false advertising. I've only owned my Kindle for 8 weeks and I've had to charge mine at least 3 times. Now, my suspicion is that I use up the battery life by browsing the Kindle store for new books. I know that I already browse Amazon for hours just looking up new books (adding them to my enormous Wish List) and Lord knows I can't pass by a bookshop without stopping in for "a few minutes" that somehow turn into a whole afternoon. So I suppose my addiction to browsing for books has crossed over to my Kindle, which isn't necessarily what it's meant for. However, I do feel that the 8 weeks promise was not accurate and it definitely annoys me. Yes, compared to my laptop and phone it has an amazing battery life. But I just hate feeling like I've been lied to, even about as trivial a thing as the battery life of my Kindle.
And that's all folks. I wanted to share some thoughts on the evolution of the book and the materiality of text as I spend quite a bit of my time contemplating those ideas as regarding the emergence of the book in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. That will have to be another post for another day because who knew I could talk so long about a little e-reader. Hopefully it's coherent enough to be helpful.
Not-so-quick and dirty review
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| Look how pretty! |
Using the Kindle has been very use-friendly. I like that I can organise my library into collections as I am a total organisation freak - also keeps the home screen from becoming cluttered, which is one thing I really hate. I won't go into detail about every little feature, so I'll just go over a few of my favourites and a few of my not-so favourites.
The good:
- At any point in the book you can touch the top of the screen to pull down a menu, from which you can navigate throughout the book or back to the home screen or store. You can also search the book for certain words (great for students analysing texts). There's also an X-ray feature that I don't really use, but it shows how often a certain character appears in that chapter or on that page.
 |
| It just wants to fit in with my other books (theme: pink) |
- I like seeing the percentage of how much of the book I've read. When I'm reading a book, I constantly close it up to see how far along my bookmark is. The Kindle just gives me that information right away - something I never would have thought of as a part of my reading experience but appreciate now that they've included it.
- I also love that you can get samples of books before buying them. When I'm browsing through a bookshop I often want to sit down and read the opening pages (sometimes I do!) but feel to awkward or rushed, like the booksellers will come up and charge me for reading the book without purchasing it first. This feature is just so great for indecisive people like me, very big thumbs up.
- The lending library for Amazon Prime members is also a really great perk. I'm a big fan of Amazon Prime in general because I'm very impatient when it comes to delivery times. The Kindle library is just another reason I'm glad I subscribed to the service. Perfect for those books you just want to read for fun even though you know you won't love them enough to pay money to own it.
 |
| Could have used the professional photos but I decided to go with my own shitty pictures |
Ok, now onto the few complaints I have and they are all minor.
The bad:
- The touchscreen mechanism for turning the page is a bit iffy for someone like me who is very imprecise with all movements, even when it comes to touching a screen (seriously, how was I so good at the piano?). So I'm meaning to touch the right side of the screen to move forward, but I'm an imbecile and think just poking the screen anywhere will suffice so I end up going backwards or pulling down the top menu. Obviously I am just a little impaired, so for any normal human being the system should be very easy - left side to go backward, right side to go forward, top for the menu. Although I suppose it would be a bit confusing for someone reading in Hebrew or Arabic...
- The page number is not displayed unless you pull up the top menu - again a minor complaint, but annoying enough to notice. Yes, I like to see the time remaining and the percentage left in the book, but to eliminate the traditional mode of signifying your place in a books just seems stupid. I know we aren't holding a physical book with pages to flip, but if I were to cite a quotation on this page I would need the number. Not to mention the fact that we habitually think of books as made up of pages, that's how we mark our progress. Just because the format has changed, doesn't mean the ingrained way we comprehend the reading experience (or the book itself) has changed.
- My only big complaint with my Kindle experience is the battery life. I was told the battery would last as much as 8 weeks and I've found that to be false advertising. I've only owned my Kindle for 8 weeks and I've had to charge mine at least 3 times. Now, my suspicion is that I use up the battery life by browsing the Kindle store for new books. I know that I already browse Amazon for hours just looking up new books (adding them to my enormous Wish List) and Lord knows I can't pass by a bookshop without stopping in for "a few minutes" that somehow turn into a whole afternoon. So I suppose my addiction to browsing for books has crossed over to my Kindle, which isn't necessarily what it's meant for. However, I do feel that the 8 weeks promise was not accurate and it definitely annoys me. Yes, compared to my laptop and phone it has an amazing battery life. But I just hate feeling like I've been lied to, even about as trivial a thing as the battery life of my Kindle.
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| My other books have accepted the Kindle as one of their own. |
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Reading Week!: Books, Books, Books
For the second instalment of Reading Week! I thought I would share what I am currently reading and what's next up on my reading agenda. I also have a goodreads for documenting more of my reading habits.
Currently Reading, February 2013:
Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
- I just started this one last night and I am already halfway through it. I'm enjoying this one very much - not at all what I was expecting, but I love it's eccentricity.
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfus
- I started this one over Christmas, finally taking up my brother's recommendation. I got about 100 pages into, but just when I was beginning to be sucked in I returned to England, set it aside to write some godawful essays, and never picked it back up (until now).
Therese Raquin by Emile Zola
- Ok, really I'm listening to the audio book read by Kate Winslet on my Audible app. It's actually quite good so far and Kate Winslet is such a wonderful narrator - now I just wish she could read to me all the time. Also in my audio book listening rotation is the first Harry Potter book read by Jim Dale. I try to listen to one or two of these Harry Potter audio books every year if I can as I have such a strong nostalgia attached to Jim Dale's readings that it feels like going home to my happy childhood every time I listen.
Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor
- I've only just started to get into this one, a few chapters in and I haven't been fully immersed yet. Although I do remember that it took me quite a while to get into Daughter of Smoke and Bone, but I ended up loving it. Maybe it's the world that just takes a slow start for me. This one will probably be in the background for a while, a chapter here and there, until I get sucked in.
Insurgent by Veronica Roth
- This one I've really only dipped my nose into once. I seem to have forgotten the ending of Divergent, which is at home in Baltimore so I am now at that crossroads wondering whether to put this on hold until I go home and can refresh my memory of Divergent or keep on with the hopes that my memory will reawaken as I get further into the story.
Up next for my reading:
Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
I also have a few books that are languishing half-read on my shelf that are in reserves:
The Stranger's Child by Alan Holinghurst
The Diviners by Libba Bray
The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Windup Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami
Ok, phew! That's a lot of reading - I'm definitely living up to my bookworm status in this post. Off to bed now for me, and a few more chapters of Swamplandia! I think.
Friday, February 15, 2013
Reading Week!: Arcadia by Lauren Groff
As it is now my Reading Week, the mid-semester break which is supposed to be used for revision and coursework, I thought I would get into the spirit of the "Reading" part and start a little week-long series here on the blog. As you can probably guess I don't have much going on in my life at the moment, so these little things help to keep my evenings filled (I've given up TV for Lent, possibly even longer, so I am devoting much more time to reading and writing). I will of course be doing a lot of reading for my seminars and my disseration, but I am also going to use this opportunity to read for pleasure. Here on the blog I will be using this space for some book reviews, reading updates, and other bookish things. So without further ado here is the first installment:
Review: Arcadia by Lauren Groff
I remember reading Lauren Groff's first novel The Monsters of Templeton several years ago and being quite impressed by it, not particularly amazed but I liked the book enough to be intrigued when I saw her second book on the shelves last year. Although I knew the book had received critical praise, I began reading without very high expectations (a book about growing up on a hippie commune didn't sound initially appealing, perhaps a little close to home as my brother had recently taken up residence in an 'eco-village' that resembled a commune a bit too closely and the family was not very happy about his lifestyle). I quickly realised, however, that this book was definitely going to be one to bypass all expectation and succeed in amazing me.
The story follows Bit as he grows up on what we would call a "hippie commune" - free love, drugs, veganism, etc. This premise is unique enough to stand out, but what is really special about the novel is Lauren Groff's beautiful writing. It was the very first book I read on my Kindle and so I was only just getting used to the new method for taking notes and making highlights, but I still found plenty of passages to mark up. In fact I am planning on buying a physical copy when I return to America (not a fan of the UK cover) so that I can reread it and fully mark it up as I do to my most beloved books. Groff's descriptions of childhood are very real - she captures the tenderness and vulnerability of a child's formative years. Mixed into the opening passages of Bit's childhood are some intelligent musings on language and the power of words (the strange physicality and materiality of them), told through the perspective of a young boy just discovering both.
The middle part of the novel loses some of the magic. This perhaps is a signal of Bit's growing up - he is less amazed by the world around him, an adolescent with a much more stark view of the work around him. The strength of the middle part is instead Bit's relationships to the other characters and the relationships that complicate the idealistic world of Arcadia. I was pleasantly surprised by the final part of the book - I won't give anything away, but I liked the way Groff addressed the idea of utopia - the flaws in an idealistic society and later the longing for a (lost? nostalgically imagined?) utopia in a faltering society. In the end, the novel doesn't quite regain the intuition, effortlessness, and finesse of the opening passages. I still gave Arcadia five stars, however, because all throughout Groff's writing is simply wonderful. As a whole picture showing the progression of Bit's life, the novel works very well. Even more than just the story of one man's journey from childhood to adulthood, however, Groff also gives us an opportunity to grapple with complex truths - "The invisible tissue of civilization: so thin, so easily rendable," she observes, "It's a miracle that it exists at all."
Review: Arcadia by Lauren Groff
I remember reading Lauren Groff's first novel The Monsters of Templeton several years ago and being quite impressed by it, not particularly amazed but I liked the book enough to be intrigued when I saw her second book on the shelves last year. Although I knew the book had received critical praise, I began reading without very high expectations (a book about growing up on a hippie commune didn't sound initially appealing, perhaps a little close to home as my brother had recently taken up residence in an 'eco-village' that resembled a commune a bit too closely and the family was not very happy about his lifestyle). I quickly realised, however, that this book was definitely going to be one to bypass all expectation and succeed in amazing me.
The story follows Bit as he grows up on what we would call a "hippie commune" - free love, drugs, veganism, etc. This premise is unique enough to stand out, but what is really special about the novel is Lauren Groff's beautiful writing. It was the very first book I read on my Kindle and so I was only just getting used to the new method for taking notes and making highlights, but I still found plenty of passages to mark up. In fact I am planning on buying a physical copy when I return to America (not a fan of the UK cover) so that I can reread it and fully mark it up as I do to my most beloved books. Groff's descriptions of childhood are very real - she captures the tenderness and vulnerability of a child's formative years. Mixed into the opening passages of Bit's childhood are some intelligent musings on language and the power of words (the strange physicality and materiality of them), told through the perspective of a young boy just discovering both.
The middle part of the novel loses some of the magic. This perhaps is a signal of Bit's growing up - he is less amazed by the world around him, an adolescent with a much more stark view of the work around him. The strength of the middle part is instead Bit's relationships to the other characters and the relationships that complicate the idealistic world of Arcadia. I was pleasantly surprised by the final part of the book - I won't give anything away, but I liked the way Groff addressed the idea of utopia - the flaws in an idealistic society and later the longing for a (lost? nostalgically imagined?) utopia in a faltering society. In the end, the novel doesn't quite regain the intuition, effortlessness, and finesse of the opening passages. I still gave Arcadia five stars, however, because all throughout Groff's writing is simply wonderful. As a whole picture showing the progression of Bit's life, the novel works very well. Even more than just the story of one man's journey from childhood to adulthood, however, Groff also gives us an opportunity to grapple with complex truths - "The invisible tissue of civilization: so thin, so easily rendable," she observes, "It's a miracle that it exists at all."
Sunday, January 27, 2013
City of dashed dreams, on not being a 'city girl' and the blighted hopes of young adulthood
I am writing this on a Saturday evening in London. I am wrapped up in two blankets and wearing several layers of pajamas. It is January and the city has been reeling from one inch of snowfall that completely incapacitated all transport. I have no plans to go out this evening despite being a young person living in a vibrant and exciting city. In fact, my flatmate, who is out at a party just texted me to ask if I wanted to meet up with them, and I turned down her offer. I can't afford to go out and I don't really enjoy getting drunk unlike many of people my age. Instead I will write because this city has forced me into yet another emotional downturn. Even just sitting down to type up this blog post is making my heart race. I'm not surprised - I was diagnosed with severe anxiety months ago; this coming after several years of treatment for major depressive disorder. Tonight I don't want to address the anxiety or the depression directly. They're just hovering in the background while I take this opportunity to address something that I've been denying for quite some time now.
So here goes.
I do not like London.
It feels strange to write that sentence. Of course there will be explanation and it's certainly not a simple fact. But I had to write it. I had to admit it to myself, if only to be able to understand exactly what I mean by it. Of course, I am still learning that changing my physical location doesn't necessarily mean finding happiness or escaping my very real emotional problems. But with every move, every new city, I just can't help but hope. Maybe this time. Maybe this place. Is this where I will reinvent myself?
Sometimes I look around and I just don't believe this is actually my life. How on earth did I end up in London? Don't mistake me - I am not in wonder at unbelievably fortunate circumstances, although there is a slight tinge of this sentiment. Mainly, I am just astounded that my life took this turn. I've written quite a lot about the events leading to the life changes that took place in 2011. Now it seems that I am finally meeting with the consequences. I'm only just beginning to appreciate just how radically different my life is now from what I had always expected it to be. And now we've come to the first mention of the core of my musings this evening - expectations, how/why we create them and what happens when they are destroyed.
I grew up on a horse farm in Maryland. Like any imaginative little girl, I spent my childhood dreaming of far away places. I read so much my parents sometimes had to pull the book from my hand to get me to go play outside. The quiet countryside definitely didn't seem exciting enough to me, especially because nothing fantastical or thrilling ever happened there like it did in my books. This boredom eventually transformed into a sort of wanderlust, specifically a longing for the flurry of people and events that only existed in big cities. When the time came to move away for university, I expected to move to a city where I felt I would be inspired to greatness by the vigor of so many human souls interacting in the cosmopolis. My expectations were foiled and I ended up in a small city in upstate New York (perhaps the least exciting place in all the world, or at least that's what it felt like to me at the time). The fallout from those first dashed expectations was painful and dramatic, so much so that I was impelled to flee to a foreign country.
I can't help but look back on the following course of events and wonder just how much thought I actually gave to them at the time. I wanted to get away - why not study at Oxford for a year? I dreaded returning to university in America - well then I'll just graduate early; I wanted to get away again - fuck it, I'll move to London for my MA. Now here I am. I battled valiantly to get here. I fought with university administration in order to graduate a year early and the final confrontation with the dean left me in tears from frustration (fucking university bureaucracy). Somehow London had become an idealised dream for me. This was intensified by the painful memories that I had come to associate with America as a whole country as well as the intoxicating feelings of falling in love with a British boy.
When I first moved here, I found my flat to be ugly and empty and not the least bit comfortable. My flatmate wasn't due to move in for a month and so I spent weeks on my own, stranded in a strange new city without a single acquaintance. It was a harrowing experience even though at the time I was striving to see it as an adventure. I didn't like hearing the noise of so much human activity outside my window - it was unnerving for a girl who was used to crickets and the occasional cow sounding her off to sleep. I was also suddenly reminded of my old irrational terror of intruders and now it has been renewed with full strength. This fear has been with me for as long as I can remember. I have distinct memories from a very young age of lying awake at night with my eyes glued to the bedroom door convinced that every sound in our creaky house was a murderer moving towards me. I wasn't allowed to watch crime shows like Law & Order for a long time because I once saw an episode about a home invasion that put me into such an awful terror that I refused to shut my eyes for days. For some reason I had never considered how this ingrained fear of intruders would intensify in a big city. I've never really thought too much about this fear - it's the sort of phobia that is easily forgotten in the morning light, but then there are times when it comes back full force and I have to sleep with the light on or call someone to stay on the phone while I fall asleep. If I have such a strong fear of intrusion even in the quiet countryside, how would I ever survive in the city? Well, let's just say my anxiety suddenly became almost unbearable and I could barely sleep when alone in the flat.
After about a month, my boyfriend was home in England from Munich one weekend so we decided to visit his parents in Surrey. They live in a village in the Surrey Hills that is surprisingly rural. Hugh and I went on a long walk through the countryside and I almost felt like crying from relief. I was so happy to be back in nature, surrounded by farms and all of the things I hadn't even realised that I missed. I felt as though I could breathe properly for the first time since moving to London - as though I had been restricting my breathing while in the city with its toxic air imbued with the bodily emissions of the millions of dirty strangers as well as the gases from cars, trains, etc. On that hack through the bridlepaths of Shamley Green, I finally understood why I felt so uncomfortable in London. It was as if my body had been aching for the open air. I had never lived in a proper city before - Syracuse and Oxford are on such small scales that I had never felt constricted or cut off from nature. And I suddenly realised that living in London was very different from visiting. I was supposed to be a Londoner. But I never fell in love with the hustle and bustle of the city. Instead I felt constantly on edge, uncomfortable even living in one of the nicest residential areas of the city.
I'm going to be 23 this year, which makes me a very real "20-something." I was raised on TV and movies about young people living and loving in the city. I guess I should have been reading more of Thoreau, though, because I now find myself living in a city that still feels quite strange even after 4 months. Of course I will be giving London more time, another 9 months to be exact and probably more. I am still planning to stay in England for a gap year before starting my PhD. I am staying for many reasons, but it's not because I love London. I fell in love with Oxford and with the English way of life. I even fell in love with an Englishman. But I have found London to be austere and unrelenting.
My disillusionment with the city, however, is not the most troubling version of this crisis of blighted hope I've been thinking about recently. The little girl, constantly reading and dreaming - she was full of hope. Childlike, naive hope, yes, but still hope. Now, I'm twenty-two and I've graduated from university with honours. I'm living in one of the most dynamic and stimulating cities in the world - home to many of the writers and artists I most admire. But any hope that survives in my life is feeble and fading fast. Is this the natural consequence of growing up? Or is there something peculiar to my life or the timing of my coming of age?
There are many intriguing conversations to be had about this generation of young adults. We have been called the Millennials, a name which seems as though it would carry great hope - the hope of a new millennium. But instead we were told the year 2000 would bring a catastrophe and then we were shocked by terrorist attacks and a long war we never fully understood (and one which we certainly haven't seen culminate with a triumphant victory). We've seen the excess and irresponsibility of the previous generation crush our economic prospects and we've been talked into an educational dream that has saddled us with astonishing, crippling debt. All the while we Millennials have been talking and connecting and documenting our every thought online. But I feel like I've become an empty shell - here I am on the Internet, sharing my voice but its drowned out in the throng and the hope I once had for an exciting life full of success is dashed. Our generation can't live online, blogging and tweeting and constantly scrolling through Facebook and Tumblr. Growing up, I found solace online when I found real life to be too daunting...now, I can't escape real life and I'm looking back on the past four years only to realise that my "adult" life has been nothing but lethargic scrolling, wisps of half-formed hopes never growing to full strength because...well, why bother? Somewhere along the way, I started to believe that real life, wherever its setting - a farm in Maryland or a European city - has never held much real promise.
I remember reading in one of the many recent articles on our (doomed? unpopular? whiny? lucky? the jury appears to be out on how to describe us) generation that only about 14% of recent college graduates expect to be more successful than our parents*. What a dismal statistic. Only 14% of twenty-somethings are hopeful. We have been told to lower our expectations because of the economic downturn. Fair of course, we all are adjusting to a "new normal," but allow us a bit of frustration. Our Boomer parents got us into this mess and we're paying for it with the years of our youth. We will all go on. Despite all of the apocalyptic fiction we've been reading lately, we know it's not the end of the world. We'll find a new ways to define success, but it's quite stinging to have grown up with such excitement and hope only to have it all dashed to hell.
And to top it all off, I'm not even cut out for the misadventures of the likes of Lena Dunham's characters on Girls because I've found the city to be nothing but unpleasant. I suppose I am writing about it, so it has fuelled some sort of creativity, but I'm afraid these ramblings don't constitute the sort of life-affirming art to which I would like to devote my life. Though I've recently bought an edition of Thoreau, so maybe I'll find some hope in it.
*Are Millennials the Screwed Generation? by Joel Kotkin for The Daily Beast
So here goes.
I do not like London.
It feels strange to write that sentence. Of course there will be explanation and it's certainly not a simple fact. But I had to write it. I had to admit it to myself, if only to be able to understand exactly what I mean by it. Of course, I am still learning that changing my physical location doesn't necessarily mean finding happiness or escaping my very real emotional problems. But with every move, every new city, I just can't help but hope. Maybe this time. Maybe this place. Is this where I will reinvent myself?
Sometimes I look around and I just don't believe this is actually my life. How on earth did I end up in London? Don't mistake me - I am not in wonder at unbelievably fortunate circumstances, although there is a slight tinge of this sentiment. Mainly, I am just astounded that my life took this turn. I've written quite a lot about the events leading to the life changes that took place in 2011. Now it seems that I am finally meeting with the consequences. I'm only just beginning to appreciate just how radically different my life is now from what I had always expected it to be. And now we've come to the first mention of the core of my musings this evening - expectations, how/why we create them and what happens when they are destroyed.
I grew up on a horse farm in Maryland. Like any imaginative little girl, I spent my childhood dreaming of far away places. I read so much my parents sometimes had to pull the book from my hand to get me to go play outside. The quiet countryside definitely didn't seem exciting enough to me, especially because nothing fantastical or thrilling ever happened there like it did in my books. This boredom eventually transformed into a sort of wanderlust, specifically a longing for the flurry of people and events that only existed in big cities. When the time came to move away for university, I expected to move to a city where I felt I would be inspired to greatness by the vigor of so many human souls interacting in the cosmopolis. My expectations were foiled and I ended up in a small city in upstate New York (perhaps the least exciting place in all the world, or at least that's what it felt like to me at the time). The fallout from those first dashed expectations was painful and dramatic, so much so that I was impelled to flee to a foreign country.
I can't help but look back on the following course of events and wonder just how much thought I actually gave to them at the time. I wanted to get away - why not study at Oxford for a year? I dreaded returning to university in America - well then I'll just graduate early; I wanted to get away again - fuck it, I'll move to London for my MA. Now here I am. I battled valiantly to get here. I fought with university administration in order to graduate a year early and the final confrontation with the dean left me in tears from frustration (fucking university bureaucracy). Somehow London had become an idealised dream for me. This was intensified by the painful memories that I had come to associate with America as a whole country as well as the intoxicating feelings of falling in love with a British boy.
When I first moved here, I found my flat to be ugly and empty and not the least bit comfortable. My flatmate wasn't due to move in for a month and so I spent weeks on my own, stranded in a strange new city without a single acquaintance. It was a harrowing experience even though at the time I was striving to see it as an adventure. I didn't like hearing the noise of so much human activity outside my window - it was unnerving for a girl who was used to crickets and the occasional cow sounding her off to sleep. I was also suddenly reminded of my old irrational terror of intruders and now it has been renewed with full strength. This fear has been with me for as long as I can remember. I have distinct memories from a very young age of lying awake at night with my eyes glued to the bedroom door convinced that every sound in our creaky house was a murderer moving towards me. I wasn't allowed to watch crime shows like Law & Order for a long time because I once saw an episode about a home invasion that put me into such an awful terror that I refused to shut my eyes for days. For some reason I had never considered how this ingrained fear of intruders would intensify in a big city. I've never really thought too much about this fear - it's the sort of phobia that is easily forgotten in the morning light, but then there are times when it comes back full force and I have to sleep with the light on or call someone to stay on the phone while I fall asleep. If I have such a strong fear of intrusion even in the quiet countryside, how would I ever survive in the city? Well, let's just say my anxiety suddenly became almost unbearable and I could barely sleep when alone in the flat.
After about a month, my boyfriend was home in England from Munich one weekend so we decided to visit his parents in Surrey. They live in a village in the Surrey Hills that is surprisingly rural. Hugh and I went on a long walk through the countryside and I almost felt like crying from relief. I was so happy to be back in nature, surrounded by farms and all of the things I hadn't even realised that I missed. I felt as though I could breathe properly for the first time since moving to London - as though I had been restricting my breathing while in the city with its toxic air imbued with the bodily emissions of the millions of dirty strangers as well as the gases from cars, trains, etc. On that hack through the bridlepaths of Shamley Green, I finally understood why I felt so uncomfortable in London. It was as if my body had been aching for the open air. I had never lived in a proper city before - Syracuse and Oxford are on such small scales that I had never felt constricted or cut off from nature. And I suddenly realised that living in London was very different from visiting. I was supposed to be a Londoner. But I never fell in love with the hustle and bustle of the city. Instead I felt constantly on edge, uncomfortable even living in one of the nicest residential areas of the city.
I'm going to be 23 this year, which makes me a very real "20-something." I was raised on TV and movies about young people living and loving in the city. I guess I should have been reading more of Thoreau, though, because I now find myself living in a city that still feels quite strange even after 4 months. Of course I will be giving London more time, another 9 months to be exact and probably more. I am still planning to stay in England for a gap year before starting my PhD. I am staying for many reasons, but it's not because I love London. I fell in love with Oxford and with the English way of life. I even fell in love with an Englishman. But I have found London to be austere and unrelenting.
My disillusionment with the city, however, is not the most troubling version of this crisis of blighted hope I've been thinking about recently. The little girl, constantly reading and dreaming - she was full of hope. Childlike, naive hope, yes, but still hope. Now, I'm twenty-two and I've graduated from university with honours. I'm living in one of the most dynamic and stimulating cities in the world - home to many of the writers and artists I most admire. But any hope that survives in my life is feeble and fading fast. Is this the natural consequence of growing up? Or is there something peculiar to my life or the timing of my coming of age?
There are many intriguing conversations to be had about this generation of young adults. We have been called the Millennials, a name which seems as though it would carry great hope - the hope of a new millennium. But instead we were told the year 2000 would bring a catastrophe and then we were shocked by terrorist attacks and a long war we never fully understood (and one which we certainly haven't seen culminate with a triumphant victory). We've seen the excess and irresponsibility of the previous generation crush our economic prospects and we've been talked into an educational dream that has saddled us with astonishing, crippling debt. All the while we Millennials have been talking and connecting and documenting our every thought online. But I feel like I've become an empty shell - here I am on the Internet, sharing my voice but its drowned out in the throng and the hope I once had for an exciting life full of success is dashed. Our generation can't live online, blogging and tweeting and constantly scrolling through Facebook and Tumblr. Growing up, I found solace online when I found real life to be too daunting...now, I can't escape real life and I'm looking back on the past four years only to realise that my "adult" life has been nothing but lethargic scrolling, wisps of half-formed hopes never growing to full strength because...well, why bother? Somewhere along the way, I started to believe that real life, wherever its setting - a farm in Maryland or a European city - has never held much real promise.
I remember reading in one of the many recent articles on our (doomed? unpopular? whiny? lucky? the jury appears to be out on how to describe us) generation that only about 14% of recent college graduates expect to be more successful than our parents*. What a dismal statistic. Only 14% of twenty-somethings are hopeful. We have been told to lower our expectations because of the economic downturn. Fair of course, we all are adjusting to a "new normal," but allow us a bit of frustration. Our Boomer parents got us into this mess and we're paying for it with the years of our youth. We will all go on. Despite all of the apocalyptic fiction we've been reading lately, we know it's not the end of the world. We'll find a new ways to define success, but it's quite stinging to have grown up with such excitement and hope only to have it all dashed to hell.
And to top it all off, I'm not even cut out for the misadventures of the likes of Lena Dunham's characters on Girls because I've found the city to be nothing but unpleasant. I suppose I am writing about it, so it has fuelled some sort of creativity, but I'm afraid these ramblings don't constitute the sort of life-affirming art to which I would like to devote my life. Though I've recently bought an edition of Thoreau, so maybe I'll find some hope in it.
*Are Millennials the Screwed Generation? by Joel Kotkin for The Daily Beast
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