So as a year-end wrap-up type article, I thought I'd write about my favourite and least favourite literary experiences of 2009 -- the books that I've read this year -- as well as mention my literary hopes for the New Year.
The Best Ten Books I Read in 2009
10. The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford
This early-twentieth-century modernist novel was one of the few silent-personal-drama types that actually really kept my attention. Ford plays with chronology, detail, and character development in such a way that the affairs of Edward and Leonora unfold like a murder mystery.
9. The Divine Ryans by Wayne Johnson
Taking place in St. John's in 1967, the endearing failure of a nine-year-old hockey-loving anti-hero struggles to cope with his father's recent death and his family's suffocating under his matriarchal aunt. It's a funny coming-of-age story that touches on the importance of family, religion, and hockey to Canadians in the sixties.
8. A Bird in the House by Margaret Lawrence
7. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
This novel is ostensibly about a kid who survives almost a year in a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger, but I personally was more enthralled by the religious subplot. Pi is hailed by his religious leaders as an excellent Hindu, Christian, and Muslim boy -- at the same time. Even when lost at sea, Pi prays five times a day facing Mecca and says Hail Marys during storms. The end will leave you wondering: what does it all mean?
6. Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky
This 1944 novel would have been much better had it been finished, but considering the circumstances (Irène Némirovsky was an ethnic Jew and Russian living in France during WWII and died in Auschwitz) the fact that we have it at all, not to mention how exquisitely well-written it is, is a minor miracle. The appendices -- notes from Némirovsky's notebook for the unwritten three movements and correspondence between her, her family, and her publisher -- are almost as interesting as the novel itself. The intertwining and overlapping stories of people of all ages and classes fleeing Paris and then living under the Nazi occupation is enthralling, with a fair number of surprises. You could call this the WWII novel for people who don't like WWII novels.
5. Fight Club by Chuck Palihaniuk
I read this in my Studies in American Literature seminar, which was focused on utopias and dystopias. I thought this was a bit of a cryptic choice for a utopia class; is our very world of today a dystopia? (Typically "dystopia" novels are of the 1984 variety; tyrannical government control, mass unhappiness, or at least a nuclear holocaust or endemic zombie problem.) And why do fistfights make men feel better about their dystopia? I have my own theories, the scope of which don't fit here; read it and draw your own conclusions.
4. Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munroe
When I wrote about this novel in my Canadian Fiction seminar, I wrote about how I loved Alice Munroe not shying away from sex in a coming-of-age story. Del's pregnant friend tells her that "Everyone does it," meaning sex. Look! People have been promiscuous forever! (Anne of Green Gables, for example, never had sex.) Friend and fellow reader Bruno pointed out that women seem to write disproportionately about sexual freedoms whereas real women "like doing other things" besides sex. While women pretty much like sex about as much as men do (and when we like doing something, we really enjoy talking about it), I don't want Bruno or you to think that this novel is just another feminist sexual liberation novel; it's funny and thoughtful and explores social pressures and relationships and pride and belonging and individuality among girls and women in small-town Canada in the first half of the twentieth century. If you've read and liked Lives of Girls and Women, I recommend you check out The Birth House by Ami McKay.
3. Green Grass Running Water by Thomas King
If Canadians are known for their sense of humour, this book's sense of humour is distinctly Canadian. Centered on a handful of members of a Blackfoot community in Alberta, the novel draws on oral storytelling techniques and King's delightful character of Coyote, the mischievous character who talks to both the narrator and hangs out with the cryptic, mysterious characters of Hawkeye, The Lone Ranger, Robinson Crusoe, and Ishmael. The humour is cynical at times, ridiculous at others -- and I challenge you to see if you can get each and every joke and reference.
2. La Guerre, Yes Sir! by Roch Carrier
Before I read La Guerre, Yes Sir! I knew Roch Carrier as the guy who wrote Le chandail de hockey, the children's book about playing pond hockey and quoted on the $5 bill. This short, hilarious novel is about the funeral of a WWII casualty and his wake in his small québécois village. One woman is town is hiding both her husband and her lover in the attic to save them from the draft and to ensure she always has a man to, ahem, meet her needs; another soldier is home on leave and has brought his recent bride, a prostitute and an anglophone; the dead soldier's family try to offer tourtière and cider to the anglophone army men who don't understand them and condemn the québécois, who spend the wake not only praying but getting drunk, telling dirty stories, and fighting. An excellent read, and you can tackle it in an afternoon.
1. LAMB: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore
This is probably the funniest book I have ever read -- and yet, it offers a very fair treatment of the life of Jesus, a boy coming of age and curious about sex even though he is supposed to be without sin. I read it for a class called The Historical Jesus (more a history class than a religion class), and so duly noted that Moore did his research when including historical details about life in Nazareth in the first century AD. Moore imagines Jesus' childhood, his lost years (i.e. before he started his ministry), and his life up until his arrest, through the eyes of his childhood best friend, Biff. During the "lost years", Jesus and Biff journey to the east to find and seek wisdom from the wise men who attended Jesus' birth, and who teach him about Taoism, Bhuddism, and Hinduism before Jesus returns to start his ministry. There are a lot of gems of wisdom -- and history -- tucked away in this uproariously funny novel; it's the kind of thing you can read while on holiday, and still feel like you've read something important when you're finished.
The Biggest Disappointments of 2009
The Stone Carvers by Jane Urquart
I'd always heard that this was a big one in CanLit, and my reader-aunt loved it, but when I finally got around to it -- what a letdown. There was nothing original about the main character, Klara, and although her brother Tillman was interesting, not nearly enough time was devoted to him. I had to force myself to finish the book; the ending was trite and horribly contrived. It was as if Urquart forgot what she wanted to say by the end and just kind of threw everything into place at the last minute, like a school play in which things go awry backstage during the second act.
World Without End by Ken Follet
I've always been a fan of Follet for easy summer paperback reading; although his characters can be formulaic at times, his plots are always page-turners, and he writes very interesting and multifaceted villains, often refusing to make his villains pure evil or his heroes morally spotless. I especially enjoyed Pillars of the Earth, to which this novel was a sequel. Unfortunately, Follet scooped out everything good about Pillars and wrote a huge tome that, despite being moderately entertaining, had villains that were evil to the core, heroes who were perfect, a plot that dragged heavily by the end, and a happily-ever-after ending played out by characters who seemed like minor variations on the ones from Pillars. Twenty-five years, and this is his long-anticipated sequel?
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
I was looking forward to reading this as it seemed like a crowd favourite among many of my reader-friends. And though I absolutely love the concept, I just couldn't get into Kerouac's prose; I found it thick and difficult. I didn't feel like the character of Sal (the narrator) was developed well either. Dean may have been the hero, but it seemed like Sal didn't consider himself an important character. At times I felt like I was waiting for things to happen while Dean spouted off his craziness. It was an okay book, but not nearly what I'd been hoping for.
Books I am Excited to Read in 2010
Extraordinary Canadians: Pierre Elliot Trudeau by Nino Ricci
When I first heard about the new series, edited by John Ralston Saul, I knew right away that I'd want to read most, if not all of them. These are biographies written by novelists, instead of journalists or other nonfic writers, and if the excerpt from Daniel Poquelin's René Lévesque is any indication, it was a fantastic idea.
The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill
It won Canada Reads 2009 among other awards, and also came highly recommended by a few of my reader-friends. It's been sitting on my bookshelf after my mother loaned it to me six months ago -- why haven't I read it yet??
La grosse femme d'à côté est enciente and Thérèse et Pierrette à l'école des Saints-Anges by Michel Tremblay
Another book that's been on my shelf for six months. I even started reading Thérèse et Pierrette over the summer, when I bought in in a used book store in Montréal. Why haven't I finished it yet? All I can say is, man, reading novels in French is hard.
Bonjour Tristesse by Françose Sagan
Another French book that I've so far neglected to read, but this one is on quite a few must-read or best-book lists, and also, my copy is purse-sized, so I've no excuses really.
Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
I found this one in a used book store for an unbeatable price and, after reading Slaughterhouse-Five and A Man Without a Country, I couldn't resist. (I've also read Bagombo Snuff Box. Being some of Vonnegut's earlier stuff, its ho-hum-ness is forgiveable.) School reading and whatnot made me forget about it until now. Maybe I should just read less for school?
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
January Reading
We had a little reading hiatus in December (most of us were probably too busy watching The Muppets' Christmas Carol and How The Grinch Stole Christmas to get any serious reading done, anyway -- maybe Christmas reading should have been The Polar Express!) but now that it's January and we're back in action, we need to get back to reading. January is kind of a depressing month, what with Christmas being over and us having to shovel and/or wade through snow that holds promise of slush and dirt rather than a white Christmas, so I figured that instead of a book that exposes humanity's horrific shortcomings or how enamoured we are with fart jokes, I'd pick something light and funny with a can-do attitude and a happy ending. Therefore, January's book is:
The Widows by Suzette Mayr.
I first encountered this gem in my second-year survey of Canadian literature course, and though it's not exactly a Canadian classic (too new, perhaps?), it certainly provided interesting fodder for class discussions. The plot centers around Hannelore, a German woman who lost her husband to the second world war and her son to an "ethnicky" new wife -- an artist who is into bare feet and healthy eating. Hannelore hauls herself and her older sister Clothilde from Germany to Edmonton to be close to her son and his family, but her rigid, traditional German style is at odds with her daughter-in-law's multicultural free-spiritedness. Thus, she spends her time trying to find a place where a 70-something widow fits in, along with her 80-something spinster sister and her sister's equally elderly divorcée "friend", Frau Schnadelhuber.
The trio find and lose jobs and lovers, things that do not commonly happen to women over 45 in the mainstream narrative. Throughout the novel, the plot trajectory of Hannelore loosely follows that of the life of Annie Edson Taylor, the first person to survive a tumble over Niagara Falls in a barrel. One look at the cover of the book, and you can see where this is going.
Hint: the climax occurs somewhere in Southern Ontario.
The Widows by Suzette Mayr.
I first encountered this gem in my second-year survey of Canadian literature course, and though it's not exactly a Canadian classic (too new, perhaps?), it certainly provided interesting fodder for class discussions. The plot centers around Hannelore, a German woman who lost her husband to the second world war and her son to an "ethnicky" new wife -- an artist who is into bare feet and healthy eating. Hannelore hauls herself and her older sister Clothilde from Germany to Edmonton to be close to her son and his family, but her rigid, traditional German style is at odds with her daughter-in-law's multicultural free-spiritedness. Thus, she spends her time trying to find a place where a 70-something widow fits in, along with her 80-something spinster sister and her sister's equally elderly divorcée "friend", Frau Schnadelhuber.
The trio find and lose jobs and lovers, things that do not commonly happen to women over 45 in the mainstream narrative. Throughout the novel, the plot trajectory of Hannelore loosely follows that of the life of Annie Edson Taylor, the first person to survive a tumble over Niagara Falls in a barrel. One look at the cover of the book, and you can see where this is going.
Hint: the climax occurs somewhere in Southern Ontario.
A personal favourite part occurs somewhere near the beginning of the book, but towards the end of the fragmented narrative: Hannelore realizes that her 80-something-year-old spinster sister might not be going through a phase -- she probably actually prefers women. Hey, phases can last upwards of sixty years, right?
If you've ever wondered what two old ladies fucking is like, this is the book for you. If you could live a happy and productive life without ever knowing what two old ladies fucking is like, thankyouverymuch, I promise it isn't that bad. Mayr, without glamourizing anyone or anything (she certainly doesn't shy away from describing old women in highly realistic terms), somehow manages to sublimate what would otherwise be graphic into hilarious, using pervasive and gentle satire to tackle touchy topics (for example, Hannelore's accidental pejorative terming of her daughter-in-law's naked paintings as "Jew art", or her in-denial defense when her granddaughter accuses her of having been part of the Hitlerjügen).
Should you read this book? Well, if you like third-wave feminism, books set in Canada, books about old ladies, ironic, slightly absurd situational humour, or if you think that Slaughterhouse-Five would be awesome if it made a little more sense and wasn't such a huge downer, then The Widows is for you.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Language Wars
Dating someone who is smarter than you are can be an emotionally exhausting kind of experience, especially if you consider yourself to be pretty smart. Feeling good about your moderately high IQ and your typicaly good intellectual performance, especially when compared with your social peers, is deadly if you happen to start dating someone with an IQ higher than your monthly grocery budget. Of course, you can always try to console yourself with the fact that your apartment is way sweeter than his, but eventually you realize that he's way too smart to even care that his apartment is shitty, and that the best route to take is to graciously accept defeat and simply brag about him to your friends.
Of course, you still try to console yourself. There has to be something that you do better than him. No one is perfect, right? He certainly doesn't have a sweet rack like yours. But, like the apartment, his lack of nice tits does not seem to bother him. "Okay," you say to yourself. "Sure he is only twenty-four and already he speaks three languages, dances, cooks, is doing a PhD in applied physics, and sorts his recycling properly, but how is his grasp on the intracacies of English grammer? Ha! English is not even his first language. Surely I must have the market cornered on English grammer in this relationship."
Then, the bitch goes and says something about a verb tense you weren't even sure really existed, or differentiated itself from other verb tenses, in English.
Quick! What verb tense is this?
The problem, we agreed after some debate, was that hard-and-fast rules for the English language don't exist. Well, they do, but no one pays attention to them. French has the Academie Française, which currently protects the purity of the French language by freaking out over texting shorthand. What does English have? Oxford? Do you actually listen to Oxford? Does Oxford even bother?
Unfortunately, the English, the "inventors" of the English language, sprinkled a whole bunch of bastard colonies all over the world, one of which got uppity and usurped them as top dog, especially in cultural terms. Very few people want to sound like an English professor these days. They want to say "errrbody", "shotty", "oh noes!" and "lawl". My own sister speaks in acronyms ("No BD!"). I confess that I myself have said "Imma luuuvs you," more than once (but I did it ironically, which makes it okay). Can you imagine if Quebec suddenly became cooler than France, and everyone wanted to speak joual and say "Enteka, m'a aller faire un tit tour du béckosse"? The entire Academie Française would choke on their triple-crème brie.
Another problem with English might be that it wasn't so much invented as it was collected. As James Nicoll once observed, "The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary." Modern English almost isn't even a language, when you think about it. It's just its own little patois of conglomerated borrowed words that developed its own grammatical structure (and then colonized the fuck out of every country that wasn't populated by white people).
Usually, when someone says "I be", I assume that they are hilariously cultural-appropriating ebonics.
In a language where a made-up word distinguishing between something real and something imaginary goes in the dictionary and people actually argue in favour of their right to correctly use the non-word "irregardless", have we just given up completely and decided to go with the flow? Furthermore, is this a bad thing?
As for dating people far smarter than anyone else you know will ever be, I am still kind of ambiguous on whether or not I recommend it. All I can say is that a manageable IQ allows me to enjoy certain simple pleasures more than he does. Like being able to drunk-text someone and not run through every possibility re: what they'll say in the morning.
Of course, you still try to console yourself. There has to be something that you do better than him. No one is perfect, right? He certainly doesn't have a sweet rack like yours. But, like the apartment, his lack of nice tits does not seem to bother him. "Okay," you say to yourself. "Sure he is only twenty-four and already he speaks three languages, dances, cooks, is doing a PhD in applied physics, and sorts his recycling properly, but how is his grasp on the intracacies of English grammer? Ha! English is not even his first language. Surely I must have the market cornered on English grammer in this relationship."
Then, the bitch goes and says something about a verb tense you weren't even sure really existed, or differentiated itself from other verb tenses, in English.
Quick! What verb tense is this?
The problem, we agreed after some debate, was that hard-and-fast rules for the English language don't exist. Well, they do, but no one pays attention to them. French has the Academie Française, which currently protects the purity of the French language by freaking out over texting shorthand. What does English have? Oxford? Do you actually listen to Oxford? Does Oxford even bother?
Unfortunately, the English, the "inventors" of the English language, sprinkled a whole bunch of bastard colonies all over the world, one of which got uppity and usurped them as top dog, especially in cultural terms. Very few people want to sound like an English professor these days. They want to say "errrbody", "shotty", "oh noes!" and "lawl". My own sister speaks in acronyms ("No BD!"). I confess that I myself have said "Imma luuuvs you," more than once (but I did it ironically, which makes it okay). Can you imagine if Quebec suddenly became cooler than France, and everyone wanted to speak joual and say "Enteka, m'a aller faire un tit tour du béckosse"? The entire Academie Française would choke on their triple-crème brie.
Another problem with English might be that it wasn't so much invented as it was collected. As James Nicoll once observed, "The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary." Modern English almost isn't even a language, when you think about it. It's just its own little patois of conglomerated borrowed words that developed its own grammatical structure (and then colonized the fuck out of every country that wasn't populated by white people).
Usually, when someone says "I be", I assume that they are hilariously cultural-appropriating ebonics.
In a language where a made-up word distinguishing between something real and something imaginary goes in the dictionary and people actually argue in favour of their right to correctly use the non-word "irregardless", have we just given up completely and decided to go with the flow? Furthermore, is this a bad thing?
As for dating people far smarter than anyone else you know will ever be, I am still kind of ambiguous on whether or not I recommend it. All I can say is that a manageable IQ allows me to enjoy certain simple pleasures more than he does. Like being able to drunk-text someone and not run through every possibility re: what they'll say in the morning.
Monday, November 3, 2008
November Reading
For November's novel, I've picked a Canadian author: Timothy Findley. If you ask someone what their favourite Findley novel is, assuming they have read Findley, they will probably say Not Wanted on the Voyage or even The Telling of Lies, but I keeping with monthly themes (and, it seems, an unintended theme of sex), I've picked:
The Wars (by Timothy Findley).
Cliché, I know, but hey, I could have picked Private Peaceful (I don't care if it is meant for the twelve-plus crowd, it's one of my all-time favourites).
The Wars, despite its name, is about much more than war. Although the first world war is the dominant event and element, and it contains much of the same themes as war literature -- the senselessness and futility of war, the disconnect between those giving orders and those fighting, homoerotic undertones -- historiography and gender roles are the dominant themes.
Typically, when one talks about "gender roles" in literature, especially literature written before the mid-twentieth century, it is from a feminist perspective. The Wars, however, was written in 1977, well after the second wave of feminism. And hey, if women can question their traditional role in Western society, can't men? The Wars looks at gender roles from what is sometimes called a masculinist perspective, which is more the companion of feminism than its opposite.
What is masculinity? Is it rigidly defined, or is the word polysemous? With words like "metrosexual" in the modern lexicon, we have fuzzier definitions of gender roles, but in 1917, things were pretty clear. Findley subverts traditional gender roles in this novel (consider the many meanings of the line from which the novel takes its name, "And this was what they called the wars."). He presents "successful" and "unsuccessful" masculinities. Successful ones are most often presented in terms of being a caretaker, and not necessarily in the financial sense. Robert Ross, the main character, is his sister's caretaker, and later, a caretaker of various animals. His father is at his best as a caretaker, rocking his wife or reading to his children. Most of the military officers, in their roles as caretakers of a sort, fail in their occupations. Unsuccessful masculinities are presented as vain attempts to fit the traditional mold. Robert, in his attempts to be "manly", finds only frustration at every turn. Even his role model of manliness is caught having kinky gay sex before Robert even makes it across the Atlantic. The heterosexual relationships Robert has are at best awkward and at worst violent.
Anyone who has studied war literature, especially war poetry, knows that homoerotic undertones are fairly common. In The Wars, even homoeroticism is complicated (for poor Robert, even masturbation is weird and creepy). Homosexuality expressed physically is depicted as horrifying, while mere homosexual feelings are confusing -- which of course is not surprising, considering this is 1917. The only person who seems to understand man-on-man love is little Juliet d'Orsey.
As much as the traditional gender roles of men are frustrated in The Wars, women get a similar treatment. Mrs. Ross, while her husband plays caretaker, responds with a helpless kind of anger to most of the events in the novel. Barbara d'Orsey acts like a playboy, moving from one good-looking man to the next with little regard for the emotional damage she causes. She uses men for sex as long as it is convenient for her; once a soldier loses his good looks and strong arms to the battle, she moves on. She is presented not so much as an "evil" character as a foil; she genuinely does not seem to understand what she's doing. Her little sister Juliet, on the other hand, acts like a fly on the wall and can observe sexual relationships objectively, being too young to have one herself.
As for the historiography of The Wars. The Wars presents history as a series of puzzle pieces to be put together, or rather as a series of disjointed fragments which overlap and leave gaps. The narrator is an unnamed individual who is trying to piece together the story of Robert Ross for reasons we are not told. Essentially, The Wars is saying that history is unknowable in its true and unadulterated form. Narratives inevitably only present one perspective, sometimes a thoroughly incomplete ones. This has plenty of implications for both war and gender roles.
If you like war literature and/or homoerotic themes but don't have time to read a whole book, check out some war poetry. Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfrid Owen is a personal favourite, but you can't go wrong with any Owen, Sassoon, or Hardy. Alternatively, if you like combinations of hilariousness and anti-war sentiments, get a good modern translation of Aristophanes's Lysistrata.
The Wars (by Timothy Findley).
Cliché, I know, but hey, I could have picked Private Peaceful (I don't care if it is meant for the twelve-plus crowd, it's one of my all-time favourites).
The Wars, despite its name, is about much more than war. Although the first world war is the dominant event and element, and it contains much of the same themes as war literature -- the senselessness and futility of war, the disconnect between those giving orders and those fighting, homoerotic undertones -- historiography and gender roles are the dominant themes.
Typically, when one talks about "gender roles" in literature, especially literature written before the mid-twentieth century, it is from a feminist perspective. The Wars, however, was written in 1977, well after the second wave of feminism. And hey, if women can question their traditional role in Western society, can't men? The Wars looks at gender roles from what is sometimes called a masculinist perspective, which is more the companion of feminism than its opposite.
What is masculinity? Is it rigidly defined, or is the word polysemous? With words like "metrosexual" in the modern lexicon, we have fuzzier definitions of gender roles, but in 1917, things were pretty clear. Findley subverts traditional gender roles in this novel (consider the many meanings of the line from which the novel takes its name, "And this was what they called the wars."). He presents "successful" and "unsuccessful" masculinities. Successful ones are most often presented in terms of being a caretaker, and not necessarily in the financial sense. Robert Ross, the main character, is his sister's caretaker, and later, a caretaker of various animals. His father is at his best as a caretaker, rocking his wife or reading to his children. Most of the military officers, in their roles as caretakers of a sort, fail in their occupations. Unsuccessful masculinities are presented as vain attempts to fit the traditional mold. Robert, in his attempts to be "manly", finds only frustration at every turn. Even his role model of manliness is caught having kinky gay sex before Robert even makes it across the Atlantic. The heterosexual relationships Robert has are at best awkward and at worst violent.
Anyone who has studied war literature, especially war poetry, knows that homoerotic undertones are fairly common. In The Wars, even homoeroticism is complicated (for poor Robert, even masturbation is weird and creepy). Homosexuality expressed physically is depicted as horrifying, while mere homosexual feelings are confusing -- which of course is not surprising, considering this is 1917. The only person who seems to understand man-on-man love is little Juliet d'Orsey.
As much as the traditional gender roles of men are frustrated in The Wars, women get a similar treatment. Mrs. Ross, while her husband plays caretaker, responds with a helpless kind of anger to most of the events in the novel. Barbara d'Orsey acts like a playboy, moving from one good-looking man to the next with little regard for the emotional damage she causes. She uses men for sex as long as it is convenient for her; once a soldier loses his good looks and strong arms to the battle, she moves on. She is presented not so much as an "evil" character as a foil; she genuinely does not seem to understand what she's doing. Her little sister Juliet, on the other hand, acts like a fly on the wall and can observe sexual relationships objectively, being too young to have one herself.
As for the historiography of The Wars. The Wars presents history as a series of puzzle pieces to be put together, or rather as a series of disjointed fragments which overlap and leave gaps. The narrator is an unnamed individual who is trying to piece together the story of Robert Ross for reasons we are not told. Essentially, The Wars is saying that history is unknowable in its true and unadulterated form. Narratives inevitably only present one perspective, sometimes a thoroughly incomplete ones. This has plenty of implications for both war and gender roles.
If you like war literature and/or homoerotic themes but don't have time to read a whole book, check out some war poetry. Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfrid Owen is a personal favourite, but you can't go wrong with any Owen, Sassoon, or Hardy. Alternatively, if you like combinations of hilariousness and anti-war sentiments, get a good modern translation of Aristophanes's Lysistrata.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
October Reading
How about a little break from all that election business, hmm? Let's take a break for something less distressing and more relaxing, like say, Victorian Gothic literature!
Now that it's October, I hope at least a few of you have read (the Wikipedia page for) The Canterbury Tales. October is when things (well, leaves) start to die, and we celebrate this by hanging little plastic leaf-ghosts in our trees, or in some cases, by planting extravagant overpriced decorations bought at Wal-Mart on our lawns. Fun! And of course, what goes better with scaring the shit out of small children than feeding them large quantities of sugar? If you ask anyone under the age of 16, nothing.
Myself, I'm pretty into the whole Halloween thing. I love costumes and ghost stories and parties with candles shaped like eyeballs. I lament the days when making construction paper turkeys at school segwayed into making construction paper witches' hats. Luckily, although I am too old to get the same kick out of construction paper that I once did, age has opened up a new door to getting a kick out of literature.
Therefore, since literature must replace both construction paper crafts and tons of free candy for us grown-ups, I present my Halloween literary choice: Dracula by Bram Stoker.
Quick: what is Dracula about? Vampires? Nope, guess again. The correct answer is sex. To be more specific, female sexuality and sexual mores during the Victorian era. Now, I don't know if this is pure hermeneutics of suspicion or if Bram Stoker one day decided, "I think I'll write a gothic novel that contains heavy themes of sexuality as it is seen by society today," or something to that effect. Let's all be relativists for a moment and look at context.
Bram Stoker (1847-1912) was born in Dublin, had a childhood, got married, had a kid, etc etc. His contemporaries included Oscar Wilde and Sir Aurthur Conan Doyle. Gothic literature was also popular around the time Stoker was writing. He wrote a handful of other novels (mostly adventure) but they weren't as good and no one cares about them anymore.
You can certainly see the adventure themes in between the sex and Christian moralism in Dracula. The men all but shout "This is no place for a woman!" as they march off to stand strong against vampire hussies together (compare: King Soloman's Mines, everything Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ever wrote, the Hardy Boys).
One of the more interesting things about Dracula however is its undertones of suspicion regarding modernity. Stoker was writing around the time that the Industrial Revolution was picking up steam, and people were understandably suspicious about all this sciencey stuff. One of the morals you could draw from Dracula is "All the doctors in the world won't prevent your turning into a scary vampire hussy." Of course, we need the crazy foreign doctor Van Helsing (who, surprisingly enough, is nothing like he was in the moderately successful 2004 film Van Helsing) to tell us all this. Those crazy Dutch -- they'll believe anything!
In that same vein, apparently Christian paraphernalia is a weapon. Count Dracula is the pure and unquestioned embodiment of evil, yeah, I accept that. And apparently the Christian God and the paraphernalia thereof is the only one he recognizes. Wait, what? Not even a tip of the hat to anyone else? Well, maybe, but we don't know how the Jews or Muslims fared up against Dracula. In fact things are not even looking too bright for the Protestants. Wait, wasn't Stoker Irish and -- oh yeah. Apparently, it's not the faith you have in your crucifix or your communion wafer, it's how you wield them.
The mix of gothic versus modern certainly is interesting. You get your fill of gloomy castles and graveyards and innocent damsels in distress, but then it invades your nice, clean, modern, happy London! What's a band of guys who are in the process of losing a prospective finacée to do? Read Dracula to find out, obviously.
But, let's talk about the sex. (Spoiler alert) Lucy, not Mina, is the one who actually becomes a vampire. She is the obvious choice since she is a total slut who briefly contemplates the idea of marrying three men. Read the bit where Lucy gets bitten for the first time over again -- does it not sound like a really scary Victorian version of a girl losing her virginity? Vampires, whores, they're all bad for society and dangerous to men. When garlic flowers don't work, just move straight on to the wooden stake. Mina, of course, is the model of Victorian womanhood and therefore manages to resist Dracula's advances. She's such a good little Victorian wifey that she inspires a scene absolutely made of cheese towards the end of the novel when -- well, I won't spoil it that much. Also, check out the vampire vixens that Jonathan meets during his séjour with Count Dracula. Voluptuous seems to be one of Stoker's favourite words here. What does voluptuous actually mean?
voluptuous
/vluptyooss/
• adjective 1 relating to or characterized by luxury or sensual pleasure. 2 (of a woman) curvaceous and sexually attractive.
— DERIVATIVES voluptuously (adverb) voluptuousness (noun).
— ORIGIN Latin voluptuosus, from voluptas ‘pleasure’.
(Thank you, AskOxford!) Now, Stoker is using this term in a negative way, remember. Because as we all know, sexual pleasure is for whores and rakes. Now lie back and think of England.
Okay, so Stoker doesn't treat sex in quite the same way that Chaucer does. Try not to be disappointed though. Dracula's still more fun than a barrel of vampires, and if you like getting into the Halloween spirit, totally appropriate. If you are into the Halloween spirit but maybe not vampires and sexual symbolism, try some Edgar Allen Poe (his poetry is great for reading out loud!) or perhaps Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. If, on the other hand, you can't get enough of this whole mixing-Victorian-sexual-morals-with-the-supernatural business, I suggest you check out Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market.
Now that it's October, I hope at least a few of you have read (the Wikipedia page for) The Canterbury Tales. October is when things (well, leaves) start to die, and we celebrate this by hanging little plastic leaf-ghosts in our trees, or in some cases, by planting extravagant overpriced decorations bought at Wal-Mart on our lawns. Fun! And of course, what goes better with scaring the shit out of small children than feeding them large quantities of sugar? If you ask anyone under the age of 16, nothing.
Myself, I'm pretty into the whole Halloween thing. I love costumes and ghost stories and parties with candles shaped like eyeballs. I lament the days when making construction paper turkeys at school segwayed into making construction paper witches' hats. Luckily, although I am too old to get the same kick out of construction paper that I once did, age has opened up a new door to getting a kick out of literature.
Therefore, since literature must replace both construction paper crafts and tons of free candy for us grown-ups, I present my Halloween literary choice: Dracula by Bram Stoker.
Quick: what is Dracula about? Vampires? Nope, guess again. The correct answer is sex. To be more specific, female sexuality and sexual mores during the Victorian era. Now, I don't know if this is pure hermeneutics of suspicion or if Bram Stoker one day decided, "I think I'll write a gothic novel that contains heavy themes of sexuality as it is seen by society today," or something to that effect. Let's all be relativists for a moment and look at context.
Bram Stoker (1847-1912) was born in Dublin, had a childhood, got married, had a kid, etc etc. His contemporaries included Oscar Wilde and Sir Aurthur Conan Doyle. Gothic literature was also popular around the time Stoker was writing. He wrote a handful of other novels (mostly adventure) but they weren't as good and no one cares about them anymore.
You can certainly see the adventure themes in between the sex and Christian moralism in Dracula. The men all but shout "This is no place for a woman!" as they march off to stand strong against vampire hussies together (compare: King Soloman's Mines, everything Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ever wrote, the Hardy Boys).
One of the more interesting things about Dracula however is its undertones of suspicion regarding modernity. Stoker was writing around the time that the Industrial Revolution was picking up steam, and people were understandably suspicious about all this sciencey stuff. One of the morals you could draw from Dracula is "All the doctors in the world won't prevent your turning into a scary vampire hussy." Of course, we need the crazy foreign doctor Van Helsing (who, surprisingly enough, is nothing like he was in the moderately successful 2004 film Van Helsing) to tell us all this. Those crazy Dutch -- they'll believe anything!
In that same vein, apparently Christian paraphernalia is a weapon. Count Dracula is the pure and unquestioned embodiment of evil, yeah, I accept that. And apparently the Christian God and the paraphernalia thereof is the only one he recognizes. Wait, what? Not even a tip of the hat to anyone else? Well, maybe, but we don't know how the Jews or Muslims fared up against Dracula. In fact things are not even looking too bright for the Protestants. Wait, wasn't Stoker Irish and -- oh yeah. Apparently, it's not the faith you have in your crucifix or your communion wafer, it's how you wield them.
The mix of gothic versus modern certainly is interesting. You get your fill of gloomy castles and graveyards and innocent damsels in distress, but then it invades your nice, clean, modern, happy London! What's a band of guys who are in the process of losing a prospective finacée to do? Read Dracula to find out, obviously.
But, let's talk about the sex. (Spoiler alert) Lucy, not Mina, is the one who actually becomes a vampire. She is the obvious choice since she is a total slut who briefly contemplates the idea of marrying three men. Read the bit where Lucy gets bitten for the first time over again -- does it not sound like a really scary Victorian version of a girl losing her virginity? Vampires, whores, they're all bad for society and dangerous to men. When garlic flowers don't work, just move straight on to the wooden stake. Mina, of course, is the model of Victorian womanhood and therefore manages to resist Dracula's advances. She's such a good little Victorian wifey that she inspires a scene absolutely made of cheese towards the end of the novel when -- well, I won't spoil it that much. Also, check out the vampire vixens that Jonathan meets during his séjour with Count Dracula. Voluptuous seems to be one of Stoker's favourite words here. What does voluptuous actually mean?
voluptuous
/vluptyooss/
• adjective 1 relating to or characterized by luxury or sensual pleasure. 2 (of a woman) curvaceous and sexually attractive.
— DERIVATIVES voluptuously (adverb) voluptuousness (noun).
— ORIGIN Latin voluptuosus, from voluptas ‘pleasure’.
(Thank you, AskOxford!) Now, Stoker is using this term in a negative way, remember. Because as we all know, sexual pleasure is for whores and rakes. Now lie back and think of England.
Okay, so Stoker doesn't treat sex in quite the same way that Chaucer does. Try not to be disappointed though. Dracula's still more fun than a barrel of vampires, and if you like getting into the Halloween spirit, totally appropriate. If you are into the Halloween spirit but maybe not vampires and sexual symbolism, try some Edgar Allen Poe (his poetry is great for reading out loud!) or perhaps Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. If, on the other hand, you can't get enough of this whole mixing-Victorian-sexual-morals-with-the-supernatural business, I suggest you check out Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market.
Friday, September 5, 2008
September Reading
Don't you just love the first day of school?!
It's the biggest thrill of my life.
Now that it's back-to-school time, the scholars among us are opening our wallets and dumping the contents of our bank accounts at the bookstores. And all of a sudden, we have about 84,000 hours a week more of reading to do than we did in the summer (a typical week only contains 168 hours, so you can imagine how distressing this is).
Those among us who are not scholars are laughing. Scholars, take heart. We'll SEE who's laughing at tax time.
My little sis is partaking of higher education for the very first time this September. And, knowing full well (but perhaps not realizing) that she would be doing much, much more reading than she is used to in the coming months, she asked me, her older, wiser, English-major sister, for books. That's right, she wanted to carve out some time to read the classics. In an attempt not to scare her off right away, I picked out two easy ones for her: Dracula and The Great Gatsby. Also, they were on sale, which in my opinion made them even better choices.
Couldn't we each carve out a little time to make ourselves a little better-read? It might not improve our chances of getting a job or make us any healthier, but it might make us slightly more interesting at parties, thereby increasing our chances of getting laid. So, I present to you my recommendation for your September reading list.
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
You may have heard things about the Canterbury Tales which have scared you off. You may have even had a look at the original, which scared you so off that you've never considered reading it in its entirety. The thing about the Canterbury Tales is that it was written in Middle English (which bears no relation to Middle Earth). Some people mistakenly think that The Canterbury Tales is "Old English". Other people mistakenly think Shakespeare is Old English. What is actually Old English is Beowulf, and Old English is in fact so far removed from Modern English that it probably bears a closer resemblance to German, with a little Scottish thrown in. Shakespeare is Modern English. The Canterbury Tales is Middle English. Now you know.
Middle English, while still vaguely comprehensible to the Modern English reader, is rather hard to read through comfortably -- not unlike Trainspotting. For example:
It's the biggest thrill of my life.
Now that it's back-to-school time, the scholars among us are opening our wallets and dumping the contents of our bank accounts at the bookstores. And all of a sudden, we have about 84,000 hours a week more of reading to do than we did in the summer (a typical week only contains 168 hours, so you can imagine how distressing this is).
Those among us who are not scholars are laughing. Scholars, take heart. We'll SEE who's laughing at tax time.
My little sis is partaking of higher education for the very first time this September. And, knowing full well (but perhaps not realizing) that she would be doing much, much more reading than she is used to in the coming months, she asked me, her older, wiser, English-major sister, for books. That's right, she wanted to carve out some time to read the classics. In an attempt not to scare her off right away, I picked out two easy ones for her: Dracula and The Great Gatsby. Also, they were on sale, which in my opinion made them even better choices.
Couldn't we each carve out a little time to make ourselves a little better-read? It might not improve our chances of getting a job or make us any healthier, but it might make us slightly more interesting at parties, thereby increasing our chances of getting laid. So, I present to you my recommendation for your September reading list.
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
You may have heard things about the Canterbury Tales which have scared you off. You may have even had a look at the original, which scared you so off that you've never considered reading it in its entirety. The thing about the Canterbury Tales is that it was written in Middle English (which bears no relation to Middle Earth). Some people mistakenly think that The Canterbury Tales is "Old English". Other people mistakenly think Shakespeare is Old English. What is actually Old English is Beowulf, and Old English is in fact so far removed from Modern English that it probably bears a closer resemblance to German, with a little Scottish thrown in. Shakespeare is Modern English. The Canterbury Tales is Middle English. Now you know.
Middle English, while still vaguely comprehensible to the Modern English reader, is rather hard to read through comfortably -- not unlike Trainspotting. For example:
When that Aprille with his showres swoot
The drought of Marche hath percèd to the root,
And bathèd every veyn in suche licoúr,
From which vertu engendred is the flour;
When Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Enspirèd hath in every holte and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe course runne,
And smale fowles maken melodie,
That slepen al the night with open eye,
So pricketh them natúre in their coráges:—
Thenne longen folk to go on pilgrimàges,
And palmers for to seeken strange strandes,
To distant seintes, known in sondry landes;
And specially, from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Canturbury they wende,
The holy blisful martir for to seeke,
That them hath holpen when that they were weeke.
The drought of Marche hath percèd to the root,
And bathèd every veyn in suche licoúr,
From which vertu engendred is the flour;
When Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Enspirèd hath in every holte and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe course runne,
And smale fowles maken melodie,
That slepen al the night with open eye,
So pricketh them natúre in their coráges:—
Thenne longen folk to go on pilgrimàges,
And palmers for to seeken strange strandes,
To distant seintes, known in sondry landes;
And specially, from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Canturbury they wende,
The holy blisful martir for to seeke,
That them hath holpen when that they were weeke.
- The General Prologue
As you may have noticed, this was in the 1380s, before Webster or the Oxford University Press, and people were not particularly concerned with standardized spelling. Also, pronunciation was a little different from what it is today. All this is enough to discourage the casual classics reader who is just trying to get laid. I mean, what the heck are "swoot showres"? Where is Engelond, anyway? And who is this blissful martyr fellow, if that's what he really is? (He's Thomas à Beckett. Look it up on Wikipedia.)
Modern-day Chaucer lovers feel your pain. And for that reason, translated versions of the Canterbury Tales are available! I just picked up a sweet illustrated hardcover copy at Chapters on sale for $20, but if you aren't quite as lucky, or aren't sure you'll like it $20 worth, you can find it in numerous places online, including here: http://www.librarius.com/cantales.htm. And of course, like any true classic, you can always check it out on Wikipedia or Sparknotes.
I should point out that I am kind of an expert on the Canterbury Tales, having written no less than three academic essays on the topic. Well, okay, two essays and a short paper. On the Wife of Bath. Well, how many papers have YOU written dealing with the Canterbury Tales, hmm?
The Canterbury Tales is a classic, even despite the fact that Chaucer never actually got around to finishing it before he died. And here's something people rarely think of when they think of the Canterbury Tales: this stuff is comedy. It has all the sex, toilet humour, clever satire, witticisms, petty sqaubbles, and masterful storytelling of anything you'll see on TV this fall (and likely a great deal more of the masterful storytelling). Popular favourites are the toilet-humour Miller's Tale, the awesomely-unironically-racist Prioress's Tale, and the feministic Wife of Bath's Tale. But there are a few lesser-known gems, such as the epic Knight's Tale and the suprise-ending Shipman's Tale, of which Caryl Churchill must have been thinking when she said "You can't separate fucking and economics."
I say that the Prioress's Tale is "awesomely-unironically-racist" in the same way that Uncle Remus singing "Zip-a-dee-do-dah" in the Disney "classic" Song of the South is awesomely-unironically racist (see what I'm talking about here - number 2). It's so bad it's good. It's completely unaware of its own over-the-top hilarity, kind of like Micheal on The Office. As for the Wife of Bath's tale being feminist, well, most people will agree with me - but don't tell my TA from ENGL 2300 I said that, because she wrote a long-ass comment about calling a Chaucer character a "feminist" being an anarchronism on my first paper. If you're into the whole 1380s Chaucer-led feminism thing, you'll also enjoy the Franklin's Tale, as well as the Merchant's Tale if you're also into sublte satire. Hooray for January-May romances!
In summary, think of the Canterbury Tales as Aesop's Fabels meets South Park, except written during the reign of Henry IV. Before Joan of Arc. If nothing else, read it to illustrate the point that people have had basically the exact same sense of humour since forever.
As you may have noticed, this was in the 1380s, before Webster or the Oxford University Press, and people were not particularly concerned with standardized spelling. Also, pronunciation was a little different from what it is today. All this is enough to discourage the casual classics reader who is just trying to get laid. I mean, what the heck are "swoot showres"? Where is Engelond, anyway? And who is this blissful martyr fellow, if that's what he really is? (He's Thomas à Beckett. Look it up on Wikipedia.)
Modern-day Chaucer lovers feel your pain. And for that reason, translated versions of the Canterbury Tales are available! I just picked up a sweet illustrated hardcover copy at Chapters on sale for $20, but if you aren't quite as lucky, or aren't sure you'll like it $20 worth, you can find it in numerous places online, including here: http://www.librarius.com/cantales.htm. And of course, like any true classic, you can always check it out on Wikipedia or Sparknotes.
I should point out that I am kind of an expert on the Canterbury Tales, having written no less than three academic essays on the topic. Well, okay, two essays and a short paper. On the Wife of Bath. Well, how many papers have YOU written dealing with the Canterbury Tales, hmm?
The Canterbury Tales is a classic, even despite the fact that Chaucer never actually got around to finishing it before he died. And here's something people rarely think of when they think of the Canterbury Tales: this stuff is comedy. It has all the sex, toilet humour, clever satire, witticisms, petty sqaubbles, and masterful storytelling of anything you'll see on TV this fall (and likely a great deal more of the masterful storytelling). Popular favourites are the toilet-humour Miller's Tale, the awesomely-unironically-racist Prioress's Tale, and the feministic Wife of Bath's Tale. But there are a few lesser-known gems, such as the epic Knight's Tale and the suprise-ending Shipman's Tale, of which Caryl Churchill must have been thinking when she said "You can't separate fucking and economics."
I say that the Prioress's Tale is "awesomely-unironically-racist" in the same way that Uncle Remus singing "Zip-a-dee-do-dah" in the Disney "classic" Song of the South is awesomely-unironically racist (see what I'm talking about here - number 2). It's so bad it's good. It's completely unaware of its own over-the-top hilarity, kind of like Micheal on The Office. As for the Wife of Bath's tale being feminist, well, most people will agree with me - but don't tell my TA from ENGL 2300 I said that, because she wrote a long-ass comment about calling a Chaucer character a "feminist" being an anarchronism on my first paper. If you're into the whole 1380s Chaucer-led feminism thing, you'll also enjoy the Franklin's Tale, as well as the Merchant's Tale if you're also into sublte satire. Hooray for January-May romances!
In summary, think of the Canterbury Tales as Aesop's Fabels meets South Park, except written during the reign of Henry IV. Before Joan of Arc. If nothing else, read it to illustrate the point that people have had basically the exact same sense of humour since forever.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
