"I could spend the rest of my life reading" - Malcolm X

I've just now realized that summer is EXPENSIVE.

And fun in the city is EXPENSIVE.

And my bank account is yelling at me like: get thee to a library.

And so I did.

During my blog vacation I spent all my money I don't have, but I also read.

I re-read Plath's The Bell Jar for book club and loved every unstable braying "I am I am I am" moment of it.

I read Mitford's biography of Zelda Fitzgerald where I remembered "the faded gray romance" because who doesn't love tragic beauty and poetry and destructive lifestyles?

Then, for the Fourth of July, I read Marable's biography of Malcolm X - Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention where I delved into the interesting life of a charismatic man full of contradiction.

My brain and bank account are proud of my free reading.

"It is summer time and past time - and I am very young when I didn't care...I wish I had been what I thought I was; and so debonair; and so debonair."
Zelda

Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt

I've finally read Vonnegut.


Slowly, but surely, I've been filling in the holes of my reading history. I figured I would start my Vonnegut education with Slaughterhouse-Five - the tale of a man who fought in WWII and went on to have a family and a business, and - oh yeah - an alien abduction.

In my mind:
Catch-22 + On the Road = Slaughterhouse-Five

Slaughterhouse has the ironic critique of war of Catch-22 and the scattered ramblings of On the Road.

It took me 150 to start to get settled into the book and actually like it. But after that? I was kind of on board. I was like: yeah, the way we think of time as linear only is silly. We are doing everything all the time. All memories are one. Trippy, man.

Then I realized I wasn't on drugs and got back to my normal self.

I ended up enjoying the book. By the end I didn't mind that the plot of the book was NOT linear because Vonnegut took the reader on a twisty-turn-y journey through this man's life. And I liked the way Vonnegut dealt with the gruesome terror of war - stating horror straightforwardly without a huge amount of emotionally charged adjective description.

And his headstone? "Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt." Ironic perfection.

"As an Earthling, I had to believe whatever clocks said - and calendars."
Vonnegut

Teachers who don't teach book club...little women edition

Over the last few sessions, our book club has run into a conundrum: do we dislike some YA books because they aren't good or because we are too far away from the target demographic (aka OLD)?

And so, in honor of the the end of winter (and our childhoods), we read Little Women.

Full of seasonal changes, our book club has been adding members. Face and Ams rallied and spent all weekend listening to LW being read aloud. Literary bonding makes me smile.

I went away for the weekend and grabbed my copy of LW from 4th grade on my way out. Upon returning to Chicago, I video chatted Face and Ams (FAMES) because...BETH DIDN'T DIE in my book, and my book only spanned one year.

How was that possible?

After much confusion, we realized my little kid edition separated Little Women and Good Wives into two separate books whereas new editions smash them together in about 500 pages. And so, I embarked upon a 2 day, 300 page marathon finishing 2 minutes before leaving for book club and endless fish and chips...

Where I got to hear Face's philosophy that the plot is actually driven by the men of the story. He stands by it:


I almost like the book(s) more as an adult. As a child, I loved the story and feistiness of Jo. As an adult I was all: whoa, hello road map to becoming an adult.

With any book that people enjoy, the characters, themes, and plot get inserted into conversations. And so we chomped away on fish and chips and someone would chime in: that's so Laurie, you're such a Jo, at least you can make jam, or oh, the professor.

I've concluded that I can still project myself back to being young(er) because Little Women (and Good Wives) maintain their hold on my heart.

"The best of us have a spice of perversity in us, especially when we are young and in love."
Louisa May Alcott

Get in the wallpaper and fix me a sandwich

Dear Hark, a vagrant:

You've made my Friday.

xoxo

"It dwells in my mind so!"
Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Stories in which ponies and/or babies die should come with a warning label

Recently, I've overheard too many for my liking negative opinions concerning John Steinbeck and his works.

Just like most everyone, I read Of Mice and Men in high school (two times actually...thanks moving) and felt fine about it. But then, after college I read East of Eden and fell in love. Next, I picked up The Moon is Down and was equally entranced.

After these three, I just really didn't get how people could be like: Steinbeck...blech. It seemed impossible.

And so I decided to pick up a few quick Steinbeck reads to investigate further.

First up: The Red Pony - a novella in four parts. *SPOILER ALERT...The pony dies in the first part. In no way did I see that coming. I mean, the boy left the pony outside for one day (one day!) and it gets sick and dies. Steinbeck was all, you like ponies? This boy likes ponies? Let's kill the pony and show that life isn't always fair.

You know what else isn't fair? That I was on the bus when I got to the dead pony part. I can only imagine my face as I read on in horror. Reading about a little boy's pony dying before 9 a.m. just isn't right.

It was kind of downhill after the pony death. The boy goes through a dark punishing everything around him to punish himself phase, but then ends up getting another pony, but only after the mom horse is killed to save the baby...tough lessons.

Next: The Pearl. Another novella, this time concerning Native American pearl divers (fishers?).

In the first chapter (first chapter!) the only baby of a happy couple gets bitten by a scorpion and the doctor won't see them because they don't have money and aren't white. The baby gets better (thanks to the quick thinking sucking out of venom on the mom's part), and the dad goes diving and finds a gigantic pearl.

I imagined it as the hope diamond of pearls.

*SPOILER ALERT...The pearl (metaphor for greed) is pretty much evil and everyone is now out to get the man. Including priests. Including neighbors. Including the doctor who I'm pretty sure poisoned the baby to show that he could cure the baby.

And they have to run away after someone dies (or is maybe murdered by the husband) in a tussle. And the wife wants to throw the pearl into the ocean, but the husband has envisioned a bright future for his child and can't abandon it now. So they run.

And you know who dies?

THE BABY.

In the end, they return (broken) to the village and throw the pearl into the ocean: "and the music of the pearl drifted to a whisper and disappeared."

In conclusion: sad.

East of Eden was sad as well, but it was also grandiose and epic and tragically beautiful. And each of these stories had beautiful, hopeful moments, but then they just really bummed me out. A lot.

Steinbeck is still an amazing writer. I still look to him to blow my mind with elegant and glorious and true statements on life. It's just that I finally closed the door on an awful month (November 10; Claire 0). And right here, right now, in this moment I want no part of heartbreaking excellence.

"And, as with all retold tales that are in people's hearts, there are only good and bad things and black and white things and good and evil things and no in-between. If this story is a parable, perhaps everyone takes his own meaning from it and reads his own life into it."
John Steinbeck

It's Bovary NOT Bovery

I've loved books all my life, but in college I was able to devote myself to them. It was in college that I was able to fall in love with everything from Dorian Gray to Kitchen to Moll Flanders to Frankenstein to Persuasion to Let Their Spirits Dance to if I don't stop listing I never will.

In college I was almost always too busy for some wild romance to sweep me off my feet. But in my reading life? I wanted extravagance. I wanted passion. I wanted pain.

I found all three in Madame Bovary. Flaubert's masterpiece will forever rank in the top ten in my heart. Ahhh, the tragic story of a woman who also wants life to sweep her away only...it keeps...not. And then when it does it all gets ruined and then there is...death.

Lately I've been sad, experiencing ennui thanks to the inclement teaching job market. I'll get back to taking on the world shortly, but I can't help but want to sit in a comfy window seat tilting my head romantically against the window staring off into the distance while I yearn.


...So imagine my excitement when I came across the graphic novel Gemma Bovery, a modern day adaptation. Usually I dislike all things spin-off or adaptation, but P&P&Z got me all hopeful.

I was too hopeful to be true.

My first issue, regardless of the plot concerns words. Words everywhere. Small-print words. Words in French. Words attacking the pages. I love words; however, I prefer my graphic novels to be at least 80:20 (graphics to words).

I next take issue with the plot. Madame Bovary is a beautifully tragic character while Gemma Bovery is just kind of annoying. If you are going to ruin your life with poor (albeit romantic) decisions, I want to at least like you. Gemma (graphic novel) just seemed like she had low self esteem while Emma (classic) is valiantly searching for the unattainable.

SPOILER ALERT

I finally take issue with the end. Flaubert goes there. People die. Emma commits suicide. It is awful. In the graphic novel? Gemma CHOKES ON A SANDWICH. That is how she dies. And the nosy neighbor (who I adore in both novel and graphic) warns the sandwich eater's husband that he could be next because look at the similarities between the classic novel and their lives!

But don't worry, Mr. Bovery's name is Cyril - which is different from Mr. Bovary's - so he won't possibly die. Oh, haha, it is all jokes. Cyril will just sell the house and move back to England back into his old apartment like Gemma Bovery never existed.

This is what a love story is now? Shoot. She died. Well, back to business as usual.

A picture might be worth a thousand words, but not a thousand of Flaubert's words.

"So far as Emma was concerned she did not ask herself whether she was in love. Love, she thought, was something that must come suddenly, with a great display of thunder and lightning, descending on one's life like a tempest from above, turning it topsy-turvy, whirling away one's resolutions like leaves and bearing one onward, heart and soul, toward the abyss."
Flaubert

You win Kerourac

I made it to page 139 of On the Road - which I think is a success as I only found 2 people who have actually read the book. If I had to describe On the Road in one word it would be: INDULGENT.

I'm not arguing that this style of "novel" didn't disrupt the literary status quo at the time and that was a positive thing. However, that does not make it quality literature and it does not make it something I need to read.

I prefer to leave On the Road where it should be: the book on everyone's to-read list because it makes them seem less yuppy-ish and yet never gets read.

My feminist bias also got in the way of reading this book for similar reasons as to why I boycott reading I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. Regardless of the drugged out writing and the ignoring of grammar and the pointless blah-tangent-blahing and the hypocritical forging out into the country (but always with the option to mooch off the aunt for money)...I have extreme issues with Kerouac's treatment and description of women.

Examples? No problem.

Banging Chicks Schedule:
"There was always a schedule in Dean's life. 'The schedule is this: I came off work a half-hour ago. In that time Dean is balling Marylou at the hotel and gives me time to change and dress. At one sharp he rushes from Marylou to Camille - of course neither one of them knows what's going on - and bangs her once, giving me time to arrive at one-thirty. Then he comes out with me...Then at six he goes back to Marylou - and he's going to spend all day tomorrow running around to get the necessary papers for their divorce. Marylou's all for it, but she insists on banging in the interim. She says she loves him - so does Camille.'"

Disappointing virgins:
"She was a nice little girl, simple and true, and tremendously frightened of sex. I told her it was beautiful. I wanted to prove this to her. She let me prove it, but I was too impatient and proved nothing. She sighed into the dark."

The ruining of the word 'in':
Lee Ann took all her clothes off and lay down to sun herself...I watched her...I wanted to jump down from a mast and land right in her..."

Summation of the novel:
"It was a complete meaningless set of circumstances that made Dean come, and similarly I went off with him for no reason."

Change of sentiment...
"The truth of the matter is we don't understand our women; we blame on them and it's all our fault."

...but not change of deeds:
"We played catch with Marylou over the couch; she was no small doll either."

...really not changing any deeds, and the ruining of the word 'work':
"We're buddies aren't we...Finally he came out with it: he wanted me to work Marylou...I knew he wanted to see what Marylou was like with another man."

...but don't worry it's because of issues - I leave you to discern the metaphor:
"Only a guy who's spent five years in jail can go to such maniacal helpless extremes; beseeching at the portals of the soft source, mad with a completely physical realization of the origins of life-bliss; blindly seeking to return the way he came."

If I want to read meandering psychobabble filled texts, I'll stick with Anais Nin. Because at least she actually has meaning to her writing and calls the work what it is: A DIARY.

"I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion."
Kerourac

Oliver's getting me all twisted up

I'm having a problem reading Oliver Twist.

If you remember, it was not that long ago when I was all excited about getting back into Dickens. However, this book is giving me deja vu.

Things I know: I have never Oliver Twist prior to this reading.

Things the madre thinks: I have seen an Oliver Twist movie.

Things I don't remember: seeing an Oliver Twist movie.

I stand by my not seeing an adaptation. Instead, I would argue that knowledge of Oliver Twist is part of our cultural capital as a society aka general Twist knowledge is in the cloud of communal knowledge. All you have to do is say - please, sir, can I have some more - and everyone is all oh hahaha that is Oliver Twist.

As an English Lit-y type of person, I believe my communal Twist knowledge goes even deeper. For example, when he becomes an apprentice he has to sleep in a coffin. When I read those disturbing words, it was like I already knew he had to be coffin boy. Later, when Nancy is introduced as a character, in my head I was all oh Nancy she does blah blah blah and is important to Oliver because of blah blah blah. Even worse, when Oliver is hanging with the rich guy and the guy sees the painting I was all, oh yeah, that is Oliver's mom.

How do I know this?

It is creeping me out.

I realize that quasi knowing the plot shouldn't ruin reading the novel, as people re-read novels all the time...for fun. But the thing is I am re-reading it when I have never read it.

It is all very upsetting.

I'm sure I'll get over it and everything will be fine and end happy-ish but right now I'm more creeped than when I read Dracula part dos.

"Surprises, like misfortunes, seldom come alone."
Charles Dickens

Acquired taste

The first sentence of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist:

"Among other public buildings in the town of Mudfog, it boasts of one which is common to most towns great or small, to wit, a workhouse; and in this workhouse there was born on a day and date which I need not trouble myself to repeat, inasmuch as it can be of no possible consequence to the reader, in this stage of the business at all events, the item of mortality whose name is prefixed to the head of this chapter. "

If you made it through that and comprehend it, congrats. If you let out a little chuckle, welcome to my club.

I realize that most might not have my reaction to Dickens. If we remember, earlier this year (for class) I read Bleak House TWICE. The first for comprehension and the second to go further in depth. Now that I've front loaded Dickens, though, I can read the above sentence and have the following, genuine reaction: Dickens, oh how I have missed thee!

I am only nine pages into Oliver and I am already cracking up. Seriously, early Dickens is a laugh riot. Oh how I have missed how every single word, look, and name have significant meaning. After reading a slew of books which can basically be glossed while still gleaning the meaning, I am thoroughly enjoying having to actually pay attention whilst I read.

On occasion, in my quest to not be a book snob, I forget how much I love British Lit. Besides just super loving it (Moll Flanders anyone?), I also enjoy that a lot of people think it stuffy and difficult. After donning literary armor and fighting for Victorian Lit to the average person, I even sometimes have to defend myself against my fellow English majors (those of the American Lit variety).

But here I am, standing by the fact that during this winter-y time there is nothing I'd like to do more than sit in my grandma chair with Dickens and a hot toddy!

"And what an excellent example of the power of dress young Oliver Twist was! Wrapped in the blanket which had hitherto formed his only covering, he might have been the child of a nobleman or a beggar...But now he was enveloped in the old calico robes...he was badged and ticketed...to be cuffed and buffeted through the world, despised by all, and pitied by none."
Charles Dickens

Ironically, if we never read the classics, we couldn't play these games

I was reading a book this morning. Shocker. The book in question concerns literacy.

During a case study discussion, a class reading "The Yellow Wallpaper" is presented. For people who haven't read the story, the book provides a one sentence synopsis: "The short story tells of a woman in the late 1800s who has a mental illness and becomes more obsessed each day with her bedroom yellow wallpaper."

I don't even know what the rest of the case study said because I was blinded with rage.

Going on a diatribe right now isn't healthy for the Zen state I am trying to embody, so I will just say: starting out crazy and dissenting into madness because your husband locks you in a room for months while reinforcing your instability every chance he gets are COMPLETELY separate issues.

Although, perhaps the authors are ON to something. What if we boiled other classic works down to single sentences that are inaccurate and missing the whole point? What would that look like? And once I start, will I be able to stop?

Thanks to E, P and M for playing the game with me...

The Scarlet Letter is about a single woman who had a baby.
Lord of the Flies concerns kids discovering an island.
Native Son is about a black youth who finds employment in a wealthy household.
Oliver Twist...homeless kids.
Pygmalion - an extreme makeover.
Wuthering Heights, a book about neighbors.
The Great Gatsby, new money.
Beloved - a woman, her daughter, and a young girl who comes to live with them.
Of Mice and Men - a big man with a 'little' name learns not to squeeze the things he loves.
The Odyssey, a journey of infidelity.

Why don't you give it a try? It really is so helpful. I'm really glad none of us have to bother reading any of the classics now.

"Can you not trust me as a physician when I tell you so?"
DON'T TRUST HIM husband in "The Yellow Wallpaper"

Catch-22

In my quest to read everything I could possibly teach a high school English student, my latest read has been Joseph Heller's Catch-22.

How to sum up the book... Perhaps like this: ironic and futile laughter in the face of inane and dangerous moot-ness.

I thoroughly enjoyed it. Catch-22 is hilarious, ironic, sad, bitter, unfair, frustrating, utterly outrageous and yet completely true. I came through the book seeing everything through this lens. I now see it in daily interactions. I see it in Mary McCarthy's Groves of Academe. At work. On the bus. Everywhere.

Ahh, the sign of a quality book - just like a quality man - that you instantly insert it (him) into your life.

I must say that I do not like it. I don't like the conclusion. I don't like the truth of the conclusion. I don't like that there seems to be no way to escape the circular conclusions.

Me.

No.

Likey.

And hence, I think the book is genius.

"It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all."
Joseph Heller

Booky booky book book(s)

Lately my book reading has consisted of two categories: books I read for me, and books I read to prepare for teaching. This week it was The Group and Brave New World, respectively.

Mary McCarthy's The Group
A novel about a group of Vassar women? Sign me up. After reading The Group, I am officially a Mary McCarthy fan. This novel reads like an instruction manual for being a woman. It discusses everything from contraception, breastfeeding and family relations to marriage, abuse, lesbianism and the paradox of being highly educated and at the same time expected to fit a subservient role. Whew! And yet, it is also a well arcing story of a group of women who meander back and forth to each other while trying to forge their own way in the world. Not to mention the ending, oh the ending! Bittersweet indeed.

And now, for my favorite quote:

"She had discovered a sad little law: a man never called when you needed him but only when you didn't. If you really got absorbed in your ironing or in doing your bureau drawers, to the point where you did not want to be interrupted, that was the moment the phone decided to ring. You had to mean it: you had to forget about him honestly and enjoy your own society before it worked. You got what you wanted, in other words, as soon as you saw you could do without it, which meant, if Polly reasoned right, that you never got what you wanted."

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World
Well well well. In all my English class time I somehow have missed reading Brave New World. Last year I read 1984 for the first time. Apparently I put off reading dystopian literature. I decided to finally undergo Brave New World because at some point I will teach it and OMG there is s-e-x in it. The uncomfortableness created at the extensive talk of the genetic and chemical conditioning and accepted social strata thoroughly pleased me. It made me think, about how we are conditioned now...dun dun dunnn. Huxley surprised me in going the whole savage in a civilized world route with heavy religious overtones. And I must say, this week's reading is 2 for 2 on legit endings.

"The most efficient way of rendering the poor harmless is to teach them to want to imitate the rich."
Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Oh SNAP

Oh. No. Hardy. DIDN'T.

As I doubt any of my readers are going to go out and read Jude the Obscure I have very few qualms about the following spoiler:

NO freaking WAY. It was said this novel was even more depressing than The Nether World, in which there is ACID thrown in faces (come to think of it in Mary Barton there was also acid to the face...seriously people, that is NOT cool) and no one ends up happy or with the people they love...but I didn't want to believe it.

Consider me a believer.

When your second husband's child from his first marriage that he didn't know about comes to live with you...but you love him and try to care for him HANGS your two children and himself because of a comment you made about children better off being dead than having to live in this world...and then you give birth to a dead baby because you are so upset...and then you leave the only man you ever loved (who you never actually married) to get re-married to your first husband whom you never loved...and you let him have sex with you as some type of sick, masochistic penance...and your lover dies with no one to get him water...and you don't even know because the last time you saw him you pushed him away...

Yeah. THAT takes the cake.

I realize the story is about Jude. But I think Sue is much more interesting. In the end she doesn't even get to die. And yes, I'm saying death would have been preferable to her life at the end of the novel. THAT is how depressing it is.

SNAP.

"Do not do an immoral thing for moral reasons."
Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure

I am woman, hear me acquiesce

When I used to meet boys, because they were still boys then, they used to ask me all these seemingly deep but actually surface questions about myself. I grew bored, and began answering by saying, "I am a paradox". Apparently I am also an enigma because I would never give these boys an explanation. I didn't feel one was necessary. To me, it was obvious that....I am new and old. I am conventional and rebellious. I am. A Woman.

For class right now I am reading Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy. I am having Woman question issues. General opinion would say that the Victorians were repressed when it came to women and OMG sex. But I sometimes wonder if modern day America is just as repressed as we would like to say Victorian England was. There is a question of what women are allowed to want. About what is deemed appropriate. About looking back at characters steeped in history and yet judging them as a modern day person and STILL punishing women.

In the novel is a character, Sue, who is at once impractical/sharp witted/impulsive/etc. She sounds kind of modern right? Full of paradoxes?

Some women in my class criticize her for using men for her own gain. I would like to say - freaking finally. Someone who gives as good as she gets. I would like to ask: WHY IS IT ALWAYS ABOUT MEN. Why is everything we do as women contextualized according to men and what they think and how they feel. What about us? What about Sue?

Let's take a look at her motivation. Sue is pulled in two directions: that of intellectual autonomy and that of loving being loved.

She has been called manipulative, conniving, and calculating. Why must we, modern day readers, attach the same stigma Victorian society placed on her? What do people fault her for? Going after what she wanted? Recognizing that personal relationships sometimes get in the way? Men realized this ages ago. So when a woman realizes it...she is needing punishment.

Something Sue is heavily criticized for is withholding sex. She withholds sex from three different men. I will say that withholding sex for power is looked down on in our current culture because it is perceived as "playing games" and because "powerful" women explore other avenues to gain power, and isn't withholding sex just punishing yourself? But, maybe there is also a little residual threat of a woman having power over a man?

So, if we look through society's point of view we say: I can’t believe she is so selfish, manipulative, cold and unfeeling. But if we take a step back and look at the situation, we might see that -at the time- Sue was exerting her ONE arena for agency. I can't tell if people are upset about Sue exerting agency/power or upset because sex is involved. Look at the words we use for when Sue finally (and even the use of finally I take issue with, as if her “fall” is inevitable) has sex. She has: given in/given it up/succumbed. The 'it' she is giving up is not simply sex. These are words of subjugation. She is handing her power over. She is giving up on intellectual autonomy. In a way, she is sacrificing herself.

Maybe Sue is conventional after all.

I don't have conclusions yet, as I am only halfway through the novel. But I hear there are children. I hear there is allegory. I hear bad things happen. Stay tuned...

"I have been thinking...that the social moulds civilization fits us into have no more relation to our actual shapes than the conventional shapes of the constellations have to the real star-patterns. I am...but a woman tossed about, all alone, with aberrant passions, and unaccountable antipathies..."
Sue Bridehead, Jude the Obscure

Bleakhouse installment II

books / authors / Dickens / Bleak House / AWESOME

Where we left off, we knew that Esther's mom is Lady (Dedlock) and they have decided to never talk again for Lady Dedlock's husband's sake.

Damn. It's all or nothing is it?

I will say that the last 300+ pages were crazy amazing. If pages the same weight as tissue paper and just as translucent could turn quickly I would call it a page turner.

It was really just one thing after another:

Esther tells her guardian about her real mom and now he wants to marry her but he OLD but he is just going to be a father figure to her? Not so husband-y? She says yes because feels marred from her sickness (scarlet fever? typhoid? what deforms the face??) and not worthy of the doctor whom she really loves. And Esther goes to the jerky lawyer and tells him to step off and the other mean - but powerful - lawyer is blackmailing Lady Dedlock. Also blackmailing George. Will someone please kill this guy! OMG someone killed this guy! Shot through the heart. Oh no, Buckett who we thought might be mean but is just doing his job is ARESTING George but George is the son of the Dedlock's trusted housekeeper and LADY DEDLOCK IS MISSING. Her husband now knows everything (getting knocked up by soldier who overdosed on opium) and says ALL IS FORGIVEN and is quelling rumors that they are divorcing because he loves her so much and LADY DEDLOCK COME BACK! But she doesn't. And she dies. Where her lover's body is.

But it ends happy!

How could it right?

But it does. Just as any Victorian novel should:

The Jarndyce suit comes to a close and guess what...no more money left to divide because it was sucked up by legal costs. Oh the irony! So Richard is upset cause now he really has no money, but is consoled by Ada and the fact that he is prob going to live with old Jarndyce because he will be lonely because he isn't marrying Esther because he saw how she loved the doctor and gave her a house and him as a husband!

I love it when it all works out. Leaves me warm and fuzzy.

"The beating of my heart was so violent and wild that I felt as if my life were breaking from me."
Charles Dickens

Bleak House installment one

books / authors / Dickens / Bleak House

To date, I am 400 pages into Dickens' Bleak House. Make that 408 pages in.

For the first 100 pages or so there was a litany of new characters. Every chapter introduced new people. I had to underline. For the subsequent 200 pages, Dickens began to connect the characters. Underlining was not enough. Margin writing commenced. Such as: Lady + vagrant...Skimpole is a satire on society...soldier likes Esther...Mr. Guppy (lawyer) = jerk...

But then.

Foreshadowing.

OMG.

IS THE LADY ESTHER'S MOM?

OMG.

The Lady had a child with the dead opium copy writer who was friends with the soldier who likes Esther who was brought up by a mean lady but a nice maid who became acquaintances with the creepy lawyer who proposed to Esther but is slimy and might try to blackmail the Lady because he has vip information because he works for the law firm that represents the Jarndyce's in their decades long lawsuit, and John Jarndyce is Esther's guardian and they live next to the Lady but she didn't know her child was alive because her sister said the baby DIED.

...

362 pages left. I predict DRAMA.

"He...cannot be too careful of interference with matters he does not understand; that the plain rule, is to do nothing in the dark, to be a party to nothing under-handed or mysterious, and never to put his foot where he cannot see the ground."
Dickens (345)

The Quiet Girl

Well - I have been on vacation, in Boston, and it was a fabulous trip. But this blog isn't about Boston, it is about the new book I bought for my flight home. It is called The Quiet Girl, by Peter Hoeg. I know a lot of people who are fans of American Lit, and I tend to lean towards British counterparts, so sometimes it is refreshing to try something new.

As with life, as with literature.

This book is distinctly Russian and I love it. I am about halfway through and have already demolished the book with a magnitude of folded pages and underlined phrases... I own it, what do you want?

First things first, I like the title. It always says so much about a book. Mainly I sympathize because I used to be the quiet girl. A lot of people scoff at this, but seriously! My confidence came to me after years and years of quiet servitude to society. Now you can't shut me and my opinions up, and I must admit I like it that way.

One side note. This book is Russian. Dark. Think Dostoevsky, only slightly less suicidal.

Alright, let's get to the meaty excerpts and my commentary:

"As a rule there's a part of oneself that knows. And a larger part that doesn't want to know."
Usually, I ignore the part that knows. Then my mother reminds me and I have to pay attention. The large part of ourselves wants to be happy and carefree, much of the time this is only possible when you ignore the nagging truth in the back of your head. Although I will say that if you listen to the small part there would be a lot less delusion in this world. I am on the fence as to whether that is a positive thing.

"April light was unlike any other. It had a charming, optimistic unreliability, like an overbid hand in poker. It gave a promise of spring it wasn't sure it could keep."
Promises. Lots of times, people throw out promises like they are compliments, because they sound nice. Also because they want to fulfill them, even when they know they can't. This is dangerous. When you throw a promise out it leads to expectations, inevitably leading to disappointment.

"We'll be back tomorrow... We can hope so, but can we plan on it?"
You really can't plan on it, so live with no regrets. Today is the only thing you truly have the slightest chance of influencing. Tomorrow, next week, next year? Forget about it.

"Happiness doesn't consist so much of what one has scraped together and gotten off the ground, but of what one has been able to let go of."
Man have I had to learn this the hard way, in love and life.

I used to think, in love, that if you let go of the past you could be happy with that person who had previously ruined your life so successfully. But really? It is about letting go so that you can be emotionally available for the next person, so you don't walk around with a bitter chip on your shoulder. Because no one wants the mean, broken girl.

In life, you have to let go of what you can't change. What benefit is it if you pull yourself up and create a life, but are still so wrapped up in the past you can't appreciate it?

"He hadn't had a word for it, but he had known, they both had known, that they were in the path of a storm it would be hard to ride out."
This is a sad moment in a relationship, any relationship. When you realize everything you had is in jeopardy of being lost because you or the relationship isn't strong enough, when it was all you thought you had. After you lose it, the pain in your heart never goes away. The what if we had been stronger fades though, because you realize - after as much time as is necessary - it just wasn't meant to be. Is someone at fault? Possibly, but that is really isn't the point.

"You have very little talent when it comes to being satisfied in everyday life. But your longing. Sometimes I envy you that."
My mom will tell me I am always looking for the next "thing." Everyday life is very difficult for me to appreciate. My mantra of living in the now is helping, but I still get excited and want to jump 50 steps ahead. Most times, people don't want to jump that far with you. I will say, though, I would rather perpetually strive to improve myself as opposed to complacently stagnating. Although can I have both? Striving and yet still being satisfied? But if you are satisfied, then where does the motivation come from? So many questions.

Also, I think this longing in myself forces me to put myself out there in all aspects of life. Two of my friends have recognized this lately and given me meaningful commentary which supports and validates some of my harder decisions, and brings a loving tear to my eye:

M: Heart on sleeve is so hard, C, but I'm proud of you. Because you wear it beautifully.
P: You earned it, Claire and I'm so proud of you taking charge of your life and not settling.

"Touching doesn't help; we never reach each other anyway."
This really goes back to the whole letting go theme. Sometimes we make mistakes and take steps backwards - why? - because it is comfortable. We know what to expect, even the problems. But then it is the same problems, like the two parties are on completely different wavelengths. No one wants to keep banging their heads on the wall when there isn't symbiosis, even where there once was.

"You think people will always be abandoned."
If I am being harshly truthful with myself, I live my life by this saying. No one can let you down if you don't expect anything of them. You like someone? Well that's nice. You better push them away before they let you down. What kind of a life is that? I spoke to Kimberly Jo the other day and, per usual, she hit me with a truth about myself. She said, "Claire, you put up walls. You know you do."

Here is my thing: Letting other people in? Giving up some control over yourself? Scary. I can't even type giving up control, I can only resign myself to 'some' control. I am working on it.

"Do we ever hear anything other than our own monstrous ego and the immense filter of our personality?"
Some people really do, I think. I applaud them. Me? Everything is filtered through my preconceptions and philosophies. This isn't always a bad thing. For example, I only ever ask people questions which I would be comfy answering myself, out of courtesy. Does this limit my questions? Yes... On the other hand, many times you should really listen to people, because they only ask the questions that they are dying to answer.

Tricky, people are tricky. They tell you a lot about themselves if you are willing to listen.

"There is no past, only the present."
Word. Make the most of it.


P.S. Date night : )