Suspended

I'm working on a few things:

1. Underworld by Don DeLillo. I'm about a third of the way through and so far I'm completely enraptured. It's difficult to find substantial blocks of time during which I can read the novel, which takes considerate levels of attention. I'm also finding that this is a novel that's difficult to read in bits and pieces-- I need to read it in blocks. Basically, it's coming, slow and steady.



2. Fraud by David Rakoff. A recommendation from RW. It's a collection of essays about the life experiences of Rakoff, "a gay Jew from New York." He's hilarious and the essays are short, slightly disillusioned, but always endearing.



3. Many and Varied has been put on hold. I've decided to take contributions from a couple more writers, so the first issue will most likely be published within the next few weeks. Shall I make it available online?



4. I'm not really working on this, but... go listen to Akron/Family's Akron/Family. It's astounding and I love it.

Many and Varied

I'm currently working on a new zine. There's no specific subject, but lo, Many and Varied. I'm publishing the first one hopefully soon, maybe Monday. I want to have a Hallween bit in it, so. There's also going to be a book review by M. Lamb, I think over Tipping the Velvet. Look for it at Boxcar next week!

Michelle Tea at Boxcar this Saturday

Come see her! Should be fun. I'm just exposing myself for the first time but I'm excited.

Also I'm reading Underworld slowly and steadily. It's a slow read because the writing is so astoundingly beautiful that I find myself re-reading sentences like crazy.

Later, gators,
Sam

Aside

I don't like Harold Bloom, and I need to read Underworld by DeLillo and Pynchon's V before I read anything else.

I'm halfway through Farmer's The House of the Scorpion, which I'm reading for my young adult literature class. Then it's Underworld.

The Prince seems to be on the back-burner, as do the other Penguin books. I'm not going to stick to just the Penguin books, because that would be nearly impossible. Plus, I like other things.

"Opium! dread agent of unimaginable pleasure and pain!"

Last week I read Thomas de Quincey's 1822 autobiography, Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. It was an interesting read, but not terribly captivating. De Quincey began with the story of his life up to his first encounter with opium, then continued with a description of the highs and lows of the following years, during which he became thoroughly dependent and addicted. The most interesting part was the description of how he weaned himself off of the drug. In the notes, he showed a series of tables documenting the number of drops of opium he consumed each day, and I found it fascinating to see how the drops drastically changed in number of the course of just a few days. Here's an example, the fourth week in his attempted breaking of the addiction:

"Fourth Week
Mond. July 15 ...  76
16 ...  73.5
17 ...  73.5
18 ...  70
19 ... 240
20 ...  80
21 ... 350"

Wikipedia says "The book
was quite controversial,
particularly because open
discussion of addiction and other
"moral faults" was taboo before
and during the Victorian era.
De Quincey gave one of the first
literary accounts of the effects
of the drug in a time where the
drug's negative side-effects were not well understood."

Overall, an interesting read. I'd like to go back and read a
version with more explanatory notes than the copy I
downloaded from Project Gutenberg. Hopefully a more
thorough explanation of some of his references will keep
me more engaged with the text.

Now I'm working on Machiavelli's The Prince, and hopefully I'll soon
start Venus in Furs, thanks to a recommendation from hkonz.
I've also got the tail-end of a documentary on opium use
in America to finish... interessant.

Later, gators.

Literature 101: The Western Canon and You

Top ten most read pieces of literature in high school English class, in order:

1. Romeo and Juliet
2. Macbeth
3. Huck Finn
4. Julius Caesar
5. To Kill A Mockingbird
6. The Scarlet Letter
7. Of Mice and Men
8. Hamlet
9. The Great Gatsby
10. Lord of the Flies

Why, you might ask, are these the most popular books for high schoolers to read? The answer is a simple one. As I learned today in my teaching young adult literature class, the reason is this: they've been taught before. In other words, there are lesson plans available. Teachers have little work to do when teaching these books. Strategies and activities have been planned out for them.

All of these books were written by men, save Harper Lee's, and all of them were written before the 20th Century, save F. Scott Fitzgerald's. Each book features male main characters, save Nathaniel Hawthorne's, but that is hardly a positive depiction of women. Characteristics such
as these are found in nearly all examples of canon literature. For many years, it was rare if books written by authors who do not fit the description of wealthy white dead guy were even considered for school reading. Nowadays, we at least have some teachers striving for multicultural education. This doesn't mean abandoning the canon literature as a whole, however, but instead means an incorporation of non-canonical texts into the curriculum. Moderation. We can educate youths with texts that have so pervasively become a part of the American experience (particularly in terms of coming of age), but we can also include those works written by marginalized authors. The reasons for this are clear: in our changing society and with the increasingly cosmopolitan worldview developed by the global culture, educating children solely with canonical texts will not expose them to various cultures that exist in our world already.

That being said, I want to further explore why I chose the Penguin list. As I said in my first post, these lists seem rather silly. Who has the authority to make them? Who even made them, anyways? How were these books determined to be The Best? Now, many of the books on my list are not part of the Western canon. I don't believe that The Story of the Eye would be found there. However, many of them fit the description of the typical canonical text.

I'm still unsure why I picked this list. I like Penguin books and find the Penguin publishing group to be reputable and successful in its endeavors. I also, as silly as it may sound, really like the separation of the books into categories. I think that this list is a good place to start for me, especially because I am so aware of the importance of multiculturalism: there is no danger in me forgetting that other works are equally as important, some more so, than traditional canon texts.

Does anyone know of a more cosmopolitan book list out there? Perhaps a bit of research will lead to a reorganization of my book list. Perhaps I'll end up making my own. For now, who knows! In the meantime...

Laudanum ahoy.

"Then the horror overcame me, and I sank down unconscious."

When I was a senior in high school I read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein for the first time. While that novel remains more staunchly in the Romantic genre than Dracula, the same sense of Gothic horror and Victorian drama pervades them both, making the latter novel just as gripping as the former.

(Warning: spoilers) Dracula, set up as a string of letters, diary entries, and correspondences between the characters, outlines the events surrounding the terrible involvement of Mr. Jonathan Harker in the sale of English estates to a one Count Dracula. I won't go into too much plot summary since the book is 400 pages long, but the major plot line is this: Mina, Harker's wife, has been "infected" with the blood of the vampire, thusly beginning the transformation of herself into the same. The characters must kill Dracula in order to save Mina (lest she end up like "poor, dear Lucy"). This, of course, is the climax of a series of very strange events that the characters experience by the coming of the Count to England. Here's a better plot summary, just in case. And here's another.

Of course, the book was a very entertaining read. I love the 19th Century language and find it fascinating how a novel such as Dracula was published in 1897. The beginning was excellent: the portions from Harker's diary describing his initial ventures to the Count's mansion were captivating and exciting. After Lucy's death, the book lagged a bit, describing tons of waiting around and making of preparations to journey again to the Carpathians. The ending of the book was a little disappointing, but I suppose that's because my modern sensibilities want more action and want it before the last two pages. However, the subtle twists and turns in the plotline and the changing points of view kept me reading when major plot developments were lacking.

I liked the numerous characters and points of view. There were three major contributors to their respective diaries: Dr. Seward, Harker, and Mina. Van Helsing, Lucy, and the others made small contributions as well. Van Helsing was the most interesting character for me, interesting because little of his personal history is divulged. I wonder what he really felt about Mina- sometimes, from the way he spoke, I couldn't help but wonder if he was romantically attracted towards her. This question was raised in the 1992 film version, as well, which is a fairly accurate version... except for the whole Princess Mina in love with the Count bit.


Back to the novel. I didn't like the weakness and dependence of the women, of course, but this I've come to expect in novels from the time period (and others before and after). One example: Lucy and Mina are the only characters weak enough to be infected by the Count, but Jonathan, despite being trapped in the castle with three female vampires for an extended period of time. Another: it is because of the cleverness of Mina that the men are able to intercept the Count. Then again, this is attributed to the fact that "she has man's brain."


Is this interesting to you? Should I keep writing like this, or try another approach? Maybe not just one entry at the end of a book? Or up with the funny and down with the literariness?



I'm now reading Confessions of an English Opium-Eater by Thomas de Quincey and I'd like to try some opium.

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

I'm nearly done with the book, and I've watched this movie about 5 times this week.

"She pissed noisily on the bobbing eggs with total vigor and satisfaction."

Well, on my walk home yesterday I stopped at the bookstore to pick up The Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille (published under the pen name Lord Auch 1928, "Lord Auch" being derived from aux chiottes, "to the shitter," and Lord in reference to God- "God going to the shitter"). I didn't realize what a tiny volume it was, ending in about 100 pages of rather large font. I decided to read it and completed the whole thing in an hour or two, my mouth open in surprise the entire time.

(Warning: spoilers) This book is a marvel, grotesque and visceral. It's exceedingly pornographic, violent, and surreal. The main characters, Simone, Marcelle, Lord Edmund, and our narrator, partake in all kinds of bizarre and disturbingly masochistic sexual acts, making manifest the interesting relationship and discourse between sex and death. In the book, one is hardly able to be experienced without the other intruding in some way. Marcelle's death, the death of a bullfighter, and the death of the padre are closely bound with the sexual gratification of Simone and the narrator. The recurrence of eyes and eggs (and even the similarly shaped bull balls that appear near the end of the book) add to the surrealism of the book and connect to the author's troubled past. Simone's "deep sexuality" is piqued by the shape and texture of the eggs, and the mystery of the eye, not dissimilar to the former. She thrills at death and violence, as does the narrator. Interestingly, there exists a deep love on the part of the narrator for Simone, suggesting that perhaps their supposedly deviant behavior is actually one type of manifestation of romantic love. I'm still trying to wrap my head around a lot of the concepts in the book, like the eggs and eyes, and especially how religion plays into the story, and what Simone's mother's appearances may mean.

I'd say read it. It's certainly provocative and would be great to discuss in a class. Another interesting fact: Bjork read this in 1983 and said it changed her life. I don't know if it changed mine, but I'm betting I won't forget about it for a long time.

Now I'm starting Dracula.
With both eyes intact.

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita

I'm embarking on a great literary journey. This is it. My friend MK has been reading a 100 best list since she started college, and after hearing her mention it in class one day, I decided to do the same, minus the starting college bit. I chose the Penguin must-read-before-you-die list after reviewing a few others. Of course, they're all biased. The Penguin list is imperfect, but I like its categories, and any book that includes The Story of the Eye can't be all bad (that's been recommended to me by a friend, and from what I hear it's quite a book... wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more).

Now, some of these books I've read:

1. The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
2. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
3. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
4. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
5. The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
6. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
7. The Time Machine by HG Wells
8. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
9. 1984 by George Orwell
10. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
11. The Iliad by Homer

I won't consider re-reading them until I finish the others, however many years (minutes?) from now that may be. That means I have 89 excellent pieces of literature to read. I'm starting with Dracula.

Ciao.