Introduction to Invisible Man

I often skip the intros to these things for fear of plot spoilers and various irrelevancies that I would just as soon eschew; however, this one is different.  Not only is it written by Ellison himself (thirty years after publication), it's also an insightful look into his writing process, and more broadly, the tasks of African-American writers.  I read a lot of black literature in high school, to an extent that I considered overly politicized and not really effective or sympathetic (especially given the racial homogeneity of my high school).  Like most English classes then, the material was presented in an overly straightforward, inside-the-box manner, and when it came to books like Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston or Black Boy by Richard Wright, the teachers would go over the basic tenets of the African-American experience (ones that we had heard so many times that they became banal) and show how these books demonstrated them.  Needless to say, that didn't do the works or the ideas very much justice.  

This introduction shatters that veneer of simplicity in a few ways.  The most interesting of which was how Ellison puts Invisible Man in the context of its themes (namely, identity in black culture and the universality of this struggle), as well as the context of literature as a whole.  African-American novels of this level of literary credibility are unique in that they speak from a variety of voices.  Not only is Invisible Man influenced by previous works that capture the struggle of blacks in American history, but its themes and style are taken as well from Ellison's American predecessors regardless of race (like Henry James and Ernest Hemingway) and world literature as a whole (my *very incisive* comparison to Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground was indeed confirmed in this introduction, making me feel really learned).  My point is, in the sense that all literature is written as a response to other literature, Ellison's emphasis on the literary foundations of the novel allow us not only to better understand the novel itself, but to be aided in our understanding by the echoing of earlier works in a new artistic context.  To go back to my example of Notes from Underground, by relating his main character's struggle as an African-American and thus, 'invisible' man, to the famous Underground Man whom many readers have found fascinating and completely unprecedented, Ellison is allowing us to view the plight of blacks through a lens that is familiar to people who aren't black - "to reveal the human complexity which stereotypes are intended to conceal."  As you can tell, this idea - even though it's not even that surprising or unique to this text alone - has really intrigued me.

Additionally, Ellison relates the responsibilities of the novelist with the ideals of democracy and civil, educated society.  It gave me a new and more holistic appreciation for the role of literature within a society, as well as for American literature itself.  I've gotten away from it over the past year, but this introduction has sort of shown me that perhaps by studying non-American literature, one is preparing himself for a better appreciation of American literature.  Indeed, it has only recently dawned on me that just as the American 'identity' is quite pluralistic, so too is the literature.  This new paradigm of mine is only in its seminal state, so I look forward to seeing what develops of it.

That's about it.  I thought I would drop you guys a line, just in case you didn't catch the introduction before starting.  Also, there are no spoilers or anything that would take away from the plot, if that is your concern.

Talk to you guys later.

so i suck at posting

sorry! i just moved to canberra and the week has been a little disorienting, living out of a suitcase gets a little tiring as well. but i mean to respond to both of your posts! i just don't have internet anywhere except at work, and i'm in the same office as my boss...

i hope you guys are both doing well!

So this is what posting feels like

I've nearly forgotten.

To address Claire's points of discussion:

Claire, as I go about reading novels, I tend to search for a balance, albeit an uneasy one, between your preferred method (trying to assimilate my own thoughts and feelings into the fictional world and explore it as much as I can) simply because its interesting and, er--exciting (compared to most things that I do) and the Nunokawan "Helen Burns educated Jane in the channelling of erotic desire"-esque militantly analytical approach.  Both are quite rewarding, I'd say, but in very different ways.  Additionally, I find that unless both of these things happen to me, I won't enjoy the novel fully.  Indeed, the two approaches, while quite different in terms of what my mind is actually doing, are extremely codependent.  For instance, while reading Middlemarch, I quickly became taken in by Dorothea's sobbing on the floor after losing Ladislaw or Bulstrode weeping in front of his wife.  Both of those things can (and did) give me chills, at least in the right mood.  However, the English major inside of me uses precisely these moments to look at what, exactly, George Eliot is up to that makes it so profound.

And so, I viewed Unbearable Lightness of Being as a novel that was written for people who not only enjoy reading stories, but enjoy thinking about stories.  I say stories for the sake of being purposefully vague, because Kundera was admittedly "telling a story," but for that very reason, he proposed, what he was saying was incredibly close to real life.

Probably more than anything, I loved how Kundera emphasized repeatedly that real life is much like a novel precisely because humans are subconsciously creating it that way.  I especially liked the part about Anna Karenina, and how she might not have even realized that throwing herself in front of a train would be a perfect literary ending to her life, but human forces within her could sense this desire to create art from life (kitsch, is it called?) and she acted accordingly.

I also realize that I can't explicitly discuss like 80% of the philosophical and literary significance of this novel, mostly because it was good enough for me to just sit back and absorb.  One can sort of tell that it was written at the end of the twentieth century.  The overall tone, and the ideas Kundera talks about (like kitsch, infidelity, fate ("es muss sein"), etc.) are often introduced and interpreted through the lens of previous works of art that have shaped our current ideas.  In that way, the novel seems like a sort of culmination of so much that I've been thinking about in and out of my classes this past year, and for that I'm truly appreciative.

So... Invisible Man, I have not started, nor am I in possession of it.  I'll read it soon enough.  Currently, I'm reading The Brothers Karamazov by myself (which is really really really good if any one cares to receive another recommendation), so when I've read all 800 pages (I'm currently around page 300) I will begin Mr. Ellison's novel.  Also, after much deliberation, I've come to the sort of steady conclusion that I... don't think I'm going to read Oliver Twist.  The thing is that Victorian novels are huge and really distinctive to me, and after ENG 331 I can only read one every once in a while without ODing, so I think I'm either going to read Daniel Deronda or Barchester Towers (by Anthony Trollope), both of which have, according to a certain well-loved Victorianist who will remain nameless, "more friction."  Do you hate me?  I encourage you guys to join me if you want to either add to or replace Oliver.  My only problem is my looming English major guilt that comes from my utter lack of a Dickens repertoire.  I just have never really... gotten into him.  We'll see.

Okay, I had a strong cup of coffee scandalously late in the day, so I think I'm going to ride the caffeine wave into the Russian soul for a while, and then watch some TV, and then go to bed, because that's what my life consists of (but somehow I'm still more content with it than I am at school?)  I hope you are doing well, Claire.  Dana, I also hope you are doing well.

Alright, later...

All right people. It's time.

And by people, obviously, I mean John.

I finished the Kundera a while ago, but I keep avoiding the post because I'm really, really lazy. So here goes:

I really loved it, despite my early reservations about how Tomas is disgustingly selfish and misogynistic and about how the early philosophizing on how lives are meaningless unless they are repeated contributed to an obsessive, meditative fear of death I was experiencing at the time. I thought Kundera's writing, albeit translated, was beautiful and deeply affecting.

The aspect of the book I ended up appreciating the most was an aspect that initially bothered me. Kundera's narration does not always maintain a strict barrier between the reality in which we are reading the book and the fiction in which the book is actually happening. At times he begins to speak of Tomas and Teresa as the fictional characters that they are, explaining why he did not manipulate his or her fate in a certain way. This threw me greatly, as I've always wanted my belief to stay suspended and the characters to stay as real as possible. A reason, perhaps, that I have never cottoned as greatly to philosophy (though this is not why I didn't like the damn "N") is that reading for me is really just a way of accessing stories. Generally a more fulfilling and complex way than others, but otherwise quite the same. I was never as interested in literary theory as I was in discussing how the characters interacted within the fictional world. This is something you may have noticed me struggling with in academia, since I have an aversion to being one of those "I thought Tomas was hott" type English majors. I can now handle analyzing a novel from a theoretical standpoint, but having the author do so is a bit disconcerting.

However, I think it was brilliant. What it really illuminated for me was the overwhelming theme of dissection, of cutting away the surface to reveal the raw truth beneath. Sabina attempted to do this through her art; Tomas attempted it through his surgery and through his conquests of women; Kundera does it through his analysis of his own art, his own story. He makes us aware that his story is just a cobwebby veil for a solid truth, forcing us to consider the novel as something beyond just an amusing narrative. As he persuades us to consider the depths of his writing process, he also teaches us to look beyond the easy answers of "kitsch" and propaganda - and it's all so gracefully done that one never feel he is preaching.


On another note: has anyone started Invisible Man? I know you guys are still on Nietzsche. This is just as well, because I'm finding Invisible Man positively harrowing, and I imagine it will go quite slowly.

Hmm

I've been making a lot of typos lately.  Please don't judge me for them.  Thanks.

So guys: the Nietzsche

I have to say I'm a little bit shocked that neither of you mentioned that this book is basically just anti-Semitic hate speech veiled as philosophy. Please tell me I'm judging too quickly and it's not really like that, or I'm moving on the next book.

It's not that I don't understand what he's saying, I just think the insidious hatred it's spreading isn't worth spending time on.

Sorry, really annoyed right now.

A few orders of busness

First, I want to know where you all are.  I, for one, have finished the Nietzsche and not the Kundera.  Claire, I know, is the opposite of me.  Dana is an utter mystery to me as usual.  Nice, Dana.

Second, I am bringing my peer pressure to the public forum.  It would give me a great deal of utility if Jason were to read the Nietzsche and talk about it with us.  I know you're reading this Jason.  I think it would be fun for us all to come together in Nietzsche.  To unite the disciplines and give us all practice and fulfillment in the exploration of truth.  Is that not what we have come to Princeton to pursue?  I rest my case.

Third, I just wanna say that I'm really liking the Kundera (about halfway through).  I've done so much reading about adultery this summer.  Incidentally, it's all been the product of eastern European writers... apparently they can't just keep it in their pants (and in the marriage) over there.  Those are my two cents for now.  I hope this post finds you all well.

So the self-frickafracklization of the meta-yittayattanism and the...

I know, I know... I promised that I'd write a long, scholarly rant about the Hemingway.  And I will if I ever muster up the effort.  This post just asks: have you guys started the Nietzsche, and if so, what do you think?  I've been reading it during my downtime at work, and I just finished the first two essays.  I've never read anything by him in great detail or depth, and I must say that I'm surprised in a couple ways.  A) It's more readable than I remembered/expected and B) It's more interesting than I remembered/expected.  I find myself going about my day and thinking about master and slave morality, and ressentiment (can't forget about ressentiment).  I don't know, I just find it to be the first piece of philosophy that I've actually read with zeal.  Needless to say, Kant and Hobbes and Hume didn't foster much zeal in me...

Please lemme know what you guys think when you get a chance.  Hope things are going well.

Hello from Princeton

Hello from Princeton, home of boxing legend Robert Cohn. I actually finished yesterday on the bus (it's a nice bus book) and will post my thoughts on the novel when I get home (something for us all to look forward to). I have to say that while the book was quite different from everything else I've lately been reading, I really really liked it for a few reasons. Namely, I think he truly succeeded in making every aspect of the novel put the "lost" in Lost Generation. Hemingway gives us such a comprehensive portrayal of directionlessness, and I think the key to really appreciating the novel is to see it as a great snapshot of the period to which it's attributed. Beyond that, I think that some of his ideas speak (as Caryl Emerson is quoted saying on the back of an Anna Karenina translation) "from within it's own time, but for all times." This is clear from the quote from which the title is taken, the idea of a continuing cycle and progression of time that pushes humanity forward even when they have nowhere to go. Hemingway's narration style is interesting in its portrayal of time and chains of events, mostly because the subjectivity of Jake's perspective is assumed, and thus his bland, literal recounting of events and mundane actions tells us something in itself of how time keeps pushing the days forward even though they don't seem to go in any direction. Think about how Brett reads Romero's palms and the way it looks out onto the future. This is especially noteworthy given that the novel is so caught up in the past (the Great War) even though it rarely makes explicit reference to it.

Those are my thoughts for now. I will look over my notes and put something more cohesive together later on. I was kind of tight last night. I used the book as a coaster for beer... I thought that Hemingway would have liked that.

And It Rises Again

This novel, to be frank, annoyed the crap out of me. This is probably to Hemingway's credit rather than otherwise; I simply couldn't get a handle on what was going on in the novel, either on or beneath the surface. By the conclusion of the book I felt I still had not answered any of the questions I had started to ask at the beginning of the novel: what is wrong with Jake? does Brett really love him? will they make a go of it despite everything? what makes Brett tick? Hemingway doesn't give the reader any easy answers. I mean, it seems pretty clear that Jake is impotent, and I suppose most readers don't want more details than that - but for everything else, you know.

Dana, you mentioned the blunt language as a balance or counter to the studied glamour of the dialogue. I read them both as distractions, as distancing mechanisms that keep the reader from getting to close to the emotional and intellectual center of the novel. Bill's flippant wisecracks about Irony and Pity seem to hint at some deeper point about contemporary literature, but the sheer glossy ridiculousness of their conversation distracts from a deeper investigation of his meaning. Likewise, Jake's terse, plain narrative rarely goes into real detail but merely covers as much action as possible. "I unpacked my bags and stacked my books on the table beside the head of the bed, put out my shaving things, hung up some clothes in the big armoire, and made up a bundle for the laundry." This kind of thing goes on and on, and rarely do the particulars of the actions become important. The descriptions are not colorful enough for us to be entranced by the language or to envision the scene sharply; I can't imagine even being interested in such a letter from a dear friend. Meanwhile, under the surface, there is a little bubble of tension in his occasional glancing references to Brett, in his volatile feelings toward Cohn, and in his oddly passive narration. I continually wanted to get closer, to really know what was brewing beneath the surface, but I felt elbowed away by the too neat prose and the too pat dialogues.


I'd follow with an update, but I like to keep this blog free of real world clutter. *cough* DANA.


Just kidding! Tell us more! Police! Scary! I love you!

小问题

Which Henry James novel were we going to read?  Portrait of a Lady or Turn of the Screw?   I've finally typed out my official list.

The Sun Also Rises

So I meant to blog about a week ago, and then I got sick, and then I was just sort of listless. While at first this whole southern hemisphere winter thing was kind of interesting, it's rapidly losing it's charm. I keep messing up dates - I've managed to convince myself that it's December, not June - I guess my brain is just having some sort of temporal glitch?

I actually finished The Sun Also Rises last week, and I finished the Kundera book I was reading - The Book of Laughter and Forgetting- late last night (I went under the covers with a torch). Anyway, the Hemingway was a good stylistic contrast to the Woolf, and I actually enjoyed it much more than I anticipated (I’ve never read Hemingway, and I always had this distant idea that I wouldn’t like his writing style).

The thing about the novel that struck me the most was the superficial, slightly unbelievable, glamour of the characters’ conversations. As a reader, I got the same incredulous (partially envious) feeling I got watching Juno, that such quick wit was kind of impossible. I don’t know if “wit” is the right word for the dialogue of The Sun Also Rises, but their banter (especially with Brett), is too mocking, too fast, with the “Irony and Pity” Bill talks about about 2/3 through the book. It could be symptomatic of their need to distance themselves from saying anything genuine, of the estrangement of the lost generation and/or Americans in Europe (or is that too obvious?)

I think the novel offers a counter to the falseness/gaudy shine of their conversation, though, mainly in the chapter endings. Though this is not necessarily true for every chapter, I found that the ending of every chapter was very bare, very simple, almost banal. Jake will say things like, “I went upstairs to bed.” Or “It felt good to be warm and in bed” or, “A waiter came with a cloth and picked up the glasses and mopped the table.” The straightforward simplicity of the endings seems to be the novel’s way of coping with the exaggerated playfulness of the dialogue.

But now I’m wondering if the endings, because they are often about Jake going to sleep, also serve to emphasize the episodic nature of the book, and the way “the sun also rises”, la dee da da da.

Is it nastily appropriate that Robert Cohn went to Princeton?

Also, can we also start using the word “tight” for “drunk”?

How are you guys doing? I was happy to see that "Summering" has commenced, Claire, and that it is complete with photos! I'm still poking around Australia, I got to see the city a lot more this weekend It's really eclectic in style, it's the "artiest" city I've ever been in. I rode a tram, took photos of graffiti, looked at aboriginal art, went to their vietnamese district, saw the play of Amadeus, walked by the river, and oh! i almost got kicked off the train for having my feet on the chair. Three train officers came and sat down next to me and told me that it was a $168 fine for having my feet on the chair. They were being disguistingly rude and patronizing (they didn't think I could speak English). I got all insolent and "gave them attitude" (that's the only way they could manage to describe sarcasm), and they threatened to take me off the train and make me talk to the cops. I almost lost my temper at that point. The COPS? I mean, seriously. But I didn't want to pay $168, so, I sucked it up and they let me off for being a tourist. Thank you, America.

Excuse my vent... tell me how you guys are doing, I always want to know, I get a little crazy over here, hanging out with people from work 24/7. miss you guys!

"What's shame for the mind is beauty all over for the heart.

Can there be beauty in Sodom?  Believe me, for the vast majority of people, that's just where beauty lies - did you know that secret?  The terrible thing is that beauty is not only fearful but also mysterious.  Here the devil is struggling with God, and the battlefield is the human heart."

-Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

I have nothing relevant to add to this blog, but its walls had been stagnant for too long.  I hope you guys are doing well.  Summer's almost 1/3 complete...

Also, how far are you both in the Hemingway?  I'm just curious... I've barely made a dent.

Ah, I felt like I could just fly!

Regarding the Lily Briscoe/Elizabeth Dalloway similarity, I can only take some stabs in the dark.  First off, it should be established that Virginia Woolf periodically got called out for being racist, antisemitic, and a snob... so, in pointing out the Chinese eyes on each of these characters, I think that one of her chief aims was to establish that neither Elizabeth nor Lily was conventionally pretty.  This fact, to an author whose adult relatives and acquaintances while growing up were themselves products of the Victorian era, would likely shape her perception of girls whose looks prevented them from being hot commodities.  It was assumed from the beginning that Lily would never marry; Woolf goes so far as to call her (ironically) "an old maid holding a paintbrush" or something (I looked and couldn't find the exact quote, but it was very powerfully delivered to show how stark and undeserving Lily's external identity was, after we had just gotten to know her thoughts so deeply).  At least in To the Lighthouse, Woolf is composing a detailed meditation on 'beauty,' broadly construed.  Thus, in making Lily less-than beautiful, she is allowing for a level of complexity that could not exist under the name of 'beauty', a complexity that makes emotions less convenient and familiar.  Indeed, much of the novel concerns Lily's battle with her own perceptions and emotions--to understand them and recreate them in art.  Recall when Woolf writes: 

"But beauty was not everything,  Beauty had this penalty--it came too readily, came too completely.  It stilled life--froze it.  One forgot the little agitations; the flush, the pallor, some queer distortion, some light or shadow which made the face unrecognizable for a moment and yet added a quality one saw forever after.  It was simpler to smooth that all out under the cover of beauty."

Another interesting connection between Lily and Elizabeth was their love for older women.  While Lily has a sort of aesthetic and spiritual fixation with Mrs. Ramsay, Elizabeth falls in love, as it were, with Doris Kilman (which Clarissa strongly resented).  I'm actually finding this to be sort of common; in Anna Karenina, Kitty similarly 'falls in love' with Anna when they first meet in Moscow, and Tolstoy says something about how Kitty felt for Anna a type of romance that young girls often feel for older, married women.  Kitty similarly feels this way for Varenka, establishing a relationship that's actually quite similar to that between Elizabeth and Miss Kilman.  Tolstoy was a big influence on Woolf's writing, but I don't quite know what to make of these relationships though.  We should read some Freud... I'm sure that would clear all of this up for us.

As for what Claire was saying, about the novel seeming "hyperreal" in a lot of ways, I think that's a really interesting fact that sort of relates Woolf to yet another realist who was a great influence  on her (and for whom our blog is named).  When you think about this idea of the "roar which lies on the other side of silence" and hearing "the grass grow and the squirrel's heartbeat," that's basically what Woolf is creating for us.  After all, what else did Septimus die from other than this hypersensitivity to every force that surrounded him?   Here's an excerpt from the Wikipedia article on Modernism:

"Modernism, while it was still "progressive" increasingly saw traditional forms and traditional social arrangements as hindering progress, and therefore the artist was recast as a revolutionary, overthrowing rather than enlightening."

Indeed, Woolf isn't 'adding' to our conception of reality like Eliot or Tolstoy tried to do; rather, she's trying to overthrow it completely and show us something new.  Wasn't it Ezra pound who said "Make it new" as a description of modernism?  I think so, but yes, it *is* hyperreal and that's why we love it.

So... what are we reading next?  Claire and I talked about this and did not find resolution.  Also, are we still doing the poetry thing?  I wouldn't mind discussing the Frank O'Hara poem ("The Day Lady Died") with all of you, because I'm not that comfortable with just my own thoughts on it.  I actually looked at a collection of his poems in Barnes & Noble today, and I actually came to find his style really interesting once I read a few more poems.

Other than that, I have said all I can say.  Hope you guys are having a good week...

Faced with the dodo's conundrum

I had a pretty similar feeling towards Mrs. Dalloway, I found it incredibly difficult to focus on a specific aspect of the text. I think the intensity, as well as the beauty, almost shimmer, of Woolf’s prose is disorienting (though I suppose that it is partially the intent of the whole stream of consciousness thing.) I can only offer some half-baked observations...

I was pretty fascinated with the use of details in Mrs. Dalloway. I found that the moment, that instance of stillness/suspension, sometimes was defined by details. For example, when Clarissa stands in her house (after hearing the aeroplane, oh the aeroplane), and thinks about this “exquisite moment”—she catalogues what everyone in the house is doing, and every detail seems to sharpen the moment, give it contour. It feels as if the moment allows for inspection of the details of the scene, the memory, whatever.

Other times, though, I thought that the moment was more defined by an object (often a loved, desired object). Details become an adornment, or background for the object—the fixation is with the object, not a dispersed fixation with details. When Clarissa thinks back on Sally Seton, once again, Woolf gives a list of details, but then writes, “All this was only a background for Sally.” The objects are often vague and sort of detail-less, as with the random, unknown woman Peter Walsh follows on the street, and the car of “greatness” and aeroplane in the first walks of the novel. The car only has that implied, unspecified greatness (I also was interested by the sort of equality it establishes over the people on the streets of London, maybe a comment on the Empire…in general, though, I was less interested with the arrival and interruptions of people and things associated with the British empire) and the aeroplane is even more vague, with its indistinguishable smoke letters (reader paranoia).

I didn’t get very far with this train of thought, though, because it was too hard for me to maintain a consistent thesis throughout the novel. I guess I focused my thoughts more on my favourite parts—the morning walks in the beginning of the novel, particularly Clarissa’s (I loved the way her thoughts moved in the way that it does when one window shops, that glancing sort of fleeting/absent-minded thinking), and the weird imagistic rise and fall of Woolf’s prose. Thoughts seemed to radiate out from Clarissa and radiate towards Septimus, accompanied by, maybe facilitated by? the car and the aeroplane in the sky.

I also loved the part later in the novel where Peter Walsh sits outside the hotel as evening comes out. Did you guys have a favourite part? John, this is dorky, but, I think when you go to London, you should take Mrs. Dalloway’s walk (or that of Peter, Septimus, Richard, or Elizabeth)… OR we should all go to London and take Mrs. Dalloway’s walk. Too agonizingly nerdy? Probably.

I also was wondering, though I guess this question is more to John (unless you decide to read To the Lighthouse, Claire) if you had any thoughts about Elizabeth Dalloway and Lily Briscoe. Woolf describes both characters as “oriental”, “Elizabeth, with her oriental bearing, her inscrutable mystery…”, “but her eyes were fine, Chinese, oriental…” which I found oddly resonant with Lily Briscoe’s description. I also wondered if Woolf adopted a similar attitude to both Elizabeth and Lily (she seems less condemnatory of them?)

hope you both are doing well!

Mrs. Dalloway

So I finished Mrs. Dalloway. It seemed almost too full of themes and allusions and influences; it made it harder to pick individual ones out of the crowd. After a first reading, I was just a bit overwhelmed.

To be general, then, what I found most noticeable about the book was the sheer intensity. The at first confusing focus on each detail of the passing day made the narrative seem hyperreal, as though I were living the day more deeply and vividly than any day I've actually lived. Woolf writes about details I never even notice, and the result felt a lot like insanity; I had to put the book down every now and then just to calm down. Oddly, the section I found the least emotionally charged was the suicide of Septimus. His observations, his conversations all seemed overwhelming, but his dramatic death passed by in my mind like a vague blip. Mrs. Dalloway's most trivial thoughts and decisions - the flowers, her jealousy about her daughter - seemed more real than my own.

I'm going to glance over the book again while reading (Gabriel Garcia Marquez? I'll check later). Let me know how you all are doing. We can't lose touch this early in the summer.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOHN!

I'm going to go write you a birthday post on Facebook, because I'm lame and forgot, and THEN, as a birthday present, I'm going to post on Mrs. Dalloway! Soon.

Many happy returns!

australia!

I finally got access to internet! Hurrah! I made it to Australia in one piece, and I have already seen a kangaroo (clearly I have seen all of Australia, and can now come home. Actually, out in the country, kangaroos are evidently roadkill problems. They also like to hop up near houses and peer in?) Unfortunately, I don't know if I will have access to the internet for very long, I am getting shuffled around different houses for these first few days (meaning I have to be on my best behavior constantly-so much that my cheeks felt slightly sore tonight from straining to keep an interested, genuine, sweet smile on my face. This is quite the stretch for me, right?) I think I'm going to enjoy Australia, I'm in Melbourne right now, and there are a lot of various neighborhoods to go wandering around in (Melbourne takes a lot of refugees). I even went by a lovely little arty looking district with youths with long hair, smoking the (dreaded) cigarettes, pouring their legs into skinny jeans, a regular hipster haven. They, however, have Australian accents (!), which is pretty interesting. I am keeping one of those dorky traveler journals where I keep a running record of Australian words, interspersed with the latest quote from Mrs. Dalloway that I happen to be enamored with. nappy" = diaper while "serviette" = napkin. Trailer parks are called "caravan parks". (there will be a quiz on this later when I return)

ENOUGH ABOUT ME. I am in danger of making this blog my journal entry, I will spare you. How are you guys? I kind of wish you guys were here, alas, alack. How is home, for both of you? In a more literary vein (it was vaguely mortifying when I got picked up from the aiport and had to explain that I had a duffel bag of about a dozen books. I got very flustered and there was a lot of gesticulating and nervous sputtering of things like, "english major", "book club with friends", "I like to read". No, I am not carrying the western canon with me down to Australia...) I kind of chose poems for us to read. I thought it would be sort of nice if there was some sort of theme for each of the sets of poems- maybe the theme could be a single author, or topic, or form. I have a feeling this might deteriorate into "the theme this week is poems i like", you guys are under no obligation to pick a theme.

The tentative, melodramatic, sort of coherent theme for the poems I chose is the idea of watching a performance. I thought all of the poems explored that very unique sensation of one watching another while also hearing them...

Frank O'Hara "The Day Lady Died"
John Keats "Ode to a Nightingale"
D.H. Lawrence "Piano"
Billy Collins "Nightclub"
Li-young Lee "I Ask My Mother to Sing"

and I randomly opened up my book...
PLAY THAT NORTON ANTHOLOGY SHUFFLE: "Queen-Anne's Lace" by William Carlos Williams.

The poems are mostly more contemporary, and they're pretty mainstream, so they should be online. I can send them to you guys if you can't find them. ok, I write such longer posts than all of you. I think I'm just feeling anxiety that I'm not going to be able to use the Internet much. I hope you guys are doing well, tell me how you're doing.

cheers from australia!

Mrs. Dalloway

I finally just finished Mrs. Dalloway. I'm going to ponder it and then write something deep. Dana, are you all settled by now? Have you started reading yet?

A Suggestion

I was just toddling about Wikipedia, and saw that Unbearable Lightness of Being is based partially on a belief by Nietzsche about eternal recurrence, and is just generally existentialist in theme.  I can't remember what you guys were planning to read alongside Nietzsche, but maybe we should combine the two.  I can always read P&P&S&S some other time.  What say you both?

And, Happy last 1 Hour of Birthday, Claire.

happy happy birthday, claire!

H A P P Y B I R T H D A Y, C L A I R E !

I hope your 20th year is a good one, happy happy birthday!

I promise to slow down

I also apologize for my overly pedantic treatment of To the Lighthouse.  My enthusiasm for Virginia Woolf set an unrealistic precedent.  It would be as if they discovered a new and previously unknown Jane Austen novel, and Claire got to read it for the first time.  I just really love Woolf...

I've read about twenty pages of the Hemingway, and I like it significantly less, so I can promise not to be so overzealous from now on (until I start The Waves)...

I'm actually trying to read the Odyssey for a while, until we all get on the same page (har!).  It's an important precursor to one day reading Ulysses, which I must do before dying.

I have a few leads in my job search!  I won't talk about them because that would jinx it.

Anyway, continue reading and hope you guys are doing well.

Welcome Dana!

Now our blog is whole.  I read some of the Odyssey today in Barnes & Noble.  I'll probably start the Hemingway soon.  I do nothing but read these days.  I need a job.  Everyone already knows this though.  

I also complain when I'm not reading.  And sleep.  I do a lot of sleeping.

That's it though.  I hope you're both making progress...

poetrypoetry?

i have joined the blog! (though only after admiring the wit of the blog's name. was that you claire? clever clever) sorry for joining late, i was gallivanting around ny with my sister and was taking a break from the internet. i am now back in the bay, hanging out with the parental unit. i think i've already managed to annoy them. it's really a talent, being able to irritate my parents this rapidly.

so i have unfortunately not started reading mrs. dalloway (i left it at home), but i will start immediately, and will be on the lookout for the ideas you mentioned in your posts- vague desires, the moment, etc. i also will look over to the lighthouse again. i have to admit, though, I am slightly intimidated at the cerebral nature of these posts, i'm afraid my posts will not be as impressively intellectual.

in the past couple days i read the alchemist by paulo coelho instead. i found it in a crumpled pile of crap behind jillian's desk (along with like $20 of quarters), so i unceremoniously took it (and the quarters) and read it. have either of you read it? it was really a beautiful story. i also read half of the man who mistook his wife for a hat by oliver sacks, which is about various psychological disorders. have either of your read it? i bought it off the street in ny for $2, as well as purchasing a $3 copy of oliver twist. we better read oliver twist.

in other adventures, i went traipsing around central park the other day and made a new, um, friend. he's this intense old swiss-montengran painter. he told me about Daoism (it would help me find peace), instructed me to liberate myself and become a poet (find your talent! follow your passion!), and urged me to read Pablo Neruda ("so sensual"). this brings me to my point, which is, poetry! we cannot forget the goal of reading around 5 poems a week, right? i had some poems in mind (including mr. neruda), so would you guys be alright with me proposing our first set of poems?

and my new friend told me, among other things, that if i learned to breathe correctly (he demonstrated) that I would have an excellent sex life when i was 80. i said, why thank you. i will go do just that.

alright, i am off to rummage through my stuff to find mrs. dalloway. i'm sorry about your talkative roommate, claire... and i hope new york is enthralling, john.

Mrs Dalloway

I would be reading it now, but unfortunately my options are 1) stay in my room with my delicious bottle of wine and watch tv over the shriek of my surprise roommate's laughs and "ya know what I mean"s or 2) leave my wine to find a place where I can actually hear my own thoughts well enough to process a text as complex as Mrs. Dalloway. Frankly, wine is winning.

My only thoughts from today's reading (forty pages) are as follows: the moment. More to follow.

Also: She is on the phone. In my room. At 1:30 in the morning. That is all.

I have read roughly 10 pages

The going is rough. This is not my style of literature - so many long, rambling sentences, but with a vastly different structure from the more restrained Victorian rambling sentences, and such sudden transitions to different subjects, time periods, settings. It's all a little disorienting, and I don't think I'll know what to make of it until I've read quite a bit more. It's hard to concentrate here. My room is 100 degrees and everywhere else is noisy or uncomfortable. But I will soldier on.

PS Dana join the blog, dammit.

I have nothing to do.

It's true.  I went to the library today and bought more books.  I'm vaguely considering reading everything for my fall classes this summer, and then maybe I'll actually be prepared for my precepts for a change.  

To the Lighthouse got really good today.  I'm now realizing that a huge theme in Woolf's novels (and just modernism, in general) is impermanence, and the way we want to preserve a single moment in time and feel it forever and examine and understand it, but we can't, because time keeps moving forward.  As each of you read Mrs. Dalloway, *pay attention* to this theme ("leaden circles dissolved in the air").  This will become clearer as you read, Claire, given your newness to VW.

Also, time is such a huge factor in Woolf's novels simply because the book's emphasize character, rather than plot.  There is no plot pushing the novel forward; just time.  That's why Big Ben keeps sounding throughout Dalloway, bringing the focus of the characters (and therefore, the reader) to reality, to the shared notion of objectivity that must unite all the people in the novel and focus them on the exterior, despite their tendency to lose themselves inside their own thoughts.

To the Lighthouse: Initial Thoughts

I'm just more than half-way through the novel.  It's very good; I tend to think  I would be more gushing about it if I hadn't already read Mrs. Dalloway and a few of Woolf's essays and short-stories.  Her voice and narrative style cut so directly to the heart of her characters' thoughts and feelings, and create such a complex and believable world from so many perspectives, that I would probably recognize it without knowing who the author is, at this point.  Because of this, though, I fear the initial awe I felt when I got into Woolf almost a year ago could only be felt once.  

Another factor both contributing to and limiting my enthusiasm is the similarity between To the Lighthouse and Middlemarch.  It seems, thus far in the novel, that Woolf expanded upon a crucial idea that Eliot suggested; namely, that reality is inherently subjective, nothing is morally clear, and every character is so limited by his or her singleness of perspective that this lesson is difficult to learn.  Each work deals with this fact, however, in vastly different ways.  Though Eliot-the-realist uses an omniscient narrator who drops into the thoughts of each character, holds them up for us, and says "but you can't judge them, reader, because we're all just humans," Woolf-the-modernist uses only subjective narration the entire time, allowing the ideas she puts forth to come clear in themselves, without the interpretation from an objective narrator.  

A striking aspect of To the Lighthouse is the focus on "vague desires," a topic that catapults me back a month in time to my Nunokawa lectures on Eliot.  Each of the characters in To the Lighthouse (like, literally, all of them) seems to suffer this same problem that Dorothea Brooke made famous.  If you refer to my most recent Facebook quote, you'd find a relevant one by Lily Briscoe, as she is overcome with emotion while attempting to paint a scene of the Ramsay's yard.  She says of Mrs. Ramsay, "...but what could one say to her?  'I'm in love with you.'  No, that was not true.  "I'm in love with this all," waving her hand at the hedge, at the house, at the children.  It was absurd, it was impossible."  Lily's overcome by emotions for everything she sees at this one ecstatic moment in time, but she doesn't know what the object is.  A similar idea, though less dramatic, comes up later in the novel as the narrator examines the feelings of William Bankes for Mrs. Ramsay: "He was not 'in love' of course; it was one of those unclassified affections of which there are so many."  When I read that, it was clear that "unclassified affections" and "vague desires" were almost synonymous (damn that's hard to spell).  Looks like Woolf learned quite a bit from Eliot.

Claire: you should read To the Lighthouse at some point in the near future.  With Middlemarch fresh in your mind, the dialogue between the two of them could really great.

Dana: having read both, tell me what you think, at some point in our lives.  

Here's to Summer '08.  WooOOooOooh.