I'm reading Vanity Fair this week, and discovered Thackery seems to share Hugo's tendency to apologize for aspects of his novel. Take, for example, this excerpt from chapter 6:
Or if, on the contrary, we had taken a fancy for the terrible, and made the lover of the new femme de chambre a professional burglar, who bursts into the house with his band, slaughters black Sambo at the feet of his master, and carries off Amelia in her nightdress, not to be let loose again till the third volume, we should easily have constructed a tale of thrilling interest, through the fiery chapters of which the readers should hurry, panting. But my readers must hope for no such romance, only a homely story, and must be content with a chapter about Vauxhall, which is so short that it scare deserves to be called a chapter at all. And yet it is a chapter, and a very important one too. Are not there little chapters in everybody's life, that seem to be nothing and yet affect all the rest of the history?
When, I wonder, did authors stop interrupting the flow of their stories to address the reader directly about the mechanics and structure of their writing? I'm trying really hard to view this as a difference in style, and yet I can't suppress the feeling that this is just bad writing. Even if the author is Thackery or Hugo.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
Dreams from My Father
I finished reading Dreams from My Father this week. I really enjoyed it, both as a biography of our current president and as a story of a young man dealing with racial issues and questions of identity.
Having read it, I think it's asinine that working as a community organizer was disparaged during the campaign. I think we'd be better off if more of our politicians had that experience.
Two sections in particular stuck with me.
I imagined those same Indonesian workers ten, twenty years from now, when their factories would have closed down, a consequence of new technology or lower wages in some other part of the globe. And then the bitter discovery that their markets have vanished; that they no longer remember how to weave their own baskets or carve their own furniture or grow their own food; that even if they remember such craft, the forests that gave them wood are now owned by timber interests, the baskets they once wove have been replaced by more durable plastics. The very existence of the factories, the timber interests, the plastics manufacturer, will have rendered their culture obsolete; the values of hard work and individual initiative turn out to have depended on a system of belief that's been scrambled by migration and urbanization and imported TV reruns. page 183
The other is a conversation Obama had with a college history professor in Kenya. She said:
You know, sometimes I think the worst thing that colonialism did was cloud our view of our past. Without the white man, we might be able to make better use of our history. We might look at some of our former practices and decide they are worth preserving. Others, we might grow out of. Unfortunately, the white man has made us very defensive. We end up clinging to all sorts of things that have outlived their usefulness. Polygamy. Collective land ownership. These things worked well in their time, but now they most often become tools for abuse. By men. By governments. And yet, if you say these things, you have been infected by Western ideology. page 434
Having read it, I think it's asinine that working as a community organizer was disparaged during the campaign. I think we'd be better off if more of our politicians had that experience.
Two sections in particular stuck with me.
I imagined those same Indonesian workers ten, twenty years from now, when their factories would have closed down, a consequence of new technology or lower wages in some other part of the globe. And then the bitter discovery that their markets have vanished; that they no longer remember how to weave their own baskets or carve their own furniture or grow their own food; that even if they remember such craft, the forests that gave them wood are now owned by timber interests, the baskets they once wove have been replaced by more durable plastics. The very existence of the factories, the timber interests, the plastics manufacturer, will have rendered their culture obsolete; the values of hard work and individual initiative turn out to have depended on a system of belief that's been scrambled by migration and urbanization and imported TV reruns. page 183
The other is a conversation Obama had with a college history professor in Kenya. She said:
You know, sometimes I think the worst thing that colonialism did was cloud our view of our past. Without the white man, we might be able to make better use of our history. We might look at some of our former practices and decide they are worth preserving. Others, we might grow out of. Unfortunately, the white man has made us very defensive. We end up clinging to all sorts of things that have outlived their usefulness. Polygamy. Collective land ownership. These things worked well in their time, but now they most often become tools for abuse. By men. By governments. And yet, if you say these things, you have been infected by Western ideology. page 434
Monday, January 19, 2009
Trust me, I won't love you
Guest booking room on the phone: And on Monday, once you fall in love with us and our dogs, how late can we check out?
Once I fall in love with her? There are few more reliable indicators of a difficult guest than one who proclaims how easy she is. I shudder to think how much trouble she's going to be if she says she's lovable.
Once I fall in love with her? There are few more reliable indicators of a difficult guest than one who proclaims how easy she is. I shudder to think how much trouble she's going to be if she says she's lovable.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
What the kids are saying this week
EM, after double-checking his grades on the computer:
I can't believe I have five and a half more years of needing to get good grades so I can get into a good college.
He was not thrilled to learn that there is a separate admission process for master's degrees. And PhD programs. And post-docs.
His conclusion?: They need to treat scientists better.
LW: I want chocolate chips, so you have to give me some.
I think I need to see if the library has those books on raising spirited children.
I can't believe I have five and a half more years of needing to get good grades so I can get into a good college.
He was not thrilled to learn that there is a separate admission process for master's degrees. And PhD programs. And post-docs.
His conclusion?: They need to treat scientists better.
LW: I want chocolate chips, so you have to give me some.
I think I need to see if the library has those books on raising spirited children.
Reading report
I finished two books this week.
I appreciated Living Faith While Holding Doubts because the author doesn't dismiss doubt with the easy platitudes you so often hear. He recognizes the ineffectiveness of the commonly suggested solutions. I'm not sure I agree with him on all points, but I appreciated his perspective. Here are two quotes:
Jesus did say that unless we become like children will we never enter the 'kingdom of heaven.' Perhaps no passage of scripture has been victim to so many sentimental--and misleading--interpretations. According to such interpretations, Jesus praises children for their wide-eyed trust and simple belief, for their complete freedom from doubt. What needs to be noted is that at every other point Jesus encourages his listeners to grow into new understandings of God's ways and expectations. When we set Jesus' words of praise for children in the context of his other teachings, it becomes clear that he was not encouraging his hearers to remain childish in their beliefs. Rather he was encouraging them to be childlike, that is, eager to grow up. (Have you ever known a child who was not eager to grow up?) He was praising the child's teachable spirit, a mind that is open to new truth and a heart that is open to new loyalties. page 23
it was those who could not doubt their firmly held religious convictions who crucified Jesus. If this son of a carpenter who talks to God in the untutored accents of his backwater hometown is actually God's Chosen One, then they must call into question all that they had firmly held about God's ways. By contrast, it was only those who could doubt their ideas and cherished traditions about how God would act in the world who were prepared to receive Jesus as the promised Messiah. pages 26-27
The Eyre Affair is a fun read, especially for a former English major. It's set in 1985 in an alternate England where people have cloned dodos as pets and can travel through time and yet the airplane hasn't been invented. It's a world that places an extremely high value on literature. The door-to-door missionaries aren't promoting religion, they're trying to convince you that Francis Bacon wrote the Shakespearean plays. I enjoyed the book and will probably pick up the sequels, but not before I do some other reading. If you want to read it, I highly recommend you read Jane Eyre first, if you haven't already. It's been decades since I've read it, and I ended up borrowing a copy from the library so I could refresh my memory of certain scenes.
I'm currently reading Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama. It seemed like an appropriate book for this week.
I appreciated Living Faith While Holding Doubts because the author doesn't dismiss doubt with the easy platitudes you so often hear. He recognizes the ineffectiveness of the commonly suggested solutions. I'm not sure I agree with him on all points, but I appreciated his perspective. Here are two quotes:
Jesus did say that unless we become like children will we never enter the 'kingdom of heaven.' Perhaps no passage of scripture has been victim to so many sentimental--and misleading--interpretations. According to such interpretations, Jesus praises children for their wide-eyed trust and simple belief, for their complete freedom from doubt. What needs to be noted is that at every other point Jesus encourages his listeners to grow into new understandings of God's ways and expectations. When we set Jesus' words of praise for children in the context of his other teachings, it becomes clear that he was not encouraging his hearers to remain childish in their beliefs. Rather he was encouraging them to be childlike, that is, eager to grow up. (Have you ever known a child who was not eager to grow up?) He was praising the child's teachable spirit, a mind that is open to new truth and a heart that is open to new loyalties. page 23
it was those who could not doubt their firmly held religious convictions who crucified Jesus. If this son of a carpenter who talks to God in the untutored accents of his backwater hometown is actually God's Chosen One, then they must call into question all that they had firmly held about God's ways. By contrast, it was only those who could doubt their ideas and cherished traditions about how God would act in the world who were prepared to receive Jesus as the promised Messiah. pages 26-27
The Eyre Affair is a fun read, especially for a former English major. It's set in 1985 in an alternate England where people have cloned dodos as pets and can travel through time and yet the airplane hasn't been invented. It's a world that places an extremely high value on literature. The door-to-door missionaries aren't promoting religion, they're trying to convince you that Francis Bacon wrote the Shakespearean plays. I enjoyed the book and will probably pick up the sequels, but not before I do some other reading. If you want to read it, I highly recommend you read Jane Eyre first, if you haven't already. It's been decades since I've read it, and I ended up borrowing a copy from the library so I could refresh my memory of certain scenes.
I'm currently reading Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama. It seemed like an appropriate book for this week.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Reading plan for 2009
A poster on a board I frequent issued a challenge to read 52 books in 2009. With some reservations, I have taken up the challenge.
Last year, I read 31 books, so this is a relatively large increase. I'm concerned that in order to meet the reading goal, I'll have to lighten the quality of my reading. There's also the issue of time use. Certainly, I have a fair bit of Internet and TV time that could beneficially be replaced with reading, but I was also hoping to make progress on projects around the house: painting, cleaning the basement, and updating the photo albums. Will meeting the reading goal compromise my other goals? And is it worth it?
While I try to answer those questions, I've been reading.
First up was Gilead. My mom recommended this to me last year, so I was happy to receive it as a Christmas present from Michael's parents. This is a quiet book, and yet one I was loathe to finish.
Next I read The Book Thief, which I finally found checked in at the library. Although this is a young adult novel, EM didn't enjoy it. I'm not even sure he finished it. Grown women seem to like it quite a lot. It's been recommended to me by several people. A great book about the power of words and stories.
I'm currently reading two books: Living Faith while Holding Doubts and The Eyre Affair. The first I picked up from the church library on Sunday. The second is a book I've seen mentioned a lot, almost always with rave reviews. It's a quirky world, but so far I'm enjoying it.
Last year, I read 31 books, so this is a relatively large increase. I'm concerned that in order to meet the reading goal, I'll have to lighten the quality of my reading. There's also the issue of time use. Certainly, I have a fair bit of Internet and TV time that could beneficially be replaced with reading, but I was also hoping to make progress on projects around the house: painting, cleaning the basement, and updating the photo albums. Will meeting the reading goal compromise my other goals? And is it worth it?
While I try to answer those questions, I've been reading.
First up was Gilead. My mom recommended this to me last year, so I was happy to receive it as a Christmas present from Michael's parents. This is a quiet book, and yet one I was loathe to finish.
Next I read The Book Thief, which I finally found checked in at the library. Although this is a young adult novel, EM didn't enjoy it. I'm not even sure he finished it. Grown women seem to like it quite a lot. It's been recommended to me by several people. A great book about the power of words and stories.
I'm currently reading two books: Living Faith while Holding Doubts and The Eyre Affair. The first I picked up from the church library on Sunday. The second is a book I've seen mentioned a lot, almost always with rave reviews. It's a quirky world, but so far I'm enjoying it.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
This is not my vaction
I was chatting with a guest this morning. He was asking what it was like to own an inn, and as he handed in his key and walked out, he said:
And you are on vacation all the time!
Riiiight.
And you are on vacation all the time!
Riiiight.
We do have 24-hour TV stations
Guest on the phone last night, sometime between 10:30 and midnight: Hi. Does the TV stay on later because it's New Year's Eve?
Me (desperately trying to wake up): I'm sorry, what was that?
Guest: The TV. Does it stay on later because of New Year's Eve?
Me (wondering what decade I'm in): The TV pretty much stays on all the time. Twenty-four hours a day.
Guest: It does? Oh. Good.
Usually we have the opposite problem--guests who assume we have complete cell phone coverage and 24-hour diners. As I was trying to fall back asleep, it occurred to me that this guest probably checked in the night before, when we lost power for a few minutes around 10 at night. Maybe she didn't realize we lost power and assumed the TV shut down because it was 10?
Me (desperately trying to wake up): I'm sorry, what was that?
Guest: The TV. Does it stay on later because of New Year's Eve?
Me (wondering what decade I'm in): The TV pretty much stays on all the time. Twenty-four hours a day.
Guest: It does? Oh. Good.
Usually we have the opposite problem--guests who assume we have complete cell phone coverage and 24-hour diners. As I was trying to fall back asleep, it occurred to me that this guest probably checked in the night before, when we lost power for a few minutes around 10 at night. Maybe she didn't realize we lost power and assumed the TV shut down because it was 10?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)