The June 23rd Project

NY Harbor School

noreply@blogger.com (Redwing) — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 02:49:00 +0000

I interviewed at the NY Harbor School three years ago. They offered me a job teaching Social Studies the day after 'Pequa gave me an offer I couldn't refuse (teaching English). I was convinced that NYC would not do the right thing and put them on Governor's Island. They were in Bushwick! It's about 40 minutes by subway from the Harbor.

The school, the principal, and Murray Fisher deserve recognition. Harbor School deserves the 10k. Can you imagine the dedication it takes to run a maritime-based high school that is almost an hour from the Harbor?

Vote early and vote often in this GQ poll.

7. Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis

noreply@blogger.com (Redwing) — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 19:02:00 +0000

A damning indictment of American conformity.

This was one of the best books I have ever read. The writing was sharp, fresh and interesting. Even though it was written in 1920, the problems facing George Babbitt are surprisingly modern.

Babbitt is a real-estate salesman and member of all the booster clubs and business associations in his town - think Elks and Rotary club and all that. But something is nagging his conscience. Facing the beginning of his middle age, his regrets begin to pile up. He yearns for a break out. But as his restlessness grows, so does the resistance from his community, putting a friction on his revolution.

I very strongly recommend this book. Lewis is a master as diagnosing the problems with too much commercialism. Unfortunately, he doesn't offer any solution, but maybe he thought that simply showing us the mess we're in would be enough for us to reform our ways. Obviously things have only gotten worse in the last 90 years, but that only makes the book more important now. Read it!

6. Post-Captain by Patrick O'Brian

noreply@blogger.com (Redwing) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 03:29:00 +0000

Book #2 in the Aubrey-Maturin saga.

This was a good book, despite the fact that there were fewer sea battles: this was more a good look at Aubrey and Maturin dealing with the politics of the Navy, falling in love, and riding the shifting sentiment of Society.

5. Moby Dick by Herman Melville

noreply@blogger.com (Redwing) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 02:57:00 +0000

My 3rd time through.

I got to teach it to my 12th graders, this time. Only one of them read the whole thing (out of 19).

And I'll be reading it again in the Autumn for a class on Melville.

If you haven't read it, you should.

4. Dr Dogbody's Leg by James Norman Hall

noreply@blogger.com (Redwing) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 02:40:00 +0000

You may recognize Hall from his more popular book Mutiny on the Bounty.

This was a pretty good book. Set during the Napoleonic Wars, the ten chapters each explain how Dr Dogbody lost his leg. Some were better than others, but all were very entertaining. Dr Dogbody would make a great NPC! And I really want to go to a place like the Cheerful Tortoise, where Dogbody tells his tales. The stories are distinct, yet, the narrative is continuous: each night Dogbody's friends implore him to tell his story, and he pretends he won't. But eventually he yields.

Recommended if you like sea stories.

noreply@blogger.com (Redwing) — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 17:33:00 +0000

Written in March

While resting on the Bridge at the foot of Brother’s Water

The cock is crowing,
The stream is flowing,
The small birds twitter,
The lake doth glitter
The green field sleeps in the sun;
The oldest and youngest
Are at work with the strongest;
The cattle are grazing,
Their heads never raising;
There are forty feeding like one!

Like an army defeated
The snow hath retreated,
And now doth fare ill
On the top of the bare hill;
The plowboy is whooping- anon-anon:
There's joy in the mountains;
There's life in the fountains;
Small clouds are sailing,
Blue sky prevailing;
The rain is over and gone!

-William Wordsworth

3. The Light of Men by Andrew Salmon

noreply@blogger.com (Redwing) — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 20:57:00 +0000

Another book from the 50 Books Book Club, which, so far, has accounted for 2/3 of my 2009 reading. I do have some books in the works, and plan to have a late spring flurry. I will also preface this by saying that I have not read the other comments as I write this review, though I will once I finish this post. I will include links to Olman's review, so you can find the others.

This was a difficult book for me to get into. Though by the third chapter, when I thought I had it figured out, it picked up pace until it was clear that I didn't have it figured out at all. Then it kind of dragged while I got over my disappointment.

Set in a WW2 concentration camp, we begin with the arrival of a boxcar of new prisoners that includes our main character, Aaron. Unnaturally savvy and cagey about prison-camp survival, Aaron soon blends in. And then he begins to work his way up the unofficial/prisoner pecking order until he can earn a meeting with Kreuger, the prisoner who runs the prison-mafia.

Aaron promises Krueger access to some exceptionally valuable diamonds in exchange for a few favors. Deal in place, Aaron moves into the Jewish section of the prison. There he meets John, a evangelic Rabbi who wants to recruit everyone he meets for a Revolution against the SS.

As part of the deal with Krueger, Aaron is able to befriend and protect one of the newly-arrived prisoners, Sol Liebman. Why he wants to do this is unclear until about halfway through the book.

I have to say that I was not really what kind of book I was reading. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be expecting some kind of WW2 survivor narrative, fictional or not, or some kind of alternate history. But when the first big reveal came, I have to admit to a certain level of satisfaction. I figured it was something like that. Aaron just knew too much about the camp, the prisoners, Sol, Krueger, and the real end of the war. So, I read on, and figured that I was reading some kind of alternate-reality story. But I had a sneaky suspicion I was being duped along the lines of "For the Love of the Game" which seems to be about baseball, but turns out to be a cheesy love story. Fortunately this fear was misplaced.

But when the real big reveal came, I have to admit to a certain level of disappointment. I didn't reject the idea with the now-legendary disdain that I rejected the warrior polar bears of the Golden Compass, but I have to admit that it was pretty, pretty, pretty close. Time travel was one thing. This was another. I'll just say that I felt like Ripley in Aliens and leave it there.

The end, then, was just playing out my hand and seeing how it all came together. I am glad I read the book, but it didn't offer me anything new. I feel like I have been in that concentration camp before. I felt like I had worked that black-market prison structure before. I knew the moves; I knew the reactions; I knew when to duck and when to jump.

Maybe I would have enjoyed it better with a little more clarification on the back cover. Even as I was getting deeper into the story, I just didn't care that much about the new prisoner's "mysterious agenda," or whether he was an "allied spy or a Nazi collaborator" (neither of these were alluded to in the text, either. Everyone just seems to accept Aaron for the cryptic he is.).

(And I also know what you are going to say, snobby-English teacher doesn't like anything written after 1969, but that's not it at all.)

2. Lolita by V. Nabokov

noreply@blogger.com (Redwing) — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 05:02:00 +0000

What a book! Such great, fine writing. And English isn't even his first language! In the author's note at the back of my edition (more on this in a second) VN apologizes, saying, "My private tragedy, which cannot, and indeed should not, be anybody's concern, is that I had to abandon my natural idiom, my untrammeled, rich, and infinitely docile Russian tongue for a second-rate brand of English, devoid of any of those apparatuses - the baffling mirror, the black velvet backdrop, the implied associations and traditions - which the native illusionist, frac-tails flying, can magically use to transcend the heritage in his own way."

I find it infinitely interesting that the punning, and nicknaming, and playful experimentation with language is coming from someone who is not native to English (and so perhaps bored with routine constructions, etc) - like Joseph Conrad, one of the greats of English Lit, whose English wasn't even his second language.

So, let's get the reputation out of the way right off - the book is about a grown man, Humbert Humbert, sleeping with a 12 year old girl, Dolores Haze, or Lo, or Lolita. The book is also cited every single time a teacher crosses the line and gets with a student, especially if the teacher is a man.

Told as some kind of police statement, or a rationale for crimes committed, the book follows the adventures of Humbert as he explains the circumstances leading up to his meeting with Lolita, and her consequent two year long kidnap-and-rape roadtrip.

Humbert has the misfortune of renting a room in Lo's mom's house. Right from their first meeting Humbert feels an attraction for Lolita. She reminds him of his first child-lover, Valeria. And it seems Humbert has an eye for detail, and he pores over Lolita's body, in detail, over and over.

When Lolita is sent to camp her mother leaves a note explaining for Humbert and asking him to leave. Not able to break away from Lolita, Humbert decides he will marry the mother and then keep Lolita as a side project. Unfortunately the mother unit discovers Humberts journals and tries to kick him out of the house. On her way to mail some hastily written letters describing Humbert's perversions, Mrs Haze is run over by a car and killed (an echo of the Great Gatsby?).

Now Lolita is all Humbert's! How exultant he is! He can barely keep his composure. He rushes through the funeral and races to the camp to pick up Lolita, his Lolita. And for the next two years he keeps Lolita his prisoner and sex pet.

At first, in their very first physical encounter in the house as she is leaving for camp, Lolita makes the first move. She runs into the house and kisses him full on the lips. But even this has been built and stoked by Humbert by way of little "innocent" kisses and pets.

Then, when they are finally alone in the hotel room, Humbert drugs her in order to take advantage of her as she sleeps. But the pills are not strong enough and as he lays next to her, pretending to be asleep, she crawls over to him and jumps his bones. He is astonished.

Sometimes it was difficult for me to remember that she is 12-14 years old as the story progresses. He speaks of her in adult terms, and in our newspapers (and our webpages of "barely legal" porn) the term Lolita has come to mean young, but almost old enough.

But always before US is her childishness; she wants to ride her bike with her friends; she wants to go to dances and get sodas and hang out with her friends from the school play. But jealous Humbert won't have it and keeps her captive. He even apportions her allowance based on sexual favors and promises of loyalty! When he comes for her more than once in the night she says, "oh no!" but yet he persists.

The book, Humbert's road trip sex adventure, was published just a year after On the Road. I'm sure the Grown Ups thought the country was headed off a cliff.

Eventually Humbert and Lolita separate. And for good. She runs off with another child molester, this one a movie producer, and eventually she gets married. Humbert goes insane. When he comes out of it he tracks down Lolita and finds her a pregnant 17-year old. He gives her all of his money, and her mother's money, and asks her one more time to run away with him.

When she declines, he moves on with his mission to kill the guy who took his Lolita away from him. And this is what he iwnds up in jail for - this is the crime that compels him to write the story which is the book. All throughout he addresses us readers as members of the jury - as if we are to judge him. Are we to pass judgement on his actions, or decide a sentence?

I read an annotated copy and I think I would have missed out on a lot if I hadn't had the notes to accompany me on the journey. And not just for elaboration of the hundreds of puns in the book. More for the references that Nabokov is making on purpose:

1. the Haze house is 342. The hotel room where Lo and Humbert get together is 342. When he goes searching for Quilty after Lo is gone, he stops at 342 places.)

2. There's a lot of james Joyce in there, some of it direct and obvious (at one point HH actually uses the phrase "portrait of the artist as a young" (and I think he says pervert, but I can't find the quote now). Nabokov was one of Joyce's groupies (Nabokov considers Ulysses a masterpiece and Finnegan's Wake a piece of garbage. But more of that later.)

3. Quilty is there in the whole book. In my book's Notes he has his first reference on page 4. Clare Quilty's mistress is Vivian Darkbloom, an anagram of..wait for it...Vladimir Nabokov.

4. Edgar Allan Poe references galore (including Annabell Lee/Lo-lee-ta explanations and correlations).

There's tons more but we'll start there...

1. Master & Commander by Patrick O'Brian

noreply@blogger.com (Redwing) — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 20:48:00 +0000

It was with a great deal of anticipation that I opened the first book of the new year, Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander.

I have been reading sailing books, sailing magazines, sailing websites, and sailing stories for years now and have passed by many many references to O'Brian's books and each time I read mention of O'Brian's series I thought, I should get to those. I begin this year by beginning to get to them. The final push to finally pick them up was Olman's excellent review, here.

My anticipation and excitement was also mixed with some fear that I would be disappointed. To my great relief, I was not disappointed at all. As Olman says the writing is excellent. The descriptions of the sea, the sea battles, and the maneuvers are rendered poetically. I felt very drawn into the world. There were a few moments when I felt I had mismanaged the field of battle, so to speak, but that was a more lapse of my attention than O'Brian's description. Sometimes I wasn't sure where the wind was coming from, who was upwind/downwind, or even sometimes, the basic layout of the geography (in particular the battle where the go into that cove and fight under the guns on the cliffs).

I've also seen the movie about half a dozen times, so I couldn't help but picture Russell Crowe as Jack Aubrey, which is fine, since I find RC kind of studly. But I should shut up about this or it'll be what drives the comments instead of O'Brian. (The movie, by the way, covers some of the action in this book and some of the action in another.) (Also, check out the obvious use of plywood in the movie ship's captain's quarters, when Aubrey/Crowe is talking about how tough the Surprise is.)

More confusing to me than what happened at sea was what happened on land: who are all of these ladies, and what exactly is their relationship to the officers of the fleet? And who is hooking up and whose husband cares and doesn't, and so on. I could have used a bit more description or explanation about the political situation with the Royal Navy's upper crust and the social politics that always mean so much in these hierarchies.

One of the subplots I particularly enjoyed was the uneasy friction cause by the lack of communication between James Dillon and Commander Aubrey. Dillon is some kind of Irish ex-Revolutionary who, at one point, is tasked with going aboard an American ship in search of an escaped convict. Of course, the ex-convict is one of Dillon's former freedom fighters and so Dillon must choose between his official duty to the Navy and his homeland and former comrade. His plight very much reminded me of the cop in The Rising of the Moon. And it reminded me agin that we all have that decision to make: do I do what's good for me or what's good for the union? Or the relationship? Or the family? Or the team?

And so after his decision is made, Dillon can barely live with himself, and hates Aubrey for putting him in that position. It's also interesting, to me, that Aubrey only sent Dillon because he thought the mission was a waste of time, that, of course, there was no way the guy was going to be on the American ship.

I read this book solely with the aid of the internet and the good dictionary on my desk at work, but I highly recommend two companion books. I mean, you want to do it right, right? First is A Sea of Words, edited by Dean King (who also edits the Heart of Oak series of which you will be hearing more of very soon), and the second is the coffee table book Patrick O'Brian's Navy, edited by Richard O'Neill. This is great for getting a look at what the ships look like (good guys and bad guys). I also have a few sailing encyclopedias around that I looked at, but for the remaining 20 1/2 books I'll be relying on these two.

And, in an example of how things generally work out for me in the rest of my life, I was in San Diego recently, reading this very book while I was there. When i got home and had a more regular access to the internet I found out that the ship used in the movie version is docked in..wait for it...San Diego. We drove by it, saw it, marked it down as something to return to check out; then we ran out of time before we could get back. I thought it was a whaler or some merchant ship (all I could see from the driver's seat was miles of standing rigging) like those at South St Seaport or Mystic Seaport. I kind of feel like a dufus.

And like Olman has already told us, the writing is excellent. What amazes me about this, beyond the description, is the reality it represents. This kind of thing happened all the time. Ships would purposely try to line up next to each other so they could fire cannons at each other. Like the Redcoats lining up to fire volley after volley into lines of men across from them. I can't imagine the fear and the stress of the gunners and captains. They were tough. I get annoyed that my car won't warm up fast enough in the morning; these guys are firing cannons at each other miles and miles from home. I get stressed when my boss comes to observe a lesson about poetry I'm about to teach; these guys were prepared to board an enemy ship and take it over by rapier and pistol. And yes, sure, I was on a submarine once, and went far away, and would have done my damned best to sink any other submarine who messed with us, but, to me, firing a torpedo or two and then melting away into the great, big ocean is a little different than taking a huge man-of-war bristling with cannon and lining it up next to another huge man-of-war bristling with cannon to fire a whole mess of cannon balls at it. Yeah, just a little.

I leave you with this section from one of the fights:

"The first of the Desaix's shot whipped through the topgallant-sail, but the next two pitched short. There was still time for manoeuvre - for plenty of manoeuvre. For one thing, reflected Jack, he would be very much surprised if the Sophie could not come about twice as quickly as the seventy-four. 'Mr Dalziel,' he said, 'we'll go about and back again. Mr Marshall, let her have plenty of way on her.' It would be quite disastrous if the Sophie were to miss stays on her second turn: and these light airs were not what she liked - she never gave of her best until there was something of a sea running and at least one reef in her topsails.

'Ready about...' The pipe twittered, the sloop luffed up, came into the wind, stayed beautifully and filled on the larboard tack: her bowlines were as taut as harpstrings before the big seventy-four had even begun her turn.

The swing began, however; the Desaix was in stays; her yards were coming round; her checkered side began to show; and Jack, seeing the first hint of her broadside in his glass, called out, 'You had better go below, Doctor.' Stephen went, but no farther than the cabin; and there, craning from the stern-window, he saw the Desaix's hull vanish in smoke from stem to stern, perhaps a quarter of a minute after the Sophie had begun her reverse turn. The massive broadside, nine hundred and twenty-eight pounds of iron, plunged into a wide area of sea away on the starboard beam and rather short, all except two thirty-six pound balls, which hummed ominously through the rigging, leaving a trail of limp, dangling cordage. For a moment it seemed that the Sophie might not stay - that she would fall impotently off, lose her advantage and expose herself to another such salute, more exactly aimed. But a sweet puff of air in her backed headsails pushed her round and there she was on her former tack, gathering way before the Desaix's heavy yards were firmly braced - before her first manoeuvre was complete at all."

That's the stuff!

2008: A look backward

noreply@blogger.com (Redwing) — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 22:41:00 +0000

Well, I just managed to exceed the 2007 total, but still didn't make 30, the goal I had in mind last January.

Looking back I see that of the 28 books, only six of them were of my own choice, and two were because I was teaching them (I don't count the other books I teach that I have read a million times, like Mockingbird, or Othello.).

I'm satisfied with what I read, but most of it was assigned and that's no way to live. I do like the mandate a class provides - a set list that must be read and deadlines - but I much prefer to live by interest-based choice.

Looking forward I am excited by what 2009 promises. I've started the Patrick O'Brian series (20 books plus another unfinished), a class on Herman Melville in the Autumn, and a group project among the book bloggers I know.

(We're reading Lolita by V Nabokov by 1 February. Then I'm posting my review here. Each participating blogger posts a review both on their own blog AND in the comment section of this blog. Then we'll have a conversation in the comment section. Please join us! Read this classic by 1 Feb and then post your review on your blog and here in the comments, on Sunday 1 Feb.)

28. Hamlet by the lord my god William Shakespeare

noreply@blogger.com (Redwing) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 22:00:00 +0000

Hamlet! I hadn't read this in such a long time that I almost forgot what happened. And what happens is bad.

Hamlet's dad dies, so he comes back from university to attend the funeral. Before the funeral meats are cold, his mother has remarried his uncle, his father's brother. So his uncle is actually his stepdad and his mom is his aunt.

Then one foggy night the ghost of his dad comes and tells Hamlet that he didn't just die, but that he was killed by his own brother, Claudius, the new king (Hamlet's uncle-dad). The ghost wants Hamlet to avenge his death.

Then Hamlet's girlfriend Ophelia suddenly stops talking to him (as her dad (Polonius) and brother (Laertes) request).

Hamlet has trouble completing the ghost's mandate, and this has caused the play to be interpreted solely about a man's inability to act because he thinks and thinks. But there is so much more here: Fathers: Hamlet Sr, Polonius, and even, sort of, the King of Norway gets involved; Sons: Hamlet, Laertes, and Fortinbras; and spying (everyone seems to be spying on everyone else).

Rather than reading it, I recommend the Branagh movie version. He's such a great actor and he faithfully presents the play in all its length (4 hours). Shakespeare is meant to be seen, so see it.

27. Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

noreply@blogger.com (Redwing) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 21:30:00 +0000

Isabel Archer is a classic individualist. She is unique and exotic. And everyone wants to marry her.

She grew up in Albany, NY, but we follow her story as she lives and moves about in Europe. She resists the advances of an industrialist New Yorker who follows her to England and the advances of a British nobleman, too.

Finally, after she inherits a great deal of money, she feels free to make choices without the influence of material wealth to come.

And so she marries, and marries badly. Does she flee? Does she stick it out?

I am really giving this novel a short review because I could speak about it for days and days. It's James, so it's dense and about much more than a simple tale of an expat getting married. We also have the observer character in the form of Isabel's consumptive cousin, who arranges the inheritance as an experiment on Isabel, to see what such a unique and rare person will do with such opportunity. And we have the idea of place - why England? And why does Isabel have to be an American? How does this novel fit into the James pantheon? And American literature?

I'm'na have to reread it to even come close to those answers.

26. Beast in the Jungle by Henry James

noreply@blogger.com (Redwing) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 21:15:00 +0000

What an idiot is John Marcher!

All his life he believes that "something wonderful," to borrow a phrase, is going to happen to him. So for all of his life he waits, watching, wondering when this momentous event will occur.

Eventually he meets and remeets May Bartram, who, for reasons of her own, agrees to watch with him.

So they live as life-long friends, each of them watching the events of Marcher's life, until one day May is diagnosed with a fatal blood disorder. By this time she has also figured out what beast is stalking Marcher. But she won't tell him; he has to figure it out himself. And of course, Marcher, selfish to the last, believes that this, May's fatal disease, is the terrible thing that is to happen to him. And then, when she won't reveal what the horrible secret is, what the beast in the jungle actually is, he believes that that is the terrible thing, that May will die without revealing the secret, and so he'll never know.

And then, sadly, May dies; Marcher is left to watch alone.

I won't reveal the ending, but here we have James's observer character taken to the extreme: all Marcher does is watch.

And he's a first class idiot.

This was a great book with a moving ending. Not just for English majors!

25. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

noreply@blogger.com (Redwing) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 21:00:00 +0000

Poor Jane Eyre!

Misfit! Everywhere she goes!

Separated into five sections, each set in a different area, this book chronicles Jane's attempts at fitting into her world. Four attempts at figuring out who she is and where she belongs end in failure. Until finally things swing her way. But in classic 19th C. british lit fashion, not until the very last second.

I really quite liked this book. The writing is divine: her descriptions of places small and large are excellent.

And because Jane knows herself so well, or expresses herself to herself so well even if she doesn't know exactly what her conclusions mean, the inner voice of the character is portrayed really well. We are with Jane all the time, and yet we never tire of her. I usually resist first-person narratives, too, but not here, in the hands of an expert like Bronte.

24. Daisy Miller by Henry James

noreply@blogger.com (Redwing) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 20:30:00 +0000

Another book for the Hawthorne-James class.

Young Daisy Miller is an American living in Europe and she is not quite behaving herself abroad. In fact, her behavior is quite scandalous. In one scene she goes for an unchaperoned walk on a busy street with a man who is not her husband!

How does one maintain individuality amid such rules and customs and traditions? Is it possible?

And again we have the Jamesian observer who is content to sit and watch, to experiment without judging. An observer stuck wanting to join the revolution yet held back by rules, customs, and the expectations of the defenders of the status quo. Cowardice? Prudence?

23. Dubliners by James Joyce

noreply@blogger.com (Redwing) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 20:00:00 +0000

Technically, this is a reread.

And another read for my Irish Renaissance class.

And still delicious bites.

Read it.

22. Washington Square by Henry James

noreply@blogger.com (Redwing) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 19:30:00 +0000

Poor Catherine Sloper.

Her dad won't let her date who she wants. And with good reason, Morris Townsend is after Catherine's money (really, mostly, her dad's and hers when he dies). How will she handle it? Will she defy her father? Or will she submit?

But the real question the novel answers is whether or not impressions and feelings can count as experience: do we have to act to have an experience?

21. Some Irish Plays

noreply@blogger.com (Redwing) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 19:00:00 +0000

Not really worth an entry by themselves because some of them are three pages long, I list and comment on them here and count them all together:

The Rising of the Moon by Lady Gregory: A cop with a family to feed has to decide if he turns in a rebel for a reward and promotion or lets the man go. If he lets him go it's good for a free Ireland. If he turns him in the cop is just a bitch for the British, the Man, and the oppression of the Irish.

Cathleen ni Houlihan by Yeats: An old lady comes to a tavern on the eve of a man's wedding and tries to persuade him to fight for a free Ireland. She is not just an old lady, but Ireland herself and the man can never come home and is likely to die. implied is that this is the question all young Irishmen must face.

Riders to the Sea by J. M. Synge: Set on the Aran islands just to the west of Galway in the violent and stormy Irish Sea. With three sons already gone a mother tries to persuade her only remaining son to stay home and not go fishing.

Playboy of the Western World by J. M. Synge: This play set off riots when it was played in Dublin because the main character says that he is so in love with a girl that if some one set up all the girls in Mayo in front of him, and them wearing only their nightgowns, he would still choose her. Scandalous. A guy comes to a small pub and tells a story of killing his dad. The daughter of the pub owner falls in love with the wild traveler and breaks up with her steady, local boy. The townies celebrate his bravery and honesty. But then the traveler's dad shows up very much alive and the townies try to run the son out. But then the son actually kills the dad! And then the townies try to hang the son (for doing the very deed they were celebrated but an hour ago)!

Juno and the Paycock by Sean O'Casey: Might be my favorite of the lot, though I do like the ethical dilemma posed by The Moon Rising. First, paycock as in peacock pronounced with an Oirish accent. We have a family here on the brink of disintegration. Father: drunk, lazy, selfish. Son: a rebel, haunted by the fact that he turned in his best friend (who was killed) for being a rebel. Daughter: dating a fancy-pants Englishman. Mother: working hard to keep it all together. Then a settlement is promised and the dad goes on a spending spree. Settlement falls through! Daughter gets knocked up! Englishman flees! Son is abducted by his fellow rebels for being an informer! What's a mother to do?

These were all part of an Irish Renaissance class I was taking. I quite enjoyed the curriculum and I'm glad I read these. I had read Riders to the Sea a long time ago, what with it being about boaters and fishermen and men of the sea and all, but I absolutely did not get it. I definitely needed the economic and political context that I got from being in the class. I also benefitted from the Norton editions of these plays. I do not work for Norton. But the Norton anthologies give tons of context and criticism, the bread and butter of literature students and teachers, without overdoing it and killing all the joy of discovery of the lit.

I liked the symbolism of Riders to the Sea and Cathleen ni Houlihan, and the gritty realism of The Moon Rising and Juno.

20. Blithedale Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne

noreply@blogger.com (Redwing) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 18:00:00 +0000

Hawthorne's memoir-ish tale of the Transcendentalist experiment in socialist living at Brook Farm, not far from Concord and Salem.

More than just an observer/participant's commentary and reportage on what happened this fictionalization is about the act of observing, commitment, manipulation and community, and social change.

And you don't necessarily have to know a lot about the Transcendentalist's to understand the events at Brook Farm because this, like many of Hawthorne's stories, can serve as an allegory for the limits of reform and social change. The course of the experiment is not as bad as, say, Orwell's Animal Farm, but it ends in failure anyway (as you already know because you've probably never heard of it unless you majored in English or 19th C. history).

19. Hawthorne by Henry James

noreply@blogger.com (Redwing) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 17:00:00 +0000

Henry James critiques Nathaniel Hawthorne.

I read this book for my class, and hadn't heard of it at all before this. I haven't read any of James's longer works (in fact, I've only read one or two short stories), so it was interesting reading something by him that is non-fiction and about another author.

I think I learned as much about James as I did about Hawthorne. Mixed with some praise is James's scorching criticism of American Literature as it stood in 1879. James had moved to Europe by then in an attempt to reinvent the American novel as something of World Lit and not merely American. James felt that because America was still relatively young, and that the land hadn't been fully civilized, that no American literature could be any good: even Hawthorne, who James thinks basically invented American literature, is a provincial upstart. Because he has nothing to say about America, Hawthorne is forced to write allegorical tales that speak about the human condition more than they speak about a place and time, so Hawthorne's literature fails to even be uniquely American - it isn't essentially American.

This is a good book if you have read just about everything by Hawthorne and have a good understanding of what James was attempting to be/do. Knowing what James's aims were is essential because it gives his criticisms context.

18. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

noreply@blogger.com (Redwing) — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 20:17:00 +0000

I had already read the Dubliners and quite enjoyed it, so this was a book I was looking forward to, and one that, as an English teacher, I should have under my belt (along with about 100 others).

This autobiographical novel was published in 1916, a fact that Joyce insisted on because of the political events in the same year. That was the year of the Easter Rising, the beginning of the end of the British dominance of Ireland.

This was a tough book, and I’m still trying to figure it out. I suspect that I’ll be thinking about it for a long time. And I’ll be teaching it, so I will have the opportunity to talk about it at length later in the year. That definitely helps with understanding a text.

The novel is divided into five sections, each of them covering a time period of young Stephen Dedalus’s life. This is the kind of novel that we English teachers call bildungsroman – just a fancy way of saying that the character is trying to find his way in the world, trying to find where he fits. This book is a great example of that theme (along with, say, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, and Jude the Obscure by the great Thomas Hardy, two books that I am also teaching this year).

Joyce leaves a lot of the political and social context out which makes the book a bit harder to get into. But I found it to be quite liberating. If I wanted all of the context to be handed to me in the text I’d read Dickens. And I was taking a course on the Irish Renaissance – my reason for reading – and so I had a lot of that knowledge from the others. I strongly recommend a heavily footnoted edition, or better, a Norton copy that has political and background documents in it.

I’ll leave you to discover the subjects and themes of the five sections, but we follow Stephen as he grows up. We begin as he is getting ready to go to boarding school and we leave him as he finished college and decides to leave Ireland for good.

I don’t really even know what to say about the book except that it follows Stephen’s struggle with home, church, and state. Set in the early 1900s as Ireland and England are battling for control of the Irish state, we have to deal with issues involving Stephen’s mom, his feelings about the church (as he contemplates becoming a priest), and his feelings about his Irishness.

It’s complicated.

But the writing is most excellent.

Here’s a section from Book II, where Stephen and his father have traveled to Dublin together on a train:

“At Maryborough he fell asleep. When he awoke the train had passed out of Mallow and his father was stretched asleep on the other seat. The cold light of the dawn lay over the country, over the unpeopled fields and the closed cottages. The terror of sleep fascinated his mind as he watched the silent country or heard from time to time his father’s deep breath or sudden sleepy movement. The neighbourhood of unseen sleepers filled him with strange dread though they could harm him; and he prayed that the day might come quickly. His prayer, addressed neither to God nor saint, began with a shiver, as the chilly morning breeze crept through the chink of the carriage door to his feet, and ended in a trail of foolish words which he made to fit the insistent rhythm of the train: and silently, at intervals of four seconds, the telegraphpoles held the galling notes of the music between punctual bars. This furious music allayed his dread and, leaning against the windowledge, he let his eyelids close again” (II 967-83).

And here is another section, this from Book III. Stephen has spent his time in sinful, sexual pleasures with himself and others. After hearing a hellfire sermon he goes back to his room and feels sick. As soon as he can he heads into town, to a strange church where he won’t meet anyone he knows so he can give a confession. Here, he has just stepped into the confessional and the priest has slid back the bolt:

“His blood began to murmur in his veins, murmuring like a sinful city summoned from its sleep to hear its doom. Little flakes of fire fell and powdery ashes fell softly, alighting on the houses of men. They stirred, waking from sleep, troubled y the heated air” (III. 1422-27).

And another section, this one from Section IV. Stephen is torn about joining the priesthood, and as he thinks he wanders down to the beach. He paces along the beach, looking for some kind of answer, and finally he comes upon a beautiful girl fishing in the shallows. Stephen has his answer! He walks to clean his mind of the image of the girl.

“He climbed to the crest of a sandhill and gazed about him. Evening had fallen. A rim of the young moon cleft the pale waste of sky like the rim of a silver hoop embedded in grey sand: and the tide was flowing in fast to the land with a low whisper of her waves, islanding a few last figures in distant pools” (IV. 916-22).

I’ll leave the last book to you to discover; it’s a very satisfying end.

And now I have to go read Ulysses.

17. Goin' Down the Road by Blair Jackson

noreply@blogger.com (Redwing) — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 04:32:00 +0000

I liked this book so much that after I read a library copy I bought a copy on the amazon. For $2!

Subtitled as "A Grateful Dead Traveling Companion," this is a collection of some articles and interviews from the Golden Road newsletter, a fan newsletter organized for the fans of the Grateful Dead. The book has an interview with each of the band members, a section on the history of all the traditional folk songs songs that the Dead have covered/reinterpreted, and a section that highlights concerts of note for every year the band played shows.

This last section is what drove me to buy the book. I mean, I surf the Archive every day, looking for specific songs, shows, or song combinations, and see what interesting shows were recorded that day. And I'm sure that I could have found some sort of comprehensive review of concerts online instead of buying the book. But having a copy, with the pics of the band, and Jackson's comments on some of the shows, is interesting. What I especially liked was knowing when the first Stella Blue was (1972), or the first show after Pigpen died (3/15/1973, at our very own Nassau Coliseum). Stuff like that.

It's a good reference book, especially if you are a collector of Grateful Dead shows. Like, say, you want to hear Janis Joplin singing with the Dead, or the darkest Dark Star, or the very first live version of Eyes of the World, or a 17 song first set. You could find these things surfing the Archive, and reading the comments, but that takes so freaking long.

noreply@blogger.com (Redwing) — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 02:47:00 +0000

So, here's a former student who is setting up shop in the graphic design universe - check out her stuff!

http://mreiter.com

noreply@blogger.com (Redwing) — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 14:03:00 +0000

Not quite as spectacular as Cosme's adventure, Alli and I went for a bike in the preserve next to the apartment.

Here's a snap of a pond that has a lot of action going on in it. At least one loon lives there, usually sitting in his high castle of weeds and sticks. And there's about a dozen ducks and swans always lurking about. I haven't seen any turtles, but I'm sure there are some. It must be fished out by now, by the birds/people combo, but something must be living there if the birds stick around.

And this is the very same pond that we saw turtles in during our January bike ride. I have no idea what They are doing, but it looks like meddling to me. They have two giant diggers driving around the perimeter of the pond scooping out mud and junk and dumping it into piles on shore. And there's no signage to indicate what is happening. If They were just cleaning up the garbage we saw in January, that would be great, but it looks like They are defining the borders of the pond, making a bluff/shore on the side by the houses. And They have these huge drainage hoses set up, but not being used. I'm pretty sure the terrapins are pissed.

Cosme & his mother's most unprecedented adventure!

noreply@blogger.com (Redwing) — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 22:45:00 +0000

Here is a former student of ours who is riding his bike from NYC to Maine! With his mom! How cool are they?

Cosme & his mother's most unprecedented adventure

And the coolness continues: Cosme built his bike!

Visit this blog early and often!