Merry Christmas to Me

I previously mentioned that I am reading The Garden of Last Days, which I am. However, the copy I have is a huge hardback library edition and at the last minute (around 4:30 am yesterday) I decided to leave it in the car at the airport as the scene at said Seattle airport was one of mayhem and madness. Utter madness, literally. No, seriously, it was a miracle of God that we got on our flight--we had to run Home Alone-style through the terminal to our gate, and we got there 2.5 hours before we were scheduled to leave. Anyway, I left the book, not having room for it in my purse or carry-on and I was left to forge through a long-forgotten book shelf for something to read today while my son took a nap and I tried to relax. What I found is amazing and I can't keep it a secret from you--Janet Evanovich's The Rocky Road to Romance.

Evanovich writes in a short introduction to the book that it is a rip-roaring romance, and true to the genre it is just that. Almost no character development, a very shallow plot, and a whole lot of lovin'. It is fantastic, and I am not kidding you. Merry Christmas to me.

And Merry Christmas to you--may your day (and night) be merry and bright! ;)

Christmas Reading

My Christmas Break reading list--please keep up.

1. The Garden of Last Days by Andre Dubus III. This novel was inspired by some of the events leading up to 9/11. I am about 1/3 of the way through--pretty interesting, though a bit raunchy in a terribly sad sort of way. The background is that one of the men involved in the 9/11 attacks visited a strip club days before and spent thousands of dollars on strippers and booze, making some interesting comments (obviously). This story is told from the perspective of one of the girls, as she observes and works for this man. This is not your average action/thriller, but a deeply terrifying and tragic story. And so far, it is a page-turner.

2. Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich. I haven't started reading this one yet, but I am pretty fascinated by the concept. I'm not an avid reader of non-fiction text, but I've had this book for a while and just recently read the description, which reeled me in. A journalist decides to work and live on minimum wage jobs in four different regions of America. I am convinced that I need to go back to college already.

You can try and avoid fate, but then you will get hit with ten inches of snow

It is, as my son has been telling me for two days, snowing rain. Yes son, it is snowing a crapload of rain.  Ironically I have spent the last few weeks counting the days until Christmas break, yet when school is canceled, I am completely disappointed. The reason for this being that I love the last few days before break, as they offer my students a time to reflect on our time with Romeo and Juliet. Specifically, it is a time when I like to show them some great videos--such as The Reduced Shakespeare Company's abridged version of the play and Baz Luhrmann's campy 1996 film--which I love more with each viewing. 

If you have never experienced RSC--take 13 minutes out of your day and watch these two clips from YouTube. I love these guys.

Part 1

Part 2

My prayer for the day: Dear God, please make it stop snowing so that I can wear my crazy sequined Christmas sweater and gold bow hair clip to school tomorrow. 

Shop Online Fridays

A common and never tired joke around our English Department is that we organize our schedules to have tests or movies on Fridays, and therefore we get a day to shop online. Though this is a nice idea in theory, of course it leaves us (me) with a mountain of essays to grade on the weekends--so usually I end up frantically grading while my students work away or enjoy some sort of media-based text. 

All this to say, I spent the better part of my day writing the aforementioned sonnet and therefore did not grade any papers. This leaves me, at home on a Friday night grading essays while my son watches Go Diego Go! and we wait for the pizza to get here. I blame Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting (whom, my students brought to my attention, bares a striking resemblance to Zac Effron) for allowing me to get off-task today. Tsk Tsk.

"Love goes toward love as schoolboys from their books"...a tribute to R&J in sonnet

Review: A sonnet is a 14-line poem written in iambic pentameter (5 unstressed syllables each followed by a stressed syllable, making a total of 10 syllables per line). In a sonnet, every other line rhymes, and the last two lines are a couplet.

It is also referred to (as per a quiz answer yesterday) as iambic petermeter. But, I am getting off subject. Here you go:

The yearly time hath come, when lovers swoon
And high school students giggle at the sound
Of Romeo dear and his spritely tune--
About his love for women, girls, and hounds.
On and on he goes of love that's stronger
Than a thousand arrows from Cupid's bow.
Girls' looks do baffle this heart-led monger
Who seems to eas'ly fall before he knows
A lick about the girl he sees so bright
That stars and moons and suns would scarcely see
Her face for fear of paling in her sight.
Alas!--it seems wise to from this rogue flee.
Yes, Romeo, I'll admit oft looks daft--
The constant victim of a blind bow-boy's butt shaft!

Facebook, the Revolution

Well, it's a good thing I took the day off from work today so that I could adequately address the mania that is Facebook. I have received about a million friend requests and confirmations--from people I haven't seen in years! It is crazy. I have accepted the concept of social networking, and watched a very helpful instructional tool on the internet. You can find it at: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a_KF7TYKVc

Before you get all huffy and like, "wow, it sure would be nice to take a day off just to work on my Facebook account" you should know that I have also been cleaning up 2-year-old vomit all morning (the vomiter is 2-yrs-old, not the actual vomit; that would make me a really terrible housekeeper and I am only moderately terrible). Trust me, I would much rather be cleaning up the verbal vomit spewed forth by adolescents that is my usual day job. 

The expansion of the realm of literacy that has reached out across the world wide web has, indeed, changed the way we think about reading. Sometimes I forget this, but not for too long, as I often receive final draft essays with any combination of the following: "b/c"; "caus"; "OMG"; "BTW"; and "j/k" (really? yes). Maybe being a part of Facebook will help me to become more in tune with current trends in literacy and word de-coding. 

Facebook Freaks Me Out

A friend of mine recently sent me an invitation to join Facebook, so I signed up because I wanted to look at her pictures. You fill in your info, and all of a sudden--boom! It pops up with a list of people who I know suggesting that I may be interested in requesting their friendship (what a fascinating concept, when I was a kid we rarely formally requested people's friendship, we just made fun of them until they thought we were cool). We are talking like 100 people! That I know! How does Facebook know that I know these people?--they are from all walks of my life: high school, college, post-college. It completely freaked me out. It's like this weird voyeuristic universe where people can find out about other people's lives without actually having to talk to them. It makes me think about when you get your yearbook at the end of the school year, and you spend hours looking at every picture, trying desperately to identify flaws in people. 

I'm just not sure I'm ready for Facebook.

It's Twilight in Oak Harbor (SPOILER ALERT)

As the sun approaches the horizon of the new Twilight movie, let's take a moment to reflect on the series that has been giving nerdy teenage girls everywhere a new sense of hope. Now, I have not read Breaking Dawn, the fourth and final installment, but I have it in my possession and plan to start as soon as things wrap up with Jane Eyre. I read these books last Spring, so I am having to brush up a bit--I got totally sidetracked on Stephanie Meyer's website where she talks about her journey to Twilight. She is so normal-seeming, I kind of wanted her to be a bit more eccentric.

In the beginning we have Bella--an average high school girl who moves from Arizona to Forks, WA, to live with her dad. Now, if you have ever been to the Olympic Peninsula, you will know that this is quite a drastic move. Forks is a tiny town south of Port Townsend and isolated from the rest of the world. She makes friends easily, but is intrigued by a group of "siblings"--apparently foster children--who keep to themselves but are all excrutiatingly beautiful. These are the Cullens--a vampire family living in Forks--the rain forest creating the perfect abode for vampires who need to stay away from direct sunlight. Duh-duh-duh...

Edward finds he has an overwhelming attraction to Bella and has to distance himself from her for fear of hurting or killing things. Blah, blah, blah, they get together, fall in love, fight with werewolves and other vampires, and begin the journey to infinity together. Now, there is some serious sexual tension between our two mortally-crossed lovers because though they long for each other (drawing in every teenage girl in America) and Meyer does not spare the details of this longing--descriptions of it are in fact, just that--long, the clincher is that they can't have sex because he would kill her. How's that for adolescent birth control, huh? Yes ladies, he is so powerful that he would actually rip her apart.

I think I will stop there for now, and let you think about that for a while. Be careful this weekend, it's supposed to be overcast...

Part 2--the end

Don't forget the read the Pros and Cons at the bottom-- I think it might be my favorite part!

I love this--click to make it bigger

FW: How are you like Jane?

You know when you get those email forwards that ask you to fill in the answers to a bunch of really unoriginal questions and then forward it on to all of your friends? Well, I have gotten a lot of those lately and have decided to make one of my own that relates to Jane Eyre. Feel free to copy and paste it into an email and send it to all of your friends.

1. Which do you prefer, grey smocks or black? (If you have a hard time deciding between the two, you may be like Jane)

2. Do you believe in ghosts, spooks, haunts, or other apparitions? (If you do, you may be like Jane)

3. What is the largest age-span between you and someone your heart truly desired? (If it is more than 15 years, you may be like Jane)

4. Do you feel obligated to consistently mention the fact that you are plain or unhandsome, and that one would have little reason to take note of you based on your physicality? (If so, you could be like Jane or Mr. Rochester!)

5. Do you want love and independence--to a fault? (If so, you guessed it)

Keep checking your email, you never know when something good like this will pop in!

A History Lesson--Charlotte and Jane

For some time, I have harbored the false illusion that I once tried to read Jane Eyre but found it so boring that I couldn't make it through the first chapter. Henceforth, I have not, since this fictional occasion, felt any desire to return to the Brontes in any way, shape, or form. This being said, I am often confronted with questions of the literary nature posed by young and eager minds that I can't answer--and recently one came my way concerning a young girl by the name of Jane Eyre. Not having an answer for the question, I sought to find one by means of attempting anew to read the story. What I discovered, to my delight, is that I have never read this book before and the first chapter quite caught my attention! I have come to the conclusion that the book to which I previously referred was actually Wuthering Heights--a different Bronte sister entirely!

As I researched Jane and her creator Charlotte Bronte to gain some insight into the motivation of this narrative, I uncovered some fascinating new information (courtesy of Sparknotes, of course). Here's what I found out:

1. Either because of or in spite of its critique of Victorian assumptions about gender and social class, Jane Eyre (originally published under the male pseudonym Currer Bell) was one of the most successful novels of its era both commercially and critically.  This means that the Victorians, as perfect as they were, harbored secret desires to, so to speak, "balk the system".  Fantastic--I knew they had it in them.

2. The novel follows the form of Bildungsroman--a novel that tells the story of a child's maturation and focuses on the emotions and experiences that accompany and incite his or her growth into adulthood. *See Great Expectations and many other 19th century British works for further examples of this literary form.

3.  It is a fairly autobiographical narrative, based on Charlotte's experiences in boarding schools both as a student and teacher, including a crazy Evangelical reverend and a close friend who dies of tuberculosis. 

Stay tuned for more to come (I've only read 100 pages or so!).

I Can See! Blindness re-cap

OK, so I mentioned this book earlier in the summer--and it has taken me that long to finish it. I was forced to take long breaks in which I read other things and looked at pictures of baby pandas in an effort to rekindle my spirit and perspective on humanity. But finally, last night, I finished.

Here's the basic premise: An epidemic of blindness has broken out in a major city (what city? you ask, it could be any...)--people are struck with a white blindness for no apparent reason. The government panics and attempts to quarentine the blind into an old mental institution. One woman who is not blind goes along, not wanting to leave her husband, and what she sees is extremely disturbing. The basic need for survival will change people into something they never dreamed they could be.

This book was intense and intensely depressing, but the prose is beautifully written (it is a Portugese translation, none the less), and I did experience redemption upon completing the narrative. There is hope in this story, if only in the fact that people can survive horrible situations with the help and support of others. The movie is coming out sometime in the near future, and based on the read, I'm not sure I can see it. Plus, it looks really scary.

Tell me again George...about the rabbits

Have you met George and Lennie? You may have met them when you were in 9th grade--I didn't have the pleasure my first time as a freshman, but since I now live in a perpetual state of 9th-gradedness we run into each other on a fairly regular basis. Every October, to be precise.

As I get older, the concept of the American Dream hits me harder. The idea that life can be better, richer, more fullfilling just over the horizon often keeps me pedaling on what sometimes seems to me to be a stationary bike. I love my ___________ (fill in the blank with job, husband, son, dog, 2-car garage), but it seems that every new adventure meant to energize only further fuels my need for sleep. Thank God for Tivo; I can now watch my favorite shows from 7-8:30 instead of from 8-11. Is the Dream real or simply a figment of our over-active American imaginations?

It is George and Lennie who make me realize that the American Dream is real, somehow. That regardless of the outcome, hope for a better tomorrow actually makes us better today. Nobody wants to be like Curly or his defeated wife, who have given up and accepted that life is hard and always will be. It's George and Lennie that we look to for reassurance that it is OK to want more in spite of who or where we are.

You should read Of Mice and Men again (or for the first time). It is especially impactful in light of the current dark cloud hovering over our nation. It is only 107 pages long, so it won't cut into your shopping time too much. And it may change your life.

The Crucible of Civilization

Well, so much for writing more often. Happy mid-October! It is no longer back-to-school time, we have settled into a nice routine that consists of "I think I already turned that in..." and "oh, here it is, it was in the bottom of my backpack!" The joys of daily interaction with adolescents. This year, I have the unique pleasure of teaching 9th grade (that means 14 and 15-year-olds to those of you who are confused) all day long! God bless them, they are their own breed, and I can honestly say that I have never been bored at work.

The onset of October brought an introduction to the classical dramatic theories of the one and only Aristotle for my honors students. Though it is a review for me, I am always amazed at the influence the Greeks have had on Western Civilization--the introduction of performance literature among the many mind-blowing concepts they came up with. We just finished reading Oedipus the King (you know--killed his dad, married his mom, all in an effort to avoid fulfilling a prophecy that he would do just this), and are into Antigone right now. What an amazing woman! She was truly a feminist at heart, choosing to do what she knew was right in the face of powerful men who told her to back down. I admire her, and Sophocles for painting a picture (2500 years ago) of a female protagonist who is not crazy or weepy, but instead is strong and independent.

If you have never had the pleasure of meeting these wild and crazy Greeks for yourself, October is the month to do so. See if you can find them at your local library--or better yet, look them up on Sparknotes and read the summaries, then have intelligent conversations about them at dinner parties and never admit that you didn't read the actual Greek translation.

Carry on!

Back to School Greens

I love back to school time. I look forward to it probably more than I look forward to summer vacation. I always have.   I like to get new pencils (this year I got an awesome batch of High School Musical ones at the dollar store), sharpen them up, and get ready for the big day. It is almost here now, only two more angst-filled, nightmare-wielding, sleepless nights. Last night I had a slasher-themed nightmare, which didn't have anything to do with going back to school, but was quite exciting none the less. 

All this to say that with the school year starting and me going back to work, I will have more time to devote to this little book journal of mine. Sorry for those of you who have longed to hear about my summer reading. I will be sure to give you a recap shortly. I fall apart in the summer--no schedule, so many episodes of What Not to Wear, and my comfy green couch that called to me daily after I finished eating Doritos for lunch (only fresh veggies and fruits for sides during the school year). 

Until then, happy reading.

It is Great to Choose

Hello tiny computer friends. It has been over a week since I last wrote...truth be told, I have been avoiding you. It's 1984--we haven't been exactly connecting, you see.  The real deal is that I'm pregnant and tired and the book was making me depressed so we parted ways. It was amicable, don't worry.  I refuse to say that I disliked the book, since I would undoubtedly have learned many things through reading it. I have a deep respect for it, and will try again another time. Maybe.

That being said, while procrastinating about 1984, I read a couple of powerful books by two of my favorite young adult authors. I would like to consider myself somewhat of an expert in the area of YA lit, I read a lot of these books since one of my greatest passions in life is promoting literacy, particularly among teens (who mostly hate to read and aren't afraid to tell you). I aspire to write books aimed at teens, maybe I will share something with you in the future and you can tell me what you think. Anyway, there are some amazing stories out there.  Here's the skinny on two of them, both by local NW authors, which makes me love them even more:

Honey, Baby, Sweetheart, by Deb Caletti. I love Caletti. She has a gift for writing teenage girls who fly just under the radar. This book was a National Book Award Finalist--which it totally deserved. It is the story of Ruby McQueen, a smart and quiet girl living in Nine Mile Falls who is going through a crisis in her understanding of love. She lives with her independent, confident librarian mother who turns into a lipstick-crazy, short-skirt-wearing monster whenever Ruby's father decides to come visit, which is like every couple of years. Ultimately, Ruby and her mom will save each other. Heartbreaking story of hope.

The Sledding Hill, by Chris Crutcher. Crutcher has had all of his books banned in schools at some point.  Now, you have to know that this is a hot-button issue for me. I strongly oppose censorship and believe that young people will be stronger if they approach tough issues on their own, think critically, and come to a decision for themselves. Often they will come to the wrong decision, but then, so will I and I still wouldn't want anyone else to make my decisions for me. This book is about censorship in schools. It is about a small community's attempt to rid their school of indecent literature, fueled by a Chris Crutcher book. It is fascinating, you should really read it.  

I will keep you posted on my literary adventures. I was recently given Blindness, by Jose Saramago by a friend of mine. I think I will read that next. It won the Nobel Prize for Literature, for crying out loud. Quit acting like it's a cop-out.

Big Brother is Watching You

Well...let's just say I've only read like 10 pages of 1984. I did read half of The Other Boleyn Girl and a trashy romance novel called Something Borrowed, however. The Boleyn thing would just not ever end! I couldn't make it through. The other book was ok, not a super well-developed plot, but it was entertaining. So here I am, confessing to you because I have been slacking off. Actually, I have had the book in the bathroom, and haven't moved it out, so that is where I have been doing my reading of Orwell's thought-provoking work. And anyone who has a two-year-old knows that you never get to spend as much time as you would like in the bathroom. (too much information? no, I don't think so.)

So far (after 10 whole pages) I am bored with it. I don't generally do well with sci-fi or futuristic stuff. I know that I need to commit some time to it, though. Don't worry, I haven't given up yet. I'll get to it here soon.

On another interesting note, James is going to be a big brother. He keeps lifting up his own shirt, pointing to his emaciated-African-child-sized belly and saying "Baby, pleeeeeeease!" I swear I did not teach him this, so it is a bit frightening.

A Salute to Some Great Women in History

I'm not sure I have mentioned this before, but I love my job. I get tired of young people, and I get overwhelmed by the information age, but I do, I still love it. One aspect that makes me excited to come here in the morning is that I work with some amazing women. They make me laugh every day, and I don't think there is any better measure of a job. As the school year comes to an end, we are all counting the minutes, but I just have to say, I will miss these ladies. They are my friends--here are some pictures that might give you a little taste of life at Oak Harbor High School. Cheers to great women! (Obviously the first one was our Christmas party, and if you can't read them, those shirts say: "Don't rock it, WALK IT!"--we wore them in the half marathon)

Catcher in the Rye--Final Exam

I have decided that the best way to personally analyze the novel as a whole is to take a final exam on it. So I have taken the liberty of writing one for myself.

1. "They" say this is a coming of age novel. Do you agree? And if so, what is the turning point for Holden?

I do see Catcher as a coming of age novel. Throughout the account, Holden proves himself to be completely self-centered and adolescent--thinking only of his own needs and desires. He hints at things he likes (his brother Allie, his sister Pheobe, the ducks in the lake...), but focuses primarily on his dislikes (Hollywood, fancy prep schools, anyone who is a big phoney, which is pretty much everyone he meets). This is a very adolescent attitude--I see teenagers everyday who are consumed by the negative aspects of life--which teacher is a jerk, whose shoes are ugly, why do we have to write? can't we just do nothing? this class is so boring! They are incapable of seeing the world beyond themselves, of noticing when people are hurting, how their words affect others, or what would be the consequence of hard work. Holden too wants life to be easy. He doesn't want to have to deal with others, to work at relationships. He'd rather go and live in a cabin in the woods and pretend to be a deaf-mute so that no one will talk to him. It is ridiculous and immature for one to think that he could go through life without dealing with people who he doesn't like. But Holden does grow up. He does look beyond his own nose. I think that the turning point in the novel comes when Holden meets Pheobe at the musem, after asking her to come and say goodbye to him. He expects her to come and maybe to be sad, but she shows up with a suitcase wanting to go with him out west. Holden is beside himself, it is as if he realizes for the first time that Pheobe looks up to him and wants to follow in his footsteps. This makes Holden go crazy--he doesn't want her to look up to him, he feels worthless. It is like this conversation with Pheobe triggers something in him, and he starts to think about the consequences of his actions, about how he affects others. I guess you could say that Pheobe saves him in a way.

2. How do you see yourself in Holden? What lessons helped you to come of age?

Oohh, big question. And quite personal too. How presumtuous of you to ask. Well, first off, I, like Holden, am still very selfish. I'm reminded of this daily when faced with some ungodly task of motherhood. I have also always been a dreamer. Big, crazy dreams about living in faraway lands and being a writer. (Holden's dreams are about living in the woods and being a hermit) I've lived in my head most of my life. I think one of my turning points was when I lived in Costa Rica for six months, my junior year of college. It is a beautiful country with big, wide-open spaces. I still didn't finish my "book". It was also gross, big bugs everywhere. I stopped eating meat and longed for my mother's living room. I, in fact, love America. It is a wonderful free society and I am ever thankful that I was born here. (That is potentially an ethnocentric statement, but damn it, it is true). Another turning point came in my life when I graduated from college and couldn't get a job with my English degree. (!) What a shock! (!) I applied for tons of publishing and editing jobs in New York, Los Angeles, and London. Never heard back from any of them. The clencher was when I applied for a job at the Skagit Valley Herald (Mount Vernon's tiny newspaper) as some sort of advertising representative. I did have an interview for this one, but I was passed up for a more experienced candidate. Really? It doesn't get much more humiliating than that. At this point I realized that my dreams might just possibly need some adjustments. I went back to grad school and got my teaching degree. You know what they say--"those that can't--teach!"

3. Sum it up--what are your thoughts on the ending?
I appreciated that the story came full circle. Clearly Holden is in some sort of mental institution or rehab center. I think it is a mark of his newly-found maturity that he can reflect upon his journey and share his story. He is starting to reconnect with humanity--he even misses old Stradlater! "Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody."

A Blast from the Past, from the Future

In case you are reading along, we are going to start 1984 next week! Grab a copy from your local used book store, library, or online emporium and join the adventure.

A Bunch of Phoneys

I haven't had time to blog or even really to read this week! I have been writing and grading final exams, all of them very insightful and meaningful. As we speak, my Honors students are taking a final over the novel Lord of the Flies--it is a challenging test and I am somewhat sadistically satisfied as I watch them toil over their responses to this interesting and provocative novel. One thing about teaching smart kids is that occasionally smart kids know they are smart and they start to get really annoying. This is not always the case, but this year I have had a group of students that struggle with seeing the world beyond themselves. I makes me wonder what old Holden would say to them if he heard some of the egocentric statements that come out of their mouths. I think he would appropriately deem them "a bunch of phoneys"--I shouldn't be so harsh, a few years from now they will have experienced some failures and will be much more well-rounded and we would most likely be about to have a conversation without me having to run an internal dialogue.

Part of me wishes that someone would write me a note similar to Holden's note to Mr. Spencer. Here is what it would say:

Dear Mrs. Butler, That is all I know about Ralph and Piggy. I can't seem to get into the deserted-island thing, although your thoughts on the book are facinating and you are strikingly beautiful. It is ok if you give me a B, as I have A's in all my other classes. Sincerely yours, 9th Grade Honors English Student.

An honors student would never think it was ok to fail, so I had to change that part to make it more realistic.

Mr.Caulfield, the doctor will see you...

Old Holden is making my heart break. Clearly he is crying out for help--doing all he can to get kicked out of multiple schools, running away, screaming for someone to just let him talk. Here is the sum of it, as I can recall: After his tangle with the pimp and prostitute and his breakfast with the two nuns, Holden decides to call Sally Hayes and see if she wants to see a show (a live show of course, since the movies depress the hell out of him). She agrees and they go--Holden knows that the actors are a bunch of phoneys, but for the most part he doesn't say anything for Sally's sake. The thing that is ridiculous to me about him taking old Sally out is that he doesn't even like her, we all know he is in love with Jane. Somehow, though, he is afraid to really talk to the people he cares the most about (like Jane and Phoebe). Anyway, after the show they go ice-skating and this is where the heartbreak comes in. Holden confesses that he is sick of school, sick of New York, sick of all the phoneys in the world. He asks Sally to run away with him to Vermont to live in the woods where he could chop his own firewood and all. Of course she goes nuts and tells him he is ridiculous and they end up parting ways unamicably.

This is when I started to see the signs--I must be dim or something. Like any teenager struggling with depression, Holden is doing everything he can to get someone to help him--I think he has called 30 people in one day! But because everyone is such a phoney, they don't get it. I just want to grab him and sit him down next to Hurley in that crazy mental institution. Then at least they would both have someone real to talk to who would listen to them for about the first time in forever.

I am on p. 149, have a nice day.

Looking for a good read?

Just in case you aren't enthrawled with my book choices, here is a list of the 10 best books I have read in the last year or so. They are not ranked, just listed as they come to me. I'm on the fly here.

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows by J.K. Rowling. OK, so maybe they are ranked a little. It has been a long seven years for Harry, and even longer for me waiting in agony for the release of the next installment. This is book seven, and the end of the road. I love Harry so much I would marry him if I could (sorry Rhett!)--as my former roomates and anyone else who really knows me will attest to. Once I sat in the car during Bumbershoot after paying the ridiculous ticket price and read HP and the Goblet of Fire. It was totally worth it. The last book will not disappoint you.

2. Life of Pi by Yann Martel. This book is facinating for anyone like me who aspires to have a great imagination. It is the story of an Indian boy whose zookeeper father decides to sell all the animals and move to Canada. The long and short of it are that the boy and the tiger end up on a life raft together and Pi has to figure out how to survive. It is a wonderful convergance of science and faith and you will fall in love with both boy and tiger. Don't skip the intro like I did, supposedly it is a true story...

3. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Wells. I am not an avid non-fiction reader, but this memoir made me want to become one. It is a shocking story of overcoming horrific obstacles. I was riveted and couldn't stop reading.

4. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. This book will woo any Dickens or Austen lovers. It is a very British tale of an old woman's mysterious past that unfolds as she tells the story. Trying to solve the mystery did indeed keep me up at night.

5. Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. This is one of the most interesting and captivating books about God that I have ever read. Writing in narrative form, Miller uses his life, his friends, and his crazy stories to explain why God makes sense to him. It is honest and real and not hokey or cheesy. That is why I like it.

6. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. This is actually a young adult novel that I heard about at a library conference I went to earlier this year. Sherman Alexie is an American Indian writer and poet who lives in Seattle. This story is set on the Spokane Indian reservation, so the setting was super familiar to me (being from E-WA and all). It is about the struggle to be someone or something when no one expects you to. It is also about the struggle to straddle two cultures, in this case, Indian and non-Indian. A very funny and touching story. And you could probably read it in a couple of hours, which is nice too.

7. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. I read this one a couple years ago, but it has stuck with me. It is about a librarian who involuntarily gets sucked through time at random moments and about the woman who loves and marries him. It is scary and exciting and sad. And they are making a movie out of it, of course. But read it first, it is quite good.

8. Great Expectations by Charlie Dickens. At first I wouldn't think that this book would make the list. I read it because a friend of mine was teaching it in her AP Lit. class and I felt left out because I had never read it. It is the story of Pip, an orphan being raised by his evil sister and his too-kind brother-in-law who ends up tangled up in the life of a convict. It is also a love story, sort of. Anyway, it was very deep and very literary and quite long, but I felt great about myself when I was done.

9. A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray. This is another YA book, but is really interesting from a feminist perpective. It is the story of Gemma Doyle, a teenage girl from colonial-India, is sent to a finishing school in London after her mother kills herself. There is an element of super-natural in this story due to the fact that Gemma and the school have an unusual connection to an alternative world.

10. To Kill a Mockingbird by Haper Lee. OK, this is kind of a cop-out since I have read this book about 20 times (due to my affiliation with sophomore English). But it is an American classic and a story about the struggle for people to be good. It starts off slow, but picks up speed around ch. 8. Plus, Atticus Finch is arguably one of the greatest American fictional characters (I say arguably because I know some of my English Dept. cronies would argue--that is what they do best!).

There you go. I hope that you are going on a vacation soon and can choose one of these to entertain you in your heightened state of relaxation. If not, I am sorry.

Catcher in the Raw

I am home today with my son who was too ill at the end of yesterday to go to daycare today, but whom seems to be ok now, other than a serious aversion to clothing. And a lot of whining and crying.

Which reminds me of a certain literary character we all know...yes, Mr. Caulfield enjoys a complaint here and there, that is for sure. He is very concerned about his own well-being, though he plays it off as if he is a very compassionate individual. I don't know, maybe he is compassionate. Maybe he is just a conflicted adolescent, like the rest of them. I have never met an adolescent who was not conflicted. It is very depressing. I am wondering what has happened to old Holden to make him so weary of people. I'm guessing maybe it had to do with his brother dying, like nobody told him Allie was sick until after he had died, or that the doctors had misdiagnosed him or something. Just a guess, I'm not finished with the book yet, you know.

"People are always ruining things for you." This is what I am talking about--either he is deeply scarred because of something, or he just needs to grow up and take responsibility for himself. If you haven't been paying attention, here's what has taken place so far: Holden has been kicked out of Pencey, another prep school. (I tried to count how many others he mentions having been kicked out of, but couldn't keep them all straight--let's just say a lot) He leaves school and goes to New York to kill some time before his parents find out about his expulsion. When he arrives in the city, he meets a host of facinating and shady characters such as three very touristy women from Seattle--two ugly and one decent looking blond who is some dancer (not great PR for the NW, except for the dancing part); a pimp/prositute combo called Maurice and Sunny who end up beating him up and stealing his money; and a couple of traveling nuns with cheap suitcases. One of the nuns is an English teacher who loves Romeo and Juliet, which is, ironically, a classic tale of lust and deceit.

So far it seems like the more people he meets, the lonlier he gets. It's like nobody really cares about old Holden. He keeps talking about his kid sister Pheobe like she is the only one who truly gets him. I hope she is real.

Holden Caulfield is feeling kind of blue

Holden has gone and gotten himself kicked out of yet another all pretentious, all white, all upper class, all male boarding school. It is going to kill his mother.

I didn't know anything about old J.D. Salinger going into this, so I took it upon myself to do some research. The following information has been gathered using Wikipedia (the free encyclopedia!). One facinating bit of fact is that his father, Sol Salinger, was a Jewish man who sold kosher cheese. No kidding. That is just about the most depressing thing I have heard in about 14 years. Apparently his mother was not Jewish and this came as a big surprise to him shortly after his bar mitzvah; he went to prepretory and military schools himself as a teen; he dated the daughter of American playwright and Pulitzer Prize winner Eugene O'neill; and eventually became a follower of Zen Buddhism. Oh wait, this next part is interesting, I will quote it as not to take away from the nice wording: a 1979 study on cesorship stated the The Catcher in the Rye "had the dubious distinction of being at once the most frequently censored book across the nation and the second-most frequently taught novel in public high schools" (after Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men). So basically that means that simultaneously nobody and everybody wanted their adolescents to read it. Brilliant.

I will admit that that Holden sure has a mouth on him. I pretty much thought he was an arrogant jerk until page 39 when I found out that his brother died of lukemia and I could tell that that has been really hard for him and maybe he has never gotten over it. I love that Allie wrote poems in green ink all over his left-handed fielder's mitt so that he would have something to read when he was in the field and nobody was up to bat. Holden loves this too, and that is endearing to me. I am also a sucker for a guy who fights for the honor of a lady--as good old Holden tried to do for Jane. Obviously he didn't really accomplish anything since Stradlater pretty much broke his nose and all, but it is a beautiful sentiment.

Well, I have read up to page 109, but am realizing that I can't really expect you to read all of my thoughts so far in one posting--I just hate it when somebody goes on and on and doesn't include any pictures. So I will end with this: nobody wants to feel lonesome, it is just about the most depressing thing ever. So find someone you think might be feeling lonely and figure out a way to make them not feel that way, even if it is just for a minute.

P.S. If you have been reading along, you will know that I am trying to imitate Holden by inserting certain phrases and exaggerative statements. Bonus points if you picked up on it! Or shame on me if it just sounds silly.

Woman in the 21st Century

Margaret Fuller wrote that "If men look straitly to it, they will find that, unless their lives are domestic, those of the women will not be." (Woman in the Nineteenth Century, 1845) In pre-Civil War America, women were thought to possess no traits useful to society outside those of the domestic nature. In 2008, prevailing thought does not follow these stringent lines, however, there have been times when I have felt that I wasn't living up to my duty as a wife or a mother, that I was somehow inferior to women who choose to stay at home with their children. I certainly don't want to criticize that decision, it is a hard job, staying at home. On a good day, I feel much better equipped to defuse teenage angst and obligitorily read horrible (horrible!) poems and short stories that students hand me.

Finding a balance is the challenge--don't be a workaholic, make dinner for your family (at least a couple times a week), drive race cars around the house with your son, grade (horrible!) essays on Macbeth, read something intelligent, watch TV with your hubbie--but the challenge is what makes it interesting, I suppose.

This summer, my plan is to work through a list of novels that I have long claimed to have read. No kidding. I have had actual conversations with professional people in which I have pretended to have read Crime and Punishment. I'm pretty good at pretending, but I'm not sure I have fooled anyone there. First up: Catcher in the Rye. Start with the short ones, that's my plan. So if you want, read along. Make comments on the books, challenge my thinking. But if you don't want to read, be prepared to have the endings spoiled--hey maybe then you can pretend to have read them! It may work out for everyone involved.

"A house is no home unless it contain food and fire for the mind as well as for the body."
Margaret Fuller, 1845

I love TV and reading

I wouldn't say that I'm addicted to TV, there is definitely some grade-A crap that makes it into prime-time, but in an effort to paint a realistic portrait of myself, I have to admit that I do love it. This, of course, is being written on the cusp of the season finale of one of Hollywood's most ingenious creations--all that is Lost (they moved the island! Locke is dead in the future! they have to go back!). I am less in love with TV during the summer and writer's strikes. Plus we recently down-graded our TV package to basic cable. No more TLC or TBS, so I won't be spending entire afternoons watching What Not to Wear and Sex in the City reruns.

This first confession is imperative because the purpose of this blog is to explore works of "literature" and to uncover little nuggets of wisdom that inspire my 21st Century-working mother-I live on an island but don't like the word "rural" existence. I read a lot. People are always asking me how I have time to read. Are you ready? I am about to unveil the true answer to that question, and it is a doozy. Ok, here you go: My life is really quite boring. No, that sounds bad--like I resent my boring life. I don't--I love it. It gives me time to read.