Category Archives: Literature

Stafford, The Way It Is

Posted on by

This is the first book I have finished for My Two-Thirds Book Challenge.

Sara picked this book up at the lovely Defunct Books in Iowa City. It is a nice used book store that sits atop The Red Avocado vegan restaurant. Two great places in such proximity!

At 268 pages, there are a lot of poems in this book, which cover a 36-year publication history (1960-1996). It even includes the poem he wrote on the day he died.

I quite enjoyed this book, copied out several poems and a handful or two of great lines to use as prompts, read several to Sara, and generally pondered what Mr. William Stafford was like as a human being.

The one possible drawback to these poems is that there are simply too many of them to digest at once. The reader can discern one or more minor shifts in Stafford’s work across time* which makes it a bit more difficult to get a grasp on him at any specific time. But honestly, this is a very small thing as his shifts are never very large and have more to do with his moving across parts of the country and with the normal shifts in theme and voice that a poet encounters as they age.

These poems accompany one as well as would a wise, world-observant, loquacious, and avuncular (but frequently solitary) companion who knows how to give one all the space and time one needs to grow just as wise and world-observant. He never gets in your way, never obstructs your view, doesn’t tell you what to think or even what to observe. The Way It Is is not a prescription but a description, and it winds its way through the whole volume and not simply the single short poem that bears that title. In fact, lines and phrases quite similar to “the way it is” are peppered throughout the poems of this volume.

Love, the land, family, community, death, aging, historical events, nature, academia, and writing are only some of the many topics of these hundreds of poems.

In many ways I wish that I had taken a bit more time with these poems, that I had let them sink in more. Although, I am envisioning rereading them in the not-so-distant future as a one-poem-a-day meditation over the course of a year plus (there are approx. 400 poems). My version of a bible chapter a day, if you will.

*My biggest gripe with this book is its arrangement. The approximately 400 poems were selected from “some three thousand poems published by William Stafford in either journals or in the sixty-seven volumes from West of Your City (1960) to Even in Quiet Places (1996), and from the poet’s Daily Writings, with special attention to those of the last year of his life” (253). Great so far, but then:

“The volume is organized as follows: recent poems in the first section; a second section selected from the six volumes collected by HarperCollins in Stories That Could Be True (1977); a third section of poems published by other publishers, mostly in limited editions; and a fourth section selected from the poet’s last three HarperCollins volumes, A Glass Face in the Rain, An Oregon Message, and Passwords” (253).

Who does that kind of crap? Oh, yes. Poetry editors. Idiots! To show you the order in which I read these poems, as chronological as possible, here is the listing we constructed to do so:

p. 60 1960
p. 77 1962
p. 103 1966
p. 120 1970
p. 131 1973
p. 49 1977
p. 187 1982
p. 149 1983
p. 208 1987
p. 231 1991
p. 155 1992
p. 177 1980-1993
p. 3 1992
p. 24 1993
p. 166 1996

Simply astonishing!

All arrangement issues aside, I truly enjoyed this book and look forward to revisiting it and more of William Stafford’s work.

William Stafford at The Poetry Foundation

I will leave you with an excerpt from “An Afternoon in the Stacks”

…
…. When this book ends
I will pull it inside-out like a sock
and throw it back in the library. But the rumor
of it will haunt all that follows in my life.
….

The Way It Is (235)

Two-Thirds Book Challenge Update 1

Posted on by

[Minor edit: 24 November 2011 to add links to Helen's posts at her blog.]

Over two months ago, I dreamed up a reading challenge, My Two-Thirds Book Challenge, after finishing another over the previous year. The new one began on October 1st.

So far, four people have joined me: 3 friends, E, Helen, and Jen, and my wife. This post will serve as the pointer to everyone’s lists and as the first reading update.

E – 2/3 Reading Challenge

E has listed 10 titles and has given herself 5 wild cards. Thus, she hopes to read 10 books. She got off to a quick start having finished one book and posting a review within the first month.

2/3 Book Challenge: Netherland

Netherland by Joseph O’Neill

This is a book that E could neither put down, nor can stop thinking about. With 9/11 serving as a background, it is, she says, both a story of the American Dream, and one of “finding connection, finding home.” She writes:

One respondent to The New Yorker’s 9/11 project wrote that Netherland “seems to capture with great poignancy that powerful sense that a certain kind of world has slipped away.” This summarizes the book better than I possibly can. It’s wonderful and wonderfully written, full of sadness and loss and exploration.

Helen’s goodreads shelf

Helen is the most ambitious of us, at least publicly ambitious, with 75 titles on her list.

She appears to have finished one book so far.

The Believer’s Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies: How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths by Michael Shermer

I think she is going to post her reviews on her blog, Highway to Helen, but for now I am linking to her review at goodreads. [My Two-Thirds Book Challenge - Intro and My Two-Thirds Book Challenge - Book 1 added: 24 November 2011]

Helen gave it 3 of 5 stars and writes that: “I loved the first half, which explained in layman’s details how the human brain seeks patterns and forms beliefs in all kinds of things.” But, sadly, the second half focused “entirely on theories relating to cosmology and origins of the universe,” which seems to have left the subtitle a little overambitious and the text itself a little narrower than advertised.

Jen – 2/3 book challenge

I am unsure exactly how many books are on Jen’s list (13, I think), but that is perfectly OK as I told her that I am keeping this low-key. Nor is this a contest in any way, but simply a challenge to personally motivate the individual reader.

Jen has read two books so far and has short reviews at her post with her list.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak:

While slow at first, I ended up adoring this book. Set in Nazi Germany and narrated by Death, the book centers around a young girl and the family that has taken her in. At times funny and, of course, quite sad, it’s a wonderful ride and an interesting perspective.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery:

I bought this book while in Seattle based on a reader review that was posted with it. The book lived up to the review and I devoured it on my flights home. Like the reviewer, I found myself getting unashamedly teary-eyed while on a flight surrounded by strangers. A secretly intelligent concierge and a young suicidal girl who lives in the building both have life-changing experiences when a new tenant from Japan arrives. A lame review, but I’m worried about giving up too much. I finished this book a couple of weeks ago and the characters still come to mind and I wonder how they’re doing.

Sara – Two-Thirds Book Challenge

Sara’s list is even squishier than Jen’s. She is pursuing themes instead of specific titles as she has learned that if she doesn’t get around to reading a book she put on a list within 6 weeks or so then it will not get read. Her themes are: Creativity, Language, Writing, Erudition, Tech, and Fiction; and, she has links to her shelves at goodreads with possibilities within each theme at her post.

Mark (me) – My Two-Thirds Book Challenge

I have 30 titles on my challenge shelf at goodreads. I will, of course, read many more than 30 books over the next year. Since the challenge began I have read and finished 9 books and have begun 5 books which I am still reading. Three of those in process books are from my challenge list: Nabokov’s Pale Fire, Stafford’s The Way It Is, and Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces. None of the finished books, though, are from my list.

My books are also divided into themes but, in my case, that division is a post hoc grouping after the titles were selected.

Pale Fire – Sara suggested I read the poem first and then go back and reread the poem along with its commentary. I have read the poem all the way through, and did so within the first few days of the challenge beginning, but now need to go back and reread/read the book in its entirety.

Hero with a Thousand Faces – I am a little over halfway through with this. It is somewhat slow going as I can only stomach so much of the psychoanalytic mumbo jumbo. Also, Campbell’s writing in some sections is crystal clear and in others it is as murky as can be. The murkier sections tend to dampen my enthusiasm for reading it. I wanted to read it during the fall semester, though, as it ties in well with my Classical Lit and Mythology class that I’m taking. The class is, well, myth and our text book authors also stress the psychoanalytic interpretations.

The Way It Is – I am at least 7/8 or so done with this. It is hard to say as it is one of those poetry collections that some editor decides is best in whatever whacky arrangement they’ve dreamed up instead of simply in the order in which were poems were published. As I chose to read them in chronological order, I have to jump around the book a lot, by and within sections, and that makes it difficult to know exactly how far I am.

Future Updates

I hope to get a bit more regular and have monthly updates. With any luck they will be posted within the first 10 days of each month. I know that E has a few things read to post reviews of, and I will certainly finish Stafford very soon and post a review.

If anyone still wants to join us make a list somewhere, in some form, that contains a smattering of things which you think you can finish 2/3rds (or more) of between October 1st 2011 and September 30th 2012 and post your reviews somewhere. Of course, let me know where this happens so I can add to you to our monthly updates.

Good reading to you all!

Further adventures in education at BCU

Posted on by

Registration time is soon upon us at BCU. This time it will be for J-Term (January 3-20) and Spring semester. I am open to any feedback you might have but here is what I am considering for both. Descriptions, where provided, are from my discussion with the profs—trying to take notes while also being courteous and having a discussion; thus, minimal and gappy.

J-Term

Grimm’s Fairy Tales with Dr. Jeanne Emmons. I am taking this. It will be conducted much like the 1st class I took with Jeanne, Madwomen Poets. All but 2 of my classes so far have been with Jeanne. I am really excited to read and discuss Grimm’s.

Briar Cliff Review with Dr. Tricia Currans-Sheehan. Putting the magazine together. Along with a partner would get 3 or so stories to shepherd through fully to print (proofing, author contact if necessary, writing author bio, etc).

I could take this for a credit but Why? I am in this class right now helping with the editorial selection of the fiction (primarily), nonfiction and poetry, so I will sit in and help with shepherding next year’s issue through to the final stages.

Both of these classes are 5 days a week for those 2 weeks.

Spring Semester

Studies in British Literature with Dr. Adam Frisch. (Meets 1/25-2/24 only) Is actually history of theory/criticism. Who knows why the Registrar lists it as such? Plato/Aristotle > Roman > Renaissance > Enlightenment > 19th c > Tolstoy > assorted 20th c. theories. About half of course pre-20th c. and half on the 20th c. Assignments/Grade: Class discussion & Final.

I am probably going to audit this as I have been interested in theories of lit crit for a while now. Just what is it that makes something “good” and how has that changed across time? It will be a whirlwind tour (4 weeks) but that’s OK as I assume I will be pointed at things I want to explore in more depth, and those that I don’t will be gone before I know it.

Studies in Contemporary Literature with Dr. Jeanne Emmons. Meets 1/24-4/10 only. Seminar-style. Literature from the last 3 years, primarily from lit mags, selected by students. Assignments/Grade: Class discussion & write responses as to which is best & why/evaluation.

This sounds interesting; although, primarily because I am already making these sorts of judgements with the reviewing process for the Briar Cliff Review. I am really not all that interested in contemporary lit and I have had several courses with Jeanne already. I do really like her as a prof but I need to experience some of our other profs, too. And, honestly, I wonder about the readiness of my fellow students for a seminar, which is my favorite kind of course. If I took it I would audit it.

Intro to Literature with Dr. Matthew Pangborn. Vocabulary of literary criticism. Exposure to a bit from each genre. Use of quotations in English/Writing papers (rhetorically, & mechanics of). There was more but I was trying to converse and not focus on note taking so much as it is the stuff that makes up an Intro to Lit course. Did not ask what the grade will consist of.

I would like to take this as I have not had any of this. Certainly I am aware—well aware in some cases—of many of the concepts that constitute the fundamentals of literature from almost 50 years of reading and over 25 years spent in higher ed. but I still feel that a better, more formal, grounding in them would serve me well. If I take this I will audit it.

Enlightenment Literature with Dr. Matthew Pangborn. British & American lit. Satires (Swift/Pope) > Franklin > poetry > novels > Crusoe (sections) > Walpole (Castle of Otranto) > Comedy. Enlightenment values; their influence on the US founders. Did not ask what the grade will consist of; assuming paper, midterm and final probably.

It is pretty much a given at this point that I am taking this class for credit. Things could change but I don’t expect them to. Some of what Matthew mentioned I have already read (and love) and most of the rest I have wanted to read. I am also highly interested in the Enlightenment. Matthew is new to BCU but I have heard only great things so far.

British Romanticism with Dr. Adam Frisch. ~1800 until just pre-Victorian era. Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, Byron, Blake, The Blue Stockings, Frankenstein, some prose & poetry. Shift from collective to individual. Assignments/Grade: Paper, Midterm, Final.

I would love to audit this class with Adam but, for now, think I would be better served by taking his lit crit/theory course. Plus, that would be over in four weeks and I’d be able to concentrate on Enlightenment Lit since I’ll be taking it for a grade.

Intro to Theatre with Dr. Jenna Soleo-Shanks. I didn’t take any notes in my discussion with Jenna but I have a feel. She also showed me textbook. If I took this it would also be an audit. I have been to a fair few plays by now but I really have no idea how it all “works,” or of theater’s history, criticism, etc.

Overview

As a friend pointed out, I can probably live without the Intro courses. I agree but also feel that my appreciation for these art forms would deepen by formally broadening my education and, thus, knowledge of them. While it is the sort of knowledge one can easily pick up from assorted sources, I know that sitting in a class is, in many ways, best for my lazy self if I truly want to get around to it.

As it stands, I am fairly certain that I will take Enlightenment Lit for credit and will audit the Lit Crit/Theory class.

Thoughts? Concerns? Recommendations? Registration opens next week.

12 Books, 12 Months Challenge Follow Up

Posted on by

A year ago a friend of mine suggested a new kind of ‘book club.’ See my post here for the background. Many of us joined her, and her write-ups of, and links to, everyone’s reading can be found at her blog here.

My reviews and my initial post can all be found here.

Here’s my list (minus my selection commentary):

  • Ronald Gross, Peak Learning
  • Catherine C. Marshall, Reading and Writing the Electronic Book
  • Carol Collier Kuhlthau, Seeking Meaning: A Process Approach to Library and Information Services
  • Stephen Batchelor, Buddhism without Beliefs: A Contemporary Guide to Awakening
  • Michel Meyer, Of Problematology: Philosophy, Science, and Language
  • George Lakoff and Mark Turner, More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor Metaphor and Poetry
  • Anthony Grafton, The Footnote: A Curious History
  • John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid, The Social Life of Information
  • Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse
  • Jorge Luis Borges, Seven Nights
  • Jorge Luis Borges, Collected Fictions
  • George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss
  • S. R. Ranganathan, Classification and Communication

Being me, I selected a baker’s dozen instead of twelve. I managed to read 10 of my selected 13 books. I began another but got interrupted by the start of my spring semester and have never gotten back to it (Of Problematology).  One could, in essence, say I began another (Borges’ Collected Fictions) as I read Borges’ A Universal History of Iniquity, which ends up being the 1st section of the Collected Fictions. Ranganathan never got started.

By the most direct reckoning one could say that I failed as I did not finish my 13 (nor even 12) books. But I do NOT consider it a failure; mostly due to giving myself this leeway in my original post:

Thus, I am going to reserve the right to substitute any book for one on this list.  As I see it I will probably read more than 12 books in the next year anyway so maybe they’ll only be additions. One can hope.

In fact, I consider it a rip-roaring success! Over the last year, I was able to read 10 books identified in advance—some of which have been on my To Be Read list for several years. I would definitely participate in a similar book club again.

As to the out I gave myself above regarding “probably read[ing] more than 12 books in the next year” that was easily accomplished. From 1 September 2010 when the challenge started to the end of the calendar year I finished 33 books (7 were Challenge books) and began 1 which is not yet finished. So far in 2011 (with the Challenge ending tomorrow, 5 Sep) I have finished 75 books (3 were Challenge books), began 2 (1 Challenge), gave up on 2, reread 2, and am currently actively reading 4.

Thus, since the Challenge started I have finished 108 books, 10 of which were Challenge books. I don’t think anyone can complain about the amount of my reading. I certainly am not going to.

My reviews can all be found here.

Many other reviews can be found by browsing the Books category on my blog. Reviews of the following books read during the Challenge period appear on my blog:

  • Abbas, Structures for Organizing Knowledge
  • Martignette and Meisel, The Great American Pin-Up
  • Bauer, jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams At Home
  • Peterson, Understanding Exposure 3rd ed.
  • Jacobs, The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction
  • Sontag, On Photography
  • Armstrong, Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life
  • Nardi and O’Day, Information Ecologies
  • Maines, The Technology of Orgasm
  • Plath, Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams
  • Armstrong, A Short History of Myth
  • Jewel, A Night Without Armor: Poems
  • Hey, How It Seems to Me

Of course, all of my Challenge book reviews can be found via that Books category link, as can older reviews and other posts related to books.

More, usually shorter, reviews of even more books can be found at my goodreads account. I do not post them all on my blog.

I am posting this ~30 hours before the end of the Challenge as there is no way I can finish Meyer’s Of Problematology, nor can I read Borges or Ranganathan before then. I won’t even consider trying to do so. I am reading other things currently, much of which is homework and must take precedence. All 3 of those are still on my TBR ‘shelf’ and I hope to get to them in some version of soon, as I hope to get to many others.

 

Eliot. The Mill on the Floss

Posted on by

Due to my Victorian Lit class and sitting in on Modern Poetry this term my 12 Books 12 Months Challenge reading slipped a little. But then I remembered that The Mill on the Floss which I read for Victorian is on my 12B12M list.

What to say? I adore Eliot. She is an amazing observer of the human condition, whether individual or group. She is one of the earliest (and best) psychologists and the same can be said of her as a sociologist.

I have not yet read all of her novels but I have read Middlemarch and Silas Marner, along with some of her short stories, like Brother Jacob and The Lifted Veil. I look forward to reading the rest based on my own experience and my Victorian Lit prof also says the ones I have yet to read are all exceptional novels.

I must say upfront that, if read solely as a story, the ending leaves much to be desired. Nonetheless, the ending is fitting in a symbolic sense, although perhaps not on a human level. I am still working out exactly why that is and may need to address it in my final this week. All I’ll say for now is that, in the context of the novel as a whole, it works.

Be aware, this is a tragedy. It may not be epic, nor a study of grand personages, but as a tragedy of the everyday it is superb. [Eliot does comment on this but it is mostly indirect and occurs across several pages so no excerpts.]

Despite it’s being a tragedy, it can be quite humorous, particularly in that dry British way:

“Mr Pullet was a small man with a high nose, small twinkling eyes, and thin lips, in a fresh-looking suit of black and a white cravat, that seemed to have been tied very tight on some higher principle than that of mere personal ease” (56).

“A boy’s sheepishness is by no means a sign of overmastering reverence; and while you are making encouraging advances to him under the idea that he is overwhelmed by a sense of your age and wisdom, ten to one he is thinking you extremely queer” (91).

The whole of Book Fifth: Wheat and Tares,  ch. II, Aunt Glegg Learns the Breadth of Tom’s Thumb (308-25) is pretty funny.

And my favorite bit of humor in the novel, which had me cracking up:

“You don’t call Mumps a cur, I suppose?” said Maggie, divining that any interest she showed in Mumps would be gratifying to his master.

“No, Miss, a fine way off that,” said Bob, with a pitying smile; “Mumps is as fine a cross as you’ll see anywhere along the Floss, an I’n been up it wi’ the barge times enow. Why, the gentry stops to look at him; but you won’t catch Mumps a-looking at the gentry much — he minds his own business, he does.”

The expression of Mump’s face, which seemed to be tolerating the superfluous existence of objects in general, was strongly confirmatory of this high praise (284).

Some of the themes we discussed in class and will perhaps see on the final Wednesday:

  • Contrast the Tulliver and Dodson mentalities, and how played out in Tom and Maggie.
  • Compare the education of Tom and Maggie.
  • Relevance of the town of St. Ogg’s as a character; the legend.
  • Eliot’s reflections on childhood.
  • Tragedy: In what sense is Tulliver a tragic figure? Can this family be tragic? How do Tom and Maggie differ in their reactions to the tragedy? Mrs. Tulliver and her family’s reactions?
  • Hellenism versus Hebraism (ala Matthew Arnold We read a small bit from Culture and Anarchy, in particular a portion of ch. 1 “Sweetness and Light” and of ch. 5 “Porro Unum Est Necessarium” [But One Thing is Needful])
  • Ethics/morality: Intentionalism, Consequentialism, principle, self-interest, Categorical Imperative, natural law, social code.
  • We also discussed relationships: Tom & Maggie; Tom & Philip Wakem; Maggie & Philip; Maggie & Stephen; and so on.
  • Duplicitousness.
  • Sexual sublimation.

I quite enjoyed The Mill on the Floss and I hope to reread it again someday soon at a more leisurely pace and focusing primarily on the story and on Eliot’s artistry.

My Spring and Summer 2011 Classes

Posted on by

After consultation with the professors and a few others (primarily the wife), I have decided which classes I will be taking or sitting in on at Briar Cliff this coming Spring and Summer terms.

Spring

Spring Term (March 5 – May 17) I will be taking one course for a grade, Victorian Lit, and sitting in on one for the fun of it, Modern Poetry. Both will be with Prof. Jeanne Emmons, who I previously took Madwomen Poets with last Fall.

ENGL 365 Victorian Literature 3 sem. hrs.
Prose, fiction and poetry including Charles Dickens, Alfred Tennyson, Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Gerard Manley Hopkins and others. Works are examined both as literature and as expressions of the intellectual and social concerns of the nineteenth century in England.

The novels we will be reading are:

Thanks to Kirsten I was able to pick them all up for barely over $26 in an amazon.com 4-for-3 sale. The prof uses Oxford World Classics paperbacks, although she said I was free to use whichever editions I liked. But as I greatly dislike issues with struggling to find a passage even when using the same edition as others, and I only owned The Mill on the Floss (2 diff. editions), I decided to pick up new copies of the Oxford’s in the 4-for-3 sale.

We will also be reading poetry, short fiction, and some nonfiction prose. There will be reading quizzes, a midterm and a final, and a research paper.

This class will be a lot of work but I am really looking forward to it. I have read some Dickens but not Hard Times and I adore Eliot. In fact, The Mill on the Floss is one my 12 Books, 12 Months Challenge that I am currently participating in.

I am also looking forward to sitting in on Modern Poetry with Jeanne. There’s no way I would, at this point in my life, try to take two classes for credit from Dr. Emmons at the same time. I have the utmost respect for her as a professor and part of that is due to the workload not being a cake walk by any means. Also, this course is restricted to Honors students and English majors so sitting in also precludes hurdle jumping to get an override or any potential heartache at being denied the override.

ENGL 211 Modern Poetry 3 sem. hrs.
Major poets and poems of the high modernist era through the twentieth century are examined to gain appreciation of their formal and thematic concerns. Poets include Frost, W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, Langston Hughes, Elizabeth Bishop,  Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, Gwendolyn Brooks, and others.

I will get to read the poems and discuss them in class with no worries about keeping up with the workload.

Summer

I have been looking for a good way to be “forced” into a structured program of learning for my Nikon DX40 camera. There are certainly tons of free ways to do so but I also know me and that I generally don’t work well on my own with such things.

Western Iowa Technical Community College has a course but it seemed far too basic. I already know, or once did anyway, a fair bit about photographic concepts from my years of shooting 35mm film on my Canon AE-1. But while many of these concepts directly translate into the world of digital photography, some of them experience some shift.

The course I am taking this summer at BCU uses Nikon DX70s but the professor said I was welcome to use my DX40 and that many of the controls will be the same. Thus, neither he nor I will be forced to do a lot of translating of how to do something on my model versus the ones the other students will be using.

I am really looking forward to this course, also.

May 31 – July 1

MCOM 216 Basic Photography – Digital 3 sem. hrs.
Introduction to digital photography. Material covered includes operation of 35mm professional digital camera including aperture, shutter and depth of field in manual control. Camera handling and care, lighting, composition, visual communication and photographic history. Extensive digital darkroom (IMC) work using Photoshop software application is required.

So, I am really excited for the coming terms. Sara had been planning on getting free ebook versions of the Victorian novels to read along with me because we love discussing the books we read with each other. Then someone else went and reminded her that these would all be pretty bleak, full of desperate people and times, and she changed her mind.

Two 3-hour courses in Spring means I will be spending a lot of time on campus. At least it will be easy to get my full 5 hours of contract cataloging work in. And, I’ll get to eat lunch with my sweetie 3 days a week. I am just hoping that I can find some place that I can acclimate to enough to do some of my coursework while there.

Plath. Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams

Posted on by

Short review: A few decent stories and essays, but really only for the Plath aficionado or completist.

I became interested in this book of stories, essays and excerpts from Plath’s notebooks, due to the several references I came across to the title story while looking into Plath’s background as an aid in understanding her poetry for my Madwomen Poets class last fall.

I got a copy via ILL but it was in such bad shape that the book was received rubber banded together.  Also, the pages were highly yellowed and brittle and my allergies were not excited about even attempting reading the primary story for which I ordered it.  Noticing it was quite affordable brand new from amazon I added it to my wish list and my son got it for me for Christmas.  I read it in December 2010.

My first issue with this collection comes from its ordering.  In the Introduction, Ted Hughes (her husband) writes “All items have approximate dates of composition and are roughly in reverse chronological order, insofar as that is possible” (7) [see the table of contents below].  No justification or reasoning is presented for this decision at all.  What is it with this kind of arrangement?  We have several works of collected poems by assorted single authors that are organized like this.  It seems to me that if one wants to watch the development of an author as a writer then reverse chronological order is assbackwards.  This upset me, so I resolved to read this collection in reverse order.

Thus I began with “P.S. Insights, Interviews & More …” which contains a very short biography of Plath, “Poet’s Prose” an essay by Margaret Atwood, and some marketing materials for Plath’s other works.

Atwood ends her essay with the following:

“The stories are arranged chronologically but in reverse order. This creates an archeological effect: the reader is made to dig backward in time, downward into remarkable mind, so that the last, earliest story, “Among the Bumble-bees” (a wistful story about a little girl’s worship of her father who dies mysteriously), emerges like the final gold-crowned skeleton at the bottom of the tomb—the king all those others were killed to protect. Which it is” ([11]).

While I found Atwood’s explanation overly artsy, I did decide to accept it as an explanation and read the book normally.

A perhaps larger issue is that many of these had been rejected by Plath herself (7).  Another is that, while “her reputation rests on the poems of her last six months,” most of the contents of this collection predates the poems of The Colossus which was completed 3 years before her death (9).  The only parts contemporary with Ariel are “three brief journalistic pieces, “America! America!” “Snow Blitz,” and “Ocean 1212-W”" (9).

Some of these stories serve as the material for several of the Ariel poems.  “The Bee Meeting,” “Berck Plage,” “Among the Narcissi,” and “The Moon and the Yew Tree” are all presaged or mentioned.

Seeing as I don’t have a lot to say about most of these, I think I’ll just add my comments behind each entry in the TOC and maybe a few slightly longer excerpts at the end.

Table of Contents

  • Introduction by Ted Hughes
  • Mothers (Story, 1962) – highly autobiographical.
  • Ocean 1212-W (Essay, 1962) – her grandmother’s phone number, autobiographical.
  • Snow blitz (Essay, 1963) – Jeebus! The last few months of her life; some of her last written words. The ending is terrifyingly ironic considering how she killed herself.
  • The Smiths: George, Marjorie (50), Claire (16) (From Notebooks, Spring 1962)
  • America! America! (Essay, 1963)
  • Charlie Pollard and the beekeepers (From Notebooks, June 1962) – Bees are one of Sylvia’s major thematic images.
  • A comparison (Essay, 1962) – compares novels to poems; mentions the yew tree of “The Moon and the Yew Tree.”
  • “Context” (Essay, 1962) – about the context for her poems. Mentions the yew tree again, and other poems by image.
  • Rose and Percy B. (From Notebooks, 1961/62)
  • Day of success (Story, 1960)
  • The fifteen-dollar eagle (Story, November 1959)
  • The fifty-ninth bear (Story, September 1959)
  • The daughters of Blossom Street (Story, 1959)
  • Sweetie pie and the gutter men (Story, May 1959)
  • The shadow (Story, January 1959)
  • Johnny Panic and the Bible of dreams (Story, December 1958) – the poetic element of dreams; electroshock.
  • Above the oxbow (Story, 1958)
  • Stone boy with dolphin (Story, 1957/58) – the Cambridge party where Sylvia meets and bites Ted; brushing snow from the stone boy; “And asteroids innumerable, a buzz of gilded bees” (189) [drunk].
  • All the dead dears (Story, 1957/58)
  • The wishing box (Story, 1956)
  • The day Mr. Prescott died (Story, 1956)
  • Widow Mangada (From Notebooks, Summer 1956)
  • That widow Mangada (Story, Autumn 1956) – this was a bit redundant after reading the previous notebook entries on which it is based, although I preferred the ending in the story.
  • Cambridge notes (From Notebooks, February 1956) – “With masks down, I walk, talking to the moon, to the neutral impersonal force that does not hear, but merely accepts my being” (261). The moon is a major image, especially in her later poetry. The moon is declared neutral here, and the surrounding writing supports that view, but her view will shift more to the negative in her later poetry.
  • Tongues of stone (Story, 1955)
  • Superman and Paula Brown’s new snowsuit (Story, 1955)
  • In the mountains (Story, 1954)
  • Initiation (Story, July 1952)
  • Sunday at the Mintons’ (Story, Spring 1952)
  • Among the bumblebees (Story, Early 1950s)
  • P.S. Insights, Interviews & More …

Taken out of context, I love the quote about the moon from “Cambridge notes.” “With masks down,” defenseless, naked, exposed, one is implacably accepted, but not judged, by an all-seeing, but non-hearing, moon that “merely accepts my being.”

Several of these pieces were quite good and a few of the stories have twisted, yet delightful (good and bad) endings. How well any of them stand up outside of the context of Sylvia’s internally tortured life, though, is hard to say.

Jewel. a night without armor, poems

Posted on by
A Night Without Armor
Jewel; Harper Paperbacks 1999

This was a reread.  I am not sure when I first read it but I discovered that I bought it 10 years ago this month.  I do know that it has been several years.  It is also possible that this was the first full book of poetry that I ever read; certainly was one of the earliest.  Go ahead.  Laugh (or sneer) if you must.  But it is better to begin with some poetry than never beginning at all.

I liked Jewel’s music quite a bit back then.  I still enjoy her early CDs even if I don’t listen to them very frequently.  Her lyrics were often quite profound and I cited her in at least one philosophy paper [Who Will Save Your Soul in relation to Socrates on the life of the philosopher as practicing for death] .

Despite having no idea what to expect from poetry back then, I do remember enjoying it.  I also enjoyed it this time.

Many of her themes are timeless, just as they are relevant to today’s society.  In her poetry she displays a keen appreciation of nature, a prescient awareness of the difference between an authentic life and celebrity, concern with deep issues faced by children (divorce, siblings, …) and especially by girls and young women (self-image, awakening sexuality, …), along with a healthy and sensual insight into love, sex and desire.

The book was first published in 1998, the same year her 2nd album was released; she was all of 25 years old.  In the preface we learn that she has been writing poetry from an early age and that “poetry drives [her] songwriting today” (xv).  She also writes that:

“For me poetry allowed word to be given to the things that otherwise had no voice, and I discovered the strength and soul of poetry—through it we come to know; we are led to feel, sense, and to expand our understanding beyond words” (xv).

“… not all poetry lends itself to music—some thoughts need to be sung only against the silence. There are softer and less tangible parts of ourselves that are so essential to openheartedness, to peace, to unfolding the vision and the spiritual realm of our lives, to exposing our souls. Poetry is a passage into those parts of our being where we discover and decide who and what we will be. It makes us intimate with ourselves and others and with the human experience” (xvi).

I’d say that her poetry represents those views quite well.  Do yourself a favor and don’t write if off out of hand.

Books Read in 2010

Posted on by

This list of books that I finished this year is based on the date I started reading each book. Though they were generally finished in something close to this order, some books took much longer than others. I finished a total of 102 books in 2010. Five of these were re-reads.

I read 85 print books and 17 ebooks (epub) this year. I gave up on 3 print books and 2 ebooks (epub), although one of the print books was really just interrupted. I placed it on my 12 Books, 12 Months Challenge list [see below] and I will begin that one again. I am also working my way through a pdf book, Digging into WordPress v3 which is not included on this list.

My ebook reading is off due mostly to changes in travel and other lifestyle-related issues. I have not become averse to ebooks in any way, they simply do not fit my current lifestyle as much as they once did. All of the ebooks I read this year were epub formatted free books from feedbooks.com (except for the one pdf book).

Of the two ebooks I did not finish, one was Lady Chatterley’s Lover which I discovered about halfway into it that it was an expurgated version. Sara who was also reading it as an ebook found an unexpurgated print copy and started over. Although I was somewhat enjoying the story, I did not find it that compelling so said the heck with it. The other was Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women. While this is an important work, she just droned on and on. There are far better examples of effective literature in this genre, even if few this early.

In August a friend of mine introduced the 12 Books, 12 Months Challenge to begin in September. Here is my post accepting the challenge. Is it really any wonder that mine is a baker’s dozen? Here is my list at goodreads, at Open Library, and the 12 Books, 12 Months tag here on the blog. This small image for 12 Books 12 Months designates a book on my list.

If I wrote a ‘review’ here on the blog I have linked to it after the entry for the book as [Review]. All of the 12 Books, 12 Month Challenge books that I have read so far (7) have been reviewed here. There are more reviews at goodreads but most are simple commentary and I am too lazy to go find them and link them. [Do not get me started on the amount of work required to generate, much less format, the following list!]

I received four of these books via the Library Thing Early Reviewers program. They are identified by “Library Thing Early Reviewer copy” and a link to the review at Library Thing.

I read 31 books of poetry, not including the one for weddings. I also read 2 books about poetry (Oliver and Kooser), not including the one on syntax. The author I read the most by is the poet Mary Oliver with 13 titles (12 poetry, 1 about poetry). The author in 2nd place is Roy Harris with 6, four of which were re-reads. The author in 3rd place with 3 titles seems to be Conan Doyle, all ebooks. Perhaps I missed someone else with 3 titles though. There were several authors with 2 books each in my list: Jim Harrison, Wilkie Collins, Anne Carson, Pablo Neruda, ….

Borges. Seven Nights

Posted on by
Seven nights Seven nightsJorge Luis Borges; New Directions Pub. Corp. 2009WorldCat•LibraryThing•Google Books•BookFinder 

 

I enjoyed this slim volume of essays based on seven lectures Borges gave in Buenos Aires between June and August 1977.

There is a short introduction by Alistair Reid which provides some context and historical information on the lectures. Then the seven essays, in this order: The Divine Comedy, Nightmares, The Thousand and One Nights, Buddhism, Poetry, The Kabbalah, and Blindness.  Some of them are, of course, better than others but all of them are worth reading.

This is the 6th book in the 12 Books, 12 Months Challenge that I finished.