110 & Other Musings

so, i have a list of books from which to make final selections for 110 in the fall.  here it is:

1 - The Road - Cormac McCarthy

2 - The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky

3 - Then We Came to the End - Joshua Ferris

4 - Round Ireland with a Fridge - Tony Hawks

5 - A Place So Foreign and Eight More - Cory Doctorow

6 - The Visibles - Sara Shepard

7 - The Likeness - Tana French

8 - Eat Pray Love - Elizabeth Gilbert

9 - Interpreter of Maladies - Jhumpa Lahiri

10 - Bright Lights, Big Ass - Jen Lancaster

11 - My Sister's Keeper - Jodi Picoult*

*My Sister's Keeper will definitely be among the final selections, it's the choice from last year's 110 class.

Plus I just got the Best American Essays 2008 so I will choose some essays from there to add more non-fiction to the list of texts.  The only thing I feel like I'm really being remiss about not adding is a graphic novel.  I'll have to think on that.  But I have gotten non-fiction, sci-fi, suspense, short stories, and general fiction on the list, and a couple of pulitzer prize winners to satisfy anyone who feels like we should read "serious literature".    some of the narrative non-fiction also doubles as travel narrative too so that's so sweet.  and only the road and my sister's keeper have been made into movies, so i can live with that.  i didn't want to have a lot of books that had also been adapted to the silver screen.  my one other immediate concern is whether or not a bunch of 18-22 year olds will have read eat pray love.  i know a lot of people my age who have read it, but i'm not sure that your typical college student would have picked it up.  well, i have the books on order or have them on my table just waiting for me to pick them up and read them, so i'm hoping to have my mind made up by june 30th - that's my deadline!

currently sitting in my office right now, blogging instead of working.  i should be grading, or planning for my 101 this week, or reading for my exams.  i've basically told myself i have to stay here until 5pm and then i can go home but i'm really hoping that i can actually get something done in these 3.5 hours...other than blogging!  guess i'll have to wait and see and report back later....

This Week's Reading Promises

OK.  So I wasn't so good at keeping my reading promises for this last week.  I have two short stories by Katherine Mansfield left to read and have not finished Howards End or read Molloy.  But, I did manage to read 8 short stories by Mansfield and I also read Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" and Tom Stoppard's "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead", both of which are on my lists so perhaps I'll just look at this week as a wash?  Yes, I think I will.  It's a much more positive POV!

Anyway, this week's promises are as follows (I am putting it in schedule form for me, so that I'll be able to judge my progress all week):

Sunday - The Playboy of the Western World - J.M. Synge

Monday - "At the Bay" & "Prelude" - Katherine Mansfield

Tuesday - "Mr. Bennett & Mrs. Brown" (re-read) & "Modern Fiction" - Virginia Woolf

Wednesday - "Tradition and Individual Talent" & "Hamlet" & "The Metaphysical Poets" - T. S. Eliot

Thursday - Endgame - Samuel Beckett

the bonus selection (i.e., wouldn't it be great to get all of the above read plus this too?!) - E.M. Forster's A Room with a View - in other words, it's not really a part of my promises but well, I'd love to be able to check it off the list this week.

So all that's left to say is ready...set...go!

Waiting for Godot

Well, like Estragon (what a name!) and Vladimir, I am still waiting for Godot to make his appearance.  I'm at the end of the first act, and am having a couple of hershey's kisses as my reward.  So far, I know that Estragon's boots and Vladimir's hat have some significance, and I also am picking up on the constant refrain of "nothing matters" and its nihilistic point of view.  There's an interesting comment upon memory, too.  And of course there's the ominous tree and the question of whether or not one or both of them will hang themselves.  The cover of my book says that the play is a tragicomedy in two acts.  I'm no genius, but I'm thinking maybe that tree has something to do with the tragedy part of that description.  Will update after reading Act 2.

UPDATE:  I don't know why but these are my favorite lines in the play..... Let's go_We can't_Why not?_We're waiting for Godot_Ah!

Another thing that's interesting about this play is it's treatment and commentary of time. ...

Okay, so I'm now done with the play.  I'm not sure what I think about it.  It's both interesting and strange.  It's one of those things where I think I get it, but I'm not sure that I got it all.  Does the tragedy lie in waiting for something that never comes?  Or in believing that something will come but in reality nothing ever comes?  Or, is the meaningless repetition of each day, not seeing any real differences between one day to the next and having those differences that do exist mean nothing, the tragedy?  If these questions make no sense, then I've totally gotten into the mood of the play, which is thought provoking but in some ways makes no sense!  I am left with many questions at the end and not a whole lot of answers.  Ah! 

One last note:  there's an excerpt from The London Times on the back of the book:  "...one of the most noble and moving plays of our generation, a threnody of hope deceived and deferred but never extinguished; a play suffused with tenderness for the whole human perplexity; with phrases that come like a sharp stab of beauty and pain" - HMM.......

And yes, I had to look up threnody too. 

More Mansfield Short Stories

So, there is light at the end of the tunnel.  I only have two short stories by Katherine Mansfield left to read and I will have an item checked off my to-do list.  Of course, I've saved the longest stories for last.  Hopefully I can get through those tomorrow.

But tonight I read "The Garden Party" and "The Stranger" and "The Daughters of the Late Colonel".  I have to say, I liked all three of these stories.  "The Garden Party" is about a party that a wealthy family is giving, and upon hearing about the death of one of the work-men, Laura, one of the daughters, insists that they cancel the party.  Her mother and her sister disagree and the party goes on, and Laura comments upon how this party has been the most wonderful party they've ever given.  The message seems to be that life must go on even in the face of death, and that our awareness of death, and death as a reminder, is supposed to help us enjoy those things in life that are most important.  At least, I think that's what the message is supposed to be.  "The Daughters of the Late Colonel" is pretty self-explanatory from the title.  One thing I liked about this story was the continual reference to time (I don't know why, but that always strikes me) and Mansfield has a wonderful gift for making ordinary things seem so extraordinary.  Anyway, the daughters of the late colonel are now free from their father's tyranny after he dies after a long illness.  They could never please him while he was alive, and now that he is gone, at the end of the story they think about what their lives could be like.  They could possibly meet men and get married and have lives of their own, but in the end it seems they are too afraid to actually consider living any other kind of life, and that's really sad because not only did their father treat them terribly while he was alive, they seem to have no chance of recovering what they have lost even after he is dead.  And lastly, I read "The Stranger".  I think so far, along with "The Doll's House", this is one of my favorite stories.  It's about Mr. Hammond, who has been waiting anxiously for his wife to return from a long journey overseas.  When she finally returns, he can't wait to be alone with her.  But his wife recounts the death of a stranger and after doing so, Mr. Hammond feels like this stranger will always be between them.  I know why I liked this story so much and why it's also frustrating for me on one level.  A recurring theme in Mansfield's short stories (or at least why I have come to view as a recurring theme) is that no one gets their happily ever after.  Usually it's the women who have to suffer lives of quiet desperation and unhappiness and for the most part I understand why she wrote stories with this particular theme.  But seriously, most of us just want someone to love us unconditionally, to want to be with us to the exclusion of everything else, and Mr. Hammond just wants a quiet few days alone with his wife to be happy, and he doesn't get them, and it's sad to me.  

Word Debt

One of my goals for May was to finish a writing project I've been working on for about ever.  The goal was to write 1667 words per day starting on May 15th.  It's May 19th, and I'm already in word debt.  How many words you ask?  Well, as of yesterday....1936...and I have yet to write anything today.  Seriously, I had no idea just how much time teaching 101 would take out of my schedule during the first session.  I really did think I'd have plenty of time to write, read, and teach.  But oddly I've really only had time to do the latter.  So, here I am in word debt.  

UPDATE:  It's Saturday and I'm not in as much word debt as I was when I woke up this morning (7100 words, give or take).  Wrote almost 4800 words and I'm super excited.  I might be able to finish this little project by my May 31st deadline after all!  Keep your fingers crossed!

Katherine Mansfield - "The Doll's House" & "Pictures" & "Bliss"

OK - I just finished Katherine Mansfield's "The Doll's House" (1921) and I liked it and it is definitely going on my list.  It's an incredibly interesting little story about three little girls who get a doll's house from a woman who has stayed with their family for a while.  The little girls manage to invite all of the other little girls to their house to see the doll's house, except for the Kelvey girls, who are outcasts in this little community because their mother is a washerwoman and their father is believed to be in jail.  There is an incredible emphasis on the gaze and looking and seeing and watching, but it is also intertwined with silence, too, specifically the silence of the Kelvey girls as they listen (aural surveillance) to everything that's said around them but don't talk to the girls because the girls have been forbidden by their families to talk to Lil and Else Kelvey.  

And also just finished "Pictures" (1919) which is about Miss Ada Moss who is a contralto singer who can't find work, so she tries to get a casting call as an actress instead, but that also doesn't pan out.  If she can't find work before 8pm the following night, her landlady is going to kick her out because she can't pay the rent.  So finally after finding no job she ends up at Cafe de Madrid, where she sits down at a table and ends up having a drink with a man who joins her.  It's left unsaid at the end of the story whether, when she goes off with the man, if she is going with the intent to sell herself or if she thinks he's actually capable of helping her find a job.  Can't say that these endings to Mansfield's stories are very good.

Lastly, I've finished "Bliss" (1918) which is also a strange little story.  It's about Bertha who has a little daughter that she adores and apparently a husband that she adores as well, but who she's never really desired sexually.  The 'bliss' that she's feeling is posed as being a sexual awakening, and she thinks that for the first time she actually wants her husband, but of course there's this other character-Miss Fulton--who complicates this sexual awakening and makes the reader wonder if this is really a desire for her husband or a desire for Miss Fulton.  The twist comes at the end (spoiler alert!) when Bertha overhears Miss Fulton and her husband making plans for a rendezvous, which is perhaps surprising because the entire evening (there's been a dinner party at Bertha's house), her husband has seemed to dislike Miss Fulton, which we now know at the end of the story to be a facade.  So Bertha's sexual awakening is thwarted. This story is interesting to me, but I'm not sure if I'll keep it on my list.  

Definitely of the three stories I've read tonight, "The Doll's House" is my favorite.  

Reading This Week & 110 Titles to Consider

First of all the fun stuff.  I'll be teaching Reading Now in the fall and I am totally stoked.  I'm already compiling a list of potential books and short story collections.  The hardest part will be choosing!  Here's what I have so far:

The Poe Shadow_Matthew Pearl; The Road_Cormac McCarthy; Interpreter of Maladies_Jhumpa Lahiri; My Sister's Keeper_Jodi Picoult; The Omnivore's Dilemma_Michael Pollan; You Suck_Christopher Moore; Then We Came to the End_Joshua Ferris; Admission_Jean Hanff Korelitz; Apologize, Apologize!_Elizabeth Kelly; Round Ireland with a Fridge_Tony Hawks; Bright Lights, Big Ass_Jen Lancaster; A Place So Foreign and Eight More_Cory Doctorow; and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies_Seth Grahame-Smith (thanks to JM for those last two inspired ideas).  

Now I have promised that I will finish reading Howards End, and that I will also read Beckett's Molloy and the rest of the Katherine Mansfield short stories (The Doll's House, The Garden Party, At the Bay, The Stranger, Pictures, Bliss, Prelude, and The Daughters of the Late Colonel) I have assigned myself as well as make final selections of poetry for my first list.  Yep.  Those are my promises.  Hope I can keep them!

And to that end, I'm off to read...