528.
tonight's writing session was not much of a writing session, even though i did manage to make my goal of writing 500 words tonight. my initial thought is that 500 words isn't a hard enough goal to reach. i know. i know. i always expect way too much of myself. but to be honest, once i got to 500 words, i felt like it was okay to stop working. and i did stop working. i did nothing for the hour that followed me reaching that 500 word goal. the good thing is that i added 500 words. the better thing is that the 500 words i did add will go a long way to focusing the next section of this chapter. the negative is that i would have written more if i had set my word count goal higher. this wasn't one of those nights where i came to the office not wanting to work but did some work and some work is better than no work at all. on the other hand, when i came to the office i wasn't really sure what i was going to write. so maybe even though i felt like tonight's goal was too easy, the positive that i should take away is that at least when i write tomorrow, i'll have some idea of what i need to accomplish.
one additional positive outcome of tonight's work session is that i got an essay graded. that is an unexpected check mark on the to-do list. i don't yet feel overwhelmed by my teaching responsibilities and that is definitely a plus.
so tomorrow hopefully i will write another 500 words and be that much closer to having a full first draft for this chapter.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Monday, September 6, 2010
dissertation digest #5
2815.
let's call this day 2 of "so...how much progress could i make if...". i was thinking this morning (don't be so surprised!) about what kind of progress could i make on my dissertation if i made a commitment to write at least 500 words per day through september 30th. this question was inspired by a post on the time-management ninja blog that i read a while back where the writer asks what could you do in a year if you really set your mind to it. one of the ideas was get in the best shape of your life. while that would be fantastic, right now, i have two goals: finish my dissertation and find some kind of job in academia for the 2011-2012 school year. so i asked myself: what kind of progress could i make on my dissertation if i made the commitment to add at least 500 words to my dissertation over the next 25 days? i'm here to say that i have taken up this challenge whole-heartedly, though i do already foresee some challenges.
the first and most difficult to surmount is the fact that i'm taking a mini-vacation starting on september 16th, and i won't return home until september 20th. so i'm going to lose those 5 days because i highly doubt that i'm going to be able to write while i'm away. if i were going on my own, that might be one thing, but i'm meeting my aunt so i don't anticipate having enough alone time to get any amount of writing done. though i have already made the promise to myself to try to do some revision if at all possible. i also need to plan ahead for this lack of writing by trying to exceed my writing goal whenever possible for the remaining days that i will be writing.
the second challenge that i've already been faced with--what about those days when i need to revise or read? so what? i can still add at least 500 words b/c if nothing else, i can add relevant quotes to my document as well as start forming an outline and the most important questions that i want the chapter i'm working on to answer.
those are the biggest challenges that i foresee, but i'll just have to wait and see what happens and how committed i am to dedicating the majority of my time and focus to getting this dissertation written.
as for today--i had an awesome day as far as writing goes. i got up and the first thing i did was write. now here's the thing--i do believe in the power of the advice "write first". i used that idea when i was nano'ing two summers ago and i met the 50,000 word goal in 30 days because of it. the reason i made writing first a priority this morning was because i wasn't able to get as much done last night as i wanted. so i set freedom to run for an hour and fifteen minutes and i'm not kidding when i say that in 1 hr and 15 minutes i wrote 1372 words. for real! it was such a fabulous way to start the day. i went to the office tonight for my regularly scheduled writing session and managed to write another 1443 words. but don't be fooled. this chapter draft is still very much a mess and is going to need lots and lots of revision. but i am grateful for the steady progress i am making in terms of getting the ideas out of my head and onto paper where i can actually work them into something coherent and organized. although today was a holiday, i feel like i've had double potions and managed to avoid snape's wrath. double potions-double dissertation writing sessions.
oh, and i almost forgot. the final verdict about last night--i do believe that i was having a mild anxiety attack. when i got home i got straight into bed and just concentrated on breathing and trying to relax my muscles and slow my heartbeat down, which was racing. after about forty-five minutes the queasy feeling went away and i was able to eventually fall asleep. it was just such an oddly timed anxiety attack because i was actually getting some writing done. i dunno. the human body is still a mystery. but the good news is that it didn't happen again today, and hopefully i can stop having to schedule meetings and such during my work out time so the exercise should help to alleviate some of my tension.
let's call this day 2 of "so...how much progress could i make if...". i was thinking this morning (don't be so surprised!) about what kind of progress could i make on my dissertation if i made a commitment to write at least 500 words per day through september 30th. this question was inspired by a post on the time-management ninja blog that i read a while back where the writer asks what could you do in a year if you really set your mind to it. one of the ideas was get in the best shape of your life. while that would be fantastic, right now, i have two goals: finish my dissertation and find some kind of job in academia for the 2011-2012 school year. so i asked myself: what kind of progress could i make on my dissertation if i made the commitment to add at least 500 words to my dissertation over the next 25 days? i'm here to say that i have taken up this challenge whole-heartedly, though i do already foresee some challenges.
the first and most difficult to surmount is the fact that i'm taking a mini-vacation starting on september 16th, and i won't return home until september 20th. so i'm going to lose those 5 days because i highly doubt that i'm going to be able to write while i'm away. if i were going on my own, that might be one thing, but i'm meeting my aunt so i don't anticipate having enough alone time to get any amount of writing done. though i have already made the promise to myself to try to do some revision if at all possible. i also need to plan ahead for this lack of writing by trying to exceed my writing goal whenever possible for the remaining days that i will be writing.
the second challenge that i've already been faced with--what about those days when i need to revise or read? so what? i can still add at least 500 words b/c if nothing else, i can add relevant quotes to my document as well as start forming an outline and the most important questions that i want the chapter i'm working on to answer.
those are the biggest challenges that i foresee, but i'll just have to wait and see what happens and how committed i am to dedicating the majority of my time and focus to getting this dissertation written.
as for today--i had an awesome day as far as writing goes. i got up and the first thing i did was write. now here's the thing--i do believe in the power of the advice "write first". i used that idea when i was nano'ing two summers ago and i met the 50,000 word goal in 30 days because of it. the reason i made writing first a priority this morning was because i wasn't able to get as much done last night as i wanted. so i set freedom to run for an hour and fifteen minutes and i'm not kidding when i say that in 1 hr and 15 minutes i wrote 1372 words. for real! it was such a fabulous way to start the day. i went to the office tonight for my regularly scheduled writing session and managed to write another 1443 words. but don't be fooled. this chapter draft is still very much a mess and is going to need lots and lots of revision. but i am grateful for the steady progress i am making in terms of getting the ideas out of my head and onto paper where i can actually work them into something coherent and organized. although today was a holiday, i feel like i've had double potions and managed to avoid snape's wrath. double potions-double dissertation writing sessions.
oh, and i almost forgot. the final verdict about last night--i do believe that i was having a mild anxiety attack. when i got home i got straight into bed and just concentrated on breathing and trying to relax my muscles and slow my heartbeat down, which was racing. after about forty-five minutes the queasy feeling went away and i was able to eventually fall asleep. it was just such an oddly timed anxiety attack because i was actually getting some writing done. i dunno. the human body is still a mystery. but the good news is that it didn't happen again today, and hopefully i can stop having to schedule meetings and such during my work out time so the exercise should help to alleviate some of my tension.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
dissertation digest #4
857.
okay, first of all, i have no idea what's wrong with me. physically, i feel absolutely wretched. this is sort of how i feel when i'm about to have an anxiety attack, but i'm not 100% sure that that's what this is. i was sitting in my office, and at about 9.30 i started feeling kind of nauseous and my head started to kind of hurt. it might be because my blood sugar is falling too low, but honestly, eating something, anything, right now does not sound very appealing at all. and my head is getting that heavy, kind of groggy feeling again, which seems to have started happening early this week. it's not lack of sleep. for someone who's writing a dissertation i get plenty of sleep. and funny that all day today, while i wasn't trying to work on my dissertation, i felt fine. so i feel like this feeling is somehow connected to trying to work on my dissertation this evening. i ended up writing 857 words. i had hoped for 1000 words tonight, but i'll take what i can get right now and i also have an idea of what needs to come next. while i was working in the office i was adding things to my to-do list. it now has 16 items on it, where it read 8 when i started working at 6.00 this evening. ugh. even now i still have that nauseous, queasy feeling. the only thing that seems to be missing that is typical of one of my anxiety attacks is the trembling. i can usually feel myself trembling a lot (more than the usual caffeine-induced trembling i'm used to) as well as the sense of being really hot. honestly, i have to find a way to make these feelings stop.
well, in other news, i'm still working on drafting chapter 3 of the dissertation. i am going to have to really work everyday, diligently, for the rest of the month (save the four days when i am on vacation in mid-september) to get to where i want to be on september 30th--a draft of chapter 3 and a draft of chapter 5. these people who say they wrote their dissertation in 3 weeks or 8 weeks, i really can't imagine how they did that. tonight was a so-so writing session. i had a lot of trouble focusing on what i was trying to write. i'm teaching online this semester, and my students have been blogging and submitting response papers since thursday. i was lax about reading posts on friday when i should have been reading and responding. i got a lot of reading of posts done today at home before going to the office to work on my own work, but when i got to the office i spent an hour (and really, i do not know how i spent an hour on these tasks) doing additional work for my class, and every time my freedom session expired i found myself going back to the course space. just going there--not doing any real work. so, it was really hard to focus on my writing tonight. i'm grateful for the 857 words and will hope for and try to write 1000 words tomorrow.
okay, first of all, i have no idea what's wrong with me. physically, i feel absolutely wretched. this is sort of how i feel when i'm about to have an anxiety attack, but i'm not 100% sure that that's what this is. i was sitting in my office, and at about 9.30 i started feeling kind of nauseous and my head started to kind of hurt. it might be because my blood sugar is falling too low, but honestly, eating something, anything, right now does not sound very appealing at all. and my head is getting that heavy, kind of groggy feeling again, which seems to have started happening early this week. it's not lack of sleep. for someone who's writing a dissertation i get plenty of sleep. and funny that all day today, while i wasn't trying to work on my dissertation, i felt fine. so i feel like this feeling is somehow connected to trying to work on my dissertation this evening. i ended up writing 857 words. i had hoped for 1000 words tonight, but i'll take what i can get right now and i also have an idea of what needs to come next. while i was working in the office i was adding things to my to-do list. it now has 16 items on it, where it read 8 when i started working at 6.00 this evening. ugh. even now i still have that nauseous, queasy feeling. the only thing that seems to be missing that is typical of one of my anxiety attacks is the trembling. i can usually feel myself trembling a lot (more than the usual caffeine-induced trembling i'm used to) as well as the sense of being really hot. honestly, i have to find a way to make these feelings stop.
well, in other news, i'm still working on drafting chapter 3 of the dissertation. i am going to have to really work everyday, diligently, for the rest of the month (save the four days when i am on vacation in mid-september) to get to where i want to be on september 30th--a draft of chapter 3 and a draft of chapter 5. these people who say they wrote their dissertation in 3 weeks or 8 weeks, i really can't imagine how they did that. tonight was a so-so writing session. i had a lot of trouble focusing on what i was trying to write. i'm teaching online this semester, and my students have been blogging and submitting response papers since thursday. i was lax about reading posts on friday when i should have been reading and responding. i got a lot of reading of posts done today at home before going to the office to work on my own work, but when i got to the office i spent an hour (and really, i do not know how i spent an hour on these tasks) doing additional work for my class, and every time my freedom session expired i found myself going back to the course space. just going there--not doing any real work. so, it was really hard to focus on my writing tonight. i'm grateful for the 857 words and will hope for and try to write 1000 words tomorrow.
Monday, August 30, 2010
dissertation digest #3
2487.
until now, i've never really been very concerned with the number of words that i write in any given writing session or on any given day or period of days. in fact, until today, i've been a little perplexed by those people who were concerned with the number of words they'd written. but now i get it. well, i'm no longer perplexed. i'm still amazed by those writers who only have to write a 15K word dissertation but i digress. for the past three days i've set myself a goal--1000 words per day. i feel short of this goal on saturday and sunday, but i totally blew it up today. here are some other things i've learned by setting this goal and paying attention to the number of words i've written at the end of the day.
first of all, my writing sessions on saturday and sunday occurred from 10 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon. i was in my preferred venue for writing and working on my dissertation--in my office on campus--but i was not there during my preferred working hours--anytime after six in the evening. another problem with saturday and sunday was that i didn't answer the question of what i would be having for lunch and ended up eating nothing at all. on saturday i wrote 770 words. on sunday i wrote 684. both short of the 1000 word goal.
now, my writing session tonight occurred in the right place--in my office--and at the right time--from six to ten-thirty in the evening. and guess what. i wrote 1845 words. furthermore, i didn't start writing right away when i got to campus. it was probably seven-thirty by the time i actually wrote the first word. which means that in approximately three hours, i wrote more than twice as much than i did on either saturday or sunday in twice the amount of time. does anyone else find this curious and frankly, troublesome?
i think there are two possible explanations, and for now the jury is still out on which one is the actual cause. the first explanation could have to do with the fact that i'm on a deadline, and that deadline is tomorrow. i told my dissertation advisor i'd send him as much of chapter 3 as i had by tomorrow, 8/31. he knows it won't be a complete draft of the chapter, so how much i send is really kind of up to me. he's not expecting a certain number of words or pages, just something. so while there's pressure, there's not the pressure to get to a specific point. deadlines always help me focus and produce, and the closer i get to the deadline, the more i can focus and produce. so the fact that the deadline is tomorrow may be the reason why i was able to write 1845 words tonight (and that's in addition to the 642 words i wrote this afternoon--hence the number that begins this post). the second explanation could be that i do, in fact, know myself pretty well and have finally taken advantage of the part of the day that is for me, in terms of writing anyway, the butter zone. yes, it took me a while to get going tonight, but when i finally did, there wasn't really any lull in the writing and i felt like i was firing on all cylinders. what i wrote isn't brilliant but there were flashes of brilliance and the beginnings of a real direction for this chapter. to be honest, i'm not sure if it's the first or second explanation that is the real reason for tonight's productivity, and i'll be interested to see if i can continue this kind of productivity after this deadline has passed. guess i'll have to wait and see. in the meantime, i'm going to go to bed thrilled by the fact that today i wrote 2487 words.
until now, i've never really been very concerned with the number of words that i write in any given writing session or on any given day or period of days. in fact, until today, i've been a little perplexed by those people who were concerned with the number of words they'd written. but now i get it. well, i'm no longer perplexed. i'm still amazed by those writers who only have to write a 15K word dissertation but i digress. for the past three days i've set myself a goal--1000 words per day. i feel short of this goal on saturday and sunday, but i totally blew it up today. here are some other things i've learned by setting this goal and paying attention to the number of words i've written at the end of the day.
first of all, my writing sessions on saturday and sunday occurred from 10 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon. i was in my preferred venue for writing and working on my dissertation--in my office on campus--but i was not there during my preferred working hours--anytime after six in the evening. another problem with saturday and sunday was that i didn't answer the question of what i would be having for lunch and ended up eating nothing at all. on saturday i wrote 770 words. on sunday i wrote 684. both short of the 1000 word goal.
now, my writing session tonight occurred in the right place--in my office--and at the right time--from six to ten-thirty in the evening. and guess what. i wrote 1845 words. furthermore, i didn't start writing right away when i got to campus. it was probably seven-thirty by the time i actually wrote the first word. which means that in approximately three hours, i wrote more than twice as much than i did on either saturday or sunday in twice the amount of time. does anyone else find this curious and frankly, troublesome?
i think there are two possible explanations, and for now the jury is still out on which one is the actual cause. the first explanation could have to do with the fact that i'm on a deadline, and that deadline is tomorrow. i told my dissertation advisor i'd send him as much of chapter 3 as i had by tomorrow, 8/31. he knows it won't be a complete draft of the chapter, so how much i send is really kind of up to me. he's not expecting a certain number of words or pages, just something. so while there's pressure, there's not the pressure to get to a specific point. deadlines always help me focus and produce, and the closer i get to the deadline, the more i can focus and produce. so the fact that the deadline is tomorrow may be the reason why i was able to write 1845 words tonight (and that's in addition to the 642 words i wrote this afternoon--hence the number that begins this post). the second explanation could be that i do, in fact, know myself pretty well and have finally taken advantage of the part of the day that is for me, in terms of writing anyway, the butter zone. yes, it took me a while to get going tonight, but when i finally did, there wasn't really any lull in the writing and i felt like i was firing on all cylinders. what i wrote isn't brilliant but there were flashes of brilliance and the beginnings of a real direction for this chapter. to be honest, i'm not sure if it's the first or second explanation that is the real reason for tonight's productivity, and i'll be interested to see if i can continue this kind of productivity after this deadline has passed. guess i'll have to wait and see. in the meantime, i'm going to go to bed thrilled by the fact that today i wrote 2487 words.
Monday, August 23, 2010
dissertation digest #2
it's monday. the first day of the fall semester. seriously, i can't believe this is the beginning of my last year as a student. forever. b/c believe me when i say that there is no more schooling for me once this ph.d. is done.
so far, the routine is working. i was even up before my 'mandatory' wake-up time. i have written the welcome message for my online class, read through my twitter stream, consumed my first cup of coffee, chatted with a colleague and checked all of my e-mail. amazing start to the day, truly! i am even planning to go to the gym at the scheduled time (or maybe a few minutes early) though I must admit that it was looking like i was going to skip today. but no. i'm going to make it there. just as soon as i finish this post.
last night was also a win but that's mostly because my neighbor upstairs is conducting some kind of construction project that involves an electric saw and hammering. so i actually found myself in my office last night even though i had thought i would just take the entire weekend off to recharge. i started re-reading a star called henry and got through the first 100 pages. i will be back in the office tonight to read more and will probably plan to finish the book tomorrow night. then the goal is to write at least four pages from wednesday through monday, and then revise what i've written on tuesday before sending it to my committee chair. hopefully i'll have 25 pages to send.
those are the goals and that is the plan. now all i have to do is execute it!
so far, the routine is working. i was even up before my 'mandatory' wake-up time. i have written the welcome message for my online class, read through my twitter stream, consumed my first cup of coffee, chatted with a colleague and checked all of my e-mail. amazing start to the day, truly! i am even planning to go to the gym at the scheduled time (or maybe a few minutes early) though I must admit that it was looking like i was going to skip today. but no. i'm going to make it there. just as soon as i finish this post.
last night was also a win but that's mostly because my neighbor upstairs is conducting some kind of construction project that involves an electric saw and hammering. so i actually found myself in my office last night even though i had thought i would just take the entire weekend off to recharge. i started re-reading a star called henry and got through the first 100 pages. i will be back in the office tonight to read more and will probably plan to finish the book tomorrow night. then the goal is to write at least four pages from wednesday through monday, and then revise what i've written on tuesday before sending it to my committee chair. hopefully i'll have 25 pages to send.
those are the goals and that is the plan. now all i have to do is execute it!
Friday, August 20, 2010
dissertation digest #1
well, it's the friday before fall semester starts. i have good news to report: i have completed the course prep for the class i am teaching this fall--the twentieth century novel--which means i can now focus most of my attention on my dissertation. even more good news, my committee chair says it's okay for me to switch out one of the novels i had planned to use in my dissertation. so rather than having chapter 5 be on jennifer johnston's shadows on our skin, it'll now be on seamus deane's reading in the dark. a change i must admit i am rather excited about and it's a chapter that i cannot wait to dive into. i think i am going to work on it after i finish drafting the chapter 3 which is on roddy doyle's a star called henry, mostly because i think it will be easier for me to move from one irish author to the next rather than going back and forth between irish writer, indian writer. i must admit, i am feeling a lot of excitement over the idea of finally being able to re-focus my attention on my dissertation. i hope i can sustain that excitement and see it translating into some good writing over the next couple of weeks (dare i hope for months?).
but right now the focus is on chapter 3 and a star called henry. i did do some reading today in terms of critical scholarship on the novel, not nearly as much as i would have liked to have gotten through, but that's okay. i might finish off this last book chapter tonight before going to bed. as far as keeping to my stated schedule, well, i didn't do very well. i slept an extra ten minutes (which, really, that's just fine) and got up and made coffee and read e-mail and checked in on my twitter peeps. but then i didn't go to the gym like i was supposed to. instead i went to campus and made a trip to the library and dropped off and picked some things up from my office. but then, i did have lunch when i was supposed to, and i did do some work afterward like i was supposed to, and i have attended to chores in such like i was supposed to. so, it's not all bad news. plus, it's friday night, which means no work in the office for me. instead i get to treat myself to new episodes of eureka, haven, and the glades.
goals for tomorrow? re-read as much of a star called henry as possible. in fact, if i could read about 225 pages tomorrow that would be fantastic. yes, i know, one goal sounds lame, but hey, it's a 350 page book, so getting that much of the book read would be an accomplishment.
but right now the focus is on chapter 3 and a star called henry. i did do some reading today in terms of critical scholarship on the novel, not nearly as much as i would have liked to have gotten through, but that's okay. i might finish off this last book chapter tonight before going to bed. as far as keeping to my stated schedule, well, i didn't do very well. i slept an extra ten minutes (which, really, that's just fine) and got up and made coffee and read e-mail and checked in on my twitter peeps. but then i didn't go to the gym like i was supposed to. instead i went to campus and made a trip to the library and dropped off and picked some things up from my office. but then, i did have lunch when i was supposed to, and i did do some work afterward like i was supposed to, and i have attended to chores in such like i was supposed to. so, it's not all bad news. plus, it's friday night, which means no work in the office for me. instead i get to treat myself to new episodes of eureka, haven, and the glades.
goals for tomorrow? re-read as much of a star called henry as possible. in fact, if i could read about 225 pages tomorrow that would be fantastic. yes, i know, one goal sounds lame, but hey, it's a 350 page book, so getting that much of the book read would be an accomplishment.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
book review: amsterdam by ian mcewan
if you haven't read this book, and you are one of those people who don't like to have the ending of a book spoiled, you might want to stop reading. because here be spoilers!
i need to write about the end of this novel first. i am teaching this book in my class this fall semester, and one of the questions i intend to ask them to think about is: how can this novel be viewed as a farewell to the past century and a welcome to the new century? in other words, how can we see this novel doing in a literary sense what Clive's symphony is attempting to do in a musical sense? i know, this question does not make sense to you if you haven't read the book. sorry about that! but onwards. in clive and vernon, mcewan has given us to complex characters, but both seem to be drawn to a "higher" authority or ideal. for clive, it's art and music, in the sense of both of those being what we consider the "fine arts". for vernon, it's political ideology and the kind of people who should hold political office and what kinds of aims they should try to achieve while in office. both men pursue these ideals at a high cost--clive fails to help a woman in need who we eventually learn narrowly escapes a rapist, but only days later that same rapist attacks another victim; while vernon makes the decision to publish pictures of a cabinet minister dressed in drag without taking into consideration the personal costs to said cabinet minister or his family in doing so, and at the same time his choice demonstrates that it is not the minister or his politics that we have to fear, but men like vernon who show their very intolerance and narrow thinking in the choices they make in regard to exposing the "sins" of others. so at the end of the novel, mcewan makes the authorial choice to have clive and vernon take each other's lives. the fulfillment of an euthanasia pact between the men. there's an interesting line in the novel before this happens: "This was the comic nature of their fate; a first-class stamp would have served both men well. On the other hand, perhaps no other outcomes were available to them, and this was the nature of their tragedy." (161) here i am then, at the end of the novel, wondering what to make of the ending as well as this glance toward the comic and tragic aspects of the fates of clive and vernon. and i'm also wondering what mcewan might be saying about the state of literature (british literature?) at the end of the 20th century and what awaits british literature and the novel in the 21st century. is it something akin to the characteristics of Frank Dibben, Vernon's successor at the newspaper that he is forced to resign from in disgrace? Dibben, a man who is wily, who knows how to 'play the game' in order to get what he wants and is willing to do what he has to do to get it, a man who is able to gain his boss' trust and then betray that trust easily, casually, and without regret? are clive and vernon stand-ins for the "old guard" who must inevitably die because they are not capable of surviving all that awaits them in the new century? or is it because of their ideology that they must die before the new century begins? must we break ties with their ways of thinking and doing before the end of the century so that we can step into the new century unencumbered by outdated ways of thinking and seeing? is the story of clive's and vernon's lives ultimately a comedy? or is it a tragedy?
another thing that pops up frequently in the last two parts of the novel is the idea of a cancer eating away at the body (either the physical body or the body politic) and how that cancer must be stopped before it completely destroys the body. this once again makes me return to clive and vernon--are they the cancers? or have they been destroyed by a cancer that they didn't understand and didn't know how to fight?
and also, what am i to make of the fact that garmony and lane end up with a kind of "happily ever after"? i say a "kind" because no one, i think, would read it as a true happily ever after, and yet in the end george lane gets what he wants--two of his late wife's lovers are dead, while a third is politically disgraced. and though garmony doesn't lose everything (he seems to still have his family and public opinion is in his favor in terms of his right to enjoy his sexual proclivities which harm none), he is no longer in a position to have the one thing we can theorize he wanted most--the position of british prime minister. again, are these kind of people who are equipped to handle life in the 21st century?
i'm really looking forward to reading what my students think about this novel and how they respond to it. i can totally understand why it won the booker prize. it's tightly written and i had a hard time putting it down (i actually read it in two sittings). the characters are complex and the prose is fluid and beautiful and yet simple in its elegance. and the emotional investment that i had in the novel as a reader is one it seems i haven't had in a very long time. and it deals with weighty issues: euthanasia, privacy issues, politics, the value of the arts and the role of newspapers in particular as well as the news media in general and the power they are able to wield in the 21st century, and there's also the portrayal of women. mcewan's treatment of women in this novel is...what word should i use here? it's fraught with difficulty. on the one hand we have molly, who is portrayed as a temptress and often alluded to as an Eve figure; then on the other hand we have rose garmony, who is the woman behind the man but also a successful pediatric surgeon who stands firmly by her husband's side and willingly participates in the attempt to keep her husband's political image from being completely damaged. and so they are stereotypical in nature, stock characters who do what the story needs for them to do in order to move forward, but i can't help wondering if their depiction in the story is meant to be taken at face value.
in the final analysis, i would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a really good read.
i need to write about the end of this novel first. i am teaching this book in my class this fall semester, and one of the questions i intend to ask them to think about is: how can this novel be viewed as a farewell to the past century and a welcome to the new century? in other words, how can we see this novel doing in a literary sense what Clive's symphony is attempting to do in a musical sense? i know, this question does not make sense to you if you haven't read the book. sorry about that! but onwards. in clive and vernon, mcewan has given us to complex characters, but both seem to be drawn to a "higher" authority or ideal. for clive, it's art and music, in the sense of both of those being what we consider the "fine arts". for vernon, it's political ideology and the kind of people who should hold political office and what kinds of aims they should try to achieve while in office. both men pursue these ideals at a high cost--clive fails to help a woman in need who we eventually learn narrowly escapes a rapist, but only days later that same rapist attacks another victim; while vernon makes the decision to publish pictures of a cabinet minister dressed in drag without taking into consideration the personal costs to said cabinet minister or his family in doing so, and at the same time his choice demonstrates that it is not the minister or his politics that we have to fear, but men like vernon who show their very intolerance and narrow thinking in the choices they make in regard to exposing the "sins" of others. so at the end of the novel, mcewan makes the authorial choice to have clive and vernon take each other's lives. the fulfillment of an euthanasia pact between the men. there's an interesting line in the novel before this happens: "This was the comic nature of their fate; a first-class stamp would have served both men well. On the other hand, perhaps no other outcomes were available to them, and this was the nature of their tragedy." (161) here i am then, at the end of the novel, wondering what to make of the ending as well as this glance toward the comic and tragic aspects of the fates of clive and vernon. and i'm also wondering what mcewan might be saying about the state of literature (british literature?) at the end of the 20th century and what awaits british literature and the novel in the 21st century. is it something akin to the characteristics of Frank Dibben, Vernon's successor at the newspaper that he is forced to resign from in disgrace? Dibben, a man who is wily, who knows how to 'play the game' in order to get what he wants and is willing to do what he has to do to get it, a man who is able to gain his boss' trust and then betray that trust easily, casually, and without regret? are clive and vernon stand-ins for the "old guard" who must inevitably die because they are not capable of surviving all that awaits them in the new century? or is it because of their ideology that they must die before the new century begins? must we break ties with their ways of thinking and doing before the end of the century so that we can step into the new century unencumbered by outdated ways of thinking and seeing? is the story of clive's and vernon's lives ultimately a comedy? or is it a tragedy?
another thing that pops up frequently in the last two parts of the novel is the idea of a cancer eating away at the body (either the physical body or the body politic) and how that cancer must be stopped before it completely destroys the body. this once again makes me return to clive and vernon--are they the cancers? or have they been destroyed by a cancer that they didn't understand and didn't know how to fight?
and also, what am i to make of the fact that garmony and lane end up with a kind of "happily ever after"? i say a "kind" because no one, i think, would read it as a true happily ever after, and yet in the end george lane gets what he wants--two of his late wife's lovers are dead, while a third is politically disgraced. and though garmony doesn't lose everything (he seems to still have his family and public opinion is in his favor in terms of his right to enjoy his sexual proclivities which harm none), he is no longer in a position to have the one thing we can theorize he wanted most--the position of british prime minister. again, are these kind of people who are equipped to handle life in the 21st century?
i'm really looking forward to reading what my students think about this novel and how they respond to it. i can totally understand why it won the booker prize. it's tightly written and i had a hard time putting it down (i actually read it in two sittings). the characters are complex and the prose is fluid and beautiful and yet simple in its elegance. and the emotional investment that i had in the novel as a reader is one it seems i haven't had in a very long time. and it deals with weighty issues: euthanasia, privacy issues, politics, the value of the arts and the role of newspapers in particular as well as the news media in general and the power they are able to wield in the 21st century, and there's also the portrayal of women. mcewan's treatment of women in this novel is...what word should i use here? it's fraught with difficulty. on the one hand we have molly, who is portrayed as a temptress and often alluded to as an Eve figure; then on the other hand we have rose garmony, who is the woman behind the man but also a successful pediatric surgeon who stands firmly by her husband's side and willingly participates in the attempt to keep her husband's political image from being completely damaged. and so they are stereotypical in nature, stock characters who do what the story needs for them to do in order to move forward, but i can't help wondering if their depiction in the story is meant to be taken at face value.
in the final analysis, i would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a really good read.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)