A few days ago, I was digging around at home in the spare room/library for a few new books to read, when I saw my old copy of All Creatures Great and Small from across the room. I actually clapped my hands in nostalgic delight, and started extracting it from the messy bookcase, when a hardback fell out and onto my foot. I yelped and picked it up and it turned out to be a copy of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes that I didn't even know I had.
JOHN IS THAT YOU.
(Man, I should just read the flipping stories already. BUT NOT BEFORE JAMES HERRIOT. BUT I WILL READ THEM THIS SUMMER, GOSH, I FEEL LIKE THEY'RE STALKING ME...)
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Sunday, May 23, 2010
My Friend Elizabeth
"I suggest that the only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we have yet got ourselves.
~E.M. Forster
My experience with Jane Austen is a bit shameful for an English major student who grew up with an English Lit teacher for a mother. It wasn't for lack of trying on my mom's part, you can be sure. She started quietly recommending Pride and Prejudice when I was in middle school, and then pointedly insisting that we would read it together in the summer when we both finished up for the year. (We never quiet got around to this, because we would both be exhausted and just collapse for a few weeks, and forget our plans altogether). She would laugh loudly through the beginning of the book and then ask if I wanted to read her spare copy as she prepared to teach it to her new class in the fall.
My friend Rachael sighed in delight over it when she read it in high school and made me watch the famous BBC mini series with Colin Firth with her. With all that, I only just actually read Pride and Prejudice this past semester for my British Lit class.
It felt a bit like spending the weekend with a cousin that you've visited once a year for as long as you can remember, who's very smart and all-around wonderful according to everyone, but you don't really have a personal opinion on her because you've never really talked to her since she's so much older than you, though you've seen her from afar a lot. Then suddenly, you're both in your twenties, and the age difference doesn't seem so bad now, so you talk and just click. She definitely lives up to the hype, once she becomes a personal friend, and you have woven her into your smallish group of friends.
That is far too insane and personification-y of a metaphor to drag out for so long, but really, that book is such fun, and I quite loved it. I tend to be intimidated by classic literature, which is something I am working at changing. Talking to Janelle the other day, I compared Classics with my parents' friends, who I was very polite, very shy and a bit afraid during interactions with them, but who I'm more confident but still shy around. They are older, more talented, and more respected than me, and that makes me nervous even though I know I can learn from them.
The point is, it was wonderful experiencing the quiet, warm shift into making this Classic, so often placed on so high a pedestal, an approachable personal favorite. It took a while, but I hope it won't be a unique experience.
~E.M. Forster
My experience with Jane Austen is a bit shameful for an English major student who grew up with an English Lit teacher for a mother. It wasn't for lack of trying on my mom's part, you can be sure. She started quietly recommending Pride and Prejudice when I was in middle school, and then pointedly insisting that we would read it together in the summer when we both finished up for the year. (We never quiet got around to this, because we would both be exhausted and just collapse for a few weeks, and forget our plans altogether). She would laugh loudly through the beginning of the book and then ask if I wanted to read her spare copy as she prepared to teach it to her new class in the fall.
My friend Rachael sighed in delight over it when she read it in high school and made me watch the famous BBC mini series with Colin Firth with her. With all that, I only just actually read Pride and Prejudice this past semester for my British Lit class.
It felt a bit like spending the weekend with a cousin that you've visited once a year for as long as you can remember, who's very smart and all-around wonderful according to everyone, but you don't really have a personal opinion on her because you've never really talked to her since she's so much older than you, though you've seen her from afar a lot. Then suddenly, you're both in your twenties, and the age difference doesn't seem so bad now, so you talk and just click. She definitely lives up to the hype, once she becomes a personal friend, and you have woven her into your smallish group of friends.
That is far too insane and personification-y of a metaphor to drag out for so long, but really, that book is such fun, and I quite loved it. I tend to be intimidated by classic literature, which is something I am working at changing. Talking to Janelle the other day, I compared Classics with my parents' friends, who I was very polite, very shy and a bit afraid during interactions with them, but who I'm more confident but still shy around. They are older, more talented, and more respected than me, and that makes me nervous even though I know I can learn from them.
The point is, it was wonderful experiencing the quiet, warm shift into making this Classic, so often placed on so high a pedestal, an approachable personal favorite. It took a while, but I hope it won't be a unique experience.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Boys' Books
For swearing a dislike for the outdoors when I was a kid, I read a lot of books about the outdoors. Books that are often categorized as “Boys’ Books,” because they’re about finding oneself in the wilderness, or struggling against the wilderness, or whatever.
I was all about Jack London books when I was in middle school, White Fang and The Call of the Wild especially. The third book in Jean Craighead George’s Julie of the Wolves series, Julie’s Wolf Pack, was also a favorite, even more so than the first book, because it was only about the interactions between the wolf packs in a small region of Alaska, and included few human characters.
Later, I enjoyed what were probably abridged versions of Victorian era sci-fi and adventure, like H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth, H. Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines, all that business. My grandmother tried to interest me in Little House on the Prairie by giving me a new book in the series for each special occasion, and I would thank her, read one chapter to be polite, and then set it aside to find out once again if Buck the kidnapped half-wolf dog would survive the epic battle with Spitz, the alpha of the sled dog team. My mom would edge Jane Austen novels over the table at me during the summer, and I would nod at her absently as I read of White Fang’s struggle against humanity.
People made me nervous and bored in real life and in books, when I was an adolescent; 12+ish, I mean. I was All About people when I was in preschool and grade school, but that changed really quick when I suddenly changed environments and I discovered my deep loathing of dramatic change. Maybe I’m over exaggerating my shyness at the time, but considering the energy I spent agonizing over strategies of how to win friends, I’m not that sure. Oh man, I had strategies! Anyway, I was a nervous kid, but BOOKS; So great!
I was all about Jack London books when I was in middle school, White Fang and The Call of the Wild especially. The third book in Jean Craighead George’s Julie of the Wolves series, Julie’s Wolf Pack, was also a favorite, even more so than the first book, because it was only about the interactions between the wolf packs in a small region of Alaska, and included few human characters.
Later, I enjoyed what were probably abridged versions of Victorian era sci-fi and adventure, like H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth, H. Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines, all that business. My grandmother tried to interest me in Little House on the Prairie by giving me a new book in the series for each special occasion, and I would thank her, read one chapter to be polite, and then set it aside to find out once again if Buck the kidnapped half-wolf dog would survive the epic battle with Spitz, the alpha of the sled dog team. My mom would edge Jane Austen novels over the table at me during the summer, and I would nod at her absently as I read of White Fang’s struggle against humanity.
People made me nervous and bored in real life and in books, when I was an adolescent; 12+ish, I mean. I was All About people when I was in preschool and grade school, but that changed really quick when I suddenly changed environments and I discovered my deep loathing of dramatic change. Maybe I’m over exaggerating my shyness at the time, but considering the energy I spent agonizing over strategies of how to win friends, I’m not that sure. Oh man, I had strategies! Anyway, I was a nervous kid, but BOOKS; So great!
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Early Summer Conversations With Myself
Oh my gosh, my laziness seriously frightens me in its intensity. I am so lazy, I'm too lazy to go to sleep, which doesn't even make sense. This past year just took everything out of me, ambition, hopes and dreams....
Tomorrow I am just going to make lists and clean the house. Maybe get some food that isn't takeout and coleslaw that my dad made with like, a whole jar of mayonnaise. AND I WILL DEFINITELY NOT STAY UP UNTIL 3 IN THE MORNING LAUGHING UNTIL I CRY AT STUPID THINGS I FIND ON THE INTERNET. LIKE, A HUGE TUMBLR ACCOUNT DEDICATED TO PHOTOS OF ROBERT DOWNEY JR. WITH MAN PURSES. OR "WIZARD PEOPLE, DEAR READERS" ON YOUTUBE FOR THE MILLIONTH TIME. OR WHATEVER.
GOD HOW IS THIS MY LIFE. NINE YEAR OLD ME WOULD BE SO DISAPPOINTED.
"NINE YEAR OLD ME, IT'S FUNNY, BECAUSE PURSES."
"WHYYYYYYYYYYYY"
Tomorrow I am just going to make lists and clean the house. Maybe get some food that isn't takeout and coleslaw that my dad made with like, a whole jar of mayonnaise. AND I WILL DEFINITELY NOT STAY UP UNTIL 3 IN THE MORNING LAUGHING UNTIL I CRY AT STUPID THINGS I FIND ON THE INTERNET. LIKE, A HUGE TUMBLR ACCOUNT DEDICATED TO PHOTOS OF ROBERT DOWNEY JR. WITH MAN PURSES. OR "WIZARD PEOPLE, DEAR READERS" ON YOUTUBE FOR THE MILLIONTH TIME. OR WHATEVER.
GOD HOW IS THIS MY LIFE. NINE YEAR OLD ME WOULD BE SO DISAPPOINTED.
"NINE YEAR OLD ME, IT'S FUNNY, BECAUSE PURSES."
"WHYYYYYYYYYYYY"
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