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my recent reading
Aug. 6th, 2005 08:23 pmI Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith
An interesting but odd coming-of-age story. It's very British, so one is exposed to nuances of the country culture. There are two daughters living in an old castle. Their father is a writer who only wrote one book, and it was so fabulous he couldn't do anything else. There is a sort of servant / swain, who is in love with the protagonist. (I can't remember names and I don't have the book in front of me. Perhaps I'll edit this later.) Two American brothers move into the great house next door, and the older sister sets about getting married. The most interesting element of the book is the narrator. She is 17, but at the beginning she seems much younger. She says everyone treats her like she is younger. By the end, her voice has changed in subtle ways, and suddenly she seems 17 or 18. There is a definite movement and progression, which I think has to do with her paying more attention to other people and coming out of her poetic mindset. This book is extremely popular with a certain group of people and was highly recommended to me, especially as someone who loves Jane Austen, but it's effect on me is primarily bemusement. I recommend it if you're learning how to write narrators.
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, by Cory Doctorow.
I really like Doctorow's style. It's very fast-paced, and you have to pay attention to keep up. He doesn't spend much time on explanation, so you've got to figure out for yourself what the Bitchun Society is and what it means to deadhead and what HUD stands for. I didn't care for the narrator. He is deliberately impossible to admire, but I wouldn't call him an anti-hero. He gets paranoid and starts taking action, but all his actions have unintended consequences. I didn't feel there was a real resolution. Basically, he decides he needs to move on.
"Preface for a Post-Postcolonial Criticism," by Erin O'Connor, Victorian Studies 45.2 (2003)
I greatly admire this essay. The writer has a clear, direct style, and she's very knowledgeable. My real source of enjoyment is that she points out something that has always confused me. Gayatri Spivak's article, "Three Women's Texts and a Critique of Imperialism", has come to have a privileged spot in the critical canon. Yet, when you read the article, you discover that there is little real analysis. It's primarily polemical and political. O'Connor describes Spivak's logic as progressing by "the compulsive momentum of synecdoche: Jane Eyre is the nineteenth century novel is nineteenth-century culture is where imperialism is imagined; therefore, Jane Eyre is where imperialism is imagined" (227).
When I first read Spivak's essay, I thought to myself, is this how I have to write to be published? My tendency is to provide lots of evidence and do close reading. I suspect that giving more of my ruminations would be more valuable to scholars than close reading, which they can do themselves. But the real trouble is the flawed logic, which I do NOT plan to adopt. O'Connor says that Spivak essentially accused Victorian studies and women's studies of being racist and so these scholars rushed to fill in the analytic gaps. But you can't start with a conclusion and then look for evidence! Such tautological thinking isn't going to advance literary studies.
O'Connor states in her conclusion that we need to avoid generalizing and focus on the complexity of texts. While I agree in essence, I'm concerned that such an approach would mean evading critical thought. Consider those individuals who are stuck in multiplicity: they refuse to judge anything. Categorizing and generalizing are valid modes of understanding. They just need to be supported by specifics.
An interesting but odd coming-of-age story. It's very British, so one is exposed to nuances of the country culture. There are two daughters living in an old castle. Their father is a writer who only wrote one book, and it was so fabulous he couldn't do anything else. There is a sort of servant / swain, who is in love with the protagonist. (I can't remember names and I don't have the book in front of me. Perhaps I'll edit this later.) Two American brothers move into the great house next door, and the older sister sets about getting married. The most interesting element of the book is the narrator. She is 17, but at the beginning she seems much younger. She says everyone treats her like she is younger. By the end, her voice has changed in subtle ways, and suddenly she seems 17 or 18. There is a definite movement and progression, which I think has to do with her paying more attention to other people and coming out of her poetic mindset. This book is extremely popular with a certain group of people and was highly recommended to me, especially as someone who loves Jane Austen, but it's effect on me is primarily bemusement. I recommend it if you're learning how to write narrators.
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, by Cory Doctorow.
I really like Doctorow's style. It's very fast-paced, and you have to pay attention to keep up. He doesn't spend much time on explanation, so you've got to figure out for yourself what the Bitchun Society is and what it means to deadhead and what HUD stands for. I didn't care for the narrator. He is deliberately impossible to admire, but I wouldn't call him an anti-hero. He gets paranoid and starts taking action, but all his actions have unintended consequences. I didn't feel there was a real resolution. Basically, he decides he needs to move on.
"Preface for a Post-Postcolonial Criticism," by Erin O'Connor, Victorian Studies 45.2 (2003)
I greatly admire this essay. The writer has a clear, direct style, and she's very knowledgeable. My real source of enjoyment is that she points out something that has always confused me. Gayatri Spivak's article, "Three Women's Texts and a Critique of Imperialism", has come to have a privileged spot in the critical canon. Yet, when you read the article, you discover that there is little real analysis. It's primarily polemical and political. O'Connor describes Spivak's logic as progressing by "the compulsive momentum of synecdoche: Jane Eyre is the nineteenth century novel is nineteenth-century culture is where imperialism is imagined; therefore, Jane Eyre is where imperialism is imagined" (227).
When I first read Spivak's essay, I thought to myself, is this how I have to write to be published? My tendency is to provide lots of evidence and do close reading. I suspect that giving more of my ruminations would be more valuable to scholars than close reading, which they can do themselves. But the real trouble is the flawed logic, which I do NOT plan to adopt. O'Connor says that Spivak essentially accused Victorian studies and women's studies of being racist and so these scholars rushed to fill in the analytic gaps. But you can't start with a conclusion and then look for evidence! Such tautological thinking isn't going to advance literary studies.
O'Connor states in her conclusion that we need to avoid generalizing and focus on the complexity of texts. While I agree in essence, I'm concerned that such an approach would mean evading critical thought. Consider those individuals who are stuck in multiplicity: they refuse to judge anything. Categorizing and generalizing are valid modes of understanding. They just need to be supported by specifics.