Sub Rosa

Fahrenheit 451 is the first book of my reading list. The blurb says that it is a dystopian "post-literate future", which "stands alongside Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World and a prophetic account of Western civilization's enslavement by the media, drugs and conformity".

Kudos from The Times - "A disturbing tale that explores the maxim "Ignorance is Bliss" to its fullest; and the Sunday Telegraph - "No other writer uses language with greater originality and zest."

Looks like it is right up my street :-)

Note to self ::: re Psychoanalytical - read up about the 'pleasure principal'; re Marxist - try to find a more simplistic definition or structure to work from (I appreciate that the latter might just be impossible).

Day 3 and it is plain that I don't proofread as well as I should.  I have dropped out of the habit since Access and it is becoming a problem.  I dunno - I think I get blinded by what I have written sometimes, I read it so often that spots and blemishes disappear.  I noticed it today whilst reading To The Shore to a friend.  I should really proofread and also read things out.   Brain just switches off, though.  I need more time though and I think it is this factor that worries me somewhat.

Never mind - I will have to go onward with IL3 Wordsworth and Eliot :-/

16:59
IL3 is done.  I have noticed that my essays seem to double up, my stream of consciousness writes like someone else is singing a duet with it.  I am a bit irritated as my printer is starting to run out of ink at a pretty critical time and the hose on my car radiator has sprung a leak again. Grrr - wasn't like I was planning on going anywhere, but even so.  Decided to go back to TH3, because this is the assignment that is niggling me the most at the moment.

18:54
OK, I think I have got the idea of 'How to be a Theorist' crash course 101.  I *think* my mistake is that I have been putting the text first and the theory very much as a secondary consideration - when it should be the other way round.  I also have to rethink how the population is perceived by the *insert theory* mind.

My head hurts - this is most definitely something I have to brush up on during the summer holiday.

22:12
I think I am near the end of the first half. I have to think of the psychological being of the author and the psychological motives of the reader.  Hmmm. Is this going to be awkward territory for me, I wonder? I have a fascination for dystopian societies and I have to see beyond my own motives.  Control issues? Overt control? Sadist Versus Masochist?  I think I might have best part of another day on this.  Loooong slog ahead.

I won't be labouring with this for much longer as it is about stripping off 200 or so words from plan one and rearranging plan two so everything is cohesive...hopefully.

13:07
Goddamn it - I STILL have to shave off 72 words.  Its ok to jettison superfluous bits, but there are things that I can't reword.  It would be like cutting off a limb!

14:11
WooHoo!!! I have finished TH3!!! Aldous Huxley can kiss my ass!!!

I have printed out the Marxist Theory information from the OWL Purdue site and am ready to thrash this.  My main annoyance is that a few days ago, I had a lot of boxed stuff brought to our cottage and it is all sitting in my office straight in front of my wipe board - so planning anything will be impossible until it is shifted. To add to my annoyance, hot on the heels of the last batch of bug, I now have a throat infection.  I am swilling fruit smoothies and echinacea to combat the worst of it.  I have a feeling that most of this will shift when I finish the lot in June.

Back to the grindstone :-/

16:34
Something has cropped up and things have not gone well - cannot reveal exactly why, suffice to say that on top of everything else our finances maybe screwed.  Heart and motivation in my boots - because of other personal matters, it has been a horrible, horrible week. I need to get back on track.

20:46
Because of unforeseen setbacks, I have decided to organise a more structured plan for the latter half of this assignment.  Right now, I can't concentrate on anything else.  I think I have over done it somewhat and need to recover with an early night :-(((

I have blasted through Brave New World, annotating, theorising and now I am ready to begin. I am to use 1,000 words each theory and will start with Psychoanalytical as it will specifically feed into the Marxist.  I have already planned the first half as to why the citizens are kept in a perpetual state of pseudo happiness and link it to Freud's theories etc. I would love to say more, but as most of it should end up in my essay, I don't want the problem of having to cite my LJ account when they run my stuff through a system check.

Onward :-)

11:58
Well, I have cranked out about 362 words and unsurprisingly, I have all of my old 'A' level books in front of me (lucky really - I was going to give them to a first year BSc Psychology student, but forgot to drop them off.  Just as well, considering).  Obviously, I have to use Freud's stages of childhood development, but I think I can use Jung's archetypes which is fascinating. You can story board absolutely ALL of the figures in your own life.  I think it will be VERY interesting when I move towards creative writing full time post BA.

13:27
493 but with a lot of research going on. Desk is awash with paper and stuck on side of PC tower, the book stand is crammed with 2 books and propping up another. I am really driven to do this because it is Brave New World AND Psychoanalytical.  Later might be difficult when I tackle Marxism, but I think it will be OK if i deal with it as a social/economic project, with Marxist theory thrown in.

19:52
I have topped a thousand, but have saved off the brief Marxist observations and pasted them into Plan 2 (because when I have two parts to an essay, I couldn't see the wood for the trees).  I am not down to 748 and I am nowhere near finished entering the quotes let alone expand on them.  I have a feeling I will have to cherry-pick the best and kick the rest to the kerb.

21:54
I am stuck into Freud's Psychosexual Stages and the Id/Ego/Superego. Messy, or what?

I am back up to 898 words and I haven't touched Jung's archetypes yet (and would he complain if I did? :-P).  I think I am about 50% done on the Psychoanalytical, need to concentrate on the rest of it, then pare back to 1,000 before I move onto Plan 2 (Marxist).

Back tomorrow :-)

Well, this is the possibility - I have read most of Brave New World and I have some notes on it.  If I am to pull this off, I WILL have to lock myself in.  None of the reading list titles appealed to me (Virginia Woolf The Waves = too complicated for theory at this level; D.H Lawrence Sons and Lovers = read this back in September - interesting, but doesn't hold me; Margaret Attwood The Handmaid's Tale = want to read it, haven't had time). Nothing doing with the printer at the moment, jammed again and it needs Hubby to fix it, so this afternoon, I might just read through it and annotate as I go.  Plus I need to plunder OWL/Purdue site for Theory definitions.

Literary Theories - https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/

I am concerned at this late stage that I have bitten off rather more than I can chew, however it does interest me and I like a challenge (like a hole in the head).

I have to finish this today as I have to move on the the Othello/newspaper article soon.  I have managed to shave off a meagre 200 words this morning and I am about only half done.  I will have to do the rest then mesh as I have never meshed before.  I need a crash course in Microsoft Publisher, which I will look at in our free break tomorrow morning. 2,717 down to 2,433. 284 in fact. It's times like this when you realised you have doubled up somewhere along the line, or have glaring omissions.  My main concern is that it doesn't matter how often I rearrange the paragraphs, the problems still remain.

16:41
I am down to 2,096 words and I am worried now that I have confused the issue somewhere along the line. I am scratching my head as I have to get across what it is exactly I am getting at.  Yes the poor living conditions are caused by the economic cutbacks of the party, but also I am trying to convey how the people are kept to this level by the environment AND the brainwashing.  No description fits in this essay and I feel that it has the same monster proportions as I found with Wuthering Heights this time last year.

LOL: I just looked at my entry for this time last year and it was all about having three versions of WH on the go and wishing it would snow so I didn't have to go in!! HA!! Somethings never change.

19:13
I'm down to 1,999. 350 left if I am going for 1,500 plus 10%. Let's get to it :-)

20:09
I am sticking to 1,650 - I have 95 words to shave off.

21:39
It is done - well, it wasn't JUST about shaving off words, it was also about rewriting to lose those words. 1,650 done and dusted for now :-)

I shouldn't complain, I know - but unsurprisingly, I am finding 1984 a drag.  I have been on this a week, but realistically  it has been split time in between finishing the creative writing homework and attending college (there was also an evening out that I couldn't get out of - enjoyable as it was, it took me straight off track).  Just as Wuthering Heights before it, this is in another nemesis - another beast to slay.  It is looking a LOT better than it was,but I have a lot of judicial editing, which will include sentence rearranging and a lot of paragraph meshing to do.

I have set myself the deadline of midnight tomorrow - in actual fact I really want to be done way before that.  I am also having a peek at Microsoft Publisher for my newspaper report.  I will have to get to grips with that pretty soon and I have a feeling a trip to see the tecky-minded boys from two floors up won't come amiss.

20:34
Things are slightly better.  I am down to understanding what I have to say about the lexis area of the essay - of which Oceania has its own - Newspeak.  Also, it won't be long before I will be commenting on word classification (verb/noun etc.) and seeing what effect it has on the essay.  I will then sum up the overall effect (frickn grim and bleak springs to mind) and my reader response (now thoroughly depressed).  This hydra head is going on and on (I actually do think of this degree as being one great big Lernaean Hydra and the golden sword at the end is the final scroll), but I think I am at least 3/4s done.  Yay to me :-)

22:41
I was mistaken in my assumptions that I am 3/4 through. I haven't even touched the phonological sides yet (alliterations, plosives, fricatives et al), nor the figurative language (similies and metaphors etc.), nor the cacophonic language (there is sure as hell no euphonic language, I can tell you!!).  I have made the notes on it for now i.e. the lines and where they are in the text for tomorrow. I am at least 700 words over, if not more and as I have said, I am not done yet.

*sigh* tomorrow is another day :-/

Alas I do - I know that I am only about 40% through the 1984 essay.  The bare bones of the essay plan is there, but my random musings have got to be streamlined and pared back to the level of acute observations and make every single word count.  Right now it is a mess: I have referred to essay writing as almost being like forensic archaeology or like a huge jenga puzzle - right now it is like the carcass of a thoroughly mauled roast chicken and somehow I have to make it into a fully-fledged hen.

I am aware that this is a haphazard metaphor, but I think it is the ruminants of a very chaotic mind at the moment.  Right now, if I have any inspirational thoughts, I log it at the end of the essay - in a kind of massive word dump. I cannot afford to agonise over the other assignment that I have to fulfill by at least Tuesday night, 'ere I get a beady/withering look from my lecturer.  I have to acquire blinkered vision and deal with what is under my nose or flap around like a wet hen*.  Plus ::: even though keeping FB and various other pages open at least provides me with a link to the outside world, I find that I have developed displacement activities. It was previously seen a couple of months ago, when I cleaned the aga and researched exploding wind turbines on Youtube rather than soldier on with my PP on Post colonialism.  Right now, my undivided attention is on our new super shredder that looks like R2D2 and has been nicknamed Yum Yum because of its capacity to consume.

Get on with your work!!!

* Why is my metaphor about poultry?