Sub Rosa

The skies have darkened and the rain has come - yup, it's definitely bank holiday weekend again. Tomorrow it will be four weeks until I start back at college; thankfully, I am already in the groove of reading the books recommended.  I am struggling a bit with Dracula: to begin with, it was a very linear story with the central character cataloging his imprisonment and the Weird Sisters' plan to bear their teeth and drain his blood like a 'Just Juice' box - then cut to his fiance's domestic letters to her best friend.  Like - wtf?

I thin I need to swap the books around and read the aforementioned book when I am more awake and Moby Dick just before I go to bed.  I love the descriptions in Melville's book.  He mentions that the seaman come in with icicles on vast beards and likens them to bears.  One complains of a head cold and is handed "a pitch-like potion of gin and molasses." Could you imagine it? You'd either get well damn quick or die - It would certainly cure your problems one way or another...

I finished Brick Lane last night and my first impression is that it was a very descriptive book, which conjured up the image of an east London street, which has a history of multi-national immigrants living there.  Today and in Ali's book, it is a Bangladeshi-Sylheti community, where racial and religious conflict are never far away.  The older characters are well-fleshed out, not so much in regards to Nazneen and Karim, which is a disappointment.  Maybe Ali decided that as they were centre stage, they didn't need as much character - I felt that they were a bit lifeless in comparison to the rest.

It is a good book, though I must admit I should have read it during the day when I am awake, rather than late at night when I am trying to read two chapters before I sleep.  Therefore, I found it too protracted, especially as it is a large book.   I also found that some of the plot was over described - maybe a little 'show' rather than 'tell' would have been better.  Nevertheless, I think it is a book that I will come back to and I would like to see how it translated to the big screen.

Monica Ali: Brick Lane Done :-)

Even though Wells' book can be seen in the utopian/dystopian model, I would say that today it fitted in with a 'Dying Earth' sub genre, with a lot of Steampunk thrown in.  It is a very short story, 87 pages in total -  not that it didn't have enough packed into it. To me, it is a caricature of Wells' observations on the Mid Victorian/Late Industrial Revolution, seen by the divided human race comprised of weak, childlike Uplanders (the Eloi) and the sinister subterranean dwellers (the Morlocks).  An interesting book - I feel that it will fall into the band of 'Marxist' critique.

I have just read it as a regular reader, without an essay in mind - It will definitely be one that I will return to and REALLY devour if I have to compare/contrast in one of the modules (possibly Dicken's Hard Times).  Before I turn the page of any other Dickens tomes (another is due through my front door tomorrow), I am going to attempt reading Bram Stokers' Dracula.

I have come to the end of my study of Great Expectations for the time being. I must admit to skimming it and I think if it is a book I will be studying, then I will revisit and take notes with the exact essay title in mind. No spoilers, but every Gothic novel has its sinister setting and Satis House is no exception.  Throw in a token mad woman and her brainwashed mini me and bingo - Gothic Central.  Some critics would say that both lead females eventually become sympathetic characters in their own way.  Sometimes I wonder what I am missing, because I think they are both monsters.

There's Mrs Joe, the sadistic husband/nephew beater; Havisham as the rotting Rapunzel, with her virago-in-waiting Estella (another automaton - what IS it with this specific Dickens archetypes?) honed to drive men to make masochistic fools of themselves.  Lots of themes here - social class, sexual inequality and Dickens own deep psyche needs exploring.  Or does it? I think he was a product of his time and he reflects the prejudices and presumptions across the scale.

I am preferring Brick Lane, which is quite a thick book to get through - I am chipping away with it night after night before I go to sleep.  A review on that book another time.

Well, I started so well with my summer reading (Fahrenheit 451/Wide Sargasso Sea/All of Me), then I lost all interest in reading ANYTHING for the past six weeks.  However, I started to get anxiety dreams about either missing lessons/trains or turning up to lectures totally clueless.  So I guess the psyche is doing a number on me - my dreams are guilt-tripping me into getting back on track.  So I had a peak at the stuff lined up for September and the coursework needed.  Hence starting to chip away at the Dickens selection, starting with Hard Times.

Not doing so badly - Dickens brings the spotlight down on the airs and presumptions of Victorian Britain during the Industrial Revolution.  Looming large is the 'Age of Reason' parent Mr Gradgrind, his overblown associate Mr Bounderby (gotta love these names) and the totally preposterously-named Mr McChoakumchild *, the sadistic child-hating teacher. I am on chapter seven, where the well-connected, but hard-up Mrs Sparsit the housekeeper provides social observation on the new set up in Gradgrind's house.  Not as dreary as one might imagine - I could imagine doing Marxist literary criticism piece on this to start with.

* I ask you - Dickens might as well have called him Mr Throttlebrat.

Some women buy shoes and scent or clothes and holidays - I have forked out for even MORE books (I have just had a Dickens spending spree). I have bought a biography on C.S Lewis by the same publisher that did the Roald Dahl one that I liked.  I have got the story of Kim Noble, the artist who has a split personality and these personalities produce very different, very individual pieces of work. I came across this story whilst doing the Psychology modules at Access last academic year. Will write up about the book when it has been read (add to the other 10 or so 'must read' titles in my bookshelf).

Below is an interview with Kim and also a link to her website.  Terribly sad, many awful things happened to her, in many regards but also an amazing story of how art overcomes the mind.

http://www.kimnoble.com/


( Kim Noble - Artist with Multiple Personality Disorder )

Plus, I have been able to bag a snazzy academic diary and a batch of henna from LUSH. Feel pampered :-D

I mislaid Fahrenheit 451, so I have read Wide Sargasso Sea. Bewitching book - I thought as I wasn't a Jane Eyre fan, that this would fall flat for me. Au contraire - Jean Rhys' descriptions conjure not only the Jamaican landscape, but the decline of the western colonial rule and the tensions between the indigenous population and the white Creole. Displaced and conflicted, the culture has an impact upon the already-established fragility of Antoinette's family and their weakened mental state.  It is told in three parts via Antoinette, her new, unnamed husband (who is presumed to be Rochester) and the eventual return to England.

It is but an imagined prequel; it could be argued that Bronte's Jane Eyre is a Gothic novel, the Wide Sargasso Sea could be seen as a post modern portrayal of a much-maligned woman's life from a wholly different angle.  Countless Literary Theory documents have been written about this, mostly fem-lib, but it is an interesting plot twist on an old story. Well worth the read - I will resume Fahrenheit 451 (recently reclaimed from a pile of office junk).

As per the FdA Year 2 list

Arthur Conan-Doyle: The Lost World, The Poison World
Charles Dickens: Bleak House, Hard Times, Great Expectation - perhaps add The Old Curiosity Shop
George Eliot: Middlemarch
H.G.Wells: The Time Machine

As per my list

Monica Ali: Brick Lane
Margaret Attwood: Alias Grace, The Handmaid's Tale
Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451
Bertolt Brecht: The Caucasian Chalk Circle
Jean Rhys: The Wide Sargasso Sea
John Wyndham: The Chrysalids, The Midwitch Cuckoos
Markus Zusak: The Book Thief

I may add to this in due course - but I am looking forward to some creative time