Jane Austen

For the next blogs, I will be going through these alphabetically with some of my favorite novels. Looking down the line, I realize that I probably need to reread a lot of these to recall why they ended up in the greatest hits section of my bookshelf.

The "A" authors must begin with Jane Austen, so prolific in her characters, her satires of her contemporary society, and her Romantic inclinations surfacing from beneath the witty surface.

If you were part of AP Lang ever, you know that we read the opening chapters of Pride and Prejudice and its recent version Pride & Prejudice & Zombies. For those of you delving into the world of Austen, that combination is an excellent course - very accessible and quite fun to look comparatively at the two milieus side-by-side.

I was turned onto Jane Austen and here plethora of incredible novels by the "Austen Renaissance" that occurred in film-making circa 1995-1996, which would be Emma Thompson's fabulous Sense and Sensibility, Gwyneth Paltrow as Emma, its modern adaptation Clueless, and, the best of all, the BBC version of Pride & Prejudice with Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy.

In order of Jane Austen: The Complete Novels, here are snippets of the plots - in the order I think I read them:

• Pride & Prejudice - her most famed novel, a tale of 5 sisters, 2 rich gentlemen, and the society that proclaims "it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife" to exhibit the faulty reasoning behind that system all the while creating the magnetic connection between Miss Elizabeth Bennet (Prejudice) and Mr. Darcy (Pride). The BBC miniseries is so accurate to this novel - it takes all of the wit and energy and makes what seems quite simple (the marriage rituals of mid to upper class British folks) into a dynamic chess game of manners and mores. 
• Sense & Sensibility - as with the former novel, this one also connects abstract ideas to characters via Elinor (Sense) & Marianne (Sensibility) Dashwood, two sisters with different philosophies of life and both having relationship trouble. Whether it is the film or the novel, both look at how both extremes don't work well to emotional survival, that one should find a medium between the two, or at least that's how I see it. 
• Emma - here Austen creates a well-intentioned, matchmaking protagonist who actually is quite blind to her own feelings and relationships. Emma is a light-hearted romp; her conflicts are minor and more for teaching our herione about her own selfishness to gain further maturity for her eventual partner.
• Mansfield Park - this one differs in that its main protagonist, Fanny, is a more of an outsider and presented without as much wit and voice and some of her other Austen leads. I personally like the novel and its key/locked gate motif; it definitely shows the flaws in the upper class world that Fanny's relative inhabit and how morally unadvanced those staying in Mansfield Park happen to be. 
• Northanger Abbey - love, love this text and its satire of Gothic fiction. The main character wants to live in a novel - the first line of the text is "No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be an heroine." Unfortunately, through Austen's plot, the recognition that life is not a novel brings Catherine Morland into maturity.
• Persuasion - I never got into Persuasion in general although I should probably reread it now that I'm older. As a teenager, it wasn't as attractive to read about a woman who was a spinster who broke an engagement with a man and then years later has a second chance with him. I always felt there was a melancholy to this text that the other ones did not have.
• Lady Susan - this is an epistolary novel (vocab to learn = a text in letters/diary form) with widow Lady Susan and her daughter and all the hijinks that occur in their visits.

Carol Goodman - Literary Mysteries

If you like mysteries, especially those that are highly literate, I recommend the Carol Goodman texts that you can read about here: CG text summaries, which are listed from most recent to eldest in nature. There is quite a variety of plots, so I feel there is something for almost everyone who wants to read in the genre. I have read seven of the novels so far and in sequential order of publication if you want to follow my path. 

I first read The Lake of Dead Languages about 15 years ago, and became entranced by the storyline, the emphasis on language, and the writing style. After that experience, I read The Seduction of Water, and had the same connection to the text, which also brought in literary tropes too. I've read all of the novels through Arcadia Falls and will definitely have to get my hands on the last five - I have been slacking on reading her works!

Tolstoy

As with the idea that you are either an Austen or a Bronte fan, so goes the idea with the great Russian authors of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. With his epic nature and Victorian-era sensibility, I fall in the Tolstoy camp.

Anna Karenina is a mammoth novel, one not to be picked up by the casual reader. While its title suggests that Anna Karenina is the main character, she is only one half of the book's focus with Levin the other protagonist seeking to figure out his life, romantic inclinations, and past in a classified, judgmental Russia. His part can sometimes be boring - a lot of info regarding agricultural in nineteenth century Russia - but he brings forth a juxtaposition to the upper-class societal world Anna populates. Back to Anna, she is married to a boring man with a young son when she falls in love with Vronsky, a seductive military man. Her decisions regarding her child, her husband, and her lover become the dramatic parts of the text, leading to the train motif that occurs at the beginning and end of the novel. When I used to teach characterization, I would use the first train chapter as an example and would analogize these characters to volcanoes: most maintaining dormancy to stay in societal favor while some would erupt, causing mass chaos.

I first read Anna Karenina as an independent novel analysis during my second semester of college. I chose it because the movie version was coming out (there is a theme to why I read stuff). I remember reading the book for the first time in April, sitting under the crab apple tree blooming with its pretty pink petals and looking up to see a pure blue sky above. At (almost) nineteen reading about Anna and her want of love and freedom, I completely rooted for her and wanted her to dump her husband and all. The last time I read the novel, in my late thirties, I couldn't believe the selfishness of a mother choosing lust over her child. Perhaps that is what great literature should be - something that changes just as we do over the course of our lives.

Anna Karenina is my third favorite novel, so I highly recommend it to those of you who are ready for epic Russian literature. If you're not ready for that commitment yet, at least you know the gist of the plot and, if you show up to a Scholar Quiz practice, can appreciate the "Chug a Chug a Choo Choo" that the team does whenever a question arises about the novel.

I also find a modern version of the novel, What Ever Happened to Anna K by Irina Reyn, a fascinating update to the same situation. It's not as long and developed as the Russian text it emulates, but it brings all of the same choices to light.

Charles Frazier

My second favorite novel, and the one first novel that I ever cried upon reading, is Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain. As the film version was coming out on Christmas Day 2003 and starring a few of my personal favorite actors (Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, Renee Zellweger), I wanted to read the novel before seeing it on the big screen. On December 23, I was nearing the end of the novel when the plot introduces snow, or the point where I feel you can't stop reading. So while baking batches of Christmas cookies, I reached the completion of this extraordinary text, one that is considered an "American Odyssey" as Inman, one of the protagonists, an outlier Confederate soldier, journeys back to Cold Mountain, meeting a slew of characters that reflect the degradation of what war does to those in uniform and what war does to those left behind without money, morals, and motivation (although the Goat Lady is a bright shining light of humanity just when you think there is nothing left that war has not touched) and Ada (her name means "noble," something I know quite well as my late rabbit was named after her), his beloved, who must figure out how to be a farmer and to survive off the land left without her father, Inman, or anyone to take care of day-to-day living, until Ruby comes along to teach a Southern belle taught only accomplishments what it means to plant, craft, and work. ''=

Charles Frazier is an incredible writer with his texts full of rich language, comparisons, and character development. In my opinion, this is the best paragraph I've ever read:

"At the hospital, the doctors looked at him and said their was not much they could do. He might live or her might now. They gave him but a grey rag and a little basin to clean his own wound.Those first few days, when he broke consciousness enough to do it, he wiped at his neck with the rag until the water in the basin was the color of the comb on a turkey-cock. But mainly the wound had wanted to clean itself. Before it started scabbing, ti spit out a number of things: a collar button and a piece of wool from the shirt he had been wearing when he was hit, a shard of soft grey metal as big as a quarter dollar piece, and, unaccountable, something that closely resembled a peach pit. That last he set on the nightstand and studied for some days. He could never settle his mind on whether it was part of him or not. He finally threw it out the window but then had troubling dreams that it has taken roots and grown, like Jack's bean, into something monstrous." 

I read this novel to Cora last year (Wuthering Heights was first), and I spent a lot of time talking about war and what it results in for everyone involved - watching people of hope and life be condemned to mental and emotional scars that still haunt the land to this day. (I also read this book to my Ada when she was a 4 month old bunny, and she would "boing" - if you have rabbits, you know that is their own special way of jumping - every time she heard her name.) In my interpretation, Frazier brings in a lot of moments that exhibit how horribly violent America was becoming and how this would be the start of greater hardship in the future.

One other novel that stands out by Frazier is Nightwoods, set more in the present than his other works. I started rereading it this week to remind myself of the plot: two children whose mother has been murdered go to live with their aunt while the murderer attempts to find them. The book really brings up a lot about the lack of justice that happens and how victims are often the ones who have their reputations destroyed by law/lawyers as part of a defense. The limited third person point of view rotates between the aunt, the killer, and a man who owns land, so the reader rotates between empathy and disgust as the narrators have their say. The first line of the novel is very telling: "Luce's new stranger children were small and beautiful and violent." And that polysyndeton, which is throughout the novel by the way, especially when dealing with Luce's love of nature, clarifies the entire novel.

I hope you give either or both novels a read, especially since Frazier is a modern author and still writing novels of incredible depth, specific milieu, and characters that haunt you, in so many different ways, long past reading.

The First Bronte

My favorite novel is actually one that we read in AP Lit: Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, her only novel as her life was tragically cut short by consumption, a.k.a. tuberculosis, a.k.a. what Keats also succumbed to in the nineteenth century. As it is the cumulative text of the class, if you are taking AP Lit, you may want to wait to read it with me and the group to become part of the Bronte moors, the Byronic Hero archetype, and the minutia that makes this novel, read after read, a fascinating slice of personalities that do not mix. With that last thought in mind, though, you could do a read for pleasure (yes, that does still exist even after taking AP Lang and realizing how much you note shifts, juxtaposition, motifs, syntax, and those syndetons) for plot and character.

Now for those of you who like juxtaposition, this novel is made around the premise with 2 narrators (yes, Lockwood is a bother and there is no escaping it; Nelly is our source of true interest, imagination, and questions of her motive in depicted characters as such), 2 settings, and 2 generations of characters. In AP Lit studies of the novel, there is much depth to analyze with character development, the weather motifs, color symbolism, and commentary on the circumstances of nineteenth century class structure and how this pollutes the souls of those in the text (this novel, which is hard to categorize as it filters through various genres, is made for Marxist criticism, which is our underlying critical eye in class).

I first read the novel when I was sixteen. Why? Well, it all started with a film version, this one Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights starring the extraordinary Juliette Binoche as both Cathys (yep, there's two of them so keep on your toes at the beginning of the novel) and my beloved Ralph Fiennes as the magnetic, mysterious, mistreated, vengeful, cruel Byronic Hero Heathcliff. After watching the film, and falling madly for Ralph's Heathcliff, I picked up the novel and plunged into its specific milieu. My reading of the novel has changed over time, as does any time you read something over a 26 year period. I gravitate to different characters, see the flaws in the Byronic protagonist that were first ignored, pick up on the subtle projections of Nelly and how she is the real sculptor of the tale.

I do love all of the Bronte sisters and their works. There is a thought that you are either a Bronte or an Austen. While I do love my Jane Austen and her novels dearly, I do return back to the Brontes again and again. I guess that would be a fun class to take in the juxtaposition of the Romantic Hero vs. the Byronic Hero.

F.Y.I. The film version I mentioned is one of many, and it is the most accurate to the novel if you take my word for it. Most film versions cut the novel in half, taking away the second generational aspect.

When I was in college, a friend at the time recommended to me a novel called Here on Earth by Alice Hoffman as she said it was reminiscent of Wuthering Heights and its characters. And, yes it sure does modernize the Bronte characters - and the passionate situations that were once implied and now described. I always dreamed about teaching a class where we could read both novels to show that connection. Alice Hoffman is an amazing writer, and if you are looking for a modern author with a large canon of work, take a look at her texts and see if any are of interest to you.

Happy Reading!

American Literary Texts

Admittedly, I am a nineteenth century British Lit head, which means the Brontes, Austen, Eliot, Dickens, James (o.k., he's American and part of the twentieth century as well), and a slew of authors who knew how to write deeply felt characters, commentate on the social mores of the time frame (sometimes in wit, sometimes in irony, sometimes in subtlety that might not be noted via surface reading), and compose with syntax of complex nature, cumulative and periodic, that peppers sophisticated, specific words to detail their milieus.

With that in mind, I still do have a soft spot for American writers, and this blog will look at some of the texts that American Literature has featured in the past, present, and future. While the Puritan writers are something to note (Jonathan Edwards's "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" to understand fear-mongering of religion in the Puritan world and Anne Bradstreet's poetry to comprehend a loving, just God part of the daily existence of those struggling to survive), the longer texts of the course are a better focus.

To jump around a bit, let's start with the plays, performance pieces that have become part of our American cultural literacy: The Crucible and A Raisin in the Sun. (You could also do a deep dive into Tennessee Williams's works if you want one of the prolific writers' works into your life.)

The Crucible is one of those texts that have become part of the American high school experience, looking at how pack behavior, false accusations, and sin corrupt a town and its residents, resulting in doubt, vendettas, and death. Arthur Miller wrote this play during the Communist "witch hunts" of the 1950s to show the parallels between McCarthy's drive to stamp out Communists and the Salem Witch Trials. The Witch Trials were a fascinating year (yes, one year) of American History with neighbor turning against neighbor, accusing those of witchcraft in a burst of communal insanity (which may have been caused by Ergot poisoning). Miller has many real-life characters in the play, although he did "age up" Abigail, which if you read the play, you'll see why this was needed to create conflict. If you want to play a bit with your history knowledge, check out Salem Witch Trials Jeopardy I'm sure you'll never forget what a "witchcake" means!

A Raisin in the Sun, written by Lorraine Hansberry, who passed away at a young age before continuing her career providing plays full of characters facing conflicts of personal nature, racial nature, class nature, and American nature, is a fascinating read of the milieu and characters all looking to find a better life, whether that be misguided investments, individual education, or familial homestead. The title, garnered from Langston Hughes' "Harlem" (read his poems - they are wonderful and indicative of how he inspired so many people during the twentieth century), further shows what happens as time weighs on dreams and hopes. My favorite character in the play is Beneatha; she reflects the youthful generational change that differs her from her older brother and her mother.

Poetry-wise, since I already name-dropped Anne Bradstreet & Langston Hughes, the Americans of note would be Longfellow, Whitman, Poe, Dickinson, Toomer, Cullen, McKay, Angelou. Poetry can be intimidating at times, but if you take one line at a time, look at how the words combine and move to the next line, you will see the meaning and connect with timeless messages and ideas. And for those of you shuddering at poetry, the best tip I can give you is that poetry is often inverted in its grammar (such as verb before subject or predicate before verb); if you uninvert the lines, you can find better understanding.

Short-story-wise, Charlotte Perkins-Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" is a must for any student of American Literature, especially as we do talk about it a lot, referencing its gender roles, its exhibition of how women were treated suffering from any "hysteria" (or in this case, postpartum depression), its symbolism, and its "creeping," which is also something brought up a great deal of how women felt during the turn-of-the-century. And while I do not like Faulkner's novels that much, his short story "A Rose for Emily," is one of those disturbing pieces of fiction that stick with you, whether you like it or not. And one more from Hawthorne - "Rappaccini's Daughter" - which, unlike a lot of his Puritan-laced fiction, deals with what happens when a scientist, working with poisons, happens to make his daughter a poisonous subject.

Lastly, a couple novels that are part of American Literature. First, The Great Gatsby. From the billboard to the yellow car to that green light, the motifs of Gatsby are a huge part of American culture. While the characters are extremely unlikable, they reflect the decadence of the 20s, the selfishness of the rich, the tragedy of those attempting to become the upper class. It's quite quick read, and while you could just watch Leonardo DiCaprio play Gatsby, I recommend the book first so that you don't miss out on the minor descriptions that help explicate Baz Luhrmann's choices in the film.

My favorite text of American Lit is The Scarlet Letter, which I act out every year (with a little added commentary to help show how this story continues to have a part in society and 3 costumes for the main characters). The Scarlet Letter, a novel of symbolism, obviously, revolves around sin and what happens to those who accept sin and punishment and the eventual beautifying of a soul, what happens to those who have a secret sin and let it eat away at his soul, and what happens to those who embrace a life of vengeance and darkness. Hester Prynne, the protagonist, is the wearer of The Scarlet Letter, a punishment given to her by the community for her sin of adultery, even though her young daughter Pearl is the greatest symbol of her past indiscretions, love, and choices in a world of Puritan hypocrisy. Her first steps from the prison (the start of the novel) to the end, still wearing that "A" as part of her identity, indicate a woman of strength and compassion, one not allowing the shallow judgments of those around her to contaminate her spirit. Arthur Dimmesdale, the reverend of such emotive speeches, losing a battle of hope and health, and a bit unaware of those surrounding him, gives the reader a chance to sympathize and find frustration with his actions, especially juxtaposed with Hester and her can-do attitude. Then, of course, is the mysterious "leech" Roger Chillingworth - the name basically tells you all there. While he certainly knew marrying a younger, attractive woman was not a love match, he definitely believes he has the right to avenge himself when things go awry. I love this novel, first reading it during my senior year of high school (which happened to coincide with the film version starring Gary Oldman, with long hair, sign, being released - I do have to warn that this version is not that good and diverges from the novel a lot) and finding fascination with Hester and her Pearl, who are truly the characters in the novel that you should want to pull for. I do want to mention that the syntax and diction on this novel is typical nineteenth century, which I adore for its depth and skill. As many of you are used to modern fiction (which definitely likes more simple sentences and word), you might not have the eye for the novel at first. Keep going! Once you get into the "baby daddy" mystery (that seems really wrong to say, but it's how I have sold it in the past to my classes and what engages many of you when I perform the novel), you'll have a solid want to read and your mind will adjust to the syntax and diction.

While I had my four hour block to clean Room 404 in May, I grabbed The Word Museum from my bookshelf and thought it would be fun to share with you "the most remarkable English words ever forgotten."

Today's forgotten word is "aflunters," which means a state of disorder. Since so many of the texts listed above deal with societies, characters, and conflicts in perpetual problems, aflunters seems an ideal use of diction as a descriptor.

In my upcoming blogs, I will be sharing novels from my own personal bookshelf :)

A Little Summer Reading

Hello, past and future AP Lit students who are looking for a little reading recommendations for the summer. AP Lit is my book club class, in which every day we are doing something regarding literature: close reading, finding lit strategies (if you like juxtaposition, well, just you wait), discussing minutia that you find in texts, performing some of the great characters of all time, creating during third quarter poems, stories, and peregrinations. Additionally, there is a reading community advanced, as each person find his/her niche in literary analysis and continues to indicate those patterns throughout the year. If you have not signed up for AP Lit and would like to be part of the class, you still can over the summer, during registration, or, if you are really waiting until the last minute, the first week of school.

Over the summer, I will be updating my blog with some reading ideas for you and for anyone who would like to do reading - that's right, you don't have to be part of AP Lit to partake in these suggested readings.

Currently, I am reading Colm Toibin's The Master, which is a fictionalized account of the great writer Henry James. I'll tell you - the man knows how to write with polysyndeton and asyndeton and often juxtaposes these strategies together! I've already plotted a new syndetons activity for Lang next year with quotes from his novel.

Overall, I would look over 101 Books to Read Before College and see if any of the authors and titles are of interest to you. Many of these novels are part of what is known as cultural literacy, or the shared reading experiences of books in a culture. For instance, most high schoolers read Romeo & Juliet (yeah, sorry, King Lear is so much better to do in AP Lit) and To Kill a Mockingbird, know and can make allusions to the texts, and be part of a greater conversation. This list is also helpful for those of you taking AP Lit as one of the essay prompts allows you to choose what novel/play you would like to write about.

I highly recommend reading Brave New World over the summer. The first chapter is really science-y, so if that is not your cup of tea, just keep going until you run into the characters and their salacious behavior. This is a dystopian novel - and written in 1932, which you will be amazed to find since it feels like it was written this week. This used to be part of AP Lit, but every year it is pushed back and back and back until we don't have time to read it.

One of the disappointments of ending AP Lang from home is that we did not partake in American Literature, so my next blog will examine some of the texts that would have been part of the class, especially the ones that would have involved acting by my students and myself. I will then move into my bookshelf, which you can see the top two rows here:

I hope you all do a lot of reading this summer - you learn so much from books that actually makes you understand and empathize with the world around you, whether it be comprehending the past, partaking in the present, or figuring out the future.