Midwest Monday: Jeffrey Eugenides

Jeffrey Eugenides is an author familiar to many on the blogosphere as a result of the success of his 1993 novel, The Virgin Suicides.  I haven't read it, but earlier this year I was able to read The Marriage Plot. While I didn't fall in love with it, I do think that his writing style was really interesting, and I've thought about the book a few times since reading it (reflected upon it...?) and have been thinking about reading it again maybe next year or something.

Despite my complete ignorance about Eugenides's work, one thing that I did notice during my initial Eugenides research (conducted while reading The Marriage Plot via Wikipedia) was that each of his novels involved - in one way or another - the Detroit area. And while The Marriage Plot's connection to Detroit is relatively weak, Eugenides did take the time to reflect on the city's slow decline. As Eugenides noted in an interview with The Paris Review, "My entire childhood coincided with the demise of Detroit.... It imbued my sense of the world with a strong elegiac quality - a direct experience of the fragility and evanescence of the material world."

In examining the decay of Detroit, Eugenides also examined the effects of the white flight from the city, and the creation of the surrounding suburbs. Acutely aware of class distinctions, he considered himself to be a person with connections to society while not necessarily being part of it himself. This sentiment was portrayed most recently by Mitchell in The Marriage Plot; Mitchell, in love with the novel's protagonist Madeleine, is at odds with her wealthy WASP background. Also a descendant of Greek immigrants, Mitchell spends time post-graduation working as a taxi driver in Detroit and working in a Greek restaurant. During this time, he observes the disconnect between himself and his heritage as well as the decay of the city and the fact that he "doesn't belong" in Madeleine's world.

Of course, it is impossible to mention Eugenides and Detroit without mentioning his famous novel Middlesex; its Detroit setting reflects both class and urban decay, and the Detroit riots results in a cold parallel between the world of the protagonist, Cal, and that of his family, in Smyrna.

While I'm still pretty unfamiliar with Eugenides's work (I don't count reading one of his novels and one interview as "familiar"), I am more interested in reading his novels as a result of doing this research. Before writing about him, I didn't think that I would be interested in his connection to the Midwest, but now that I am aware, I think that I could attain a richer understanding of his work. I look forward to reading more of his novels in the future!

 

I take selfies, but not because I want to

This past week has been long and stressful, but I've been trying to remind myself throughout all of it that it's going to get better, and some really awesome things have already happened and will keep happening if I just keep working hard and doing better than my best. I need to hustle to get where I want to go, and I need to hustle to go beyond with my personal and academic work. It's hard, because I constantly feel like there's no way to do all of the things I want to socially and academically, and I feel like - compared to my friends and other awesome people around me - I should be doing Better Things, or just more things. 

Last night I went out with some friends to a party, and it was really fun and I had a really great time just talking to people I feel like I haven't seen in forever. Sometimes conversations ended up a bust (I'm talking to you, boy I should stop crushing on), but sometimes they were great and made me feel better about the choices I'm making and the people I want to surround myself with. I guess, on that note, these are some images I've been looking at lately, to work on focusing myself (or at least to encourage myself to stay positive and maintain a HBIC attitude, if nothing else.). 

 

So, yeah, I hope you guys are doing well and taking care of yourselves and finding time for things that make you happy. If you're stressed and busy, don't give up! You can do it!

The Moon and More, by Sarah Dessen

Via.

Genre: Young Adult Fiction

Rating: ★★★

Published: June 4, 2013

Publisher: Viking Juvenile

Pages: 435

Emaline has grown up in the small beach town of Colby, and is more than familiar with the mechanics of summer vacation. Living in a vacation town, she is a permanent fixture, working at her family's beach resort company and interacting with tourists. The summer before she leaves for college, Emaline is left wondering about the "summer vacation" myth - summer romances especially. It's during this summer that Emaline experiences her first summer romance in the form of the energetic, ambitious New York film student Theo. Theo and his boss, Ivy, have come to Colby in order to make a documentary about a reclusive local artist. The contrast between insiders and outsiders comes into play frequently during the course of the novel. Dessen explores Emaline's small town mentality, although not in a negative way. 

I've been reading Sarah Dessen's books since probably middle school, and for the most part I've really liked them. Just Listen is probably my favorite, but I have absolutely no problem with re-reading This Lullaby, Keeping the Moon, whatever. I love finding the Easter eggs she sprinkles throughout her books, making connections between characters and stories. I think she portrays female friendships really well, and I like how her characters are flawed, funny, motivated people. Which is why I guess I was a little disappointed by her latest book, The Moon and More. 

I liked that Dessen kind of flipped around her usual formula. You know - girl meets boy, boy is funny and smart and different and shows the girl a whole new world/side to her and girl starts living her life or something and there are reflections on friendship and family. (That sounds kind of mean, but trust me - I really do adore Sarah Dessen's books.) However, I feel like The Moon and More had less of a clear direction than her other works. I didn't connect very well to Emaline, which I think is due to the fact that I could never figure out her characterization very well. I understood her main conflict to be that of the Colby/not-Colby world, but where romance and family matters came in, things were more unclear. I felt like it took a really long time to get to the actual plot of the story - or maybe I couldn't figure out what the plot was, which is equally as bad. I liked some of the side characters - Benji and Morris especially - but I felt like others were kind of flat (Daisy, Ivy), or lacked any personal progress (Theo, Ivy).  

If you're interested in reading Sarah Dessen's books, I would recommend you start with something else (Just Listen, This Lullaby, etc.). I feel like the reason I kept on reading the book was because every so often I caught a glimmer of her usual charm. I think this book was really interesting based off of the fact that - like I said above - it was different than her usual shebang. But I don't know if I'll be re-reading this any time soon.  

Midwest Monday: Ernest Hemingway

Via.

The first thing I ever read by Ernest Hemingway was one of his short stories, titled "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber." My sophomore English teacher handed it to me, and given my total and absolute dislike of the man (my English teacher), I barely glanced over the story. I didn't even know that Hemingway had written it until two years later.

My senior year of English, we read For Whom the Bell Tolls, and although I wasn't totally sold on it, I thought that Hemingway was a pretty interesting guy; I mean, he had survived two plane crashes, was married four times, and had a home with six-toed cats. Also, he wrote for The Kansas City Star. Which, to be honest, was a pretty unexpected thing to hear. (I am from KC. I love The Star, but it is not the New York Times by any stretch of the imagination.)

Ernest Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois (a suburb of Chicago). His family owned a summer home in Michigan, where his passion for the outdoors and wild/rustic lifestyles began. When he graduated from high school, he moved to Kansas City, MO, where he worked as a cub reporter for The Star.

Hemingway wasn't on the staff of The Star long, but while there he used The Star's style guide as the foundation for his writing. Below are quotes pulled from the Star stylebook that Hemingway once referred to as, "the best rules I ever learned for the business of writing."

• "Use short sentences. Use short first paragraphs. Use vigorous English. Be positive, not negative."
• "Never use old slang." (Well, I'm f*cked.)
• "Eliminate every superfluous word."

Hemingway's ties to Kansas City were further alluded to in his first novel, The Sun Also Rises. The protagonist of the novel, Jake Barnes, is a reporter from Kansas City. While this background is just that - background - I feel like there was some sort of acknowledgement on Hemingway's behalf that Kansas City (and the Midwest in general) served as the foundation for his person and his writing.   

If you're interested in reading more, The Kansas City Star has a portion of its website dedicated to Hemingway's time at the Star and his other connections to Kansas City. It's by no means an exhaustive list on Hemingway's connections to the Midwest, but I feel like it's an interesting place to start. 

 (I feel like this was kind of a bare-bones approach to Hemingway, but I don't think there's much more I could have said about him that hasn't been said already.)

East of Eden, by John Steinbeck

Genre: Literature & Fiction

Rating: ★★★★★

Published: June 18, 2003

Publisher: Penguin Books

Pages: 602

Disclaimer: this review is going to be really hard for me to write partially because I finished reading it maybe half an hour and ago and also because I just have a lot of feelings right now. 

East of Eden is a book that's been sitting on my shelf for a long time, and I never really thought that I was ever going to get around to it. I finally decided to take it off my shelf because I had an assignment for my Botany class, which was to read a book that could be related to something botanical and to write a review. (This will not be that review.) I chose this book because it had a garden in the title, and I knew that Steinbeck wrote a lot about agriculture and America in his novels.

I'm... just really, really happy that I read this book. I really feel like East of Eden was a great book, and the reason I say that is because I feel like I am a different person because of this book. 

East of Eden is an epic family saga, spanning multiple generations, with a rich cast of characters. It's a modern retelling of the story of Cain and Abel, and the philosophies represented and expanded upon totally pulled me into the story. I'm not really familiar with the Book of Genesis, but I did enjoy reading the characters' discussions about human nature and destiny. While reading this book, I often felt like my brain was being stirred around and rearranged and mashed together. When I finished the book, I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me, my mind blank and reeling from the experience. 

This book came to me at The Right Time in my life, and I know that it will stay with me as one of my favorites. I know that for sure that I will be re-reading it some time in the future, and that I will enjoy turning it over and over in my mind for the years to come. I recommend this book completely.

GUESS WHO MET HER READING GOAL??

(hint: THIS KID.)

BAM.

I FINISHED MY READING CHALLENGE!

Guys. I am so excited that I managed to finish this that it's a little sad. I'm a lifelong reader/bookworm, but since high school I've had a hard time reading books consistently. I gave the challenge a shot last year, but didn't manage to meet even 50% of my goal, due to being overwhelmed with school and stuff. This is the same number/goal as last year, but there are a few key differences:

1. I took an English class. Basically, I had to make time for myself to read, despite my other homework and despite the fact that I thought it would take too long, or that I could catch up. OK, here's the thing: Page goals exist for a REASON. I missed two reading assignments of Jane Eyre and found myself like 200 pages behind the class. So I learned to divide books up. Not only does it make the book less intimidating, but it also ensures that you're always making some sort of progress. (I'm using this system for a fiction book I'm reading for my Botany class, but that's another post.)

2. I read during the summer. I know, that sounds like a serious no-brainer, but this summer I got off the internet and read. 

3. I brought my reading book EVERYWHERE with me, and read in small, ten minute intervals between activities or at lunch. This relates to what I said above, but I made time. And because I made time, I read a book over 600 pages in the span of a month with all of my other activities flying around.*

I'm kind of pleased with what I was able to read this year; And the Band Played On had been on my "to read" list since I had failed to finish it my senior year. Also Jane Eyre, which had been nagging me forever.

I also re-read Wide Sargasso Sea as well as The Sun Also Rises (for my English class), and they both held up really well. I'd still like to write about Sun sometime on this blog, but I worry that that would be too much with little context or guarantee that people had read it before. Y'know? (OK, I had also read The Secret Life of Bees before, but since I didn't take any particular liking to it, I wasn't as excited to re-read it.)

To keep myself from going into a book-by-book replay of this past year (this can't be the end of the year already. Haha, nope, I refuse.), I'm going to leave it at that and just say that, if you want a better version of the graphic above, it's on my goodreads profile. Basically, I'm just really, stupidly happy that I was able to read 25 books in a year because reading takes time, you guys, and when I read book blogs I'm always flabbergasted at how there are new reviews popping up right and left.  IN THE MEAN TIME, I'm going to try to at least finish three more books before the end of the 2013 calendar year.  

A more serious review (pfft, yeah right) should pop up sometime tomorrow.

* I'm sorry. I sound SO smug right now. But I guess I'm trying to get a point across? Anyways, I'm surprised you didn't see me as insufferable before.  

INTRODUCING MIDWEST MONDAY!

*throws confetti in air, blows horn*

This is going to be a new feature on Ye Olde Blog where I write about the "literary Midwest" - authors from the region, books... you get the idea. Since I'm from the region (Born in KC, lived a year in Chicago suburbs, currently attending college in Wisconsin), I'm familiar with the trope of the Midwest being some sort of culturally ignorant black hole, where people sit around in wheat/corn fields and chew cud. Well, screw that; I've been doing some research, and the Midwest has famous authors and novels coming out of the f*cking wazoo. 

This feature is meant to showcase writers from the Midwest, their novels, as well as other books set in the region (although that last one might be a bit of a stretch). I want this feature to be as inclusive as possible in terms of writers and their work; to be honest, I'm a little worried that this is a big thing to tackle all at once, but I feel like I have more than enough material to get myself started. (Which is good...?)

Via.

To provide some parameters for this project, here's the Midwestern region that I'll be drawing from (above, in blue). To limit/eliminate argument, I am using a map from the CDC; the Midwest's borders, as seen above, are defined by the U.S. Census, and in my mind "official." I am also using this specific image because I think it highlights an important cultural divide between the "East North Central" and the "West North Central" (aka the "East" and "West" Midwest - never mind "North" and "South"). Being from Kansas City, I'm pretty familiar with how dramatically a culture can change over the distance of a single state (*waves* Hi, STL).

Expect the first Midwest Monday update to show up next Monday (after I've done some marginal research, obvi), the 18th. If y'all have any suggestions of authors I should write about, or novels I should discuss, please comment below! I don't want to miss anything. :)

Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro

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I have the unfortunate habit of buying books whenever possible. While this is not a unique problem, it's become harder to justify since - as time goes on and my buying goes up but my reading stays the same -  the number of books I have on my "to read" shelves has gotten a little out of control (current count is around 130). DESPITE THAT, whenever I go home or fly (anywhere), I stop at airport bookstores and take a look around. I know they're hideous money traps, but to me it's really exciting to get a new book at the start of a trip, no matter how short. I can always remember books on my shelf that I've traveled with, where I was going, and so on.

Unsurprisingly, I usually buy something when I go to airport bookstores. This time, it was Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro. I'd seen the trailer for the movie that came out a few years ago but, for whatever reason, had never seen it. I was so sure that I would never get around to watching it, in fact, that I read the movie summary on Wikipedia, so that I would be sure I would get whatever Never Let Me Go references came my way. (Spoiler: there weren't any.)

Considering all the schoolwork I had to do over break, it was a pretty terrible time to pick up and find a book that I really liked. (I blame this book on being the reason why I didn't end up writing my study abroad application essays until half an hour before a meeting with my advisor.)

Never Let Me Go is the first book that I've read by Kazuo Ishiguro, and it certainly won't be the last. I really enjoyed how the reader's perspective of events shifted over the course of the story; what started out as an innocent schooldays story turned darker, more emotional until I was racing towards the end of the novel, trying to piece together the real story. Ishiguro did an excellent job of never giving the reader too many details and never showing all of his cards at once.

Some reviews that I've read for Never Let Me Go have called the novel "Gothic," and I'm inclined to agree. While I am not really "versed" (let's say) in Gothic literature, I can definitely draw parallels between Cathy's story in Never Let Me Go and Jane's in Jane Eyre. I'm also not one for "nostalgia" per se (I don't really see the attraction of the the hazy vibe that seems to be going around on the internet), but I do think that this novel gave me a new appreciation for nostalgic tones in novels. I think a lot of that appreciation had to do with the way that Cathy told her story; the way she layered details on top of each other, casually referring to them or "stopping" the story to give some backstory. I think that Cathy (the character, not the narrator) matured as she discovered more and more about the circumstances she had been born into. And as she matured, so did the reader.

I also really liked how the conflicts within the book concerning both the characters and the Never Let Me Go-world drew me in and made me think about why an action or ideology made me feel uncomfortable. It made me question my beliefs, and I think that that's an important quality in any book. It is for that reason that I loaned it out immediately to one of my friends once I got back from school, and look forward to re-reading it in the future. While I'd specifically recommend Never Let Me Go to people who aren't "into" science fiction, I'd say that anyone interested should definitely pick up a copy at their leisure. 

I am here for you

Happy November! 

This past Saturday, due to some feelings of cabin fever and anxiety I decided to drive up to Madison for a day trip. It was such a good choice! I ate some awesome streetcar food, went to some bookshops, and one of my favorite little Madison stores, Anthology. I'm annoyed that I didn't think to take any pictures while I was up there, street food and bookstores considered.

I need to do a separate post on my favorite Madison bookstores, but UNTIL THEN I guess you'll have to survive on this book haul post. This visit, I went to my favorite bookstore - A Room of One's Own - as well as the UW bookstore, because why the fuck not? As expected, it was really really big and made me feel totally inadequate about my own college's bookstore. *Pats Beloit College turtle on the head*

Anyways, here's what I got:

I got the Middle Eastern books and On Beauty at Room, and the Vonnegut and Fun Home at the UW. I was actually really excited to see Fun Home there, since I had looked for it at room in the graphic novels section and only found Are You My Mother? There were a few other books I was interested in, but I am unfortunately not made of money.

I'm really excited to read On Beauty, since I got a preview for my Kindle and loved it. I've been hearing a lot about Zadie Smith recently, and am trying to choose my books more conscientiously; that is, read more female/women of color/LGBTQIA authors.

Another little Madison story - when I was walking down State Street, I noticed that a lot of little stores on one block were closed. The Afghani restaurant I like to go to - Kabul - only moved to a new location, but everywhere else was closed, which was a huge bummer, since I really liked those restaurants. Hopefully more cool places will move in there, instead of a massive Anthropologie or something? (Nothing against Anthropologie - just trying to think of a chain college students like that isn't Urban Outfitters or Salvation Army.)

I still have a few posts in progress - Never Let Me Go review, and others. Hopefully they won't sit by the wayside for too long. Also, happy NaNoWriMo to all of you who are participating! I haven't in years past, but maybe during winter break I can make my own or give myself the kick that I needed to work on my LWD fic.

(~~You may say I'm a dreamer.....~~)

Hope you all are doing well and taking care of yourselves. If any of y'all are from Madison, do you have any favorite local stores? Let me know!