Blog Tour: "Thumbing Through Thoreau" and How Much I Hated "Walden"

Sooo here at Dead White Guys, we don't get a lot of offers for review books (except from publishers who have obviously never glanced at the blog- no I WILL NOT review your next paranormal fantasy SMASH HIT, DAMMIT). Because, you know. Most of the people I like to read are dead, and aren't coming out with new material this side of the pearly gates. So when I got an offer from Tribute Books to preview their new project about Henry David Thoreau, I felt officially book-bloggerish, and accepted.

Let me start off by saying that Walden was my literary nemesis throughout senior year of high school. So you spent your days bird watching, chopping down trees, cleaning your cabin, and judging people? So what? Gotta tell you, Henry, the judgmental hermit thing: not new. And it kind of messes up your grouchy woodsman aura to constantly talk about borrowing tools from your neighbor and going into town for supplies. Not. Very. Wildman. So that's what I'm going into Thumbing Through Thoreau with- mildly smoldering bitterness.

Thumbing Through Thoreau itself is rather charming, however. It's really just a collection of quotations from Walden, Civil Disobedience, and some of Thoreau's letters. The quotes are split into three sections, and each is accompanied by a lovely piece of artwork. The book would make an excellent coffee table addition for any outdoorsy person to whom you want to suck up. Also, for people like me who couldn't stomach His Gardening Holiness for 300 pages, the separation of his more pithy thoughts into solid one-liners makes the man much more likable.

Unless you already like him. In which case, don your North Face jacket and pick up the book. Your hiking group will love you the more for it.

If you're into book trailers, here is the one for the tome, as well as links for the purchasing and the owning and the whatnot: http://www.tribute-books.com/thoreau/index.html

"Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Bronte: A Review

Sooo I've been pretty sick lately and my brain has been more focused on not vomiting in public than on engaging a SERIOUS BOOK. Therefore, I have been reading mostly Slate articles and Jane Eyre. Not that it isn't a SERIOUS BOOK, it's just a SERIOUS BOOK that I've already read and almost know by heart and don't really have to do a lot of work to read. And, I would like you to know, it's still super fantastic even when you feel like death.

For the uninitiated, Jane Eyre is about a poor, orphaned, ugly girl who becomes a poor, orphaned, ugly governess who works for Mr. Rich McGrumpster. Of course, they fall madly in love and there's a BIG TWIST, heartbreak, sort of happy making, and then a weird happy ending that involves amputation of limbs. And that's about as far as my avoidance of spoilers is going to go, so if you're not down with the knowing what happens, cease and desist the reading.

Ok, let's start with the girly swooning: Mr. Rochester is the SHIZ. He makes Mr. Darcy look like a stuffy, rude little prig. Rochester is tormented, complex, and passionate to violence. Mr. Darcy is sort of snobby and says nice things. In a UFC fight, Rochester would sit on Darcy's head and make him cry. That being said, I read a recent article on The Millions blog about how Mr. Rochester is a creep, which I think is bullocks. How would you act in his situation? Would you be sunshine and roses? I would probably do a few weird things to make sure this governess really loves me before I get all law-breaky. He doesn't tell Jane about Bertha (crazy wife in the attic, AKA BIG TWIST) because he needs to be in control and wants to be happy- unbeknownst to him (because he's fictional) Bronte won't let him be happy until he can't be in control- and HERE is the genius of this book.

Jane herself is one of the earliest feminist characters. Screw you, Elizabeth Bennet (not really, I do like you, come back, let's make up)! While Lizzie is sassy, she's still happiest with Mr. Rude Pants, once she discovers he's only sort of Mr. Rude Pants and maybe is also Mr. Does Nice Things Sometimes. Jane denies herself marriage TWICE, and it's never because of the man. She doesn't fake-marry Mr. Rochester because she thinks it's wrong, not because she thinks anything is wrong with him. She doesn't marry St. John Rivers because she fears losing her sense of self by surrendering to his cause, not because he's too poor, or said something nasty to her, or whatever. Jane knows her own mind, and masters her emotions enough to keep her convictions and self respect intact.

When she returns to Rochester, it is only after he has lost his sight and must be dependent on her. She returns fully independent, monetarily and emotionally. Rochester, in his lameness and blindness, is for once dependent on another person. Charlotte makes them equal in their need for each other- which may explain the critical venom AND popular success the book experienced upon publication. Jane, though she never violates Christian morality, was drawn as an immoral character by many reviewers- not because she does anything wrong, but because she uses her BRAIN PIECE.

And yeah, it's dark, Bronte read a lot of Byron, blah blah IT'S GENIUS. Also, the movie version with Ciaran Hinds has the WORST on screen kiss in history. Fast forward to about the 4:15 minute mark to witness the horror. Otherwise, it's a very nice version as Ciaran Hinds is the sex.



What IS that? Is he eating her chin? I just don't know.

Five stars out of your mom. The book, not the kiss. The kiss is scary.

My Next Favorite Subject After Things I Hate: Laziness!

Tuesdays are days for listing things over at the Broke and the Bookish, and this week they're discussing the top ten books you're AGHAST at yourself for having never read. Admittedly, I didn't think I had many because I am a CONQUERER of scary books, but then I glanced at my bookshelves and realized that is a bit of hubris on my part. Not one to tempt the punishment of the literary gods, here are the books I shamefacedly have not read yet. Perhaps this list will give a swift boot kick in the rear. Or maybe I'll just keep reading what I want. We'll see.

1. Don Quixote. I don't know it's just so SPANISH and about a CRAZY GUY. And it seems depressing- as a type A sort of person, my least favorite emotion is feeling sorry for people, and I feel like I would just spend this whole book feeling sorry for Mr. Crazy Pants. But since it's one of those Very Important first ever books type things, I'll probably get around to it. I do have a kick ass copy with a neat cover. That's a draw. I'm not kidding.

2. Gravity's Rainbow. I don't know the man, but I assume Thomas Pynchon is the kind of guy I would want to punch in the face at a cocktail party. Every time I pick up this book at a book store, I flip to page one and my eyes start to glaze over. It's like an auto-immune disease. Nopynchonitis.

4. Ulysses. James Joyce walks the fine line between super-genius and batshit crazy, and I'm afraid I won't have the ability to discern what is what. That's really it with this one. Also, I don't feel like I can read it until I've finished-

5. The Odyssey. Disdain, thy name is epic poetry. But, as is the case with the Cervantes, I have the "good" translation and everything just WAITING for me to get off my butt. This was my plan for the end of summer, but then I got sick and was afraid reading this would give me brain fever, Victorian style.

6. The Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin. I mean, I just want to see what the fuss is all about. But it's so science-y. It's so 19th century science-y, which is even worse.

7. Tess of the D'Ubervilles. Can we just talk some more about how I don't like feeling sorry for people, even fake people, and this seems like the most depressing thing on the PLANET. Every review I read uses the words "tragic" AT LEAST three times. That sounds like no fun. And, you know. I just wanna have fun, being a girl.

8. The Trial by Franz Kafka. Those of you who have been with me for awhile know I started this one and couldn't finish it. Why doesn't he just MOVE AWAY?! I know I know because then there would be no novel. But when the solution to the whole premise is something simple and fairly doable, I become unwilling to suffer through 300 pages of frustration with you, Mr. K. I don't care HOW symbolic it is. Ugh.

9. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller. Here's the thing- not a fan of erotica masquerading as literature. I have no issue with erotica in general- read what you want. But I don't want to be all unsuspecting and "oh this book looks nice, it's in the classic literature section at the bookstore OH MY LORD it's smutty." Since this guy was Anais Nin's right hand man, I shouldn't be surprised, but I'm just going to keep him on the shelf next to D.H. Lawrence. They can tell dirty jokes to each other.

10. Doctor Zhivago. I have no real reason. I just have owned this for years and never read it. Every time I go to pick it up, it gets pushed aside for something less tragic and Russian. Plus, I tend to only read the Russians in the winter, so I have a VERY SMALL WINDOW. I need to read this so I can watch the movie, which is apparently very fine indeed.

SO that's my list of shame for the moment. You would think I would immediately move this to the top of my TBR, but instead I'm re-reading Jane Eyre and having a mighty fine time. So there. So have you any tomes of shame? Any titles that haunt you while you read Mockingjay? Also, what is a Mockingjay? Also, Rhode Island is neither a road, nor an island. Discuss.

"Utopia" by Thomas More: A Review

The whole time I'm reading this book, I'm thinking about this bit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail:



It's my favorite part. Watery tart. That's good stuff.

Anyway, Utopia is a sort of Gulliver's Travels without the little people or the talking horses, and therefore without the fun. Also, it was written by a lawyer, which is another way of sucking the fun out of something. Especially a political treatise. So I approached this book thinking it would be all sunshine and rainbows, and a very nice proto-Marxist something or the other, except British and from the 16th century, and therefore a little stodgier. Very wrong was I!

In case you're wondering, there's nothing Utopia-ish about this Utopia. I mean, everything's very hippie commune-ish with the sharing and the loving of the people and the religious pluralism and the hating of hunting because it's just so mean UNTIL you get to the bits about how the entire economy is run on slavery and and if you mess up they will kill you. It's actually a little Gone With the Wind: everyone's very hospitable, and will gladly give you some brandy and some dinner, or rather the slaves will but they don't mind because it's just so nice living in Utopia la de da. There is a bit about women being able to sue for divorce, which was apparently a BIG FEMINIST DEAL. No one ever mentions that in the rest of the book, women are subject to their husbands and must undergo weekly confession and chastisement by said husbands after church. You know. Mandatory church. You DO get to pick the one you go to, however.

It's a major case of WTFery. Luckily, I later read that More meant it less as a literal picture of an ideal society, and more as a sneaky and underhanded way of critiquing modern British life. At any rate, the wholesale capital punishment and enslavement of pretty much everyone makes that nice conversation Drew Barrymore has with the Prince and his cod-piece in Ever After a little less picturesque, doesn't it. My illusions about the niceness of this book are totally gone- it's a scary, scary place run by bad, bad men. BUT their chamberpots are made of gold, so, you know. That's a plus.

Two stars out of your mom for not being funny or interesting.

"Paradise Lost" by John Milton: A Review

Screw you, Paradise Lost! *fist shaking*

Ok, now that that is out of my system, let me tell you: reading this epic poem with my book group at Goodreads has been one of the most frustrating literary experiences of my life. So when I say "screw you, PL" I only kind of mean PL. I also mean, insane book club people. I am never moderating a discussion on a theological anything, ever, ever, ever. Ugh.

MOVING ON.

Paradise Lost is a 17th century epic poem about the fall of Adam and Eve and their expulsion from the garden of Eden. Milton states the whole purpose of the poem in the first book quite conveniently (how's that for stated authorial intent): "That to the heighth of this great Argument/ I may assert Eternal Providence,/ And justify the ways of God to men." Italics mine, obvi. SO. That's no easy task, telling the story of the fall of mankind and justifying God's role in it. And I'm just going to say it: Milton fails at this in a bad, bad way.

Ok, let's get all these bits out of the way: Yes, I'm a modern reader, and a modern Christian, so my theology is obviously going to be different from a 17th century Puritan. But the whole poem is based on like four chapters in Genesis, so how wrong can he be? Well, all sortsa wrong. He just straight makes stuff up. HERE'S a bad idea: Take it upon yourself to justify someone's actions, and instead of taking what he did and talking about it, make up some stuff he didn't do in order to make him look better, but just succeed in making him look worse in the eyes of the people who know the person and in the eyes of the people who would like to throw the person into a vat of very hot acid.

I don't want to get into the theology of why I disagree with Milton's picture of God- I don't want to start some kind of Biblical flame war here. Let's just say, he doesn't really stick to the source text. In doing so, he presents a very damaging and inaccurate picture of God that in no way "justifies" Him, and in fact, makes Him sort of gross to believers and non-believers alike.

It's also sort of boring. There are three books in the poem that are at all interesting: the book about Satan's fall, the book where Satan tempts Eve, and the book after where Adam and Eve realize what they've done. These books are action packed. Interesting. Innovative. Most of the other books are conversations (and I mean ONLY dialogue. In epic poem form. Stabmeintheeye) between God and angels, or Adam and angels.

Milton uses these conversations to present his personal theological beliefs about monism, which is an obscure belief about the universality of divine matter or...something. Milton was also heavily involved in the English civil war, and began writing PL after its failure, which, you know. Pissed him off. So he shoves a lot of angry political sentiments into the poem as well. Then he adds some heavy-handed classical references through the WHOLE THING because he's a smarty pants and would like everyone to know it. You quickly realize that the poem has little to do with "justifying God" and everything to do with "justifying Milton."

But, the poetry is really beautiful, if that makes you feel better. Otherwise, it's just a fancy failure. William Blake sums up my feelings about this work quite nicely: he says that John Milton "was a true poet, and of the Devil's party without knowing it."

Three stars out of your mom.

ETA I accidentally attributed that quote to Bacon, but it is fixed. As you can tell.

How to Read the Classics, Part Two: Considering the Author's Intent

One of my most frustrating reading experiences was Toni Morrison's Beloved, which was assigned to me in high school. I'm sure it's a fine novel (I haven't re-read it since, I'm too scarred) but as a high school student, we just were not ready. We spent most of the class time saying “ick” or “yeah, right, but who the hell is Beloved, anyway?” My English teacher had no answer, and neither did Toni Morrison, come to find out. My arguments about who Morrison meant Beloved to be disintegrated when I read an interview wherein Morrison claims that she doesn't know who Beloved is, herself.

This is a phenomenon that is, luckily, lacking in most of the classics. These authors have intention and control of the story. Most of the authors of classics were prolific letter writers and had no problem discussing their creative process with their correspondents. I feel safe in making the generalization that Dickens, Austen, and Tolstoy knew exactly who their characters were. This idea that the story controls the author is a fairly new invention, in my opinion. Which means that in reading the classics, we can safely think about the intent of the author without being afraid we'll read an interview in Newsweek where the author claims he has no idea what's going on in the story, he just wrote it while on the can, thank you very much.

The author's intention in a classic is a key to unlocking its relevance. In my last post in this series, we talked about reading up on the author's life- this makes it easier to figure out their intention. Their personal relationship history, marital strife, political beliefs, and religious background are all clues to the big question: what the hell is this guy trying to tell me here? An excellent example of this is Paradise Lost, the epic poem from John Milton. There are a variety of interpretations of PL available- from the obvious (it's about a naughty snake and some naughty folks and the naughty things they do), to the political (something about the Glorious Revolution) to the anatomical (the whole things is about digestion- seriously).

But what did Milton really mean? Given his religious background as a stark Puritan involved in the failure of the republican movement in Britain, it's safe to say it is a literal interpretation of Genesis with some allegorical political elements. If you don't know anything about Milton as a man, you probably won't know anything about his poem.

There are, of course, camps in the literary world who say that the best classics are those that stand apart from author intention. I say that's a load- the best classics are those wherein the author's intention is still relevant. If you have to dig into a work to give a hill of beans about it, it's probably not a classic, or shouldn't be. Or it's one of those classics only read by sad, sad high school students. So next time you find yourself losing it with one of these books, ask yourself- where is the author taking me, and why? What does Dickens mean by writing such exaggerated characters? What is Jane Austen saying about family life in her generation?

Avoid the trap of “re-writing” the text from some specific viewpoint of literary criticism (feminist, marxist, bleh bleh bleh). Unless the author meant it that way, we're just warping a text to make it more relevant to current trends in reading. That's a fallacy that does not serve us. We should not have to re-imagine a classic's themes to make them important. They should be timelessly important. So judge for yourself. What is the author's intention in this book, and does it still matter? One of the best ways to make a text more enjoyable is to make yourself its judge. Make the book work for you- don't be intimidated. Remember, these books were, for the most part, written for the popular audience. You don't need to have a PhD to demand that a book give you what you want for it to be a "classic" in your mind.

What do you think? Is an author's meaning relevant, or does the book serve the reader instead? (The next post in this series will be about making the book relevant to you without losing the author's intention, btw).

"Swann's Way: Volume One of In Search of Lost Time" by Marcel Proust: A Review

Have you ever read a book, or had a friend who read a book, where the sentences were full of commas, and the author never really got to a point, indeed, there may not have been a point, and searching for a strong verb is like searching for a grain of sugar in a lot of other grains of sugar, and eventually you forget the subject of the sentence, though, honestly, you don't really care anymore, and you don't think the author does either; however, you believe he should care because it's his effing book, however, he just rambles for pages and pages about napping, and maybe cookies, and nothing ever happens; indeed, he may talk about hawthorn flowers for exactly 16 pages because they may or may not remind him of a little girl, even though he's never introduced this character before, and you don't understand why she has anything to do with flowers, and eventually you find yourself literally sleeping through the book? Cause I have.

The whole book is like that. Hundreds of pages of no period. I. Love. Declarative sentences. Therefore, I. Hate. Proust. (Look at all the periods! A VERITABLE BOUQUET!)

Ok, so a pro: the sentences are beautiful and very rhythmic. You can tell that Proust agonized over every word to get them to flow so nicely. They put me to sleep on more than one occasion- maybe that was also because nothing happens? But seriously, the image I had in my mind the whole time was of laying at the beach in silence and feeling the soft waves lap at my feet. The whole book is that calm, steady, relaxing sort of thing. It's sort of a marvel.

The cons: Everything else? Nothing happens. NOTHING. The book is about a guy who likes naps, and then he eats a cookie and it reminds him of how he used to eat cookies with his grouchy aunt in her old house, and how his family took walks places sometimes and wasn't that nice? It's nice to be French and take walks and eat cookies and nap. All of that is true, but do I need 375 pages to come to that conclusion? No. I need one sentence. One sentence without an EFFING COMMA.

So yeah, it's genius. The writing is awe-inspiring (not kidding) and the structure/style of the book is purposefully reminiscent of dreams and memory and blah blah blah it's bloody boring. Proust is so good at minutely describing how awful it is to be bored on a Sunday in your aunt's house and listen to the clock tick every minute away. The problem is, who wants to read about that? I avoid DOING it as much as possible, so why would I care about READING about it?

 HOWEVER. One of my good friends says that Volume 2 is much better- like Proust figured out what exactly he was trying to do, and so I'll give it a try one day. One distant, faraway, accursed day.

Two stars out of your mom. One star for awe-inspiration, and one star for making me think about the beach because. You know. That's always a nice thought.

My Favorite Subject: Things I Hate!

Soooo it's Top Ten Tuesday over at The Broke and the Bookish, and this week I'm participating because the topic is: Top Ten Literary Characters You Find Most Dislikable. There's no lack of annoying (especially to me, who finds almost everything annoying, all the time) characters out there, so picking ten will be a bit of a stretch. Here we go:

1. Fanny from Mansfield Park. Someone buy this woman a margarita and some red panties. Oh, and backbone. That would be nice. I want to see Lizzie mud-wrestle Fanny. In fact, I want anyone to mud-wrestle Fanny. It's hard to want her to end up with her love interest because (heishercousingross) she is such a bleh.

2. Beloved from Beloved. Are you a ghost? Are you an escaped slave? Are you some crazy crack ho Oprah found on the side of the road? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON IN THIS BOOK?

3. Vronsky from Anna Karenina. This guy is totally metrosexual. He spends how many pages thinking about his teeth? In my book, he is less likeable than Anna because at least Anna succeeds in doing what they both should have done on page one.

4. Ashley from Gone With the Wind. Oh I love you Scarlet, no I can't love you Scarlet, but I love you Scarlet, but the SOUTH and my WIFE but you're so hot but would you like to hear another speech about how you're so hot but the SOUTH and my WIFE? No? TOO BAD! Blah blah blah..

5. Rosamond from Middlemarch. She's a middle class climber who is, actually, stupid. Stupid and selfish and systematically destroys her husband's soul so she can have nice china wear. I'm all for equal rights and whatnot, but this character literally cares about nothing but herself. And aforementioned china wear.

6. Amy March from  Little Women. She's just a snot nosed little brat who needs a whipping, as my mother would say. And I would agree.

7. Lady Chatterley in Lady Chatterley's Lover. A woman gets bored because her wounded war hero husband is now paralyzed, so she can't get any. She then sleeps with the groundskeeper and tries to pretend like she loves him, when in reality, she just wants to get some. So basically, her entire life as a character consists of finding fulfillment through a man. OH and it's un-sexy.

8. Skimpole in Bleak House. A friend of one of the main characters who mooches off everyone to avoid debtor's prison, including poor wards of the state. He never works and proclaims it is because he is simply a child and can't be expected to take on any responsibility in life. He also has a wife and children, and drives one of the characters to his doom. He's pretty much evil disguised as innocence, but not in a smart/fun way.

9. Everyone in Wuthering Heights. It was really hard for me to finish this book. I went in expecting one of the greatest love stories ever, and what I got was a cast of bat-shit crazy weirdos, one of whom may or may not have some necrophiliac tendencies. I did like the maid, though. She was..sane.

10. Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca. She's the only real villain I have on here, because for the most part, villains are at least interesting enough to make you care. But this lady is SO villainous and SO creepy, you just sort of hate her. Like visceral, punch-her-in-the-face hate her.

Sooo those are my least likable literary characters. I purposefully left off Holden because I've already spewed venom about his over-use of the word "phony." At any rate, I'm almost done with Swann's Way AND Shakespeare's Sonnets. I WILL review the sonnets, because I'm an audacious little ninny.

Anyway, do you love these characters? Have I stepped on your heart's toes? Do tell.

How to Read the Classics, Part One: Become Besties With the Author. BFFs, Even.

But they're so loonnggg and they're so hhhaarrdd (that's DEFINITELY what she said) and bleh I don't wanna read classics!

Uh-huh. Would you like some cheese with that stupid? (That's wrong, isn't it..)

Anywoot, that's the response I most often get when people discover I blog about/constantly read the classics: they're too hard. To that, I have to wonder- when did hard become synonymous with bad? Are we that intellectually lazy that we won't even embark on a literary journey because we've heard that it might take some effort? When did we lose sight of that fact that anything worthwhile requires a little bit of work? EEK SHE SAID WORK this is just supposed to be fun RUN AWAY.

Take a chill pill. Let's recall: work is not a synonym for epic, heinous torture. Some work can be fun- the work that you enjoy. Most of us have jobs we don't enjoy, that don't line up with our views of what life should be, so we automatically equate the word “work” with mundane, disappointing, and not enjoyable. I'm here to BEAT THAT FALLACY out of your head. BEAT, BEAT. There. Is it gone? Are you ready to read something hard and love it? Because I'm going to be doing a series of posts over the next...lifetime..about how to get the most out of the classics without wanting to shove something sharp into your eye.

Reading a classic isn't the same as reading an urban fiction/paranormal romance/whatever- you can't turn off your brain. If you expect to get the same Soma experience (Brave New World reference, anyone? Bueller?) from reading a classic as you do from reading Dan Brown, you'll just end up frustrated. If you don't engage the book, the literary devices, stylistic experiments, social commentary, and vocabulary will fly right over your head. You'll miss out on the author's point, and you'll be bored out of your head piece.

So, Step One: be the author's bestest friend, like, ever! Or don't- most of them are dead, and that's just creepy. What I ACTUALLY mean is do a little Google dance and find out what you can about the author before you read the book. Keep it simple- read the Wikipedia article if you can't find anything more reputable. Knowing the barest bones about a writer's social situation, family and marital history, type of alcoholism (come one, most of them had that) and historical context will shed big-tons of light on the book s/he has written.

Examples? Don't mind if I do! Knowing that Salinger studied Eastern religion in college will help elucidate Franny and Zooey. Reading a bit about the childhood of Charles Dickens- that included poverty and debt prison for his family- makes you realize how personal Oliver Twist is to his heart, and makes the book more human. Finding out that Dostoevsky spent time in prison for his political beliefs, and about his struggles with his religious beliefs, can make Crime and Punishment understandable, palatable, and easier to deconstruct. The fact that Edith Wharton's family of origin is the subject of the term “keeping up with the Joneses” makes her sardonic analysis of upper class New York that much more funny.

So! That's my first bit of advice about reading the classics. Let your fingers do the talking..to the interwebs..and dig up the backstory of the author. And when your brain protests because that involves thinnkkkiinnnggg and wwwoorrrkkiinngg, tell it to shut up- it's fun, and it's worth it. But don't tell it to shut up out loud. Then people just think you're nuts.


Thoughts? Do you think this is a worthless exercise? Then you're WRONG! J/k. Not really. Sort of. But really- tell me what you think.

I'm Out of Hop Puns.

The horror! I'm out of puns! Actually, I think I'm just distracted by the giant tall woman that just walked into my Starbucks. She's knocked out all my pun-niness.

Anyway, welcome to this week's Book Hop, hosted by Crazy For Books. Her question this week is: do you listen to music while you read?

Well, that depends on how loud Very Annoying Neighbor is being. If he's disturbing my peace, I tend to blast Bach and Mozart at my speaker's top settings to drown out his really profane rap music. Sorry, I just don't want to hear about his bitches and hoes (hos? ho-hos?). Like he has any. Pshaw.

Other than that, I listen to Sigur Ros because it's in Icelandic or some such language (is that a real language or did I make that up?) and I can't understand it but it's still really beautiful. I can't listen to things with words while I'm reading or my brain gets muddled.

So, thanks for visiting! Have a look around- my definition of a classic, in case you're wondering, is above, somewhere below Gustave Flaubert's head. Also, please check out one of my past posts THE MEN YOUR MEN COULD BLOG LIKE for some links to fantastic guy book bloggers!

"A Passage to India" by E.M. Forster: A Review

HEY, hey guys! Did you know it's HOT in India? Because E.M. Forster would like you to know that it's really hot there. Surface of the sun hot. Old-people killin' hot. And dusty. Doesn't that sound like a place you'd like to read about for 300 pages in August? No? TOO BAD!

This is supposed to be as fantastic as Forster's Howard's End, but straight up- that's a lie. A Passage to India is about a handful of priggish British people in India, and the mess they make of a very nice Indian man's life while they are there. It would be an excellent book about the stupidity of colonialism, except it isn't because it's STILL a comedy of manners. I'm sure there were horrible, awful things going on in India worth writing about other than how the British are generally unpleasant and the Indian desert makes some people hallucinate. Plus, Forster draws most of the English and most of the Indian characters as stereotypes, with the exception of Mr. Fielding, the sympathetic professor. 

A few little arguments I had with myself over the course of this book:

Me: This is weird. How many times is he going to talk about how hot it is? Why can't Forster write anything not weird? I mean Howard's End is super-amazing, but this is weird like Where Angels Fear to Tread . So he's either super-amazing or off the deep end.

Other Me: I dunno, but let's focus on what's important here: Why doesn't he inlcude a glossary of Indian terms for people who I dunno have NEVER BEEN TO INDIA. What the hell is a purdah? He says it like a million and seven times. GOLLY.

And later:

Me: Remember that time in Howard's End where Forster tells us to just connect with each other and that would make us human?

Other Me: Yes, yes I do. Wonderful book, that.

Me: Right. So now why is he writing a book about how impossible that is?

Other Me: Uh..internal conflict? Maybe he just thought it was impossible to connect across colonial-conquered lines?

Me:....Isn't that sort of stating the obvious?

Other Me: Uh. India's hot.

Me: You're a moron.

Other Me: COOKIE!

And finally:

Me: So the main female character makes life miserable for the Nice Indian Man because..she had an ear infection or something? That is a major case of WTFery.

Other Me: But it's symbolic. The echo in her ear is the constant reminder that in the Indian caves, voices all sound the same, no matter what color the speaker is.

Me: Uh-huh. Ear infection. 

So, if you're going to dive into the waters that are E.M. Forster's split personalities, I would stick with Howard's End or A Room With  A View. Apparently, whenever Forster tries to write anything about other countries, he fails like Britney Spears taking the SATs. Not to mention the fact that the first 100 pages of this book are purdah boring. (HAHA see what I did there. I crack me up.)

Three stars out of your mom.

I'm the New Paris Hilton. That's Hot.

Remember that time Paris Hilton did a commercial about running for President...ahh, those were the days.

For those of you visiting from Desert Book Chick, welcome! I had great fun answering Amanda's super-thoughtful questions, even though they took me about a week because they made me use my head piece.  

A little about me: I'm kind of a big deal. I have many leather-bound books.

Ah, I love that guy. Anyway, if you're wondering what I classify as a "classic," there's a page at the top bit somewhere under Edgar Allan Poe's head about that exact thing. Also, the post below this is about book snobbery and judging folks by their bookshelves. Do contribute. Or I'll find you.

Readers of regularity! What is all this nonsense, I hear you asking! I did a guest post for Amanda at Desert Book Chick about why the classics make you smarter, why I decided to blog about them, and which ones you should read if you're scared of Charles Dickens. It's fine. He's scary- it's mostly the big sideburns. Anywoot, check out the interview if you've taken your curious pills today, and stick around to check out Amanda's blog. She's a smarty-pants, and this month is her "Help Me Change My Mind About the Classics" month, so..you know. Go help her change her mind.

Book vs. Book

So here's an interesting question: what makes a person a book snob? As a reader of almost exclusively books by dead people, I get accused of literary snobbishness a bit- mostly by people who don't know me, as is usually the case with Random Acts of Stupid. But what is being a book snob, really? Does it mean judging people for what they read?

I admit I walk right over to a person's bookshelf upon entering their house. Coat off, nice to meet you, very good, can you put that baby somewhere else, oh you have BOOKS canIlookatthemokthanks. Oh..look at all that Dan Brown..uh..I REALLY have somewhere else to be like..um..7-11. Just kidding, I don't leave. Immediately.

But there is an argument to be made that a person's bookshelves, or lack there of, says a great deal about their values. Perhaps they don't value literacy, or the intricacies of language, or using their head bone. Or maybe I'm just a snob. Or maybe someone's reading choices are a signal of their real selves- or who they want you to think their real selves are (we all know that person who stocks their shelves with yards of Penguin classics, but hasn't read a-one of them...weirdo). Now, don't get me wrong- I'm not going to NOT befriend someone because they're not readers, or because they read craps. But when I think about my closest friends, they all read, and they read well. Maybe I need to get out more?

Then there are the folks who judge the lot of us, aren't there. The people who give the not-so-subtly-condescending "I don't know HOW you find all that TIME to READ," as if their time is spent doing something far more superior, like watching The Hills or..whatever it is people do when they're not watching television. The people who comment on the huge number of BOOKS you have, as if you were collecting shrunken voodoo skulls, while you never comment on how much money they spent on their boxed set of EVERY SEASON OF Friends. Not that there's anything wrong with Friends. There is, however, something wrong with The Hills.

Isn't that a form of anti-book-snobbery? I'll go out on a limb and make a statement a lot of readers aren't willing to make for fear of being pelted with rotten tomatoes: Reading absolutely is a superior activity to watching sitcoms. There, I said it. I'll even go so far as to say something that most book bloggers aren't willing to say: not all reading is good, and there are some books that are better to read than others. There are books that are horribly written, with stupid themes, that leave you dumber after having read them. I bet you can name one.

Of course, I have buds who don't dig the reading thing, but not many. They're super-fab people, but a part of me thinks that people who don't read and instead watch television would rather entertain themselves than think, and maybe I subconsciously draw back from that- I certainly don't do it on purpose. And I know that everyone's different and special, blah blah, I love you, you love me, purple dinosaur whatever...or are readers smarter? I'm not asking because I think I have answers, I'm asking to know what you think.

What about you? Are you a snob (realist-maybe)? Do you assume things about people based on their reading preferences, or lack thereof? Do you think that any reading is better than no reading? Do you think reading is better than watching television? And if there are books that are just better to read than others- who decides what they are? I mean, aside from me. Obviously.