To write or not to write...

In The Problem with Memoirs, Neil Genzlinger writes that there are too many memoirs, that in our world of "oversharing" people believe they all have something new to contribute. He complains that too many people think they have something important to say when little to they know that most of the ordeals they have gone through is not new or original. I agree with Genzlinger to a point - perhaps our society has a tendency to divulge everything little everything about them. The lines between what is private and public have blurred so much that I'm sometimes am left wondering how much information, grief, or happiness to share not only on social media sites like blogger or Facebook but in my daily life as well. In a way it's liberating to be able to share trauma or happiness with people. They will surprise you in ways you can't anticipate either with compassion or unintended insensitivity. As I have experienced tragedy a couple of times this summer and early fall, I admit that I have thought about writing:  not necessarily a memoir to but published, but something to gather my thoughts, to capture a precious memory, and to reflect on the conflicting emotions that batter me on a day to day basis.

After telling my students they have something important to say and assign them to write a memoir, I read Genzlinger's article and I'm stopped cold. How do I convince them to write a memoir now? Writing is such a personal experience that one can easily be scared about the process. Yes, a lot of memoirs likely should not be published. I'm sure several do repeat several of the same experiences, and talented, graceful writers should shine through above the cliched, repetitive writers. Yet, as a writing instructor, I realize that writing can help people achieve closure or gain perspective on their situations. Writing helps us discover things about ourselves that sit just below the surface by following meandering thoughts. Once we start, we cannot always anticipate where we'll end up, how we'll feel afterwards - at peace or more conflicted - but we do need to keep writing and keep exploring. We do need to have patience with ourselves and, as George Eliot has written, with "the makeshift of our human thinking." I hope that people who read Genzlinger's article will not despair and avoid writing altogether but continue to write until they find their purpose and voice.

Interconnectedness in Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad

At the start of each summer vacation, I look forward to tackling my list of books to read. One of my favorites this summer was Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad, the Pulitzer Prize winner from last year. The book amazed me with its clever intersection of plot lines, incorporation of pop culture, and how our communication is changing rapidly with new technologies. The music and the digital world -- the internet, smartphones, the new texting lingo -- become a driving metaphor for the book and the connections between the characters.

While the first chapter begins with Sasha, a 30-year old young woman living in New York and battling her stealing compulsion, the subsequent chapters move onto another character loosely connected to Sasha. With each chapter we meet a new character who is tied to others throughout the book, although loosely connected. As we meet the various characters in vastly different periods of their lives, we realize how they are all connected and that a minor character in one individual's past can make an important impact in years to come. Similar to surfing the web, the book allows us to delve into paths of inquiry. We might start on one page, follow links that interest us but may stray away from the original thought process. Eventually, we get so far off of the original subject, we have to stop and ask - "how is this all related?" As we trace our thought process, we begin to understand the complexity of our inquiry and the interconnectedness of ideas.

Using the visual-driven digital age as the background of one chapter, Egan creates a chapter of a young girl (Sasha's eventual daughter) who shares her perspective in powerpoint slides. The above link gives a small sampling. She visualizes connections between ideas by graphing them. We know what she is trying to say without her spelling everything out for us. The emotions and tensions she feels in her family life are better conveyed through visuals than words.

A Visit from the Goon Squad is a masterfully written novel that captures the enthusiasm and wonder of music and digital age all while delving into the powerful intersections between people and emotions.

Austen or Bronte

The Washington Post published an interesting article debating between Bronte or Austen. I don't think I can choose between them. Austen and the Brontes are so different but they appeal to us in different ways. Some people have argued that Austen is a little boring in that she only focuses on the conversations of the genteel class. However, Austen writes with a witty satire and creates genuinely likable characters. I mean how can one not like and respect Elizabeth Bennett or Emma Woodhouse? The Brontes, on the other hand, write such passionate, chaotic, and dramatic novels. Emily's Heathcliff and Catherine are such complex, troubling characters that readers are torn about loving or hating them. Same with Charlotte. Do we really want Jane to end up with Rochester? His actions are rather disturbing at time.

The article from The Washington Post wonders why the Brontes are making a comeback in the movies, stating that "Some analysts have wondered if the Brontes are built for economic downturn — that difficult times draw us to difficult stories. The Bronte heroes find happiness, but not without losing a hand or their eyesight, or having their manor burned down. It’s a bruised happiness, one that might appeal to the foreclosed modern viewer." This is an interesting point. I hadn't considered how our economic times may influence our choice in movies. I suppose we want to go to movies where the characters struggle and don't have an easy path. I wonder if a Wuthering Heights is in the works...

A New Movie on Jane Eyre. Why all the 19th-century movie adaptations?

I'm very excited to see the new Jane Eyre movie. See the trailer for Jane Eyre. It's playing in the Landmark Downer theatre down in Milwaukee. There have been a least nine movies made of Charlotte Bronte's fabulous novel, from 1933 up to the present. It has been a research interest of mine to reflect and hypothesize why so many 19th-century novels are made into films. What is it about that literature that inspires us to remake them? I could give the stock answer that those novels have universal truths of which we can still relate. That is true, but why else? Perhaps 19th-century novels just lend themselves to become movies. Novel reading was a source of entertainment to 19th-century audiences much like movies are a source of entertainment for us today.

I actually have done some writing on seven different versions of Dickens's Great Expectations and found that the way Estella says her final lines of the novel is slightly different in each movie. The ways she offers Pip friendship ranges from a question, to a timid request, to an assertive declarative statement. I've concluded that Estella's increase in assertiveness is a result of the changing views of femininity throughout the 20th century. That's aside from Jane Eyre but maybe it's something similar. How does each movie portray Jane and her world? And what can contemporary audience understand from a new movie? Do young women see themselves in Jane? After all, young women are no longer threatened with being a governness if they don't marry. Is it the love story? Why are we so captivated with Jane and Rochester's uncertain and ambiguous relationship? Or, is the storyline just that good? The Bronte sisters were definitely not the typical female women of the 19th century. All three sisters were rather isolated, well read, loved Byron, and published novels. Perhaps it's the Bronte myth that keeps these stories alive and well.

House and Sherlock Holmes

Every week, I DVR my favorite TV shows: How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory, The Daily Show, and House. I was watching an episode of House this morning and was reminded of a connection to the Sherlock Holmes stories. I've always said that House is the modern medical version of Sherlock Holmes. They are both considerably complex characters (they are slightly arrogant, intelligent, and only interested in solving cases that are interesting). They are both classic examples of deductive reasoning. I never really thought to look into whether others have thought the same way, but a quick Google search confirms my connection: Connections Between House and Holmes. I think there's a conference paper for the Popular Culture Studies in the making. My summer project...

Frankenstein

I'm teaching Frankenstein for like the fourth time in my teaching career. I love teaching the book because students always think they know what Frankenstein is about, and they are surprised when they start reading novel. I also love the book because of all the literary references Mary Shelley trickles throughout the novel. My dissertation director reminded me that Victor Frankenstein, who stitches together human parts to create a new life, is similar to Shelley, who stitches together literature (Paradise Lost, Ancient Mariner, to name of few). It demonstrates what the goals of this blog are - to find connections and create new ideas. So far, everyone has been making connections between classes, what they're reading on the side, and what they are writing. I wonder what connections will be made with The Awakening...

Pop Culture Fiction

When Emily posted something about guilty pleasures, I remembered a post I had drafted about my guilty reading pleasures but didn't finish. As an English professor, I always feel the need to read the classics. Really, what kind of Victorian literature scholar am I if I haven't read every Charles Dickens novel (note to take Martin Chezzlewit off my bookshelf this week) but every now and then I like to delve into the popular fiction. My most recent guilty pleasure is the Girl with the Dragon Tatoo series by Stieg Larsson, a Swedish author. I've finished two of the three books so far and am anxious to start the third and final book. The story takes place in Sweden and switches between the perspectives between a journalist, who exposes economic scandals, and an alienated young computer hacker, Lisbeth Salander who is independent, brilliant, and strong but refuses to let anyone get close to her. The two work together on the case of a young woman who disappeared 40 years earlier. After working on that case together (note that I don't want to discuss that storyline too much), they go their separate ways but always seem to connect later on. While Larsson writes engaging an storyline, I'm troubled by his preoccupation of the mistreatment of women, mistreatment by their fathers, their brothers, their significant others, their guardians, the people that are supposed to keep them safe. In fact, there are not a lot of likable men in the series due to the graphic descriptions of abuses of women.  Which makes me wonder - why present such mistreatment in the novels? Is Larsson trying to expose the amount of abuse that does occur? Is he trying to articulate a way to solve the problems? I'm interested to see how he'll wrap up the trilogy. Will Salandar get revenge on the men who have harmed her? Will she change to allow people in her life? She'd lose the air of mystery and defiance that defines who she is. And what does that mean if she does change?