Change your Scenery, Change your Attitude

I'm all about giving my opinions on books; hence, this blog, that I've been running for more than two and a half years now. So, would you like to know what my absolute, one hundred percent, least favorite book is, of all time?

It's shockingly easy to say, especially for someone who simply loves books in general: Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway. It is by far and away my least favorite book, and I make this known quite readily. In fact, I've used my frustrated hatred of that specific book to mock all of Hemingway's writing openly: about how his terse, overly-condensed writing style is like eating straight, grainy bouillon cubes, about his deceptive descriptions that refuse to give you the full story, about how his penchant for drinking and eating took up more room than they would have in an issue of Food and Wine magazine,  about how I'm confused how someone who comes across as such a sexist pig every time he writes about women could ever have been married not only once, but four times. There was nothing about this man that I liked, and I was confused about his ability to make the reader sympathetic to the plights of his subjects, when he, himself, and in extension, his writing, could all be so thoroughly unlikable.

Now, would you like to know which book is the best that I've read in at least the past two years? Would you even believe me if I told you, that I truly fell in love with the tight-knit, yet not-easily-traverseable phrases, the setting and impeccable descriptions, the ability to make new friends across the span of a page, and the sheer wonder of the effects of complete time travel that came across in the fitting of a conversation, of another work by Hemingway: A Moveable Feast.

This collection of memoirs from Hemingway's life in the city of Paris in the 1920s is expertly crafted, like some kind of passport back in space and time, to what Woody Allen guaranteed us in Midnight in Paris was the most amazing time and place ever. The book includes such grandiose names and legacies as those of Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, Ford Maxford Ford, as well as one of Hemingway's closest friends, Scott Fitzgerald, as well as Fitzgerald's wife, Zelda. Overall, the inner workings of this elite set of almost-ex-pat bohemians living in the most romantic city in the world, making a mean and meager living in Europe while their home country was drowning in excess, and finding joy in their own humility and costlessness, was truly transformative to read. Involving discussions on Love, Truth, Bravery, and, of course, a lot of Food and Drinking, this book not only felt like a vacation for my mind - despite the unseasonably sunny weather we're getting here in Seattle - but also a bit of a trip of the heart.

However, that's not to say that old Hem's got it all right. His characterizations of people are still incredibly bothersome for me: he is incredibly condemnatory in the vices and follies of others, without looking to exorcise his own personal demons (and obviously he has many). He constantly labels other people as drunks,  racists, or idiots, without seeing the same in himself, and he really is sexist. The problem is, from the limited viewpoint of the reader, we take everything he says in truth, and because of his oftentimes extreme differences in what is absolutely good or absolutely bad, we can be left with a skewed view of Hemingway's reality in Paris. Despite his work in fiction, and his concessions to critiques that even his own work as a journalist or in his memoirs contains some elements of fiction, we are forced to believe - due to the limited scope of the author's viewpoints - that everything he says is right. And clearly, some of it is not right.

But that fiction he paints is so wonderful. The setting - the descriptions of Paris - make this an almost-guidebook, simply because of all the street and restaurant names he delivers explicitly. His work can be terse and over-condensed, just like I remember it to be, but occasionally, these chunky blocks of phrases and words swirl into a long and winding description, like a cobblestone street disappearing around a bend in the road. His elucidations of food and drink make an enormous amount of sense in the context of the setting, and , of course, the many appearances of his famous friends are incredibly interesting as well!

Overall, while my opinion has not changed, in regards to how much I intensely dislike Farewell to Arms, this book is really, truly something special, and I enjoyed it immensely. Now, my question is, what would a book like this look like now, if someone attempted to create something quite like it today? If there exists such a thing, I want to find it. Because I'm not quite ready to come back to the reality of a rapidly approaching Finals Week just yet.

Something Wicked in YA

In need of some light reading recently, and unable to find anything decent in the scant selection I managed to sneak into my suitcases when going back to college from Winter Break, I descended once more into the pit of turmoil and self-hatred that is the result of actually using my Kindle.

Unable to utilize any of my personal ability to make decent life choices - recently exhausted in the crafting of the perfect Spring Quarter schedule, which I was completely successful in procuring just this morning - I decided to hop on the back of yet another YA trend wave, and rode it all the way to my virtual Amazon shopping cart, stocked with one book: Beautiful Creatures, by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. 

The novel, set in a modern-day South that has the same attitude towards outsiders and the unexplained as an older-day South, centers around young Ethan Wate, a high school kid whose only dreams have ever been to leave his small town of Gatlin, South Carolina, and the mysterious girl whose appearance in his life portends the advent of a series of odd events. Involving car accidents, exploding windows, and some incredibly inclement weather, Lena Duchannes' entrance into Gatlin society does nothing but cause more and more trouble, and for good reason: she's a Caster, some kind of offshoot of your typical witch. Her whole family is full of Casters, including her reclusive and minorly-imbalanced uncle Macon, who has lived in Gatlin his whole life, but never really come out of his house. When faced with something unknown and different, the town lynch mob starts forming immediately. Not to mention the impending doom that is Lena's sixteenth birthday... when her powers will be claimed for either the Light or the Dark. And the difference is, there's hell to pay if her phenomenal powers - those of a Natural - are claimed for the forces of evil. How is a young, blooming relationship to survive amidst all this chaos?

This book was not that bad. It wasn't too great either... I thought that the novel hinged on a suspenseful event for which there was no emotional payoff, that the entire plot was more than mildly sexist (seriously, Lena has some significant issues, I'm not doubting that, I'm just doubting as to whether the entire book should have come off as Ethan constantly having to take care of her and coach her through life's worries), and that the only characters in the book who even came off as mildly self confident were the baddies (hence, the only characters I liked were more than a little evil).

That all being said, this book was fine. It was better than fine, it was okay. And I am not typically "okay" with the majority of YA fiction, as I have voiced previously. It was a little dull and slow in places, the plot may start lagging as you approached the "big" finish, and the aftertaste was more than a little bit cottony and bitter, but for the most part, I enjoyed the unique mythology, the deep-friend Southern flavor, and the narrative voice, which, for having two authors, was surprisingly cohesive.

I can't wait to go back to reading grown-up books again, however. And by grown-up, I mean the wretched notes I have to decipher again for my midterms. And not even magic can help me there.

Lost in Austen (and my recent dealing with Austen as well)

Hello, everybody!

Just so you know, my newest College Fashion article was uploaded today, on the topic of Jane Austen's first published work, Sense and Sensibility. Take a look at it right here.
(And simply because I neglected to promote my past article as well, take a look at my looks inspired by Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre right here.)

While this sort of post would typically be accompanied by my personal review of the book, I must make a confession: I haven't actually finished it yet. What can I say, it's hard to get past the Austen rule quite so easily, especially when you're a Freshman in college with work to be done and an essay to turn in next Friday and two midterms before then as well.

That being said, I have been engrossed in some other forms of Austen fiction, just not the kind written by the legendary authoress herself. Additionally, they are not about Sense and Sensibility, but about her arguably most famous novel, Pride and Prejudice.

First up, is the masterful YouTube series - which I only just managed to catch on to, despite the fact that the multi-media web series has been running since April 9th, 2012 - The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. 

And fair warning: this will suck you in quickly. It is an expertly adapted modern variation on Austen's classic tale, and the characters are not only easy to relate to, but much easier to see reflected in those closest to you. And like those closest to you, you can follow all of them on quite a few social media platforms, including reacting YouTube channels and Twitter feeds. They are amazing in their ability to coordinate between them all, and it allows for a heightened sense of reality between you and the multi-faceted subjects of Austen's world.

However, I do have to comment that I didn't realize that this series was still ongoing. So, on the plus side, my adventures with Lizzie and the Gang are not yet over, but on the sad side, I am now slave-bound to my computer four days out of the week, waiting for the next upload. And wouldn't you know it, I managed to catch up just as the story reached it's most suspenseful moment. That's what I get for taking to YouTube when I KNOW I have a paper due.

As for the second mode of Austen magic enrapturing my mind recently, I have the BBC miniseries Lost in Austen to thank, for my adventures on the struggle bus, while my notes for midterms went untouched. That being said, it was a very enjoyable excursion, in the end.

The series, which ran in 2008, stars Jemima Roper as Amanda Price, a modern-day fan of the classic romance fiction, who, after a disastrous marriage proposal from her boyfriend, finds Elizabeth Bennet in her bathroom, having discovered a secret door between the real world, and Longbourn. The two unintentionally swap places, and soon Amanda must cope with all the characters of Austen's world that we know so well.

It is made up of four episodes, each about an hour long, and its fast-paced nature and snappy dialogue make each installment go by quickly. The additional interest of seeing a new side to each of your favorites - a charming, but framed Wickham; a terrifically awful Darcy; and a seriously unexpected turn of events for Caroline Bingley, for instance - should convince you to track down this show immediately.

So, that's enough Austen for me right now. I think it's about time to wash my brain out with something far less romantic and hopeful... especially since tomorrow is Valentine's Day. 

A Little Bit Stressed-Out and Weird

I have had a pounding migraine for the past two days straight, which has severely impacted my abilities to remove the source of the eternal damned headache: all of the stress-inducing activities which are currently leaving me with no desire to face tomorrow.

And what is tomorrow? An event for which I am NOT a planner, but a liaison, which leaves me in the unfortunate position of having to field all sorts of ridiculous demands, unabashed begging and pleading, and downright antipathy and potential sabotage, from both sides of the process.

Over the course of planning this event, various other roadblocks have also sprung up in my path, most notably, schoolwork (a constant source of unnecessary stress), my College Fashion articles (ALSO due tomorrow), and day-to-day trivialities, such as sleep and eating (which I am beginning to realize are less and less vital). In the process, I have neglected some things, like going to the gym, and completely failed at others, such as keeping this blog alive (sorry). As a result - I have already mentioned the tugging at my skull, from the less contented parts of my brain, resulting in a fresh hell of lying in bed for four hours extra every morning - I have had the weirdest dreams lately, and frequently find myself misunderstanding information.

At a stressful, insane period like this one, the only thing to do, would be to read a strange and confusing book, right? Hence, Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair.

The smart story, post-modern in the way that Dodos are scientifically replicable in 1985, follows the beleaguered LiteraTec agent (tasked with protecting the integrity of the world's classics) Thursday Next, as she does battle with the incredibly dastardly villian, Acheron Hades, while fielding the unwanted policing by the all-controlling Goliath Corporation. England is a police state, while Wales is a carefully guarded socialist country, the United States is still referred to only as "the colonies" and the Crimean War has been fought with Russia for over a hundred years. Shakespeare is considered a basic language, and the idea of any of the country's great works being tarnished is one of absolute national importance; hence, the job of LiteraTec agent. The only thing that can make it more wacky? Fictional characters are able to start jumping in and out of books, leading to great confusion as some are found missing, and others even turn up dead.

Who WOULDN'T love this book?

I read it for the first time in middle school, and - at the time -rejoiced in my half-way obliviousness, thinking myself terribly clever as I read about Jane Eyre and Richard III. It is only now, years later, that I recognized the sounds of missed jokes and literary references whistling away way above my eighth-grade head. However, what is essentially a high-concept book, is enjoyable to both those who have mastered the majority of BritLit, as those who barely understand Middle English. It is truly funny, as well as intelligent.

And the perfect thing is, it completely mirrors my zany mind processing right now. Someone send me an Austen when I've regained my sanity.

[Also, my next College Fashion article goes up this Wednesday, about Jane Eyre. So be on the lookout!]

Bad Attitude

I've never really been one for negativity, barring that one 3-day goth-punk misadventure that occurred in the fifth grade (don't worry, I'm okay now).

Remembering to look on the brighter side is as familiar a concept to me as looking both ways before crossing the street, and when I do reach the other side of the road, I can be assured that my neighbor's lawn is no greener than mine. I always make sure to put on a smile, at the same time I'm putting on my shoes, because I know I wouldn't be fully dressed without either of them. And if anyone tries to rain on my parade, I simply wipe the fog off my rose-colored glasses, keep an eye out for the 9th cloud, and look for the silver lining in the forecast, because I know that, regardless of the weather, the sun will come out tomorrow.

And if all of those terrible cliches can't convince you of my optimism, then here's the proof: I've made it through J.D.Salinger's the Catcher in the Rye for the second time through, and have yet to get a tattoo, a new Tumblr account (in fact, I actually deleted mine!), or a sweet black electric guitar for my all new indie-grunge one-woman-show. Nor have I heard strange voices or attempted any homicides, but those are a little less likely reactions to the apathetic - as well as oftentimes straight-up pathetic - whining present in the novel.

The Catcher in the Rye is told from the viewpoint of 16-year-old East Coast flunkie Holden Caulfield, as he wanders around NYC for three days, to avoid having to tell his parents that he has been kicked out of yet another prestigious prep school. Over the course of the novel, he hires a prostitute - just so he can find someone to talk to - hits on a couple of middle-aged women in a nightclub, ostracizes himself from past friends, and basically takes part in drunken, dissolute behavior over the course of 277 pages.

Did I mention the book was published in 1951?

If I sound condemnatory, I don't mean to. It's easy to criticize this book; in fact, people have been doing it ever since the book was published over 60 years ago. Simultaneously the most-banned and most-read book in high schools across America, Catcher has always had the shadow of offended school boards and all-too-chaste parents hanging over it. People blame it for the suicide of Kurt Cobain, as well as for the homicide (actually, is it more appropriate to say assassination?) of John Lennon. It's really, really easy for people not to like this book, even by looking at the structure of the novel itself: there basically is none. No great lesson-learned at the end, he doesn't die or anything. Nothing happens. And the narration style is considered to be less-than-ideal as well. It sounds simply like you're having a conversation with a teenage boy in a retro time loop.

The thing is, that is my favorite thing about the novel. The fact that, even though the book was written in 1951, even though Holden's nightclubs involved trumpets, jitterbugging, and famous piano players, even though his world involves so much of what is antiquated and obsolete to us, you can still look at Holden, and see a teenage boy. While his surroundings may have changed drastically, he, himself is a universal: who hasn't felt like the world he was living in is superficial and shallow, like he is alone and under-appreciated, like his glory has yet to come? Readers may choose to condemn his frequent expletive-laced language and juvenile tone, but it just makes Holden that much more relatable and recognizable as a kid.

Furthermore, while nothing really happens over the course of the novel, maybe its enduring popularity and praise owes a little to those same feelings that he exhibited with such reality: it's enough just to be with someone who understands you, to be a little less lonely, for a little while. Angst-filled teenage readers have found a friend in Holden for this long, not because he undergoes this magical attitude-transformation, where he finds out he's a wizard and saves the princess from the tower and solves the whodunit mystery while nabbing the dastardly trainrobbers, but because he was someone, who thought like them, and sometimes, it's just nice to be with someone who understands. Like Holden.

So, while I don't feel the need to stage some kind of a demonstration in Red Square or set fire to anything anytime soon, I can't really say I got out of The Catcher in the Rye unchanged. It gives me a new appreciation for those other people crossing the street, those whose sun isn't as determined to shine as mine is. Those people who are just looking for other people like them, like I am.

(to check out my College Fashion post inspired by The Catcher in the Rye style, go here: http://www.collegefashion.net/inspiration/looks-from-books-fashion-inspired-by-the-catcher-in-the-rye/ )

Dead Tired

Only a few days back to school, and I already feel like spending most of the day in bed.

It's not the classes, those are amazing. They're all in a row, straight off, starting at 9:30 am, and ending shortly after lunch, so I don't have any giant gaping holes in my schedule like I did last quarter, and besides, check out what classes I'm taking: Water and Society, English 297 AND 301 (pre-reqs for the major!), and Dinosaurs. Yeah, that's right, Dinosaurs. Nothing, in terms of schoolwork, is getting me down, as the readings are fabulous, the topics are engaging, and I have friends - or am already making friends - in all of my classes. There's no problem with school itself.

I think it's partially to do with the fact that I really wore myself out over break. Not everyone considers tackling an almost 1,000 page Russian drama for Christmas, and it was a real journey, not only to read the whole novel, but also adapt it for College Fashion (for my first-ever post, no less), as well as review it for this blog. While I did find it all a very rewarding experience, I don't think I'll be attempting that kind of a marathon again any time soon.

Instead, I chose to retreat to the comfort zone, and bury myself in my favorite genre - also rife with those 6 ft. under - with a good cup of tea. Several good cups of tea later, I retreated from the novel mentally replenished, and ready to get back to work.

The novel was this: Why Didn't They Ask Evans?, one of the best - in my opinion - of Agatha Christie's canon, and one not starring either of her most famous mystery-solvers, Poirot or Marple, either. Instead, the novel focuses on young Bobby Jones, the son of a vicar, and his childhood friend, Lady Frances Derwent, and their attempts to expose a devious drug ring and unmask a murderer by following the trail of corpses left behind, all without becoming corpses themselves.

In many ways, it was simply a typical, yet no less thrilling, Agatha Christie mystery, involving many familiar thematic elements of the mystery genre at that time period, including shadowy figures, sinister doctors, eerie mist, daring escapes, close shots, and the femme fatale. However, as this was one of Christie's first mysteries published after her second marriage, this time to archaeologist Max Mallowan, the witty banter and jokes prevalent throughout the book also bespeak a certain  lightheartedness perhaps not present in her later books. And say whatever you want about the caliber and quality of the series novel, the mystery genre, or this masterful combination of the two, but I believe that this is one of the most fun Agatha Christie's career.

Anyways, a nice, quick read, leaving me feeling refreshed and ready, to face the onslaught of reading coming at me from two different English classes. :) I'm so excited!

Inc-read-ably Sorry

Dear Readers,

I'm terribly, terribly sorry for having neglected you for so long. I know I've already made these kinds of apologies before, but I'm hoping that the positively terrible pun in the title of this blog post will make you more receptive to my pleas for forgiveness.

The reason behind my absence is simple: I was kidnapped by the prolific 18th century Russian author, Leo Tolstoy. I unsuspectingly flipped open the cover of a paperback copy of Anna Karenina, and all of a sudden, I was carried off by his words, and held hostage until I reached the very last chapter. Through Dead Week, Finals, and even the holidays, I was held captive by the captivating prose, kept company only by the doomed socialite and her peers, and finally escaped from the prison on the third of this new year.

However, along the way, I'm afraid I developed a little bit of Stockholm Syndrome, because I loved every second of my confinement.

While the book was incredibly long, and a little slow in some parts, the plot was engaging and enthralling. The descriptions were beautiful, and entirely different from what I'm used to in British Literature: instead of focusing simply on forming a complete image of a setting or a character, Tolstoy spoke of movement and action, choosing to describe a dog in pursuit on a hunt, or the hushed whispering in a society ballroom. The characters were realistic and relatable, which only added to the inner turmoil when the rigidity of Russian society refused to bend for a woman in love.

I've never had to deal with a book that is purely translation before, and I must say, that made it a little more difficult to reach the end, because I am not sure if my edition was exactly the most descriptive or explanatory in its efforts to transcribe a great Russian drama into simple English. However, on the whole, emotional turbulence on this kind of a scale is relatively easy to translate, and the most important aspects of the novel came through with incredible clarity The sound of a gun misfired, a horse falling, and, most importantly, a heart breaking, need no translation.

But I'm afraid I'm about to break your hearts, again, my dear readers. Anna Karenina is a novel about the adulterous affair between the titular character, and the debonair military man, Count Vronsky, and in reading it, I soon found myself involved with another, as well. I've been cheating on you, with another blog, and I haven't a single regret for any of it.

It started out on November 14th, when, on the day before the final deadline, I submitted my application for a contributing editor position, for the nationally-written and recognized lifestyle website, College Fashion. It had been a dream of mine, for quite some time, to merge my mutual passions of fashion and reading, and in applying for this position, I submitted the idea of a column demonstrating a fashionable literacy, detailing the confluence of the two areas of my expertise: fashion inspired by literature.

Shortly thereafter, I heard back from the Editor-in-Chief, Zephyr Basine, that I had been accepted into the position. She wanted me to start elaborating on this concept immediately, and before I knew it, on January 2nd, my first post went up. Instead of revolving around character depictions and relatively easy reads, such as past "Looks From Books" posts have done, I delved deeper into the novel, choosing to interpret thematic elements within the writing instead, and centering the article around the very novel displayed at the top of this post.

Out of over 300 highly-qualified applicants, I was one of about sixteen college women selected to write for College Fashion for the next six months. I had been overjoyed simply at the idea of being handed such an honor, but after the introduction of my first post, I soon found myself flattered beyond compare. To date, my article has been "Liked" on Facebook more than 113 times, has been "Retweeted" 40 times - once, by Focus Films (they who made the 2012 Anna Karenina movie) themselves - and garnered "Comments Section" praise, like this:

"I gotta say, not only am I in love with a lot of these outfits, but I am SO freaking impressed with this. It’s not just straight inspiration from illustrations, the movie, and the like- it’s outfits based off of overreaching themes?! Seriously, this is incredible, moving, and what true fashion should be about."

 Color me bashful. But not bashful enough not to brag when I'm proud of something. Check the article out in its entirety right here: http://www.collegefashion.net/inspiration/looks-from-books-fashion-inspired-by-anna-karenina/

At any rate, though it may result in a little less attention to the needs of THIS blog, my job at College Fashion is just as much of an effort for the love of literature as my posts on here are, and I am incredibly honored and blessed to be writing for them. I can only hope that you might all be happy for me, and, hey, we  can still be friends. I'll continue to update this blog as much as possible, and link to College Fashion whenever a new post goes up, but it may just take a little more time than that to which you may have become accustomed.

Sincerely, with much love and excitement,
Savannah.