4/24 - TPatG I

First off, I guess I should say that this book is probably my favorite out of all the previous novels we've read. It's relatively simple, descriptive, and has a straightforward narrative that I can only hope will get better as the pages keep turning (and they most assuredly will).

The structure that Greene molds this story with is an interesting one - he has a variety of characters (with the more central one being the NoName Priest), and he tells different accounts of interacting with NoName from the ancillary characters' points of view. Doing this is an interesting choice - you're seeing the main character who you are supposed to be feeling sympathy for, but for various sections of the novel (at least what I read), you are experiencing him from the viewpoint of other characters. It's interesting that Greene chose to do this, to give us as readers a sense of how this protagonist works and functions in regards to others while later focusing in on how his mind actually works. I really do enjoy that seeing that there is a method to this NoName's madness (obviously that is just a turn of phrase, he is not mad. Not in a way that I can tell, anyway). The way that Greene does this is by sectioning off different parts of the narrative so that each one deals with one (or in some cases a group) character's storyline and then moving on to another. This for the most part works, but there were a couple spots that I was kind of confused, mainly because he began those sections with a lot of description and not enough naming of the characters. But obviously reading on (to where individuals are mentioned) sorted out my confused state.

One small thing that I thought was very interesting involved our friend the dentist, the English Mr. Tench (I cannot remember if a first name is given - I do not think so, but I might be wrong). When he was contemplating writing a letter to his estranged wife (though estranged may be too harsh a word, he just has not spoken to her for quite some time, that does not necessarily mean their relationship is strained. It probably is, I reckon.), he found it difficult because though he knew what person to write to, he could not actually remember her AS a person, he could only remember the various hats she wore. While this section is fairly humorous, it got me thinking about the times when this same thing has happened to me. Sometimes when I have gone a long (or sometimes short) time without speaking or seeing my significant other or a family member, I try to recall what they look like but fail to create a concrete image - I can only see the little things that were insignificant at the time. The sunglasses they wore, the bracelet(s) they wore that jingled and jangled as they walked, maybe the color of the shirt they wore the last time I saw them. Even if I am able to create in my minds-eye an image that suits them, it troubles me that I cannot remember what their voice sounded like (and the replacements I try to fit into the puzzle are either not right at all or are just not quite right to hit the mark).

Reading on a bit further, it was interesting to see the character (and I use that term both in its literary sense and in the sense that the person is indeed quite a character) that NoName deals with on his way to Carmen. This "mestizo" (which I learned is someone of European and American Indian ancestry) who tags along, while quite an annoyance to NoName, piqued the interest in my reader's mind. First of all, this guy only has two teeth and both of them are canines - what? That is such an interesting choice to make this guy, is what I thought first off, but then I tried to make an image in my head and everything I came up with was sort of snake-like because of those two teeth which probably looked like fangs when he opened his mouth at all. But is this just a coincidence? Could this mestizo be a snake-in-waiting for NoName? Perhaps his eagerness to know NoName is just a ruse to out him as a priest, or maybe this man, being of mixed race is also of importance. I mean, if this guy is mixed with European he probably has fairly light skin, so perhaps (and this is a big grasping at straws moment) he is the gringo that the authorities are looking for? Like I mentioned, I'm probably just making random conjectures that go nowhere, but it would be an interesting bit of irony for these two men on the run to meet by happenstance.

4/17 - Last September 'n' things

i'm not sure what it is - the characters, the setting, the plot (if there is one) - but for whatever reason I just find it extremely difficult to follow what's happening in this darned book. Now, obviously with me being a lone, insignificant college student in the Midwest, this doesn't mean that there isn't anything happening or that the material is inferior in any way, it just means that for whatever reason, I can't wrap my head around it. That being said, I think the further I get into the novel, the more I can somewhat-kinda-sorta soak up what's all the intricate (and I use the term "intricate" lightly) plot movement.

While discussing what modernism is, I thought about the ideas that everyone had and I began to understand and believe that this book is indeed modernist. First, the shifting points of view - every chapter seems to begin to focus on another character, but within that chapter itself, the focus goes from one character to the next, and then sometimes back again. In one section, I believe I was reading a bit about Marda, but then all of a sudden it shifts perspectives from her (though it may not have been her) to "Laurence could not sleep" or something to that effect. While I understand that this is a modernist quality, I do not know if it's used to its greatest effectiveness. I mean, the way it is now, with the sudden shift, it seems like Bowen wanted the reader to be confused and shaken by the immediate change. But, that may not have been her purpose - perhaps she did not know of any other way to change viewpoints.

Not following any clear plot structure/having a plot that is not traditional is definitely a modernist quality that this and other books we have read have shared. Orlando definitely didn't follow an understandable plot (but the book itself was somewhat easy to follow, it just wasn't traditional) - I definitely couldn't predict the ending to the story of the 300 year-old sex-changed...person. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man also had a wonky plot. It didn't really seem to know where it was going to go - one moment we're in Stephen's childhood and then just a bit later we're with him at college.

Actually, the more I think about it, I don't think that what I'm talking about is related to the plot structure, it's more about the subject of time within the novel. Shifting through different moments in time without warning was definitely a quality of the majority of novels we've previously read. Orlando, as I mentioned, was jumping all over the timeline of his/her life, but once you got over the fact that times have changed, it was reasonably easy to follow what was happening.

Some of the books we've read dealt in ever-changing times, and Bowen's book is no different, though it's a bit tamer when compared to works like Orlando. While we have a general sense of where and when things are happening, the reader isn't too sure how much time has passed within the story - characters talk about how someone has stayed for "too short a time" but never actually mention how long they were there,

I guess the point is that if you dwell on the fact that time isn't really mentioned it might be confusing, but if you accept that time is irrelevant in the whole scheme of things, then The Last September can go much smoother.

4/2 - APotAaaYM - fin

The flock (if you can call it a flock) of birds in the second-to-last section, in my opinion, was a little too on-the-nose for my taste. I get that Stephen's last name is related to the Grecian Daedalus (and he in turn is related to his son, Icarus), but putting a flock of birds flying around near the sun (was it near the sun? now that i think about it, I'm not sure if it was even day time then. but I think it had to be, otherwise how could Stephen seen them?) was almost too subtle in its in-between the lines-yness (sarcasm is meant to be spoken, not written, unfortunately). But, I can understand that Stephen would contemplate the origins and meanings of his name (I myself sometimes ponder that my first name is Irish and means something aloong the lines of "handsome" and "strong" - go figure).

The situation with Stephen and Emma is a condundrum to me. (First of all, she's a big jerk for ignoring Stephen.) It might just be because I, for whatever reason, did not read close enough or what, but I do not know where this character of the feminine persuasion came into the status quo. I remember when he wrote something and addressed it "To E---C----" and I figured it was a woman or a girl he knew, but I didn't think she ever became a large part of his life. There was that dream scene (I think it was a dream, anyway), where he got all angry and whatnot at how she flirted with a priest or something...but that may or may not have been something I just made up out of thin air. Anyways, I kind of wish that if she's so "important" to Stephen that she be introduced better and given more "screen time," as it were.

It's interesting that Joyce chose to make Cranly eat figs during the scene either before or during the conversation (I cannot remember if he was eating them; i believe Stephen told him to stop but I'm not sure) he is having with Stephen. It's interesting in that they are talking about religion and figs, or their leaves, rather, were the chosen form of clothing of the two "original people" who God created first before us all - Adam and Eve. Whether or not Joyce really chose to make the figs a subtle reference to the Genesis story is up in the air, but I do think that it's an interesting and related idea, not to mention kind of cool (in my mind, anyways).

*screeching tires noise*

In regards to the just mentioned tire screech, i felt that way when I read the final section of the novel because it just took a very unexpected turn and odd style change. Well, maybe not odd per se, just very unexpected. I didn't really think that spending over 250 pages on the mindset just to switch to a first-person perspective was a good way to spend the final pages.

That being said, I didn't really feel anything either way towards the end of the book. It ended - that was it. It felt very anti-climactic and I pretty much didn't care where Stephen Dedalus was off to - as an artist or whatever he chose to be. Hopefully he did the knowledgeable thing and joined the circus so he could do what all boys wish to do - tame lions and learn how all those clowns can get into that little car.

APotAaaYM I

Legendary American musician Frank Zappa once said:

If you want to get together in any exclusive situation and have people love you, fine - but to hang all this desperate sociology on the idea of The Cloud-Guy who has The Big Book, who knows if you've been bad or good - and CARES about any of it - to hang it all on that, folks, is the chimpanzee part of the brain working.

This is pretty much the sentiment I had after reading the section that was assigned for Thursday discussion. I call myself a Roman Catholic but I do not go to church (unless it is a major holiday or am otherwise forced to go), I do not confess my sins to anyone other than those innocent whom I have done wrong to, and I do not place any money in the donation basket (not because I don't want to, but because being an unemployed college student it is retroactive to my cause to tithe on a weekly or montly basis.). But if I ever told my mother that I was having a confusion of faith, she'd most likely just smack me upside the head and tell me to snap out of it. Yes, I do believe in a God, but not necessarily the "Catholic" god who likes to rain fire and brimstone. I mean, how can you not believe in some kind of higher being? Okay, sure, coming from a purely scientific point of view, we evolved from lesser life forms into what we are today, but where did we, as lesser beings, come from? It is almost ignorant to explain away God (or what have you) with a purely scientific approach because if you do that, how can you explain supernatural phenomena like ghosts, spirits, and anything "otherworldly"?

Well, that was a tangent that I didn't mean to go on, but there you have it.

What I mean to say is that while I can understand and argue in favor of Joyce choosing to drag on for multiple pages of having father Arnell preaching and talking to the retreatees, I just felt that he could make his point in some other, more interesting, way. Perhaps a dream sequence? Maybe not, but I'm just brainstorming at random. If Joyce wants to make a case against religion, he could have done it in a completely different way other than boring the reader to tears and causing him/her to skip entire pages of religious babble and bobble.

______________________________________________________

One thing I found interesting and worthy of talking about probably has an obvious end-point but is interesting nonetheless. Let's take the idea that Joyce wants to say something about religion (more specifically Catholicism) and how it's wrong and what have you, blah, blah, blah. Got that? Okay, good. If Joyce wants to make some kind of statement about the aforementioned, then why does he choose to add to that statement in such a silly way? Things like "Saint" and "Catholic" as well as "Catholicism" and other words akin to religion are all knowingly left uncapitalized. This choice thus makes the words seem unimportant and meaningless except at face value. While if this was intentional I can completely understand the choice he made, I just don't see any real value in doing something so trivial. But, and this is a big but, this may be completely unintentional on the author's part and a mere capitalization error that went unchecked by the editor and his assistant, Billy (assuming that the editor has an assistant and he is male). I may be right on either account because sometimes I can make out the point in the smallest things but I can also looking way too far into the aforementioned smallest things and make mountains out of molehills.

For example, do you remember the DeLorean from the Back to the Future movies, as it thrust itself into the space-time continuum and drove at 88mph to some point either forward or back in time? Yeah that's a penis.

3/13 - Yeats Poem

In regards to "Easter, 1916," I thought this poem was good, though it required a few readings to really get my feelings about it to solidify.

The first stanza, I thought, was very interesting, even if you crop it out of the poem and leave it by itself to stand alone. Just reading the first few lines reminded me of the banality of life - you see dozends/hundreds/thousands of people every day, and even though you may not know the majority of them, social norms have placed a requirement in you to say something nice to at least a handful of people who you lock gazes with. Of course, Yeats sums up the sentiment of these salutations when he describes them as "Polite meaningless words," because most of the time you really do not mean what you say to these seemingly unknown "vivid faces" you meet in the course of this "casual comedy." (of course, this standalone verse paragraph would be suspect to inquiry when the last two lines are read/spoken aloud)

The second stanza was filled with mixed messages and contradictory sentiments. For instance, even in the second line. the phrase "ignorant good-will" is an oxymoron which, by definition, is a phrase which has words that are in opposition of themselves. Also, Yeats describes a man who was "so sensitive" and "so daring and sweet [in] his thought" - someone who he seems to admire - but then goes on to call him a "drunken, vanglorious lout." He seems to have a certain admiration for someone who apparently has a severe drinking problem and isn't quite up there on the intelligence ladder. Melding together what I know about the subject matter from the poem, Yeats here is saying that even though this man did not get along with the poet in his personal life, what he did for the good of the country outweighs that and he deserves to be honored.

The third stanza I'm not really sure about. I mean, I know that it's obviously a part of this poem, but I wonder why Yeats shifts his worldview from something so bleak to something so wholly naturalistic in its simplicity. Not only does this stanza shift in content, it is the only stanza which does not end with the phrase "a terrible beauty is born," and instead ends with "The stone's in the midst of it all."

The fourth and final stanza is an unfortunate culmination and melancholy which pains the heart to read. Through all the turmoil that went on this first stanzas, for the revolution to fail at its most dire point is a sad thing to think about. All those who died, and the four Yeats names specifically, deserve to be remembered in the history of Ireland because they died for what they believed was the right thing to do. Thinking about these brave Irishmen gets me thinking about our own revolution some 233 years ago - those noble men who died in service of what wasn't even a country yet. They stood up for what they believed was right - to free our nation from the stranglehold of the British - and many of them died, not necessarily swiftly either, for it. Even the soldiers who are in Iraq now are noble and should be honored for what they're doing - we wanted to free a country from its tyrant of a leader and what do we get in return? Car bombs, IEDs, video-recorded decapitations. I could go on but I don't think I should go further because this post would probably get less and less coherent as I go.

Anyways, the point is that men (and women) who stand up for what they believe is right sometimes pay the ultimate price and give of themselves the most noble sacrifice, whether they necessarily want to or not - it is our duty to remember them in the annals of time and think of them not as who they were, but who they want to be known as - revolutionaries.

2/27 - Orlando (fin)

Orlando, Orlando, where for art thou, Orlando?

Nah, doesn't really have the same feel as Romeo.

Anyways, getting back to the actual novel, or "biography," if you will. Having just finished the book, I feel as a whole it was definitely very interesting, but at the same time confusing as hell. A character living for hundreds of years? I can get past that. But a character living for hundreds of years and having a "spiritual/physical" sex change in the middle of his/her life? That, I can't really get past - but somehow, it seems to work and became much more than the MacGuffin of the book.

While the book is finished, there are some things I would like to talk about.

First of all, apparently Nick Greene is a highlander, because when Orlando meets up with him in the nineteenth (or was it the twentieth?) century, I was very shocked to see a familiar face in Orlando's apparent time-traveling adventures (though I don't know if I'm more shocked to see Greene or more shocked when Nick knows right away to call him Lady Orlando). It's interesting that Woolf would bring such a bittersweet character back into Orlando's life - I do not think she herself would have chosen to meet up with him in the future. Quite a bit is made about "The Oak Tree" when the two are talking, so perhaps Woolf only brings Greene back to push forward the idea that Orlando gets her manuscript published and into the public eye.

So apparently Orlando has a son, and as shocking as that is, I ponder to ask the question, "Why?" Why would Woolf introduce a possibly life-changing character so late in the game, and then completely ignore him for the last twenty-five or so pages. Is it just to reinforce the idea that Orlando is now a woman? Why put such a throwaway idea into the story and then let it slide away just as easily as it came? I really do not know, and I personally feel that while the idea of her having a son is interesting, her execution of the idea is poor and in my mind sort of takes away from the story on the whole.

The last thing I wanted to mention might just be a coincidence and have no relevance to the subject, but I would still like to get out onto paper (so to speak). On page 198, Woolf begins to speak about a gamekeeper and how this gamekeeper will "whistle under the window" of a "beautiful woman in the prime of her life." This is purely thinking outside some kind of box that lies on the edge of a stair that, with a wisp of wind, could tip over and all its contents could fly out, but is it possible that this gamekeeper that Woolf mentioned is somehow related to the gamekeeper of Lawrence's Lady Chatterly's Lover? Is it possible that Woolf, for one reason or another, is referencing good ole D.H. in one way or another? Why she chooses or not chooses to do this directly, I do not know, but it would be interesting to see if it really is a connection between the two books.

2/19 - Orlando

Orlando is, well, to put it simply - complicated. He was born a he but mid-life he woke up one day (after a visit from three faeries, no less) and he was now a she. From that point on (at least to where I have read), Orlando is in the mindset of a woman, dresses like a woman, and acts like a woman should act (whatever that means).

But Woolf never states that Orlando has changed physically, he has only changed mentally. For instance, on page 102, Woolf states that "Orlando had become a woman - there is no denying it. But in every other respect, Orlando remained precisely as he had been. The change of sex, though it altered their future, did nothing whatever to alter their identity." From this passage, we can glean that Woolf makes certain of two things: 1) Orlando is now a woman, and 2) Orlando looks exactly the same as he did before, nothing has changed but his internal self.

With this idea Woolf challenges society and their "clearly defined" sexual identities involving gender and orientation. She not only challenges it, she almost makes a mockery of it. It's almost as if she's trying to say, "Just because a man walks and talks like a man, doesn't that make him a woman?" - that sort of satire of gender roles in her/our society.

Though this may not be the most relevant to this discussion, but when Orlando is "getting used" to the idea that she is now a woman, it reminds me of the MacGuffin (the plot device that catches the viewers attention) of the film Freaky Friday, - whichever version you imagine here is up to you, the reader - or, at least the basic idea of it. Instead of a mother and daughter switching bodies (or personalities, what have you), it is instead a male personae jumping from his own body into that of an elegant female husk (too graphic language perhaps?). At first, she doesn't know what to do - she freaks out and tries to understand what has happened (at least in the films), but over time she must accept that she is stuck in the body of a man/child/mother and there is nothing he/she can do about it. This is partly what Orlando does - while on the boat to her home, she contemplates what being a woman means for him, and generally accepts and embraces the idea of her new reality.

Now, in regards to reality - there is none, at least not in this "biography." Things go from based in real-life to balls-to-the-wall crazy time in split seconds. First off, a man going to sleep and then days later waking up magically changed into a woman? Yeah, that's not what I would call "realistic," unless of course our main character was an asexual toad creature on the planet WtfftW. I'm not sure why Woolf chooses to add such a thing to this book, but maybe she does it so people won't take it too seriously and realize that it's not a real "biography." I do not want to think of this book as merely fantasy, but at the same time I definitely don't want to take this as non-fiction 100% real. I think the proper way to view this book is like an acid trip - the bits where things go crazy (such as the faery scene before the "change") are when Woolf was at her most high (of herself maybe?) and the "real" bits in between are the lulls when she wasn't doing acid, but wasn't doing anything worse either.