Month: September 2009

Stuff on the Coffee Table

  • Empire by Orson Scott Card
  • Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie
  • Henry the Fourth, Part One by William Shakespeare
  • The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism
  • Sharpe’s Gold (film)
  • Grading (mine)
  • Grading (his)
  • Pens, pencils, a calculator, a highlighter, and a stapler
  • A red cup with water for Anastasia
  • An Atlas of the World
  • A take-out menu for Palio’s
  • A cup of tea
  • Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
  • Remote controls
  • Junk mail
  • A pocket knife and earrings

What kind of people are we?  Pizza-eating intellectuals with a ferret, a penchant for sci-fi, and aspirations to run an small-scale office supply store.

Barbery, Brennan, and Grossman

No, it isn’t the snazzy name of my new law firm.  Barbery, Brennan, and Grossman are the authors of the three books I picked up for my birthday, which I’ve finally finished reading.

  • Gourmet Rhapsody by Muriel Barbery.  This novel is set contemporaneously to Barbery’s previous and wonderful novel The Elegance of the Hedgehog; however, it didn’t quite live up to its predecessor.  The main character is a dying French food critic who searches his memory for the perfect flavor, something to have made his life worthwhile.  His musings are layered with mini-portraits of him given by his family, friends, acquaintances, and even his cat.  While the lofty, fluid prose gives off a savory aroma, the bite and swallow of the novel(la?) didn’t seem to match.  7.5 / 10.0.
  • Warrior by Marie Brennan.  Twin fantasy assassin witches.  Need I mention that I won’t be picking up the sequel?  5.0 / 10.0.
  • The Magicians by Lev Grossman.  This novel has been receiving quite a bit of critical attention.  Quentin Coldwater, a normal New York teenager, is obsessed with the children’s fantasy series set in Fillory (read: Narnia).  The narrative is fantasy on two levels: First he is invited to Brakebills, a college for magicians in another dimension overlapping New York.  Fine so far.  But after Quentin graduates, he and a coterie of friends find to their surprise that Fillory is a real place too.  This metafantasy, for me, tends to fall apart.  I would have wanted either Brakebills or Fillory, but not both.  Nevertheless, the story and characters are exceedingly compelling, and the story holds together (though only just).  The interesting bits far outweigh the overdone bits, so I’m willing to give the novel a second chance sometime in the future.  8.5 /10.0.

And with a gift card, I just picked up The Best American Short Stories 2009 to read on the bus.  And a cookie.  But I already ate it.  Happy Birthday to me!

Yesterday

6:30.  Wake up, shower, eat breakfast, check email, pack bags for the day.

~8:00.  Catch bus.  Read essays.

9:00-10:00.  Shakespeare (academic assistant).

10:00-11:00. World literature (academic assistant).

11:00-12:00.  Scarf down early lunch of tea, apple, banana, granola bar.  Read essays.

12:00-1:30.  Literary criticism.

1:30-3:00.  Eat late lunch of half chicken sandwich with friend(?).  Do homework.

3:00-5:00.  Writing lab (work).

5:00-5:30.  Meeting with Shakespeare professor.

5:30-6:30.  Scarf down dinner with husband.

6:30-9:00.  Fiction workshop.

9:00-9:30.  Wait for bus.

9:45-10:00.  Arrive home, go to bed.

You know you’re in a hurry when

you aren’t able to finish either cup of tea that the morning brings your way.

1. Seeing that I was running out of time and hadn’t had a single sip of the tea I made myself this morning, I transferred the contents of the mug into a travel cup… and left the cup on the countertop.

2. After stopping by Starbucks for tea #2, I discovered that my regular parking lot was blocked off.  By the time I power-walked from the far ends of the earth to my classroom, I was simply too hot to drink the tea.

Sad.

AA

That’s Anxiety Anonymous to you.  I just received an email inviting me to attend “Anxiety Group,” which seems like a bad place to go if you’re feeling stressed out.  Here is an excerpt from the attached flyer.

DON’T STRESS OUT ABOUT IT

DO YOU OFTEN FEEL OVERWHELMED BY YOUR DAY TO DAY DEMANDS?

DO YOU WORRY SO MUCH THAT YOU GET LITTLE DONE?

WANT RELIEF?

What I want relief from is the all-caps invitation, from lack of hypenation in compound adjectives, and from university spam in my inbox.

Humph.

Strike Three

Things are not looking up for my American literature class’s reading list.

  1. I do not like Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
  2. I do not like “The Jolly Corner” by Henry James.
  3. I do not like “Melanctha” from Three Lives by Gertrude Stein.

All of the reading is interesting, but is it too much to ask that it be enjoyable too?  If I weren’t required to read these books for class, I would not have finished – no, nor even begun – reading them.

And what do I have to look forward to in my other class?  Ferdinand de Saussure and Mikhail Bakhtin.

At least O Pioneers! by Willa Cather is coming up soon in American lit.  I will write my paper on that book, I think.

(There: I posted.)

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