Super Sad True Love Story

George Orwell's 1984 holds a special place in my heart as both one of the few books my dad and I really bonded over when I was a teenager, and as the first novel I successfully taught during my first year of teaching English.  Dystopian fiction is hot among the YA set right now, so it's an easier "sell" in the classroom than ever, but even before Hunger Games-mania took over, there was always something about 1984 that seemed to resonate both with me and then with my students.  Between Winston Smith's undeniable humanity (and undeniable dorkiness) and the casual brutality of Big Brother, the novel "clicks" with teenagers.

That said, the teens I teach these days were born during the later years of the Clinton administration.  Even their parents were (unfortunately) sometimes just kids themselves in 1984.  The futuristic telescreens and memory holes Orwell invented for his novel back in the 1940's seems dated to a modern technology-obsessed teenager, and I've always wondered just what Orwell would have made of the Internet.  With Gary Shteyngart's Super Sad True Love Story, we no longer have to wonder--we know.  And it's brilliant.

Like Winston Smith, Lenny Abramov is a throwback to an earlier time--a man who floats along the current of society's expectations not because they particularly appeal to him, but because to do otherwise would be dangerous.  Lenny's story opens with his departure from a yearlong sojurn in Italy, where he ostensibly lived in order to promote his anti-aging company's products to the "HNWI" (High Net Worth Individual) Europeans.  Capitalism is king in America, which is a shame because, as Lenny arrives back home in New York, America is crumbling.  Unemployment and poverty are high, tent cities are beginning to spring up in Central Park, and the American government has gone begging at the feet of the Chinese National Bank for a bailout.  Sounds...familiar, yes?

One of the things that I found most engrossing about Super Sad True Love Story was how incredibly current it felt.  It came out only last year, so in some ways that's only to be expected, but between parallels to the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street movements which the novel predates, that sense that Shteyngart was writing about the here and now becomes even more eerie with every passing day's headlines.

In any case, the "love story" of the title comes into play when a girl Lenny met briefly in Rome (and immediately decided he loved, much as Julia describes her love for Winston in 1984) comes to live with him in New York rather than go home to her abusive father in New Jersey.  The two do actually fall in love in spite of their differences, and yet their story ends, as most do, unhappily.

The whole time I was reading, I kept wishing that I could teach the novel to my high school students.  Even just Sheytngart's commentary on the role of the Internet in our lives, with every character (save Lenny himself) more obsessed with the screens of their aparaats than with the real people around them, could generate some really self-reflective conversations among teenagers who act as if they'll die if they aren't allowed to text during class.  The amount of graphic (and to some extent gratuitous, in my opinion) sex precludes me from being able to share it with my students, though. 

To you, however, I can freely recommend that you go out this very day and find Super Sad True Love Story.  It's easily one of the top three books I've read in 2011, and one that I will doubtless re-read many times in the years to come.  Enjoy!

The Moonstone

I love Victorian literature.  I love the big, messy plots; the outlandish characters; and especially the way so many Victorian authors (Charles Dickens in particular) peeled away what they saw as the veneer of superiority held by the upper classes to look at the hypocrisy and corruption underneath class distinctions.  In short, everything most people hate about Victorian novels I love.

Be that as it may, I really do think that The Moonstone is one of those books that pretty much anyone will enjoy.  Written by Wilkie Collins in 1868, it's considered one of the first English detective novels, and the forefather of the Sherlock Holmes series.  The story centers around the theft of a storied (and cursed) diamond, and contains some truly excellent and jaw-dropping plot twists as befits any Victorian novel worth the name.

I think what makes The Moonstone so readable is its concentration on both plot and character.  The novel is epistolary--narratives that were written by certain principal characters and sent to the main investigator (Franklin Blake) after the theft.  This means readers get several points of view about events relevant to the theft, all of which combine to identify the true culprit.  I've heard that Collins began writing The Moonstone after witnessing testimony at a sensational London trial, and the effect is truly like an episode of Law & Order only with anti-colonial messages and opium use instead of quips from Detective Briscoe. 

Best of all?  The Moonstone is in the public domain, so if you have an e-reader you can almost certainly find it as a free download.  Hooray for free books!

Hark! A Vagrant!

Unless you've been living under a rock, you're probably familiar with Kate Beaton's comics.  Beaton, a former history major and museum employee, writes almost exclusively about either history or literature, and has one of the most hilarious webcomics I've ever read (http://harkavagrant.com/).  Her new book, Hark!  A Vagrant just hit the #1 spot on the New York Times graphic novel list as well.

This book is, in a word, awesome.

The English geek in me adores her take on literary classics, particularly the Brontes.  Wuthering Heights is one of my least favorite books of all time (and considering my enduring love for all things Victorian, this is really saying something) and yet I've been tempted to re-read it after reading some of her recent comics about Heathcliff and Cathy.

As a fellow history buff I think her re-interpretations of history are equally hilarious, and have greatly enjoyed comparing her assessment of the Edison/Tesla relationship to those in the new Oatmeal book, Five Reasons to Punch a Dolphin.

I think the reason why sites like Beaton's and the Oatmeal have such a devoted (and book-buying) audience is that intelligent humor, now more than ever, has been given a voice online.  Would Kate Beaton have ever received a daily or weekend comic strip in a major newspaper?  Not likely, especially given how often her work needs pretty extensive background knowledge in order to be really funny.  Does she have a devoted online following of people who have that background knowledge?  Absolutely.  

In short, if like me you're a humanities nerd and love to laugh, pick up Hark!  A Vagrant today.

Let's Talk Books! Jane Eyre, or Why Edward Rochester is an Asshole.

WARNING:  This review contains full spoilers--you have been warned!

Jane Eyre is one of my all-time favorite novels.  I first attempted to read it sometime in high school, but got bored midway through Jane's childhood experiences and Lowood School and put it down for several years without finishing it.  Bad, C.  At some point between then and college I saw the A&E/BBC movie version, and became motivated to finish the novel if only for the love story.  I picked it up again likely during my freshman year of college and read through the aborted wedding scene, at which point I got bored again (and really, who doesn't find that final section frustrating?) and put it back down unfinished. Thus, it wasn't until I was in my late 20's that I actually read the book cover-to-cover for the first time and fell in love with it.

That said, in spite of the place of honor Jane Eyre holds on my bookshelf, I find the depictions of love in the novel to be increasingly problematic every time I re-read it.  On first glance Edward Rochester seems like an ideally romantic love interest for Jane.  He is a classic Byronic hero, full of angst and secrets, and he so adores Jane that he would do anything to have her.

In the interest of full disclosure, let me interject here to say that I have read (and enjoyed in the sense that one enjoys cotton candy in spite of the fact that it's bad for your teeth and made of spun sugar that only looks substantial on the surface) the Twilight series.  One could write lengthy papers on the similarities between Edward Rochester and Edward Cullen, in part because they both fit a very particular kind of romance hero mold.

Going back to Rochester, the reasons I find his relationship with Jane problematic have nothing to do with his attempt to commit bigamy with her (after all, divorce was not a viable option in Victorian England) and everything to do with the way he tries to manipulate her to disclose her feelings for him without making his own feelings plain.  Given the difference in their social status, this is unforgivable in my eyes.  Jane's life and livelihood depend upon her position as a governess.  If she were to misinterpret Rochester's advances and declare her love for him without so much as a word from him confirming that he returned those feelings she could be put out on the street without a reference (which would be necessary if she wanted to secure another position).  Rochester faces no such threat, and yet he persists in playing games with Jane to discover how she feels about him.  In doing so he toys with Jane, first making her believe that he plans to marry the vapid and gold-digging Blanche Ingram, and then that she will be sent away to Ireland once he is married and her pupil (Rochester's ward, Adele) is sent off to boarding school.  By the time he confesses to the truth, Rochester has shown himself to be an inveterate asshole.  One cannot help but applaud Jane as she runs away from Thornfield, if only because Rochester needs to the importance of being truthful with those he loves the hard way.

Still, Jane Eyre is an incredibly enjoyable read, and one that shouldn't be relegated to the "books I read in high school and didn't enjoy then" shelf in your library.  If you haven't picked it up recently, please do so!  I guarantee that like most great books, Jane Eyre yields new insights each and every time you read it.

About Me

Greetings! I'm C. I've had several blogs in the past--personal and related to ugly things one could buy on the Internet--but haven't blogged about books or beauty before.

Who am I? I'm a voracious reader, and have parlayed that love of books into a career teaching high school English and an in-process M.A. in English Literature. In my spare time (what spare time?) I'm also an equal-opportunity recreational reader, and am just as likely to crack open chick lit or a romance novel as I am to settle down with Dickens or Faulkner. In other words, anything in print is fair game as far as I'm concerned.

I'm also a newcomer to the world of beauty products. At the age of 30, shortly after having my second child, I realized that I wasn't happy with how I looked. In addition to losing over 20 lbs I decided to start paying more attention to my skincare and makeup routines. This led me to the purchase of my first-ever eyeshadow (which I'll be discussing in my next entry) and I haven't looked back since. One might say I've become a trifle obsessed with all things beauty.

Makeup and books may seem like an odd combination for a single blog, but to my eye they're two sides of the same coin. My definition of feminism really boils down to the fact that I believe that being an intelligent, articulate, and erudite woman doesn't have to mean that you can't also love looking pretty. Welcome to my world of beauty and brains!