Medium Rare

Shakespeare is the kind of thing that all English majors must either like or pretend to like. With me, it was the latter. His work just didn't interest me, but if I were to say so, I'd either be called stupid or a heretic. I'm not stupid. I understood the plot, it just didn't interest me. And I know that there is more to Shakespeare than just plot... he was a master of words, inventing many of the turns of phrase that we use regularly without much thought, such as "All that glitters is not gold" (The Merchant of Venice), "break the ice" and "cold comfort" (The Taming of the Shrew), and "It was Greek to me" (Julius Caesar). I looked those up here, for those interested:

http://www.pathguy.com/shakeswo.htm

I admire Shakespeare's command of language, and find it sad that many of his puns are lost on us today, as language and pronunciation has evolved. We can still figure it out, but many of us don't, due to the amount of study it would require. We also lose the historical contexts in which his plays are embedded. It was once common to be familiar with the Greek Classics as well as religious texts, and, without these as prior reference points, much of what his plays displayed seems more high-tier than it would have been in his day, as his plays were layered so that people of any class or circumstance would find something worthwhile in the performances.

I have found, however, that I can easily enjoy The Comedies. Twelfth Night and Measure for Measure are two of my favorite plays. I've already admitted that Shakespeare is clever with words, and my favorite kind of comedy is of the intelligent sort. I can't really get into slapstick, but show me some witty banter and I'm sold. Shakespeare's As You Like It follows along those lines. My favorite characters are the cousins Rosalind and Celia, one the daughter of the banished Duke, and the other the daughter of his usurping brother. Rosalind is permitted to stay in court because of Celia's love for her. What I love most about these girls is the way they talk and how it reminds me of Lorelai and Rory, the mother-daughter duo from the aforementioned TV series Gilmore Girls, whom I don't intend to bring up in every post - only when it's relevant :) It is hard to quote a specific passage, because it's the kind of thing that builds up, but I especially liked them (Rosalind and Celia) in the first act. And, just like any other Shakespeare Comedy, I thoroughly enjoyed imagining young boys playing women disguised as young boys. I guarantee you, there was no shortage of that.

P.S. The title of this post referrers to the title of the play. As You Like It : Medium Rare     

A Disenchanting Discovery

Growing up, I always wanted to read whatever my older sister was reading. This makes sense - she is the one who used to read to me late at night when we were supposed to be sleeping. In the first grade, the last time I remember being tested, they put me at a third grade reading level, which can in part be credited to her for her continuous encouragement. When I was in the eighth grade, she passed me a book she was reading as a senior: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Well, that one was a mistake. I wanted to be at the point where I could read and understand it. She expected that I would be; she always had so much confidence in me. But I wasn't ready for it. Well, it's on my list now, and I'll get to it eventually (still dragging my feet after all these years), but that's not what this post is about.

This was also around the time that my sister started passing me her John Grisham books. She wanted to be a lawyer, so immersing herself in the fiction of the trade was exciting to her. These books, unlike the Hawthorne, I could handle. I read The Rainmaker first, followed by a long string of others, my favorite one being The Partner. I felt smart reading these books, because they let me into the prestigious world of law. I understand now that these books aren't of the same caliber as the classics that I struggled with, but they served a purpose in my life... they brought back my confidence.

I have just finished my first Grisham book since I was a freshman in high school, and I don't know how I feel about it. Grisham's The Brethren is something I picked up cheap at a garage sale a few years back, probably for nostalgic purposes. Reading it now, though, it's not the same. I don't know if it was this particular book, or if it's Grisham's style in general that is so off putting to me. First of all, I didn't care enough about any of the characters. The story focuses around three ex-judges referred to as "The Brethren" who are serving time in a federal prison. They concoct extortionist scams from the inside with the help of their shady lawyer. The story follows along with them a few of their victims... the biggest one of them being a candidate for the United States Presidency. Now I have nothing against villainous protagonists. I actually encourage it. However, going through an entire story not caring who "wins" and who "loses", who lives and who dies, doesn't say much for Grisham's character writing ability. It also really bothered me the way he would jump between character perspectives from one paragraph to the next. I'm okay with it after line breaks or at the start of a new chapter, but this just feels sloppy.

It's been an interesting experience revisiting an old favorite and realizing that I'm not impressed. It makes me wonder though, did I just randomly select one of his worst novels? Or were none of them as good or as clever as I remembered them? I know I'm not the same person as I was when I was reading them a good decade or so ago, but now I really want to do some re-reading to find out for sure. Has anyone else experienced this? Feel free to add to the discussion.    

Television, Television

Ray Bradbury and Roald Dahl should have been best friends. Okay, maybe they wouldn't have too much in common - I don't really know and don't feel like researching it - but they'd have gotten along quite well at a party being the two guys who sat in the corner talking about how television was going to destroy us all. I've already briefly brought up Bradbury a few posts back when I mentioned Fahrenheit 451. Not only is it tragic that in this world, all books are contraband, but he also stresses the role that television would fill in a world that lacked critical thought. Television screens often times circled an entire room; favorite television characters were referred to as "The Relatives," as viewers often times knew these characters better than they knew any living person. What Dahl does is bring this concern to a younger audience with his children's book Matilda.

Dahl starts this book off by criticizing Matilda's parents for not being able to recognize her intelligence. They are described as being the type of people who eat TV dinners every night in front of the television set and have no books in the house other than a cookbook. Matilda reads this when she's 4 years old, and when she asks her father for another book, he says "What's wrong with the telly, for heaven's sake? We've got a lovely telly with a twelve-inch screen [note: this book was written in 1988, and since I would have been only two at that time, let's just assume that that was a big screen back then] and now you come asking for a book! You're getting spoiled, my girl!" (Dahl, 12). Her education left in her own hands, Matilda precedes to sneak off to the library every day and enlighten herself, with the help of Dickens, Bronte, Austen, Hardy, and so on, all when she is four years old.

Recently I commented on books moving away from fantasy towards self-efficient prodigies. This book actually crosses both sides of this line. With Matilda's great mental capacity, she soon finds that her mind is more powerful than most in a supernatural sort of way. Her newly discovered abilities will come to help her deal with her impossible parents and her even more impossible headmistress. In this way, this book could have double appeal and keep the attention of a broader audience. The only thing I don't see being attractive to modern youth is how villainous it makes television appear. I am not going to take a definite stance either pro- or anti- television because, I, like today's children, have grown up with television being a major part of my life. It becomes difficult to judge a matter when it is so ingrained in one's culture. I happen to think that it has the potential to increase the means of education as well as potentially being the degradation of society. Ironically enough, it was television that taught me that maybe I should spend a little less time watching television. For example: I love the series "Gilmore Girls." I love the life that they have and I envy it. However, if I spend all of my time watching it, I'm not really leaving myself much opportunity to experience it.  

Well, that's all on that for now, but for the curious: The title of this blog is the title of a song by OK Go, which seemed relevant to the theme.
Enjoy: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Fbg_04oYa8&feature=related

Death Walked There In The Sunlight

Even though I still have quite the list of books to pick from, it feels like I have no choices. I'm beginning to feel trapped by the fact that I already know which books I'll be reading throughout the year. To remedy this, I've begun to read graphic novels during the times that I just can't bring myself to read the books before me. Sure, it's extra reading, and may cause me to lag behind schedule at times, but not more so than being at a point that I just plain don't want to read. Anyway, I picked up a copy of The League of Extraordinary Gentleman from the library. I had previously seen the movie and, although I didn't always follow what was going on, I thought the concept of mixing literary characters into the same story was a fun idea. That's why I decided to read my next book: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. Actually, it's the reason I bought the book in the first place. However, I was extremely disappointed. It was not the book that disappointed me. It was that, in reading the entire first volume of the graphic novel, I discovered that my anti-hero didn't actually make an appearance. He may have merely been added through the consent of creative licensing for the movie, or maybe he shows up in the second volume. I don't know. But I was still sad, because I wanted to read about the same character in different contexts concurrently. I would have been better off choosing Moby Dick to start.

Anyway, the actual book, to me, was quite refreshing. I love villainous protagonists, but I love even more seeing how they got there. (The Ashleys and I just finished watching Heroes, and as the seasons went by, I grew to love Sylar and his penchant for committing atrocities). So, as the book starts, Dorian Gray is a handsome young boy, maybe in his early twenties, full of innocence and a love of life. Everyone praises his beauty, but none more so than his painter friend Basil Hallward. A portrait that he paints as a gift for the boy is so exquisite that it awakens in Dorian a long dormant vanity and a life long quest of retaining youth and beauty at any cost.

This whole concept is intriguing. What would one do for eternal youth? The idea isn't new, but it is ever present... from stories of the Fountain of Youth to modern day attempts through medical procedures. No matter what era we're from, we seem to always wish to hold on to this time in our lives, even if it wasn't particularly pleasant while we've had it. I think we're afraid. Dorian says it best when he says "I have no terror of death. It is the coming of death that terrifies me." And this is true, as far as I'm concerned. Everything we do to make ourselves appear youthful doesn't change the fact that we are not that which we would like to present ourselves as. We're not afraid of death...we're afraid of deterioration. But if our bodies did not deteriorate, it would only leave our souls, or our essences, to do so in its place.