My pitch for LIT 376

For those of you considering enrolling in John Glendening's spring class LIT 376 Darwin and the Environment:

Professor Glendening is very knowledgeable in the field of Darwinism.  I experienced this first hand last spring when I took a seminar with him.  We covered novels from the Romantic period that dealt with British imperialism.  "Heart of Darkness" was one of these- my information about the Sepoy revolt was learned in his class.

Small classes rock!  If you haven't had the opportunity to take part in a small literature class, which is somewhat rare at undergraduate level, I recommend it.  The depth of discussion that can be achieved in a small class is highly rewarding.  While it may sound intimidating, it usually takes me 2-3 class sessions to feel truly comfortable, the experience is not nearly as scary as it might sound.

Have a great holiday!!!

Behind the Cotton Wool

Lily Briscoe's declaration "It is finished" (208) refers to a number of things, one senses: the lighthouse voyage is finished, her painting is finished, your reading of the novel is finished. It all happens at the same time. Regarding the last of those three termini, you're to be congratulated! To read this novel at any time, much less during the pressures of an academic semester, is no easy task; I hope, though, that Woolf and To the Lighthouse yielded some rewards, and that you may have occasion to return to the novel again in the future. I know few novels come alive and comfort and nourish me -- and articulate my experience of life's big questions -- the way this one does. It's ultimately about feeling rather than story (similar in this regard, maybe, to our experience of those last paragraphs of Joyce's "The Dead"), I think, and if it works for you I think you really do find yourself aware of (and perhaps mesmerized by) the beauty, the profound questions, and the ineffable mysteries of existence. Maybe, then, the novel works on us similarly to those words Mrs. Ramsay recalls from the dinner party, which "began washing from side to side of her mind rhythmically, and as they washed, words, like little shaded lights, one red, one blue, one yellow, lit up in the dark of her mind, and seemed leaving their perches to fly across and across, or to cry out and to be echoed" (119). And all the while it seems so exquisitely calibrated between joy and melancholy (ah, yes, there's occasion for that word "bittersweet" yet again). I hope maybe you'll still be inclined to share some more reflective observations and conclusions about the novel in this space in the coming days.

Incidentally, this passage from Woolf's autobiographical book Moments of Being is worth contemplating, especially after some of those passages (about painting, about writing, about life) we reviewed from Part 3 of To the Lighthouse:

“And so I go on to suppose that the shock-receiving capacity is what makes me a writer. I hazard the explanation that a shock is at once in my case followed by the desire to explain it. I feel that I have had a blow; but it is not, as I thought as a child, simply a blow from an enemy hidden behind the cotton wool of daily life; it is or will become a revelation of some order; it is a token of some real thing behind appearances; and I make it real by putting it into words. It is only by putting it into words that I make it whole; this wholeness means that it has lost its power to hurt me; it gives me, perhaps because by doing so I take away the pain, a great delight to put the severed parts together. Perhaps this is the strongest pleasure known to me. It is the rapture I get when in writing I seem to be discovering what belongs to what; making a scene come right; making a character come together. From this I reach what I might call a philosophy; at any rate it is a constant idea of mine; that behind the cotton wool is hidden a pattern; that we – I mean all human beings – are connected with this; that the whole world is a work of art; that we are parts of the work of art. Hamlet or a Beethoven quartet is the truth about this vast mass that we call the world. But there is no Shakespeare, there is no Beethoven; certainly and emphatically there is no God; we are the words; we are the music; we are the thing itself. And I see this when I have a shock.”

As we prepare to part ways in a few weeks, I wish for you all -- both in the near and longer-term future -- that you find intimations of that "real thing behind appearances." Maybe even as you gather with family and friends later this week when you, too, will seek those moments when all become "conscious of making a party together in a hollow, on an island" (97) (and may there be some culinary equivalent of the Boeuf en Daube on your tables!).

Mrs. Ramsay's Artistry

Lily and Mrs. Ramsay present strong female characters that represent two different motivating factors. Lily wants to be an artist and channels her creativity through painting, and Mrs. Ramsay is a good wife, she tends her children, soothes her husband, and hosts many guests. Lily forges ahead in her painting as she attempts a lifestyle that challenges traditional gender roles. As she observes her surroundings, Lily both admires and resents the woman that Mrs. Ramsay is, her poise and beauty, and the relationship that she has with her husband and children. However Mrs. Ramsay reaches beyond the role that Lily assigns. In her domestication, Mrs. Ramsay finds her own outlets for Artistry. Perhaps even a more sophisticated artistry. She envelopes chaos and beauty, pain and dissension, and masters the aspects of her home to create unified, balanced beauty. This is evident in the dinner seen and in her relationships. A particular poignant example on Page 81, demonstrates not only creativity in motherhood, but a confidence and comfortableness as she invites others to participate in her artistry.
"But she let them take their time to choose: she let Rose, particularly, take up this and then that, and hold her jewels against the black dress, for this little ceremony of choosing jewels, which was gone through every night, was what Rose liked best, she knew. She had some hidden reason of her own for attaching great importance to this choosing what her mother was to wear. What was the reason, Mrs. Ramsay wondered, standing still to let her clasp the necklace she had chosen, divining, through her own past, some deep, some buried, some quite speechless feeling that one had  for one's mother at Rose's age."
Rose potentially attributes significance to adorning her mother with jewels because she has seen the great care that Mrs. Ramsay puts into presentation. She deems this moment as an honor, and reveres her mother's splendor. Mrs. Ramsay patiently allows Rose to examine all of her 'tools' giving her guided authority in this little project. Not only is she including Rose in her art, she is raising Rose to be balanced beauty herself.

"Lily Briscoe knew all that. Sitting opposite him, could she not see, as in an X-ray photograph, the ribs and thigh bones of the young man's desire to impress himself, lying dark in the mist of his flesh --that thin mist which convention had laid over his burning desire to break into the conversation?" (90-91) These lines, and the whole section around them, truly show Lily as a strong, intelligent woman. They show how well she's able to read a crowd, to understand someone's emotional undercurrent. I chose the lines because they remind me of the strong woman I've had and have in my life over the years. My mother and grandmother, aunts and cousins who seem to know exactly what's happening to you and around you before you do. I also chose it because I think so many people can feel the way Tansley feels in the situation. He's intelligent, but out of his element. He seems to be a truly kind person, yet he's afraid to show his true colors among these people that stand a rung higher on the social ladder. Lily seems to struggle with the notion that Mr. Tansley may actually be a decent person under his negative comments regarding the Ramsey's, but she senses something is in there beyond 'women can't read, women can't write.' I suppose I chose what I chose as a strange homage to the strong females in my family. The one's who can see through your bullshit before you know you're lying. The ones who maybe accept a small amount of bullshit just because they love you. The ones who don't take any and still love you and help you better yourself. Those people are important. Happy Thanksgiving.

"Some one had blundered"

I hope I’m not the only one being driven by this question. If asked for a theme, an idea of what is trying to be asked, explained, understood, well this question or ... statement? seems it to me. I’ll take this definition for blundered: “move clumsily or as if unable to see," in this respect referring to really all the characters involved. That they all, in a way, are jarring against each other; always the constant collective tipping the easel (or almost) in ignorance. We are all of us just being a purple triangle trying to fill in the space of two masses with some harmony, but the colors are off, too little, too much. The picture displaces the frame, the mold doesn't fit the throne. Everyone is disconnected in their own way, unable to see beyond the hive. That even in the fluid motions of everyday life is that jarring inability, and not just between people but the common place as well. How terror would behold Mrs. Ramsay just by hearing the same shore she has for all the years preceding, and it's out of nowhere, a sound that seemed to soothe her suddenly taking this ominous form. We at best see through a veil, and perhaps clarity is not a virtue, perhaps to blunder in this way, to be blind and clumsy in our dealings with each other is better than true clarity, that clarity is terror and, because it seems to be a dying cliché, ignorance is bliss, or if not bliss at the least bearable. Bearable in the sense that ignorance allows infinite definition, that ignorance is pliable and apt to change, and that change is necessary that a set definition robs not only hope but imagination and fills it in with bricks. Can I be so bold as to say that this theme, this glorification of ignorance, of a definition, of a friend, a family member may even relate to "Modern Fiction"? To allow the same breadth of movement between words and lines and syntax as people do with their misinterpretations of each other? Maybe, or maybe Jasper blundered by interrupting Mr. Bankes and Lily, or Cam by running restlessly, or Mr. Ramsay in his vanity or the Mrs. in hers. Maybe it has a real solid point I need to get to, like a man-slaughter in the novel, although that seems highly unlikely, you never know. All I know for certain is that there is some rumpus in this blunder.

Mr. Ramsey

When we talked about Mr. Ramsey I couldn't help but be reminded of Gabriel Conroy. They are both intellectual men and their intelligence seems to hinder them from being "fully human" in some sense. Mr. Ramsey finds himself distracted from his reality, his wife and eight children, because he is thinking about poetry and his work. He so desperately wants to be remembered for his body of work (as we discussed in class) that he has a difficult time valuing what he does have (his wife and children); he values his family on the surface, but is sort of unable to really connect with his children. Gabriel displays the same problems: he knows how intelligent he is and he struggles to truly connect with the people around him, especially his wife. Obviously there are other differences between the two men, but I think that this theme of "intelligence harming our humanity and ability to connect with others" is interesting.

To the Lighthouse Playlist

I find that when I'm doing any kind of work, I need background noise. I assembled a playlist that I've been listening to while reading Woolf and thought I'd share. I'm not sure if an account is required to listen to the playlist, but you can find it here. The final song, "A Cloak of Elvenkind" reminds me of James.

The Widening Gyre

Well, we have a new phrase to add to our lexicon of unease as we turn the corner into a new century: the widening gyre joins "the horror, the horror," the heart of darkness, the dead, the weakening eye of day, the waste land, etc. In the deadened, spiritless atmosphere of our recent poems, do we expect the "blessed Hope" of the Darkling Thrush or the ghastly monster represented by the sphinx in Yeats's poem? Anyway, since we'll only have a brief amount time to return to Yeats's poem on Friday, I was hoping some of you might like to leave some comments here on "The Second Coming." What do you think of this poem? What is the significance of falconry in the logic of the poem? What is the vision the speaker has and how does he respond to it? Can you explain what the speaker comes to know in l.19-20? What is the second coming in this poem? ... Here, by the way, is a reading of "The Second Coming" by the great contemporary Irish novelist, Colum McCann.

Passing Bells

On Remembrance Day, here perhaps is a voice that was meant to read Owen's "Anthem for Doomed Youth": Sir Ian McKellen ...

My 5 for Your 5

The previous post (see below) seeks your comments about "The Dead," but lest we get too serious and work-oriented here on this blog, let me try for a bit levity. Since we will watch a film during the balance of the week, maybe you'd be willing draw from your moviegoing careers and nominate your Top 5 films (it doesn't necessarily have to be the best five films, as you'll see from my list, but might also include films that just represented a memorable moviegoing experience). Annotations are optional (but preferred!). This is difficult and provisional, but here's an attempt:

• Wings of Desire: Wim Wenders' most transcendent film; haunting, poetic, beautiful story about an angel who decides to give up immortality to become human.

• Jaws: I can never get enough of this one, perhaps because, while still thrilled by the narrative, I increasingly appreciate the craft and the genius of the filmmaking. It's also probably the most memorable "film event" of my life: my grandparents took me to see it as an eleven year-old, against my mother's strict warning that they not do so! I remember wearing brand new sneakers that night, which ensured that my visceral discomfort stretched from head to toe. Incidentally, my grandparents would further enrage my mother by taking me, the following summer, to see Tarzan -- the version where Bo Derek is naked for about 100 minutes; this film (but for Bo, of course) would undoubtedly be in my list of Top 5 most horrible films I've ever seen.

• The English Patient: this would probably also be in my Top 5 literary works list. I'm a sucker for this film. I was so sad when I learned that the director, Anthony Minghella, died suddenly a few years ago; he was an amazing talent. This is one of those rare cases when book and film nourish and augment each other in the best of ways.

• It's a Wonderful Life: does it need a justification? Is there a film with a bigger emotional payoff at the end than this one?

• Cinema Paradiso: this is perhaps the most flawed of the five films I include, but you have to love a film that celebrates the love of film. And it comes with its own wallop of an emotional payoff during the poignant coda.

It's painful to leave out Peter Jackson's grandly stirring The Lord of the Rings films, as well as the first Alien film (sci-fi suspense doesn't get any better), and somehow I feel the original Star Wars should be in the running merely because of the movie experience it offered to this then twelve year-old ("You're all clear, Kid, now let's blow this thing and go home!" ah, the goosebumps!) -- it's also the only film I ever saw more than twice (five times, in fact) in the theater ... And I've neglected comedies ... Anyway, have at it ... if you'd like! And while you're at it, you could always drop down to the "Canon Fodder" post below (10/5) and add your ten entries for what works you think must be found in a literature curriculum!

The Hazards of Love

I guess I'm borrowing my title here from that Decemberists record from some years ago that so seems to divide the band's fans into two camps (in a love it or hate it kind of way ... I happen to be very pro-Hazards of Love!) ... Anyway, Gabriel experiences the hazards of love, to be sure, and my intent here is to create this thread to share and discuss any passages from "The Dead" that you find to be worthy of comment or question, especially as we look ahead to the film on Wednesday and Friday. It'd be great to collect some observations and testimony about your reading of the story, and then, later in the week, about your impressions of the film. Does the film enhance (or possibly detract from) your understanding of and appreciation for the story? Of Gabriel's character? Are there particular scenes or aspects that stand out? I certainly pick up new things every time I watch the film: John Huston clearly has a wonderful attention to detail that must arise not only from his skill as a filmmaker, but also from his deep immersion in Joyce's story. As I mentioned yesterday, I always get a kick out of Mr. Browne: if you've been noticing how much he drinks during the party, you'll appreciate, as the guests leave the party near the end of the film, the visual joke of seeing Browne crumpled up and sleeping at the foot of the stairs.

Please do start sharing your responses to the latter stages of the story, too (especially as we look ahead to our 20 minutes of concluding conversation on Friday). What/when, specifically, is the moment of epiphany for Gabriel in this story? If an epiphany involves seeing the world or one's self anew, what is it that Gabriel learns? What is his response upon hearing Gretta's story about Michael Furey and then in what ways does that response evolve? What does it mean when we learn that "the time had come for him to set out on his journey westward"? By the end of the story, and we start to work our way through this question in class today, how do you understand the many connotations of the story's title? How do you respond to this story and film personally -- in what ways does it speak to you and your own life? Well, there should be something in there that will tempt you. Hope to see some of you drop by this space and share a thought or observation in the coming days! Enjoy the film!