Books & Other Fetish Objects

I remember back when I was growing up and it was a big deal if you had a hard cover book versus a paperback one. Now it seems that hard cover books are in the same category as paperback books. In today’s society, it’s all about books you can read on a Nook or articles that can be found online. In the first paragraph of James Gleick’s article Books and Other Fetish Objects, he describes how he “got a thrill […] when the librarian brought him the first, oldest notebook of Isaac Newton.”  The way he described himself reacting towards this hard copy reading, is the same way people react when they achieve a new reading on their Nook. Personally, I prefer reading things that are in a hard copy form. If I have to read something that is online, I will print it out and read it that way. Otherwise, I get distracted and end up doing everything but reading the article.

The way our society is going, there is always something new being put out on the market. And if not’s something new, there’s something being tweaked and added onto the next big technological device. Pretty soon, libraries and book stores will be a thing of the past. In my hometown, there was a Border’s that was going out of business and selling their entire inventory for dirt cheap prices. I can only imagine it is because of the new reading devices that people can use now. The only way people will have books in their homes is if they have had them for years—before the digital takeover.

Wikkity Wikkity Wack

The first time I started using Wikipedia was in the 9^th grade for my science fair project. I was getting all of this information thinking that it came from a legit source. Unfortunately, when I got my paper back, my teacher had written that my information had to come from 9 different reliable sources, not the same one (back then I didn’t really know the difference). Needless to say, I was a little confused but as the years went by I understood why teachers don’t want their students to use Wikipedia. This article pretty much confirms everything that they ever thought about this website. In the first paragraph of the piece it says that “Ewan MacDonald posted a single sentence about the station at 11 PM, local time; over the next twenty-four hours, the entry was edited more than four hundred times, by dozens of people.”  Wikipedia is not a reliable source of information. Also in the article, it says that “anyone with internet access can create a Wikipedia entry or edit an existing one.” To test out this theory, one time last semester in my English 1102 class, we went to Wikipedia and searched for KSU. We then edited the article to make it say that the university had one of the best football programs in Georgia. Forty-eight hours later, it had been corrected. All this to say, when I research, I use Wikipedia to get me started. Then, once I have some background information, I then go to more reliable databases such as Galileo.

Pygmalion: Act 3

I really enjoyed reading Act 3! It was entertaining and made me laugh as well as do a little thinking. I think that Shaw did a really good job of drawing the reader in with all of the events that took place within a period of six months. In the act, I really enjoyed reading the scene between Mrs. Higgins and her son as well as Colonel Pickering. I thought that this was a classic example of “mothers know best”. Throughout the last few lines of the scene, both Higgins and Pickering were rambling on and on about how Eliza was making such good progress and that she is starting to become a lady with each new lesson. All the while, Mrs. Higgins is saying that they are pretty much excited for the idea of Eliza turning into a lady. In one of her lines, she says “you certainly are a pretty pair of babies, playing with your live doll” (65). Not only did this line make me laugh, but it also made me think a little bit. This metaphor does a great job of putting the excitement of Higgins and Pickering in perspective for me. They truly are like little kids playing with a new toy; trying ever so hard to do what they tell it to do. And that’s exactly what Eliza is doing; acting as a puppet for these two men.  However, these two upper class men can’t see that they are being blinded by their own fantasies. And when Mrs. Higgins tries to tell them this, they just brush her off and leave her alone in her study. This brings forth her outburst at the end of the scene screaming “men! Men!! Men!!” (68).

Pygmalion: Act 1

In the first act of Pygmalion, I found myself laughing at all of the sly and not so sly comments that were made by Higgins, the note taker. For example, on page 16, he asks a bystander that was giving him issues if he had realized that it was no longer raining. Without any further knowledge, I could tell that the note taker was going to be a feisty one. Just by this comment alone, I could tell that he does not let just anyone talk to him any kind of way. He seems like the kind of person that would recall all of his prior information just to prove the point that he is right. After the rain has stopped and the flower girl is still standing around, he says that he can pass this “creature with her kerbstone English: the English that will keep her in the gutter to the end of her days” off as a “duchess at an ambassador’s garden party” (18). When I read this part, my immediate thoughts that I had to write down in the margins of my book were that Higgins is a harsh and sarcastic man.

Another thing that I noticed in the first act alone is that the flower girl is a very sneaky one. While reading, she kind of reminded me of the homeless women on the streets of Italy. My senior year in high school, I was fortunate enough to travel to Italy for Spring Break. One of the things my teachers warned us about was to not talk to or make any type of contact with people who approached you on the street begging for money. They are con artists and will appear that they are helpless. This reminded me of the flower girl because while she was attempting to sell her flowers to random patrons, she would tell one person that she had change for a certain amount of money, but then she would change her story when she saw another person with a different amount.

I've never read Pygmalion before, but I can tell it's going to be good.

George Orwell, "Politics & the English Language"

In Orwell’s essay, he states that “a man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible.” This statement alone began to set the tone of how I thought the rest of the essay was going to go. Not only did reading this essay make me feel inadequate about my writing, but it also made me think. It made me wonder if I really did these types of things he was describing in my own essays.

At the beginning of the essay, Orwell gives examples of passages “that literature various of the mental vices that we now suffer.” He then goes on to explain what is wrong with each of the passages. For example, he specifies for the fourth passage that “the writer knows more or less what he wants to say, but an accumulation of stale phrases chokes him like tea leaves blocking a sink.” I feel that Orwell’s opinions and criticisms are very ruthless in this essay. However, even though he is harsh, his essay made me wonder if I do these things in my writing and even worse, scares me to continue doing so. As I continued reading through the essay, all I kept thinking about was which one of these have I done in my essays and how many times have I done them?

Although I think that Mr. Orwell was harsh in his essay, I do feel that it was necessary. Not everyone can be the nice guy and tell every person that their writing is great with the exception of a few grammatical errors. Someone has to be the big bad wolf and blow a couple of dreams away in order to get the good writers back to reality.

Wuthering Heights: Feminist Criticism

In today’s reading I learned a lot about what people, more specifically, what females think about how they are viewed as writers in today’s society. For example, French feminists believe “that the structure of language is phallocentric: it privileges the phallus and, more generally, masculinity by associating them with things and values more appreciated by the (masculine-dominated) culture (452).” In other words, I think that this means the French feel like they are competing to gain the respect of all of their readers in a world that is basically geared toward the male’s likes and dislikes.

When I thought about this particular passage, it kind of reminded me of today’s society. In some cultures, women are still expected to stay at home and cook, clean, and if needed, take care of the kids. I believe that today’s world is still mainly a “masculine-dominated culture.” Generally, people aren’t looking for females to be bold enough to come outside of their comfort zone and write a book. Of course, you do have exceptions like Oprah and other powerful women like herself; but for the most part people are still in the mentality that women shouldn’t stand up for themselves, shouldn’t be able to have much of an education because all they are going to be doing is staying at home keeping everything in order. And to be honest, I loathe this mentality. If someone ever comes up to me and tells me that all I’m going to be is a housewife, I can go from happy go-lucky Shanelle, to angry-serious Shanelle in 2.5 seconds. I just can’t wrap my head around the fact that in some cultures, women are still expected to do that. But, I am not here to judge at all; that’s not my job. This is just simply my opinion.

Wuthering Heights: Cultural Criticism

I thought today’s reading was very interesting. One thing that caught my attention was the first few paragraphs. They described how when people typically think of the word “culture” they think of “high culture (411).” It then goes on to explain that “cultural critics want to make the term refer to popular, folk, urban, and mass (mass-produced, -disseminated, -mediated, and –consumed) culture, as well as to that culture we associate with the so-called classics (411).”

The next paragraph states that “Raymond Williams […] suggested that ‘art and culture are ordinary’; he did so not to ‘pull art down’ but rather to point out that there is ‘creativity in all our living… We create our human worlds as we have thought of art being created’ (Revolution 37).” This part basically means to me that culture depends on how you look at things; at how you perceive things in life. Someone who grew up in the slums could have a completely different perception on a certain book than someone who was born with a silver spoon in their mouth. These two completely different people, however, must come together to exchange what they think about that book and figure out what the author was really trying to say, and not put their own spin onto things. This is what cultural critics have to do. “They seek to understand the social contexts in which a given text was written, and under what condition it was—and is—produced, disseminated, read, and used (412).” Yes, cultural critics like reading and writing and learning about topics they’re interested in, but at the same time, they force themselves to critique other people’s ideas and works that aren’t interested in the same things that they are. Think about it. Wouldn’t you get bored looking at the same type of stuff all day, every day? I know I would.

Wuthering Heights: Cultural Documents & Illustrations

When I started reading today's assignment, I was a little bit unnerved with what it was saying about woman back in the 1800s. "In 1847, when Bronte's novel was published, married women were not allowed to hold property in their own names; once married, both personal and real property (land) came into the possession of their husbands (289)." I mean, I guess I kind of knew that they didn't have that many rights, but I never knew that it was this serious. For example, on page 289, it tells of a woman who was accused of cheating on her husband and not only did she lose her good reputation, but she lost her name, her money, and everything else that ever belonged to her. "In 1827 Caroline married George Chapple Norton, a young barrister of limited income and a violent temper. Her husband first exploited his wife's friendship with Lord Melbourne to obtain a minor governmental appointment, then accused Lord Melbourne of adultery with his wife and brought a lawsuit against him. Although acquitted, Caroline Norton's reputation was tarnished, and she lived apart from her husband, who nonetheless continued to claim his legal right to her earnings as an author (289-290)."

I was also surprised with the way they handled marriages and divorces between the different socioeconomic classes. It's not like it is today, where everyone, in most cases, has the same chances of getting divorced. However, back in the 1800s "the poorer classes have no form of divorce amongst them (297)." Instead, "the rich man makes a new marriage, having divorced his wife in the House of Lords: his new marriage is legal; his children are legitimate; his bride occupies, in all respects, the same social position as if he had ever previously been wedded. The poor man makes a new marriage, not having divorced his wife in the House of Lords; his new marriage is null; his children are bastards; and he himself hi liable to be put on his trial for bigamy [...] (298)." This passage kind of made me really step back and think about how times have changed so much. It also made me wonder why the government thought that having the law this way was a good idea.

Wuthering Heights

The last time I read Wuthering Heights I was a senior in high school in my AP Literature class. I’m not sure why, but this book just brings back bad memories whenever I think about it. When I saw that we were going to read it, I almost cried (not really, but did sigh really loudly). But as I started reading it again, I was a lot more interested in it than I was a few years ago. I started understanding things a little better and I started comprehending the plot a lot more. This just proves that you can’t just read something once. In order to get the full effect of the story, you have to read it more than just one time.

Anyway, I really liked some parts of the novel that were in chapter three. For example, on page 38 Mr. Lockwood describes reading a bunch of the deceased Catherine Earnshaw’s dairies. “I shut, and took up another, and another, till I had examined them all. Catherine’s library was select; and its state of dilapidation proved it to have been well used, though not altogether for a legitimate purpose; scarcely one chapter had escaped pen and ink commentary – at least, the appearance of one – covering  every morsel of blank that the printer had left. Some were detached sentences; other parts took the form of a regular diary, scrawled in an unformed, childish hand. At the top of an extra page, quite a treasure probably when first lighted on, I was greatly amused to behold an excellent caricature of my friend Joseph, rudely yet powerfully sketched (38).” I really liked this passage not only because of the imagery that is used to describe the pages in the different books, but also because of the way he describes the books. For instance, the fact that the pages are torn and written and drawn in not only shows that the owner of the books really enjoyed reading, but she enjoyed it so much that she was more than willing to make them her own; to personalize them.

Reading Within Walls

While reading today's assignment, I particularly enjoyed the first part entitled Reading Within Walls. I think the reason I enjoyed it so much was because the author focused on how back then, women couldn't really express themselves and it was unladylike to read.

In the beginning of the chapter, the narrator talks about how certain books had different colored binding. On page 225 it states "One of my girl cousins loved to read (later, one summer, I borrowed from her John Dickson Carr's The Black Spectacles and was hooked for the rest of my life) and we both read Salgari's private adventures, bound in yellow. Sometimes she borrowed a Just William book from me, in the series bound in green. But the pink-bound series, which she read with impunity, was (at the age of ten I distinctly knew) forbidden to me. Its covers were a warning, brighter than any spotlight, that these were books no proper boy would read. These were books for girls." I thought that this was quite interesting. He was perfectly capable of sharing novels with his female cousin when it was something that he enjoyed as well. However, as soon as it came time for him to find another book to read, he made it perfectly clear that it wasn't "cool" or "acceptable" for him to read the books in the pink binding. Later, he goes on to tell about one of his gay friends that wanted him to proofread his pink-bounded book and was reluctant at first because of what he thought other people might think about him carrying around a pink-bounded book. "I was told that those pink-covered series were for girls, and being seen with one of them in my hands would have labelled me effiminate; I remember the look of surprised reproval on the face of the Buenos Aires shopkeeper when I once bought one of the pink-covered books, and how I had to explain quickly that I meant it as a gift for a girl (228)." Just this anecdote alone shows how sexist their society was back then.

Another thing I found interesting was when the narrator quoted something that the Greek philosopher Plato said. "Though Plato wrote that in his ideal republic schooling would be compulsory for both boys and girls, one of his disciples, Theophrastus, argued that women should be taught only as much as was necessary to manage a household, because advanced education 'turns a woman into a quarrelling, lazy gossip (226).'" Not only did I find this quote interesting, but somewhat insulting that I had to make myself read it once more just to make sure I read it correctly. I have to  disagree with what  Plato's friend said. It is very possible for a woman to read a book and not become a "quarrelling, lazy gossip". In fact, most women had so much to do around the house that they probably read while doing all their household chores. I also feel that if anyone, not just women, reads something new that they are automatically expanding their learning by exposing themselves to new vocabulary and new ways to use that vocabulary in different sentences.

A History of Reading

Throughout the first part of the reading (pages 3-23) the narrator talks about how ever since he was a little boy, he would read anything and everything. From  newspapers and books to the fine print on the back of cereal boxes and train tickets. Later on in his story, he talks about how one of his friends asked him to read to him due to the fact that his mother could no longer do it. The narrator then goes on to say "...Reading out loud to him texts that I had read before on my own modified those earlier solitary readings, widened and suffused my memory of them, made me perceive what I had not perceived at the time but seemed to recall now, triggered by his response (19)." I think this particular passage is significant because when I read something multiple times, I too find different meanings that I had not noticed before. This does not only goes for books, but movies as well. I feel that everyone can read something once and enjoy it. But in order to get to the real "nitty-gritty" of the whole text, you have to read it a second, maybe even a third and fourth time.