Wake me up when September ends.

Book post time again! Strangely enough I think I said all I wanted to say about The Unbearable Lightness of Being already, except that I forgot to mention that I'm assuming that the bowler hat thing was a Magritte reference.

Due to this uncharacteristic lack I shall discuss episode 18 of Buffy's season eight, and not simply because I didn't have anywhere else to put comic babble but a book post, no sirree. I still haven't gotten on with checking out the Buffy Omnibus. I got as far as nosing around on amazon, and then got confused by the fact that it's split up and sold in individual parts. I think this is something that I need to sit down with properly and figure out, or I just need to discover if it's all up online somewhere. Either way. I do think that doing so would probably heighten my appreciation of the Time of Your Life storyline because, as Buffy herself pointed out, seeing the future-verse that's depicted here kind of presents a lot of spoilers for Fray. Buffy's "Wow, spoiler alert" comment was actually about just getting to see the future, but it totally applies. I also liked her disbelief that the term 'spaz' had stood the test of time, whereas almost all the rest of her lexicon seemed to have disappeared from everyday use. I thought it was a nice touch, since it was a reasonably oft-used word in early Buffy which I find a little jarring when I watch it, although in part because it's a much more offensive term in the British context.

Asides from Buffy's fandom-y comments I also really enjoyed the complete and utter rubbishness of the monsters that Dawn and Xander encountered in the forest. They were so obviously unimpressed by said creatures' cliché behaviour and I thought it was a nice touch. It showed that even these thoroughly "not special" Scoobies are battle-hardened and experienced enough to laugh in the face of danger (and not even need to hide until it goes away these days), and it was a nice moment that gently mocked Buffy's own genre- especially considering the move to the comic format.

The interaction between Willow and Saga Vasuki was interesting and compelling. It's kind of gratifying to see Willow keeping these big secrets from Kennedy, although the character of Saga Vasuki her-/it-self seemed to have been portrayed as a sort of New Age well of Lesbian Power, but I'll reserve judgement for now. Also although I generally love Willow, I have to roll my eyes at people who say 'frak'. I know, I know, I ought to check out the revamped Battlestar Galactica one day. One day, indeed.

Also it transpired that the evil woman in the future truly is Dark Willow, and not Drusilla. Oops. Hey, anyone could have made that mistake! Obviously I can see why Saga Vasuki told Willow why she mustn't "look" at where Buffy is, since she'd probably feel awfully angry, guilty and confused. Since I haven't read Fray I'm kind of confused though, is it cannon that Willow's going to go irretrievably evil at some point? Is this the "proper" Frayverse or an alternative one? Are there two (or more) Willows in this world/future? I'm hoping that these questions will be answered in the fourth and final part (the release of which I believe has been pushed back to November). If it isn't I'm definitely going to need to pick up Fray to answer these burning questions, and even if they are sufficiently answered I think that this storyline has piqued my interest enough to make me want to do so anyway.

So now onto the proper literature, which simultaneously might make me sound vaguely more intelligent and somehow less geeky. Here's hoping.

How could I not love Catch-22? It's been recommended to me endlessly by various people, and it's also constantly appearing on lists of the best books ever. However I'll admit that I was a little dubious, firstly just because sometimes these so-called classics aren't all that wonderful in my eyes (see The Catcher in the Rye and definitely Lord of the Flies for example) and secondly war books don't particularly appeal to me. That's not to say that I necessarily dislike everything in that genre, it just isn't a favourite of mine and thus I was almost a little wary of the Catch-22. All for naught though. Come on, it starts with a soldier waking up in a hospital and feeling vast amount of love for his chaplain, "It was love at first sight. The first time Yossarian saw the chaplain he fell madly in love with him". After hitting a whole load of my literary kinks it all went, amazingly, uphill from there. It's just an absurdist romp, and I didn't feel that the plot, with all of its twists and turns, was any less entertaining because I was already au fait with a lot of it. It's written so wonderfully, and I think I was actually disturbing nearby lessons with my sudden giggles and snorts emitting from the staff room where I was snuggled up on the sofa furiously reading onwards.

I just loved the way that it was written and the dialogue- especially the circular (and circling) nature of the narrative, the back-and-forth of the ironic conversations and the sublimely ridiculous surrealism of much of the plot. Because that's war, it's patriotism, it's capitalism, it's sanity itself, and in a larger way that's life. Things don't make sense, and yet surely they should; surely there should be a higher authority somewhere to appeal to. I loved the fact that you had to pay attention to the book because it unravelled its secrets slowly and in a non-linear way. Specifically the use of déjà vu (and associated feelings like presque vu) really served to keep me interested. There were several events that it came back to time and again, from different people's perspectives, or from the same people but with a different focus which meant that more and more information was gleaned. This meant that my understanding was slowly added to layer by layer, and my attention was really grabbed.

But it wasn't only in this way that the technique was used. Although I really adore reading sometimes I rather dislike starting to read a book, if it doesn't capture me within the first couple of paragraphs then I have to get over a small hump before I'm drawn in. I know that fighting through the first chapter or so will almost definitely pay off (unless it's really the most awful chick-lit, or Adam Bede again) but nonetheless it can make me kind of resentful. Not only did Catch-22 draw me in straight away (literally from the very first line) and maintain my interest, it made me hyper-aware of details even if I didn't realise that I was. For example, Yossarian meets the chaplain in the first chapter and uses his name when he vandalised the letters he was supposed to be censoring. However, the chaplain didn't seem particularly important, but when he strikes up a friendship with Yossarian later I discovered that I'd catalogued every detail about him, apparently in case of such an eventuality. Returning again and again to the scene of Snowden's death was certainly a useful technique, and when it was fully explained it proved to be a truly disturbing story. I could see why Yossarian wouldn't ever want to wear a uniform after that. I think that it illustrated perfectly the way that such an experience would pervade someone's consciousness, whilst also straightforwardly pointing to the atrocities of war- making them realistic and personal.

Good God I hated Aarfy! Appleby too, but I just wanted to hit Aarfy. I could really empathise with Yossarian so much during those scenes in the plane in which he was basically being terrorised by Aarfy but couldn't explain himself to this lummox. Heller captured that frustration and resignation wonderfully. I simply adored Orr. And Major Major. And Nately! Almost without any reservations. Milo was a great character too, although I didn't love him unabashedly because he was such an amoral bastard. It was so surreal, but somehow fitting, to discover that he was actually a mayor; a vice-shah; a caliph. His whole trade was exhilarating and maddening in approximately equal measures (especially his ability to make a profit with those eggs), and managed to raise a deep philosophical question: what's more important, life jackets or ice cream soda?

At the beginning of the book Pianosa almost seemed like a safe haven, providing as much of one as somewhere can amidst the realities of death and war. The characters mostly seemed to exist so languorously, and threw themselves into their missions without much concern, albeit some grumbling. It felt as if they had existed in this stasis for all of time, and could carry on in much of the same way. However by the end this had been disrupted, and almost all of them were dead or gone. It makes you look back at this apparent safety, especially since by the end you're informed by many more of the experiences that Yossarian and the others had gone through before the book's opening, and question it. It seems as if that wasn't really an appearance of safety, but the reality of tension and imminent destruction tempered by camaraderie and desperation.

The thing about Yossarian being "Assyrian" didn't mean that much to me until Closing Time. It was an obvious marker of his Otherness, without Heller resorting to modelling him too much on himself and making him (particularly) Jewish. However I'm apparently embarrassingly ignorant about vast periods of history, and couldn't have told you when Assyria stopped being an official nation unless I'd just googled it (around 612BC apparently, so I think a little before Catch-22's scope). In this case little Sammy Singer was a lot more intelligent than me. Anyway I suppose the point is simply that names are significant, Yossarian was able to get away with a lot because he had access to this mystical national identity, that he'd basically created himself.

There was one thing which I found annoying about Yossarian and the book, although I'll admit that it isn't the fault of either. Basically I got the Clotaire K song Ya Saryan stuck in my head practically every time I read the name 'Yossarian'. It's definitely a good song, but having anything going on a loop inside my head (especially if it features a lot of Arabic chanting) gets on my nerves quickly. I am amused that Streetlight Manifesto came on when I started writing about Catch-22 though.

My mother posted Nanzo's leaving present to me which I'd had to dump from my obese suitcase along with plenty of other books and DVDs, Hokkaido Highway Blues. The book's sort of a travelogue, detailing Will Ferguson's experiences road tripping across Japan questing after the cherry blossoms. I was certainly in the mood to read both about road trips (thanks to recently reading On The Road, plus all my excitement about Supernatural coming back) and the experiences of a Westerner emigrating to an East Asian country.

To begin with I was starting to get convinced that I ought to up sticks and head to Japan, if not now then at some point. I'm not insanely enamoured with Japan; I think saying that I know what otaku means but that nobody would ever, ever think of applying it to me sums it up pretty well. When we had to choose a regional specialisation in the second year of the Social Anthropology BA I picked Japan. This was mostly because we hardly ever studied anything to do with Japan or East Asia in our more theory-based courses so I figured that it'd make a nice change, plus I thought that a favourite teacher of mine would be the lecturer (as it turned out she wasn't, but I got her for a third year course so it was all good). The only other region that I'd considered was Southern Africa, and not only was that only a half unit I was pretty sure that there'd be far too much dry stuff about kinship and not nearly enough anime. I went on to write my dissertation on Japanese pornography, mostly because that's a sentence I like saying. I did consider applying for the JET programme and got as far as getting references. However I changed my mind about it because they have a policy barring you from re-applying for a few years if they reject you, and I knew that my application wasn't put together particularly well, and it was just before the deadline. I figured that it would be better to wait until I could hobble together a better one, and instead ended up targeting much less selective hagwons in Korea a year later. So it's not that I think that I really ought to be in Japan, it's just that I have more interest in Japan (both from an academic and pop cultural point of view) than in Korea. I'm going to try not to point that out to nationalistic Koreans though. Plus Ferguson kept going on about eating squid there, and I love squid. He should have stopped whinging about Japanese delicacies so much. I get plenty of seafood here to be fair, and trying to find something that I won't eat has become some people's favourite game. It works out pretty well for me, hopefully I'll get to try dog in the next few weeks.

Anyway the fact that I can't speak Korean soon reminded me that I can't speak Japanese either. I'm kind of useless. At least I did understand the whole carrot/person confusion and I'm prrretty sure that Ferguson either purposefully mixed them up again in the book, or my Japanese is just even worse than I thought. Even if I was in Japan, I don't think that I would go hitchhiking alone. Sometimes being a woman can be a bit rubbish, still I'm sure that I was telling the truth when I responded to a student that yes if I get to choose in my next life I'd like to come back as a chick again. (I didn't have an opinion on skin colour, as long as it's at least a tad darker than my current transparent state, and I couldn't decide on a nationality but I definitely had a preference for being brought up in a polyglot or diglossic setting and eventually figured that I'd probably plump for somewhere in South America.) I don't know if I should blame an ethereal fear like Susan Brownmiller or something else, but I don't think that I would feel comfortable hitching by myself. One thing, though, that certainly was interesting to me about the book is that I often recognised things that Ferguson was describing from Korea which I think illustrates that a lot of the Japanese myths about uniqueness and inscrutableness can certainly be ignored.

He certainly had a very enjoyable writing style, so it was fun to read about Ferguson's experiences but I think that I may already have turned into one of those tiresome Kerouac fans. There just is a Dean Moriarty shaped spectre harassing anyone who writes about road trips, and it wasn't possible for Ferguson to meet it (even if he is Canadian). The book also frustrated me a little, it contained so many truly arresting thoughts and moments of analysis and yet I'd feel that I was wandering down a really interesting path only to discover that the author had broken off (in a drunken stupor more often than not) and the next chapter would begin with a new dawn, a new day and completely unrelated musings. I really feel that several chapters in and of themselves could have been plundered and expanded into academic articles. Obviously it is supposed to be a good little earner for Ferguson, he pretty much admitted that he aimed to write something that would sell. That's fine, but I just feel like I've been cheated out of something more. Also compared to the light-hearted, jocular tone of most of Hokkaido I felt that the ending was rather stark and feel that it would have been nice to have that tone developed more rather than just cutting off as things were really starting to get interesting.

Ferguson trying to explain to people that he was Canadian not American did resonate for me. I suppose it must be more difficult for Canadians to get the point across because their accent generally sounds fairly American. In Korea there are a lot of Canucks so they don't have much of a problem, I often get asked "So are you American or Canadian?". That whole sequence with the elderly father who'd been a POW in America and learnt English as a result was so painful to read and so well rendered. I'd imagine that the experiences of WW2 (not particularly Yossarian's, but hey it's a nice way to relate everything) that still seem to pervade and almost haunt Japan, at least according to Ferguson, must present a stumbling block for Westerners in Japan- especially if they're North American, older and male. Well I'm none of those things, and while I do have the added bonus of being Jewish I'm unlikely to develop an understanding of nuclear physics or a desire to bomb Japan specifically. So that's alright then.

One thing that did kind of bug me about the book was all of Ferguson's waffling about the desire of men in general, and him in particular to 'save' women and his somewhat smug feeling that he was making an original point. I just wanted to pluck him out of the book and tell him, "darling, there's already been reams and reams written on this subject I promise, so save yourself the ink". Aside from that there wasn't anything that really got on my nerves. It was certainly a very enjoyable read, but I kind of wished that I had had it with me to read on the plane as a light-hearted travel book when my brain wasn't engaged much. Since I didn't I think that I was plumbing its depths for something more than was actually included and finding minor foibles that I could have otherwise ignored.

Thanks to HarperCollins making Neverwhere available online for free I finally got around to reading it. The main character, Richard Mayhew, seemed to be a bit of a Neil Gaiman stand-in, with a rumpled, just woken up look and a mop of messy hair that's strangely attractive to women. (I too know this pain, seriously.) It was delightful to read something set in London, especially one so close to "my" London not only in terms of being a contemporary one (as opposed to a Dickensian one) but just in terms of the resonance that the description had for me:

"filled with colour... It was a city of red brick and white stone, red buses and large black taxis, bright red mailboxes and green grassy parks and cemeteries. It was a city in which the very old and the awkwardly new jostled each other, not uncomfortably, but without respect; a city of shops and offices and restaurants and home, of parks and churches, of ignored monuments and remarkably unpalatial palaces, a city of hundreds of districts with strange names...and oddly distinct identities; a noisy, dirty, cheerful, troubled city which fed on tourists, needed them as it despised them, in which the average speed of transportation through the city had not increased in three hundred years... a city inhabited by and teeming with people of every colour and manner and kind"

I liked this book for the same reason that I liked the television series that preceded it, and maybe it is because I'm a Londoner, it takes the London Underground- something that on the surface seems like a proud symbol of the triumph of technology- and turns it into something wonderfully whimsical. Even the commonplace capitalisation of the word Underground makes it look some surreal alterna-world full of mystical creatures, rather like the world of Holly Short et al in the Artemis Fowl series. Plus it's a word that starts and ends with the same three letters, and everyone knows that repetition features a lot in the casting of spells. Furthermore while the Tube is a symbol of something ultra-modern it has retained an inextricable link with the early nineteenth century railways of London, perhaps in part due to the fact that the service hasn't noticeably improved. The "handy fiction" of the Tube map hasn't altered its design all that much since 1933 either. (Harry Beck was from Finchley, you know.) There's also the allure of the closed stations, such as the British Museum station, York Road, "The Bull and Bush" station (North End), Down Street etc, which bring with them the connotation of hidden and secret locales. I think it's a large part of most Londoner's repertoire of trivia about their city, as well as the way that some stations have changed their names- sometimes because the area's name has changed too. There's a suggestion of mystique, and I think a feeling that these stations somehow hold the key to London's not quite tangibly accessible past.

I suppose this is particularly pertinent to me, since I hail from a teeny little area of the 'burbs called Mill Hill East. Not only does it have a ridiculously small local "Underground" over ground with a single platform that looks like it could have come straight out of a village postcard, there are tracks leading away from it that abruptly stop. They were part of a plan to connect MHE tube to stations other than Finchley Central, which actually would have been helpful to my life, but even when you know the explanation tracks that lead to nowhere just seem somewhat mysterious. There is this slight sensation that they really ought to lead to somewhere, and perhaps would if only one knew how to make them. It really always did seem like something straight out of a fantasy novel to me, and perhaps one day it will be. So I'll shut up about it now.

I think that this romanticism towards trains might be a uniquely British thing. Ian Hislop has apparently been going on about trains and hating on Richard Beeching, as he should. I know that railways played a crucial role in the histories of many other countries, and their importance for American expansion was emphasised in Atlas Shrugs. Although there was a lot of focus on the role of railroads in the book, and certainly they aroused passion in some of the characters, it was with a sort of calculated, organised ideal in mind if not in practice. The reality of rail building in Britain was completely slap-dash in contrast. The image of steam train pulling into a village station seems quintessentially British, and unquestionably storybook-esque. There's a reason that Beckonscot model village is filled with working model trains and has a miniature version of Enid Blyton's house, and there's a reason that I love the place. I think I'm too tired to articulate that reason very well, but basically: whee, trains! Guv'nor. Cheers. Cheerio. Innit.

I really don't feel that the novel was at all ruined by the fact that I knew what was coming almost continuously from first watching the show, which is a testament to how well it's written and how magnificently it maintains the tension running through it. I think that the novel was obviously able to be a lot richer and more detailed than the show could be, and it won't age as badly or as obviously as the show already has. There was also a lot more freedom in terms of locations and how they were decked out. I think the idea of the markets in Harrods and the HMS Belfast was a brilliant one. I also really like the names in Neverwhere, the names of Door's family delighted me and I especially loved the Marquis de Carabas because I've always loved Puss in Boots.

I could understand why Richard felt that he ought to go back home towards the end of the book, but I was so glad when he did decide to return to London Below. I suppose I needed a taste of that after the bleak ending of Hokkaido Highway Blues, I think I simultaneously believe that people are altered by their adventures and remain in the realm in which they happened and that this in no way applies to me. I'm sneaky like that. I'm also really glad that he didn't end up with Door, especially because I think I'd reached the point at which I'd happily pay someone money if they could hand me something good in which the two leads don't either end up together or being tragically separate from each other and being filled with yearning, longing and quiet desperation. So thank you Neil Gaiman.

Considering that I devoured Neverwhere over only two days at odd intervals that I could snatch when I could get a glance at a decent computer screen, I read surprisingly few books this month. Mostly I'm going to blame that on Closing Time, the sequel to Catch-22, because it took me a long time to get into and therefore to complete. I think the clue as to why that was the case is in the description, I'm still not sure exactly why Heller decided to write a sequel to the absurdly popular and wonderful Catch-22, and after completing it it's still hard for me to work out how I feel about it. While it was nice to revisit characters such as Yossarian and the Chaplain, it was really jarring to see these favourites as old men. If it was weird for me who only read Catch-22 a couple of weeks before embarking on Closing Time it must have been more shocking and disorienting for older fans of the book and its characters.

Maybe in part that was what Heller was commenting on though. It was certainly weird to read about Yossarian as a somewhat successful businessman with understandable worries about his children, in a way that it wasn't strange to think of the Chapman as an old man or Milo with an heir. Yossarian was this amazing anti-hero of a character, who was compelling because he was splendid and strong. Obviously it's realistic that if he wasn't killed then he might well have become the man that he did in Closing Time, but that doesn't mean that it's something that I want to read about. It feels as if Yossarian ought to have been left as a symbol unsullied by life during peacetime, let alone by the ravages of old age.

I don't particularly want to read about beloved characters getting old and dying. Heller forces the audience to face that, largely in part because he was an old man by the time he wrote this sequel. Maybe if I ever get old I'll appreciate this book more, but for now I just found it more depressing than anything. The whole storyline with George C. Tilyou et al "living" on under the Earth was incredibly random. It certainly had the potential to be a captivating sub-plot but I feel that it was never properly explored. Catch-22 didn't really dabble in the mystical or fantastical, and yet its sequel appeared to matter of factly include the possibilities of eternal life, as well as Hell. Mr Gaffney's connection to this place was never investigated satisfactorily, and certainly Yossarian's wasn't either. Maybe Heller just wanted to write a bit about Hell so that lame people like me would make crappy jokes about his name. Well I shan't give him the satisfaction, so there.

I found the stories of both Lew and Sammy to be fairly interesting, although initially it was difficult for me to work ought why I ought to care about them. At least Sammy was well tied in because it transpired that he'd been the kid in the plane fainting when Snowden had died. I liked that that pivotal scene remained important in the sequel, and that it had never lost its significance for Yossarian or Sam Singer; that it had stuck with them as something which made the war "real" to them. Sam's resonance and importance slowly interested me in Lew, and Michael Yossarian and M2 were somewhat intriguing simply because of their paternity. The Chapman was isolated from everyone else for almost the entire novel because he'd been producing heavy water accidentally. It was a ridiculous storyline, of course, but it played out entertainingly I guess. I quite liked the character of Mr Gaffney, his behaviour certainly amused me as did the other PIs and the utterly bizarre nature of the society wedding being held in the bus terminal.

A couple of minor characters who you might recognise where inserted too, Joey Heller and Kurt Vonnegut, which struck me as a little odd. I have a feeling that Heller was trying to create a much more Jewish-tinged version of Catch-22, doing this with the inclusion of Lew and Sammy, and with minor characters like Joey Heller. Also Yossarian mentioned that he was of possibly Semitic descent. If Heller wanted to write about his Coney Island youth he ought to have done that, if he wanted to write about old age he ought to have done that, if he wanted to write satirically but a little too bluntly about stupid politicians he ought to have done that but I feel that he didn't need to drag Yossarian and the others into it. There were a few self-referential comments from some of characters too about both the actual Catch-22 itself and about the film of Catch-22. I can see what Heller was trying to do with such references, but I don't think that it quite worked. If the entirety of Closing Time was mostly a send up of Catch-22 it could have succeeded, but it was this sprawling mass that was just trying to be far too many things at once for it to really be anything at all.

I've just started reading Howl's Moving Castle, which I'm liking quite a bit so far. I guess it's providing welcome a relief to Closing Time since it's a reasonably straight forward fantasy book, and while it does definitely deal with the theme of aging it does it in a much more light-hearted way that's eminently more engaging for me. I had a feeling that I didn't like Diana Wynn Jones, but I'm not entirely sure from whence that nagging emotion came.

I know that when I was younger I was always eager to get my hands on any books I could, especially those that came from genres I knew that I liked such as fantasy, and this led to me becoming a sort of garbage disposal bin for the written word. Several relatives and family friends thought they could fling any books at me and I'd enjoy them, even if they really didn't appeal to me or were very, very bad. My aunt used to do it too, since she's a school librarian by trade she used to like using me as a booky guinea pig. Sometimes this had positive effects, I never would have read the first Harry Potter, at least not so early, if it hadn't been foisted on me. The cover art was so ugly and I was so bored of books about troubled boys who became wizards that I stuck it right at the bottom of my to-read pile, and even did my fractions homework inside (in pencil at least). At other times it just annoyed me though, I think I have my aunt to thank for the fact that I can't quite stand Michael Morpurgo or Phillip Pullman (maybe I just don't like alliteration as much as I think I do), but I'm not quite sure I can blame her for DWJ too. Maybe I just mentally listed her with the other semi-insipid fantasy writers who just produced something standard that wasn't overly-appealing after reading a dull introduction or something.

Either way I feel a little bad about it, as I am definitely enjoying the book. It seems to gently mock the conventions of the fantasy genre it belongs to, while not violently breaking away from it either. The sibling switcheroo amused me too, since it reminded me of Alanna and Thom doing so at the beginning of The Song of the Lioness quartet (three years earlier, might I add). I think that actually I'm already preferring the book to the film. While the film was enjoyable, it had a slightly incomprehensible quality to it- as if there was more to the myth of it which I just didn't have access to. The book is simpler because it is more straight forward, and thus the characters are more understandable and likeable. I think this is a simply fun fantasy novel which I can definitely see myself enjoying but ultimately it probably won't become a solid favourite. You never know though, stranger things certainly have happened.

Hey teacher, leave those kids alone

I'm considering adding a 'title filched from' byline to my entries in lieu of the fact that I'm too lazy to post daily and thus rivet you with an accurate tally of alcohol units consumed, the number of road accidents I almost caused and the amount of things I proclaimed "awesome", as a proper journal clearly would. Is it worth updating old entries thus also? Probably this is only worthwhile if the majority of the source of my titles isn't usually as appallingly obvious as this one... I am not a good judge, clearly. I noticed that Neil Gaiman's webgoblin used a Buffy quote as a title the other day and the collision of two obsessions made me unreasonably happy. (FYI I'm totally planning on stalking the webgoblin on livejournal now that NG's taken over his own blog again.)

Anyway, I thought that it might be pertinent for me to occasionally actually discuss what I'm doing. So here are some meandering thoughts about my occupation. Bon appetite! Firstly let me please emphasise that I don't really feel all that well equipped to teach English- I've never done a TEFL course or had any training besides my two day initiation here, and I spent most of that asleep. I did have a job teaching English in Holborn for a couple of weeks a few summers ago (but left when the manager tried to both withhold my pay and fondle me), but it was the dodgiest and most ridiculous thing ever so of course I wasn't trained. I was just given a crappy textbook and told to stretch the material out for an hour. A lot of it was very basic stuff too, like numbers and letters of the alphabet which are pretty straightforward. Also, almost all of my students spoke Romance languages so mostly I just cheated and explained things in an odd mixture of English, French, Spanish and Portuguese (much to the chagrin of my lone Hungarian student- but he spoke reasonably good English anyway and shouldn't have been in my beginners class, plus noone who wants to talk about Nirvana all the time should expect me to deign to communicate with them).

I've never been trained to actually teach English, or indeed to teach anything at all, and the fact that I have a little (rubbish) experience is merely a happy coincidence- it isn't required by my job. All that's required is proof that you have a degree and that you're a native English speaker, and I suspect white skin may also be a(n unofficial) requirement. The idea of this company is that the students deal with grammar issues with their Korean teachers, whereas the native speakers are supposed to focus more on pronunciation and usage. Trying to delineate tasks like this doesn't work however. For certain activities correcting students' grammar is necessary, plus generally they want me to point out their grammatical mistakes. I don't think that the class should consist of a constant barrage of corrections- that isn't good for their confidence, and it makes the situation more tense so there is less likelihood of having free flowing conversation (especially if the student is quite shy). Before I started this job I thought that I had a reasonably good understanding of English language (I always preferred studying language to literature). Possibly I do, but only in relative terms- many of my friends are useless at identifying the basic components of speech (i.e. nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and pronouns), whereas I can remember what conjunctions and prepositions are, and could probably hazard a vague explanation at a past participle.

I am not good at explaining grammar rules though- and students' files often come to me via their Korean teacher filled with handy notes about tenses (many of which have whimsical names like 'the future perfect') and so on which I stare blearily at and then ignore completely. I often get bombarded with questions which I simply cannot answer. Sometimes they're asking me how to use a verb in a random tense that I've never heard of, but often the stumper is simply "why?". Why do people get "in" a car but "on" the bus? Why should I use "a" not "the"? Today my student had written "just as entertainment companies" and I suggested changing it to "just as entertainment companies do" or "just like entertainment companies" but she was a little peeved that I couldn't explain why. It doesn't help that I suffer from brain freeze at least 50% of the time!

Also English as it is spoken is obviously often quite different to 'proper' English. The BBC news magazine recently compiled a list of twenty examples of grammar misuse. I think that I'm guilty of both incorrectly using the phrase "for free" (where it should be simply "free" or "for nothing") and referring to midnight and midday respectively as 12AM and 12PM. Things like the above are found so commonly in (spoken) English though that I wouldn't really call them errors per se, language isn't static and if the usage of a word changes substantially then that change ought to be accepted instead of railed against. Similarly I wouldn't correct a student if they said "on foot" instead of "by foot" because the former phrase is used often, even if it might technically be considered 'incorrect'. I know that I need to watch myself with apostrophes, I still sometimes throw in an incorrect possessive "it's" instead of "its" because that rule never made sense to me (just as I always think that 'grateful' ought to be spelt 'greatful' because I could imagine that the etymology of the two are entwined, but I can't see the relevance of grates, or grating, to thankfulness [*]).


Gratifyingly (ah, actually now I can see the connection between 'grat(e)' and 'grateful' and feel like an idiot) I can at least understand how these are misuses and even though I've never really known what the difference between saying "x and I" and "x and me" is (despite mentions in both The Song Of The Lioness quartet and Dawson's Creek) I seem to be able to instinctively differentiate between them and use them correctly in speech (most of the time!). I would be hard pressed to explain how one differentiates though, at least without a handy explanation in front of my face. Props to the linguists, language really is absorbed and not taught. Of course there are instances where language operates in a counter-intuitive way: for example the plurals of Walkman, computer mouse, still-life and attorney general. I'm not sure if the fact that 'open fired' is apparently the correct form of 'opened fire' is counter-intuitive (as military English sometimes is) or if it just seems so because I've heard the latter so often though.

The books that we use seem to have been written by a variety of different people, so I sometimes find Anglicisms thrown in. However the dominant dialect is certainly American English, both in the books and in Korea in general. There are differences between American and British English (and of course there are myriad other regional forms of English too) that aren't restricted to just differences in the vocabulary that is used (for example lift vs. elevator; trousers vs. pants; soccer vs. football). I've been exposed to enough American television, film and music to not be completely lost in the mire, for example I'm vaguely aware of the American conception of a townhouse (via Sex and the City), which isn't quite the same as a London townhouse. However, there are also clearly differences which I'm not aware of too. For example I was relentlessly "correcting" my students for omitting the 'and' of a year (e.g. saying "two thousand eight" instead of "two thousand and eight"), but I've been informed that both are acceptable in American English. This wouldn't be too much of a problem if my students were uniquely mine, but since they often get shunted around to various teachers (on the whim of whoever is in charge of the schedule) it must get very confusing for the poor dears.

Also, I don't know the meaning of every word ever. I can never remember what exactly a condominium is, or a duplex. I also really don't care, but there's a lesson on dwellings (which incidentally omits anything interesting like a castle or a barge) and I often get enquiries. I even tried looking them up, but it was so dull that the definition just slid out of my head immediately. Some things really sound like nonsense to me- seriously what the hell are a stand-over (possibly something to do with blackmail?) and a blue light special? And is 'poseur' an English loanword from French? I don't understand why if so, since we already have 'poser'. Generally I can blag it, like today I managed to correctly guess the meaning of 'yardage' (or perhaps it was sitting around in the back of my brain), but sometimes I just want to say "sorry, I haven't a clue".

The other day I was reading through an article in preparation for a topic tutorial with one of my favourite students and had to go look up a word ('obdurate', I also had to search up Albert Schweitzer, and still don't understand why I was supposed to know who he is) and was beginning to despair of my ability to teach. It turned out to not be a big deal since we mostly just chatted completely off-topic instead of discussing the illogical treatment of people with AIDS. I think that I am becoming a little better though. I've noticed that I'm able to give better more succinct definitions, rather than gesticulating wildly I've been filling the students' files with handy diagrams (very badly drawn, but I reckon that they get the point across) and synonyms. Some words and concepts do defy simple explanations though, which is why the students should do their bloody homework, goddammit!

I had a moment the other day when I really felt like an English teacher though:

Scotland: Are you hungover?
Me: Actually I don't think that's an actual word. 'Hangover' is a noun not a verb, so really you ought to ask me if I have a hangover.
Scotland: ...Is that a yes?
Me: Very. *dies*

Obviously some concepts just do not translate well and can be very confusing. I find that my students are split roughly into two groups: those who have had contact with the existence and ideas of other cultures (possibly through travelling or living abroad, but it can also be through exposure to films, music, friends etc), and those who haven't. Those who haven't are often adamant that they are like all Koreans and that I'm asking unreasonable questions if I enquire whether they like Thai food, reggae or some other lesson-appropriate thing. Sometimes students, especially ones at lower levels, have a problem with my accent too since they're much more used to an American one. I sympathise but it does get annoying... luckily after a couple of lessons we usually don't have any problems (although sometimes there's residual confusion over the "a" sound as in 'can't', 'water', 'after' etc).

Normally I find most of the lower level students a bit boring. Some of them are perfectly nice and try really hard, but it can be kind of frustrating and dull- especially if it's a busy evening and there's one after another after another. I sooo cannot be bothered with most of the middle school students too, they're so shy it's unreal! They all prefer me to the other native speaker teachers since I'm a girl (gender discrimination is working wonders for me here, most of the women love me simply for having a vagina) and try to wrangle themselves into lessons with me instead, but they're still really quiet and dull around me. Generally it is much, much easier to get along with the higher level students- simply because it's possible to communicate with them better. I have two favourite topic tutorial students (topic tutorials are either 25 or 50 minute lessons where there's freetalking, supposedly about a specific subject but it often dissolves into random chitchat, and I vastly prefer them to normal, structured lessons- especially with interesting pupils), one of whom studied in Wales for a year and is almost militantly fond of my accent. There's a few others on levels 4, 5 and 6 that I really adore who brighten my day too including a guy who wrote an absolutely flawless essay in English about the constructed nature of memory, a really funny chick who studied at Royal Holloway and is still indignant about it claiming to be part of the University of London since it's bloody well not in London and a high school student whose English is so much better than all the businessmen that it's laughable. I don't really like teaching the business courses since I know nothing at all about the subject (and thankfully I have to use those books far less frequently here than at Yeouido), but I have a couple of businessmen students who are very fluent and regale me with stories of their insane bosses instead of doing their work. I don't think that even they could swing me around on the interview course though, it's terrible. Luckily I don't have to teach it much, but it's next to impossible to stretch those lessons out into 25 minutes- and the section where I had to ask a poor student to describe his personality, his character, his personality traits and finally his character traits befuddled me as much, if not more than, him.

Having said all that though, one of my favourite students hardly fits the mold. Not only is he on the first level, he's been floundering ever since the beginning and repeated the first lessons several times. Now he's finally progressed onto lesson four (after more than double the amount of lessons). His English isn't very good (obviously), but he manages to communicate his ideas reasonably well. The main reason that I adore him though is that he becomes practically fluent when discussing books, travelling, his daughter or music. We had a nice chat about Milan Kundera today, he's always eloquent about his travels (although I do try to point out that the cities of Italy are not usually referred to as Venezia, Firenze, Roma, Milano e Napoli in English), he adores his baby girl so much and is adamant that she's not going to be a 'salaryman' (well I'd imagine it'd be unlikely that she'll end up as any kind of man, but you get his drift) like him and he's encouraging her to be a bohemian artist layabout, and he's incredibly articulate on the subject of music (although he can't for the life of him pronounce 'Zeppelin').

The lower level books have a section where the student has prompt questions to ask of the teacher. This can be good as it can engage the students more and it gives them an opportunity to mimic. Plus I can generally stretch out talking about myself if I have to. However it can lead to some awkward conversations, I've had a few along the lines of:

Student: Are you married?
Me: No.
Student: But you want to get married, yes?
Me: No.
Student: Ah, you want to stay single. *knowing look*
Me: No. I have a boyfriend.
Student: Ah! How long have you been dating?
Me: About 6 years.
Student: Erm, 6 months?
Me: No, 6 years.
Student: So why don't you marry him?
Me: I don't want to get married. Look, it's not the same as in Korea... many people live together without getting married, it isn't considered strange.

At this point there's a divergence in responses; the female students seem satisfied with my line of argument, and I tend to get something along the lines of "that's nice dear, but I couldn't do that in Korea", whereas the blokes' answer is usually "harrumph".

Anyway the wonderful level one student I was talking about (who is equally obsessed with Mozart and The Beatles, FYI) had to ask me what I want for my next birthday. This proved to be quite a puzzler for me, since there's nothing that I actually want- surely this is a dangerous state to live in? I have a laptop, a 60GB mp3 player (even if she isn't behaving herself) and a camera- i.e. all the things I wanted. I would like to go clothes shopping, but that's something I can do myself clearly. I don't buy DVDs or music because I download everything, and anyway I don't want to accumulate too much stuff because I'm eventually going to have to either pack it up or leave it behind. The main thing that I want is to travel, and I don't mean right now: I only just got here! So I said 'books'. It isn't untrue, I do always want books, it's just that I'm capable of providing myself with books and anyway this lack of demands makes me sound like a humble hermit who might run off to go live in the woods at any moment. Fuck that, I'm as materialistic and greedy as the next person. Really. Anyway he asked what was at the top of my list, and predictably I drew a blank. I have a list on Facebook of 135 books that I want to read, and that's just the ones that I noted down off the top of my head! Eventually I managed to grope for a relatively recent addition to said catalog and said The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. He then made me write it down and said that he was going to buy it for my birthday (which he remembered is in February since so is his). I doubt that he'll actually remember to do so, but it's still very sweet!

[*] The online etymology dictionary tells me that 'grate' is an archaic word meaning 'thankful' though, so perhaps this will stop troubling me now.

At the end of August...

Beware of spoilers for: The Screwtape Letters, Wide Sargasso Sea, On The Road, The Stranger, The Old Man and the Sea, The Jane Austen Book Club, Dune and The Unbearable Lightness of Being, as well as more general discussion of The Chronicles of Narnia, Jane Eyre, Atlas Shrugged, Neal Cassady, Supernatural, The Great Gatsby, Desolation Angels, 'The Old Man', Austen's novels and DH Lawrence's writing.

Maybe I should be concerned about the possibility of getting sued for flagrant plagiarism? Even a casual glance through my entry titles shows myriad examples of my penchant for filching lyrics and other quotations. Oh well, ahem, good writers borrow from other writers. Great writers steal from them outright. (At least I have the chagrin to admit that I'm stealing Aaron Sorkin's words from the mouth of Sam Seaborn there.)

On the subject of writing, since another month is fading into that strange and distant land called the past, I declare it time for another book round-up post! Woo, and a mighty hoo.

First of all can we all take a moment to rejoice in the fact that I honestly have nothing more to say about Atlas Shrugged? Nada. Zip. Zilch. (Unless it's in comparison to other things, which is clearly utterly and totally different.)

Onwards to books I wish to discuss at length! Starting with The Screwtape Letters (although not really, as you'll see). Let me preface this by pointing out two things: I absolutely adore The Chronicles of Narnia, and I have a deep and abiding distrust of religion. Add to that the fact that I actually rather enjoyed The Screwtape Letters and you have a situation which appears a little contradictory. I feel like a sort of Narnia apologist (in both senses of the word) sometimes, because whilst I can see (and indeed saw as a child too) the Christian symbolism and clear religious message which is both implicit and explicit in the series, it does little to dull my pleasure in reading the books again and again. I suppose it's partly because Lewis' portrayal of Aslan-as-Christ represents a very specific (and almost odd) version of 'muscular' Christianity which doesn't necessarily call up all of the things which I normally associate with religion/Christianity, simply because its somewhat out of the ordinary. Mostly though I think that although Lewis obviously became a devout Christian in later life, he was influenced by his long period of, if not quite agnosticism, indifference. He treats Christian theology as he treats other mythologies (Greek and Mesopotamian, for example)- something full of beautiful ideas and images which are ripe for the plundering when creating a fantastic and fantastical world.

I have far more problem with the blatant racism and lack of religious tolerance in the books, especially The Horse and his Boy and The Last Battle. The sexism actually isn't as rife as you'd expect (although a clear distinction is made between male and female roles especially in the earlier books), but something that does really irk me is the random unexplained dismissal of Susan in The Last Battle. It's declared that she's no longer a friend of Narnia because she likes nylons and lipstick, and whilst this snarkiness is kind of likable (especially when you're a solemn six year old) it doesn't really seem fair to her. Susan could be a slightly annoying character (and she's been even more castrated in the screen adaptations) but she wasn't by any means portrayed as a bad person. I think that if Lewis wanted to narrow the number of these 'friends' down to the magical number seven he could have at least had the decency to include a scene in which Susan rejected Narnia rather than just shoehorning the point in. Perhaps she also ought to have been given a chance to redeem herself too, after all Edmund and Eustace are both given that opportunity and their crimes seem worse than developing a taste for make-up (although that certainly would have made an interesting sub-plot).

All in all I do still really enjoy the series (The Magician's Nephew and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader are special favourites), which is why I had an urge to investigate some of Lewis' other writing. The Screwtape Letters, letters from a senior demon to a junior one giving advice on how to secure a man's soul, seemed like a good place to start. It's a fun, satirical read- and Lewis created a really interesting 'Lowerarchy' of Hell, as well as elucidating the existence of 'The Enemy' outside of non-linear time. There's a lot of wonderful detail- I loved Screwtape detailing how the friction that exists between people who live together and end up grating on each other's nerves constantly can be taken advantage of. I feel almost guilty for reading it "wrong" however, giggling delightedly at Screwtape's tale of dragging a man in the British Library away from potential religious salvation by making him focus on his grumbling stomach. I also like that Lewis stuck to the idea of having demons (or often an individual demon) scrabbling for an individual's soul, rather than giving in to some Apocalyptic vision of people en masse being corrupted incredibly simply (although Screwtape does suggest that this could be an achievable aim).

The book does contain some important points which I broadly agree with too. Firstly it mocks religious people who focus on the wrong things- on being disgusted by the irreligious nature of others, for example. That's a point I can get behind. Secondly it points to the dangers of over-subscribing the Historical Point of View, and basically the consequences of trying to destroy the concept of morality. Thirdly, the really bitter tirade against the stupidity and problems of the world (most prominently contained in 'Screwtape Proposes a Toast' but also evident in the letters itself) is brilliant. Lewis eloquently rails against the way political ideology and religion are misused, and his rant about how the term 'democracy' is used incorrectly, and could in fact be abused to perhaps bring about the demise of human excellence, is truly fantastic. Screwtape's parody, 'If they were the right sort of chaps they'd be like me. They've no business being different. It's undemocratic' and the argument about intelligent pupils being fettered by the 'democratic' education system read like they could have come straight out of Atlas Shrugged. In fact since The Screwtape Letters is essentially a monologue advocating a viewpoint that I don't wholeheartedly agree with makes me think that they might have more on common than the surface, and the mere fact that I enjoyed them both, suggests.

The next book I read, Wide Sargasso Sea (which I'm going to attempt to discuss without recourse to words with 'post' prefixes) was also a choice inspired by a book that I'd loved as a child. I now feel that I may need to re-read Jane Eyre because I want to closely look at the portrayal of Bertha (beyond 'crazy'). I find that re-examining childhood favourites can be a bit of a double edged sword. On the one hand I'm always intrigued by whatever insights I can glean, but sometimes these can be uncomfortable. For example, I found the suggestion that Alice in Wonderland was filled with drug references delightful and fun, but the idea that it was inspired by a paedophilic obsession seemed somewhat less pleasant. So whilst I was eager to read Wide Sargasso Sea I was also really hoping that it didn't trash the original work too much. I love Jane Eyre as a romantic tale (and of course I adore the tempestuous Mr Rochester), but I also love it as a story about a strong female character surviving against the odds, having the courage of her convictions and not allowing any of the men in her life to control her.

I'm glad that Wide Sargasso Sea doesn't detract from that, in fact it doesn't really deal with Jane at all. Although it paints Rochester in a somewhat negative light, the book isn't unfair to him- the main point is the sorrow caused by a lack of understanding. What Wide Sargasso Sea does is turn 'Bertha' (i.e. Antoinette Cosway) into a sympathetic, but also deeply troubled, composite character instead of just a caricature. This isn't done with a dislike of Jane Eyre or Charlotte Brontë in mind, it's merely addressing a perennial problem- the presentation of a one-sided view. I don't think that Wide Sargasso Sea ought to be seen as an outright prequel to Jane Eyre, as others have pointed out the timelines don't actually accurately meet up but I don't think that that's particularly important. Personally I just don't think that Rhys intended Wide Sargasso Sea as a straight-up prequel, it's a reimagining of the life of 'Bertha', and as such it's a the tragic tale of a woman. That woman could have been the deranged one in Mr Rochester's attic, but I don't think that's the most interesting part of the story- in fact it's probably the least important. I only really had one gripe with this book in the end, it was too short.

I said I was swearing off stories told in the first person, but I think I'm going to have to retract that because On The Road was awesome. I was feeling a bit wary about reading it after my disappointment with The Catcher in the Rye (they're somehow tied together in my head), but I loved pretty much every second of it. Obviously the character of Dean Moriarty is a big draw, so brilliant that he achieved legendary status for Sal before they even met (thanks to his amusing letters). I was a little bit in love, along with Sal, with this hyperbolic, bullshitting, constantly sweaty maniac who apparently split his youth equally between the pool hall, prison and the library. The story wasn't quite what I expected- yes they do spend quite a lot of time actually on the road, but not in the way that I envisaged. I thought that it really was a road book and that most of it would involve Dean and Sal's roadtrip(s). Whilst that does become a large part of the story, these trips come in varied forms (the first consists of Sal hitchhiking solo) and form a chain of journeys which are interrupted by periods of semi-settling in various cities. I think I had misconceptions about the drug use in On The Road too. Yes, drugs are certainly there, but that's just how they're treated- as something which happened to exist, not as something to be glorified excessively.

Although Dean is this wonderful, vibrant character he's also a bit of a cunt. You can completely appreciate why he is, but I think that in many ways Sal is actually a much more interesting character- he's not merely passionate but compassionate too. The narrative style is excellent, switching between relatively straightforward descriptions (which somehow manage to sound frantic most of the time even when they're about the most banal things) and reality filtered through beautiful, poetic language which casually tosses in literary and philosophical references. Maybe it's because of Sal's compassionate nature that he becomes so obsessed with Dean, there's this brilliant moment in the book when he realises that he's let slip something terrible: that he thinks about him. Dean fascinates him; fills his thoughts. It's not a one-sided thing, they have a real friendship and often it's Dean who makes plans for them or turns up on Sal's door step (indeed he's really shocked when the tables are finally turned and Sal appears at his door in the middle of the night). However, Dean is filled with a burning passion for just about everything, and although Sal shares this to an extent (or perhaps he just attempts to?) he is somehow more grounded.

I don't think that I need to point out the barely submerged homoerotic subtext of this book. What makes the book even more interesting for me however is that it is loosely autobiographical. I don't think that Kerouac fell into the trap of just writing his own life (possibly since he was rebelling so hard against that idea), and this isn't just a series of amusing anecdotes. It's a full-fledged, compelling novel. It just so happens that he created a narrator with a voice not unlike his own (and really, who doesn't?) and, like everyone else, he wrote what he knew. In this case that was mostly Neal Cassady (but also Allen Ginsberg, William S Burroughs and so on). It's the kind of thing that makes me never want to attempt to publish fiction, because like Brennan in Bones or Jack in Desolation Angels (detailing Cassady's unexpected visit on the day that the advance copies of On The Road arrived) you'd eventually have to face those people you used as your inspiration, and just have to hope that you could look them in the eye.

My copy included possibly the best and most useful introduction I've ever read (although I didn't read it until after finishing the main text of course). It included excerpts from some of Cassady's letters, and you can understand why Kerouac was so delighted with him. He had this fresh (and incredibly funny) writing style, which Kerouac either shared or emulated to an extent. I can completely understand why Kerouac shifted from trying to invent characters and situations to mould his idea of a 'road book' around, here was a wonderful character complete with plenty of hilarious happenings ripe for the plucking. On The Road definitely encapsulates something very different to (the also enjoyable) The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald's writing belongs to a completely different world and time, and whilst The Great Gatsby is full of jazz and liquor it seems really stilted compared to the novels of the Beat generation. I can understand why Kerouac was rather dismissive of writers like 'Fitz' and Hemingway.

I've always liked the word 'beat', it's one of those wonderful words that conjures up a whole host of associations. It can mean: literally to hit or strike, to completely batter (or beat up), to punish, to defeat, to have been defeated, the rhythm of music, to tap out that rhythm, the flapping of wings, to be better than, to throb, a moment of time, someone's usual section, to retreat... etc. One word which I never directly associated with the word 'beat' however, was beatific. Kerouac imbued his idea of Beat with this joyous, religious concept. This is why one should probably beware of religious types (and can we please all take a minute to enjoy the fact that the Great American Novel was written by not only a Catholic but the child of French-Canadian immigrants whose first language wasn't English?), they'll sneak God in whenever they find an opening. Here, with Dean as the holy man and later holy 'goof', it does work well however.

Some commentators have complained about the racial sentimentality expressed in the book, but it actually didn't annoy me that much. I took it as a depiction of Sal (and Dean's) loneliness, and longing to belong to something larger. I felt that most of the time this sentimentalism was a little tongue in cheek. What I did have a problem with was the fact that the novel was a little too comprehensible. I know that that sounds like an insane criticism, but it's just that the book often seemed to be threatening to go off onto completely mad tangents, but then never quite achieved it. I think that if Kerouac had been allowed to publish the book that he really wanted to (i.e. madder, with the characters displaying their proper real life names and the sexual relationship between 'Carlo' (Allen Ginsberg) and 'Dean' (Neal Cassady) being explicit) it could have been even more brilliant.

I hear that there's to be a film adaptation (although I think that this is once more in the safe "one day" way, rather than "to be released in 2009!"), and I have to say I'm very dubious. Whilst a screen version could perhaps capture the characters and their interaction as well as the energy of the book, much of what I truly loved was Sal's introspection which I really doubt that a movie could properly show. Instead of a straight adaptation I think that most fans of the book can honestly enjoy something which was in part inspired by it and self-consciously borrows from it (occasionally even with the sexual tension between the 'brother' characters). Yes I am talking about Supernatural. Alright the characters' respective ages are reversed, but there's still Dean being beautiful, sex-obsessed and constantly hungry- followed by his descent into self-destruction. There's still Sam hero-worshipping Dean, occasionally being a pissy bitch but mostly just radiating love and compassion. There's still a gorgeous car which is basically the third character (certainly in the beginning of the show), although there's a few moments of hitchhiking or Sam renting weird ugly cars too. I wouldn't be too surprised if someone out there has done the maths, but I'd bet that an analysis of the show would find that minus time spent in motels, the Impala or engaged in fights the Winchester brothers actually split there time pretty equally between playing pool in bars, being intimidated by (or impersonating) officers of the law/prisoners/prison guards and researching (mostly in libraries).

Even though On The Road left me with a desire to immerse myself in Supernatural I plowed on with reading instead (after all lugging my laptop to work is too much effort, and anyway I'm worried that if I re-watch season one it'll start feeling dirtybadwrong to be perving on Jared Padalecki).

The next book which I read (and enjoyed) was Camus' The Stranger (I'd still rather listen to The Lovecats than Killing an Arab though). I have a vague recollection of reading... something or other by Camus for one of those interminable theory courses, but I'd never read any of his fiction. The Stranger (or The Outsider) is a short but interesting book, following the narrator, Mersault, from the point of his mother's death. I found Mersault to be a fairly likable character, he doesn't quite know how to properly interact with people yet he's honest and pleasant. He's not emotionless about the death of his mother, he just isn't a wailing mess either. However his honesty and stoicism are later used against him when he's in court after killing a man 'because of the sun'. Instead of being tried for the murder, he's basically punished for the crime of being terrible enough to place his mother in a home (where he seems to have genuinely thought she'd be happier) and for not showing appropriate sadness at her funeral. The judge and others are also appalled by Mersault's lack of remorse for the murder, and for shooting the body after death, but as he points out, do these apparently terrible things actually matter? They don't have an effect on the main outcome: Mersault killed the man.

My copy is a more recent 'American' translation of the French novella. I understand what Ward means when he says that Camus was influenced by the American style (especially Hemingway's), and that short, stacatto sentences suit said story (as alliteration always applies à Anne apparently). I can also see that, especially for an opening sentence, 'Maman died today' and 'Mother died today' have slightly different resonances (although I do think that replacing 'Maman' with something like 'Momma' would be an acceptable alternative). However I really do think that the point can be stretched too far, although slightly different translations of the same sentence or paragraph can create subtly different meanings in the end (as long as they are translated reasonably well) they will convey the same idea. I certainly wouldn't argue against the point that American and British English are different (as are other regional variations) since I seem to spend half my time translating back and forth between the two, so of course translations done by a Brit and an American would end up being somewhat different. So too would translations done by people of different ages though, or those from disparate regions within the same country. If you want an incredibly precise understanding of what the author intended to say there's really no alternative to reading the work in the original language, especially as there are bound to be concepts which have no direct translation.

I do believe that I mentioned Hemingway somewhere in that. How fortuitous. The Old Man and the Sea was the first Hemingway I've ever read, and I have to say that I wasn't overly impressed. Maybe it's partly because the title reminded me of a brilliant short story by Daphne du Maurier called 'The Old Man' which I'd have preferred to re-read instead. I don't think that The Old Man and the Sea is a bad book, and it does actually have flashes of entertaining brilliance, it's just that if I'm in the mood to read a detailed account of fishing I'd much rather read Coming Up For Air. I also found the random Spanish interjections to be incredibly annoying. I don't need it to be pointed out to me that a Cuban fisherman thinks in Spanish, that he thinks of 'the sea' as 'la mer' and 'bone' as 'hueso' rather than as their English names. Either write the whole thing in Spanish or shut up. To be fair I did find the distinction between thinking of the sea as la mer and el mer vaguely interesting, and it gives a neat little example of concepts which can't be translated well into English. I didn't particularly dislike Hemingway's style the way that a lot of people (including Jack Kerouac) have, neither was I particularly enamoured with it though. I'm willing to give him another try and am quite interested in reading For Whom The Bell Tolls because I have a special place in my heart for anthing pertaining to the Spanish Civil War. If it's dull I'm going to be very unimpressed however.

I was honestly surprised by how much I enjoyed The Jane Austen Book Club since I wasn't all that impressed with the film. Most of the book was written in the first person plural which was a little jarring to start with especially since the narrator wasn't identified. Somehow it did work though, and gives the reader a sense of being intimately placed at the meetings along with all these characters. The characters in the book are much better than in the movie- they're more interesting, older and (wonderfully!) much more realistic. Instead of just being annoying, they're annoyed by each other all the time- aware of, and mostly forgiving, each other's faults and quirks the way that real friends do. The character whom I found most irritating in the film, Bernadette, got on the other characters' nerves all the time, yet she did have some honestly shining moments. I really liked the fact that everyone was more likable (and Grigg was instantly more acceptable) when everyone was slightly fuzzy and drunk, I think it's a fairly realistic portrayal of much social interaction!

There was certainly more in-depth analysis of Austen's work in the book than the screen adaptation, although I could always go for more! The parallels between Fowler's and Austen's characters weren't drawn so explicitly (or perhaps not so crudely), and when they were it was often pointed out self-consciously by the characters, but not in a way that beat the reader over the head with the point. There were some truly wonderful observations that just wouldn't have translated well on film, such as the tiny paranoia that Bernadette could be an alien in the wake of the Northanger Abbey discussion. That being said I do think that the film did include a couple of good scenes that weren't in the book- such as pushing Prudie's almost-affair with her (gorgeous) student, especially because her blurring of reality and fantasy echoed her mother's lies to her, and Grigg's gothic decorations for the Northanger Abbey discussion.

It is clearly a 'pomo' novel, but not in a way that's jarring or unpleasant (it takes care not to upset the sensibilities of its characters as much as anyone else). It's kind of hard to understand how a novel which is mostly about six other (relatively similar) novels works, and I doubt that it would be all that interesting to someone who doesn't already love Austen (although I could be wrong). It's hard to explain what's so good about Austen's writing, especially if people already have preconceived notions that she mostly wrote about dancing and houses. Certainly she did write great romances, but I think what I really appreciate about her is her creation of strong, interesting characters who tend to play breathtaking verbal tennis, as well as her creation of ridiculous, bumbling characters who fail to understand what's happening around them and get satirised so completely but often so subtly that it can easily be missed. Austen's wry style is wonderful, and can really leave you guessing as to her actual meaning. Mansfield Park is an odd one too, I really enjoy it but it's hard to put my finger on why. On the surface it's a fairly stuffy, moralising tale about a Puritanical heroine winning out against the rest, but truly it is so much more. Maybe I just love it for the ridiculous characterisation of the aunts and Mary Crawford's sarcasm though.

I wasn't aware that Karen Jay Fowler was also a science-fiction writer, but it does certainly make sense. I need to read more sci-fi written by women, I think I'm going to end up re-reading some Ursula le Guin stuff... Fowler included a list of questions from the perspective of the six main characters at the end of the book, some of which are a little dull but some of which are truly brilliant, for example Allegra "asks",

"In The Jane Austen Book Club, I take two falls and visit two hospitals. Did you stop to wonder how a woman who supports herself making jewelery affords health insurance? Do you think we will ever have universal health coverage in this country?"

Not only does this raise an interesting point (setting aside the irritating use of the phrase 'this country') it points to how ready we are to suspend our belief for the sake of the plot. Being alerted to this oversight doesn't make me like the book any less, but it does make me like the author more. She also included the responses of various people (including Austen's family) to the novels, many of these were interesting but often, frustratingly, included only a glib phrase or amusing comment about a small point rather than a real commentary. At least it's provided me with a long, long list if I feel like reading more on Jane (and indeed her Janes).

The next book that I read, Dune, was rather different to the previous six, although there is of course room for a tenuous segue since Fowler is indeed a writer of science-fiction too. What united these first six books I read post-Atlas Shrugged was that they were all very easy to read, my eyes were gleefully skipping along the page as I devoured the material. Most of them I read very quickly, the last three in a day each (squished in around working and living). Dune wasn't really the same, it's not the kind of book that you can absorb quickly all at once. It's a wonderfully crafted story and certainly a brilliant work of science fiction (even I, who has never seen a Star Wars movie can see where Lucas stole some of his ideas), but to me it has that slightly draining association that most sci-fi has for me. If I close my eyes and think of Dune or The Day of the Triffids I see drab, rusty colours, whereas if I think of fantasy I either see something bright and vibrant or glowing hints amidst darkness.

Dune seems that it might falls into that annoying trap of science-fiction right from the beginning, creating an interesting world but not providing enough explanation to avoid confusing all but the most alert and avid reader. This could easily be worsened by the fact that at the beginning of the novel the Atreides and their retinue are in the process of leaving their home world of Caladan for the mysterious planet Arrakis. However Herbert somehow gives suficient detail to give an understandable explanation of these circumstances (and much more), whilst maintaining a sense of mystery as well as dropping some subtle hints and clues of what's to come along the way. I was gratified to find that when I read through the appendices and glossary I actually had a good understanding of everything. I have to admit that I was cheating a little since I have already seen the original film. It's a wonderful, confusing mess though and doesn't necessarily provide the clearest path to understanding the novel of the same name.

The book provides some very interesting ideas about politics and ecology, as well as incorporating elements from various religious and mythological sources to construct its own unique belief system. The idea of the Bene Gesserit breeding program is chilling but enthralling, as is their use of the Missionaria Protectiva to manipulate people's religious beliefs to fit their purpose whenever it may be useful. I do find the idea that the majority of people are too stupid to, for example, even posit a connection between the spice and the worms a little ridiculous I have to say. Some of Paul's (and Jessica's) apparently "amazing" knowledge and insight is shown to be a careful construction. Paul and Jessica constantly take advantage of their knowledge and abilities to almost 'dupe' people, including their friends and allies.

Due to their training and experiences Jessica, Paul and Alia (as well as other characters to greater and lesser extents) tend to not show or explore their emotions. I don't consider this to be a flaw since it makes sense within the context, however it can make them difficult to identify with and care about all that much. So whilst it is certainly a very interesting, inventive story it doesn't necessarily have the resonance that it could have. I'm interested to read the next book in the series, and if I enjoy that I'll aim to carry on.

I don't have an extremely big problem with the depiction of women in this book and Jessica, Chani, Harra and Alia are all certainly portrayed positively (and Irulan is to an extent too). Even Paul is considered to be so powerful because he embraces his feminine side in a way that other men cannot. The use of Bene Gesserit women as brood mares of the state isn't treated as an acceptable or desirable thing (Paul is repulsed by it), it's an illustration of the tactics that these high-powered groups are prepared to use. However I could have happily done without the dull gender norms; men take and women give and blah blah blah. Also if there's going to be a cliché evil Baron with a taste for pretty young boys (including Paul who is, unbeknownst to him, actually his grandson- because what's sci-fi without some wacky space incest?), I think there ought to some positive representation/s of homosexuality too. If I'm going to insist on reading books written by men between the 1920s and 1960s I probably shouldn't complain too much though.

The book that I'm currently reading, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, is shockingly modern in contrast having been written in 1982 and published two years later. It's the first book by Milan Kundera I've read because I'm terribly behind the times and I hardly ever read best sellers/'modern classics' (that aren't by authors that I already adore anyway) unless the book happens to be pressed into my hand, or comes highly recommended. I've also got the excuse that it was actually published two years before my birth in this case, so I can't really have been expected to have been paying attention.

I have to say that I almost gave up on this book after the first page (which is something I very rarely do, in fact I don't think that I've ever actually done it, I almost always pursue a book to the end unless it happens to be Adam Bede). The first thing that bothered me was the Nietzsche reference in the very first sentence. I don't have a problem with Nietzsche, but university has equipped me with a healthy distrust of people who are overly-fond of quoting him, and starting a novel with the idea of eternal return seemed beyond pretentious. The second thing that irritated me was the ambigous tone in the statement,

"We need take no more note of it than of a war between two African kindgdoms in the fourteenth century, a war that altered nothing in the destiny of the world, even if a hundred thousand blacks perished in excrutiating torment."

I'm glad that I stuck with the book though because I've actually been really enjoying it, and although I've been eyeing it suspiciously I haven't seen any evidence of racism. Not only does it tell an interesting story in an inventive way (jumping around in terms of point of view and the timeline) it uses some techniques which I really adore. The use of dream sequences is powerful, and the breaking of the fourth wall (if the phrase can appropriately be applied to novels?) is playful but also allows some serious topics to be discussed. I find Kundera's asides about language interesting, particularly his comparison of 'compassion' in Romance languages (and English) with the subtly different meaning that it has in Slavic and Germanic tongues. I also like the frank, and yet somehow sweet, examination of the sex lives of his characters.

Although I am enjoying it, I do sometimes find it to be a little patronising and know-it-all. I often get irritated with books that purport to tell me philosophical 'facts'. Kundera also uses techniques that I find common in DH Lawrence, but they're somehow more irritating here- perhaps it's because Lawrence has a more whimsical style? For example, it's fairly common for Lawrence to make a statement such as 'He loved the grass' (although probably somewhat more eloquently) in a way that suggests that the character loved the grass in general and always. This will then be followed by a lengthy explanation of how the character loved the grass in that moment fully and extremely, and is fairly likely to be contradicted a few chapters later when said character realises that he actually hates the grass for convoluted reasons that relate to his mother. I don't usually mind the way that Lawrence presents contradictory statements in the form of absolutes because he makes clear that the characters feel these things to honestly be absolutes at that time, and may not even be aware of the existence of any contradiction. I think that that's an accurate portrayal of something that real people do. However when Kundera does a similar thing it doesn't quite work, perhaps because he does seem to be dealing with philosophical absolutes, and also because he mocks his characters a little too much.

I think I ought to finish up for now because I've just realised that I've scratched a mosquito bite on the back of knee so much that the floor is now bloody. Ew. However nothing can ruin my good mood or stop me mentally doing The Dance of Joy (whilst searching for an appropriate clip of Numfar dancing I found this appalling clip of a bunch of foul SOASians doing a rubbish dance, do you know these people? Can you track them down and smack them?) because I have a camera, the Empyror mission was apparently a success and I have a fridge full of food!