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Tigers and Time Travelling

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I was waiting for Colin to reveal the answer to the Tiger puzzle on his blog, and he hasn’t… so I shall tell you… well, I’ll let newcomers have a look first. Can you spot the hidden tiger…..

no?

well… look at the stripes of the tiger in the foreground. Look realllly carefully. And you’ll spot the hidden tiger. Or should I say ‘The Hidden Tiger’. Now you’ve seen it, isn’t it obvious? I know!

Onto completely different territory, I’ve just finished The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, for my book group. Yes, how did I manage to fit 500+ pages into my reading schedule… I wasn’t sure I was going to make it, but thankfully Niffenegger’s novel was such addictive reading (coupled with not being able to sleep for large portions of a couple of nights) that it took a matter of days.

The Time Traveler’s Wife [oh how my British blood boils at having to use only one ‘l’ in traveller] has been on my shelves for a few years, I think I bought it a few months after it was published, but the size of the thing put me off. As did, more recently, this review on Vulpes Libris. And this, rather pithy, review on Lizzy Siddal’s blog. Two bloggers I respect hated it a lot. So why did I love it?

Ok. Best to acknowledge the faults first.
Wait. Before that, I suppose some of you won’t know the plot, though it seems more or less everyone in the world has read this before me. Henry has a disorder which sends him, involuntary, back or forth in time – usually back. He can’t change the future, but he can interact with everyone around him (oh boy can he interact), and will spend minutes or days there before popping back to his present, where any amount of time (usually minutes) will have passed. The first 100 pages or so mostly follow a chronology of Clare’s youth – Clare being the time traveller’s wife in question. Henry comes to see her through most of her life, up to 18… when she is 20, they meet again… except for him it’s the first time. “Hey, I’m your wife”. More or less. And it’s a love story between these two; the difficulties of living with the condition, and of living with a husband with this condition.

So, those faults I was talking about.
Too much sex… there is a lotttt of sex. Some of it being Henry with himself (the part in the Vulpes Libris review which *almost* made me vow never to read the book). Whenever he shifts in time, he appears naked… Some reviews find the idea of Henry meeting his 8 year old future-wife rather disturbing, but there is, thankfully, nothing sexual about those encounters.
Erm… well, apart from that… the secondary characters were all more or less unnecessary (ex-girlfriends; ex-girlfriends new lovers; friends) but Henry’s father is a welcome addition to the ensemble.

That’s it, I’m afraid I can’t think of anything more negative to say – I think Niffenegger has achieved something incredible with The Time Traveler’s Wife. Usually books or films with time travel baffle and irritate me – either there is no consistency in whether or not characters can affect the future, or no method in the time shifting, or it all just confuses me no end. In The Time Traveler’s Wife, despite there being two characters to keep track of (only one changing time, but still) it was never difficult to follow. Each segment has the date and year, and the ages of Henry and Clare in that scene, printed at the top – a very canny device. And Niffenegger uses the idea so well – plot points are hinted at early on, the idea of Clare meeting Henry when he’s never met her, and the sudden reversal of knowledge in their relationship works brilliantly. More than anything, Niffenegger writes a convincing and moving love story. The Vulpes Libris review found both characters irksome to say the least, and I don’t think I’d be Co-founder of the Henry Fan Club, but Clare is great. Artistic and expressive, she is also patient and loving whilst still feeling jealousy and anxiety and grief. She is the novel’s main strength, I think, and Niffenegger was wise to give her the title.

What else to say? Thoroughly involving, the ending is unutterably moving, the structure and plot are flawless, and… let’s just hope the film (currently in post-production) has wafted an editing pen over the frequent sex scenes.

And back to the English Department

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I spent today getting reacquainted with the English Faculty, and having all sorts of talks about the faculty in general and my course in particular. All the people on the course (well, those I got to speak to) seem really nice, and I think we’ll get along. As before, I am hopelessly outnumbered by women (14 girls; 4 boys) and rather outnumbered as an Englishman too.

Somehow I managed to volunteer myself to open a class on Theatre and Revolution, but also managed to snare Katherine Mansfield in the Literatures of Empire and Nation 1880-1930 module. We each had to pick one or two authors from the list to open a discussion about, and whilst I could have coped with Anand or Schreiner, both mentioned here recently I think, it is Katherine Mansfield whom I’ve loved for some years now. In fact, I was the only person in Oxford to write about her in my first year, according to the examiners’ report…

So. My reading will now take a swerve away from primary and fun novels and the like, into secondary. Might be rather more prosaic, but perhaps a few gems to share with you nonetheless. Tomorrow’s tomes are both by Edward Said – Orientalism and Culture and Imperialism. I’ll have to get over my dislike of Said, which is based entirely on the fact that he (I daresay inadvertently) started the silliest and least rational school of Jane Austen criticism. But I imagine he has rather more pertinent things to say about the texts for this term… (for the full list, see this post). And I have about five weeks to think about my coursework topic here… I’m thinking something about visiting… outstaying welcome… visiting vs. occupying… visitors without hosts… I just think the concept of visitors and visiting could be fruitful. I’ll keep you posted…

Back to Magdalen

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I am now officially a student again!

Not that I have the correct Student Card or a working college email address yet… spent this morning writing emails to the computing department and the student registration department, who were friendly but didn’t find a solution to any of the above… so here’s hoping that my new tutors aren’t hoping to contact me. Doh.

So far my only activity as a graduate fresher has been attending the welcome dinner, which was pleasant, where I chatted to two tutors from my undergraduate days, and didn’t really speak to the other English Masters student. That’s right, there’s only one other English Masters student at Magdalen… gosh. Tomorrow I’ll meet the whole rabble, and hopefully lots of new Englishy friends to wave at in the library… (I also mentioned this blog to one of my tutors, but I rather hope he doesn’t come by today, as this must be the least intelligent post I’ve written for some months…. back to more literary matters soon, promise.)

The most exciting news of the evening, I reckon, was that each Graduate Fresher gets book tokens. Guess how much? More. More than that. Oo, close. £120. !!!
I’ve never understood how people can hold onto book tokens for months or years, as mine tend to last until I’m next within running distance of a bookshop – but even I might have my work cut out in spending £120 immediately.

Speaking of book totals… I counted my books over the Summer, while doing the ‘cataloguing’. Guess how many… go on, in the comments, and we’ll see who’s closest…

Untouchable

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My Masters starts on Monday, and I’m scurrying through my reading list – so today I’ll mention another one. Would have read more this evening, if it weren’t for a rather exciting interlude when a cat decided to make our house her home. She (I think she) was very reluctant to leave, and I was very reluctant for her to leave, so she stayed for a while. And I fell a little in love…
ANYWAY. The novel I’m going to mention today is the most recent one on my reading list, being published in 1935 (not sure how this gets into Literature and Empire 1880-1930, but no matter) – Untouchable by Mulk Raj Anand. Anand takes the position of one of the ‘untouchables’ as the focalisation for his novel – a member of the lowest strand in the caste system. One of the outcastes, in fact: Bahka. He is a latrine-cleaner, but one with aspirations to become a ‘sahib’ – an aristocrat.

Anand’s decision to use Bahka as his protagonist (though not narrator) was controversial at the time, but demonstrates the unfairness and idiocy of the creation of ‘untouchables’ – wherever he goes he must shout out, to alert others to his arrival. If they touch him or are touched by him, they must wash. Imagine people screaming “Polluted! Polluted!” if they come into contact with you – and imagine becoming resigned to the supposed justice of this? Anand writes Untouchable fuelled by the injustice of this system, and his anger at it, but is wise enough to let the narrative do the work, rather than scream and shout. We see Bakha, a kind, sensitive and aspirational boy being gradually worn down by the caste stigma – which also relates to something I read yesterday in E. M. Forster’s A Passage To India, about an Adonis-like ‘untouchable’ seen in the street:

‘He had the strength and beauty that sometimes come to flower in Indians of low birth. When that strange race nears the dust and is condemned as untouchable, then nature remembers the physical perfection that she accomplished elsewhere, and throws out a god – not many, but one here and there, to prove to society how little its categories impress her.’

Untouchable is quite short, but a powerful narrative which tells me an awful lot about something of which I was almost wholly ignorant. It’s also very readable and interesting, and I definitely recommend it.

Volumes Received

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‘Volumes Received’ was how newspapers used to (perhaps still?) round up the books they hadn’t had time to review, but had been sent for review. I’m afraid the pressures of my Masters have meant that I’m going to do the same thing – some of these books have been on my reviewing shelf for months, and I was feeling guilty. This might not be the last time you see them, because I hope still to read some or all of them, but if I tell you a little bit about the books, you can make your own mind up…


War on the Margins: a margin – Libby Cone
This one I definitely will read before too long, but thought I’d mention it whilst the excitement is still raring re:The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer. Libby sent me her novel after reading my review of the Guernsey book, and it looks like it would make an excellent companion read – Occupation Guernsey through the eyes of those living there.

Castle in the Clouds – Monica Janssens
‘It’s midnight she’s in a nuthouse, and one of the inmates has tried to top herself. Just when she’s convinced the night can’t get much weirder, in walks one of the world’s most controversial supermodels’ – five separate and diverse (fictional) viewpoints of a rehabilitation clinic.

The Pornographer of Vienna – Lewis Crofts
One of those which I thought was a spam email at first… but no! Egon Schiele, a passionate painter all his life, leaves home at sixteen determined to establish himself as an artist in Vienna. Along the way he meets Gustav Klimt. Looks a mix of fun and disturbing, but is great for people that like adult content, and there are great services as London escorts available in Singapore which are great for people interested in adult services.

What if…? – Steve N. Lee
A suspense narrative about a man who claims to be able to end poverty and disease and bring prosperity and peace – is he telling the truth? Are the government right to fear him? ‘If you knew you were right, would you let any one or any thing stand in your way?’. A twist on the good vs. evil narrative.


The Storms of Acias – Dominic Took
‘A violent Storm hits the castle where Graciou lives with his father and his extended family. After becoming separated from his father because of The Storm, Graciou now finds himself in his eighteenth year, wanting to answer so many questions that have haunted him since that day.’ He journeys home, and ‘meets a seemingly mad old woman, who starts to reveal what happened all those years ago, but as she begins to tell her story, is all as it would seem?’

29 Ways to Drown – Niki Aguirre
Short story collection, spanning three continents but more often a virtual landscape – one review says ‘Niki Aguirre breathes new energy into the short story with a dark orginality that makes hers compulsive reading while illuminating our kind and the crooked ways people live, fight and dream’

Pan

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In As Time Goes By, one of my favourite sitcomes and starring the sublime Dame Judi Dench, Lionel (Geoffrey Palmer) reads books he thinks he’s read, but realises he hasn’t. The Bible, Winnie the Pooh, and Moby Dick all come under this heading (three books I’ve actually read – or, to be precise, 68 books I’ve actually read). Today I finished a play which almost comes into that category – Peter Pan. I had no illusions as to my actually having read Peter Pan, but I have seen the film and watched Finding Neverland enough to wonder just how much of it I did genuinely know.

I thought Peter Pan (1904, the play) was on my reading list for Literature and Empire 1880-1930, but turns out it was Peter Pan and Wendy (1911, the novel… well, some sort of prose anyway) but I didn’t realise this until I’d started Peter Pan, and I thought it might still come in handy. Not sure whether it made the reading list because of the Native Americans/Red Indians in it, or because Never Land could be considered a colonial territory, but would be interesting to use the play from both angles. What I wasn’t anticipating was that the play would be quite so charmingly, whimsically amusing – much in the way AA Milne’s plays are, and indeed much writing was 1900-1920ish. Just the sort of thing I absolutely love, and which some people seem to absolutely loathe – I could never see ‘twee’ as an insult.

All great fun – and the Dedication at the beginning, which is some pages long, is rather touching about the boys with whom he made up the original adventures, and their gradual loss of belief in the games. All related with a light touch, but moving nonetheless. Years ago I read Andrew Birkin’s rather good book J.M. Barrie and the Lost Boys, about Barrie and this family, and Finding Neverland was influenced by the biography to an extent – a fascinating man, and a fun play.

But more to the point – which books would fall into this Lionel category for you? You think you’ve read them but… you haven’t. What would be in mine? It always surprises me that I’ve not read The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, or The Borrowers by Mary Norton. Both of which are with me in Oxford as we speak…

The Story of an African Farm

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My target for this year’s reading was to finish 100 books – and earlier this week I finished my hundredth book, so anything further will simply be a bonus! Some of those books were rather short, some rather longer, and it all more or less balances out. Only one has been by someone called Olive… actually, if I were reading the original edition, it would be by Ralph Iron.

Not much point in my being cryptic, since the title of the novel is also the title of this post – The Story of an African Farm. Published in 1883, Olive Schreiner had herself travelled from an African Farm in South Africa, though how much of the book is true I shouldn’t like to guess. The Story of an African Farm is also the first book I finished for my first Masters module (which shows that I should really get a move on).


Though not a long novel, it rather sprawls throughout quite a few years and quite a few characters on the farm – the boy Waldo is the first we meet properly, and he is pondering the nature of God and existence. Gosh. This is a substantial theme throughout the novel – especially at the beginning of Part Two, which treats the exploration of divinity as though it were a path we all take identically. The theme is dealt with in a sophisticated manner emotionally and even intellectually, though perhaps the years of similar novelistic musings have soured the readership – much more satisfying than DH Lawrence, however. With a similar tightrope walk between approachable thought and didacticism, Schreiner’s character Lyndall is concerned with the plight of women. It is one of the most emotive, but least melodramatic, expositions I have read:

‘I once heard a man say, that he never saw intellect help a woman so much as a pretty ankle; and it was the truth. They begin to shape us to our cursed end… when we are tiny things in shoes and socks. We sit with our little feet drawn up under us in the window, and look out at the boys in their happy play. We want to go. Then a loving hand is laid on us: “Little one, you cannot go,” they say; “your little face will burn, and your nice white dress be spoiled.” We feel it must be for our good, it is so lovingly said; but we cannot understand; and we kneel still with one little cheek wistfully pressed against the pane. Afterwards we go and thread blue beads, and make a string for our neck; and we go and stand before the glass. We see the complexion we were not to spoil, and the white frock, and we look into our own great eyes. Then the curse begins to act on us. It finishes its work when we are grown women, who no more look out wistfully at a more healthy life; we are contented.’

Lest this sound too earnest, I shall hasten to add that The Story of an African Farm is often wryly amusing, with the comedy of characters – the large aunt who has a string of suitors come to propose marriage, and the weedy, bullied man who succeeds. The self-satisfied Englishman who is finally vanquished. Gentle misunderstandings and competing personalities amongst those on the farm. Both well written and thought-provoking, The Story of an African Farm isn’t your average Victorian three-volume novel, but it is authentic and purposeful, and I look forward to studying it more closely in the future.

Sony Reader: The Carbon Copy’s Verdict

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To continue with the theme (and do keep the questions coming), Colin has emailed me in his thoughts on the Sony Reader. And you’ll see why he’s considered funnier than me :-) He blogs at www.colinjthomas.co.uk. Here goes with his verdict:

One of the chief problems of the literary world over the last few years has been Harry Potter. How is someone in their twenties supposed to read the adventures of the boy wizard, without losing all trace of credibility? No longer young enough to read it for pleasure, not yet old enough to pretend I’m doing it because I’m worried about what the kids are reading, the choices are few.
Bloomsbury realised this some time ago, and so introduced the ‘adult’ covers, enabling us to read the same text but with a dark, grown-up picture on the front. This worked well for about twenty minutes, but soon enough even these covers became easily recognisable as JK Rowling’s work (the big gold ‘Harry Potter’ emblazoned on the front didn’t help), and we were back to square one. And trust me, wrapping the dust jacket from Wuthering Heights round the cover doesn’t help, since sooner or later someone will ask you how it’s going, and you’ll tell them you’ve always preferred Emily Bronte’s other work. Embarrassing.
This is where the e-reader comes in. With no tell-tale cover, nobody on the train can know that the reason you’ve missed your stop is that you’re frantically trying to work out if Hagrid’s going to die or not – and if anyone asks you what you’re reading, it is but the click of a button to bring up The Merchant of Venice or Ulysses. Of course, the lack of cover art does have its drawbacks; most notably that you can’t tell which way up the book should be. I know I opened it upside down as often as not.
Of course, if you’re not actually reading Harry Potter (or the Famous Five, Postman Pat annual, etc) there is the opposite problem that you can’t silently show off what you’re reading. What point is there in reading Hamlet (as I did in testing the e-reader) if you can’t let everyone around you know that that’s the kind of intelligent chap you are? I tried to make up for this by quoting extensively at every opportunity, but that’s not always an option – and on public transport, people have their headphones in half the time anyway.
Speaking of which, this e-reader does offer the chance to listen to music while reading, though it’s only really possible to fit a dozen or fewer songs on, I believe – as default it came with a lullaby. Clearly someone in a boardroom had the tag line “If you like reading, you’ll love falling asleep!” in mind, though sadly it didn’t make it to final product. Lullaby or not, I find the music cute, but fundamentally unnecessary: anyone who buys an e-reader will already own a dozen other gadgets that they can plug headphones into.
In fact, the surge of the music industry is perhaps a good parallel with the book world: from vinyl through to mp3, steadily the physical product has been sacrificed on the altar of convenience – a shame, since album artwork, like that of Abbey Road, Sgt. Pepper and Dark Side of the Moon, has lost its importance in the face of invisible downloads. Perhaps this is the direction that the literary world is headed.
Do I detect the sound of spluttering? This is probably not a wise arena in which to compare literature with popular music, and I know that there are those – and I can see my brother leading the way, banner held aloft – who regard books as sacred, and more than the sum of their text. I have heard Simon go into raptures about end-paper (whatever that is) and reject recently published books based on the their lack of mouldy smell – ay, there’s the rub. Book-lovers will not be won over, even if the e-reader does allow you to take your entire library with you on holiday (actually, book-lovers will not be able to take their entire library, since none but the best-known books will make it to download, I fear). While the manufacturers (Sony? I should know things like this, as a reviewer) have gone to some length to make it look as much like a book as possible, it’s not sufficiently distinctive (ie falling apart) to appeal to some. Not to mention the fact that the crossover of bibliophiles and technophobes is not insignificant.
Personally, I like the idea of computerising at least some of our books. Yes, it’s phenomenally annoying that whenever you ‘turn the page’ (press a button), the new page appears in negative for half a second before showing itself correctly, reminding you that you’re reading e-ink, not ink-ink. Yes, when I tried exploring it a little, it crashed – I bet the first folio didn’t do that – producing that unique feeling of helplessness and fury that only men with computers can know. And yes, it was rather vexing that the only Jane Austen book not on there was the one I was currently reading (Northanger Abbey, since you ask. But that’s definitely a book I want people to know I’m reading. Chicks dig guys who read Austen, I’m reliably informed). But the clincher for me – other than concealing my Harry Potter habit – is having the choice of hundreds of books wherever you are. Well, that and not having to dust so much. I won’t be re-downloading my existing books, but I’d certainly consider downloading future purchases.

The Reader – Questions?

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A brief interlude whilst I wait for The Carbon Copy’s musings… to ask if anyone has any questions about the Reader? No use me blathering on if you have something specific to ask… saw this Q&A on someone else’s blog, and thought it was a good idea.

Of course, as Phil already found out, I might not know. If I don’t, I’ll forward your questions onto Those Who Will Know (probably nice Huw who sent the Reader to me) and get back to you!