on The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber
"Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
This novel is encyclopedic in information and in thematic implication for life, so I was having trouble deciding what to write about (also, I've been taking on a lot of roles while my wife recuperates from giving birth, so it's hard to think of anything about anything right now). I thought that the poem from which the novel takes its name might be a good place to start in narrowing down my thoughts. It wasn't. But it was fun to think about why Faber chose the name he did for this intimate epic.
Now, again, I'm having trouble thinking at this point in my life, but this poem seems to concern people and things that conceal themselves but remain of utmost importance. It also invites us to allow ourselves to be enclosed in the persona's bosom, just as we are in the Victorian world of Sugar and William.
"History of Cancer" at the American Cancer Society's Cancer Atlas
This was quite simply something I looked up while writing because I didn't know how cancer was diagnosed or treated in late 19th-century England. I was thinking of Agnes's tumor and if anyone might have suspected that existed. Turns out: someone might have been able to figure it out, but Dr. Curlew was too focused on "hysteria," the fact that Agnes suffered the insanity of being a woman, to look for the tumor. I was familiar already with these turn-of-the-century methods for treating disturbed females from reading T.C. Boyle's novel The Road to Wellville, which led me to think, in regard to such treatment: "Hold on. Whaaaat?!"
"Michael Faber: 'I would have been a different writer without my wife.'" Interview with Justine Jordan in The Guardian.
I was thinking a lot about how difficult it was for Q to be pregnant, as this one was more difficult on her than the first one, and now how little sleep she is getting because Beckett feeds about once an hour. Then I thought of difficulties that she faced as a girl with three older brothers, an NCAA women's basketball player (a sport in which ALL the players are young women, but most of the head coaches are male), and just generally being a black woman in America. Thinking on everything I know about her life and what she's dealt with reminded me of what I was reading for this class. I wondered how Faber was able to represent women's complicated thoughts and feelings on repression, subjugation, and general subjection to abusive treatment while certainly not having firsthand experience himself. Of course, it was having a strong connection with women, particularly his wife. This all fit nicely into what I decided to write about.
"Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
This novel is encyclopedic in information and in thematic implication for life, so I was having trouble deciding what to write about (also, I've been taking on a lot of roles while my wife recuperates from giving birth, so it's hard to think of anything about anything right now). I thought that the poem from which the novel takes its name might be a good place to start in narrowing down my thoughts. It wasn't. But it was fun to think about why Faber chose the name he did for this intimate epic.
Now, again, I'm having trouble thinking at this point in my life, but this poem seems to concern people and things that conceal themselves but remain of utmost importance. It also invites us to allow ourselves to be enclosed in the persona's bosom, just as we are in the Victorian world of Sugar and William.
"History of Cancer" at the American Cancer Society's Cancer Atlas
This was quite simply something I looked up while writing because I didn't know how cancer was diagnosed or treated in late 19th-century England. I was thinking of Agnes's tumor and if anyone might have suspected that existed. Turns out: someone might have been able to figure it out, but Dr. Curlew was too focused on "hysteria," the fact that Agnes suffered the insanity of being a woman, to look for the tumor. I was familiar already with these turn-of-the-century methods for treating disturbed females from reading T.C. Boyle's novel The Road to Wellville, which led me to think, in regard to such treatment: "Hold on. Whaaaat?!"
"Michael Faber: 'I would have been a different writer without my wife.'" Interview with Justine Jordan in The Guardian.
I was thinking a lot about how difficult it was for Q to be pregnant, as this one was more difficult on her than the first one, and now how little sleep she is getting because Beckett feeds about once an hour. Then I thought of difficulties that she faced as a girl with three older brothers, an NCAA women's basketball player (a sport in which ALL the players are young women, but most of the head coaches are male), and just generally being a black woman in America. Thinking on everything I know about her life and what she's dealt with reminded me of what I was reading for this class. I wondered how Faber was able to represent women's complicated thoughts and feelings on repression, subjugation, and general subjection to abusive treatment while certainly not having firsthand experience himself. Of course, it was having a strong connection with women, particularly his wife. This all fit nicely into what I decided to write about.
on Poor Things by Alasdair Gray
I've been to England and Wales, but never Scotland. I'd love to visit some day. I'm also doing some further literary research on this novel. For this blog post, unlike the past three, I relied on my own literary knowledge, as it seemed in the spirit of the post. Much of it is based on Frankenstein's monster, a guy who based his impressions of humanity on reading books he found in a woodshed. Speaking of:
Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley
Near the end of my post, I wanted to write, "I don't need test data to see if they've learned. I only need to gaze into their gelatinous orbs (This is Mary Shelley's description of the monster's eyes, and it's my favorite eyeball description in English history. See? Vocabulary usage matters even when it's not officially tested!)." As I passed my own gelatinous orbs over what I'd composed, I thought all that ruined the rhythm of the writing, so I changed it.
Despite the presence of humorously overwrought turns of phrase that plague the Romantic period, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's best-known novel, in my humble opinion, grows more important as the centuries pass. (I'm not trying to hate on the Romantics, either. I think they're great. Keats is one of my favorite poets; really, I love them all. But, come on. They were a little extra with the verbiage sometimes). It was rudimentary science fiction, and its mixture of fantastical occurrence, scientific speculation, philosophy, and artistic storytelling set the agenda for all science fiction to follow. In the 20th and 21st centuries, as sci-fi has evolved from the obsession of nerds (the pulp magazines and paperbacks, the mid-century niche of Marvel Comics) to the most popular form of American storytelling (every movie made all the time for the last 20 years, the ubiquity of Marvel), this literary form has become an important art for examining contemporary society in all its facets - not just science. Mary Shelley made that possible.
Poor Things is the perfect example. It's a wondrous work of art that examines gender, politics, and philosophy, and it's based on Shelley's template. The postmodern structure of the novel, with its fragmentation, pastiche, and lack of surety, comes from Shelley. She wasn't a postmodernist (or was she?), but she was doing all this 200 years ago. She's STILL making everyone think.
Macbeth, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, As You Like It, and Julius Caesar all by William Shakespeare
Bella Baxter begins her letters by attempting to write like Shakespeare, and bravo for her bravery. I thought some Shakespeare references would be appropriate, firstly, because of Bella's admiration for his writing.
Secondly, these lines just appeared in my mind as I was writing. I couldn't help it. I just remember them. I didn't have a standardized test to force to me to remember their importance. I did have good teachers, though, from high school all the way to graduate school (and even out of school; my dad was an English teacher) who showed me how interesting and fun Shakespeare's words are.
Thirdly, I have taught all of these plays to high school students at some point in the last 18 years. This is my first year at my current school district, and the other person who teaches sophomores does not have them read any Shakespeare plays, and for good reasons: she uses Macbeth and Othello in another course, and she hates Julius Caesar (I know several teachers who don't like that play. The last two acts are rushed and kind of boring, but there are some great lines in there.). Anyway, I got all worried about preparing these kids for this test in the middle of the year, but not reading Shakespeare would just suck. Next year, they'll take American literature, and as seniors in a composition class, they won't read any of his plays (I know because I teach all the senior composition classes). I couldn't let them leave high school having only read Romeo and Juliet.
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
This came up when I was looking at sample items from the English Language Arts 2 test from 2018. They release old test items with rationales for the multiple choices items so we can use them for the students' practice. When I first saw it, along with a passage for comparison by Ralph Waldo Emerson, I thought, "Oh, cool! We can read some Transcendentalists!" Then I thought of Emerson, spinning in his grave as we use his writing to enforce societal conformity. "Conformity is death," he told us. "Standardized testing that we create and then lobby states to require by law is awesome," replied educational testing companies. And now we read passages from Thoreau's masterpiece, answer multiple-choice questions looking, and analyze data to find out what kids are learning when, really, I could tell you what they're learning if someone would just ask me. Thoreau claimed "our life is frittered away by detail."
Also, Thoreau is mentioned in Poor Things by Astley as he explains his own philosophies to Bella. This guy shows up everywhere, including Emerson's house when he's tired of eating beans in the woods.
Sample Test Items for the Ohio State Tests in English Language Arts
I don't know how much people would want to read these after my mockery of them, but here are some sample reading and writing test items created by the American Institute of Research - we give the AIR tests, as they're called in the world of public education.
I've been to England and Wales, but never Scotland. I'd love to visit some day. I'm also doing some further literary research on this novel. For this blog post, unlike the past three, I relied on my own literary knowledge, as it seemed in the spirit of the post. Much of it is based on Frankenstein's monster, a guy who based his impressions of humanity on reading books he found in a woodshed. Speaking of:
Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley
Near the end of my post, I wanted to write, "I don't need test data to see if they've learned. I only need to gaze into their gelatinous orbs (This is Mary Shelley's description of the monster's eyes, and it's my favorite eyeball description in English history. See? Vocabulary usage matters even when it's not officially tested!)." As I passed my own gelatinous orbs over what I'd composed, I thought all that ruined the rhythm of the writing, so I changed it.
Despite the presence of humorously overwrought turns of phrase that plague the Romantic period, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's best-known novel, in my humble opinion, grows more important as the centuries pass. (I'm not trying to hate on the Romantics, either. I think they're great. Keats is one of my favorite poets; really, I love them all. But, come on. They were a little extra with the verbiage sometimes). It was rudimentary science fiction, and its mixture of fantastical occurrence, scientific speculation, philosophy, and artistic storytelling set the agenda for all science fiction to follow. In the 20th and 21st centuries, as sci-fi has evolved from the obsession of nerds (the pulp magazines and paperbacks, the mid-century niche of Marvel Comics) to the most popular form of American storytelling (every movie made all the time for the last 20 years, the ubiquity of Marvel), this literary form has become an important art for examining contemporary society in all its facets - not just science. Mary Shelley made that possible.
Poor Things is the perfect example. It's a wondrous work of art that examines gender, politics, and philosophy, and it's based on Shelley's template. The postmodern structure of the novel, with its fragmentation, pastiche, and lack of surety, comes from Shelley. She wasn't a postmodernist (or was she?), but she was doing all this 200 years ago. She's STILL making everyone think.
Macbeth, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, As You Like It, and Julius Caesar all by William Shakespeare
Bella Baxter begins her letters by attempting to write like Shakespeare, and bravo for her bravery. I thought some Shakespeare references would be appropriate, firstly, because of Bella's admiration for his writing.
Secondly, these lines just appeared in my mind as I was writing. I couldn't help it. I just remember them. I didn't have a standardized test to force to me to remember their importance. I did have good teachers, though, from high school all the way to graduate school (and even out of school; my dad was an English teacher) who showed me how interesting and fun Shakespeare's words are.
Thirdly, I have taught all of these plays to high school students at some point in the last 18 years. This is my first year at my current school district, and the other person who teaches sophomores does not have them read any Shakespeare plays, and for good reasons: she uses Macbeth and Othello in another course, and she hates Julius Caesar (I know several teachers who don't like that play. The last two acts are rushed and kind of boring, but there are some great lines in there.). Anyway, I got all worried about preparing these kids for this test in the middle of the year, but not reading Shakespeare would just suck. Next year, they'll take American literature, and as seniors in a composition class, they won't read any of his plays (I know because I teach all the senior composition classes). I couldn't let them leave high school having only read Romeo and Juliet.
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
This came up when I was looking at sample items from the English Language Arts 2 test from 2018. They release old test items with rationales for the multiple choices items so we can use them for the students' practice. When I first saw it, along with a passage for comparison by Ralph Waldo Emerson, I thought, "Oh, cool! We can read some Transcendentalists!" Then I thought of Emerson, spinning in his grave as we use his writing to enforce societal conformity. "Conformity is death," he told us. "Standardized testing that we create and then lobby states to require by law is awesome," replied educational testing companies. And now we read passages from Thoreau's masterpiece, answer multiple-choice questions looking, and analyze data to find out what kids are learning when, really, I could tell you what they're learning if someone would just ask me. Thoreau claimed "our life is frittered away by detail."
Also, Thoreau is mentioned in Poor Things by Astley as he explains his own philosophies to Bella. This guy shows up everywhere, including Emerson's house when he's tired of eating beans in the woods.
Sample Test Items for the Ohio State Tests in English Language Arts
I don't know how much people would want to read these after my mockery of them, but here are some sample reading and writing test items created by the American Institute of Research - we give the AIR tests, as they're called in the world of public education.
on Arthur & George by Julian Barnes
"Differance" by Jacques Derrida (.pdf available at gettysburg.edu)
This is one of my favorite deconstructionist theories because it just makes me think so much. When I'm finished thinking about it, it continues to delight me because it seemingly explains the transcendental nature of life that we all feel from time to time. Then, that explanation falls apart because it is merely an explanation and not the feeling itself, and inevitably, I realize that the falling apart further validates the essay's significance. It's wonderful!
I didn't think of this essay until I was formulating my idea for the blog about the significance of imagination: we rarely achieve what we imagine, but we wouldn't achieve anything without our imaginations. I don't know about anyone else, but my accomplishments never feel as good to me as imagining what I could accomplish. After realizing all of this, I recognized it as differance in action.
"Differance" on wikipedia
All right, let's get real. Not everyone is going to read the essay linked above. I didn't reread it to write my blog post. I went to this wikipedia page to make sure I still understood the concept (and I did, but it sure helped to read someone explain it again so I could make an attempt at clarifying it for my own purposes). Warning: even the simplified wikipedia explanation is a mind-bender!
"Parsis" on wikipedia
Speaking of our old friend wikipedia: at the start of the novel, I assumed George's ancestry traced to India, based on his family name and my knowledge of the history of the British empire. I had never heard of a group called Parsis, though. No surprise, there: India is all the way on the other side of the world and has a long, long, complex history made up of more cultural groups than I'm even aware of .
I read this wikipedia page for some quick reference and discovered I knew more about Parsis than I even realized; I just didn't know who they were. I know about Persians, and I know about Zoroastrians. I didn't know that a group of them moved to India and became a successful subculture on the subcontinent.
In hindsight, this knowledge about half of George's ethnic background fits well with the topic of my post regarding Barnes' novel. Parsis are different from Hindus; Indians are different from the British; even George's Scottish mother is different from the English townspeople, in their perception, I'm sure. How each group views itself and how others view the group are further proof that George would have to imagine himself as who he wants to be.
"Differance" by Jacques Derrida (.pdf available at gettysburg.edu)
This is one of my favorite deconstructionist theories because it just makes me think so much. When I'm finished thinking about it, it continues to delight me because it seemingly explains the transcendental nature of life that we all feel from time to time. Then, that explanation falls apart because it is merely an explanation and not the feeling itself, and inevitably, I realize that the falling apart further validates the essay's significance. It's wonderful!
I didn't think of this essay until I was formulating my idea for the blog about the significance of imagination: we rarely achieve what we imagine, but we wouldn't achieve anything without our imaginations. I don't know about anyone else, but my accomplishments never feel as good to me as imagining what I could accomplish. After realizing all of this, I recognized it as differance in action.
"Differance" on wikipedia
All right, let's get real. Not everyone is going to read the essay linked above. I didn't reread it to write my blog post. I went to this wikipedia page to make sure I still understood the concept (and I did, but it sure helped to read someone explain it again so I could make an attempt at clarifying it for my own purposes). Warning: even the simplified wikipedia explanation is a mind-bender!
"Parsis" on wikipedia
Speaking of our old friend wikipedia: at the start of the novel, I assumed George's ancestry traced to India, based on his family name and my knowledge of the history of the British empire. I had never heard of a group called Parsis, though. No surprise, there: India is all the way on the other side of the world and has a long, long, complex history made up of more cultural groups than I'm even aware of .
I read this wikipedia page for some quick reference and discovered I knew more about Parsis than I even realized; I just didn't know who they were. I know about Persians, and I know about Zoroastrians. I didn't know that a group of them moved to India and became a successful subculture on the subcontinent.
In hindsight, this knowledge about half of George's ethnic background fits well with the topic of my post regarding Barnes' novel. Parsis are different from Hindus; Indians are different from the British; even George's Scottish mother is different from the English townspeople, in their perception, I'm sure. How each group views itself and how others view the group are further proof that George would have to imagine himself as who he wants to be.
on Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
"The history of Canada explained in 10 minutes" from the Epimetheus account on YouTube
I feel like, for an American, I'm fairly well-versed in the history of countries other than ours. As I was reading Alias Grace, I realized how ignorant I am about the history of our northern national neighbors - I didn't realize that where I live in Ohio was once part of Quebec!? This source may not be all that reliable, I dunno. I wasn't writing about anything particularly Canadian in my Alias Grace blog, but I was still curious as to what I was missing about the Victorian era in Canada, and this video was an interesting diversion that helped me understand some of the cultural context mentioned in the novel.
"Haunting Physicality: Corpses, Cannibalism, and Carnality in Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace" by Amelia DeFalco
When I thought of writing about haunting, memory, and narrative, I wanted to see other scholars' ideas on the connections among these ideas. DeFalco's 2006 article from University of Toronto Quarterly does not address the exact connections I'm exploring, but it was an interesting exploration of the elements of thought and image that haunt characters who try to deny their corporeality, how their denial of physical life and desire causes dissolution of their mental states - or how they harm others who draw attention to their dependence on corporeality - and how Grace escapes this dissolution. I was more interested in the importance of storytelling than of Victorian attitudes on physicality, but both DeFalco and I find importance in the definition of the borders of self.
"The Uncanny" by Sigmund Freud
I knew from the first page of Alias Grace that I would be thinking of this essay - in fact, I had it in mind when some strange coincidences occurred in A.S. Byatt's Possession, so it was one of the many links of continued thought as we began our second novel in this course. Here's my obligatory "Freud's theories have been discredited in the psychological community" sentence, and they should be, as Freud himself brought up the idea that he might really have been psychoanalyzing himself for his whole career. I find his work fascinating in the analysis of literature - more so than in analyzing people's minds. This essay in particular is fun to think about any time something hauntingly weird happens, a doppleganger shows up, or coincidences feel like much more than coincidences in a work of art. This is a link to the full text of the essay from MIT...
"The Uncanny" from London's Freud Museum
...and if you don't feel like reading the whole essay, here is a post from the Freud Museum, London's website that summarizes its main points and their significance.
"The history of Canada explained in 10 minutes" from the Epimetheus account on YouTube
I feel like, for an American, I'm fairly well-versed in the history of countries other than ours. As I was reading Alias Grace, I realized how ignorant I am about the history of our northern national neighbors - I didn't realize that where I live in Ohio was once part of Quebec!? This source may not be all that reliable, I dunno. I wasn't writing about anything particularly Canadian in my Alias Grace blog, but I was still curious as to what I was missing about the Victorian era in Canada, and this video was an interesting diversion that helped me understand some of the cultural context mentioned in the novel.
"Haunting Physicality: Corpses, Cannibalism, and Carnality in Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace" by Amelia DeFalco
When I thought of writing about haunting, memory, and narrative, I wanted to see other scholars' ideas on the connections among these ideas. DeFalco's 2006 article from University of Toronto Quarterly does not address the exact connections I'm exploring, but it was an interesting exploration of the elements of thought and image that haunt characters who try to deny their corporeality, how their denial of physical life and desire causes dissolution of their mental states - or how they harm others who draw attention to their dependence on corporeality - and how Grace escapes this dissolution. I was more interested in the importance of storytelling than of Victorian attitudes on physicality, but both DeFalco and I find importance in the definition of the borders of self.
"The Uncanny" by Sigmund Freud
I knew from the first page of Alias Grace that I would be thinking of this essay - in fact, I had it in mind when some strange coincidences occurred in A.S. Byatt's Possession, so it was one of the many links of continued thought as we began our second novel in this course. Here's my obligatory "Freud's theories have been discredited in the psychological community" sentence, and they should be, as Freud himself brought up the idea that he might really have been psychoanalyzing himself for his whole career. I find his work fascinating in the analysis of literature - more so than in analyzing people's minds. This essay in particular is fun to think about any time something hauntingly weird happens, a doppleganger shows up, or coincidences feel like much more than coincidences in a work of art. This is a link to the full text of the essay from MIT...
"The Uncanny" from London's Freud Museum
...and if you don't feel like reading the whole essay, here is a post from the Freud Museum, London's website that summarizes its main points and their significance.
on Possession by A.S. Byatt
"Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" by Robert Browning
Browning's Victorian-era verse on the "Dark Tower" quest that has been passed down through European legend begins the discoveries of the layers and depth of allusion in Byatt's novel.
"from Maud, Part I" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
This excerpt from the first part of Tennyson's poem, that presumably provides Byatt with the name for her character Maud, features an auditor who speaks poetically to a woman named Maud, described as beautiful and covered under a hat - reminiscent of Randolph Henry Ash's letters to Christabel LaMotte and also the physical description of Maud Bailey.
"from Maud, Part II" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The auditor remembers Maud and the natural beauty in which they loved with descriptions of nature that evoke Maud Bailey's legendarily beautiful hair. The descriptions of their time together resemble Ash and LaMotte's scientific explorations of the seaside.
"Christabel" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Coleridge's prime predates the reign of Queen Victoria. However, his presence is felt in Possession, and the imagery, description, and character interactions (for example: a young woman who is jealous of her father's attention to a lady the young woman welcomed into their home) would make it surprising if Byatt did not mean to directly refer to this poem by naming one of her Victorian poets "Christabel."
"Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" by Robert Browning
Browning's Victorian-era verse on the "Dark Tower" quest that has been passed down through European legend begins the discoveries of the layers and depth of allusion in Byatt's novel.
"from Maud, Part I" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
This excerpt from the first part of Tennyson's poem, that presumably provides Byatt with the name for her character Maud, features an auditor who speaks poetically to a woman named Maud, described as beautiful and covered under a hat - reminiscent of Randolph Henry Ash's letters to Christabel LaMotte and also the physical description of Maud Bailey.
"from Maud, Part II" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The auditor remembers Maud and the natural beauty in which they loved with descriptions of nature that evoke Maud Bailey's legendarily beautiful hair. The descriptions of their time together resemble Ash and LaMotte's scientific explorations of the seaside.
"Christabel" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Coleridge's prime predates the reign of Queen Victoria. However, his presence is felt in Possession, and the imagery, description, and character interactions (for example: a young woman who is jealous of her father's attention to a lady the young woman welcomed into their home) would make it surprising if Byatt did not mean to directly refer to this poem by naming one of her Victorian poets "Christabel."
