Reading Week

It's 'Reading Week' this week. I thought that this would be a staple of all universities but as I have found out it doesn't happen everywhere let me explain that this is a week when you do exactly as it says on the tin; catch up on your reading.  It's a real luxury and enabled me to write the first draft of my first essay yesterday.  I'm suffering a bit from a cold at the moment so I'm anticipating that I wrote a load of old rubbish but I'll find out when I start to edit tomorrow.  The thing that is worrying me most is King's reference differently from the Open University so I will have to pore over my MHRA stylebook tomorrow and see if I can make sense.  I always think the worst thing about an essay is that blank piece of paper staring at you so at least I have plenty to edit (or so the theory goes).

My other goals are to do some reading about T.S. Eliot to help me think about my MA dissertation and enable me to start talking to someone about a PhD proposal (how scary is that - we're only 6 weeks into the MA!)  I've identified who I think could be a supervisor if King's will have me and will need to approach him next week but I want to be able to say something sensible to him.  In addition I need to sort out my thoughts about one of my module essays particulalry what texts I will use & what approaches.  I feel a bit muddled at the moment so hopefully that will all be sorted by next Tuesday (yeah, right!)

But I have taken the opportunity to read some books which aren't on the course - yay!

Meritocracy was written by Jeffrey Lewis who used to be one of the writers on Hill Street Blues.  It's part of a quartet but this is the only one I have read and I think it stands alone well.  It's summer 1966 and a group of Yale graduates meet at one of their family summer homes in Maine.  The family gravitates around a golden couple: Harry, the son of a California senator, and his new wife Sacha.  Our narrator Louie is not old money and, perhaps, a little in love with both Harry & Sacha.  Harry has volunteered for Vietnam although no-one is sure if it is because he thinks it his duty or he will need it to look like he did his duty when he enters politics later in life.  Louie is looking back on this trip and constantly compares Harry to George W. Bush who they knew at Yale.  It's a decent enough read, I don't think you're going to be shocked by what happens but I think if you are looking for something to while away a couple of hours it's good enough. 

As you may know I'm really interested in the Kennedys and have read a lot about them.  T saw this in our local library and thought I would be interested.  If you are interested in the Kennedys too you might want to read it but I wouldn't necessarily recommend reading it without a healthy dose of cynacism.  Heymann claims that Jackie and Bobby had an affair after JFK's assasination - perhaps they did, certainly from everything I have read they were very close.  This is a seedy enough assertion in itself but then he backs it up using interviews with family members and close friends.  I find this difficult to believe.  This is a family that protects itself (and has the money and contacts to do so) as fiercely as any mother with her cub.  Would they really be willing to spill the beans on something which would ruin the reputations of both Jackie and, probably more importantly to them, Bobby?  Heyman aims to show Bobby in as bad a light as possible and so even leaves out some of his dying words (I have read in a number of accounts that he asked if everyone was alright) to make him less likeable.  Now, I'm a biased reader and you may want to take that into account when reading this review but I don't like an author who seems to veer off at any given moment to add another few lines of, irrelevant, malicious gossip.

I love Pride and Prejudice.  It would be one of my desert island books and I have read some sequels most of which aren't up to it and one which was verging on soft porn, Mr. Darcy takes a wife if you must know, although I gave that up after a few chapters (honestly.)  I haven't read any P.D. James, as I'm not particularly a fan of murder mystery unless I'm interested in the setting or the period, but T is a fan of hers and wanted this for completeness.  I have to say that I think I enjoyed it.  I think James captures the world of Pemberley in a way that I can buy into easily.  She has changed some of the characters and I'm not sure I liked that but, it is her book.  She focuses more on Darcy and less on Elizabeth which is interesting.  She also introduces some new characters and does that well.  Mrs. Bennett is absent from Pemberley so if you are a fan you might be disappointed.  James does use characters from Persuasion and Emma briefly in one character's backstory and I found that slightly jarring but not enough to put me off.  I felt the mystery was almost incidental, just a device to get everyone together but that was OK - I liked being with them, for whatever reason.  I think a fan of Pride and Prejudice would find this more enjoyable than a P.D. James murder mystery fan but not if they hate someone making any alterations at all to Austen's characters or world.  I think it's a great Christmas present.

Anyway I must get back to T.S. Eliot so thank you for reading.

Hello again (or just hello if this is the first entry you've seen!)

It's Friday afternoon and I'm sitting at my desk at home rather than contemplating leaving the office to join the horrible, heaving mass that is London Bridge station on a Friday afternoon.  That's not to say there were some nice things about the journey - it was a good way to spend 30 or 40 minutes with a book or catching up on the internet but I have to say that this is much less stressful.

All that is, of course, by way of saying that Tuesday was my final day at work and it was a very strange experience.  It was lovely to get the most gorgeous present off three friends and I got an amazing official leaving present which will be incredibly useful in buying all the books I need for my MA (hopefully).  I had a wonderful speech from a friend who had remembered far more of the rubbish I had told him over the years than I'm sure is good for his health.  It makes me ashamed to think of the waffle I have passed on.  In the evening we had lovely drinks & thank you to all for you for your lovely words, your really kind presents and for coming to make sure I had really gone.  Particular thanks to two of you for staying to the bitter end and for the lovely meal, especially as you both had work the next day.

So since then it has, I suppose, felt a bit like a three day weekend.  I've been for walks in the sunshine (sorry to rub it in), done shopping and generally been able to prepare for going on holiday in a much less rushed way than normal.  It does feel weird though, knowing that everyone is still in the office doing what they were doing whilst I was there and I do miss talking to so many of you.  We've been through a lot together over these years.

So onto the books - I finished Dead Reckoning on Wednesday night even though I tried really hard to eek it out a bit longer.  If you like the other Southern Vampire Mysteries I see no reason why you wouldn't like this but I don't know, there was something a little dissatisfying about it for me.  If you've read it I would be really pleased to hear what you think and maybe it would help me sort out my feelings about the book.  As usual it was a good easy read and I find the world really interesting but maybe it's just because the plots need to be dark to set up the end of the series?  Anyway no True Blood & no new novels - not sure what I'm going to do for a while!

We're discussing Northanger Abbey this week on my Jane Austen course (where else) - very interesting.  Discussions around is she parodying Gothic or Gothic readers?  I think a little of both and of course there is a lot of appeal to the vanity of the reader so perhaps she is mocking us too.  Northanger Abbey is very concerned with the issue of the danger of reading novels which was extremely topical around the turn of the nineteenth century.  Critics felt that young girls would be poorly influenced by the books they read.  This is a debate well and truly settled of course - only it isn't.  I had a look on the Guardian book pages today & was amused to see this which is about the dangers of reading romantic novels for women.  Good to know the world moves on isn't it! 

We also continue with Ceremony on the Modern American Novel course.  It hasn't really been much of a favourite (although I really like it) so discussions are reasonably limited on this one.  We've been looking at the way Silko interweaves poetry and prose.  I think her prose writing is very poetic: there's a lot of repetition, imagery and a real rhythm to it.  We also had to vote whether she should have revealed some of the tribal ceremonies in the novel - it is very evenly balanced.  I had to think long and hard about this one.  I know many Native American critics are unhappy she has talked about something they hold sacred but I do think it adds to the novel and to our understanding of Native American practices and surely than can only be a good thing?

I've also started The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal.  If you've read the earlier entries you'll know I saw him in conversation with Penelope Lively recently.  I'm only on about chapter 5 but very much enjoying it.  He's trying hard not just to capture the losses his extremely wealthy, Jewish family suffered during the twentieth century (unfortunately they had based themselves in Vienna and Paris) but to also teach us something about the Netsuke collection he inherited and about touch and its importance.  It's beautifully written and I'll keep you updated and on my progress.


I will be taking Pride and Prejudice, Beloved and Mansfield Park on holiday so will updated you on those when I return.  P&P is a re-read (who can read it too often) but the others are new to me so ...  If you have read any of these books or want to say anything about any other book please feel free to comment.  I'd like to hear from you.

I'll be back after my holiday to bore you to death with pictures and tales from my adventures. Any burglars reading this - please be aware there will be someone at home the whole time I'm gone so sorry!

Look forward to seeing you soon & thanks again for everything.

This week's reading

I hope you don't mind me harping on about the books I read?  I really want to share them with you when they're good or bad and as so many of you are voracious readers anyway I thought you might be interested.  So as they say on the news, if you don't want to know what I've been reading this week, look away now!

First the pleasure bit, although I was supposed to be keeping Dead in the Family (Southern Vampire Mysteries 10) until I went on holiday, I couldn't resist.  My excuse is I need to read some Jane Austen on the plane & I'll probably (read for that definitely) pick up some books whilst in Boston.  It's getting very dark in Sookie's world, we're post Hurricane Katrina and some real trauma for her.  I won't say much more about the plot for people who haven't read it yet but it definitely is a good one.  I have (it's not easy for hardbacks to travel) started the final (for now) one, Dead Reckoning, and, if anything, that's even darker.  Here's the link to author Charlaine Harris's website for anyone interested.  She blogs a bit about her thoughts and there's a community board although I haven't ventured onto that  ... yet. 

We're reading Ceremony in my Modern American Novel course.  I'd never read any Native American literature before and was really unsure how I'd get on with it but I absolutely loved it.  It's the story of a part Native American, part Mexican, part White man, Tayo, who is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of his experiences in the Second World War (he was taken prisoner by the Japanese).  Of course no-one knows what PTSD is just after the war so he is ineffectively treated by the white doctors and needs help from the medicine men on the Peublo on which he lives.  This provides Silko with a good opportunity to look at identity and issues of heritage and story telling plays a massive part in this.  I'd really recommend it to all of you and if you're in a book group it would be great for that.

This weekend I've been re-reading Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen.  I love it and had forgotten quite how awful the behaviour of some of the characters is.  It's a parody of the Gothic and readers of Gothic novels but if you're not an expert in the genre the Oxford World Classics edition has great notes in the back to help you understand exactly what Austen is doing.  I find this book laugh out loud and would recommend it to everyone even those who don't like Jane Austen normally - yes there is love and marriage in it but read carefully, I don't wholly buy that she writes fairty tale romantic endings.  I've also noticed this time that in the same way Elizabeth dates her love of Darcy from seeing Pemberly for the first time, Catherine Morland, the heroine here, is really rather taken with Northanger Abbey itself.  These Austen heroines had their heads screwed on all right!

I'm debating whether to try and get a week ahead on my courses or cope with catching up when I get back - not sure yet but it's Pride and Prejudice on the Austen course and Beloved on the Modern American Novel so I'm really looking forward to working through them whatever I decide.

I've also learnt this weekend that I'm not very good at finding people on Facebook so if you do want to connect please invite me - not sure if there are many Sandra Perkins on there but this is my avatar - isn't he adorable.  He doesn't actually have a name because I didn't want to favour any of the players (well I was torn between Stevie, which doesn't sound right for a bird, and Fernando, which probably doesn't either and just as well I didn't pick that) but I think he's OK with it!

See you soon, I hope

Sandra