Notes, Notings, and Common Refrains

Two Arguments For an Ugly Duckling Post:

Argument One: The protagonist "duckling" of the story is an outsider within his own family, and fails to embody their concept of "normal," because it is physically impossible for him to do so. He is therefore ostracized and bullied. This echoes the lived experience of many children with physical disabilities.

Argument Two: In (perhaps) the most famous modern retelling (The Danny Kaye musical bio-pic of Andersen), The Ugly Duckling is used, specifically, as a metaphor for illness, and how physical difference is a magnet for acts of public bullying. ... and this modern understanding of the story underscores how our society puts the responsibility for bullying on the shoulders of the victims, and makes "Cure" the most legitimate response.

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One Big Argument Against an Ugly Duckling Post:

Argument One and Only: There's Zero Evidence in text that Andersen, himself, intended the "Duckling's" experience to be a metaphor for illness or disability. ...

And because of that, I'm not sure whether the story would count as being within the purview of my blog. Sure, the original source was penned well before the onset of the Great War, but that specific retelling (YouTube clip from the film) came a solid two generations afterward. And that raises the philosophical question of whether or not the telling and the retelling are, in fact, the same story.

Now, if I could find some evidence that that movie interpretation had some basis in fact -- that that is what Andersen intended, than I'd have no compunction whatsoever about including it (and it would make March the month for our Web-footed Friends, over there).

Because there was a general Tornado Watch for the entire area (a solid line of severe storm for about 100 miles to the north and south of this house) between midnight and three am, and those "Watches" were becoming "Warnings" (as in wake the kids, and climb into the bathtub now) with alarming frequency as the thing came steadily closer from the southwest. And I sure as Hell wasn't going to get out of my chair and sleep in the same room as a 7' by 5' plate glass sliding door.

So I hung out in the bathroom (interior, no windows), where the reading light is good, and read more Jane Austen. I'm getting an inkling of an idea for an English Essay (Enablers! You know who you are!), with the thesis being: "Charles Dickens wrote Plot, but Jane Austen wrote Character."

I would, however, have to go back and reread Dickens, first. But that's just my impression, right now, based on my memory of what reading Dickens felt like, compared to the feeling I'm getting reading Austen: even though she proceeds him by two generations, she feels more modern to me.

Anyway, around 2:30-3:00, I realized I wasn't hearing the wind and thunder anymore, so I ventured out to turn the local news, to see if they were still showing the weather radar, and where that great band of red and yellow and purple was.

The local CBS crew had been on air, continuously, without commercials or breaks, since a little after 11:30. And when I turned them on at 3, they were all rather punchy, to say the least, making jokes about coming in for the morning shift... I bet they all have sleep deprevation headaches, right now (Sympathizes).

You want to argue against global warming some more? huh?

Semi-Random thoughts on telepathic communication with aliens:

Way back here, somewhere, I wrote a bit about how I think the TARDIS's Translation Engine works -- how she's only able to translate for someone after she knows how that person's mind is organized. I'm now thinking, also, that, for the non-Timelord companion assistant, the experience of having one's mind read, and having to use telepathy every day to communicate with the Doctor, himself,* probably alters the wiring in the brain, creating brand-new neural pathways that never existed before. So maybe, after a while, people just naturally become telepathic, without the need for a technilogical go-between (which could explain how everybody is able to understand everybody else, even when the TARDIS is not around).

As for what that would feel like... I imagine it would be something like a mental version of subtitles: you'd hear each alien word or phrase with your ears perfectly clearly, but at the same time, that alien sound would trigger a neuron in your brain where the memory of the word you know is stored. So it would be a bit like simultaneous translation of interviews with foreign dignitaries on the radio: You'd hear the alien start to speak with your physical ear, and then, maybe a split second behind that, the alien voice would fade somewhat from your immediate attention, and you'd hear the words in your own language with your mind's ear... Maybe in a slightly altered version of your own voice, or the voice similiar to someone you remember, depending on your emotional response to the entity speaking to you (someone who reminds you of your high school assistant principal would trigger a similiar sounding voice in your head, etc.) Definitely freaky, at first, but because it becomes an automatic response to just about everything, you'd probably stop thinking about it, after awhile.

Jane Austen adaptations on PBS:

It's Pledge Time for PBS, this weekend, so instead of showing the next adaptation of Jane Austen, they showed a "Special Presentation," introducing The Complete Jane Austen (two-thirds of the way through the series? Seems a bit late for "introductions," but oh well). Part of the special included interview bits with Andrew Davies. The man may be great at writing screenplays, but much of what he said, regarding what Jane Austen's Work Really Means, had me wishing I could talk back at him, and say: "No, no, no-no, that's just wrong."

Such as: that simply touching hands is far too subtle for modern audiences --that the implied sexuality would just fly right over our heads without his wonderfully crafted, made-up, scenes of men being dashing and daring, and the women in their bedchambers, half dressed. I think that tension would still come through to modern audiences, in context... If the actors never touch each other for an hour and twenty minutes, but they still blush and stammer, and don't know where to put their sweaty-palmed hands when they talk to each other, and then, in the last ten minutes, they finally do touch -- the invisible bubbles they had around them finally broken, and they make contact. I think audiences, even those who watch HBO these days, would get that. Also, he said that Austen's advice to men is to be strong and reserved, and keep silent and don't talk, until you're overcome with emotion, and let everything spill out at once.... Um, as a woman? Can I just say: "No thanks. Bye," to that?

Her heroes may act that way, but I think that's mostly a literary conceit to build up the mystery behind the romance. As I said before, she takes great pains to distinguish between those with good manners and those who are good. So I take her advice (for both men and women) to be: "Educate yourself. Be interested in the world beyond your own ego, because stupid people make horrible partners. Forget about being Prince (or Princess) Charming. Be generous. Be honest. Be forgiving."

My sweet potato vine:

This Green!Critter is pretty fabu, really... It's like-- like-- you know, when you put two mirrors up facing each other, and the images inside them recur forever, getting smaller and smaller, but still the same? That's the way the leaves grow on the stem. According to official, encyclopedia-like discriptions, the leaves grow in pairs, opposite each other on the stem. And that's right, but only sorta. You see, the leaves stagger themselves through time. As one leaf grows, the bud for the next one appears a short way down the stem, across from it. As the first leaf reaches maturity, the second leaf starts to grow, and the bud for the next leaf appears on its stem.

Here, I made a picture to show it (but I realized, just now, I got the veining wrong...Oh well):


When Audrey first potted up the plant for me, she said to be careful not to overwater it, because the pot had no drain hole. But when I was conservative with the water, the older leaves would dry up and die as soon as the newest leaf got to its full size... And the roots were skimming very surface of the soil -- not even anchoring it in -- they were so hungry for the water. So now, as each leaf matures, I check the soil (it's often dry and powdery to the touch), and give it a good soaking. The plant is much happier now.

For a long time, now, the main stem, from which all the leaves are sprouting has been draping over the edge of the pot. At first, I thought it was wilting. But the stem is strong to the touch. ... Then I realized that the vine wants something to wrap around, and the edge of the pot was the only thing available. So now, there's a plastic bendy straw stuck in the soil, and the stem is propped up on that. When I first propped the stem on the straw, the leaves were pointed sideways; they were fully vertical within twelve hours... Seems like a good way, to me, to see how fast the plant is growing. ...Is playing with a plant by changing its orientation like teasing a cat with a flashlight beam? Just wondering...

*I mean, we don't really know, do we, if he really speaks English (since everyone else, from Marco Polo to the Cybermen also speak English)? And now that I think about it, I really doubt it. He's probably just talking Gallifreyan all the time, but we just hear English. Maybe that's why he dropped the posh accent after he met Rose: we're hearing what she heard, in her head.

From the front flyleaf of that volume of Jane Austen I recently bought:

Jane Austen: Seven Novels is part of Barnes & Noble's Library of Essential Writers. Each title in the series presents the finest works--complete and unabridged--from one of the greatest writers in literature [yadda, yadda, yadda]*

Those "essential writers" are all listed on the back flyleaf:

• Jane Austen Seven Novels


• Lewis Carroll Complete Works


• Joseph Conrad Complete Short Stories


• James Fenimore Cooper Five Novels


• Daniel Defoe Five Novels


• Charles Dickens Five Novels


• Alexandre Dumas Three Novels


• Gustave Flaubert Five Novels


• E. M. Forster Four Novels


• Ernest Hemmingway Four Novels


• O. Henry The Fiction


• Jack London Six Novels


• Edgar Allen Poe Fiction and Poetry


• Robert Louis Stevenson Seven Novels


• Bram Stoker Five Novels**


• Leo Tolstoy Three Novels


• Mark Twain Five Novels


• Jules Verne Seven Novels
  
• H. G. Welles Seven Novels


• Oscar Wilde Collected Works

I counted. That's twenty "essential" writers, and only one of them is a woman.

This "library" is being marketed as some sort official starting point for someone looking to fill the gaps in his or her literary education. It would be perfectly reasonable for that hypothetical someone to come away with the idea that "Women don't write 'literature,' except for the one that proves the rule."

Now, granted, women have, through the years, had less access to education than men, and less economic freedom which would have allowed them to pursue writing, so I wouldn't expect a list that spans two hundred years to have absolute gender parity. But nineteen to one in the favor of the men strikes me as a just a bit extreme.

So here's my challenge to you, dear Readers: which of these male writers would you take off the list, and which female writers would you insert in their place? I think a ratio of four to one (five female authors out of twenty total) seems reasonable. And for consistancy's sake, there seems to be a rule that writer have more than one complete book published in her name.

I have my ideas. But I'm looking for more.

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*Ah. So that's why I could only find this heavy, clunky, hardbacked volume, instead of a more portable paperback: B&N doesn't want to sell any edition from a rival publisher (And they also want to promote themselves as being just a bit hoity-toity and "cultured," so it's a hardback "library" for them). Humph!

**He wrote more than one?

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[ETA: samantha2074 is right. There are a few twentieth century writers on the list, but they're all, except for Hemmingway, from before the Great War. And that, dispite the calender, really is the turning point into the Twentieth Century (So say I :-P). So that brings up another bias: why must the essential "finest works" of the world's "greatest literature" be so distant from us, culturally?

I got my Bachelor's degree from a very traditionally-minded liberal arts college, and I nearly got my Master's from another. And even though they're the sorts of schools that oft get criticized for being fuddy-duddy and teaching "Dead White Men," my education was a lot more hip and wide-ranging than Barnes & Nobel standards!]

EEEEeeeeeEEEEeee!!!

(how many book illustrations have you come across that you need a moment to realize what you are looking at, and once you do, they make you gasp in surprise? That happened a couple of times, with this book)

::Deep breath::

I'm not sure if I'm even able to review this book without spoilering it to smithereens, but, um:

EEEEeeeeeEEEEeee!!!

A paragraph bit from the acknowledgements, at the end:

"The automaton came to the museum 1n 1928, after being damaged in a fire. It had stopped working, but once it was refurbished, it astonished its new owners by drawing four different pictures and writing three different poems. And [spoiler deleted], the automaton at the Franklin Institute, once it was fixed, signed the name of its maker, Maillardet, thus solving the mystery of its provenance.

To see the Maillardet automaton and learn more about it, you can go to: http://www.fi.edu/pieces/knox/automaton/"

Um, yeah. That's just part of the inspiration for this book... also: living inside walls, and clocks, and ... yeah.

:::Happy sigh:::

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You know, this book is lacking the gold foil copy of the Caldecott award stuck on its cover, and this volume was nowhere near the display of award winners, and had no attention drawn to it at all. I'm wondering if the people in the bookstore were even aware that it had won the Caldecott.... I mean, come on! I thought the whole reason to give these awards to books is so that parents and teachers would know they existed, and buy them for their kids (students). Isn't that what bookstores want, too?

I did say that Barnes and Nobles were Dens of Evilness in Bookseller Form, didn't I?

ETA: Damn! I went back to the website above, to rewatch the YouTube video, and it's no longer available! I wonder why it was taken down... It looks like a video produced by the Franklin Institute, and it was on the FI website... so I doubt it was there unauthorized... Hmmm... You can still see the still pictures, though.

I give you more from Persuasion (YAY! I spelled it with an 's' instead of a 't' on the very first go!).

This passage comes at the very end of the book, so I'm sorry if it comes as a spoiler (But, hey: it's a Jane Austen romance novel. Doesn't everyone know at the outset that all six of her heroines end up with their right matches, at the end? The suspense is in the how). But this bit had me saying "Yesyesindeedso-justso. Yes!" as I was reading it:

... The disproportion in their fortune was nothing*; it did not give her a moment's regret; but to have no family to receive and estimate him properly, nothing of respectability, of harmony, of good will to offer in return for all the worth and all the prompt welcome which met her in his brothers and sisters, was a source of as lively pain as her mind could well be sensible of under circumstances of otherwise strong felicity. ...

This bit reminds me a bit of Sandra Bullock's character in While You Were Sleeping: The heroine doesn't just fall in love with her "love interest," but with his entire circle of friends and family.

And as someone with no brothers and sisters, and whose youngest and closest cousin (in terms of genes, if not acquaintance and distance) is ten years older than I, I read this passage with a pang, and felt pretty close to the heroine in more than just a one-letter difference in our names...

A circle of friends, and welcoming family, is important. Just as important as any romantic connection brought on by the metaphoric shot of Cupid's arrow through the heart.

It's a point that Austen makes throughout the book. Not only does Austen tell us how unhappy Anne is, trapped in a house with her father and older sister, but she quickly moves Anne out of that house into another, where Austen can contrast the petty neuroses of Anne's sister Mary with the healthier family of the Musgroves. The Musgroves have their own prides and foolishness, but it's also clear that they love and support each other. And gradually, even without saying a single word directly, Austen shows us how her heroine is gradually regaining her boldness and feelings of self-worth (even while she reports the self-doubts that play through Anne's head through the sheer force of habit), absorbing healthier feelings about herself as though through osmosis. So when the accident happens, it's not at all surprising when she takes charge of the situation and everyone listens to her and respects her intelligence.

(As I'm writing this paragraph, I'm thinking about how thoroughly modern Jane Austen is, as a writer, in terms of psychological complexity and realism in her characters [at least in this novel]. I think she's even more modern than Dickens, in this regard, and she was writing her works about fifty years earlier than Dickens. Perhaps the fact that she was a woman, and therefore forced to write anonymously, gave her more creative freedom, even as it restricted profits from her labors.)

Austen wrote six novels; I've now read half of them. So far, Persuasion is my favorite. Mansfield Park will be dramatized on TV tomorrow night (with Billie Piper in the heroine's role). After reading the synopsis on Wikipedia, I'm not particularly looking forward to it -- it sounds prudish and puritanical, and tangled, plot-wise, and melodramatic. I'm am intrigued by Emma, though; apparently, the protagonist in that story is a manipulative and cunning anti-heroine (I've got to give kudos to Austen for writing a very different story, each time she published a novel. Writing only six books in your lifetime may seem paltry, by today's standards. But today's authors seem to hit on one winning formula, and write that one thing over and over. Austen was in the middle of writing a seventh book, when she died, and I think it was going to be a book that focused on brothers. Too bad she never got to finish that. That would have been interesting).

*Anne came from a noble family, but by the time she married, her father had squandered her inheritance to a fraction of ten thousand pounds. Captain Wentworth had a fortune of twenty-five thousand pounds -- and he had earned it.

I've read Jane Austen before -- I read Pride and Prejudice in high school, and Northanger Abbey in college. And I enjoyed the experience both times.

But it wasn't until I saw the televised production of Persuasion, last Sunday, that I was tempted, again, to read Austen outside of an academic context, mostly because I found the television production utterly confusing, and that the ending came on too quickly, in an "OMG My Romantic Ending is Pasted on, Yay!" sort of way, and I knew enough of Austen to know she was a much more careful writer than that, and I wanted to see what she'd put in that the tv-show makers left out.

So this is the first time I've read Austen as a mature adult (I certainly wasn't emotionally mature in high school, and I was just on the cusp maturity in my mid-twenties). This is also the first time I've read her work in an open-ended way, without teacher-led discussions on What it All Means, or any time limits or essays to be expected and graded at the end.

So, maybe, this is the first time I've read any Jane Austen, full stop.

Some thoughts:

• This is the last of Jane Austen's novels, completed when she was 41 (my age, sorta). She was starting to get ill halfway through writing it, and she died before it could be published. I can't help but wonder what she would have changed or polished up a bit, if she'd gotten the chance.



• As I'm reading, I'm finding myself fascinated with studying how she contrasts a character's internal thoughts and the external events that trigger them (something that I have particular trouble balancing, in my own work), and how she can a) make it perfectly clear and reasonable why her protagonist thinks something, and b) makes it clear that maybe, possibly, probably, the protagonist has it All Wrong -- at the same time! She's a master at this. I must study, more closely, how she does it.



• There's something very poignant, isn't there, about a woman at the end of her life writing a story about confronting the deepest regrets of our lives, and being forgiven for our mistakes (even if she wasn't consciously aware of the end, when she began)?



• The dialogue! Did people really talk like that, 200-something years ago, or is that literary convention? I suspect the latter. But really, like the number of licks it takes to get to the tootsie roll center, the world may never know...



• I know I've gone on at length, here, about how literature is over-rated as the be-all and end-all of culture. But there is something very good about reading, too -- especially when you know that's the original form it was created in (instead of a tv adaptation, or movie or play). Watching an adaptation is like listening to two people talking at the same time: the original author, and the adaptor. Even with a very good adaptation, the two people are not saying the same thing, and sometimes (often?) you can't quite make out what the author actually says. Reading something that was created to be read is a bit like sitting down to a personal conversation with someone, and now that I'm reading without a teacher looking over my shoulder, I'm getting a very strong sense of this from Austen's "voice".



• I recently read, somewhere, that Jane Austen thought her protagonist was "too good." I thought I'd read that in the Wikipedia article on Persuasion, but it's not there. ... In any case, if Miss Austen had been around and asked me to beta-read, to ask how to fix the "too-goodness," I'd suggest that she leave her protagonist as she is, and just give her father and older sister at least some redeeming qualities. I know that's hubristic of me, to be offering advice to my ancestors, but still, I'm just saying...



• I saw this point raised on a review blog on the PBS website, about the TV adaptation, but it's a good one, and I'll raise it here, myself: How come a character like Darcy (from Pride and Prejudice), who's vain, rude, and can't dance, gets all the fangirls swooning, but Captain Wentworth, who would (probably) be a feminist, if he lived today, is virtually ignored?



• Also, I love Mrs. Croft, the Admiral's wife (and Captain Wentworth's sister). I'd invite her to dinner, most definitely. She probably knows all the best bawdy jokes.