To Read Watchman: A Dual Review of Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Go Set a Watchman”

It was always with a great, head-hanging shame that I would formerly to admit to people that I had not read Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Fortunately, with my ample free time this summer, combined with the release of Go Set a Watchman, I finally forced myself to read the entirety of Lee’s oeuvre, and could not be more pleased that I did.

General Opinions

Lee’s realism and wit quickly and easily hoisted To Kill a Mockingbird to a spot among my top 20 books of all time. It’s one of those books that I can see myself reading once every summer or two, and loving it more each time. Although the book is somewhat thick (376 pages in my edition), it reads quickly and easily, and untarnished by dull moments. It is what I call a chimney plot: the main plot, the “flue plot”) is encased in layer of sub plots and stories (the “story bricks”) that surround the former, all the while climbing toward the same conclusion. To Kill a Mockingbird is a masterfully constructed chimney plot, Go Set a Watchman is not. Do not misunderstand me, it is not a bad book. In fact, it is quite good and, aside from the dissimilar plot construction, it is still very “Harper Lee” in style, possessing the same wit and realism as its sibling. My recommendation is the following: If you liked TKAM, read GSAW. I doubt you will enjoy the latter as much as the former, but it is a worthwhile, entertaining, and enlightening read, and doesn’t merit being neglected because of unfounded fears of a tarnished hero. If you are having these fears, and they haven’t yet been doused by the numerous corrective reports, please continue reading below.

Uh, Objection Your Honor

At this point, the only reasons that people still have the fear of seeing Atticus Finch fall from the celestial pedestal upon which they have placed him is because, first, they haven’t read GSAW, and second, they haven’t read one of the aforementioned corrective reports flooding the internet. At this point, it has been determined that GSAW was written and submitted for publication before TKAM, but was rejected in its then-current state, and Lee was told to make some changes. From those changes, an entirely different book, TKAM, was born. GSAW then, although its plot is set some years after that of TKAM, cannot, logically, be a sequel to TKAM. TKAM, rather, could be considered a spin-off of GSAW.

If chronology isn’t enough to persuade the reader of this, perhaps the books themselves will. In TKAM, Atticus fails at convincing a jury of the innocence of a one-armed black man accused of raping a 19 year-old white girl. However, in GSAW, we learn that the girl was 14 years of age, and that Atticus succeeded in winning him an acquittal. The accused rapist, though, is, as in TKAM, a one-armed black man who, like in TKAM, lost his arm in a sawmill accident. The cases are both alike and unalike enough to show us that, while the characters have the same names in both books, and the town in both is called Maycomb, the stories are not the same. The Atticus Finch in TKAM is not the Atticus Finch of GSAW, and likewise for Scout, Calpurnia, and the other characters, no matter how much the characters in the two books seem to be mirror images of one another.

All of these things said, I hope, if you are one of those who is hesitant to have their untarnished image of Atticus Finch obliterated, you will reconsider the moral stains which you so fear and realize that GSAW-Atticus Finch’s racism is in no way an ethical deterioration of the morally outstanding of TKAM-Atticus Finch. This book is too good and too important an occasion to not read it for such unfounded, albeit understandable, reasons.

How Great is “The Great Gatsby”?: A Review

Perhaps, in writing this review, I risk incurring the terrible wrath of the literary community, and the eventual forfeiture of my Bookworm membership. However, my ethics compel me to tell the truth which is, I did not find The Great Gatsby to be a great read. Don’t get me wrong, I did think it was a good read, but simply not a great read. This qualification, though, bears some explanation, as you shall see shortly. The only real qualm I have with the book,though, was the plot, which I found to be rather on the flat side. Very basically, “The Great Gatsby” is the story of a period of the life of a young man, Nick, recently moved into a Long Island community where he is surrounded by the wealth and opulence, notably that of his mysterious neighbor, Jay Gatsby. Nick, who narrates story, tells of his meeting of and acquaintanceship with the Great Gatsby, his reunion with a second cousin, and the intersection of the two storylines.

However, the star of the book, I think, is not meant to be a raucous plot, but rather it is the writing that holds the spotlight. This book is a fabulous example of Goldilocks writing. That is, it is neither over-the-top, nor understated—it is just right. The style is executed with the utmost degree of believability, making the book one of extraordinary realism. The characters are so convincingly portrayed that you almost perceive them as though they were tangible beings. The dialogue is tinted with the colorfulness of authenticity. No word is out of place in this book. Thus, while the book may not have been a great read, it was an immense pleasure to read, the emphasis being on the action of the verb, for it is as you gluttonously devour the words upon the page that you experience the highest moments of pleasure, and not after you are finished reading, as it is so with the dizzying breathlessness one experiences after the thrill of a stupendous plot.

I can, with no doubt whatever, tell you that The Great Gatsby is a book that I will read again. Furthermore, it is a book that I highly recommend, but not to everyone. For readers more interested in the exhilaration of a fast-paced and/or action-packed plot, I would suggest that they seek their thrills elsewhere. However, for the reader who delights in the magnificent simplicity of words, and who would eat literary authenticity with a spoon were it edible, I most definitely recommend this book.

-D.W.

Video Review: L. Frank Baum’s “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”

So, as you may (or may not) have noticed, I’ve decided to incorporate a video element into the Nook of Wonders, and will, from time to time, doing video reviews of books rather than written ones. I will continue to post them here, but you can also check them out on my Youtube Channel by clicking here. You will be able to find my latest videos under here under the “Vlog” tab. Here is my first video review, of L. Frank Baum’s, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

The Most Relevant Book in Contemporary U.S. Society: “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is a book that does not deserve a simple review. It does not merit me prattling on about the beauty of the style of writing, or the voraciousness with which I read it—it deserves much more than that, for it is much more than a simple check on a reading list, or “plus one” for my tally of books read in 2015. It is, in my most humble of opinions, the most relevant book in contemporary U.S. society, and it deserves to be treated as such. Understand that I do not award such a distinction lightly. Understand also that I haven’t read every book known to man, so there are, perhaps, other books equally or more relevant in contemporary U.S. society. Also, the relevance that I claim this book has is, of course, applicable to certain aspects of society, and every book ever written will undoubtedly be able to boast relevance to one social aspect or another. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, however, tackles what I see as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, plagues on our “American” society: tyrannical ignorance.

Of course, the problem is much more complex than mere ignorance; rather it is the infection of the heart and of the mind that is caused by the festering wound that this ignorance becomes if left unattended. This ignorance breeds lack of understanding and, therefore, inhibits empathetic and sympathetic capacities. In this state of lacking, both the creation and the dehumanization of a different other is rendered possible. In Douglass’s narrative we see the products of this ignorance and its effects.

The slave was dehumanized, as Douglass shows, in several different ways. First, he was often denied basic information on himself, such has his date of birth and/or age, Douglass stating that “[b]y far the larger part of slaves kn[e]w as little of their ages as horses kn[e]w of theirs” (3). Not only this, but the slave was also often denied his/her own family, parents and siblings frequently being sold away. Douglass describes the result of this in his own case, “I had two sisters and one brother, that lived in the same house with me; but the early separation of us from our mother had well nigh blotted the fact of our relationship from our memories” (22). Although the biological components of a family were present (siblings), the social aspect of the family cell was denied him through the selling of his mother and because of his condition as a slave. Other than the physical and emotional abuse that was inflicted on the slave, perhaps the most effective way the slaveholders used in both creating and exercising his domination over his slave was the denial of the slave’s rights to knowledge. Not being permitted to read and being kept in the intellectual dark, as well as being told never to argue with his/her master, the slave was held captive in a brute-like ignorance and denied all possibility of questioning his/her condition.

Despite the horrific dehumanization inflicted upon the slave, these behaviors were nonetheless justified in the eyes of the religion of the time. Douglass describes the situation:

We have men-stealers for ministers, women-whippers for missionaries, and cradle-plunderers for church members. The man who wields the blood-clotted cowskin during the week fills the pulpit on Sunday, and claims to be a minister of the meek and lowly Jesus. The man who robs me of my earnings at the end of each week meets me as a class-leader on Sunday morning, to show me the way of life, and the path of salvation. He who sells my sister, for purposes of prostitution, stands forth as the pious advocate of purity. He who claims it a religious duty to read the Bible denies me the right of learning to read the name of the God who made me…The warm defender of the sacredness of the family relation is the same what scatters whole families[.] (88)

The list of hypocrisies goes on and on. Douglass does, however, specify that the “religion” to which he is referring is “the slaveholding religion of this land, and with no possible reference to Christianity proper; for, between Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, [he recognizes] the widest possible difference” (87).

Douglass tells of the great depth of the reaches of the dehumanization of the slaves, revealing his own internalized pro-slavery sentiments, “I had somehow imbibed the opinion that, in the absence of slaves, there could be no wealth, and very little refinement” (83). He tells about the scapegoating attitude surrounding the social buzzword of the day:

Every little while, I could hear something about the abolitionists. It was some time before I found what the word meant. It was always used I such connections as to make it an interesting word to me. If a slave ran away and succeeded in getting clear; or if a slave killed his master, set fire to a barn, or did any thing very wrong in the mind of a slaveholder, it was spoken of as the fruit of abolition. (32)

Douglass tells of the attitude of the day, which dictated that “If you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell” (26).

For the perceptive reader donned with empathetic, sympathetic, and critical thinking faculties, the lines to be drawn between the society depicted in the preceding passages, quotes, and explanations and the society of our present U.S.A. need scarcely be spelled out. However, since the people boasting such faculties are less likely to be the ones most in need of seeing these ties, I shall, indeed, spell them out to some degree of clarity.

Our present day U.S. society lives beneath the outspread hand of a tyrannical, hypocritical, and ignorant religion. As Douglass said in his narrative, so shall I say here: the religion of which I speak is not the Christianity of every person who practices it; it is not the Christianity that both preaches and practices love and compassion for all of mankind; it is not the Christianity of Jesus Christ. The Christianity that I address here is the Christianity whose practitioners dehumanize their fellow man (to be understood mankind) by denying him basic human rights and impeding his happiness; it is the Christianity that attempts to monopolize the loving union of marriage, and claims to be the categorical definer of love; it is the Christianity that not only believes these things (either in good or bad faith), but despotically, and in the name of love and of God, imposes these beliefs upon an entire nation, and uses them to debase and persecute those who do not share them; it is the Christianity that uses the very lexicon of freedom and equal rights as though it were a curse straight from the mouth of evil; it is the Christianity who, seeing its milky white throne of privilege slowly chip away cries “Sin!”, “Debauchery”, and “Oh, what poor victims of a ungodly oppression are we!” It is the practitioners of this Christianity that I would have read the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.

I will make no further effort to show the similarities that I think should be only too obvious by now.

I say this book is the most pertinent book in our contemporary U.S. society, because it is, I truly believe, the book that needs the most to be widely distributed, read, taught, thought about, and understood in our nation. It is a call for sympathy as relevant now as it was at the time of its publication 170 years ago. However, it is not a book that can be merely read, as it is not a book that can be merely reviewed: it must be thought about, it must be reflected upon. Similarly, though, it must be viewed as a historical account and treated delicately as such. It is a work in which must see the reflection of our past and present transgressions and, with this clearer vision, correct the disgraceful blemishes on the face of our contemporary society to make for a brighter, clearer more beautiful future. The simple reading of a book could never hope to accomplish such a high goal.

-D.W.

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Works cited

All citations are taken from the following volume:

Douglass, Frederick, and Dale Edwyna Smith. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave: Written by  Himself, and Selected Essays and Speeches. New York: Sterling, 2012. Print.

A (Pint-Sized) Review of Hemingway’s “A Moveable Feast” (Don’t Worry, It’s Locally Grown, Organic, and Gluten Free)

Mental long division, juggling flaming torches, parallel parking a train – all of these things seem easier to me than writing about Hemingway. Perhaps one day I’ll figure out what the block is, but until that day, my reviews of Hemingway will be short.

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In “A Moveable Feast”, Hemingway recounts his arrival in Paris and his establishment as a writer among his expatriate peers, and tells of his relationships with such notable figures as Gertrude Stein, Sylvia Beach, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. The reader is also treated to a few tidbits of insider information regarding these figures, such as a domestic dispute between Gertrude Stein and her partner Alice B. Toklas, as well as an anecdote concerning F. Scott Fitzgerald’s boudoir performance. The reader is also let in on Hemingway’s own opinions of the members of his literary circle and their works. In this book, Hemingway seems to hold little back, but is not, himself, exempt from this openness, as he reveals the beginnings of one of his own extra-marital affairs.

The writing is typical Hemingway, which for me is always a plus. However, in spite of the splendid stylistics, I did find, at points, that the reading drug on and became quite laborious. Specifically, I thought things became a bit overstretched during the F. Scott Fitzgerald parts of the book, as well as toward the end when Hemingway describes a ski trip with his wife. This did not, though, ruin the reading of the book, and it is definitely something I would read again later down the road, especially considering I am somewhat obsessed with the era and literary scene depicted in the book. At any rate, I do recommend the book, especially considering that it is quite a delight to read, and at less than 200 pages, it’s not too burdensome a commitment.

As always, I thank you for joining me in The Nook of Wonders, and hope you’ll join me again very soon. Until then, may everything that you read be a wholesome feast for the soul!

– D.W.

Blissfully Building a Bibliophilic Babel: Recent Acquisitions

The situation in the Mind Palace (that is, my apartment) has become nigh on paradisiacal in recent days. My previously mentioned 22-lbs shipment of books from Barnes and Noble came, my scrounging has been fruitful, and several trips to Barnes and Nobel in person have left me warm and tingly on the inside as only a trip to a bookstore can. With all of these bibliophilic hauls, and the stacking and subsequent photographing of thereof, my apartment has, of late, looked as though I’ve been in the process of erecting some sort of Babelesque tower of books to the Great Library at Alexandria in the sky. But, quite frankly, with an apartment full of books (and more coming all the time) I’ve little need of a celestial book kingdom when my apartment has already become a terrestrial one. So, without further ado, here are some the new subjects of my royal Bibliophiledom.

I was THRILLED to find the L. Frank Baum, having been looking for a collection for some time. If I’m not mistaken, there are 14 novels in the series and the above volume contains books 1-5 (all for $8). I bought the Lovecraft after learning about his existence from the show Supernatural, and thought I would check out some of his stuff. Being a native Missourian, I feel a profound duty to read Mark Twain (and of course I have already had an interest in him as an U.S. American author). So, seeing a cheap opportunity at four of his novels (The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Prince and the Pauper, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court) I decided to jump on it. I bought the Fitzgerald because, having gone to B&N specifically for a copy of The Great Gatsby, but not finding a reasonably priced edition, I figured I might as well preemptively buy this volume in the case that I would like The Great Gatsby. This book contains This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and the Damned, and the collections of short stories entitled Flappers and Philosophers and Tales of the Jazz Age. I bought the Hemingway because, at $20 and a hardback for four of his novels, while they normally run for about $16 a piece in paperback, this was by far the cheapest option for buying the novels that I knew that I would eventually buy anyway. They are, after all, extremely difficult to find in used book stores since people snatch them up so quickly. And finally (for this photo) I bought the Kate Chopin (The Awakening, in case you can’t read the cover) because it was recommended to me.

Here are all 22 pounds of the shipment from Barnes and Noble. In case you can’t read the titles, they are, from top to bottom: Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by himself, A Tale of Two Cities by Ch. Dickens, Volumes I and II of The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Tales from the Arabian Knights, Best-Loved Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and other Classic Novels by Jules Verne (including Five Weeks in a Balloon, A Journey to the Center of the Earth, From the Earth to the Moon, Round the Moon, and Around the World in Eighty Days), The War of the Worlds and Other Science Fiction Classics by H.G. Wells (including The Time Machine, The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Invisible Man, The First Men in the Moon, and The Food of the Gods), William Shakespeare: Complete Plays, Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, and of course a book of Dali (my favorite painter of all time).

These books are the result of a few things that have happened recently in my life. First, I have recently changed my field of study from French Literature to Comparative Literature so I can finally justify reading things that I would have never been able to justify reading before. Granted, the only one of the above books that really fit into my research interests is the Frederick Douglass, but at least for the others, I feel as though I can loosely justify the purchasing of them. The second “thing” is that I recently bought a Barnes and Noble Membership, so the price justification also got easier to make. Knowing from my membership that I get free express shipping on online orders, I went on the B&N website and found out they were having a sale, so I went a bit nuts, and got each got each of the books above for $4 a piece (except the Aurelius that I got for $1) versus the $8 in-store price. I bought the Shakespeare because I love the author, and being a fan of short, fun little stories that can typically be read in one sitting, I bought the Andersen and the Arabian Knights. I bought Les Mis because, while I could/should read them in French, and would probably enjoy them more if I did, it’s hard to find the whole work for a decent price. The same goes for the Jules Verne – well, the French part at least, but since I would never have to read any of his works for academic purposes, I figured I might as well buy them in English in an economic version. I bought the Wells for exploratory purposes. Not having to work this summer and being thoroughly emotionally tarred and feathered by my first year in academia, I thought I would take advantage of my summertime liberty and, in a sort evasive geste, read some things that would never show up on my reading lists. So, I thought some of Wells’s science fiction might do the trick.The Aurelius, Dickens and Doyle were sort of “why not” purchases, but I look forward to exploring them regardless of their, perhaps, inferiorly justified purchasing.

The books above are from one of my scrounging hauls. They are, from top to bottom and left to right are: a collection of Descartes works including Discourse on Method, Meditations on the First Philosophy, and The Principles of Philosophy, Tolkien’s The Silmarillion, a book on the theatre of the absurd, a dual volume of Faulkner including The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying, Samuel Butler’s The Way of All Flesh, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, a collection of some of William Blake’s works, “Polaroid” and Other Poems of View by Hearne, Tolkien’s The Book of Lost Tales (Book I), a book on the epicurean and stoic philosophers, a history of French literature from 1902 (and in beautiful condition), and Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, an edition from 1921, shown more in detail below.

Since the titles in this (the following) photo are relatively visible, I’ll let you read them, all except, that is, for the first and third vertical books from the left which are Poems in Praise of Practically Nothing by Samuel Hoffenstein, and André Gide’s Journal 1939-1942.

Here are the books from one of my many in-person trips to B&N.

I bought To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman because of the recent release of the latter and adored them both! I was, again, thrilled to find the second volume (books 6-10) of the Oz series by L. Frank Baum. (I’m still impatiently in search of the last volume.) I bought Elizabeth Gilbert’s The Signature of All Things because if the Movie Eat, Pray Love is anything like the book (which I also own), and the book Eat, Pray, Love is anything like The Signature of All Things, then I will love it. The Great Escapes, which is a collection of four slave narratives, I bought because I so loved Frederick Douglass’s The Narrative of the Life, and also because I study life writing and am interested in the slave narrative as a literary genre. Similarly, I bought Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl because I study life writing, but also because I have wanted to read it for a long time. The Dante and Oscar Wilde I bought because, having always wanted to read the former and always hearing great things about the latter, I thought it was high time I read them!

As a bonus related to the above photo, here is my Go Set a Watchman Selfie (#GSaWselfie)

This great anthology of short fiction (all the greater because it is Norton!) has a fun little story behind it. The other day, I was in my department and saw one of our administrative assistants with this on her desk, so I asked her if it was hers, hoping to progress into a conversation about what she was reading. Interestingly enough, though,and to my delight, she said, “No, you want it?” I asked whose is was and she said it was a long unclaimed exam copy, so naturally I squeaked a “YES!” to her initial question and quickly poked it in my bag and bolted before its intended owner could magically appear to claim it. The moral of this story, I’ve decided, is “never be afraid to engage people in conversations about their reading.” Obviously you shouldn’t do it thinking you will get a free book out of it, but a great conversation could be an even greater reward.

Another trip to B&N brought Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin and John Milton’s Paradise Lost, illustrated by Gustave Doré to my library, as well as…

…this gorgeous specimen (above)! about which I am probably way too excited.

And finally, my most recent arrival (above), a collection of slave narratives from The Library of America, complete with its own box. I was so moved and inspired by the Frederick Douglass (The Narrative of the Life of) that I could’t resist the temptation to further explore the slave narrative genre, and this volume contains ten of them. This one I bought off of Amazon in like-new condition for about $8 (S&H included). (When I mention prices, I do it either because they might interest you, or because I’m a bargain shopper and I got a great deal.)

As you can see, I’ve got quite a queue of reading to take on, and with all of these books within reach, I feel like a sort of eternal kid in  candy store. That is, basically, I have a rather inflated case of the classic bibliophilic predicament: too many books, too little time. So, if you’ve read or plan to read any of the books featured in this post, feel free to leave your thoughts on them in the comments below! I’d love to he what you have to say!

I’m sure it won’t be long until before the next “recent acquisitions” post, but until then, may all the subjects of your royal Bibliophiledom be ever loyal unto you! As always, thank you for joining me in the Nook of Wonders, and I hope you’ll join me again soon!

-D.W.

Mark My Words: Thoughts on Some of the Ways to Not Lose Your Page

A sticky-note, a folded napkin, a receipt, a treasured photo: the list of things you can slide between the pages of a book to mark your spot is endless, and I have, at one time or another, tried them all and many more. I will admit that, as far as bookmarks go, it is impossible to compete with the sentimental value of a cherished photo, and that, at times, desperate times call for equally desperate measure (such as napkins, sugar packets, etc.). However, if you’re not one for sentiment in bookmarks, and you don’t find yourself in such situations where improvisation is necessary, the list of different kinds of proper bookmarks is only slightly shorter than the list of makeshift ones. Again, having used many of them myself, I thought I would compile a list of compliments and complaints for a number of different kinds, ending with my personal recommendation. So, without further ado, here they are.

The Standard

By this I mean the simple, rectangular piece of card-stock, without bells and whistles of any sort. While this is not my favorite kind of bookmark by any means, it is rather difficult to find any real drawbacks to it. If it is made of thick enough material, then there is little or no problem recovering your page, as there can sometimes be if the bookmark if too thin. My only real beef with these kinds of bookmarks is if it is taller than the book in which it is placed. When they stick out of the pages, they can easily dislodged and your page lost. Also, I just find it generally annoying to have things poking out of my books.

The Tassel

This one isn’t so bad either. The tassel is actually quite attractive, but again, I’m not really fond of things dangling from or hanging out of my books. This probably comes from a combination of the fact that I like clean, sleek, uninterrupted lines (a purely aesthetic preference), but also because I carry my books with me in a bag/murse/satchel, and thing such as bookmarks that protrude as they do are often severely mangled and ruined. I will admit, though, that as far as these things go, the tassel is the least mangleable of such protrusions. Also, there is a certain charm to the tassel, and judging solely based on practicality, it does its job well – after all, a tassel is a bit hard to miss when using it to mark a page.

The Blingèd Ribbon…string…thing

In all honesty, I cannot claim to actually have used one of these, and I’m not quite sure what they really are. I came across them during some research for this post and, while they look cute, they seem to me wholly unpractical. It consists of a string or something of the sort at both ends of which there is some sort of bauble, one of which hangs out of the book (I suppose) to mark your place. This, as I said previously, seems to my wholly unpractical: lacking a solid form, you can mark your page but not your spot on it, a luxury which is sometimes afforded by the Standard and even the Tassel. And instead of being able to quickly toss it in your book as you can more solid models, this one you would have to, I imagine, gingerly pose in the crack between the pages to it doesn’t bunch up and fall out.

The Sticky Arrows

I can see a real practicality in these, even for something that, in theory, pokes out of the side or top of your book. Despite this last feature, since they are disposable, you don’t really care if they are damaged or ruined. Also, you can mark both your page and your spot on it with no difficulty. My only problems with these are, one, that the adhesive on them can go to pot rather quickly and you risk it falling out and losing your place. Second, they are disposable, but can also be costly. Personally, rather than buy them, I either find a freebie sticky-note pad, or just by some cheapos, pull off a hunk of 15 or so notes, cut them into three even strips, and stick them together to make a pad of sticky place markers. Granted, I don’t actually use these for everyday reading, but rather when I’m doing research and need to mark several quotes in the book. You can also write on them to indicate which quote or passage you are marking to make for easy reference.

Book Darts

So as to not dwell too long on the bookmarks that I don’t like, especially since most of them are simply variations on one concept or another, I’ll go ahead and skip forward to my all-time favorite.

As you can tell from the header, my favorite bookmark of all times is/are Book Darts, shown below.

As you can see from the photo, they come in three different metals/colors, and are basically small, metal arrows that slide onto the edge of a page. They fit snugly on both thick and thin pages, and you don’t have to worry about them falling off. They may be a little pricey (between $10-$20 on Amazon) but being metal, you’ll never have to buy another set in your life. They come in small tins of 50 and 125, and vary in the assortment of metal you can buy. As you can see, not only do they mark your page, but they mark your line as well, so whether you’re marking one page/one line or 50 pages/lines (or more) Book darts will do the trick. Plus, if you like color-coding things, buying the multi-metal/color tin will give you three different colors to code with. The only down-side I can see to these is that they’re easy to lose. As I said, you don’t have to worry about them falling off they pages, but if you’re prone to setting things down and forgetting them, as I am, you might lose one from time to time. Whether you’re a casual reader, a voracious bookworm, or an academic who inhales his/her books rather than reads them, I can’t recommend Book Darts highly enough!

Thank you for joining me here in the Nook of Wonders. I hope you’ll join me again soon! Until then, whatever method you prefer to mark your page (and I’d be thrilled to hear about them in the comments!), may it me trusty and true, and never fail you!

-D.W.

A Cook in the Nook and Julia Child’s My Life in France

A few days ago I was baking bread in my kitchen and got the idea to incorporate into the Nook of Wonders a segment called “A Cook in the Nook” in which I would write out (basically) a glorified recipe, sprinkle in a witty anecdote or two, and flood the post with “artistically” taken pictures. Luckily for everyone, though, I quickly realized that culinary repertoire is too limited to sustain such posting; also my bread turned out to be really, very, not good (not bad, just rather not good) and I was immediately, permanently dissuaded from the idea.

(Above: the actual bread I made)

But the title was, in my mind, too good to not use in some way. So without much need to rack my brain to find a use for it, I decided that Julia Child was to be the only Cook in the Nook, and to spare my title, I would talk about her delightfully heartfelt book, and one of my favorites, My Life in France.

Let me first start this review with a recommendation. I’m sure there are a number of editions of My Life in France out there (I know of at least two), and I can’t imagine a better edition than the one published by Anchor Books. In the Anchor edition, there fabulous little photos strewn all about the book, one or two tucked away every few pages. As if reading the book itself wasn’t reward enough, the photos serve as an additional treat for the reader. What’s more, the book itself is extremely attractive, and has a good feel in your hands: it’s of about average thickness (5/8” and 352 pages), but because the paper is a bit heavier, the book has a dense, solid, meaty feeling when you hold it. Of course these latter points matter to only the most avid of bookworms, but I mention it because it’s to this sort of thing that I truly take to twitterpating.

While, as the title suggests, this book is the account of Julia Child’s long-time relationship with her much-loved France, it does much more than tell the story of her time there: it also chronicles her life in the kitchen, from her more-than-humble beginnings as an inexperienced housewife, to her television fame as a celebrity chef. Alongside her developments as a chef, the book also follows the progress of her iconic cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and her love story with her husband, Paul. My Life in France is a book about Julia’s relationships: her relationship with her work, her relationship with food, her relationship with her husband, whom she adored, and her relationship with her beloved France which nourished her other relationships and often even made them possible.

You needn’t be a Francophile to be able to thoroughly enjoy My Life in France, but if you are, your chances of not experiencing profound ecstasy in reading it are slim to nil. The pleasure is further augmented if you know and are a fan of Julia Child, in which case you don’t read the book so much as Julia reads it to you. This effect is further heightened by the conversational tone of the book, through which Julia’s singular, husky voice rings in the nooks and crannies of your head as you read.

My Life in France will make you laugh, it will touch you, it will make you hungry, it will make you want to cook. If you have not already read it, I hope you will, and if you already have read it, I hope you will read it again.

As always, thank you for joining me in the Nook of Wonders, and I hope you’ll join me again soon. Until then, may all your literary (and culinary) adventures be scrumptious!

An Injection of Mystery: Agatha Christie’s “An Overdose of Death”

I’ve never really had much interest in mystery novels, and before reading this novel, I had never read a mystery novel in English (I had though read a few of Georges Simenon’s books in French). And to be truthful, the reason I bought this book was’t so much my interest in delving into the genre as it was the title so corny one could grind it up and make tortillas. However, never having read an English mystery novel, let alone one written by the legendary Agatha Christie, I decided to take advantage of its presence on my shelves and administer a bit of whodunit into my literary veins.

My first shock, and admittedly pleasant surprise, in reading An Overdose of Death was the cursing included in the dialogue. Call me childish, but I’m always glad when a writer, especially when their writing is to convey reality, doesn’t shy away from the good ole “hell fire”s and “dammit”s in favour of the more unbelievable “dash it all”s and “fiddlesticks”. I think my surprise on this note came from the fact that I did, by no means, expect this old-school Englishwoman to employ such terms. The cursing is far from gratuitous, but it is just enough to compliment Christie’s talent of creating believable characters.

As far from reality as the plot of this novel may be, though I suppose that it is possible (I see no reason to recount it, for if you wish to find it out you can simply read it yourself), Christie’s strong point as a writer, or so it seems to me after reading one of her novels (and so I admit that my guess is rather uneducated), is the complexity of her characters. Each of her characters is well constructed, each one having a distinct personality of their own. Each one stands alone in his or her own voice, unlike so many novels in which the voices of the characters are homogenised due to a lack of creativity (or some other lack) on the part of the author. The dialogue in An Overdose of Death is realistic, the story is fun, and of course, the dénouement is thrilling.

To be honest, though, it did take me a while to get into the book. Only numbering 192 pages, it took me days to read to page seventy, the sluggishness of the plot (or at least as I experienced it then) in the opening made my reading laborious. However, once I got past this perceived readers’-block, I read the remaining 120 or so pages in one sitting. I simply had to finish the book, not that I couldn’t put it down, but rather I wouldn’t, and I’m glad I did, because the payoff was well worth it.

As far as recommendations go, An Overdose of Death has mine and, if this book can speak at all for the entire body of Agatha Christie’s work, so too does the author have my recommendation. The reading was fun and light without being unintelligent or excessively elementary, and was a good distraction from the rather dense texts that I’m accustomed to reading in academia.

I suppose my one critique of the book would be that they (whoever they is) should have stuck with the original title for the work, The Patriotic Murders. However, it’s certain that had this been the title, I would not have been so attracted to it in the store, and therefore would not have bought it and subsequently read and enjoyed it, so I suppose I’m glad that they chose to call it An Overdose of Death.

Thank you for joining me here in the Nook of Wonders, and I hope you’ll join me here again soon! Until then, may your bibliophilic addiction never be assuaged! Happy reading!

-D.W.

Dear Academia: A Letter Not Sent

I have been doing a lot of thinking this summer. After a first year of graduate school like the one I finished in May, how could I not be doing some heavy thinking. Here’s about how it went.

As most if not all graduate students, I felt an overwhelming amount of pressure. The pressure I felt was being put on me as a fellowship recipient to take four courses each semester was suffocating. I managed fine the first semester, but the second semester, I didn’t. The load quickly became too much, and I was forced to compromise both the quality of my work and my physical and mental health. I know now, and I knew then too that I was simply trying not to disappoint the people who had shown such faith in me by accepting me into the program and  giving me the department’s top funding package. I was truly honoured and I didn’t want to let them down.

In the middle of the second semester, I was to present a first draft of a paper to the class for critiquing. However, and I admit it freely, the paper was sub-par and I turned it in at 1AM instead of midnight, which was the cut-off (although it was neither discussed nor stated at any time during the course). The next morning, at around 11AM I received an email from the professor. It was both sent to and addressed to the entire class, opening with “Dear Dylan (and dear students), In truth, this messaged is addressed in particular to Dylan, but as it may also impact the rest of the class, I am authorising myself to send it to you all.”

In the remainder of the letter, the professor proceeded to shred my work, both on the particular project and in the class in general. He said many other things about which I will not go into detail. Whether I deserved this critique or not, I certainly did not deserve the manner in which it was delivered. This clear attempt to publicly shame me left me devastated, to stay the least. The episode left me numb and in a tearful haze. Already weak and wounded from the stress and anxieties that I had been experiencing nonstop since the beginning of the first semester, this was the fatal blow. Although I managed to sort out my dropping of the course with the chair of the department and my director of graduate studies, the event threw me into a deep, depressive stupor in which I remained until about two weeks before the end of the semester. In this daze, I could read what I needed to, but writing became nearly impossible and my thought was drained of all of its critical sap.

Once the semester was over and I was managing to climb my way out of the dark place in which I had been residing for several weeks, I began reflect upon my experience, my goals, and to do them in a state of mind unburdened by the pressures of academia. I began to search out ways to rekindle my passion for books, reading and literature, and ultimately landed on blogging. Although I had already started reading books that were completely out of my domain, blogging gave me an excuse to further explore the uncharted territories of my literary map, and to explore in a therapeutic way. Through this self administered treatment, I have come to several realisations about myself and about what I expect from academia.

Last night (although it will be a couple of nights ago at least by the time you read this) , I stupidly drank a cup of coffee too late in the evening and the caffeine, combined with the sweltering heat of my bedroom, kept me up, tossing and turning, and more importantly, thinking. While my body was tossing itself around in search of comfort, so was my mind tossing around thoughts and ideas in search of its own comfort. At 4AM, in a sleepy fog, I got up from my bed, walked to my computer, and set to writing a letter to the comparative literature Ph.D programs to which I intended to apply, a letter that I fully intended to send.

At 4:15, the letter finished, I went back to bed and finally managed to find sleep. This morning I got up, remembered the letter and realised that perhaps the idea of sending it was even more foolish than I had originally thought, and I decided it was best to keep it for myself. However, still not satisfied, this afternoon, I decided that I wasn’t content with keeping it for myself. So, in compromise I have decided to post it here. I have not opened the letter file since I finished and saved it last night, and the text below is exactly where I left it then, copied and pasted from the original document, although I have corrected some spacing oddities that arose in the transfer:

Hello,

My name is Dylan, and in sending this email I am undoubtedly risking any possible future in academia that I could ever hope for. However, the questions posed and statements made herein will be worth having been posed and made if they will me to a place where I finally feel intellectually at home.

Having completed in May, 2015 my first year of studies for a MA in French Literature, I have come to the realization that I could never be happy studying solely French literature and that my interests would be better nurtured through a career pursued in comparative literature. Regrettably, though, my first year of graduate studies has left a rather bitter taste in my mouth, and in my search for a new intellectual home, I would like be sure this time of my possible fit within it.

What I desire is simple: I am looking for a program in which the pursuit of knowledge, the development of the individual’s passion, and the betterment of the human condition through this knowledge and this passion never play second fiddle to, and are neither compromised nor stifled by the teaching of “proper playing” of the role of an academic. I understand, nevertheless, the necessity of this last item and the teaching thereof, but I believe that from the moment they begin to infringe upon the quest for knowledge and wisdom, to extinguish passion, and either forget or cast to the wayside the amelioration of the human condition, academia has failed, for in this case, it fails to be a means to a higher goal, and becomes a means unto its own end.

While I intend to finish my Masters degree where I am, I refuse to continue to allow my inextinguishable passion and love for knowledge, literature, and the common good to dwell in an environment where they are not at liberty to flourish.

I understand my own foolishness in sending this email, and needn’t be further told of reminded of it. I would greatly appreciate it, though, if, in the event that you should think I was a good fit for your Ph.D program in Comparative Literature, that you let me know. The fact that you are receiving this email indicates that I have already researched your program and have read the available online resources, but I believe that it is nigh on impossible to glean the true nature of a program from such reading.

I sincerely thank you for you time,

Dylan W. Rinker

Today, I met with a professor to discuss my letters of recommendation for the upcoming application processes (I did not mention this letter), and informed him of my decision to change programs. During our conversation, he began to explain the difficulties of finding academic jobs in comparative literature, listing examples from his own life. At some point during this explanation, everything became very clear in my mind, and as soon as he had finished I jumped in, explaining that I didn’t care about the difficulty of finding a job, that my choice to pursue a Ph.D was not merely to land a job, but it was a personal goal that I had set for myself. I explained to him that, yes, I desired to be able to teach literature and to bring out the passion for it in others, that did I want to be a part of a larger informed discussion, I did want to be able to publish my thoughts and engage in the erudite dialogue on the subject. But most importantly, I wanted to be educated for my own benefit. Yes, I want to do these things, but academia is simply the most direct route to the combination of all of them, but no matter what I do, I will always find a way to integrate them into my life.

This realisation has brought closer to my eyes a fact of which I have always been aware, and a fact that saddens me greatly. Education in the USA, and probably elsewhere (although I cannot speak for other countries) is no longer about illuminating our minds to live fuller, richer lives; education is no longer a light against the darkness of ignorance – it has become a mere means to an end, that end being a job, and unfortunately, this seems to be becoming quite true even in the highest tiers of our education system.

I’m not writing this post in some sort of vengeful geste against my professor, or some sort of woeful complaint card against Academia. Rather, I write this post from a place of a lack of understanding and disappointment. That is, there is something that I do not understand and I am disappointed by this: is it not a grave compromise of our education to taint it with simultaneous instruction of the role of an academic? That is, does it not stifle our creativity and wanderlust to box the pursuit of knowledge within the narrow framework of the academic job market? The constant thoughts of publishing, making yourself as attractive a candidate as possible, presenting at conferences, writing a dissertation that you can subsequently turn into a book, landing a  tenure-track job, obtaining tenure, etc. etc.: do these worries not suffocate the curious mind, redirecting invaluable inquisitive energies away from the search for knowledge and toward the feeling of desperate need to fit one’s work and interests within the framework of an “attractive job candidate”? Do these imposed limitations not, in many ways, produce the same effect of the “teaching to the test” of which we so fervently disapprove?

Do not misundertand me, I do understand the necessity of a keen awareness of the job situation for those interested in entering academia as a profession, for the reality of it is sobering. But it seems to me that even if every person who pursued a Ph.D did so desiring to become a professor of his/her chosen field, this “teaching to the test” of which higher education is guilty should never be so concentrated or weighty as to stifle or set limitations to the mind that yearns for enlightening.

These views are, of course, my own, and I admit that each individual has his or her own experiences and his or her own relationship with education and knowledge, and I am not attempting to impose mine upon anyone. I am merely searching for clarity and possible answers to what seems to me to be the greatest possible contradiction in our higher education, if not in education in general.

-D.W.