Sunday Afternoon

It's official; I'm going to Budapest in just under a month for just under a week to visit Brooke (and Danny and Darcy, but mostly Brooke.  Also, Danny and Darcy don't read this, so I don't feel bad about parenthesizing them. Is parenthesizing a word?  It's not underlined red as a spelling error, so I assume it is.  I'm pretty excited about that!).  I'll be sure to load my Kindle with lots of things to read, as it is a rather long time to be traveling.  My layover on the way home is 5 hours, but it's in Amsterdam, so I'm leaving the airport to explore, not sitting in a waiting room somewhere reading.

I'm currently reading The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, which is interesting.  I've read a few of her short stories (I've taught a few of them, too), but I've never gotten around to reading this novel.  I'm about 3/4's of the way through, so hopefully tonight/tomorrow I can finish it up for a post in the next few days with my thoughts.  It's an interesting look at not just the relationships between parents and children -- focusing primarily, of course, on mothers and daughters -- but it's an interesting look at cultural elements and what exactly we do inherit from our parents and families.  It reminds me of a spoken word piece I shared with my students during our slam poetry unit called 'Knock, Knock'

Yes, we are our fathers' sons and daughters,
But we are not their choices.

It's an interesting idea.  Watching the Ravens play right now, and keeping updating on the Eagles play-by-play because the game isn't on TV (yet another reason why I'm moving to Philly this summer!) and getting ready to grade a million and one papers.  Later, Matt and I (and maybe Alicia!) are going to watch Rocky Horror in preparation for Glee on Tuesday night!  And I have grad school homework to take care of... Oh, Sunday.  How I hate you sometimes...

She turned me into a Newt!

First of all, I am a HORRIBLE blogger!  It has been almost 20 days since my last post, and although I've read a book and almost finished another book since then, I haven't been updating.  Fail.  At first it was an issue of 'well, I haven't finished the second book yet.'  But then it turned into 'man I'm busy.  I am always running around.  I'll find time this weekend.'

It got to the point where I was laying in bed before falling asleep re-watching season one of Entourage for the second time (that means this is the third time I'll have watched season one, for those of you confused.  It took me a while to get it right, as well.)  Ridiculous!  From now on, before going to sleep it's some reading or blogging time.  Unless I have an episode of Dexter to watch.  Or season two of Entourage is onDemand.

From now on, my plan is to update at least once a week, even if I haven't finished a book in that time.  Since this project isn't just about reading 52 books, I need to remember what my other goals were; making time for myself, finishing what I start, and self-reflection.  I also need to start going to the gym and working with the weights.  And make a doctor's appointment.  And change my driver's license (weekend plans, I swear!).

My second book to cross off the list was Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut.  I read Slaughterhouse-Five in college in my American Lit class with Dr. Mary (that's a lot of prepositional phrases) and I loved it.  I found his style to be engaging and interesting, and the subject matter was just... well, it wasn't something I was entirely comfortable with, but I got used to it.  Cat's Cradle is similar in style and in subject matter.  Time is just a concept, narration is skewed and ambiguous, the plot, sarcastic and satirical.

Here's my problem; I have no one to talk to!  As an English major, I'm used to class discussion of books, professors offering opinions and information to help us along the way, and although I like to think I'm a pretty intelligent person, I miss college classes!  Vonnegut is great, but I don't think I got as much out of the novel as I would have reading it with a class or a book club of some kind.  Does this mean I can't enjoy books as much anymore, if I don't have anyone to talk with?  Does this make me less intelligent than I originally thought?

Or is Vonnegut just hard?

Call me Jonah?  Call me confused.  Chris Worthington, let's have coffee.  Explain Vonnegut to me, before I give up on being an accomplished reader.

I did really enjoy the idea of Bokononism, the religion of the city in the novel.  That's for another post, when I've gotten to wrap my head around some things.  My personal favorite idea is how Bononoists whisper 'busy, busy, busy' when something reminds them of how complex and unpredictable life is :)

Currently reading The Joy Luck Club.  Almost finished, loving it, can't wait to watch the film when I'm done.

One Hundred Demons

One Hundred Demons by Linda Barry

The last 24 hours have been a whirlwind of traveling from Baltimore to Philly to Yardley to my parent's house, then back to Reisterstown today.  The one good part is I got a lot of reading done on day one of the project.  I finished One Hundred Demons in a very short amount of time, then moved on to Cat's Cradle, which I'm about 3/4ths of the way through.  But that's for another time.  For now I want to talk about One Hundred Demons.


The premise of One Hundred Demons is interesting.  Linda Barry is a cartoonist, so the book, which she categorizes as 'autobifictionalography,' is a memoir told through a series of comic strips.  Barry read about a painting excercise called One Hundred Demons, where you literally paint demons.  And see what comes out of you.  Each 'chapter' in the book is dedicated to a different demon, something that shaped her life and made her the person she is today (although she doesn't come right out and tell us that, it's pretty apparent that's what's happening here).  The chapters have titles like 'Head Lice and My Worst Boyfriend,' 'The Aswang,' 'Cicadas,' and 'Hate,' and each deals with a different demon.  The stories are not chronological, which I think lends to the power of the book.

From the chapter 'Lost Worlds'

Even though some stories may seem like they are insignificant, each plays an important roll in developing Barry as a character.  It's telling how she draws herself, and the use of comic strips was actually really interesting as a reader.  In 'Lost Worlds' she looks back at childhood kickball games.  Notice how the dialogue of the characters is not directly related to her narration.  While reading the book, I found myself laughing (awkwardly on a train, oops!) at the memories she drags up.  Some are very funny, some hit close to home, and others are painfully sad.  One chapter talks about the suicide of a friend growing up, one hints at possible sexual abuse as a child, others let us see Barry in a self-conscious way, admitting to horrible things she did growing up.  The thing I loved most about the book was that I started to think about my own One Hundred Demons.  What are the things that are haunting me?  What have I done that's wronged people in my past?  How can we learn to live with these demons?

Where Barry really gets it is in a chapter titled 'Magic Lanterns' which is about those things we cling to as children; security blankets, stuffed animals, a toy.  As a self-proclaimed baby blanket extrodinare, I loved this story.  In it, a child looses his stuffed bunny and Barry sees a man in the airport about to throw it away because 'the lost and found is for important things.'  So she takes it home with her, and asks, in the comic, for someone to claim it if it belongs to them.  The reason I loved this story so much is because she takes the idea of security items and ties it into literature, which is what this project is all about.  She asks why we are so moved by stories, what is it that makes us come back to the same stories, or cry at a sad (or happy!) ending, what makes those stories come alive?

In One Hundred Demons, it's the honesty of each chapter.  I could analyze or critically discuss this book for hours and hours, but that's not why it is still floating around in my head, even though I'm on to book 2.  The book makes you really stop and think, and it forces you to reconsider yourself.  And that, Linda Barry, is why we are so moved by stories.