Leah goes to Alaska; the Watsons go to Birmingham!

And another month passes; where does the time go? I'm getting to the end of the wire for my little experiment, but I did finish a few more books since my last update.  Our entire family (and I mean entire family... grammie and her sister took all the kids and grandkids on a cruise) went to Alaska last week.  It was fantastic, but I didn't read on the plane like I thought I would.  I don't travel well, and instead of passing the time with a book, I found watching a movie and TV was more distracting from the plane.  I did get through a few books on the boat; I read on the bus that took up to Anchorage at the end of the trip, and I spent some time reading on our balcony.  I finished Grendel and Waiting for Godot, and in the time before the trip, I spent 2 days down the shore and reading Nineteen Minutes.
Let me begin by saying I have a freakish obsession with Beowulf.  It's odd, really.  The Seamus Heaney translation is stellar, and I actually audited a class in college called Beowulf to Mallory (audited... you know, where you take a class but not for a grade.  Yeah, I was that loser who took too many credits that semester but couldn't stand to NOT read Beowulf again).  I loved the perspective of the monster, and I'm glad I read Beowulf just 3 years ago [recently enough] -- and talked to my co-worker about his teaching the novel -- to remember small plot details that make their way into the story-line.  Think Wicked, told from the point of view of the Wicked Witch, but a million times better. Grendel isn't completely innocent; instead he seems very human, aside from him actually being a monster and eating people, and longs for a life away from his mother.  I read it on my kindle, which I'm still not completely sold on, and I think it would have been even better to read it alongside Beowulf.  I have Wide Sargasso Sea on my reading list as well, which is a complementary tale to Jane Eyre, and having read that again just a year ago, I'm hoping it will be even more interesting.
Waiting for Godot took about 2 hours, while I was waiting (hahaha see what I did there?) for the time to arrive to go on a dog-sledding tour of a glacier.  I sat in a deck chair on the covered part of the pool (hey, it's cold and rainy in Alaska and you have to swim inside!) and ate some ice cream while I read.  It was nice, although there was an Asian family playing ping-pong who kept looking at me and pointing.  I'm not sure why.  It may have been my polka-dotted rainboots worn indoors, but who knows!
Waiting for Godot is absurd and meant to be absurd, and although I enjoyed it, I don't see it as an important part of my personal literary canon.  I brought it up in conversation recently and a shall-remain-nameless-person critiqued my not loving the play and 'told' me (I already knew, thank you) that it was absurdest comedy and that's why it was so odd.

Yeah, I'm aware.  But thanks!

Okay, here's the thing.  I'm pretentious and obnoxious and a former English major.  I read, and I read a lot.  I have my likes and my dislikes, and people who don't read really bother me.  But it's people who have only read a few things and act like he -- I do really wish English had a gender neutral pronoun -- is the highest of literary critics that drive me up a wall.  Extra points if the few things he has read are of the pretentious circle.  The conversation goes something like this:

"Oh, Stephen King, he's so overrated.  He simply writes to sell books."
"Well, he's written quite a bit under pseudonyms, and he's dabbled in novels, short stories, poetry, and screenplays, so I'd say he's a well-rounded and accessible author."
"Yes, I suppose, but he's no Gabriel Garcia Marquez.  I mean, One Hundred Years of Solitude?  Amazing."
"Uh-huh.  And what did you think of his other books?  Did you enjoy his use of magic realism?"

Generally the conversation ends somewhere in the range, with me doing my best to escape the conversation and the other person realizing they've engaged an English teacher in a book discussion.  That can be scary; we get overly excited about things.  But I digress; do you know why I haven't really read Marquez?  Because I find him difficult and somewhat boring, and that is the beauty of my study of literature.  I read books because I want to be entertained and amazed.  Why else would I read everything Anne Rice has ever written? Although I will argue until the day I die the literary merit of her works.  Don't play.

The point is, I promise I've been reading -- just today I was reading The Watsons go to Birmingham -- 1963 in the bathtub, but that's for another post.

I want to know this: what is the most pretentious book you've ever read?  What book/author do you find most obnoxious people have read and want to tell you they've read?

You can call me the book whisperer

On my to do list for today? Update my blog! And in other exciting news, I've been reading! Because it's the end of the semester, two of my classes are sans seniors, which means I have 3 students in each class. That's right: 3 students. It's been fantastic so far; I've assigned them a film project (the first presentation is tomorrow) and some independent reading.

I decided to make the book requirements minimum, since my students just simply don't read, in order to make them more likely to pick something enjoyable or interesting. The book has to fit in with the themes of our class, and in Multicultural Lit, there are pretty universal themes. Does the book discuss identity? Perseverance? Is it about a cultural group, or people who don't fit in a cultural group? Okay, cool, that book is fine by me. Of my 6, 4 of them asked me for a suggestion, and after hearing their interests and what movies or books they like, I gave out the following selections:
American Born Chinese
Monster
Angus, thongs, and full-frontal snogging
Violet and Claire

Guess what? They all LOVE the book I offered. Mariah and Mark already finished their books, Emmie is almost done with hers, and Tyrell is a story all his own. He's reading 2 books, because he also wanted to read the 7th Harry Potter book. And even more than them liking the books they picked, they really enjoy the reading time in class. Having such a small group lets me discuss with them individually, which is so satisfying as a teacher.

The other part I love is that they wanted me to do independent reading along with them. So here I am, 115 pages into Water for Elephants, doing journal entries and sharing in class. We sit around in the comfy chairs and read, and when I tried to grade some papers the other day, they insisted I read. It's fantastic!

I find that giving book suggestions, like recommending films or music, is tricky ground. You want to offer something worthwhile, taking the other person into consideration, but it's also easy to get caught up in something you just simply love. Most book suggestions I've given have been positively received, so, boom, there you go. I'm the book whisperer.

Water for Elephants, on the other hand, was recommended to me. By everyone I know who reads. Yeah, it took me a while, but I love it so far! (Still in the middle of Memoirs of a Geisha and Grendel).

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