Wednesday's for Kids [30] -- ORIGAMI

Watching the new POTTERMORE announcement this morning on Facebook, not because of it's similarity to pop-up books, which are plenty cool, too, but because, well ... uhm.  I don't know.  Whatever.  It reminded me of origami this time.  Must be the owl at the end of the ad.  Anyway, origami is cool for kids, and for grownups--even, and perhaps especially, for the lazy ones who just want to look, rather than do.

For kids:

I had this book when I
was a kid; I have no idea
where it is now.

For grownups:

I REALLY want this book.  Discover this
on your own.  Really.  Do it.  Amazing.

Here is Robert Lang (click his name for his website and surf around the spectacular compositions), one of the two foremost experts in origami--not, originally anyway, because of his artist proclivities, but because of his work's scientific/mathematic necessities--talks about it below.

All with a single sheet, un-cut sheet of paper:

KIM XX -- chapter 14: JUST IS THE WHEEL and SO THE TWINGING SCARS

by Mary GrandPre

If, let's just say, I am attempting to tread the Wheel--or even escape it--and if the Wheel is indeed just, I can probably expect some comeuppance for my "passionate" thoughts regarding this book.  Should I take shelter?  Might I expect to be reborn a snake or some other unclean beast?  Of course, perhaps the gods don't like this book either, but then--o, dear! --I'm still no better off, because then haven't I been wasting not only my time but yours?  Maybe there's still time to salvage my situation.  Maybe the last chapter will be so surpassingly excellent as to redeem (for lack of a better word) the previous fourteen.  I doubt it, though.  Does that make it impossible?  At this rate, I will never attain Nirvana.

• I like "The Woman of Shamlegh"; she's got depth, dimension, and is easily the most interesting character since, I think, the priests at the military camp or Mr. Lurgan, if not of the entire book.  Even better, there's only one chapter left of the book, so it's unlikely Kipling will have time to ruin her!  (Sorry.  That was mean.)
• "Umm," said Kim thoughtfully, considering the past. "It may be that I have acquired merit also. . . . At least she did not treat me like a child."  Is this what this whole thing's been all about?

(I wonder if the Lama's scar is shaped like a bolt of lightning.)

GENRE FICTION: KEELER versus PATTERSON by analogy of METAL

While I tend to avoid for the most part the "lesser" writing of so-called genre-fiction (becoming less and less the case as I continue to find, or am introduced to, examples of the stuff of unimpeachable literary excellence), I have always harbored a taste, and kept it fairly closeted until now, for another strain of genre, this one "musical" (quotes should connote potential for sarcasm) --that of heavy metal.  Just like mystery and sci-fi and thriller and horror and whatever else in fiction, so in music there is hip-hop, R&B, grunge, metal, jazz, and so on--ad infinitum, really (just check out that family tree of rock n' roll below).

a graphical history of 40 years' of rock n' roll, from lindsargwatt.com

I have not been quiet about my recent reading of Harry Stephen Keeler's mystery novel, Riddle of the Traveling Skull, which both delighted and astonished me.  I am now reading another genre piece, this one by famed genre master ("genre": though not typical of this author; and "master" only if sheer staggering quantity of book sales qualifies one for such a title), James Patterson: his Witch and Wizard (well, it's not really his--some Charbonet character, ghost writer--but has his name on the cover and bigger, which is essentially the same thing, as I can't imagine he'd sign off on it if it didn't at least match his far-from stringent qualifications).  While I firmly believe that Keeler surpassed the typecast of his genre (and this by a dense combination of wit, originality, utter abandonment of reality, and a total dedication to his craft), Patterson has murdered it.

Let's keep things as positive as possible, however, at least for a minute, if no more, because, well, Patterson must be doing something right if he's got 200 million books sold, right?  W&W is written for teens.  Teens have a short attention span (if this sounds like an insult, it's meant to; I don't feel this way about adolescents, but clearly Patterson does).  So instead of bogging down the reader with things like exposition and description and even emotion, Patterson simply deletes them.  Sure, the more seasoned reader is left with the impression that he's reading a plot summary or liner notes under the panels of storyboard illustrations for in-development B-movie, but teens are eating it up.  And, well, it could even be seen as a good introduction to fantasy for new readers, especially because there's absolutely nothing original to it. The book flagrantly steals most obviously and glaringly from The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, among many others, including Lev Grossman's The Magicians (any of which is a little like watching some hack in the audition rounds of American Idol attempt a Whitney Houston number--why would he even want to have his book compared to theirs???).

Now, I've never read anything else by Patterson, so take my snap judgments of him with a grain of salt, and I don't plan to, especially after this.  I picked up W&W because so many of my students are reading it, and I wanted to be able to talk to them about it.  That and it was only 6 bucks at Wal-Mart, and I needed a new book for the bathroom.  Perhaps my problem here--because, really, this book is not next door to terrible, but flagrantly squatting in Terrible's moldy boiler room--is that maybe, just maybe, Patterson should have left fantasy alone and stuck with his more practiced genres of thriller and mystery, not to mention his shift of target audience (which audience, teen/young adult, and which genre, fantasy, tend toward the realms of sacred for me, especially in the case of the audience he's infiltrating (maybe I'm just jealous!)).  To really get my point across, however, I think I need to paint all this in the vibrant tones of analogy.

When I was a teen, my favorite genre band--hard rock/metal (metal, of course, is a subjective term and has developed significantly over the last thirty years) --was Metallica: slightly more musical than others, certainly more popular, and particularly great for weight-room blasting after track practice.  Over the years, of course, I grew up, and slowly grew away from Metallica.  In 1999, however, genre buster and genius composer/conductor for the San Francisco Symphony, Michael Kamen, decided to do up a fat concert's-worth of Metallica charts for symphonic orchestra, and charter the band to take the stage right with the strings and brass, winds and percussion.

The result was absolutely tremendous, and I loved it.  If pulp mysteries may be perhaps aligned with metal, maybe specifically Metallica, then Harry Stephen Keeler is Michael Kamen: a little bit crazy, a little bit genius, a lot reckless, and totally given up to having fun with what he does best and loves.  No matter how crazy, it just freaking works.

James Patterson, on the other hand, and apart from genre shifting yet, is more like pop hard rockers Godsmack, who simply take all the ideas that everyone else has already had, inject it all with a little more sex, a little more violence, and lot more bad language, and sell it to the highest bidder: teenagers.  Now imagine, just for a minute and the sake of argument, that a band like Godsmack took something sacred, like, oh, I don't know, Debussy's "Claire de Lune" and translated it to their particular brand of metal?  Well, you'd get--  Hold on.  Let me repeat that fantasy has more potential for sublimity, I think, than any of the other "genres."  Disbelieve me?  Take a look at the greats: Lord of the Rings and Ender's Game, a couple of my most mainstream favorites, and Summerland, though it's less well-known, or the brilliant stuff that someone like Margaret Atwood or Lewis Carroll or Louis Lowry or, heck, even Douglas Adams (to name only a few of the dozens of this world's and our history's greats) can do with it.  Let's use Lord of the Rings.  It's about as obvious for it's brilliance as is Debussy's "Moonlight."  See what I'm getting at here?  "Claire de Lune" is to Godsmack as Lord of the Rings is to James Patterson.

When it comes right down to it, the idea behind W&W is actually pretty okay, but instead of giving it to Godsmack (because Patterson DID NOT WRITE IT), why not dish it off to a band that can actually play--like a Sevendust or a Tool or a Porcupine Tree (okay, not metal, but it would be awesome) or, yeah, even Metallica?  Better yet, why not a Michael Kamen and the brute, masterful force of his orchestra behind him?  Because I still like a lot of metal out there.  And sometimes, cross-genre translations do work, but I'm sorry: Mr. Patterson, Ms. Charbonnet, yours doesn't.

(Ugh.  I'm gonna go read a poem.)

Jane Eyre VI -- chapter 6: EVERY KID WANTS TO BE JANE EYRE

Scottish Castle

Take a look at children's novels, or stories--within novels, or novels themselves--which include the realization of childish fantasies: nearly without exception there is escape involved.  Escape from home, from relations, from reality....  Whether the children involved come from strong families like Alice, or broken like Harry, children want to get away.  The escapist fantasy of leaving the mundanity, pressures (and, yes, contrary to silly adultish assumptions, there's big-time pressure for kids), confusion, cruelty, or whatever is ubiquitous.  I had a great childhood, and generally I entirely disregarded my parents, preferring instead the various worlds I created or read about.  But Jane Eyre is not, so far, any kind of fantasy, inasmuch as the connotation of the word tends to positive.  Even the  terrors of Wonderland are exciting and wonderful--or wondrous, at least--and I often went there and enjoyed myself.  The morbid and dreary reality of Jane Eyre seems to prevent it from achieving some similar sort of attraction, yet still it fits the bill.  What possible comfort is there for a kid in reading about Jane's terrible life and fantasizing it for him-/herself?

Reading Questions

1. Teachers have pets and monsters, both are favorites; interesting that one can be both, depending on the teacher.
2. What is the benefit of a place like Lowood, at least in the creation of one's person, self, and identity?
3. Ah, little Helen Burns; a truly complex character at last!  I simply can't imagine she's as simple as the unilateral pedant she pretends, and the measures this farcical pretense requires, and what it must therefore cover up, indicates by necessity of its complexity.  Who is she--or, perhaps more accurately, what is she?  
4. "Probably you would do nothing of the sort; but if you did, Mr. Brocklehurst would expel you from the school; that would be a great grief to your relations. It is far better to endure patiently a smart which nobody feels but yourself, than to commit a hasty action whose evil consequences will extend to all connected with you; and besides, the Bible bids us return good for evil."  Define "evil," both in context of the Bible (Romans 12:14-21) and Helen Burns's usage.
5. Deliberately obtuse question: Who is the better teacher (considering a teacher's primary objective and perhaps disregarding method of execution), Miss Scatcherd or Miss Temple?  Bronte's choices for their names seems to indicate her own feelings, or intent at least to influence the reader's prejudice.
6. “Yes, in a passive way: I make no effort; I follow as inclination guides me. There is no merit in such goodness.”
7. Jane's response to this statement is interesting to me--that of striking back strong and hard to preclude further retaliation--and reminds me pointedly of Ender Wiggin from Ender's Game.
8. Bronte Politics.  Which side do you believe Bronte herself is partial to, Jane's or Helen's?
9. Any other thoughts about Jane and Helen's conversation?

Jane Eyre I -- chapter 1: MELANCHOLY ISLES

Period Vocabulary

1. caviler: one who cavils--one who nitpicks, splits hairs, or argues
2. letter-press: a quality of printing, resulting in sort of the opposite of embossing; a quality of high-end, old publishing
3. bilious: since Bronte's not likely talking about the issue of bile from liver problems, she's more likely using "bilious" to indicate John's bad attitude and temper

Reading Questions and Notes

1. The weather as indicator of mood, tone, motif, etcetera is typical of Gothicism, of which Jane Eyre is a defining text.  The weather is, of course, generally considered--and especially out of Victorian England--as act of God.  What does Bronte indicate by aligning Jane with the weather and the surrounding family with this weather's opposite?  "Folds of scarlet drapery shut in my view to the right hand; to the left were the clear panes of glass, protecting, but not separating me from the drear November day."
2. While I'm less interested in issues of Transcendentalism, at least at this point (the prefatory "notes" of my edition say it's at issue here), there are already indications of Romanticism: emphasis, even reliance, on human emotion rather than reason; the power and influence of nature and even the supernatural; advocacy of free thought.  What does Jane and the text demonstrate of Romanticism this early?
3. The passage from Bewick's is indicative of Jane, certainly already but likely increasingly so as we continue through her history.  How?
4. What is the "solitary church-yard"?  Where did it come from?  And the gallows?
5. Is John Reed not Dudley Dursley, from Harry Potter, or Mo, from Calvin and Hobbes?  Why is this the stereotype for bullies?
6. There's another issue of weather, taking the dreariness from another perspective: The elements of a storm surely don't dislike their nature and likely find pleasure in the tormenting of the landscape.  If Jane is the island, what is the storm?
7. Are all entirely against Jane?  I doubt the complicity of Eliza and Georgiana.  

by Bill Waterson

Soliciting Your Votes

Hey, Everyone. 
Take a second and
VOTE for your favorite
East of Eden characters.
 

(The poll is there on the right, up at the top;
vote for as many characters as you want.)

You haven't met all of the characters over there yet.  The poll's open until the middle of November, so feel free to revise your vote as you keep working through the book.  I don't think we'll actually get to Abra before the poll closes.  If you know her from a previous reading and like enough, great; if not, no worries.)

East of Eden X -- Nature versus Nurture

In comments to the Monster post, James brings up the issue, though not with these particular words, of nature versus nurture.  I guess I don't have my thumb adequately enough pressed upon the pulse of world discussion to know how hot-or-not this discussion is, but it crops up all the time in lit-talk.  Obviously, this applies directly to East of Eden, chapter 8 inasmuch as Cathy is a monster by nature.  Maybe that's another issue that needs to be addressed on the "Continuum of Monstrosity" -- a third dimension, or z-axis, showing whether the monster became so in its life and by influence of its surroundings or happens to be innately monstrous.

May I recommend a side project?  I think we should compile a manner of classification for monsters in literature and accurately project them on the continuum, including the third axis for nature/nurture.  I could probably draw it up by hand, but computer imaging would work better.  Stephen, are you reading this?  How hard would this be?  In the meantime, anyone reading this, we would need to compose questions and tiers delineating degrees of monstrosity in order to grid them on the image....  Thoughts?

So what do you think (back to nature/nurture and Cathy's monstrosity)?  Can you really be born monstrous, evil, terrible?  This is a big deal for many religions.  Are we born pure?  Are we born evil?  This is the dilemma--or perhaps point of contention--of, or between, many religions regarding baptism.  Where does the evil come from then, if not inborn?  Was Satan, Lucifer, the Son of the Morning, eternally evil, or did he become so?  I'm not trying to create a theological discussion or debate here.  When it comes down to it, in order to keep the discussion truly applicable to the source text, we need to tend within Steinbeck's own demonstrated belief system.  However, I don't think we need to limit ourselves!

So, chapter 8.

***

Reading Questions
Chapter 8.1, 8.2

1. Simple and direct: if you want evidence that Steinbeck intends Cathy to be evil by nature, these two sections are loaded!  Consider how she, and entirely passive-aggressively, frames the two boys for sexual assault.  Sure, they're not innocent, but holy cow!  Can a person be that horrible and from that young?  Her father doesn't think so.  Does his passivity--or, at best, though still, I think, guilty by omission, silence--incriminate him?  Could he have NURTURED his daughter into something wholesome, or at least less evil?  Is a person born like Cathy capable of gaining some sort of purity?

Chapter 8.3

1. I read this first paragraph and, forgive me, can't help but think of young Tom Riddle of Harry Potter fame requesting a teaching position from Dumbledore.  Why does she really want to be a teacher? (Do you suppose Rowling was in any way influenced by Steinbeck?)
2. James Grew reminds me of Kurt Cobain. 
3. Mr. Ames just ticks me off.  Maybe he reminds me of me.  Like him, I'm not confrontational.  Might it be also within me to ignore such impressions and cause, inadvertently and by laziness or cowardice, such destruction?  I hope not.  And is this not the great power of great literature, to reflect us upon ourselves?
4. Steinbeck writes in the last paragraph of 8.3, "That was Cathy's method."  WHAT?  What is it that is Cathy's method?

Chapter 8.4

So I'm writing these questions and discussion points as I'm re-reading the book for the first time in three or four years (has it been that long?), and HOLY CRAP! I forgot about this brilliant exchange and cross-textual reference:

• "What's that book you're hiding?" [her mother asks.]
• "Here!  I'm not hiding it."
• "Oh!  Alice in Wonderland.  You're too big for that."
• Cathy said, "I can get to be so little you can't even seen me."
• "What in the world are you talking about?"
• "Nobody can find me."
• Her mother said angrily, "Stop making jokes.  I don't know what you're thinking of.  What does Miss Fancy think she is going to do?"
• "I don't know yet," said Cathy.  "I think I'll go away."
• "Well, you just lie there, Miss Fancy, and when your father comes home he'll have a thing or two to say to you."  (Yeah, right!  That coward?)

1. Keep this exchange in mind as you learn more and more about Cathy.  Is she really just a girl lost down the rabbit hole?
2. Is Cathy without love or empathy?  Consider just the page or so since the Wonderland dialog.  Was it foresight that prevented evidence of childhood in her bedroom or careful erasure that left it empty after he departure?
3. Interesting about Mr. Ames: the very thing that makes him a coward in confrontation is also--or is it? -- the very thing that makes him "a very good man in a crisis."
4. The whipping scene makes me think--or, I guess, it's Cathy's reticence and utter control throughout the ordeal--of Denzel Washington's character in the movie Glory.  Thoughts?  Certainly, she's no martyr; there's no glory in her resistance, but still....

chapter 8.5

1. "We've all of us got a little of the Old Nick in us," says Cathy's father.  Who is Old Nick?

chapter 8.6 

• "Now look here, Mike," he said, "you shouldn't do a think like that.  If that poor fellow had been just a little smarter you might have got him hanged."
• "He said he did it."  The constable's feelings were hurt because he was a conscientious man.
• "He would have admitted to climbing the golden stairs and cutting St. Peter's throat with a bowling ball," the judge said.  "Be more careful, Mike.  The law was designed to save, not to destroy."