Thoughts and ramblings

Might as well be honest
 

I'm moonlighting

I have been asked, for no real comprehensible reason other than pity, to occasionally lower the intelligence of the blog, Things Medieval. I just fired off a truly curmudgeonly post. If you feel so inclined, here's the link

http://thingsmedieval.wordpress.com/

Trust me, you'll know which is mine. My apologies to those who would normally read the blog for intelligent writing.

Posted April 7, 2012
 

Skipping parts of books?!?

I read the following article and it truly intrigued me. Feel free to jump to the end and read it. Go ahead, I'll wait...

Welcome back.

There are a number of reasons for my fascination with this article, some of which deal simply with the disturbing coincidences of the article and not merely its content. First, I had this very discussion with some of my students today. Not only that, but we were discussing Tolkien as an example. That it was about the songs scattered throughout Lord of the Rings is a trifle unsettling. The point that I was making was not in keeping with the article, however. I wanted the students to understand that often parts of the books that seem like mere filler give further insight into what the author is doing. Tolkien, I argued, was following medieval convention by including those songs. Glory and eternal for Anglo-Saxon warriors, like Beowulf, were tied to the legacy left behind, or, as Theoden puts it, "making an end worthy of a song." By including these songs, Tolkien is simply building Middle-Earth to be similar to the Anglo-Saxon Middangeard (That's Midguard for all you Thor fans). Thus, to skip those parts is to miss out out on a vital part of that fictive world. 

Strangely, the second book referenced is House of Leaves. I have only just begun to read this book and it was recommended to me for just the reason that I am very likely to read each and every appendix and footnote and so on. It seems, therefore, that I am just such a puritanically compelled reader. Yet again, I cite my above reasons for just such a compulsion and quibble with the use of a (usually) pejorative adjective to describe them. 

Yet, when I came upon the next book mentioned, Henry David Thoreau's bean-growing epic, Walden, I find myself blushing slightly. I have often heard myself remark that the book is a work of sheer contemplative genius, provided you can sift through all the passages on hoeing beans to get to the good stuff. However, before you cry "Hypocrite" and instantly unsubscribe from this little exercise in self-humiliation and self-indulgence I call a blog, I must say that I have read all those bean-hoeing passages on multiple occasions, though with lesser enthusiasm than I might show for lines like, "Humility, like darkness, reveals the heavenly lights."

What then should appear but the tome, A Prayer for Owen Meany? This very book was one I helped a friend locate for the purposes of a book club this week. Its inclusion here makes me fear that I have committed some sort of unfriendly act of torture, based on the account offered. 

For the record, I did read ALL of the passage on soil type in Grapes of Wrath. I suppose I should mention that I'm teaching it. Yet does that make a difference? Of course not...I suppose...

Before you conclude that I am merely an intolerant, insufferable curmudgeon (which I am, you just shouldn't conclude that from this particular piece), I must admit that I do detect a rather facetious tone in the article and, I believe, such a tone can be detected here as well. After all, having read Tolkien more than forty times, I feel rather comfortable skipping those bits I don't entirely love...now and again...


in-defence-of-skipping
http://bookriot.com/2012/01/06/in-defence-of-skipping/

In Defense of Skipping

, posted on January 6, 2012 in Opinion with

Skipping is not just for prize boxers and pig-tailed girls, but for serious readers too. Over the festive break I did quite a bit of it. Two days after Christmas I sat down to read The Hobbit by a suitably crackling fire. It was all going splendidly. And then the dwarves started singing.

For anyone unfamiliar with J.R.R. Tolkien’s work, the old codger loves giving his characters songs to sing. He has an unfortunate habit of underscoring certain scenes with a bout of hobbit karaoke. The songs never advance the plot or deepen the characters. These are no Greek choruses, more the literary equivalent of extended drum solos or the Ringo songs on Beatles albums. And hence are eminently skippable.

Skipping is okay. The journalist and editor Robert McCrum has been musing about the same topic. He too was inspired by another festive reading experience (maybe with so much other excess at this time of year, we tolerate it less in our books?).

As McCrum notes, there is an almost puritanical compulsion that we should read every single word in the books we pick up. How else can you explain the existence of Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves – a book with more appendices than an anatomy museum. Not doing so, the puritans say, would be a slight to the author, plus we might miss something.

And yet, what if the author was having an off day whilst writing that dry bit of exposition? Surely it’s okay to self-abridge if it keeps us reading and interested? McCrum asks, should we be ashamed at skipping? Not a bit.

I’ve done some major skipping in my time. Tolkien perennially inspires it. The Hobbit pales in comparison to The Lord of The Rings, which is essentially the Great Elvish Songbook.

I read Walden by Henry David Thoreau last year and had trained myself to recognise patterns of words that signalled whether this paragraph would be life-affirming musings or directions for building 19th century flat pack furniture. I skipped accordingly.

In A Prayer For Owen Meany I spent much less time in the contemporary chapters with John, the narrator, grapping with his life and faith, than in the flashback chapters with the wonderful Owen. Hands up who read all the chapters in The Grapes of Wrath about soil type? Nope, me neither.

Had I given in to the puritanical instinct that sometimes takes hold, these books might have become at best a drudgery, at worst unfinished. But because I skipped, I loved.

____________________________

Edd McCracken lives in Scotland, works for an ancient university, and writes about culture for fun. Follow him on Twitter: @EddMcCracken

Posted January 7, 2012
 

Embracing the New...

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  It is now safe to say that we are into the new year and the time has come to consider our plans and goals for the coming 366 days. The sentimental first few hours of the year are gone, so the resolutions made over teary-eyed hugs and so on are probably already broken or, at least, realised to be impossible. 
 
  What does this mean for those who wish to pursue improvement over the coming months? Perhaps, it is good to carefully consider and plan such endeavours. After all, most resolutions of the newly minted January tend to fall by the wayside as February itself is newly minted. 
 
  Do I seek better health this year? Yes. However, this is mostly due to a rash promise made some years ago that, upon reaching the particular anniversary of my inauspicious entry into this vale of tears, I would be, in such precise terms, the best shape of my life. Hmm. I did remark recently to a friend that, should my 18-year-old self try to ride with my current self, I would leave said past version heaving and passing out on the side of the road rather handily. Does this mean I can check this goal off? No, not really. Simply put, my current self would be shamed almost as swiftly by the self that existed as recently as last July. It seems I have some catching up to do. Perhaps, since I so foolishly used to superlative to describe said physical conditioning, I must needs aim to surpass. Naturally, I would love to move from surpassing to sustaining. Would that not be nice for me. 
 
  That, however, is an entirely other issue. The heart of being able to accomplish that little hope is tied to a rather different set of criteria. Sustainable overall health is really tied to everything. What, then,must I do? Ay, if I may so freely quote, there's the rub. 
 
  The key, I am coming to believe, is getting back to the foundational things in life. To do so, I think that Thoreau was right in his admonition to "Simplify, simplify." How exactly does one accomplish that? There are those who try to own as little as possible. Their minimalist lifestyles are mocked quite well by Bike Snob NYC, for those who push the idea are more, I think, smug and attention seeking than truly interested in simplifying life. They are the arrogant anti-materialists. Their pride is still in their possessions, simply in their ability to flaunt their perceived superiority by having fewer. Yet, to move away from the materialistic, American Dream, consumerist obsession of our culture is not a bad thing either. 
 
  More important, though, is the paring away of the unnecessary in the mind, the emotions and the living. We allow so many distractions that we miss the bigger picture. We do this in a number of ways. We too often allow the present difficulties to blind us to all else. I do not denigrate the very real and true heartache we all face, but it is still a part of all that is life. It is terrible, but, so often, we see it as all of life. It is in this shift of gaze from the whole to the part, this redefinition of the part as the whole, that we lose our perspective and allow despair to creep in. This is true for so many other things too. We focus on so many intellectual details that we miss the total system of which they are only a part. This is where the multitudinous contradictions that we accept as truth arise, bringing about a belief that truth itself is not really true. 
 
  It would seem that I have strayed from my original intent, but not so far as you might think. All of these things rob us of the peace and joy, those slices of the eternal, that we seek. To strip away the unnecessary is the key. Time is the central element in this endeavour. On what activities do I spend my time? On what thoughts? Do they reflect that which is truly important or, simply, that which grabs my attention and, thus, time right now? 
 
  Thoreau wrote, "As if you could kill time without injuring eternity." Sometimes stillness is not indolence. Sometimes activity is not productivity. Sometimes play is not waste. We must discern what is truly necessary. All things must be in moderation. We cannot live only in the future nor only on the past. However, we also cannot live so much in the present that we lose sight of all else. The extreme is easy, balance is difficult. 
 
  This is long and so serious for such a celebratory occasion. I will end with a (lengthy) quote from Thoreau that sums much of this up in such a poetic way. 
 
However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poorhouse. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the almshouse as brightly as from the rich man's abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace . . . Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. God will see that you do not want society. If I were confined to a corner of a garret all my days, like a spider, the world would be just as large to me while I had my thoughts about me. The philosopher said: "From an army of three divisions one can take away its general, and put it in disorder; from the man the most abject and vulgar one cannot take away his thought." Do not seek so anxiously to be developed, to subject yourself to many influences to be played on; it is all dissipation. Humility like darkness reveals the heavenly lights.

Posted January 3, 2012
 

Some days

Some days are just not what you envisioned. And go awry and interruptions get in the way. On days like that, it's too easy to let the more fluid nature of the day distract you from what may actually be good in the unexpected turns of events. Often, some of the best most enjoyable moments are those that arise without warning or planning.

Just thinking as I sit in a waiting room...

Posted December 29, 2011