I read a lot of books every year. Always have, always will. Books for pleasure, books for school, audio books in the car on the way to and from Greer. I keep a list of the books I read. Novels, plays, non-fiction--everything book length. I don't count the short stories, poetry, magazine and newspaper articles--just the books.
In 2006 I counted forty-eight books: twenty-two books on tape, sixteen new books in print, and ten re-reads (most of those for school). The biggest difference for me is that the books I read for the first time are mostly read in the spirit of discovery. I'm always looking for the pleasure of an entertaining story, compelling characters, and scenes that evoke in me strong feelings. On the other hand, when I read a book I've read before, I'm looking for different things. I want to see how the story is put together, how the threads are connected, how individual passages stand out and carry the weight of meaning. I look for ideas and feelings I hadn't noticed before. I move from a casual acquaintance with the book to the level of friendship and deeper knowledge.
I was checking out some blogs the other day and found one that struck a chord with me on the subject of re-reading, so I wanted to share it with you. The blog is by Scott Esposito, and the quote is from one of his correspondents named Dan Green.
The relevance to English class, I think, is something like this: when you read a new piece of literature, you are doing the initial reading, and when you post a weekly blog entry and we come together in class to talk about your responses and look more closely at the text and at the different ways you found of responding to it, we're doing some of the work of re-reading. It's not entirely the same experience, but it's an approximation.
Over the course of my next several entries, I'll be re-reading some of the recommended books on my summer list and posting brief entries on why I chose each and what I noticed when I re-read it.
Showing posts with label literature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label literature. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Saturday, June 2, 2007
Style Notes on the comma
The Night Inspector—style notes
June 2, 2007
I’m almost finished with Frederick Busch’s The Night Inspector, a novel I heard good things about, both from reviews and from Mr. Martin (I think it’s on his ID book list). It’s a very dark, very well written novel, focusing on two scarred and damaged characters. One was a marksman—read sniper—badly wounded during the Civil War, while the other is Herman Melville, one of the great novelists in American literary history, who, unfortunately, did not receive much critical or popular support during his lifetime and therefore became embittered, often viewing himself as a failure.
But what I noticed in a passage I just read, is a style note I want to pass along. I think the writer wants his style to sound authentically 19th century; to do so, he uses long sentences characteristic of the period. But to keep the parts of those sentences clear in relation to each other, and to allow for both narration of action and mental reflection on those actions in the same sentence, he uses punctuation, specifically commas, to give a precise rhythm to his sentences (as perhaps I just did with this sentence).
Here are two samples; the main characters are in a small boat on the Hudson River, at night, pursuing another boat up the coastline of Manhattan. “M” in the second passage is Herman Melville.
1. But even at some proximity to the shore, and so far downtown, passing the ships at anchor, and the pleasure craft upon which the wealthy pass their nights in pleasures and to which the likes of us might not have pretended, we all, I think, experienced the power of the deep, swift river, and the fear that cannot help but reside, awaiting travelers, in that dark water. (10 commas, 67 words)
2. And, standing before us, one foot before the gunwale, the tiller in one hand while the other seized the gaff hook on its long pole, planted, for balance, against the ribbed flooring of the boat, his oilskins open and glinting in what light we passed or was thrown forward by the lantern, M, in his closed and bearded face, staring forward, over us and over Sam, toward the distant, retreating chimney that spouted gouts of fire and threw up sparks and made the sound of a railroad locomotive roaring away with a considerable portion of our dignity and hope. (13 commas, 99 words)
I particularly like the second passage, both because of the way the short phrases at the beginning of the sentence paint a precise, detailed picture of Melville standing in the pursuit boat and because of the way the sentence ends with the longer phrase describing the boat being pursued, completely changing the rhythm of the sentence by using action verbs and participles like “retreating,” “spouted, “ threw,” made,” and “roaring,” tied together with the conjunction “and” rather than commas.
In fact, I'm wondering how the rhythms of that sentence would work if I arranged it on the page in the form of a short poem:
And, standing before us, one foot before the gunwale,
the tiller in one hand while the other
seized the gaff hook on its long pole,
planted, for balance, against the ribbed flooring of the boat,
his oilskins open and glinting in what light we passed
or was thrown forward by the lantern,
M, in his closed and bearded face, staring forward,
over us and over Sam, toward the distant, retreating chimney
that spouted gouts of fire and threw up sparks
and made the sound of a railroad locomotive
roaring away with a considerable portion of our dignity and hope.
It's an interesting way to look at the sentence, because it emphasizes some of the images, especially the verbs, and also highlights the metaphor of the locomotive sound at the end.
I’m not advocating that you write 80- or 100-word sentences. But I am suggesting that you punctuate by more than rule when you write. The basics still apply: commas in series, commas after a long introductory clause or phrase, commas between the clauses in a compound sentences, commas after words like well, yes, no, and the names of people being spoken to in direct address. But read your sentences aloud and use good, strong, punctuation to create detail, tension, and rhythm in your sentences.
June 2, 2007
I’m almost finished with Frederick Busch’s The Night Inspector, a novel I heard good things about, both from reviews and from Mr. Martin (I think it’s on his ID book list). It’s a very dark, very well written novel, focusing on two scarred and damaged characters. One was a marksman—read sniper—badly wounded during the Civil War, while the other is Herman Melville, one of the great novelists in American literary history, who, unfortunately, did not receive much critical or popular support during his lifetime and therefore became embittered, often viewing himself as a failure.
But what I noticed in a passage I just read, is a style note I want to pass along. I think the writer wants his style to sound authentically 19th century; to do so, he uses long sentences characteristic of the period. But to keep the parts of those sentences clear in relation to each other, and to allow for both narration of action and mental reflection on those actions in the same sentence, he uses punctuation, specifically commas, to give a precise rhythm to his sentences (as perhaps I just did with this sentence).
Here are two samples; the main characters are in a small boat on the Hudson River, at night, pursuing another boat up the coastline of Manhattan. “M” in the second passage is Herman Melville.
1. But even at some proximity to the shore, and so far downtown, passing the ships at anchor, and the pleasure craft upon which the wealthy pass their nights in pleasures and to which the likes of us might not have pretended, we all, I think, experienced the power of the deep, swift river, and the fear that cannot help but reside, awaiting travelers, in that dark water. (10 commas, 67 words)
2. And, standing before us, one foot before the gunwale, the tiller in one hand while the other seized the gaff hook on its long pole, planted, for balance, against the ribbed flooring of the boat, his oilskins open and glinting in what light we passed or was thrown forward by the lantern, M, in his closed and bearded face, staring forward, over us and over Sam, toward the distant, retreating chimney that spouted gouts of fire and threw up sparks and made the sound of a railroad locomotive roaring away with a considerable portion of our dignity and hope. (13 commas, 99 words)
I particularly like the second passage, both because of the way the short phrases at the beginning of the sentence paint a precise, detailed picture of Melville standing in the pursuit boat and because of the way the sentence ends with the longer phrase describing the boat being pursued, completely changing the rhythm of the sentence by using action verbs and participles like “retreating,” “spouted, “ threw,” made,” and “roaring,” tied together with the conjunction “and” rather than commas.
In fact, I'm wondering how the rhythms of that sentence would work if I arranged it on the page in the form of a short poem:
And, standing before us, one foot before the gunwale,
the tiller in one hand while the other
seized the gaff hook on its long pole,
planted, for balance, against the ribbed flooring of the boat,
his oilskins open and glinting in what light we passed
or was thrown forward by the lantern,
M, in his closed and bearded face, staring forward,
over us and over Sam, toward the distant, retreating chimney
that spouted gouts of fire and threw up sparks
and made the sound of a railroad locomotive
roaring away with a considerable portion of our dignity and hope.
It's an interesting way to look at the sentence, because it emphasizes some of the images, especially the verbs, and also highlights the metaphor of the locomotive sound at the end.
I’m not advocating that you write 80- or 100-word sentences. But I am suggesting that you punctuate by more than rule when you write. The basics still apply: commas in series, commas after a long introductory clause or phrase, commas between the clauses in a compound sentences, commas after words like well, yes, no, and the names of people being spoken to in direct address. But read your sentences aloud and use good, strong, punctuation to create detail, tension, and rhythm in your sentences.
Friday, May 25, 2007
Shakespeare's Kern River soliloquy
To sleep or not to sleep, that is the problem.
Whether 'tis nobler in the tents to suffer
The slings and bellows of outrageous chaperones
Or to take rest against a sea of troubles
And by ignoring end them.
To sleep, perchance to dream,
'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.
But in that sleep what breakfasts may be missed
When we have shuffled off our wake-up calls,
Must give us pause, and makes us rather bear
Those forty winks we lose, than fly to hunger pangs
We know not of. Thus mealtime doth make
Cowards of us all, and thus the native
Resolution to sleep in gets sicklied o'er
With the pale cast of food.
(compare to the real deal Hamlet's soliloquy)
Whether 'tis nobler in the tents to suffer
The slings and bellows of outrageous chaperones
Or to take rest against a sea of troubles
And by ignoring end them.
To sleep, perchance to dream,
'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.
But in that sleep what breakfasts may be missed
When we have shuffled off our wake-up calls,
Must give us pause, and makes us rather bear
Those forty winks we lose, than fly to hunger pangs
We know not of. Thus mealtime doth make
Cowards of us all, and thus the native
Resolution to sleep in gets sicklied o'er
With the pale cast of food.
(compare to the real deal Hamlet's soliloquy)
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Awards Day 2007
We are all gifted. I don't necessarily mean this statement in the Garrison Keillor, Lake Woebegone tradition, in which the women are strong, the men are good looking, and the children all above average, although looking out at this distinguished assembly I don't think he’s far wrong. But when I say we are all gifted, I mean it in the sense that all of us have been blessed, by birth, by innate talent, by the circumstances of our lives, and by the words and examples of great thinkers and writers, with many gifts, and that it is in our relationship to these gifts, the ways they define us and the uses we make of them, that we create meaning and purpose in our lives and begin to realize the true potential of our common humanity.
I want to distinguish between two broad categories of gifts. The first are external, those we receive from birth or circumstance, and the second are internal, those of talent, ability, and affinity. Both kinds are important, in different ways. External gifts, those we receive from parents and teachers, gifts of home, school, and the many advantages of physical and moral support, give us our start in life, the foundation we need to be self-sustaining, independent, and able to establish a place for ourselves in the world. That’s important. But the internal, in the long run, count for even more and are the gifts I want to focus on today. Why? Because recognizing our strengths and abilities and devoting our personal and working lives to developing them to the utmost, not only forms the basis of our adult identities but helps us apply ourselves to the best choices of personal relationships, professions, the very paths our lives will take. As Scott so wisely said in his senior speech, “everyone has something about them that makes them unique, and different, and better at something than almost everyone else.”
More specifically, what are these unique somethings? One is the gift of reason, since it has made possible most of what we today recognize as the essential qualities of human life, from our homes to our transportation systems to our schools to our many entertainments. Another is the ability to feel, both for ourselves and others, a gift which allows us to develop our friendships, our loves, our empathy for the experiences and sufferings of our fellow human beings. Exercising this gift both creates the most valuable, lasting human connections we will ever experience and allows us to develop the emotional resources to survive loss and overcome grief. A third is the gift of wisdom, residing in the ability of our human spirits to extract insight from our experience, to identify values which give meaning and guidance to our lives. We don’t have to look far to find this gift, for the members of the senior class have shared it with each other and with the rest of us, in their speeches. They have given us abundant evidence of the wisdom they have already gleaned, some of it metaphorical, some of it personal, all of it expressed in lively, compelling language. Here is just a sampling of the wisdom I found while re-reading their speeches. (this list is by no means exhaustive, and bears with it my apologies to the many brilliant remarks which the constraints of time force me to omit)--
Some of you told us of your belief in the possibilities of new, even infinite identities:
Ross—“take a chance, try on a new costume, make people take a second glance.” (nice metaphor and it rhymes)
Shebani—“Every day is a new opportunity to create ourselves.” (I like that phrase, we create ourselves)
Some of you talked of finding the keys to well-being in unexpected places:
Ben—“napping is good for both body and soul”
Rachel—“Kissing has many health benefits.”
Some created metaphors for your understanding of life:
Jamie—“Skiing is a metaphor for life. . . [so find] what makes you feel the most exhilarated, the most content with yourself as skiing has done for me.”
Max—(our appropriately honored speaker today, with a phrase containing both literal and symbolic meanings) “quit ya cryin and take out da gahbage.”
Alexis—“the world is an amazing place, . . . [and] there is an adventure lurking around every corner” (corner metaphor)
Rick‘s mechanical, perhaps automotive metaphor: “Find the person in your life . . who inspires you, who pushes you to that extra gear you didn’t think existed.”
Jake—“Life is a lot like a comic strip, and we can all be the star of our own comic.”
Others of you gave us the benefit of your personal values and outlook on life:
Annie, one of the bravest people I know— the ability to take life’s pains a day at a time and persevere allows us to survive our toughest tests and hardships.
Abby—“Don’t compete to knock others down; . . .compete to bring out the best in people and pave the way for new friendships.”
Amanda—“We have an obligation to be aware of ourselves and the world around us, to be involved.”
Finally, some of you found simple, eloquent words to express your most profound beliefs:
Katie—“find your bliss, quiet your mind, flirt with folly, and let go.”
Alexa—(in a nice turn of phrase) “the happiest people don’t have the best of everything; they just make the best of everything that comes their way.”
Lauren—(memorable use of anaphora) “Love people, love life, and love yourself.”
I’m blown away. There’s no way I can do better than the members of our senior class have already done in imparting pearls of wisdom. But there is yet one more gift I want to mention, one which lies latent within us all and which we can develop in many ways, one of the most profound for me being the study of literature. To me it is the most fundamental of all our intrinsic gifts, perhaps because it is the gift most closely related to what I do for a living, and therefore the gift I spend the most time trying to help my students discover and develop within themselves each year. This is the gift of moral imagination, the ability to understand the implications of actions, to grasp the power of choice, to discover what William Faulkner called “the old verities, the universal truths of the heart—love, honor, pity, pride, compassion, sacrifice.” It is moral imagination which allows us to see life through another’s eyes, to invent new visions and possibilitiesfor ourselves, to feel and develop our powers of compassion, to recognize our common humanity in those we first identify as different or wrong, that is the foundation of the study of literature, work which has defined much of my life and from which I have learned many of my most powerful lessons.
For me, moral imagination is Scott Fitzgerald making us understand why Nick Caraway insists that a corrupt bootlegger named Gatsby, who believed in the possibilities of rebirth, “is worth [as Nick says] the whole damn bunch put together.”
Moral imagination is Shakespeare showing us that even a bloody tyrant like Macbeth, deserving as he no doubt is of the death which comes to him, nonetheless merits sympathy for suffering the pangs of unending remorse for the destruction of his own potential greatness.
It is Mary Shelley, teaching us the power of loneliness, which drives a hideous but tormented creature to exact a terrible revenge on his creator.
It is Leo Tolstoy, taking us deep into the heart of a dying Russian bureaucrat, who redeems himself almost at the moment of death by honestly accepting the falseness of his entire life.
It is my much-beloved Hamlet, struggling against the ethical evils of revenge, the dangers of choosing violence over reflection, only to understand in the end that there are times we must act to stop the spread of evil, in our families, in our communities, in our worlds.
And, in what is for me one of the most luminous passages in all literature, it is Huckleberry Finn, an uneducated, highly prejudiced country boy, who overcomes his entire background and flawed culture in a moment of transcendent courage when he decides to sacrifice his own soul to give freedom to a runaway slave who is his best friend and truest father figure.
The power of language, of stories, is such that the words of these great writers allow us to see (and notice, please that this meaning is at the heart of the word imagine) see the larger, deeper possibilities which give meaning and value to human life, and thus give us one of the most precious and valuable gifts any of us can possess.
I end by reminding the members of the senior class, as they prepare to leave this school and embark on the next stages of their journeys, of the many gifts they will take with them, from their parents, their teachers, the great writers, and from each other. We are truly all gifted.
I want to distinguish between two broad categories of gifts. The first are external, those we receive from birth or circumstance, and the second are internal, those of talent, ability, and affinity. Both kinds are important, in different ways. External gifts, those we receive from parents and teachers, gifts of home, school, and the many advantages of physical and moral support, give us our start in life, the foundation we need to be self-sustaining, independent, and able to establish a place for ourselves in the world. That’s important. But the internal, in the long run, count for even more and are the gifts I want to focus on today. Why? Because recognizing our strengths and abilities and devoting our personal and working lives to developing them to the utmost, not only forms the basis of our adult identities but helps us apply ourselves to the best choices of personal relationships, professions, the very paths our lives will take. As Scott so wisely said in his senior speech, “everyone has something about them that makes them unique, and different, and better at something than almost everyone else.”
More specifically, what are these unique somethings? One is the gift of reason, since it has made possible most of what we today recognize as the essential qualities of human life, from our homes to our transportation systems to our schools to our many entertainments. Another is the ability to feel, both for ourselves and others, a gift which allows us to develop our friendships, our loves, our empathy for the experiences and sufferings of our fellow human beings. Exercising this gift both creates the most valuable, lasting human connections we will ever experience and allows us to develop the emotional resources to survive loss and overcome grief. A third is the gift of wisdom, residing in the ability of our human spirits to extract insight from our experience, to identify values which give meaning and guidance to our lives. We don’t have to look far to find this gift, for the members of the senior class have shared it with each other and with the rest of us, in their speeches. They have given us abundant evidence of the wisdom they have already gleaned, some of it metaphorical, some of it personal, all of it expressed in lively, compelling language. Here is just a sampling of the wisdom I found while re-reading their speeches. (this list is by no means exhaustive, and bears with it my apologies to the many brilliant remarks which the constraints of time force me to omit)--
Some of you told us of your belief in the possibilities of new, even infinite identities:
Ross—“take a chance, try on a new costume, make people take a second glance.” (nice metaphor and it rhymes)
Shebani—“Every day is a new opportunity to create ourselves.” (I like that phrase, we create ourselves)
Some of you talked of finding the keys to well-being in unexpected places:
Ben—“napping is good for both body and soul”
Rachel—“Kissing has many health benefits.”
Some created metaphors for your understanding of life:
Jamie—“Skiing is a metaphor for life. . . [so find] what makes you feel the most exhilarated, the most content with yourself as skiing has done for me.”
Max—(our appropriately honored speaker today, with a phrase containing both literal and symbolic meanings) “quit ya cryin and take out da gahbage.”
Alexis—“the world is an amazing place, . . . [and] there is an adventure lurking around every corner” (corner metaphor)
Rick‘s mechanical, perhaps automotive metaphor: “Find the person in your life . . who inspires you, who pushes you to that extra gear you didn’t think existed.”
Jake—“Life is a lot like a comic strip, and we can all be the star of our own comic.”
Others of you gave us the benefit of your personal values and outlook on life:
Annie, one of the bravest people I know— the ability to take life’s pains a day at a time and persevere allows us to survive our toughest tests and hardships.
Abby—“Don’t compete to knock others down; . . .compete to bring out the best in people and pave the way for new friendships.”
Amanda—“We have an obligation to be aware of ourselves and the world around us, to be involved.”
Finally, some of you found simple, eloquent words to express your most profound beliefs:
Katie—“find your bliss, quiet your mind, flirt with folly, and let go.”
Alexa—(in a nice turn of phrase) “the happiest people don’t have the best of everything; they just make the best of everything that comes their way.”
Lauren—(memorable use of anaphora) “Love people, love life, and love yourself.”
I’m blown away. There’s no way I can do better than the members of our senior class have already done in imparting pearls of wisdom. But there is yet one more gift I want to mention, one which lies latent within us all and which we can develop in many ways, one of the most profound for me being the study of literature. To me it is the most fundamental of all our intrinsic gifts, perhaps because it is the gift most closely related to what I do for a living, and therefore the gift I spend the most time trying to help my students discover and develop within themselves each year. This is the gift of moral imagination, the ability to understand the implications of actions, to grasp the power of choice, to discover what William Faulkner called “the old verities, the universal truths of the heart—love, honor, pity, pride, compassion, sacrifice.” It is moral imagination which allows us to see life through another’s eyes, to invent new visions and possibilitiesfor ourselves, to feel and develop our powers of compassion, to recognize our common humanity in those we first identify as different or wrong, that is the foundation of the study of literature, work which has defined much of my life and from which I have learned many of my most powerful lessons.
For me, moral imagination is Scott Fitzgerald making us understand why Nick Caraway insists that a corrupt bootlegger named Gatsby, who believed in the possibilities of rebirth, “is worth [as Nick says] the whole damn bunch put together.”
Moral imagination is Shakespeare showing us that even a bloody tyrant like Macbeth, deserving as he no doubt is of the death which comes to him, nonetheless merits sympathy for suffering the pangs of unending remorse for the destruction of his own potential greatness.
It is Mary Shelley, teaching us the power of loneliness, which drives a hideous but tormented creature to exact a terrible revenge on his creator.
It is Leo Tolstoy, taking us deep into the heart of a dying Russian bureaucrat, who redeems himself almost at the moment of death by honestly accepting the falseness of his entire life.
It is my much-beloved Hamlet, struggling against the ethical evils of revenge, the dangers of choosing violence over reflection, only to understand in the end that there are times we must act to stop the spread of evil, in our families, in our communities, in our worlds.
And, in what is for me one of the most luminous passages in all literature, it is Huckleberry Finn, an uneducated, highly prejudiced country boy, who overcomes his entire background and flawed culture in a moment of transcendent courage when he decides to sacrifice his own soul to give freedom to a runaway slave who is his best friend and truest father figure.
The power of language, of stories, is such that the words of these great writers allow us to see (and notice, please that this meaning is at the heart of the word imagine) see the larger, deeper possibilities which give meaning and value to human life, and thus give us one of the most precious and valuable gifts any of us can possess.
I end by reminding the members of the senior class, as they prepare to leave this school and embark on the next stages of their journeys, of the many gifts they will take with them, from their parents, their teachers, the great writers, and from each other. We are truly all gifted.
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