The Readiness Is All

Read, naturally. Today I finished up my crazy spring semester - note to everyone: do NOT take two hard core English classes and a grammar class during spring semester unless you want to spend your entire existence with a book in your hand. So now I'm making plans for my summer reading. Of course. The other day I was bored in my grammar class, so I started making a list, which I am now going to post. Feel free to make recommendations, but the list is already impossible. I'm excited.

MEGAN'S SUMMER READING LIST (impossible version)
* indicates must-reads

UNFINISHED BUSINESS:
Jude the Obscure* (Thomas Hardy)
Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse* (Louise Erdrich)
Jacob's Room (Virginia Woolf)
Frankenstein (Mary Shelley)

MINDLESS FROTH:
Austenland*(Shannon Hale)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows* (J.K. Rowling)
Eclipse* (Stephenie Meyer)
River Secrets (Shannon Hale)
Dreamland (Sarah Dessen)
A Great and Terrible Beauty (Libba Bray)
Shackleton's Stowaway (Victoria McKennan)
A Northern Light (Donnelly)
the Georgia Nicholson books I haven't read yet (Louise Rennison)

POSTMODERN:
Reading Lolita in Tehran* (Azar Nafisi)
The Crossing* (Cormac McCarthy)
Cities of the Plain* (Cormac McCarthy)
Tracks (Louise Erdrich)
The Shipping News (Thanks Jolly and Lindsey)
CLASSIC(ISH): (The biggest section... probably the one I'll read least from. Sad.)
All Quiet on the Western Front
Middlemarch (George Elliot)
The Moon is Down (John Steinbeck)
East of Eden*(John Steinbeck)
Tender is the Night (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
Invisible Man (Ralph Ellison)
Testament of Youth (Vera Brittain)
The Seven Pillars of Wisdom (T.E. Lawrence)
Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy)
A Passage to India (E.M. Forster)
Where Angels Fear to Tread (E.M. Forster)
Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston)
The Color Purple (Alice Walker)
The Autobiography of Malcolm X (Alex Haley)
Dracula* (Bram Stoker)
Madam Bovary (Gustave Flaubert)

MISC.:
Ophelia* (Lisa Klein)
Hamlet's Dresser (Bob Smith)
The Beauty Myth
Survival of the Prettiest
A Room of One's Own* (Virginia Woolf)
Mere Christianity (C.S. Lewis)
In Search of Mockingbird
How I Found the Strong
Eats, Shoots and Leaves (Lynne Trusse)
Dandelion Wine* (must read during summer - Ray Bradbury)
Enchantment* (Orson Scott Card - recently added because I found out my book club was reading it and needed a light vacation book. :))


So yeah. Some of those have been on the list for years, and obviously there is no way I'll get through many of those, but I have to have them all written down for maximum efficiency. Good times. Yay summer!

This is a pre-writing activity, because I have been sitting at my computer for several hours, and I just can't seem to write my final paper. Since the pressure is on now and it seems much easier to write on my blog than anything else, here goes.

• Thing one that I love - this uber-amazing picture of Jacques Derrida, father (of sorts) of postmodernism. The man is a rock star.
  
• I love questioning things that have been previously in the realm of the sacredly unquestionable. This does not make my belief in those things less firm - on the contrary, it makes my understanding deeper and more meaningful when I accept something on its own terms and not based on the fact that society told me I should believe something.
• I love the feeling of kinship I have with people in other cultures and walks of life when I read a postmodern novel. Instead of condemning a group of people without understanding them, I have the opportunity to listen to that group and redefine ethics for a new situation. I don't think this redefinition is less ethical - it's a more valid way to make judgments. You can't dismiss the kid with the pieced lip until you've talked to him, and you can't dismiss black fathers or Vietnam veterans or anorexics or anyone else until you've tried to understand them from their point of view.
  
• I love the way everything in a postmodern novel can and does mean something. If Violet is a hair dresser, how can understanding black women's relationship with hair add to out understanding of the novel and the culture as a whole? How many other books influenced this book? A genealogy chart at the beginning of the book could mean Faulkner influenced it, and any random quote could be straight out of Dante or Shakespeare, and there's a reason for it to be there.
  
• I love the way you can't accept anything just because everyone has always accepted it. Look what that kind of thinking got us in the past: slavery, the Holocaust, Manifest Destiny, the objectification of women (and a lot of the rest of the population of the world), entire people's wiped out - all because someone turned their truth into Truth, said God sanctioned it, and then used God as an accuse for committing all kinds of heinous crimes against humanity. Just because one person thinks that the Bible gives everyone the right to hate Jews does not mean everyone should go out and throw them into a death camp - see?
  
• I love how hopeful everything is, even when everything about the actual story is painfully tragic. Sometimes your story gets broken, so you improvise until you get back to where you want to be. Broken doesn't have to mean lost and gone forever. Sometimes the best way to fix a broken past is to repair the present and future.
• Also - sometimes postmodern novels are hard to read, especially if you are a Mormon and don't like reading certain words or about certain things. I love how my class got to talk about this - first, it's okay to be offended by those things, but the postmodern novel is not glorifying dysfunctional behavior - it's trying to give you a context for finding truth, and you can't do that by only reading about happy things. Second, although it's okay to be offended by certain words and events in the novel, what offends you more? Is it the fact that they are describing the event, or is it the fact that things that horrible actually happen? Something to think about, whether you expose yourself to the actual novels or not.
• Everyone gets to tell their story. The only way to fix it is to tell it, and not to have to depend on someone else to tell their version. All versions of a story are valid, and you don't have the truth until you've listened to every true version. Trippy in practice, but very cool.
  

Okay. Hopefully that will get me started. Yay for the blog window being more fun than the Word document.

For those of you who didn't think I had a good reason for disappearing during the last few months. When I said I needed to read, I meant it. Keep in mind the fact that I wrote at least a page for almost all of the books for class.
A list of the books I've read since January - * indicates I didn't finish the book but plan to, + indicates I had already read it (so I probably skimmed it.):

Before school started:
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

For English 420 (Adolescent Lit):
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
New Moon by Stephenie Meyer
Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli
Enna Burning by Shannon Hale
Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson
My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares
Carrie by Stephen King
The Only Alien on the Planet by Kristen D. Randle
Breaking Rank by Kristen D. Randle
Tenderness by Robert Cormier
Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Bee Season by Myla Goldberg
Blue Sword by Robin McKinley
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine
Just Listen by Sarah Dessen
The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen
The Raven Ring by Patricia C. Wrede
Seven Daughters and Seven Sons by Barbara Cohen and Bahija Lovejoy
Gypsey Rizka by Lloyd Alexander
My Name is Sus5an Smith. The Five is Silent by Louise Plummer
Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes by Christ Crutcher
Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
An Experiment in Criticism by C.S. Lewis
Radical Reflections by Mem Fox
Lives on the Boundary by Mike Rose*

For English 362 (American Lit 1865-1914)
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain+
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
(Lots of short stories, poems, etc.)

For fun during and between Winter and Spring Semesters:

On the Bright Side, I'm Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God by Louise Rennison
Knocked Out by my Nunga-Nungas by Louise Rennison
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynn Jones

Spring Semester

For English 345 (Literature and Film) :
We: Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love by Robert A. Johnson
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen+
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte+
Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy*
A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis+ (I did reread this entire book - all 75 pages.)
Shadowlands by William Nicholson

For English 365 (Contemp. American Lit: Postmodernism):
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
Jazz by Toni Morisson
Eve's Apple by Jonathan Rosen
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich*
Mama Day by Gloria Naylor

The crappy thing about student wards is always having to say goodbye. Yesterday our bishopbric of three years was released, and it was much more sad than when a bishop is released in a normal ward, because we don't get to associate with the bishopbric anymore.
I've had the same bishop the whole time I've been in college, and Miri and I actually kept staying here because we loved Bishop McGee so much. I'm not really a crier, but I cried through most of yesterday's sacrament meeting. (Luckily, Miri was getting over a cold and had enough tissues to keep us going. Yeesh.) Bishop McGee helped us through a lot this year, and Sister McGee became a dear friend and sister. (She even read Twilight. haha.) The new bishop seems like a great guy, and I'm almost sorry that I won't be here to get to know the whole bishopbric, but it just wouldn't be the same. If that's going to change, I'm glad everything is changing.
So, to the bishop who inspired me to buy the above t-shirt (which says "my bishop rocks"), and to the rest of our amazing bishopbric and their families, we will miss you.

Teaser of things to come - this is my new alternate identity. Look for the amazingness of Mustache Power Productions - links to our finished products will appear here as we finish them, but until then, look at this picture and wonder about what's on the horizon.

I'd just like to say that I'm pretty sure I'm destined to see The Fray in concert. I discovered them about three days before they came before and couldn't bring myself to go alone (I figured everyone who was willing to pay the $25 already had tickets/dates) and then it was looking like family vacation was going to interfere with their return in July, not to mention the fact that it's the end of the year and I'm basically out of money.
But never fear! Fate intervenes!
Last night I went to hang out with some of my high school friends, and Dain told me that for one day only (today, but last night it was tomorrow - figure that one out if you can) tickets to the concert are only $10!!! I had the vacation business worked out already and was planning to suck it up and just pay the $30, but yay and hooray, good things come to those who wait, and I'm pretty sure the concert will be even more awesome as I sit there knowing I paid 1/3 the normal price. In a summer that is seriously lacking in concerts I'm excited about, this one shines like a shiny beacon.

I'm not actually sure how destiny ties into that now that I'm done. Oh well. Attribute my progressive incoherence to my progressive semester burnout.

I was just reading my friend Amanda's blog (actually a blog from February, but she doesn't write very often, so I don't check very often) and she had this incredible post about feeling that she was destined to do something extraordinary with her life. It got me thinking about my own life and what I want to do, and so I'm going to ramble for a little while.
Tonight I went to the first meeting of my brother's movie club. We plan to make short films once a month and see what we can accomplish. It was amazing to me how many people were there and ready to create. They had ideas they'd been saving for days or weeks or years, and they didn't just want to create any old ward talent show movie - they wanted to create something they could be proud of. Honestly, I never would have thought to start something like this, and I'm not sure I would have been as excited to join if it weren't for the fact that two of my brothers are also members and I'm looking forward to being a part of something with them (I never got to be on the softball teams). But I definitely started to catch the spirit. And really, shouldn't I be surprised that there aren't MORE people who want to do awesome creative things and take time out of the daily plodding on to do something better? I have a lot of respect for Clark for starting the club, which to him is another step toward fulfilling his dreams of writing screenplays and making movies.
I'm afraid that too often I settle for mediocre because it's easier than trying to create something better. I have really been struggling to write good papers this semester because I can get by with late night seat-of-my-pants writing, and I'm tired and sick of pouring out my heart and soul for a grade. At the same time, I am very passionate about the things I'm learning this semester (so much so that I'm probably driving everyone I know crazy talking about it all the time). Actually I'm passionate about a lot of things. I want to find ways to make all of those passions and opinions and enlightened (supposedly) thoughts count. I can't imagine that I can have been made for anything ordinary.
This is really cheesy and I'm not really saying what I want to say. I'm going to post it anyway. That's what the internet is all about, right?

Today we took an impromptu field trip during my Postmodernism class. We decided to practice what we preach and go and listen to one of our Others, so we went to the Kennedy Center sponsored lecture by Senegalese author Aminata Sow Fall. It was the first lecture I'd ever attended that had subtitles - Senegal is one of the Francophone countries in Africa, and Madame Sow Fall gave her incredible lecture in French with an English translation on a power point. The title of the lecture was "Happiness is Possible in Africa," and it was a beautiful, optimistic lecture about the necessity for people to have dignity, to be self-reliant, to be aware of their own culture . . . the list went on and it was both enlightening and beautifully said. I think one of the things I'll miss the most about the university experience is the opportunity I have to interact with people who are so much smarter and more aware of the world than I am. It is truly a gift to have such people come to speak and help me to open my eyes.

This will be quick, because I've already wasted too much time today, but it must be said.
As an English major and now as a lover of postmodern theory, I LOVE Cormac McCarthy. I love his brooding cowboy characters, his stories that are hopeless without leaving you without hope, his apocalyptic red skies, his stark but living landscapes, and his wryly funny characters like Lacey Rawlins and John Grady Cole. I also love the mystery of Cormac McCarthy, because he has always been a recluse. He's given about two interviews to magazines, and he's never appeared on TV.
Until now, that is.
Cormac McCarthy's latest book, The Road was recently added to the Oprah book club list. We won't go into my grudging like/hate relationship with that organization, but we will go into wondering why Cormac McCarthy decided to make his television debut on the Oprah's show.
WHY? Of all the places to go, was that really the most appropriate? What are the audience members going to make of him? Of the book?
Needless to say, for perhaps the first time in my life, I am making plans to watch the show today, because curiosity won't allow me to stay away.
Oh, what a world, what a world!


Follow up: I watched it. Cormac McCarthy is awesome, Oprah less than. My friend Katherine made some excellent observations that you can see here and definitely should. I concur with her wholeheartedly, and she's funny.