Tolkien and Nuance: Dwarf as 'Other' in Rohan

Sometimes, we are too close to a topic emotionally to be able to write about it well, or to get started with what we want to say.  Would it be strange to say that I feel that way about the Ents? But never fear--an Ent post is coming.

In the meantime, I have pased the compelling part of the Ent story in The Two Towers, and moved into Rohan, which I also love.  From the earliest encounter with the Rohirrim, Gimli's difference is the most pronounced of the three travelers--Aragon, Legolas, and Gimli--as compared to the Rohirrim.  Though the Riders think it is strange for a dwarf and an elf to be travelling in company, Gimli is singled out for his difference more often.  Having gotten on the wrong side of Éomer by being hasty, as Treebeard might say, over the matter of Galadriel, the Lady of the Wood, whom the Rohirrim call a sorceress, Gimli becomes the focus of Éomer's attention and menace.  The dialog that follows might be called trash talk, Middle Earth style (hence its inclusion in Peter Jackson's film), if not for Éomer's spear and sword:

"I would cut off your head, beard and all, Master Dwarf, if it stood but a little higher from the ground."

Though the Rohirrim are also bearded (a fact we learn from Theoden's snow-white beard, though in the initial description of Éomer and his men, there are no beards), Gimli's beard is noteworthy enough to be a focus of Éomer's threat.  However, Gimli's height is the focus of greater insult.  We know that the Rohirrim are tall; Gimli's stature makes him, in Éomer's insult, unfit to kill.

While the particular insult is racial, the tension between the two is not--except insofar as a dwarf is defending the honor of an elf to a man who has insulted her.  But this scene offers to the reader the sense that dwarves are particularly strange in Rohan, though their ways are known.

This is not the notable moment that inspired me to write, however.  The moment occurs in Helm's Deep--in a chapter that I hate and dread because Peter Jackson has made me expect the Battle of Helm's Deep to be interminable as his portrayal of it.  My mantra as I enter the chapter:  "It's only ONE chapter.  It's only ONE chapter.  It's only ONE chapter.  And there's only ONE elf."  During this particular reading, I found myself anticipating a particular meeting of man of Rohan and dwarf, and thinking about a critique that some level at Tolkien--that he lacks nuance.  One example is the age-old accusation, more recently based in the movie adaptations and largely ignoring traditional literary dichotomies, that Tolkien equates blackness and dark races with evil and whiteness or white races with goodness.  More recently, the "no nuance" argument has been a characteristic of George R. R. Martin's attempts to differentiate himself from Tolkien, which were brought to my attention by Darwin's post on the topic.

In Helm's Deep, we see an encounter between Gimli the Dwarf and Gamling the Old, a defender of the Hornburg who describes himself as having "seen too many winters," that shows a rather nuanced understanding of encounters with difference:

     "We must stop this rat-hole," said Gamling.  "Dwarves are said to be cunning folk with stone.  Lend us your aid, master!"
     "We do not shape stone with battle-axes, nor with our finger-nails," said Gimli.  "But I will help as I may."
     They gathered such small boulders and broken stones as they could find to hand, and under Gimli's direction the Westfold-men blocked up the inner end of the culvery, until only a narrow outlet remained.

On the surface, Gimli's frustration may seem to be with the lack of tools for the task, though it never seemed so to me.  Reading this now, I think of the posts that appear on Facebook, promoting sensitivity and understanding for one or another group (most recently, families who adopt and Autistic individuals) from others--sometimes well-meaning, sometimes not--who regard them as strange or different.  Posts like the photo essay by one mother who poses her daughters with signs displaying rude and inappropriate comments made by strangers draw support for sensitivity, inform, and shame those who have behaved in rude, inconsiderate, unthinking, or blatantly hostile ways.  Many times, we are intended to squirm, because who hasn't been in a situation in which we have not known what to say, and have inadvertently said the wrong thing--or remained silent, which is often considered just as discriminatory?

Here, in Helm's Deep, Gamling draws on what he knows of dwarves to make a connection with Gimli, to offer a compliment, and yes, to solicit assistance in Rohan's need.  However, the situation and his particular way of soliciting help with a compliment reveals--at least to Gimli--the man's utter ignorance of the way of dwarves.  It is pehaps the stress of battle and frustration with the lack of tools, but may also be a crotchety yet ultimately good-natured ribbing and correction of an ignorant view of dwarves that prompts Gimli's words:  "'We do not shape stone with battle-axes, nor with our finger-nails,' said Gimli.  'But I will help as I may.'"  That Gimli's words are instructive is borne out by the narrative:  "...under Gimli's direction the Westfold-men blocked up the inner end of the culvery, until only a narrow outlet remained."  Gimli counters the man's ignorance of the ways of dwarves and stonework, but also demonstrates what skill he has to apply to the situation.

In this scenario, I have always felt a bit more sorrow and embarrassment for Gamling than amusement at Gimli's words.  After all, this is a man who has (presumably) had no encounters with dwarves apart from the songs and tales of the Rohirrim.  I imagine the mortification I would feel as an onlooker in such a situation, knowing what the person speaking could not know.  In a way, Gimli diffuses it with crotchety humor and grace, but the fact remains that these are two very different races, and that the men know very little of dwarves.  At the end of the battle, we see again this difference when Gimli comments on the glittering caverns of Helm's Deep--men hide in them in times of war, but dwarves would cultivate them to reveal their beauty.  Like the men of Rohan, Legolas has little appreciation for caves, which might signal that he is less strange to them overall.  Although the Rohirrim exhibit some superficial similarities to dwarves--they are blunt and direct, battle-hardy, and hunt orcs--and bear little resemblance to elves, it is Gimli who is revealed--over and over again--to be the Other.  Even Ents and Hobbits (the holbytla, in the tongue of the Rohirrim) have more in common with Rohan.  And yet, there is not a simple dichotomy here (Human/non-Human or Dwarf/non-Dwarf).  In a very small moment, when Gamling solicits Gimli's help, Tolkien reveals, as he does many times over, that he has a very nuanced understanding of interpersonal interactions, and of the conflict that can occur between those who are fundamentally different, even as they seek connection.

Notes Toward an Article on Blogging and Reading

In a burst of creative/critical energy this morning, I decided to collect everything I have said about notable moments--on my original class blog, which is private, in a conference presentation I gave, in an article I wrote that was rejected, and on this blog--to prepare to shape them into one of the articles I've been avoiding.  I have a number of thoughts about the benefits of the notable moment post.  However, in the meantime I had a revelation about Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents...  I had latched onto Freud's idea that intellectual activity is beneficial because it helps us to stave off suffering, but I have decided that this is only the case when the intellectual activity itself is not the source of the suffering!

I get stuck on research.  When I research, I get lost in trying to be exhaustive, fighting the urge to completely disregard everything everyone else is saying because I'm saying something different anyway.  In the meantime, I become overwhelmed by the cacophany of voices who are not quite saying the same thing, and end up comvinced that I have nothing new to add to the conversation.  This is where I was at about 2 P.M. today, and I have not yet had the courage to look back at all of those open tabs of scholarly and non-scholarly sources discussing blogs and close reading.  The last time I researched blogs and education, I was ultimately rejected by an editor for not citing the right sources (which are pretty difficult to find, frankly).  Here is where not having anyone to ask "how's that article coming," and no real mentor from whom to seek advice really hurts me--because everyone who used to be a mentor has washed their hands of me, since I failed in finding an academic job that would lend intellectual community.  And because of that failing, I am doomed to continue to spiral into failure.  But enough of that.  Trying to lift myself out now!  

I wound up finding the outline I wrote last night, which goes something like this:

• What we think about reading on the internet

• What academics/teachers say about blogging

• Where close reading happens online

• How it can shape how we read

• How it can shape the way we teach

• How it can shape literary criticism

Perhaps if I stick to finding articles that can bolster each of these, I will not need to be terribly exhaustive in order to prove that I am saying something different.

In the meantime, at the end of the above outline was a second outline--this one a little more "conversational"--meant to be expanded into a book.  What I need to decide is who my audience would be, and why they would care...

Blogging the "Notable Moment"

It started with a class…

…and continued with a blog.

It happens on political blogs…

…and religious blogs…

…but is not typically a feature of book blogging…

…or online book reviews.

It can change the way we teach…

…and the way we interact with books.


It can change online literacy, or at least bring literary culture and reading online in a less shallow sort of way--don't you think?

Four Questions on Writing

I was thrilled to be tagged by Darwin and Mrs. Darwin to answer some questions about writing as part of the blog tour (you can read more about it here), because it makes me feel like a real blogger!  At the same time, I feel guilty because my bursts of writing are so far and few between.  One commenter remarks on this post about writing that she feels like "the writer who no longer writes"--and I go through intense bouts of that, as I explain here.  Nevertheless, I am on an upswing!  Thinking about writing and posting a thing or two.  So here goes!

1. What are you working on?

Blogs: I have, at this point, three blogs that I post to occasionally--this one, which is my "Booknotes" blog, my Teaching, Training, Blogging blog, on which I try to post insights into teaching that I gain from working as a (relictant) trainer, and my sewing blog, on which I try to document sewing projects and pattern reviews.  I started a blog to record last year's NaNoWriMo efforts, and I have the blog that started it all, Words, Words, which was an everything blog, before I decided that each of my split personalities needed her own internet space.  Mostly I post to this one--Booknotes from Literacy-chic.

Articles: In addition to blogging, I have, like Damocles' sword, two articles that I would like to write--one on where the Hunger Games novels fit in the history of dystopian discourses on literacy, and one that discusses the purpose and pedagogy behind what I call "notable moments" posts.  The former, on the Hunger Games, has (I believe) been more or less accepted as part of a proposed collection on dystopia.  The latter would be an extension of the paper idea that I proposed to a conference that I did not attend (I backed out), and I would have to write it by June 1.  I have only just decided to take it seriously.  

Fiction: Hanging by a slightly more substantial horsehair is the novel that I have been working on for two NaNoWriMos now... which is completely illegal by NaNo standards (writing the same novel twice).  I am very attached at this point to the scenario and the characters, but the two efforts, the latter chronicled here, are very different.  The scenario comes from a motif in Celtic songs--particularly "Broken Token," "So Early in the Spring," and various versions of "Step it Out Mary"--in which the young man and woman are in love, and he leaves her behind for a time to seek his fortune.  As the song progresses, there are a few different scenarios.  In "Broken Token," he returns and tests her loyalty.  In "So Early in the Spring," he returns, but cannot find her, then learns from her father that she is married.  In other songs that tell a similar story, we learn why she may have married in the previous scenario:  the father has arranged a match for her, and in "Step it Out Mary," unable to sway her father with her protests, she "drowned with her soldier boy." (Why the soldier drowned with her instead of taking her away, I'm not sure...)  It was "Broken Token" that gave me the idea, though the song is particularly moving to me--what if, after he went away, the entire world changed?  What if a catastrophic event happened in their village--if they were conquored and enslaved--and she had to adapt, or die?  When he returned, would they still love each other?  Would it truly work, when each had changed according to their own separate experiences? I guess I felt like it was a little unfair for her to be expected to wait... as well as unrealistic.  My novel will one day treat that scenario.  I started first from their reunion--and she is pregnant.  Oh, and a sniper.  My second attempt started from just before their parting, as a glimpse into what will be lost.  Perhaps in November we will see what the third try will yield?  But lately I've been thinking of revisiting my second try on the blog.

2. What makes your work different from others' work in the same genre?

Blogging: As far as I know, most bloggers do not compartmentalize the way I have done, but every now and then I come across one who has different pages for different interests.  I like the separate spaces, but having separate spaces makes it seem like I'm writing less over all, and it's a lot harder to write for an audience, which I'm not sure I'm doing anyway.  I would like an audience, and I have friends who visit, but I guess the main difference between my blogging and other blogs is that I'm not consciously joining a community by writing about certain things in certain ways or contributing to a larger conversation.  It's not because I don't want to; I guess that's not really where I am right now--or I haven't figured out who wants to hear what I have to say.

Book Blogging: My book blogging is different from other book blogs because I don't like to give overviews and reviews.  I have reviewed a few books along the way, but mostly to get what I have to say out of my head, not to recommend the book to other, like-minded readers, or to support a favorite author.  When I write them, my reviews are fairly critical, and they are usually the advice I would give to writers who have good ideas and a lot of promise, whom I (in the arrogance of my academic training) think could be doing better than they are.  One reason for keeping up with the Booknotes blog is to keep my analytical skills sharp and to collect ideas for scholarship, if I ever motivate myself to return to scholarship.  But if I'm being truthful, I would ideally like to share my readings with people who might not have seen what I see.  I'm pointing out the things in the books that I would have pointed out to students in the classroom.  I'm starting the discussion that I would start with a nonexistant book group.

My method is to blog what I call "notable moments."  I asked students to do this throughout my teaching apprenticeship (because truly, it was never a "career")--to write a short analysis of a moment in a novel that interested them, and explain what it was that they found so fascinating.  These can be more or less personal, but ideally would get the students to pay attention while reading, to make note of what they responded to, and to look a little bit closer at a scene or paragraph before trying to understand the work as a whole.  The last time I taught an upper-level (college) literature class, I had students keep blogs that would document their reading process. The "notable moment" became more developed in that class, and really enriched our class conversations.  Now I blog notable moments myself!  It's not something I see too many people doing on blogs, and it really works better on the second or third read of a book.

Fiction: What makes my fiction attempts different is that I seem to want to write Young Adultish fiction scenarios, with a little bit of sex or grittiness that pushes it out of what I think is okay for YA (but is still present in YA), with more mature relationships and 20-something characters.  So I seem to write a novel that is not quite adult fiction, but is not quite YA, though it resembles YA a bit more than any adult genres.

3. Why do you write what you do?

As I say on my blog profile, "I am a compulsive writer in search of a subject."  I have written as long as I can remember, though I have never written a journal or diary because I felt foolish writing to myself, or because I didn't quite know how to write a genre that was, by definition, private.  I wrote silly things and wound up destroying them from embarrassment.  The same fate befell most of my poetry from high school--though the undergraduate poetry stuck around.

I blog notable moments because they're how I read--they get stuck in my head and I just need to say something about them.  I also think they're a good mode for blogs, and a great research and pedagogical tool.  But mostly, it's how I read.  And I fear to lose the ideas I have when I'm reading, because they will most likely not become articles or research papers now.  So I blog them.

I blog on my Teaching, Training, Blogging blog in order to reflect on my current job and think about how I can apply those ideas to teaching if I ever get back there.

I blog on my sewing blog because sewing blogs are cool, and I want to be one of those people who sew things and write about them.

As for fiction... When I was in high school, I wrote some fiction, but mostly drama and poetry.  Only the poetry really came naturally to me, and I produced a fair amount of poetry as an undergraduate, some of it good.  Being happily married with children whom I like doesn't lend itself as well to poetry as I might like, but I guess I'm okay with the tradeoff!  I read more fiction than poetry now, as I did when I was younger, but I've never felt like I was particularly good at writing it.  I have a hard time with plot, in particular.  I'm writing this novel because I participated in NaNoWriMo 2011 with Mrs. Darwin, and I loved it.  I loved the creative energy, and the sense of actually having produced something original--a story.  I think I did a marginally better job than some published writers, and I would love to do something with that story (titled "The Merman's Daughter") some day.  I would also like to continue writing the story that I started in 2012 and started again in 2013--the one about the estranged lovers.  There's something I need to say about love and friendship and sex and commitment and memory and pain.  At least, I think that's it.

4. How does your writing process work?

I have never managed a writing discipline.  Even when I was writing my dissertation, and I was told to write SOMETHING every day, I couldn't.  Or didn't.  I'm thinking of Wordsworth's "spontaneous overflow... recollected in tranquility."  My writing process looks something like that, even if it's not terribly emotional.  Rather, I write the thoughts that don't want to stay contained in my head.  The things that I turn over and over and seem to be too large for thought alone.  When I've thought it out to a certain point, I fear losing nuances, and so I write.

Although I am a night person by nature, and I still write on the weekend, one of the impediments to my writing is work--specifically, working a 40 hour week.  When I get up early to be at work, say 6:30, I can't stay up late and write.  If I get up after 9, I can write late.  During the week, even if I feel creative, I don't have the energy after 10 P.M.  But since I am awake earlier, I actually find that my creative energy occurs earlier in the day.  So I want to write in the morning.  Preferably before I get any real work done.  However, I am at work, and I really shouldn't.  It's quite a problem.

When I read on my Kindle, I usually make note of a passage I would like to write about and then go to the computer when I'm ready and use the desktop Kindle software to copy and paste the passage(s) into separate blog posts, often titling them according to the idea I have about the passage and maybe typing a few notes to remind myself what I'd like to say.  Sometimes, they end up as full blog posts.  Sometimes not.  I have about 20 posts queued up related to the Outlander series that I never actually completed, and one or two about the Hunger Games trilogy--not entirely satisfactory, but not completely lost, either.  When I'm reading a paper book, I do something similar, though I don't always type the whole passage before I start.  Sometimes I do, though.  I like titles, and I do usually think in titles as a starting point!

***

Melanie from Wine Dark Sea, how do you write?  I would also love to know about my favorite craft blogger's writing process--LiEr from IkatBag.  

"No oath or bond is laid...": A Notable Moment from Fellowship of the Ring

This is a Notable Moment post, and what I mean by "notable moment" reaches back into my purpose(s?) for keeping up this blog (intermittently):  to give an outlet to my instinct for analysis, to stay in touch with my academic side, to develop my theory of rhetorical reading, and to practice close reading on the web (or at least closer than your average book review!)

Notable moments are "rhetorical responses."  They stem from the circumstances of reading--what readers might be looking for (like me with literacy), what their life experiences have been, what they have been reading, thinking or talking about reading.  This is the value of rereading--each reading situation is different.  The work itself hasn't changed, but we read it differently:  bringing different things to the text and taking different things away.

Notable moments are a teaching and research methodology.  They

• encourage reader engagement with the text
• provide a basis for class discussion
• stimulate connections (synthesis, to use a $0.10 pedagogical word) between what readers already know and what they are reading
• validate active reading
• collect ideas that might evolve into research paper/article ideas

They also work particularly well as blog posts.

Recently, I have been rereading The Lord of the Rings.  I have read it and listened to the unabridged audiobook numerous times at this point, so that it is almost too familiar.  It is slow going, because there isn't the compulsion to read, but at times, having read more contemporary writing lately, I am struck by how simply exquisite the language is--to say nothing of plot and character development, world building, mythos, and all that makes Tolkien fabulous.  In the midst of my reading, I read Darwin's response to George R. R. Martin's somewhat offhanded critique of Tolkien on war.  I also find myself reading Tolkien with the American History Channel series The Revolutionary War as background noise.  And so, I come across this passage:

"The others go with him as free companions, to help him on his way.  You may tarry, or come back or turn aside in other paths, as chance allows.  The further you go, the less easy it will be to withdraw; yet no oath or bond is laid on you to go further than you will.  For you do not yet know the strength of your hearts, and you cannot forsee what each may meet upon the road."

     "Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens," said Gimli.

     "Maybe," said Elrond, but let him not vow to walk in the dark, who has not seen the nightfall."

     "Yet sworn word may strengthen quaking heart," said Gimli.

     "Or break it," said Elrond. (FOTR 274)

I paused over this passage initially, thinking about war.  Thinking about the British in particular, and the treatment of deserters in the Great War--the first "modern" war, a for which young British males volunteered enthusiastically, for which they were unprepared.  It is also, famously and notably, the war Tolkien experienced first hand.

As Elrond commends the newly-formed fellowship to their journey, it is tempting to see this passage as a statement of sympathy, if not with deserters, than certainly with those who volunteered for a war they could not possibly understand.  Whether or not the cause is the epic mythology of good and evil, Elrond's wisdom asserts that resolve alone can't necessarily drive one through fear.  Later, in Return of the King, Aragorn deals gently with men who were ill-equipped to march into Morder, setting them to tasks that were appropriate to their ability, and which preserved or restored their dignity.

And yet, even though Aragorn and Boromir intend to head to war, the situation of the fellowship is different.  Two pages earlier, the narrative asserts that "[t]he Company took little gear of war, for their hope was in secrecy not in battle" (272).  Perhaps, then, Elrond's conditions are not applicable to war.  After all, what general can command men who are not bound to follow orders? Could Tolkien possibly mean that soldiers should only serve insofar as they were able?  This seems doubtful, and yet, the association between oaths in war and the oaths of the fellowship is hard to avoid, and perhaps it is in Aragorn's generosity and skill with men that the question is resolved.

What is interesting is the exchange of proverbs--not quite platitudes--between Gimli and Elrond, which represent two seeminly opposed approaches to oath-taking, and perhaps to human nature more generally.  The opposing views may also characterize the particular races of Middle Earth--the elves, who keep to themselves, who belong to families and kinds, but who are very individualized, and the dwarves, who seem to be of one kind, but who are more clanlike, joining together in common purposes.  Elrond is for individual freedom; Gimli, for allegience and loyalty.  Inevitably, both are right, but Elrond seems more right.

It is not a theory; simply an observation, and a question.  Is this about war?  Politics?  Individual freedom?  Individual will?  How does being bound to another affect individual will?

Books that Define You/Me

There's a meme on Facebook that circulates about once a year--and like all Facebook memes, there are several versions--that asks what the 10 books (authors, songs, albums) that most influenced you.  You're supposed to list these off the top of your head without thinking too much about it so that you can tag your friends and keep the ball rolling, or whatever memes do.  This is is not really practical for someone like me, who tends to overthink things--and who doesn't simply read books, but ingests them, internalizes them--lives them.  When I came up with the list, it looked something like this:

1. The Little House Books (mostly The Long Winter and These Happy Golden Years) by Laura Ingalls Wilder
2. The Chronicles of Narnia (mostly The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Last Battle, and The Magician's Nephew)
3. The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
4. The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice
5. The Odyssey by Homer
6. The Inferno by Dante Alighieri
7. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
8. Victorian People and Ideas by Richard Altick
9. Dreamers of Decadence by Philippe Jullian
10. Orality and Literacy by Walter Ong

My Facebook list looked a little different, as I had forgotten #4, and couldn't come up with another to take its place.  I had to scramble a little for #8, #9, and #10, which were all influential nonfiction.  But fiction was what defined me at various points in my life.

In fact, #1, #2, #3, #4, and #7 were all on the list because I read them more times than I know--and the list is in rough chronological order.  I read Little House on the Prairie in 3rd grade, and perhaps the following year, I got the boxed set of books, and read them voraciously for the next several years.  I remember specifically brining the books to school each day in 4th, 5th and 6th grades, and reading one of the books in a single day.  The Long Winter and These Happy Golden Years became worn from being read over and over, more than the rest--the former because it was an amazing tale of endurance, the latter because it was a portrait of growing up.

When I was in 6th grade, I attended a Christian school for part of the year because my mother had a job there, and at one point, the librarian, impressed with my appetite for books, and recognizing my resistance to "girl books" like Sweet Valley High and The Babysitters Club, or books about animals, directed me to the Chronicles of Narnia.  I was in love.  I read all but The Magician's Nephew while I was at the school--repeatedly.  When I returned to my public elementary school that same year, I bought The Magician's Nephew from Scholastic.  Years later, when I was 15, I worked as a camp counselor of sorts at Camp-of-the-Woods in Upstate New York, and I was able to buy my own set from their bookstore.  They fell apart almost immediately, and I wrote HarperCollins for a refund of the $40+ that they had cost.  The following year, it began to click for me that they were not simply fantasy, but Christian allegory--and so began my disillusionment wiht the Chronicles, and in a way, with Christianity (a symptom, also, of the particular type of Christianity I encountered at Camp-of-the-Woods, the superficiality, the compulsory nature of faith, and the loneliness....)  The books remained with me for a long time, as I learned more about Lewis, wrestled with his Christian identity, his adpotion by the evangelicals who made me feel alienated from Christianity, and his curious and often disturbing biography....  But even so, they stayed close as the more I read, the more I understood Lewis's influences, allusions, and techniques.  By the time I entered my M.A. program, I wanted to "redeem" The Chronicles of Narnia from those who would dismiss them on the basis of their Christianity.  My first graduate paper, my first abstract, and, consequently, my first article and my M.A. thesis came from that impulse.  From rereading, I was able to see exactly how to make a complex argument about how to read the books.  I squeezed another conference paper out of the Chronicles as well.  And this is what books should do--stay with us, grow with us, and lend themselves in some way to our intellectual or spiritual development.  My daughter has started reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, though she might be a little young to get through it on her own.  Someday, I'm sure I will reread them again.

The first non-children's lit--although it might justifiably be called"adult"--novel on the list is The Mists of Avalon--I credit--or blame--a high school English teacher for introducing it.  It's about a million pages long--longer than any of the Outlander books, for certain.  And sort of a poisonous, intoxicating book for a young woman/girl, disenchanted with Christianity, and sexually curious.  I read it probably ten times over the years, and fashioned myself into Morgaine--Bradley's version of Morgan le Fay.  For me, it epitomizes a "dangerous book"--I might say more about that one day soon, as I am currently rereading it--20 years later--to find out what my younger self found so captivating.  And really?  It is still captivating.  And I have found that the little bit of serious fiction I have written is heavily influenced by Marion Zimmer Bradley's tale, but perhaps I'll return to that in another post.

I may or may not have read The Vampire Lestat before The Mists of Avalon.  Or it might have been the same time.  It is the second of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles.  At the time, she had written up to The Queen of the Damned, and by the time The Tale of the Body Thief was written, I was disenchanted.  I read them out of order, so I worshipped Lestat and hated Louis--narrator of Interview with a Vampire--which is not what is supposed to happen.  Rice's vampires showed me an agnostic vision, at best, and a homoerotic one, and I dwelt there for a while, idealizing something I could never know.

I would think it odd that I did not find another book that I could reread and live in for many years, but as an undergraduate, I was a poet.  Then, as a new mother at 20, and in graduate school, I simply didn't have the time.  The Odyssey was influential intellectually as my introduction to Orality-Literacy theory, while the Inferno started tipping me toward Catholicism.  The next on the list was Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, and in a very short time, I read it as many times as some of the others.  As the first book I "lived in" as an adult, and a new Catholic, I found a lot of ways to work out ideas in The Lord of the Rings.  It refreshed my spirit, much like the story Lucy read in the magician's house in Voyage of the Dawn Treader--and I was able to share it with my husband as well.

So as I'm rereading--and reliving--The Mists of Avalon, and wondering what thoughts it will yield about books, about my former self, and about ideas that I could not have seen in the novel 20 years ago--I want to ask you--and consider it a tag:  what books have defined you?  What books have you read again and again, and lived in, so that they shaped the person you were, or who you would become?  Because a book can do that--it's the beauty of books, and also what makes them feared (the missing narrative of banned books week, present in dystopian literature).

Comment, blog about your books, and if you would, link back and leave a comment!  Happy reading.

The Ethos, Logos, and Pathos of Choosing Notable Moments

“And you, my Sassenach? What were you born for? To be lady of a manor, or to sleep in the fields like a gypsy? To be a healer, or a don’s wife, or an outlaw’s lady?” 

“I was born for you,” I said simply, and held out my arms to him. 

“Ye know,” he observed, letting go at last, “you’ve never said it.” 

“Neither have you.” 

“I have. The day after we came. I said I wanted you more than anything.” 

“ And I said that loving and wanting weren’t necessarily the same thing,” I countered.

He laughed. “Perhaps you’re right, Sassenach.” He smoothed the hair from my face and kissed my brow. “I wanted ye from the first I saw ye—but I loved ye when you wept in my arms and let me comfort you, that first time at Leoch.”

The sun sank below the line of black pines, and the first stars of the evening came out. It was mid-November, and the evening air was cold, though the days still kept fine. Standing on the opposite side of the fence, Jamie bent his head, putting his forehead against mine.
“You first.” 

“No, you.” 

“Why?” 

“I’m afraid.”

“Of what, my Sassenach?” The darkness was rolling in over the fields, filling the land and rising up to meet the night. The light of the new crescent moon marked the ridges of brow and nose, crossing his face with light. 

“I’m afraid if I start I shall never stop.” 

He cast a glance at the horizon, where the sickle moon hung low and rising. “It’s nearly winter, and the nights are long, mo duinne.” He leaned across the fence, reaching, and I stepped into his arms, feeling the heat of his body and the beat of his heart. 

“I love you.”

As part of the ongoing read-along of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander novels, a promotion on the Diana Gabaldon (official) Facebook page to re-invigorate the already vigorous fan-base in anticipation of the March release of Written in My Own Heart's Blood, "Ashley," the Random House communications person posted the above passage from Outlander, to the admiration of many swooning fans.  I mentioned this initiative in my last blog post, and while I think it's interesting, I take issue with the method.  Why, you ask?  Well, I would not read the books based on the above passage.  Even seeing it out of context makes me cringe more than a little.  It was probably at this point in the novel (or a little before) when I started entertaining significant suspicions about the genre--would I have to go into the ROMANCE NOVEL section in order to buy the next installment??  That I am a book snob (though an odd one) is not a surprise if you have read this blog before.

What we have here is not what I would call a "notable moment."  Perhaps it's a swoon-worthy moment or some such, but it does not pull thoughts in my mind.  It is perhaps a matter for Aristotelian rhetorical terms--this passage is making an appeal by way of pathos, eliciting emotion from the reader.  And while it is effective in context, it just registers as, well, sappy out of context.  There are undoubtedly appeals by means of pathos throughout the Outlander series--and perhaps especially in Book 1.  But though some readers might engage with this element, they are not the substance of the works.  And, frankly, this marketing ploy is losing me--to the extent that it ever had me.

"Ashley" should, perhaps, take a cue from Diana Gabaldon herself, who personally posts (if the internet is to be trusted) "Daily Lines" from her novels, most notably from the upcoming novel, on Facebook and (occasionally) on her blog.  Very rarely, first of all, do these "Daily Lines" tell a whole story. They are evocative, and they leave more unsaid than they do said in most cases. This is particularly important because Gabaldon is posting lines from a previously unpublished, soon-to-be-published manuscript.  She only posts scenes that whet the appetite--none that satisfy--which means that the reader, who has already read some substantial bits from the novel by this time, does not have the sense that she now knows what will happen in the book.

That strategy fits with Gabaldon's purpose of posting from the upcoming novel.  Her publicity agents are not following the same strategy.  Rather, assuming that the reader of the Facebook is already a fan, the agent is posting more complete scenes, like the one above.  The scenes are rather to evoke the nostalgia that fans--many of whom reread the books frequently--have for the characters' romance.  This works for certain fans, as the hundreds of comments and thousands of "likes" on Facebook indicate.  However, it does not work for all readers, and should someone who has not read the books happen upon these excerpts, it is possible that the quotes and excerpts, taken as they are out of context, will either give a false impression, will "satisfy" because the scene involves closure, or will turn the reader off because of the sickly sweet sentiments.  The novels are love stories, no doubt--but they are more complex and grittier than that.  I would like to see some of the gritty. 

Moments can be notable to an audience, then, for different reasons, and Gabaldon and the Random House representative are tapping into two different purposes and functions of an excerpt.   My own notable moments are personal, but meant to be public as well, as I share my deep reading in the hopes that my analysis will open something new in the novels for others.  My choice of moments is bound up with my process of reading, my academic training, and what interests me not only in the books, but in life.  That's what I mean by a reader's personal "rhetorical situation of reading":  it's where the reader is right now--mentally, in terms of interest and life experience, and, yes, emotionally--that influences what elements of a text engage, frustrate, or please him or her.  While in the moment--and certainly in the first flush of reading a new book--I might be reading for the escapism, intentionally getting caught up in the pathos, the moments that are truly notable--moments that make my mind take notice, that make me form theories and connections--are the moments that engage me by means of logos, and here I mean not just "logic" but compelling content that invites potential argument and dialogue with the text, as well as the moments in which the author, intentionally or unintentionally, imparts her own ethos, revealing something about her artistic choices.  I think it is the variety and quality of the integration of ideas, as well as the successful manipulation of emotion, that make successful novels, as the quality and variety of appeals are what guarantee that a variety of people will find the novel engaging.

Although I didn't write about many notable moments in the Harry Potter novels during my recent rereading, I actually think that J. K. Rowling's strength as a writer lies in the ability to execute many appeals simultaneously, to engage a variety of readers--which, of course, just makes sense.  But for me, during this reread, I was not attuned so much to the ideas.  I was retreading old territory, in part to see what the experience felt like for me right now.  It was sort of like a vacation--no, not to Hogwarts.  Just an adventure in novel reading.  And what stood out for me this time was the ethos--the author's exercise of control over the text.  It is something I have criticized before--truly, at times Rowling might have been reigned in by an editor, but on this reread (perhaps my third reading), I don't think she necessarily had to be reigned in much.  I find the symmetry and tying up of loose ends in The Goblet of Fire to be very pleasing.  It is a very well-executed mystery.  And while the angst of Order of the Phoenix and The Half-Blood Prince were still there, what struck me more than anything was the pointlessness of the former (really? all of this effort over some words?) and the exquisite ending of the latter.  I wonder if perhaps Rowling was giving the reader a taste, in Order of how Harry would feel about the futility of striving in Deathly Hallows.  And Half-Blood Prince had at once a satisfying sense of closure--the reader knew that the novel had to end there--and the sense of a long road ahead--seemingly the opposite of closure, and yet not.  I don't think I had yet appreciated exactly that aspect of the sixth book in the series, but because of where I was--my mindset, my leisure, my particular literate moment--I was able to appreciate it.  But it was not a notable moment, because it involved the novel as a whole.

So as I work toward a consideration of the ways of reading of different personality types, and how INFPs and ENTJs, for example, engage with different elements, it is useful, I think, to consider how an individual chooses a selection from a novel to highlight, and why.  It is also useful to think of how personal circumstances, including modes of reading--rereading compared to exploratory reading, for example, or academic vs. pleasure reading--contexts, and even overall mood--change what we get out of fiction--how we filter the details and action differently.  I also think it is useful to consider ethos, logos, and pathos--the friends, and perhaps the bane, of every scholar of rhetoric, from Freshman to graduate level.  Because where I look at the passage from Outlander out of context and wrinkle my nose and say, "oh, please!" the fact is that I enjoyed it in context, in the rhetorical reading situation in which I encountered it first--and again.  It wasn't a "notable moment" to me, because why would I analyze saying or not saying "I love you"?  It's not particularly meaningful to me.  But clearly, to hundreds and thousands of readers of Gabaldon, it is meaningful.  It captures their nostalgia for the emotion evoked, and their admiration of the ideal portrayed in the scene.

Close Reading on the Web

This blog has become, more or less, an excercise in close reading--which suits me just fine, because it's what I enjoy the most!  However, I do see myself as being somewhat outside of internet book culture because, with few exceptions, I avoid book reviews.  I also tend to write critically--not only in terms of exercising "critical thinking" and having a "critical eye," but also by being somewhat negative.  By offering critique.  By saying what I see as being wrong with a book.  And this is something that many book bloggers avoid or sugar coat.  I think it's part of the culture.

This is how I do close reading, although most of the time my close reading has more to do with interpretation and analysis, discourse and association.  At least, I think so.  I haven't been told otherwise--yet!  But what I'm wondering is. . .  where else is Close Reading happening on the web in general, and on blogs in particular?  Book reviews are not close reading.  They can't be!  Their goal is to give an overview and promote the book (usually)--or else not so  much.

I will actually be presenting a paper in September on the "close reading" method of blogging, because I know it's out there.  I can't see that anyone has labeled it as such, but I've seen it in political and religious contexts, when a blogger focuses very closely on words and phrasing in order to reach a fuller understanding, as in Melanie's Waste Land and Nicene Creed projects, or in order to argue for a particular point or interpretation.  I have also seen it in Ann Althouse's Great Gatsby Project, which must be getting an absurd number of hits since the movie re-adaptation (and here's Althouse getting indignant about her idea--*sigh*).

So I will be gathering some data on this particular topic, and if I find anything interesting, I'll share.  It's good practice and good accountability!  Because you know.  I might be writing the conference paper in the hotel otherwise...

And please--if you find any examples of close reading, no matter what the context (well, okay, I do have some limits, but I don't think my readership will take it there...), please leave a comment and link and tell me about it!

Let's Talk about Resistance: Why can't I read Regina Doman? Pt. 1

It's a great concept.  It's a concept I should like.  Fairy tales recast in contemporary settings, but in such a way that they still engage with good and evil, and from a specifically Catholic perspective. Regina Doman's fairy tale novels are novels I really want to like.  And yet, every time I read them, I encounter difficulties--first with The Shadow of the Bear, and then with Alex O'Donnell and the 40 Cyber Thieves--I find myself enjoying some parts of the stories, but rejecting others so firmly that the experience of reading is seriously impeded.  So when I read Sarah Reinhard's review of Rapunzel Let Down, I was intrigued.  I was interested!  And I was cautious.  But from the review, and from Regina Doman's web site, it seemed that the tone was different in this book--more different from the other two than Shadow and Alex were from each other.  So I started reading.  I am still reading.  But the resistance is definitely there--and building.  So I'm blogging about it.

Resistance is something I've thought about quite a bit.  When teaching composition, I teach audience resistance as a way of getting students to consider audience when they are writing, and to consider what rhetorical appeals they can employ or what strategies they can evoke in order to minimize the resistance that an audience might feel when reading a persuasive essay on a particular topic that happens to be written from a particular perspective.  Often (but not always), it has been a matter of helping a very religious undergraduate student consider how an academic audience will react to a position based in Christian morality, and to strategize reaching an audience that might not find certain arguments convincing--or who might find them offputting.  So resistance is absolutely about the reader, and as a writer, negotiating reader resistance depends on whom a writer sees as her audience (more on this in the next post).

I have thought about resistance in teaching and training contexts as well.  Most recently, I have thought about ways in which "soft skills" trainers really don't help themselves because they are completely unaware of what aspects of a sensitive topic might make class participants bristle.  As a literature teacher, it occurred to me that not only were many students resistant to fantasy, whole classes could be resistant to reading literature in particular way (reading children's literature as literature rather than for its potential as a teaching aid, for example), individual students could be significantly resistant to particular works.  My favorite example of student resistance has to be the student who told me that he refused to read Plato's Symposium on the basis of my introductory lecture on the historical context--and Greek homosexuality.  I talked him through his resistance by pointing out the influence of the "Ladder of Love" on Christian philosophy, and he actually wrote his final paper on the Symposium.

When I assigned "rhetorical blogging" in my most recent/last children's literature course, I was hoping that the blogging, which specifically acknowledged the "rhetorical situation" of reading, would help students to overcome any resistance they might have to 1) fantasy or 2) reading children's literature as scholars and critics.  As it turned out, those particular students were not generally resistant, but certain things emerged:  some female students were resistant to books that they identified as "boy books"; some (also female) students felt betrayed because they expected Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH would be about the little mouse named (by her married name) and depicted on the cover; some were resistant to books about rodents (a lesson I didn't learn, that cost me a job in New Zealand); most were resistant to Roald Dahl because of what they felt was a cruel and warped sense of justice.   So in fact, we did engage with resistance in that class, and often by way of the blogs.

My purpose in having the students blog and identify areas of resistance was so that by acknolwedging the resistance, and analyzing the reasons for that resistance, students might gain awareness of their reading that would permit them to read to the end of the book, and move out of their comfort zones, and also to help them to identify these points of resistance as areas for analysis.  If something bugs you while reading--figure out why!!

So having the blog, and relizing that when I read Regina Doman's novels, I have that bristling that  makes me want to argue, even if I know that I basically agree with her underlying point, I need to pause and ask why, especially as I want to like the story.

So that's the theoretical part.  I have some ideas, but I'll save those for the next post!