August was a back-to-school month for our family. We arrived back from the church history mega-road trip with only ten days to spare until school started for the kids. Once the dust settled from that, it was time for me to get ready to head back to school as well. This time, I get to be on both sides of the proverbial podium as I’m teaching first-year writing while starting my graduate school classes.
It’s going to be a challenge to keep my personal writing projects going while also managing school writing. My goal is to save at least 15 minutes in the morning to work on a personal project, but even that may get thrown out the window as we get further into the semester. But perhaps that doesn’t matter since I also want to polish up my academic writing skills–that’s the whole reason I’m in the program. Perhaps the right mindset is to just consider myself as shifting genres for a while, and maybe focus on flash fiction and flash essays for a while.
In other positive news, my piece for Exponent II fall issue was accepted! The issue was themed around ordinary things, and my essay “Turning the Corner” is about being sick at the holidays, something that happens far too often when you have kids. We’ve finished the editing process, and the issue launch party will be October 5th at 6 pm MT. Anyone can sign up to attend and listen to the authors read and talk about their work. I also proposed a half-scholarly half-creative nonfiction piece for Wayfare which was accepted, so I’m busily typing away at that.
Over on Pop Culture on the Apricot Tree, we started our Barbenheimer miniseries with an episode about Oppenheimer. I am in the midst of editing the Barbie episode which should come out tomorrow. What a good summer for movies, right?
Speculative Fiction
Princess Academy by Shannon Hale – Listened to this one on audio with the kids. Shannon Hale has a knack for writing beautiful stories that work for both adult listeners and children. My teen boys liked this just as much as my 7yo daughter. I forgot about the songs and sayings that are strewn throughout the story; the audiobook renders them with actual tunes or background sound. I eventually got used to these, but the use of different voice actors for every character was jarring, especially when the narrator had to pause expectantly after every dialogue tag. But the story itself was able to overcome these issues. Who knew a fantasy where the main character doesn’t get the girl and the main plot action is about economics could be such a page turner?
The Place of the Lion by Charles Williams – Maybe it was because I listened to this book in fragments over the course of a week or so, but I found this novel generally confusing. The idea is very compelling when stated separately–Plato’s ideal forms come down to wreck havoc on contemporary England. However, in practice, I found the characters difficult to tell apart and the revelation of the various ideals to be under-developed. However, I know that CS Lewis felt this book was perspective changing. I wonder if the idea in this book is related to Lewis’s subsequent development of his planetary books and the themes of the various planets in Narnia (if you buy Michael Ward’s hypothesis, which I do, especially after knowing he was so impacted by this book). I can’t really recommend this volume on its own merits though.
Fiction
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky – Woof, I don’t recommend trying to tackle both War and Peace and The Brothers Karamazov in one year. I feel like The Bros K might have gotten short shrift because I was already burned out on long Russian novels. On the Auden scale (as quoted by Alan Jacobs), this one is a solid “I can see this is good, and, though at present I don’t like it, I believe with perseverance I shall come to like it.” I can see myself trying to read this one again more slowly, perhaps over the course of a whole year, so I can really take the time to process the arguments presented here.
On the plus side for my experience of this book, I really loved “The Grand Inquisitor,” which it seems by general consensus is the best part. I wonder if anyone has trying to write an analysis of this parable from a Latter-day Saint perspective because the inquisitor shares some strong overlap with the LDS conception of Satan–the idea of taking away humanity’s agency for its own good to affect universal salvation hits startlingly close to LDS doctrine. I may have to do some investigating for analysis. It seems like this book is one that is best understood by reading the conversation that has been had about it since its publication.
On the minus side, I felt like something was being lost in translation. (I picked up the David McDuff version, as it was the only audio version available besides Constance Garnett.) At many points, I wasn’t sure exactly what had happened and had to go confirm online with Wikipedia what was going on. Perhaps this is just Dostoyevsky’s style? And just like the other Dostoevsky I’ve read (Crime and Punishment), there aren’t any characters I really click with. They are well-rounded and interesting, but there wasn’t a single one that reflected myself as a believer. Perhaps this is by design, as the book seems largely about refuting the general atmosphere of atheism present when he wrote the book rather than about faith itself, whereas I tend to be interested in the conversation past that point–now that we believe, what comes next? How do we practically live?
These are just my first shallow thoughts about one of the indisputable classics of world literature, so obviously they count for little. While I’ve been reading the book, I’ve already come across so many references to it in other writing that I am amazed I didn’t see them there before. Overall, I’m glad to have added this work to my literary vocabulary.
Nonfiction
Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C. S. Lewis by Michael Ward – You know you’ve made the right choice in going back to grad school to study literature when you choose to read a work of literary criticism while driving cross country instead of all the works of fiction you downloaded beforehand. Luckily, all the kids were playing video games or we’d have had a rebellion on our hands.
But I regret nothing because this book was amazing. The premise of this book sounds a bit crazy, a huge over-reach. CS Lewis had a secret symbolic method behind the Chronicles of Narnia (or as Ward has it, the Narniad) based on the medieval conception of the seven heavens? And he never told anyone because he was a very secretive person? I was skeptical after listening to the intro chapters, but then Ward effectively smashed my doubts with his expert analysis of each book, gradually proving the presiding spirit of each book. Not only are his insights convincing, but the framework of the planets actually explained several things that always bothered me about Narnia, like Uncle Andrew’s attraction to Jadice and the construction of the plots of the non-Biblical-allegory books. He also inspired a realization about The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe that I’m hoping to develop into an essay soon.
The only part where I thought Ward missed something was in his explanation of why Lewis may have chosen to use this symbolic scheme in the book. While all of his conjectures about Lewis’s motives made sense to me, the glaring omission to me in my fiction writer hat is looking at this device from the perspective of the writer rather than the audience. Coming up with fiction is tough stuff, and using a device like the seven planets to explore the nature of God is exactly the type of thing I would use as a writer to get the idea generation machine started. Having a predetermined well of imagery and symbols to draw on is immensely helpful when trying to decide what happens next. I can absolutely see Lewis using this scheme to generate bits of setting, character, and plot.
Anyway, this book probably isn’t for everyone. But if you’ve been shamed for your love of Narnia by people who think the books are poorly imagined, paper-thin allegories, Ward will renew your faith in the masterful design behind Lewis’s fiction. Though he didn’t write Narnia in the same style as Tolkien’s obsessive worldbuilding, it’s also clear he wasn’t just throwing together random things but crafting a masterpiece that has lasted generations.
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb – A quick reread for my turn at hosting book club. The fact that this book holds up after all this time is a testament to the power of Gottlieb’s ability to tell a story. A really good read for someone who has known a lot of people in therapy but not actually been in therapy. It made me feel a lot more positively about therapists–I am/was one of those people who didn’t like therapists because they make me feel exposed. But this book makes therapy so much more approachable, plus the stories are utterly fascinating.
