How to Succeed in the Victorian Literary Industry...

Over the past couple of months, I've checked out several non-fiction books on all sorts of topics that I imagine to be of interest to me -- Modernism! World War I and the arts! The history of children's literature! -- and have, without fail, been unable to finish a single one. Oh, it's not the subject's fault, and it's not really the author's; these are accomplished scholars, you know. Except that, well, "accomplished scholar" doesn't always translate to, er, "engaging writer." Intensive academic work in the field of English doesn't necessarily give one a gift for skillfully manipulating language or a strong sense of narrative; the Stephen Greenblatts of the world are rare. Sometimes the best person to write an insightful literary history is an outsider -- like someone with an academic background in political science and law! But of course!

I first read Daniel Pool's Dickens' Fur Coat and Charlotte's Unanswered Letters: The Rows and Romances of England's Great Victorian Novelists in 1999, and reread it a few times after that, but haven't picked it up since 2002 or so. Ah, the joys of college. In any event, something put me in the mood for a little publishing history, so I started it again two days ago. If possible, I think I love it even more than I thought I did.

The novel as dominant form of popular entertainment really began to emerge in the early decades of Victoria's reign, the 1830s and '40s. (Novels had, of course, existed prior to this point, but, for various reasons outlined in the book, only began to gain genuine respectability as a literary form during this period.) And, like any good form of popular entertainment, the novel -- or, rather, the entire literary industry -- came with a great deal of delightful backstage drama. Pool, in his tremendously readable style, relates the stories of the industry's major players, dealing not only with authors such as Dickens and Marian Evans, AKA George Eliot, but also with key figures in the publishing world, like the painfully young [by which I mean, my age, but doing a job of actual importance] George Smith, champion, publisher, and object of unrequited affection of Charlotte Brontë, or the unscrupulous Mr. Newby, who was fond of selling his wares by confusing the public about issues of authorship and newspaper review attribution. So fond was he, in fact, of leading readers to believe that each latest novel was really written by some better-known author than it really was, that he resorted to printing critical comments such as these in the first edition of Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall:

"The work is strangely original. It reminds us of Jane Eyre. The author is a Salvator Rosa with his pen." -- Britannia
"We strongly recommend all our readers who love novelty to get this story, for we can promise them they never read anything like it before. It is like Jane Eyre." -- Douglas Jerrold

Honestly, I can't fault Newby at all, because I'd reprint these gems of critical observation and total lack of irony, too.

Though, fond as I am of Newby's exploits, nay, of all Pool's stories, my heart belongs to the long, awkward saga of William Thackeray and Charlotte Brontë, who seemed to get herself caught up in these sorts of things far more than an introverted clergyman's daughter from the countryside really should have. The two authors initially had something of a mutual admiration society going on: she loved his work, he read Jane Eyre in a day, and she, in turn, wrote a fangirly dedication to him -- whom she had never met, it needs to be noted -- for the book's second edition. In a wonderfully unfortunate twist of fate, however, this dedication also led to the swift devolution of the whole lovefest. Thackeray, as it happened, had a mad wife who had been put away, was raising two young daughters, and relied on a governess for care of the girls. Jane Eyre was subtitled "An Autobiography," and the author's name, "Currer Bell," was known to be pseudonymous. You can see where I'm going with this. Thackeray was furious, Charlotte was mortified, and, well, I'll leave the rest for your own reading. Because you really, really need to read this book.

Really! If you're into Victorian novelists and scandal and all that. And who isn't? At least read it for statements like this:

Was it just Charlotte? Was it that publishers were so sexy? (94)

And for the fact that it would make a bloody good Masterpiece Theatre series, and if someone else doesn't someday adapt it, I will. Couldn't turn out any worse than last season's Billie Piper-miscasting, Jemma Redgrave-wasting Mansfield Park.

Beginning the World: Episode 5 - London, Part 1

So, ah, we suddenly found lots and lots of things to do in Cambridge and got a bit held up for a time. Yes, that's what happened. Nothing at all to do with my totally falling down on the blog job or anything silly like that. Really, now.

Last time, I promised that our next destination would be the "Ox" half of Oxbridge. Yeah, changed my mind about that one; now we're headed to London! For many weeks, I expect, as there are roughly 379 museums, churches, and otherwise historic sites I intend to explore! And those are just the ones that interest me most!

We'll begin our tour with a visit to what is arguably the world's greatest museum of decorative arts and design: the Victoria & Albert, which actually comprises three separate museums: the V&A proper, the Museum of Childhood, the currently online-only Theatre Collections. The V&A will be our first destination, and we're in luck: it wasn't terribly long ago that much of their deeply awesome website was under some sort of maintenance, but no more; every exhibition site, with all the online galleries and interactive design games contained therein, is now up and running again! Whee!

First up: Ideally, we'd have the option to time travel to 2010-11 to visit the Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes 1900-1939 and Aestheticism: Beauty in Art and Design 1860-1900 exhibits. For some peculiar reason or other, though, the V&A hasn't posted extensive online galleries for these yet. Imagine such a thing! One would think they'd at least have something set up for Magnificence of the Tsars, given that it opens this Wednesday and all, but nooo. Suppose we'll simply have to content ourselves with a little retrospective time travel, then.

Allow me to indulge my historical and aesthetic biases just a bit...

Modernism: Designing a new world 1914-1939 - I'm especially partial to the "Mapping Modernism" page, mainly because it's just fun to slide the little timeline arrow and wave the cursor over the dots indicating designers. I'm easily amused.

This one's already put in an appearance on this blog, way back in my second entry, but may as well post it again: International Arts and Crafts. Not only is there a whole lot of gorgeous among the Exhibition Highlights, but the site also offers a list and directions to nine notable Arts and Crafts-style buildings located in and around London, as well as a map of the museum's Arts and Crafts objects not part of the exhibition. Which doesn't mean much now, given that the exhibition took place in 2005, but it's still quite considerate of them.

Art Deco: 1910-1939. Lots of features here similar to those found on the other two sites, but there's also a quiz, which I aced before even reading through the site. Yay for useless knowledge of early twentieth-century design movements!

As much fun as these exhibition-specific sites may be, nothing at all compares to the time-wasting delight of this little page. For real. I've already created an album cover for my imaginary band (La Belle Indifference, in case anyone wanted to know, for which I provide the imaginary vocals, keyboards, and novelty percussion, and may or may not be fictionally involved with the non-existent guitarist); designed a ring; created my own Modernist poster; created an awfully pretty blue and brown tartan which the site never managed to e-mail me a link to, in spite of the option given to do so, which saddens me greatly, as it really was quite lovely, if totally inauthentic; and designed not one, but two textiles. Behold the result of my attempts at playing William Morris:

Textile 1

Textile 2

Thanks to V&A, it's easy to pretend to have actual artistic ability, even if in reality you can't even draw a straight line with a ruler and can only manage to cut fabric on an arc! Not that, um, anyone is really that lame with regard to spatial reasoning! Ha ha! *cough cough*

Once we've killed 6 or 7 hours with fake arts and crafts projects, it might be worth a trip to the V&A's Theatre Collections. The collections pages themselves are fairly underwhelming -- lots of promises of images that will be posted later this year or sometime in 2009 -- but the subjects page offers plenty of resources on all manner of theatre-related things, which is quite interesting. To me, at least, but that's the way this whole travel show works, isn't it? Mwa-ha-ha.

Next time: More London, I'm sure, but maybe I'd best not make any more promises about this sort of thing.

Books, and an Addendum to Last Week's Installment

Blah blah blah, currently reading

1. Rites of Spring - Modris Eksteins

and

2. The End of the Affair - Graham Greene

and they're both quite good, but not especially interesting fodder for a blog entry. Also, my 5-year-old laptop decided today to cease to function on any internet-related level; I'm now working with a borrowed and unfamiliar laptop, and its keyboard clickiness and touchpad ultra-sensitivity are freaking me out, as is the presence of a "2/@" key, as my own computer lost its at some point in 2004. All of which is a roundabout way of saying that I'm not quite up for a cursory analysis of a 396-page cultural history of World War I, or of a [considerably briefer] novel on adultery, religion, and death.

What I am up for is a brief continuation of last week's little trip to Cambridge, as we happened to bypass someplace rather important [to me, and probably me alone] while in the region: the district of Huntingdonshire, or, rather, the remnants of the Anglican religious community that once was based there: Little Gidding. I'll refrain from quoting Eliot, since I've already done it ad nauseam on this blog, (but you really still ought to read him). I will, however, just add that this is St. John's Church -- which he visited in 1936, which inspired much of the poem -- in the 1960s, thirty years after that visit but probably not terribly changed:

It's somewhat astonishing to think that such a humble structure could inspire the greatness that is "Little Gidding," yet that's rather the thing, isn't it? The history is what matters;

So, while the fails
On a winter's afternoon, in a secluded chapel
History is now and England. (237-9)

What's that? I went for the quote anyway? And yet I feel remarkably unguilty.

Beginning the World: Episode 4 - Cambridge

By pure coincidence (honestly, and that’s not sarcasm), the first two cities on our tour – Glasgow and York – also happen to be home to the only two universities I have yet found which actually offer entire MA programs in modernism. While I will apply to each, because I would only regret not doing so, it is most likely that I will be attending a more diverse MA program at a very good university here in the United States. Because I have never lived away from my parents. Because moving to a separate state from my family will be a major change as it is. Because – oh, forget it all! No more paralyzing fear and general social awkwardness! I take risks now! I’ll up and move to Scotland and be completely penniless and in an utterly foreign land (except for that weird connection I feel to the UK) but won’t care because of the history and the awesome grad program and deeply appealing, if somewhat unintelligible, accents and the proximity to my favorite musicians! The University of Glasgow is beckoning with open arms!

Ahem. So, um, there are other universities in the United Kingdom as well, like these Oxford and Cambridge places. Today we'll be visiting the town of Cambridge.

The Cambridge University Library is open to the public. It features one or two special exhibitions at any given time. And websites exist for every former exhibition. Yeah, we’re not going anywhere else today. Just look at these! Here’s one on travel through Great Britain, and another on the library’s music collection! Unfortunately, the experience of visiting these sites isn’t quite equivalent to actually seeing the exhibits in person, as there’s something to be said for being able to actually see the items in question. The omission of images is most egregious with regard to the site for “Unregulated Printing: Modern Private Press Books,” which features books which, according to the site, “embody their printers’ individuality, often making use of unusual formats, lavish illustrations and remarkable bindings.” They do, at least, thoughtfully offer several pages of the captions associated with the items that were displayed in the exhibition, which is totally the same thing, right? All right, granted, they surely have many good reasons for the lack of photography, but still. So here, let this page from an edition of Chaucer published by William Morris’s Kelmscott Press suffice:



After spending several days in the library, it might be nice to go out and catch a performance or lecture or something of the like. Let’s see what’s listed on the Visit Cambridge “What’s On?” calendar, according to which, “There’s always too much to do in Cambridge – the list of entertainments and cultural events is endless!” Sounds promising! Well, this week, there’s...hmm. No, no, I think you need to try each of the options for yourself – "Today," "This week," "This month," and "This year." Let’s just say that someone at the Cambridge tourism site is either forgetful, or just a wee bit deceitful.

So, I had been hoping to deviate from the “let’s visit nifty museums!” norm a bit, but it’s patently clear that Cambridge doesn’t want its visitors to do much else, aside from punting on the River Cam, and I suspect that would only result in disaster and a change of clothes. The Fitzwilliam it is! Happily, this museum features a slew of online exhibitions – complete with pictures, Cambridge University Library. Ahem. One exhibit of particular interest to me, and probably no one else, is “J.W. Clark and the Care of Books,” though, I must admit that much of my interest is based on its featuring “photographs of medieval English and continental libraries,” because I rather hope that the process of photographing these libraries involved time travel. Unfortunately, I suspect “medieval” here refers only to date of the libraries’ construction, which...makes the gallery considerably less intriguing. Although there is something oddly creepy about this...


...so that’s sort of exciting. I guess. (Picture from J.W. Clark exhibit gallery, © The Fitzwilliam Museum)


Well. This has been uneventful. We’ll make one last stop, to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, more frequently called the Round Church, because it was built in the mid-twelfth century, now functions as a museum of local church history, and, frankly, looks cool:



Next time we’ll explore England’s other big famous university town. Perhaps their events calendar is actually useful!

Creators: A Love Story

Yeah, that last "Current Reading" list? Gave up on all three books shortly after. Just wasn't in the mood for any of them...

But I love what I picked up instead!

Creators: From Chaucer and Dürer to Picasso and Disney - Paul Johnson

In this book, Johnson -- a historian of virtually everything that has ever happened in the world, and possibly some things that happened on Mars and Neptune -- profiles the creative lives of seventeen revolutionary artistic-type people (authors, composers, visual artists). His writing style is elegant and readable, neither stiffly academic nor overly casual, which was a huge asset in and of itself. (He does occasionally demonstrate symptoms of Crankyoldmanitis, but the positive outweighs that negative.) However, the book's true delight lay in the creators whom he chose to cover; it's like The Big Book of Jacquelyn's Intellectual Crushes. To wit:


1. William Shakespeare. Okay, yes, that little virtual excursion to Stratford-upon-Avon led to some ranting about the man's personal choices, but as a playwright and poet...

2. J.S. Bach. If, for some very odd reason, I could listen to only one piece of classical music ever again, it would be Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 in G. Or the Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme cantata. Or the Sonata for Cello and Continuo in G minor. I like Bach, is what I'm saying, and I'm terribly inarticulate when discussing art music, so...there you go.

3. Louis Comfort Tiffany. Let the pretty picture distract you from the insubstantiality of my comments!


Ooh! Aah! Yes, I think the museum in which it's housed can say a bit more about this particular work than I can, as my initial thoughts in regard to Tiffany's work are "Art nouveau! Color! Stylized natural designs! Pretty!"

4. T.S. Eliot. Well, a glance at that "Favorite Poems" list off to the right side of this page pretty well says it all, but in case that's insufficient:

So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years--
Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerres--
Trying to learn to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate--but there is no competition--
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.

(from "East Coker," Canto V)

That had nothing to do with anything, by the way; I just think it's brilliant.

5. Cristóbal Balenciaga. Actually, it's a little disingenuous of me to put him on this list, as my interest resulted from reading Johnson's book. But anyone who is responsible for this:


is okay with me. (Pic is from the Metropolitan Museum of Art's excellent thematic essay on Balenciaga.)

Jane Austen is also profiled; as established, I'm not exactly a Janeite, but Johnson wisely heaps praise on Mansfield Park and the Juvenilia, both of which I do love, so good for him on that count as well.

I've moved on to Modris Eksteins' Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age; if I'm going to claim to know anything about modernism in Western Europe when declaring my academic interests to grad schools, it's probably best to make sure that I actually do. And the book, happily, is so far terrific. Perhaps it, too, may result in a graphics-enriched blog entry two weeks from now.

Beginning the World: Episode 3 - Coventry and Stratford-upon-Avon

This week’s irrational tourism motivation? Connie Willis’ delightful time travel mystery/historical novel/romantic comedy/comedy of manners, To Say Nothing of the Dog, in which the curious disappearance of a hideous Victorian artifact from Coventry Cathedral plays a central role. This novel turned me on to a number of things – Pre-Raphaelite art, Tennyson’s poem “The Lady of Shalott,” the idea that swans are vicious, vengeful birds – and Coventry is just one more example. So it’s fitting to begin our tour with a stop in at this very same cathedral.

First – may I kindly ask the person who felt this was important enough to include on the cathedral’s Wikipedia page to marry me? Thank you. Now, for the actual visit. We’ll be stopping in on a Monday – the promise of a free (well, donation recommended, but that’s still preferable to a fixed ticket price) classical organ concert is too much for me to pass up. Even without that, though, the cathedral itself is certainly worth the trip. The ruins of St. Michael’s Cathedral – destroyed during the Blitz in November 1940 – remain as hallowed ground, with the new cathedral standing beside them. Images, of course, can say more than I can about the site and its history. This is particularly true given that, fascinated as I am by this period in English history, and much as I love historic places of worship, I know with a certainty that I’d spend at least a third of my time there attempting to determine the approximate former location of the bishop’s bird-stump.

After our visit to the Cathedral....it occurs to me that there’s not actually anything else in Coventry that I particularly care to see. I did, however, just learn that Coventry has a basketball team, and that England has a basketball league. This information is very exciting to me, as is the fact that there used to be a team called the Kings Lynn Fury (now the College of West Anglia Fury, which just doesn’t have quite the same ring to it). Given that I have never actually heard of any English basketball players, however, and wasn’t aware that they, um, even existed, I am rather dubious as to how well these teams would stack up against those of continental Europe. But, hey, I was beginning to wonder if Britain would have to rely solely upon the combined efforts of Luol Deng and Ben Gordon in the 2012 Olympics, so, this is good to hear.

Back to travel. Coventry may not be a booming tourist destination, but it is in close proximity to one slightly more popular location: Stratford-upon-Avon, birthplace of a man of great importance – John Harvard, he for whom the university was named. His house is open to the public, and—what's that you say? Him? But that’s such a cliche.

*sigh* Fine: Shakespeare’s home. Look at his birthplace! And his mom’s childhood home! And his daughter’s house! And his home from 1597-1616! Oh, but Anne Hathaway’s cottage is a special case for me; I’ve always been a defender of hers for some reason (I think I blame Shakespeare in Love, actually – ooh, Shakespeare finds real love with Gwyneth Paltrow, who’s way more interesting than his wife back home could ever be! Maybe she was busy raising your children, Will. Gee, perhaps you could have, say, not impregnated her when you were 18! Yeah, yeah, write your little tragedies bemoaning the marital state and your snotty wills bequeathing your “second-best bed.” I’m sure it was no picnic for her either, dude.)

Ahem. Anyway, it's lovely property:


In spite of my feelings regarding Shakespeare the husband and father, I am quite fond of Shakespeare the author, and to that end a visit to the Shakespeare Centre Library is in order. May as well take in a performance by the Royal Shakespeare Company, too -- Twelfth Night and Romeo and Juliet are both forthcoming, and A Midsummer Night's Dream is currently running! Three of my favorites! If they'd throw in Macbeth, we'd be golden.

And a trip to the theatre might be a good note on which to end our tour. Next time: some other random place in the United Kingdom!

Current Reading

I actually have read other books between April and now, several! Just...didn't have much to say about them, apparently.

1. 1603: The Death of Queen Elizabeth I, the Return of the Black Plague, the Rise of Shakespeare, Piracy, Witchcraft, and the Birth of the Stuart Era - Christopher Lee

Well! The subtitle pretty well says it all, doesn't it? So far things are progressing rather less excitingly than one might expect from a book that promises talk of the Plague, piracy, and witchcraft. The first two chapters function primarily to set the stage by recounting the historical events and circumstances necessary to an understanding of 1603's significance, while the third chapter is a social and economic history of late Elizabethan England. I have, however, learned a great deal about the process of molding sea-coal balls, which has most certainly been a longheld source of fascination for me.

There's hope, though; Lee's writing style is lively enough to have actually kept me mildly interested through the sloggier passages, and chapter four focuses on James VI/I of Scotland/England, who's typically a reasonably interesting character (though never moreso than in one of my summer books, John MacLeod's Dynasty: The Stuarts 1560-1807. James had some issues, I think). Too, subsequent chapters bear titles like "Bonfires," "Coronation," "Plague," "Witchcraft," "The Coroner's Tale," and "Poets," so things can only get better.

2. A World Without Time: The Forgotten Legacy of Gödel and Einstein - Palle Yourgrau

I am Arts and Humanities chick. The theories of Einstein and Gödel discussed here are just a little beyond my purview. And yet, I'm enjoying the read so far, primarily because I like Yourgrau's style:

Worse, the world of general relativity, much to Einstein's displeasure, was actually 'expanding,' that is, expanding over time. (God, apparently, had for once failed to consult first with Einstein.) (18-9)

...and a little dry wit and a poetic turn of phrase ("Time itself must have been smiling over the puzzle it had created" [19]) will get a person very far with me.

3. The Fall - Albert Camus

Been on something of an absurdist/existentialist kick of late; read and loved Kafka's The Metamorphosis and The Trial in July, and followed those up with Camus' The Plague and The Stranger. The Plague, I loved as well, but the style of this particular translation of The Stranger -- and I only specify this because the translator himself made a big to-do in the Translator's Note about how special his "American" translation (versus the earlier "British" translation, apparently) was -- didn't really grab me until the last few chapters; too choppy and abrupt, which, yes, is meant to underline Meursault's shallow and amoral approach to life (and death), but it didn't make for a particularly smooth read.

Anyway. I only mention the above in order to say that The Fall has more in common with The Stranger than it does The Plague, which might limit my appreciation of it a bit. The Plague was wonderful for the claustrophobic, populous world it presented, with multiple characters expressing conflicting views and motivations. The Fall, though, is a single man's monologue (presented as one side of a conversation; the listener's response is never indicated, probably because we're expected to fill in the blanks ourselves), and on that note it reminds me not only of The Stranger, but also just a bit of Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground, a novel that I read and kind of hated in my junior year Russian Literature class. There's just something about the process of vacationing in an unstable person's mind that doesn't entirely thrill me. Perhaps because I spend enough time in my own unstable mind. HA! MWA-HA! Ha!

I shouldn't do this late at night *sigh*

Ode to Joy

As I work through the shockingly hard process of writing the Statement of Academic Interests/Intent/Stuff You Like to Study that every reputable graduate program demands of its applicants, I've found my mind wandering to more and more abstract places. Which is where it generally likes to reside anyway, but this is something of an impediment to writing an essay that satisfactorily explains why I would prove an asset to a particular graduate school. Because, really? There is never a 'good', concrete reason to spend money that one doesn't even have extensively studying Modernist British Literature. Never.

And this is what brings me to the abstract thing. Pondering questions like "Why do you want to pursue a graduate degree in English? What is your area of interest? Why do you want to study that?" has only served to bring to mind a concept on which C.S. Lewis focused in his 1955 spiritual autobiography, Surprised by Joy: his definition of joy itself. Inspired by the German concept of Sehnsucht, which literally means "longing" but refers more to the relationship between longing and addiction (thanks, Wikipedia!), Lewis used the word 'joy' to refer to the longing for some distant, totally other place, a longing inspired by some odd thing: a line of poetry, a piece of music, something in nature, to cite a few examples. This intense longing, which Lewis perceived to be a longing for God and Heaven, is more desirable than achievement of any earthly desire.

Well, that was wordy. But the point to which I've been trying to get is that I know joy. It's what I felt as a child upon looking at fairy tale illustrations of castles and forests; in 7th grade, opening my first book about the British monarchy; in 11th grade, reading T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men" and, a few years later, his "Little Gidding." It's the very experience of listening to anything J.S. Bach composed for cello, or (to take the music thing in a whole different direction) to a good percentage of the B&S catalogue (but especially the outro to "Like Dylan in the Movies" and "Ease Your Feet in the Sea," if you want to get specific). This pursuit of joy is the primary reason that I want to devote the next year-and-a-half of my life to the literature, history, and theological/philosophical thought of England in the 1920s through '40s.

And that is an unnervingly nonsensical reason to offer to a graduate admissions office.

Beginning the World: Episode 2 - York

Let’s hit the road, dear friend of mine
Wave goodbye to our thankless jobs
We’ll drive for miles, maybe never turn off
We’ll find a cathedral city
You can be handsome, I’ll be pretty

- “Let’s Get Out of This Country,” Camera Obscura


There’s no actual reason to identify the “cathedral city” in this song with York, but that won’t stop me from taking Tracyanne Campbell’s lyrics out of context and using them to preface this week’s trip!

Why York? Weird reason, actually; when I was 12 and getting very much into anything and everything British, the aspiring television writer in me conceived of an England-set, character-based drama. Randomly, I decided to call it York, probably because it sounded catchier than Manchester or Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and also because I had probably just opened up one of my books on the kings and queens and happened upon a reference to one of the myriad Dukes of York. Deep. But that random titling inspired me to care a great deal more than I really should have about this city, and even years after that little creative endeavor, I still have a soft spot for it. What’s more, York is, in and of itself, quite worth visiting: European Cities Marketing selected it as the top European Tourism City of the Year in 2007, which is...maybe not a terribly prestigious honor yet, as the award was first given out in 2007. But, still.

To return to that whole cathedral city thing, we’ll start things off with a visit to York Minster, second-largest Gothic cathedral in Northern Europe and home to Britain’s largest collection of medieval stained glass. A truly lovely collection it is, too, as these examples attest:



Unfortunately, I haven’t much more of interest to say, but perhaps this virtual tour might compensate for my present lack of wit.


Now this next destination, this excites me. I do love a nice historically significant cathedral, but museums are my truest travel love. And when said museum features displays of household objects of centuries and decades past, and incredibly detailed recreations of Victorian streets, and a new exhibition on Britain in the ‘60s, and, oh, marry me, York Castle Museum. How could one not want to visit this place?! Just watch the advert! (I really, really suspect I may soon begin to inadvertently adopt British terms and spelling. It used to happen when I was 13.)



The fake Victorian street has its own website! It has shops you can visit! It’s not as though I haven’t been to Colonial Williamsburg and Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts, so I’m not exactly sure why this sends me so, but it does, probably because it’s in England and that makes it special! Someone please help me to stop italicizing things and using a surfeit of exclamation points!

Even better, a visit to the page for said ‘60s exhibit brings us to this. (Do use this link, by the way, and not that found on the YCM '60s exhibition site – whoever created the page decided to toss in an extra “http” and I had a devil of a time attempting to figure out why I kept being sent to a site bearing a “The page ‘HTTP’ does not exist!” message from my local server.) In any event, this site is fascinating. A little overmuch with the (admittedly understandable) hyping of the York Castle Museum and York Minster (though, also a website quite worth visiting), but fascinating nonetheless. The article about Radio 270 -- on the '60s site, of course -- is a highlight.


Our next destination, the Antiques Centre York, has, incidentally, decided to latch onto the apparent popularity of the ‘60s exhibit:

Various Retro Objects that the Exhibit Will Totally Make You Want to Buy! Really!


This is all well and good; I’m rather more partial to merchandise a good few decades older, but really, how much time can I afford to while away at the Antiques Centre when this is awaiting? I mean, really. Ken Spelman Booksellers are “always keen to purchase” pre-1850 manuscripts and journals! That’s so...well, upon perusing the list of recently sold items, not entirely thrilling, but still cool in theory. And in addition to all the books, they offer house concerts by musicians of whom I've never heard, but who I'm sure are excellent, and art exhibitions, the website for which has apparently vanished, so there’s fun to be had for all! Seems we’ve narrowly missed out on the York National Bookfair, though...

...which might be a sufficient reason to conclude our stay in York and start planning our next journey. The destination? You'll just have to wait and see.

(But you wouldn't, um, be totally off-base in guessing that it might be somewhere in Great Britain.)

Beginning the World: Episode 1 - Glasgow

So, in spite of my nearly lifelong desire to go to Europe -- and my decade-long obsession with Britain -- I've still somehow neglected to actually procure the legal document necessary to realize this desire. And, even if that passport form were in the hands of the government instead of on the table next to where I sit, I, as a recently unemployed 23-year-old looking ahead to a future of expensive graduate study in English, would certainly lack the funds necessary to have much fun with the thing.

...But no one on the Internet's demanding anything of me!

While I attempt to straighten out all those other little issues -- passport procurement, fund raising -- I may as well assemble something of a virtual itinerary for a number of the cities I most want to visit. And where better a place to begin than Glasgow, which I have recently decided is one of my favorite cities in the world, for no reason other than its being the birthplace of Belle & Sebastian, Camera Obscura, Mark Knopfler, James McAvoy, and the UK branch of the Art Nouveau movement?


We'll begin our tour with a little excursion to Caledonia Books. An “antiquarian and second-hand book dealer.” In a major city in the British Isles. This could be financially dangerous. Actually, the non-existence of an actual shop site is probably a very good thing.

The site that is linked, you’ll notice, is rather...subdued, with nary a picture. But wait! There’s an additional resource that offers some idea of Caledonia’s appearance and inventory:



Disclaimer: There’s a chance that a small part of my desire to visit this shop might be rooted in the vain and admittedly pathetic hope that Stuart Murdoch will be there again for some random reason. And also because I'd like to know if they'd let me sleep on a stack of books, because it looks rather like fun.



So after all that antique book browsing and Belle & Sebastian-frontman stalking, we'll have worked up a bit of an appetite. Sure, there's any number of pubs and restaurants, but it's a rare establishment that can boast the architectural credentials of the Willow Tea Rooms, two lovely examples of native son Charles Rennie Mackintosh's Arts and Crafts/early Art Nouveau design.

Honestly, the food is sort of secondary for me, but it would probably be impolite to hang out there and gawk at the stained glass and linen wallhangings without actually, er, paying for anything. (That being said, I'll take a scone and some Honey and Almond tea. Or the Muesli with Fruit, Yoghurt [kind of adore the British spelling], and Honey. Or the Roasted Goats Cheese with Cherry Tomatoes salad. Or the Scottish Brie and Grapes. Huh, more reasons to stick around than just the architecture after all, I suppose.)

Here, too, a video might be informative, though in this case music takes a backseat to actual information about the site, presented in lovely accents.



Having had our aesthetic appetites whetted, it might be a good time to check out the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. Now, I would like to name some specific works on display here, and talk a bit about my affection for them and relate some anecdote from one of my art history classes. I would like to do this, but cannot, as, even after visiting five different sites about this institution, I have no clue as to what specific works this museum owns, aside from Dali’s Christ of Saint John of the Cross. A decent-sized museum, though, is a decent-sized museum, and this one promises atmosphere, too!

Per one Mark O’Neill, Head of Arts and Museums for the Glasgow City Council:

The museum’s great art collection, with masterpieces by Rembrandt and Van Gogh, Monet and Botticelli, Turner and Whistler, will be presented in classic galleries – but far more accessible than ever before. For example, visitors will be able to experience what a painting would have looked like in the flickering candlelight of a Renaissance chapel, with period music adding to the atmosphere!

The Mackintosh and the Glasgow Style gallery will also be a highlight, displaying the city’s important collection of furniture, designs and interiors by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and works by his ‘Glasgow Style’ contemporaries in one, comprehensive spectacle.

So, that’s kind of awesome. Although...



Yes, those are what you think they are:



I...suddenly have nothing more to say.

This Week's Reading

1. Romeo and Juliet - Henrik Ibsen (heh. Just kidding.)

I first read the play in 9th grade, after years of wanting to read it because it was Romeo and Juliet, and I was a huge romantic until the age of 15 or so. Unfortunately, given that this was my first experience reading a Shakespeare play in its entirety, the language proved a minor impediment to my enjoyment. In my later teens, when I was of an age to better appreciate Early Modern English, I also happened to be of the opinion that the story was overwrought and Shakespeare had produced far better work. In senior year of college, however, I read Stephen Greenblatt's marvelous introduction to the play in The Norton Shakespeare, and decided to give it another go -- which I am now doing, a year later. And? It absolutely lives up to Greenblatt's hype. So much of the language is just pure poetry -- Juliet's soliloquy at the beginning of 3.2 is probably the best example of this ("Take him and cut him out in little stars, / And he will make the face of heaven so fine / That all the world will be in love with night" [lines 22-24]), but the lovers' dialogue, too, is typically extravagant. Even the cynical Mercutio gets in on the act with his Queen Mab monologue. And the fatiguingly familiar story somehow seems so much more complex now than it did to my 14-year-old self. So, yeah. Romeo and Juliet is deservedly ubiquitous.

What's more, Greenblatt's introductions also motivated me to check out his much-acclaimed (by my English profs, at least, but presumably by better-known critics as well) Shakespeare bio, Will in the World. I read it in two days and intend to buy my own copy, just to have it on hand. I seem to be developing something of an intellectual crush on Stephen Greenblatt.

2. Gaudy Night - Dorothy L. Sayers

Hey! Something else I originally read at too early an age! In this case, at the age of 18, the summer before starting college. I read a good bio of Sayers a couple of weeks ago and was reminded of my earlier goes at the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries; I had only read a handful of them, mostly those co-starring Harriet Vane, of which Gaudy Night is the final.

The Sayers bio emphasized her guiding belief in the importance of dedication to one's work and the pursuit of one's calling (both topics of great interest to myself), and noted Gaudy Night's own concern with these themes. And while it's so obvious now (as is the fact that Harriet Vane is essentially Sayers herself), I really don't recall noticing it during my first reading. This, I think, is where the difference between being an 18-year-old high school grad, and an almost-23-year-old college grad attempting to make a future for herself, really makes itself known. Additionally, the literary and historical allusions make more sense now, but that's more a difference of education than of life experience.


Am also currently reading C.S. Lewis's The Problem of Pain, Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago, and Umberto Eco's History of Beauty, but they've all rather fallen to the wayside for the moment. Perhaps once one of the other two works is finished.

Spring Reading

Have been reading again, after failing to finish those three books listed in my last post and failing also to start anything new for about two-and-a-half months. The past two weeks, however, have been remarkably productive, and included the following books, along with three Chekhov plays. Not bad!

1. The Spinster and the Prophet: H.G. Wells, Florence Deeks, and the Case of the Plagiarized Text - A.B. McKillop

This book actually made me quite angry. McKillop presents the story of a Canadian woman, Florence Deeks, who spent the WWI years researching and writing a history of the world from a feminist perspective. Her book was rejected for publication. Just two years later, H.G. Wells published his own world history, which bore a peculiar resemblance to Deeks' work -- though Wells removed the feminist elements and, in a few cases, replaced them with derogatory statements. Deeks opted to sue, and what followed was intriguing and highly maddening. McKillop provides convincing evidence for Deeks's claims, refuting earlier writers (who have generally done considerably less research into the matter) who have taken Wells's side over that of the amateur (female) historian.

2. The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family - Mary S. Lovell

The sisters chronicled in this biography -- Nancy, Pam, Diana, Unity, Jessica ('Decca'), and Deborah ('Debo') Mitford -- were insane, and I mean that in the greatest way possible. Nancy became a novelist, Diana married the founder of England's Fascist movement, Unity fell head over heels for Hitler, Decca became a Communist and successful American journalist, and...well, Pam farmed and Debo became Duchess of Devonshire, so two sisters, at least, managed to avoid controversy. Fascinating book and fascinating -- and deeply flawed -- women. The chapters on the 1930s and 1940s alone would make for an astonishing miniseries.

3. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

I'm in very much a '1920s/1930s England' mood at the moment, and I adore literary works that contain a theological bent, so this was a necessary read. And it really is stunning, and, having just read The Sisters -- in which Waugh appears, as he was a close friend of Nancy Mitford's -- I can better appreciate the society being depicted. There's really not much more of depth I can say, as I'm still emotionally processing it all. I will add, however, that I've heard rumors that the new film adaptation has done away with the religious aspects of the story. To which I say: ....the heck? And, also, is there even a point to the thing, then?

Currently Reading...

Something peculiar happened in the middle of December: I began reading again, for fun. I think I've already finished more books than I did over the course of my four years as an undergrad. So I thought I'd keep track of what I'm currently reading, as well as what I'd like to read next (to be addressed in a future post).

1. Our Mutual Friend - Charles Dickens

I actually bought this book when I was 13, and pretentious, and had just finished Great Expectations. Didn't actually make my first attempt at reading it, though, until early 2006, a year after reading and loving Bleak House in my "The Novel and Social Reform" class. I didn't make it past the first two chapters then, but I was finishing up junior year at the time. I started over again yesterday and have read the first four chapters, so it's too soon to have formed much of an opinion yet (though Dickens' sense of humor is very much present, which is a plus). One way in which this won't quite measure up to Bleak House is in the absence of a first-person narrative; Esther's chapters were what I really adored about that book, because she was such a psychologically complex character. She's perceived by others as happy and obedient because of her outward behavior, but she has to remind herself, almost obsessively, of this fact. More importantly, she's possibly the most perceptive character in the novel; at least, she has a better understanding of the needs and desires of characters like Richard Carstone than they have of themselves. This is why I can't stand Masterpiece Theatre's highly-acclaimed adaptation; Lady Dedlock becomes the most dominant character, while Esther's inner-ness, if that makes any sense, is utterly stripped away. One of the most pivotal sections in the book -- Esther's illness, and the revealing dreams and hallucinations that accompany it -- is reduced to a brief side-story about a now-minor character.

Oh, yes, but anyway, OMF seems promising. I caught the miniseries of it several years ago, but don't recall it well enough for it to become a potential source of consternation!

2. Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination - Peter Ackroyd

This is my non-fiction read of the moment, and is another book that's been sitting on the shelf for awhile (though in this case, only a year-and-a-half). It's a little difficult to describe; basically, through a series of brief chapters, organized by linguistic period or subject (i.e. "Old English," "Middle English," but also topics like "Solitaries and recusants" and "Women and silence"), Ackroyd considers thematic patterns that recur throughout English literature, art, and music from its earliest, Celtic origins to at least the twentieth century. I've been very much an Anglophile since 7th grade (10 years now!), so this book is fascinating to me. Also, the dust jacket art is so pretty; I purchased it at this fantastic independent bookstore, which, for some reason, was carrying the British-published Chatto & Windus edition. Images from old portraits and needlework and psalter illustrations...gorgeous.

3. Mansfield Park - Jane Austen

This one's a reread; I first read it over a year ago in my "Jane Austen: Film and Fiction" class. I'm actually not a huge JA person; this and Northanger Abbey are the only two I really, genuinely enjoyed (also like her Juvenilia, which is insane and absurd and lots of fun), and my affection for NA might have something to do with the fact that our final assignment for the class was to write a proposal for a screen adaptation of it. That was fun, though I, um, did end up writing the whole thing in eight straight hours, pausing only to eat dinner and watch the ABC Family Everwood rerun, to make sure I emailed it to the class's two professors on-time. But, Mansfield Park's charms were entirely its own, independent of any creative writing assignments. Honestly, my favorite thing about this book is the very same thing that turn many off of it: the character of Fanny Price. Fanny is one of those observant, introverted and introspective, and morally-concerned types whom I tend to adore and relate to entirely too much. I also, sadly, relate entirely too much to passages like these (page numbers are based on the Oxford World's Classics edition):

"[...] she seized the scrap of paper on which Edmund had begun writing to her, as a treasure beyond all her hopes [...] It was the only thing approaching to a letter which she had ever received from him; she might never receive another; it was impossible that she ever should receive another so perfectly gratifying in the occasion and the style. Two lines more prized had never fallen from the pen of the most distinguished author---never more completely blessed the researches of the fondest biographer. [...] To her, the hand-writing itself, independent of any thing it may convey, is a blessedness. Never were such characters cut by any other human being, as Edmund's commonest hand-writing gave!" (207-8)

"As she walked slowly up stairs she thought of yesterday; it had been about the same hour that she had returned from the Parsonage, and found Edmund in the east room. --'Suppose I were to find him there again to-day!' said she to herself in a fond indulgence of fancy." (209-10)

So Mansfield Park has a lot of resonance, even if its major details -- sent to live with wealthy, corrupt relatives; in love with first cousin while being pursued by shady neighbor -- bear no resemblance at all to anything I've actually experienced.

Epiphany

Sadly, the first thing Eliot's "Journey of the Magi" brings to mind is Connie Willis's short story "Epiphany," which quotes the first two lines (which are themselves a paraphrase of a passage by 17th-century divine Lancelot Andrewes) at a pivotal moment. I mean, it's a terrific story, but still. I'm not so sure that's what Eliot, Andrewes, or the magi would really want.

'A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end, we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky.
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

***

It's interesting, really; I think as much as this poem is concerned with the magi, it's also concerned with the poet's own spiritual progress, as it was published in 1927, just around the time of his conversion to Anglicanism (which was really an official acceptance of Christianity, period). This whole concept of the journey is one that would culminate in 1941-3's Little Gidding, in which he writes

If you came this way,
Taking any route, starting from anywhere,
At any time or at any season,
It would always be the same: you would have to put off
Sense and notion. You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid. (lines 39b-46)

He's ostensibly talking about the chapel at Little Gidding (a village that had been established in 1625 as an Anglican religious community), but it's difficult not to recall the themes of the earlier poem: the journey, the desire for verification, and the retreat from a spiritually-rich location to one that now seems spiritually barren.

Or maybe I just really, really miss majoring in English.