Marching Through Middlemarch

Since one of my resolutions is to read my own books before buying more, I've been eying my collection and sizing up what to read next. But there's a catch that's keeping me from actually opening up another cover, and it's a big one.

You see, on the heels of finishing Aimee Bender's 'The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake', which was, I have to say, satisfying but mildly disappointing, I was feeling optimistic about my ability to tackle any book, and I was feeling lofty in terms of literature. And so, I picked up.....'Middlemarch'.

Oi vey. Over a thousand pages. I've made it past the first hundred, and I am really enjoying it, truly. But my moments with George Eliot are mere minutes stolen before work, during a break on a particularly long shift, or taken when I can tear myself away from the computer screen and my many freelance obligations. I'm experiencing the courtship between Dorothea and Mr Casaubon almost in real time. Well, that's an exaggeration, but you know what I mean. Were I still in school, this book would probably have taken me two weeks. Two weeks of hard reading with some possible resentment, but still.

Speaking of, I'm going to have another glowing nostalgia moment. Reading this book makes me so appreciate taking 'The 18th-Century British Novel in Context'. Because it gave me, well, context. Eliot makes a lot of references in this thing, and I'm getting quite a few of them without flipping to the back for the footnotes (it's a cheap Bantam edition, so they aren't really worth it anyway). Also, it has resulted in something kind of strange: a favorite chapter. I don't think I've ever had one of those before, but number 15 is the one here. It started with the reference to Fielding and intro-ing the chapter as if it came straight from 'Tom Jones'. But my love was then solidified with the consideration of why we don't think of the romance of finding the career you love with the one you love (i.e. a person). It has the same ebb and flow, and can be just as, if not more, defining to your life and identity. That resonates with me to such an extent, nothing could possibly top chapter 15, I don't care what drama is to come.

And so, I stare at my not-yet-organized bookshelf and look longingly on the books which await me. And it really isn't fair to poor old George. She went to the trouble to write these thousand-plus pages, and by golly, I'm going to enjoy every one of them. If most of them happen to be read in the parking lot when I'm early for work, so be it.

No Dewey Decimals Here

There is a terrible truth which I have been avoiding for a few months now, but must be faced. Much as I would like to simply forget and hope for the solution to magically put itself into place, it will not be so. Here is the plain and awful fact: I have too many books.

No, that's a lie. You can never have too many books. There are even books you can never have too many copies off. Which means that actually, I don't have enough bookshelf. I have passed the point where squeezing and strategic arrangement will make them fit, and have at least one shelf's worth of books more than can currently be housed.

And so, I will have to find more room for my books, which more than likely means making room in my room for another shelf. And that is only the beginning of a very serious and personal process. Because anyone who collects books like Halloween candy (and enjoys a similar high from digesting their loot) and harbors that strange sense of organization that never seems to translate into actually keeping things clean but likes to arrange things just so...well, they are bound to have their own way of organizing things. And it's not by Dewey Decimals.

Unlike my CDs, which used to be organized alphabetically (before they were imported into iTunes and boxed up), and my DVDs, which are alphabetized after separating film from TV, my books are much more artistically arranged by subject and when I read them. There are several shelves of school reads which were memorable enough (but not too traumatic) to make a permanent place in my heart. A little further back in time are my collection of extra-curricular young adult books, like Sweet Valley or, on the complete opposite side of the spectrum, Cynthia Voigt. After that, it's mostly fiction versus non-fiction, worthwhile literature versus guilty pleasures. There are a lot of personal choices which have to be made. And aside from accurate placement, it also matters that sections form neat, full shelves rather than spilling onto half of another shelf. Anthony Trollope should not have to touch covers with 'Knocked Out by My Nunga Nungas'.

So there you are. An all-too-disturbing look into the quirks which make everyday activities serious endeavors. It is exhausting being me.

Civic Duty? DONE!

So, I've just been to city hall and voted, and I have a few thoughts on the experience:

First of all, those cars that drive by, and the volunteers waving their posters with the candidates' names on them: what are they supposed to do? I mean, am I supposed to catch a glimpse of that poster and think, 'Okay, that's who I'm going to vote for. I came into this booth with no idea, but seeing your name last has convinced me.' I would think (or perhaps hope) that people who can be swayed so easily are the people who lack the inertia to go and vote at all, much less early.

Okay, next up is a related request for those of us who vote early. As well as that neat-o sticker that proclaims that 'I Voted Today', I would like a guarantee that candidates will no longer send me campaign spam for the remaining days between now and November 2. My vote is cast, and even though that means you have nothing to lose in annoying me, one more ridiculous postcard of political mud-slinging might just send me over the edge.

Ideally, I'd like technology to advance enough to make it so that, as soon as you vote, the commercials on TV are actually filtered to remove the campaign commercials as well. Because really, I'd like to be able to foster my new-found appreciation for watching baseball, America's favorite past-time, without having to watch voter scare tactics, which is apparently America's other favorite past-time. Basically, I would like to achieve full-on censorship of all things political after I've voted, and the candidate that can promise me that will get my vote in the next election cycle.

Then there's one totally random consequence of voting. Because of the proximity of the library to city hall, I decided to park there. And to soothe my conscience of using their lot, it was only right that I should step inside and see what books they had available. You see? A totally innocent peak into the land of books. But of course, even the most innocent of trips inevitably results in more books that I simply must read. In this case, Aimee Bender's 'The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake'.

Super-excited to read it, but it brings it's own conundrum: do I start reading it immediately in order to try and finish it without extending the loan from the library, or do I hold off until I can finish the final hundred pages or so that I have left of Jane Austen's 'Emma'. I've reached a pivotal plot point there which might propel me to a quick finish, and I've already hibernated the novel once in favor of Kazuo Ishiguro's 'Never Let Me Go' (in preparation of seeing the film adaptation).

Decisions, decisions! First I decide on my governmental representatives, and now I have to make a serious reading decision? It's too much, I tell you!

Is it too late to add to my conference paper, James?

After devouring thousands of pages every year for the sake of class the next morning while at Sarah Lawrence, I've been a little lax in my reading in the past few months in comparison. I do like reading. Always have. I'm sure at some point I'll write a more in-depth post about that. But right now, I have something more specific to tell you.

In an effort to get on to all those books I'd still like to get under my belt and in my brain before I die, I started reading one of two Jane Austen books I haven't read yet: Sense & Sensibility. Bit by bit, I'm got through it. Not at any great speed, but with great pleasure. I also continued the reading roll with a few more books, and I'm keeping the habit going with a book always in my purse for 15-minute stints of reading before work. One day at a time...

There was one sensation which irked me as I read it, though. It's uniquely Sarah Lawrence of me, I'm sure. You see, my final conference paper was about comparing two authors: the perennially re-adapted Jane Austen and the perennially under-appreciated Barbara Pym. Both authors wrote about women living in England, novels filled with social commentary and quiet romance, except Austen wrote in the 18th and 19th centuries, while Pym wrote in the mid-20th. I compared how reading appeared in their stories; how and what their characters read and what the authors were saying about it. I couldn't read all six (well, seven) Austen novels in one semester as well as an ample supply of Pym. Well, I could, but I couldn't write a paper about it all as well. Well, I could, but not before the end of the semester. So I focused on Pride & Prejudice, Persuasion and Northanger Abbey, hoping these would be the best for insights into Austen's views on reading.

Of course, now that I have read Sense & Sensibility (and two more Pym novels), I can't help but notice all the quotes which would have fit perfectly into my thesis. Marianne is not so unlike Catherine Morland in her voracious love of books, with her passion for them going as far as becoming a requirement for compatibility with a possible husband. Oh, the paragraphs I could have written analyzing these instances, and how her love of books is reflective of her personality and her evolution in the novel.

Yeah, nerd alert, I know. But I am this close to actually opening up the Word document that was/is my conference paper and re-reading it, possibly adding to it. To what point and purpose I have no idea. Perhaps just to quell my inane obsession. I could send it to my professor, but I think he'll probably have enough papers to grade as it is. Just goes to show, you can take the student out of college....

.......But you can't take the nerd out of me!

Taking the Shame Out of Guilty Pleasures

Why are there some things we have to apologize for liking? Songs, bands, movies, television shows, books; it seems there is a whole category of pop culture based around making those who consume it feel ashamed of it. Guilty pleasures. I'm sure everyone reading this has one. I'm sure I have more than my fair share. But lately I'm just wondering: what's the point of feeling guilty?

Maybe it's because of my newly mature 23-year-old mind, but I'm starting to think that wasting time worrying about how the world feels about my taste in music, movies and literature is pointless. It seems ironic now that there seems to be just as much power pushing us to like the Top 40 pop singles as there is shaming us if we do. There is precious little middle ground of popular artists who have enough "cred" to be considered worthy of your iPod. I wonder what gets VH1 more ratings: the insane celebrity love shows, or the talking head shows which mock them? There's really no winning. Either you become part of the millions who like the popular, derided as lemmings, or you become the cynic with taste that isn't really allowed to like anything.

And when it comes down to it, what are we ashamed of? Food is the only arena of the guilty pleasure where the base act is necessary to life. We must eat. And so eating a HoHo instead of an apple can rightly bring on some shame just because you could have taken in nutrients that weren't invented in a laboratory (but if it's not a daily habit, there's no need to obsess). But when it comes to the food for our eyes and ears, it's all kind of superfluous. No one starves when they don't read, watch television or listen to music. And so whether you read Jane Austen or Danielle Steel, there's no quantitative difference, and there's nothing physically unhealthy about it. At least you're reading! Sure, PBS documentaries can give your brain synapses a work out, especially when compared to Survivor, but it's still you sitting down and watching television. There are levels of something being a "waste of time," but they aren't hard and fast and they don't lend you a heck of a lot of moral superiority. We're all still lazy, selfish no-good bums when compared to Mother Teresa and wonderful human beings when compared to Adolf Hitler. Everything in between is mostly grandstanding.

The bottom line is this: we all need something to take our minds off of things. We all deserve to indulge in the entertainment of our choice. And no one deserves to feel bad about it.