Pam Webb

a writer's journey as a reader

Archive for the category “Literature”

14 Dec 2012
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Getting Lively with Dead Poets


Poetry

Poetry (Photo credit: Kimli)

Tuesday marked the start of our AP Poetry Unit.  I am so excited we are finally onto poetry!! Poetry is the curry of prose.  It’s the sprinkles found in exposition.  It’s the center of the Tootsie Pop because it’s that delightful surprise unexpectedly found in the middle of the everyday. 

Poetry is not just rhyme.  It’s not just meter.  It’s not slavering on about metaphor and simile.  It’s bounce, giggles, shock, and awe.  Poetry is the dance of words.  Poetry is that note of praise found nestled in the staunch flow of sentences, paragraphs, and text.

It’s sing.

It’s song.

It’s the azure found in the sky.

It’s the You before I.

It’s older than the page before you.

It’s Homer before he became a Simpson.

And the Dead Poets are the best because their words formed the path for the rest.

Oh, hello Emily, Robert, William, Byron, Coleridge, Sylvia, Langston, Gwendolyn–I’d like you to meet my students.  I’ve been telling them about you.  I can’t wait for them to know you like I’ve gotten to know you.  And I can’t wait to learn more about you as I learn from my students.

Poetry. Word colors of our world.

when I said "I ate all your tootsie pops&...

when I said “I ate all your tootsie pops” (Photo credit: hmmlargeart)

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Posted in creativity, Literature, Poetry, Reading, Teachers, Writing and tagged , , , , , ,
08 Dec 2012
4 Comments

Jane Eyrror


Disclaimer: my commentary (not to be confused with a diatribe) is by in no means a diss upon those authors who have achieved success in their ability to appease the hunger of a ready populace for further forays of their favorite literary characters. I applaud publication success, even though I may not applaud the content.

The Janes of my reading life have left me wanting.  Wanting more that is.  Having read through Jane Austen and desiring more of Jane Eyre, I have continued to found solace in the many continuations that are currently available.

As we all know, there truly is no satisfying replacement for the original.  However, when you crave a Godiva and only Hershey, sometimes you are willing to settle for less when the best is no longer available.  In my Search for More Jane (not a book title, but wouldn’t it be a fun one?) I have scoured my GoodReads lists to find plausible reads.  I attempted several titles and grew weary in my searches for a true Elizabeth and company.  Only JA knew Elizabeth best. Besieged by the plethora of Pride and Prejudice knock-offs, I have turned to other novels of classic inspiration.  Jane Eyre is one such hopeful.

I dutifully read Wide Saragossa Sea since it ranked a place on the AP Suggested Reading List. Touted as the prequel to Jane Eyre and hailed as a classic, I braved through the novel ever hopeful it would answer those nagging questions of how Edward Rochester became smitten and taken in by Bertha.  The novel turned out to be more of a stand alone than a companion read.

I then chanced upon Death of a Schoolgirl  by Joanna Campbell Slan at my local library on the new releases shelf.  Seeing it featured Jane Eyre in her married state of Mrs. Rochester I quickly plunked it into by book bag.  Overall, I enjoyed this as a weekend read with its premise that Jane’s curiosity and tenacity makes her a rival to Miss Marple in sleuthing skills. A fun read, granted, it offered only a shadow in terms of the depth of Jane.

image: amazon.com

 

I then remembered reading a book review about a contemporary version of Jane Eyre.  Setting the intrepid ET upon the search, she found Jane by April Linder. I too checked it out.  Here is the catalog summary:

Forced to drop out of an esteemed East Coast college after the sudden death of her parents, Jane Moore takes a nanny job at Thornfield Park, the estate of Nico Rathburn, a world-famous rock star on the brink of a huge comeback. Practical and independent, Jane reluctantly becomes entranced by her magnetic and brooding employer and finds herself in the midst of a forbidden romance.

Book Jacket for: Jane

image: amazon.com

I read it anyway.

No, Jane had not been what I had originally been looking for, and fortunately I found the lost review buried under my get-to-it-someday stack.  The Flight of Gemma Hardy, proved a much better replacement crave read and definitely proved the glowing review it received.

image: amazon.com

Set in Iceland and Scotland in the fifties and sixties, Gemma Hardy’s life parallels that of Jane Eyre’s in travail and hardships.  Gemma is a young woman who becomes an au pair for the precocious niece of a Mr.Sinclair, who infrequently visits his Scottish home.  Gemma’s journey and subsequent flight adequately pays tribute to that of Jane Eyre’s, yet manages to be a distinctive and well-written plot twist of its own merit.  I reluctantly finished Livesey tribute novel, quite satisfied with having found a glimpse of Jane through Gemma.  I am looking forward to discovering her other works.

Sometimes the best way to find a continuation of a familiar voice is to discover a new acquaintance.

Conclusion: There is real no “eyrror” in finding replacement reads for Jane; it’s only a matter of discernment.

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27 Nov 2012
6 Comments

Words APtly Spoken (and Written, too)


As Vera winds up her month long adventure with writing about writing a NaNoWriMo novel, I also am winding up my adventure of doing the same.  One thing I really like about Vera is how much she likes words.  Hmm, maybe a little bit of me slipped into my protag.  I’ve never had a French foreign exchange student as a BFF nor a crush on anyone named Eddie though.

Like Vera, I have collected a few words along the way as a writer, reader, and teacher.  I love to store them up, and find they pop out unexpectedly. My freshmen tend to give their, “What did she just say?” look when this happens.

Over the last week I’ve been preparing a list of words which will be handy for AP students looking and learning to broaden their working literature vocabulary.  Currently I have close to 160 terms that we will cover.  Most will be known; however, some might be new. I know there are a few I’ve just made acquaintance:

1. aphorism: a terse statement of known authorship which expresses a general truth
2.caesura: a pause within the line of verse.
3.Deus ex machina:a phrase from Greek plays where an actor was lowered onto the stage to solve the plot; an artificial contrivance that forces the solving or terminating of a plot.
4. doggerel: crude verse that contains clichés, predictable rhyme, and inept meter and rhythm.
5.enjambment: when one verse runs into another verse
6. hamartia: the central flaw of a character, usually in a tragic hero
7. litotes: a form of understatement whcih makes an affirmative point by denying the negative, as in “It isn’t very serious. I have this tiny little tumor on the brain.” (Catcher in the Rye)
8. metonymy: from the Greek meaning “changed label”; it’s basically a substitution, as in “the White House sent out this new announcement” instead of saying “the President issued an announcement.”
9.portmanteau word: an artificial word combining parts of other words; e.g. brunch
10. semiotics: semantics the study meanings of which they signify; semiotics studies the signs themselves

The whole “words aptly spoken” proverb takes on a new meaning and direction as I apply these to our Advanced Placement Literature lessons.

They say the best way to get an education is to become a teacher.  I couldn’t agree more. I’m always open to new terms.  Know some?  Send them my way!

English: So many words to keep track of!.

English: So many words to keep track of!. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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25 Nov 2012
4 Comments

Fan (of) Fiction


Caterpillar using a hookah. An illustration fr...

Caterpillar using a hookah. An illustration from Alice in Wonderland (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

With six days left Vera has finally started her NaNo novel.  Her inspiration is a hybrid of Hamlet and Alice in Wonderland with a bit of Lost in Austen thrown in. It’s fan fiction at it’s *finest*.  Okay, cut the kid a break–she’s only fifteen and has never written anything of length beyond the required English essay.

Actually, I’m a bit of a snob when it comes to fan fiction, even though I’ve come across some which is entertaining and well-written, I can’t help but think, “Couldn’t you come up with something original?”  Then again there is something to be said for being inspired by good writing.

For example, Wide Sargasso Sea is on the AP suggested reading list and can be considered the prequel to Jane Eyre.  What?  Fan Fiction considered classic literature?  Told you I was a literary snob.

An ardent admirer of Ophelia of Hamlet and Alice of Wonderland fame, and totally grooving on the Lost in Austen premise of switching places with Elizabeth Bennett, I couldn’t help but have Vera weave all of them together.

 

NaNo–the most grueling, yet satisfying form of writing under pressure.  Sissies need not apply.

 

 

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14 Oct 2012
9 Comments

oh, yes–please read me a story…


Over the past couple of years I’ve been fortunate to journey with some of the more elite and talented thespians of this age.  The likes of Jeremy Irons, Cherry Jones, Jessica Tandy, and Sissy Spacek have kept me company on my long travels and daily commute.  They have challenged me, enlightened me, and entertained me.  And I showed my appreciation by never interrupting them as they spoke.

“Read me a story.” These words are among the first requests we have as a child once we figure out language.  Somewhere between infancy and childhood the request to be read to drops to the wayside–maybe it’s seen as being rather babyish, since, after all we have learned to read books on our own. Yet, I never tire of having a book read to me.  I especially have learned that while I need to read, I’m not very good at juggling the reading of more than one book unless one of them is an audio book.  I am hooked on audio books.

Audiobook Collection

Audiobook Collection (Photo credit: C.O.D. Library)

I’ve been listening to audio books since they became available on cassettes all those years ago.  Sometimes the dratted tapes would fuss up and I’d lose part of the story. Aggravating. Then came CDs, (much better thank you–although occasional scratching causes blips and hiccups–so annoying).  Now there are websites, Ipods, and Playaways, where all that is needed are a set of headphones.

There is nothing like having a good story read out loud on a long, solitary car trip.  As I prepare for my trip I gleefully check out several audio books from my lovely neighborhood library and perch them on my passenger seat as my companions.  Most books play any from seven to fourteen hours. Great for those long hauls.  I’ve been known to stay in my car to listen to the last of the story even after arriving at my destination.

The downside to audio books is due to their very nature of interactive reading–once started as an audio book, it’s difficult to finish it by traditional eye-to-page.  I made that mistake with The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. Coming home I was about halfway through listening to the book and decided to finish reading it via my checked out library book. What better way to spend the remaining sunny summer afternoon?  However, as emotionally involved as I got with the story, due to the excellent voice of Cherry Jones, I couldn’t sufficiently feel the proper grief when * SPOILER ALERT* I read of Singer’s demise. It didn’t register at all.

Lately, I’ve taken to listening to audio books on my short commute to work.  It helps get more reading done, since I get tired of listening to music.  Except I have run into a bothersome problem. My last audio book still resonates with me and I am having a difficult time moving on to checking out my next selection.  How can I possibly find a better reading than what Jeremy Irons did in The Alchemist?  I may have to go back to listening to music for a while. I even tried to recapture the glorious reading by checking out both library copies which are wonderfully  illustrated.  Nope,  wasn’t the same thing as listening to Jeremy’s sonorous tones.  I may even be spoiled for the movie they keep saying will eventually be made.

What is your favorite audio book?  Is it just me, or is there really something about having someone read you a story?

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08 Oct 2012
14 Comments

Has Dewey Metis Match?


SLJ1210w FT Dewey Are Dewey’s Days Numbered?: Libraries Nationwide Are Ditching the Old Classification System

image credit: School Library Journal

Recently I received a shock: the Dewey Decimal system might be at death’s door.  Yes, sit down.  I can see the news has hit you just as hard.  My first thought is, “What’s next? Abandoning order in the grocery store? Arranging by content or by color?” Metis is menacing the time-honored and respected DDC system. Then I thought I should be more  opened-minded. Maybe there is a sound reason why Dewey might possibly be ringing the death knell chimes.

After reading the SLJ on-line article my open-mindedness gave way to absolute rejection of the new kid on the block: Metis. The Dewey Decimal Classification system was thoughtfully developed to create order out of chaos.  Before Dewey came along, libraries would willy-nilly shelve their books.  Some methods included alphabetizing, shelf placement, and random subject designation. Then along came Mel.

Melvil Dewey, the designer of DDC, was an amazing guy.  I could write an entire blog post about him, and if you are interested in finding out more about you should link over to this article  to become enlightened to how dedicated he was to libraries.  He even risked his life saving books from a library that was on fire.  That’s my kind of Book Booster.

The SLJ article focused on a real-life library that has changed over to what they call Metis, who was the Greek goddess Athena’s mama. Metis supposedly reigned in the clever department, and the Metis system relies on clever deductive association when searching for a book. The librarians in the Metis library believe the system is much better for kids since it encourages them to associate ideas into reality.  For instance, Johnny the second grader, comes bouncing in and says, “I want to read a mystery story because Dad and I watch Sherlock Holmes and I want to be a detective, too.”  Betsy, our intrepid librarian points to the shiny sign that says, “Scary, ” and says, “That’s where you’ll find it, sweetie.”  Yup, mysteries are scary because they are associated with the unknown, and the unknown is associated with being nervous, and nervous is associated with frightened, and frightened makes leads to thinking of ghosts which are as you know, scary.  This If You Give a Mouse a Cookie logic is not working for me.  A mystery to me is how anyone could think this Metis system is going to fly.  Dewey’s been doing fine all these years.  Why the sudden backlash against shelve and order?

If you aren’t familiar with Dewey, here is a crash course.  It’s divided up into categories and those categories can have subcategories.  It’s quite neat and tidy.  Take a look:

HOW DEWEY DECIMAL CLASSIFICATION (DDC) WORKS

000 General Works (Miscellaneous)

100 Philosophy

200 Religion

300 Social Sciences

400 Languages

500 Pure Sciences

600 Technology (Practical Arts) including medicine, engineering, business accounting, agriculture, salesmanship, etc.

700 Fine Arts (including architecture, painting, photography, music, amusements, etc.)

800 Literature

900 History, Geography, Biography

What is there not to like about this system?  One reason, declares the article, for the reconsideration is because kids don’t even learn their decimals until fourth grade.  Umm, excuse me.  Dewey’s decimals are filing markers and not mathematical.  This associative logic and deductive reasoning could explain why Metis is so appealing to these particular librarians. And what will these students do when they go to their public library and it’s still the DDC?

I’m thinking as I read the article, “One giant leap backward for mankind.” Dewey put order into the system.  Order is a good thing.  Metis is kind of subjective touchy feely nonsense organization that could create unilateral universal chaos.  One person’s science could be another person’s science fiction.

Now, I ask you, are we dumbing down our society even more by taking away Dewey’s decimals and putting up shiny poster board subject signage?  If you want to read up on Dewey, you can find him in the 921 section of your friendly neighborhood library–any library that speaks Dewey.  Or you could get Metisphysical and look for the sign that spouts “People Who Once Were Alive And Are Now Dead.”

 

English: From left to right: R. R. Bowker, Mrs...

English: From left to right: R. R. Bowker, Mrs. Dewey and Melvil Dewey (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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04 Oct 2012
3 Comments

Continium of Encouragement to Read: BB Week #6


As a librarian at heart and an English teacher for career, with a side of writer squeezed in, I positively adore books. My blog is primarily about books and I keep a running list of unabashed Book Boosters.  Here is a slew of posters, banners, and stickers that encourage reading.  BtW: celebrate Banned Book Week with a good read, or maybe a bad read–it’s all a matter of perspective, isn’t it?

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01 Oct 2012
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BB Week Hits the Big Three-Oh: BB Week #5


ALA Seal

ALA Seal (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There is something about hitting 30 that makes one sit up and say, “Okay, let’s get serious about this.”  Birthdays, marriages, and events take on that seriously, folks, tone.  And so it is with Banned Books Week.  This year marks its thirtieth and with that triple decade mark here are three commemorative aspects of BB Week.

1.  Did your state participate?  The American Library Association‘s Office for Intellectual Freedom coordinated a “50 State Salute.”  Check out the video and the following details to see how your state participated. For more information:  www.ala.org/bbook

Banned Books Week Video Map: Click on a state to view the BB video

2.  Take a good look at the of the last thirty years to see what books were challenged, banned, or censored and for what reason.

BB Timeline

3.  For the second year in a row readers who know the value of being free to read [I call them Book Boosters (see the masthead link to sign up)] can promote the importance of reading by posting a two-minute video of yourself reading. These videos will be featured on a special  Banned Books Week Virtual Read-Out YouTube channel. For details on how to create your reading video, click here.

Banned Books Week: The Need to Read–it’s about choice and having the right to make it

Bookmans, a bookstore in Arizona makes this clear in their BB Week video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cb8mBGjsU5A&feature=relmfu

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28 Sep 2012

The Naughty List: BB Week #4


Cover of "The Great Gatsby"

Cover of The Great Gatsby

Banned Book Week is around the corner: define your mind with censored or challenged literary lines. As you decide on additions for your next TBR you can make like Santa by checking your list to see who’s been naughty or nice.

 

  • Cover of "Their Eyes Were Watching God"
  • Cover of Their Eyes Were Watching God

 Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston
Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison
Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison
Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell
Native Son, by Richard Wright
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey
Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway

The Call of the Wild, by Jack London

Go Tell it on the Mountain, by James Baldwin

  •  All the King’s Men, by Robert Penn Warren
  •  The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
  • The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair
  •  Lady Chatterley’s Lover, by D.H. Lawrence
  • A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
  • In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote
  • The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie
  • Sophie’s Choice, by William Styron
  • Sons and Lovers, by D.H. Lawrence
  • Cat’s Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
  • A Separate Peace, by John Knowles
  • Naked Lunch, by William S. Burroughs
  • Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh

    Cover of "Lord of the Flies, Educational ...

    Cover of Lord of the Flies, Educational Edition

  • Women in Love, by D.H. Lawrence
  • The Naked and the Dead, by Norman Mailer
  • Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller
  •  An American Tragedy, by Theodore Dreiser
  • Rabbit, Run, by John Updike
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26 Sep 2012

What’s Read, Black, and Blue? :BB Week #3


Cover of "Kindle Wireless Reading Device,...

Cover via Amazon

As a former librarian (who am I kidding-I’m forever a librarian at heart), I embrace books. Reading them, writing them, discussing them, critiquing them, promoting them, yet being beaten up, imprisoned, or possibly dying for them is as they say, “I don’ t remember this being in the job description.”
The following is a reblog which originally came to my attention by way of my fab librarian cohort in all things bookish (shout out to ET). Although Banned Book Week is focused on books, it is important to remember librarians are the ones who put the books on the shelves so we can get them in our hands, hearts, and minds. I salute those brave Cuban librarians, as well as all librarians who face adversity while trying to protect intellectual freedom.

Here is a partial of the Cuban librarian post and you can click on the link to read more:

Kindle Users Arrested

HAVANA, Aug. 24, 2012 (Roberto de Jesús Guerra Pérez/Hablemos Press) – On Friday the Cuban secret police pursued and arrested librarians who had attended a technology workshop at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana.

[Note by the Friends of Cuban Libraries: the Obama administration recently enacted a program to donate hi-tech equipment such as Kindle e-book readers to Cuba’s independent librarians and other activists. This move greatly expands Cubans’ access to banned materials and evades the occasional seizure of bulky printed materials carried in the luggage of volunteers arriving at Cuban airports.]

The arrests occurred in the streets adjacent to the Interests Section when the librarians, about 20 in number, were returning to their homes.

“The workshop in which we were participating was on how to use an Amazon Kindle,” commented Lázara Mijan, who was able to escape the police roundup, together with Magaly Norvis Otero and Julio Beltrán.

Among the detainees are Juan Antonio Madrazo Luna, Julio Rojas Portal and Mario Echevarría Driggs. Two Kindles were confiscated from each of the latter two persons, in addition to cameras, personal documents and user manuals for the Kindle DX….

“The police operation was big, very big. Many State Security agents were scattered in Ladas [Soviet-era cars] and motorcycles everywhere in the streets near the Interests Section; it was a miracle that some of the librarians were able to evade arrest,” said Driggs, after he was released from custody….

The Cuban regime classifies the independent librarians and dissidents as counterrevolutionaries at the service of the U.S. government. In 2003, more than 20 librarians were arrested and sentenced to prison terms of between 5 and 20 years, and their library collections were confiscated and burned.

Reblogged from PC Sweeney’s Blog:

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