SparksMarks

I moved away from Shakespeare for the most part since finishing King John. However, I did start Shakespeare’s Kings by John Norwich, which is a nonfiction look at how Shakespeare portrays the kings in the histories and how factual his portrayals are. I read about 50 pages covering the introduction and the section on Edward III. It’s actually a pretty easy read, although maybe that’s because I’ve read other histories of this time period so it’s not completely new information that I’m trying to process.

Then, for lighter reading, I turned to By the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Last fall my husband and I went to St. Louis and on the drive home to OKC we stopped at Wilder’s home in MO where she wrote the Little House series. I loved seeing her house and the museum had wonderful family items, including Pa’s fiddle. I loved these stories as a kid and was amazed at seeing the real items. That inspired me to reread the stories. Unfortunately, I don’t feel like they’re holding up to a reread as an adult very well. Maybe the timing is just off and I feel like they’re keeping me from other books. I don’t think I’ll finish rereading the series right now because I don’t want to taint my memory of the books. I do think it’s interesting to read about life on the prairie and appreciate all the work they had to do just to survive. I think it’s hard enough to keep the house clean, but they had to build their own homes and clean without any modern conveniences. And cook everything from scratch and farm and take care of the animals. I’m glad we don’t have to live that way anymore. It does make me question certain habits I have though, like eating out, and make me want to do that less and not buy as much stuff in general. It makes you think about the simpler things in life.

Finally, I read a chapter in The Story of Art by EH Gombrich. I’ve been reading this slowly, usually a chapter a week, to try to absorb the artwork instead of rushing through it. Today’s chapter focused on Roman art and the transition from earlier ancient artistic methods.

Well, that might be it on the Read-A-Thon for me, although I imagine I’ll do a little more reading at some point this evening. But for now I’m heading to the pet store  so my cats will have food tomorrow then cooking dinner and probably hanging out with the husband while we eat. If you’re still powering through the Read-A-Thon, happy reading!

Second “book” finished for the day! I read King John by Shakespeare. The history plays are my favorite type of Shakespeare plays. They’re what got me so interested in English history in the first place. Reading the second tetralogy – Richard II, Henry IV part 1, Henry IV part 2, and Henry V – in college got me intersted in the War of the Roses, Elizabeth I and Henry VIII, which led to a general interest in all of English history.

I think it’s probably good that I’m familiar with English history or I think King John would have been hard to follow. Even with the introduction, it assumes you know who most of the players are. This isn’t the King John you’re used to from Disney’s Robin Hood movie.

The play focuses on the legitimacy of King John’s rule. His older brother had a son, who should technically be king. However, Arthur is a weak child while John grabbed the crown upon his other brother’s death (King Richard the Lionhearted). Richard named John as his heir, but the English didn’t usually handle succession that way.

The story is interesting in itself, but it’s made more interesting by knowing what was going on during Shakespeare’s time. Elizabeth was battling her cousin Mary Queen of Scots for the English crown. At various times Elizabeth had been declared illigitimate, which would give Mary a stronger claim to the throne. There were issues of how to pass on the crown since it was women who were next in line across the board. It was a difficult time with Elizabeth having to fight first her sister then her cousin. There are many parallels between the Elizabethan issues and the issues surrounding the reign of King John, which makes for a more interesting read because if contemporaries to Shakespeare are taking it that way, King John must be portrayed in a positive way so as not to make it seem like he’s insulting Elizabeth in any way.

In other reading news, I’ve read a few chapters in The Anglo Files by Sarah Lyall and learned about cricket. I still have absolutely no understanding of the game and only know that I have no interest in learning more! I also read a chapter about drinking in the British culture that was really interesting. They have such a reputation for being refined and stuffy, yet they get drink in Parliament and have crazy drinking habits.

I’m reading slower than usual today and haven’t read quite as much as I hoped, but I suppose I should have expected that with the Shakespeare. I’m going

Finished with the first book of the day! I read All’s Well That Ends Well by Shakespeare. I have now officially read all of his comedies! Woohoo! My favorite is The Merchant of Venice. Portia is one of the best characters in literature and I think it’s interesting that Shakespeare created such a strong, rational female character since he’s not really known for great female characters overall. My least favorite would probably be Love’s Labor’s Lost. Even the introduction in my Riverside Shakespeare collection focused on how bad it is and how it doesn’t even really make sense.

All’s Well That Ends Well falls somewhere in between for me. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would since I knew it was a problem play. The problem is that the main characters aren’t really likeable. You’re supposed to like Helena (every character says so a million times) but she’s in love with a worthless man who doesn’t care for her. The whole play is about her trying to win him over, which just makes her pathetic. She needs a copy of He”s Just Not That into You. This makes the “happy” ending not that happy.

As for the man she loves, Bertram, he’s a scumbag. He only marries her because he has to, then promptly runs away without consummating the marriage. Then, he tries to sleep with another woman. He’s really not worth winning.

There is a funny side plot centered around Bertram’s friend Parolles that is similar to something that happens to Falstaff in the Henry plays. That at least made me laugh!

I’m not one to normally notice quotes, but there were a few that stuck out to me today.

“But most it is presumption in us when the help of heaven we count the act of men.” Helena, II.i.151-152

“They say miracles are past, and we have our philosophical persons, to make modern and familiar, things supernatural and causeless.” Lafew, II.iii.1-3

There were also quite a few funny scenes with the clown, who made raunchy jokes (and I’m sure I barely caught most of them). One conversation he has with Helena surprises me though. Helena asks how a woman can get rid of her virginity by her own choosing. I’m surprised they were discussing that, and even more surprised that Helena actually succeeds in that area, albeit through trickery.

Even though I’m starting a little late and don’t plan to read the entire 24 hours, I’m still excited about Dewey’s Read-a-Thon and catching up on some reading today. And getting back into the habit of blogging.  Here is my introduction post for anyone visiting from the Read-a-Thon site. Happy reading!

1)Where are you reading from today? My comfy reading in chair in my living room.
2)Three random facts about me…I love hockey, I’m going to London this fall and one of my favorite books is Vanity Fair by Thackeray
3)How many books do you have in your TBR pile for the next 24 hours? My goal is to read four Shakespeare plays because I’m behind in the reading I want to do before my London trip, a few chapters in The Story of Art for breaks, and Part 1 of Atlas Shrugged. My second tier books for if I can’t take that much Shakespeare in one day are Moby Dick (I’m halfway through and know I won’t finish today, but progress would be nice), The Anglophiles, Prince Caspian, By the Shores of Silver Lake, Reading Women, and Excellent Women. And I’ve got a whole slew of other books to choose from if I don’t get into those.
4)Do you have any goals for the read-a-thon (i.e. number of books, number of pages, number of hours, or number of comments on blogs)? I mentioned my main goal above – the Shakespeare and Atlas Shrugged. I hope to read for about 8-10 hours, maybe more.
5)If you’re a veteran read-a-thoner, any advice for people doing this for the first time? Don’t feel like you have to read the whole time to participate, or participate in every mini-challenge and update every hour. Then you’d spend more time blogging than reading! They are great for checking in when you need breaks though.

I kicked off my recent push to finish all of the works of Shakespeare with The Taming of the Shrew. I know I at least started this in high school, but I’m not sure if I finished or if I did finish it, if I actually understood most of it. I read it after I saw 10 Things I Hate About You, which is loosely based on it, so I knew the basic story, but wasn’t sure if I caught some of the details and nuances of the plays since I hadn’t read a lot of Shakespeare at that point.

In reading it this time, I’m pretty sure I did actually read the whole thing. Certain scenes seemed quite familiar and not just because of the plot. It’s one of his easier plays to understand, so maybe I didn’t have too much trouble with it back then after all, or maybe it’s because I saw the movie version with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

The introduction to my version, which is in the Riverside Shakespeare, mentions that this play is usually enhanced greatly by seeing it performed, even more so than other plays. In just reading it, I think it comes across as more misogynistic than when viewing it. In the movie version, Katerina’s behavior is so terrible and blatantly needs to be corrected that you’re rooting for Petruchio to succeed. When reading it, however, you don’t see as much of Katernina’s bad behavior and therefore are much more sympathetic with her. And I can certainly understand her desire to to behave in such a way as to detour potential suitors rather than be pawned off on some guy she doesn’t like.

I also think the movie was more palatable because you see Katerina and Petruchio fall in love more, whereas in the play I’m not even sure that they really like each other even at the end. The humor is also more evident when performed because you get to actually see Petruchio’s odd and amusing actions. They are actually quite funny even in print, but seeing him in his very strange wooing outfit would make more of an impact in person.

I had an odd connection that came to mind when I read this. It made me think about reverse psychology, which makes me think of one of the Baby-Sitters Club books that I loved growing up. In one of them, Stacey uses reverse psychology on some of her terrible charges. When they don’t want to clean their rooms, she agrees with them that rooms are better when messy and makes them messier. When they demand she do something for them, she starts doing everything for them. She takes everything a step too far and it’s not too long before the kids correct their behavior. It was pretty funny and was a tactic I sometimes used when tutoring. I think it usually shocked the kids into behaving and it only didn’t work for me once.

Anyway, if you’re someone who doesn’t think they can understand Shakespeare, this is a good play to start with.

Well, the best laid plans of mice and men…don’t always work out, do they? I did devote Saturday to reading as planned, but my plan to catch up on posting on Sunday night during the Oscars didn’t quite work out as my internet wasn’t working. Or to be more specific, Ryan was sucking the life out of the internet by playing World of Warcraft and there was none left for my laptop. Oh well. I am a little disappointed this kept me from participating in the Persephone Weekend, although I did read a Persephone. I’ll just post about it sometime this week.

As for the project books I’m reading, I stayed on track with The Story of Art and the Bible and read Love’s Labour’s Lost by Shakespeare. I have several Shakespeare posts I need to catch up on, especially since I’m planning to read two more plays this week.

The Story of Art chapter 2 focused on the “art of eternity” – art from ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia.  I was familiar with some of the topics addressed in this chapter, but was impressed at Gombrich’s ability to still make the information interesting and new while also giving a great overview and new perspective on some things. For example, I knew that a lot of ancient Egyptian art was created for religious purposes, and that the drawings of many soldiers and servants in the pyramids were there to help the dead through their afterlife. (I’m glad they stopped sacrificing people to bury with the dead pharaohs and turned to drawings instead!) What I hadn’t thought of before was how this affected their style.

Egyptian art is very flat and sometimes the perspective is odd. For example, you often see people drawn with their face in profile with an eye facing forward, the chest facing forward, the legs turned sideways in a walking motion, and arms sticking out to both sides. Since they believed that the pictures were necessary for the person to help the pharaoh in the afterlife, every body part must be drawn in the best way possible. The chest is best seen from the front, but the head is best viewed from the profile, so they do both. The holds true for landscapes as well. A drawing of a pond will show it from overhead, but the fish and birds will be drawn sideways instead of as though you’re looking down on them. The things I found odd about their artwork now makes more sense and gives me a greater appreciation of what they were trying to accomplish.

This week’s Bible reading was from Exodus 1-20, which focuses on Moses. I’m still in familiar territory as God calls Moses to lead the people out of Egypt and gives him the 10 Commandments. Reading about Moses always makes me laugh. He tries so hard to get out of being the chosen one to lead the people out of Egypt. He’s not good enough, he’s not a good speaker, surely God can find someone else, right? He’s full of excuses. Finally God agrees to speak to Moses, who will in turn speak to his brother who will speak to the people. That kind of cracks me up. It’s like a game of telephone. Maybe that’s why God decided to write down the 10 Commandments and communicate them clearly.

Another Shakespeare play down! I read Love’s Labour’s Lost over the weekend and will post my thoughts on it this week.

This post should have gone up on Tuesday, but I’m a bit behind this week. I did do a lot of reading over the weekend, but haven’t made much progress during the week.

Over the weekend, I made more progress in my Bible reading, nearly completing Genesis. One of the most troubling stories of the Bible was in this section. I’m always disturbed when I read the story where Abraham nearly sacrifices Isaac. This is one of the passages that is easy for non-Christians to point to as a reason to not practice Christianity. I know the story is supposed to teach us that we should be willing to sacrifice anything for God, but it’s still a hard story to swallow. The happy part of the story is that God stops Abraham from going through with it, showing His grace and mercy.

I also read chapter 1 of The Story of Art by E.H. Gombrich. I’m really enjoying his writing style and the photographs are wonderful. This chapter focused on ancient art and discussed the fact that while we might not view many of these items as beautiful, it’s interesting to examine them. Many of these pieces are amazingly detailed considering the tools they had available at the time. It’s also fascinating that they took the time to create this artworks. These people had to spend most of their time hunting, preparing food, and just generally staying alive and yet they created these pieces. Gombrich talks about how many of the pieces may have been used for teaching or spritual purposes. The drawings of bison in caves may have been used in a belief that creating the pictures and performing a ritual would call forth the bison. I usually just find these types of pieces interesting just because they’re so old and are still in existence, but this made me think more about the uses they may have had and

Finally, I made progress on my Shakespeare reading, completing both The Taming of the Shrew and The Two Gentleman of Verona. It’s good to know I can get through two plays in a day when I need to! Granted, these aren’t the most challenging of his plays and I was already familiar with The Taming of the Shrew, so that might not always be true. I will post separately on both of those plays soon.

I have quite the reading list for this weekend to make up for my lack of consistent reading during the evenings this week. In addition to the project books list I have way too many library books checked out and need to finish off a few of them as well. Even Ryan, my husband who normally ignores the large stacks of books strewn about the house noticed that I had a lot more library books checked out than I normally do. And his exagerrated guess at how many I had checked out was a little too close to the truth. He jokingly guessed 20; I have 18 checked out. And I just got another email from the library that I have two more reserves in. Oops. I hope to read as much as possible this weekend in between hockey games, dinner at my parents and doing my taxes, and watching the Oscars, which might actually be entertaining this year with James Franco and Anne Hathaway hosting. The plan is to read as much as possible on Saturday and then prepare posts on Sunday night during the Oscars. We’ll see how much I can actually get done.

I didn’t expect to like Moby Dick. My experiences with Herman Melville thus far have been less than satisfactory. In the words of Bartleby the Scrivener, “I would prefer not” to read any more Melville. And yet, Moby Dick taunted me. “Are you too lazy to read me? Too unintelligent? Can you really consider yourself well versed in the classics without reading me?” the book seemed to say to me.

And so, I’ve finally given in. I’m reading it on my Nook, which I think makes it a little easier because I’m not lugging around this massive tome that reminds me of how far I’ve got to go.

I was surprised to actually like the story from the start. It begins by talking about the importance of travel, how foreign places call to you and entice you, how you begin to feel trapped if you can’t temporarily run away from your daily life to see new sights. As someone who loves to travel, I instantly connected with Ishmael.

I believe it also helped that for about the first 150 pages, Ishmael is still on land. This reassures me that I don’t have nearly 850 pages of being on a boat to read about. We learn why he wants to go to sea and how he prepares for the trip, we meet Queequeg and learn about his interesting background, and we get to know Ishmael. Eventually, he gets the position on the boat and begins hearing rumors of Captain Ahab well before we meet him, which helps build interest.

My own interest was held until about 200 pages in, once they get on the boat. All of the chapters up until this point are very short, often just 5-10 pages. This has helped me feel like I’m making great progress even when reading in short bursts, which is great because I primarily read from my Nook during my lunch break. However, suddenly I’m met with a never-ending chapter on whales. Yes, I realize Moby Dick is about a whale. So, it’s good to receive some information on whales. But it is not necessary to include a much longer than any preceding chapters chapter on every type of whale known to man. The tone in this chapter suggests that Melville pulled paragraphs straight out of an encyclopedia. It is not Ishmael’s style at all. I found myself frantically pushing the forward button to see how long this thing lasted. Unfortunately, I didn’t count the total pages and don’t want to flip back and relive that chapter or I might not move forward, so I’m not sure how long exactly the chapter is. I would guess about 30 pages, so three times as long as the longest of most of the early chapters. It’s never good when you’re pulled out of a story and left wonder what the editor was thinking in allowing that to stay in.

I’m hoping that Moby Dick picks back up so that I can start enjoying it again. I don’t usually post reviews in parts unless I’m participating in a readalong, but since Moby Dick is so long and I already had several items I wanted to share, I decided to do at least two posts. I may continue to post about every 200 pages if I have interesting updates at that point.

Have you read Moby Dick? Did you find the chapter on whales as odd as I did?

It was a little unnerving reading Unsweetined by Jodie Sweetin. Thanks to People magazine, I knew that the actress who played sweet, innocent little Stephanie Tanner grew up to be a drug addict. I thought that was sad, and somehow still shocking even though stories of screwed up former child stars are more common than not. When I happened to see this when I was perusing the biography section at the library, I decided to give it a shot to find out how she ended up like she did.

For some reason, hearing Stephanie Tanner drop f-bombs was more shocking than knowing she did drugs. Perhaps because I couldn’t get her voice saying “how rude” out of my head. Despite the fact that I clearly know that Jodie Sweetin is not Stephanie Tanner, I can’t stop thinking about her that way. And therein lies the problem Jodie faced – people can’t separate her from the character she played.

I enjoyed reading the first part of the book, about life on Full House and all of the cast members that I watched every week on TGIF. Stephanie was my age, and I grew up with her. I learned from her. I understood her. I had an inappropriate crush on her Uncle Jesse. Hmm…perhaps that’s where my love of musicians started. Put a guy behind a set of drums and I’m sold! (And yes, my husband can play the drums and the guitar, although he was never that into it and doesn’t play anymore.) I was jealous and excited when she got her first kiss. I understood her frustration with her younger sibling. I looked up to DJ. But all good things come to an end, and Full House did as well.

At 13, Jodie found herself unemployed and unsure. She just wanted to be normal but the kids at school were mean because of her fame. She auditioned for other parts, but casting directors usually just asked her to say “how rude” and then moved on. She was a has been when she’d barely hit her teens. Her older sister on the show, played by Candace Cameron, coped by devoting herself to her religion and family. The Olsens continued growing their massive empire that had exploded before the show ended. Jodie turned to alcohol.

At first, Jodie just wanted to do something unpredictable. She wanted to show people she wasn’t Stephanie Tanner. But she quickly learned that she’s not the type of person who can drink a little (or later, do a little drugs) and stop. Once she starts, she cannot stop until she’s completely trashed. She loved being drunk because she didn’t have to try to not be Stephanie any more – she was just herself and wasn’t worried about anything. She was the life of the party. People liked her. So she kept going, then starting trying drugs to make the party even better, then moving on to harder and harder drugs.

What I found most interesting about her story was that she was much more effective at making me understand how she got started doing drugs. I’ve never understood what draws people to them. If you’re drunk and wanting to escape your life, I can see how you might go ahead and pop a pill, especially if it seems like everyone else is doing it and having fun. I still can’t imagine actually doing that, but I can see how someone ends up in that situation.

I also thought it was surprising how well she managed to hide it, even from her first husband, a cop. How can you be married to someone and them not see that? You hear stories about that frequently – a spouse being shocked to learn that their partner was having an affair, living a double life, a psychotic serial killer, etc. I’m sure for Jodie, the fact that she was able to hide convinced her she was in control and didn’t really have a problem. Later, she even gave speeches about being drug free while still high! I’m surprised the girl hasn’t been able to reinvigorate her acting career – clearly she’s got some mad skills.

Celebrity autobiographies aren’t usually something I’m drawn to, but I really enjoyed this book. It was a very fast read for me and felt very conversational and honest without being saccharine or designed to draw pity. I hope that Jodie is able to stay sober and get her life on track.

Nomad by Ayaan Hirsi Ali is one of those books that make you want to get off your butt and do something. I expected that, as her book Infidelopened my eyes to plight of Middle Eastern women and made me appreciate my own upbringing more than ever before. Hirsi Ali is a former Muslim from Somalia who spent time in a few African and Middle Eastern countries before escaping an arranged marriage and receiving refugee status in Holland. Infidel tells the detailed story of her childhood and escape. Nomad tells of her journey from Holland to America, the stories of some of her family members, and focuses on various issues in the Middle East that must be addressed.

Hirsi Ali blames Islam and culture for many of the issues. She believes that Islam encourages violence in general and especially toward women. She focuses primarily on the need to improve the lives of Muslim women by providing them with education and opening their eyes to the idea that there is more in life than submitting to your father, brothers, husband, including accepting their beatings and abuse. She addresses the fact that as Muslims immigrate to the West, these issues are no longer isolated to the Middle East. Honor killings occur right here in the United States. Female genital mutilation happens right here. It’s not confined to huts in Africa.

Learning about female genital mutilation was one of the most disturbing things I’ve read about, and I hate thinking that it’s happening right here as well. I encourage you to read Infidelto hear Hirsi Ali’s experience directly, but basically the process involves removing the clitoris and outer labia and sewing the vagina shut except for a small opening. This prevents the woman from having sex until she is reopened upon her marriage, and then it prevents her from ever enjoying sex. This is done without pain medication. I can’t even imagine the horror of going through that process.

Hirsi Ali talks about how the little education she received gave her the ability to question what was going on and to take the opportunity to run when it presented itself. She’s very angry at Western liberals who talk a lot about feminism and women’s rights, but that clam up when it comes to Islam. She also challenges Christians to stand up and do something, arguing that it is much easier to convince a Muslim to change their ways if they still have a God to focus on and worship and still have the boundaries that organized religion supplies. I thought that portion of the book was fascinating since Hirsi Ali is now an atheist, but she’s absolutely right in her points. Both the liberal feminists and Christians are mostly silent because we’ve created this fear of offending anyone and aren’t able to separate someone’s religious freedom from their crimes when it comes to Muslims. While we should support religious freedom, when someone is mutilating, abusing, or murdering others in the name of that religion something is wrong and we need to address it. Nothing in the Middle East will improve as long as women are beaten down, and we should stand up and fight for those who cannot do so themselves. And I don’t mean the government – caring citizens should support organizations that help women around the world, whether that’s by helping provide education, rescuing women from human trafficking, or simply raising awareness of these issues.

I encourage you to read Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s books. Some of her beliefs may offend you (I didn’t even agree with everything she said) but it’s worth it to hear her story.