A Jungle of Words and Stories

In my last English class, we were asked to write a paragraph about what makes a good book. Fantastic!, I thought, I have all these feelings about books! The only problem was, of course, tht I was restricted by formal language and it having to be a single paragraph. And, you know, it would be a bit awkward to happy-rant about awesome book things on a document I had to hand in to my teacher. But here, I can do whatever I want! I can disregard all of society's expectations and restrictions! Of course, I choose to use this freedom to talk about books. (not rebellious enough? Ok: oogeli-poop. There you go. I wouldn't put that on an essay. Satisfied?)

Because I work in a bookstore, I have a pretty good idea of what books are good and what qualifies a book as being good. I also know that there are vastly different opinions on this front. So let me change that to "I have a pretty good idea of what books most people consider good and what usually qualifies a book as being popularly thought of as good or worthwhile." (That sentence had more political correctness in it than everything I've written this schoolyear put together) There's a very palpable difference between people saying "Oh, yeah, that was a good book, I enjoyed it," and the reaction of "Oh my God, that book was so fantastic! I loved it, it was great!" And then there's the books that don't even get a verbal reaction, more of a slight grimace and a "Yeeeaahh... it was... all right." The good books are usually the ones that sell steadily, the ones people have heard of and of which we usually have at least one copy in the store. The great books are the ones everyone has heard of, that people have heard fantastic things about, the books of which we have a gazillion copies, so many that even after filling their space on the shelf and the bestseller display, we still have so many copies to put away that we have no idea what to do with them all. And the bad books... well, you can just talk to a bookseller, and they'll get a knowing glint in their eye, even while saying, "Oh, they're not that bad, if that's your kind of thing." You can't say that bookstore workers don't try to justify literature. But, you know, you don't want to have to justify it.

But honestly, let's think about what a good book should be about, what most people hold important in a good book. For most people, that factor is entertainment. (for the purpose of this blogpost, I'm excluding things like textbooks or dictionaries or inspirational books. Chicken Soup For The Soul or The Four Agreements don't have to be entertaining, but they're still good. The Secret is, however, entertaining in its concept. But then I don't know how good it is, because I've never wanted to read it) Whether stories hold deep meaning or morals, they still need to entertain and captivate the reader in order for the reader to be interested. Something is interesting = you're interested. Duh. Nobody's going to care about a book if it's not intriguing or relevant to them. And they're also not going to enjoy reading it.

I'm not even going to belabour how important good writing is in a good book, because it's pretty straightforward: You write poorly, your book's not going to be very good. Before you say anything, ladies and gentlemen, 50 Shades and Twilight are POPULAR. They're not widely considered to be GOOD. Sometimes consumer society is moronic. Look at reality television.

Now, I don't have the magic formula or exact definition of what makes a book great and sets it apart from books that are simply good. That issue is too complex, individual and dependent on specific people's preferences to be concluded with a definite answer. But from what I've seen, and what I've experienced myself, is that truly great books give us something to connect with. They're relevant to life and humanity, they can make valid and true observations about the world we live in, and they can make us think.

But it's really all an adventure! The only way you're going to find out if a book is good or great or terrible is if you read it. Because everybody's definition of those categories is completely different, be it because of standards, or preferences or just plain old I-like-it-ness. That's what's so fantastic about books.

I Do My Work With My Flapper On

My queen/hero/idol has returned to me! Libba Bray's new book, The Diviners came out last tuesday, and of course I picked it up at work as soon as possible (I'd been anticipating the date for ages). In fact, I came to the store before they'd even properly received it. But it was there, and that's all that's important.

I haven't finished it yet (there's simply not enough time in my life these days) but I'm about halfway through. It's exciting, and a lot creepier than her last adventure in historical fiction (I'm talking about the Gemma Doyle Trilogy, you peasants). I'm realizing that her writing style and approach to stories is very much suited to a murder mystery. Particularly when the murder involves strange rituals, a demonic psychopath killer, and the Occult. It's all sorts of awesome, and I can't wait to see how it ends, not only because I want to figure out what happens, but because I know she's going to somehow turn it around and bend my mind into strange formations. Because that's classic Libba Bray. It's just how she rolls.

At the same time, I want it to draw out forever, because it's been so long since I had new Libba Bray material to read. There's something about her writing and the way her brain works that just makes me super happy. She just gets it. Countless times, I've read something she's written and realize she's put exactly what I feel into words. The most brilliant, beautiful, elegant, sharp words that I could never have come up with. Basically, she's everything I want to be in life. No big deal.

As ever, I have a long list of books I want to read once I'm done with Diviners. I was attempting to read Kate Chopin's The Awakening (at the recommendation of my best friend aka flawless feminist badass) before I was interrupted by Diviners, so I'll return to that first. I also recently saw a really interesting-looking book at work, Michael Poore's Up Jumps The Devil, so I'll be looking in to that. Other than those, my priority books to read are probably going to be Watchmen, Perks of Being a Wallflower, House of Leaves, rereading The Hobbit, and maybe possibly some of the stuff overcrowding my bookshelf. I work in a bookstore, for heavens sake; I am in constant frustration over the fact that I can't read all the books I see at work (Ok, maybe not ALL of them... I'm looking at you, 50 Shades. Looking at you through eyes squinted with suspicion and judgment).

I'm thinking I'll probably make another post once I'm finished this book. Remembering my past experiences, I'm guessing it'll be a lot of fangirling and squealing.

Storytime: The Six Swans

Because of theatre, I've had a lot of occasion to think about or look up fairy tales recently. Specifically Grimm ones, which makes me happy for the sake of my heritage and childhood. Best part is, contrary to Disney-popular-belief-control, fairy tales are not all happiness and rainbows. In fact, their original versions are usually really gruesome. Why is this the best part, you ask? Because it's awesome. Culture is awesome. Folklore is awesome. Innocent people being almost put to death, then rescued and replaced with the evil culprit is awesome. And let's just admit it, a bit of blood and gore is super awesome. It's like a horror movie, minus the movie.

Because of this, I've decided that I would like to occasionally put up a post about fairy tales. There are a LOT of tales most people have never even heard of, and I think it would be really cool to retell some of those. Of course, they're really accessible anyway, you just have to Google them, but I figured it could be fun anyway. At least, or especially, for me. So! We begin with the story of the six swans, since I recently researched that one a bit for company.

There was a king who went hunting in the forest. He was really excited about hunting a boar, so he rode ahead of everybody and nobody could keep up. After a while of riding after this boar all alone, he got lost (it was a giant forest and he was alone, so this makes sense. They didn't have GPS back then). He happened to meet an old creepy woman, who of course was actually a witch. She promised to lead him out of the wood, but only if he married her daughter. Her daughter was beautiful but she gave the king the creeps. Cause, you know, she WAS a witch's daughter. And she was evil.

So the king brought his new queen to his castle, but he was scared that she'd somehow hurt his children (he'd already been married once). So he hid them in a castle in the woods somewhere, but it was really difficult to find it, so the king got a magical ball of yarn that showed him the way when he strung it out (again, no GPS). But after a while his wife got suspicious of the fact that the king was spending so much time in the woods (this is reasonable; if your husband spends most of his day, every day, wandering in the woods, you should probably be a little concerned). So she bribed his servants and they told her about the children and the ball of yarn. So she found out where the ball of yarn was, and she made little shirts with charms sewn into them. When the king went hunting one day, she followed the yarn to the children's castle. Thinking it was their father, the six sons raced down to meet her, but when they came up to her, she threw the shirts on them and turned them into swans. (Ok, transforming your stepchildren: not so reasonable.)

When the king came by the next day, only his single daughter remained. He didn't think it was his wife that had cursed his sons, and he didn't want to lose his daughter, too, so he wanted to take her back home with him. But she was scared of her stepmother and asked to stay one more night. Her dad agreed and she ran away in the night. Into the forest. Because when you're scared and alone in the dark, the forest is exactly the kind of place you want to be.

She walked all night and all day without stopping, trying to find her brothers. At the end of the day, she was super tired (duh) and hid in a robber's hut (again, the safest possible place to be). Right before sunset, six swans landed in the robber's hut, blew on each other and turned into boys. Of course it was her brothers, because how many groups of six swan-man hybrids could there be fluttering around this forest? Everybody was glad to see each other, but the boys told her that they could only be human for about 15 minutes each night. They also told her that if she wanted to break the curse, she wouldn't be allowed to speak for six years and she had to make each of them a shirt of starwort. (I will never understand how cursed characters always know the key to lifting their curse. Is there an instruction manual for being transformed by your evil stepmother? Lifting Powerful Curses for Dummies? So You've Been Turned Into A Bird, 1165 Edition?)

The daughter decided to break the curse, or die trying (there's no half-assing anything in Fairytale-land). She sat down by a tree and began making shirts (starwort is a very small flower. Don't ask me how you would go about making shirts out of it). The king of another country found her there, and brought her to his castle. He liked her, so they got married. But his mother didn't like her. After a year, when the young queen had her first child, the king's mother took the baby and put blood on the queen's mouth, then declared her to be a cannibal to the king. The queen couldn't say a word in her defense, but the king wouldn't believe his wife could do such a thing (awe, true love). The mother did this with all three children the queen had, and after the third son had been "eaten", the king had no choice but to have his wife burned (this is why we now have marriage counseling. Although, I guess even that won't help if you can't speak).

The day the queen was to burn happened to be the last day of her six years of silence, so she brought the shirts she'd made along to the stake. They were all done, except the last one, which had no left sleeve. Right before the fire was lit, her swan-brothers came flying by and she threw the shirts on them. The youngest brother still had one swan-wing for an arm, but we don't find out what happens to him. He just has a swan arm. Everybody hugged, and the queen went up to her husband and declared her innocence. The kids they'd had together were brought to them (from the evil mother's Dingy Storage Room Of Children, I guess) and they burned his mom at the stake instead of the queen.

And the King and Queen and her brothers lived happily till the end of their years. We're not sure about the youngest one, though. I imagine he wasn't quite as happy as everyone else.

On a related note, something exciting is happening! I might very possibly be playing the daughter from this story in our play. If not, I'll be playing the king's evil mother. So that's fun!
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The Life They've Set For Me to Live

Life can be frustrating. Society, especially when you're young, tries to dictate your path in life as a very narrow road that must be taken at maximum speed and best possible precision. "When you graduate, you must become an adult immediately and get an education and then a job and then become successful. It wouldn't be politically correct anymore to tell you that you should also have a big happy family at the same time, but when you get there you'll naturally want to do so, everybody does. And you must choose a sensible profession that benefits society and makes you lots of money otherwise you will be a homeless loser bum who will never be happy."

Sometimes, it makes me want to just run away from it all. Maybe the homeless loser bums are happier for not having the worries of normal, employed, home-owning people. They don't have to struggle with getting enough money to fund their ridiculously expensive education. They've made their peace with simply not having any money. Of course, living on the street is in no way a pleasant experience.

But, honestly, graduation is already starting to terrify me (it's just the second weekend!!!!). I've always had school in my life, I have no experience living in a world where my purpose isn't going to school. After this year, my purpose will have to be being able to go to school, and after that it will be slaving to scrape together a living. And by a living I mean maybe lunch money. (I want to be a writer or actor. I mean come on.)

But I really do sometimes want to just abandon all that thinking and make my own success somehow. This is why I wish with a burning passion that I could be a professional vlogger on YouTube or be on webshows or be a successful blogger (hahaHAHAAA...ha). I wish I could just do something I love passionately as a career. But the thing about all three of those crazy dreams is that it takes a lot of time to build up a reputation or break out. Time which I already have limited amounts of, and will have even less once I graduate and have to go out in life.

That, actually is one of the many reasons I started this blog. Because maybe, just maybe, I could someday establish a sort of online presence and through that possibly attain opportunities to do things I love more often and more conveniently or realistically. For now, this is just a casual thing that benefits no one but myself, but maybe at some point my blog could turn into something more. And so that's why I'm going to try to create as good a level of content as I can. At this point, of course, it's moot, because I have virtually no readers, and the kind of things I want to do are really meant for a larger audience, but, you know, someday. Maybe. For now, it's fun to pretend.

This blog post had no real purpose, structure or focus. My inner rigorously trained essay writer is dying a slow and painful death. Maybe in the future I should actually get my thoughts straightened out and the write the post all in one go. Ha. I crack myself up.

But today, it's time to hang out with my best friend! (and only reader...) We have loads of shenanigans planned intended, and some of those are bloggable! So there might be some pictures later on... although I'm not sure of what. Probably baking.

To Believe in Something Worth the Fight

So the past little while (what has it been, like 48 hours?) has not been the most fun. You know, obviously they could be a lot worse, but I'm not exactly having the time of my life either.

After my last post, I basically spent the afternoon alternately dealing with my feelings and droning them out (besides watching terrible TV, blasting Marina and the Diamonds and playing solitaire is an excellent way to do this). I talked to my best friend and another really good friend about it and since then have been largely ignoring the issue in order to get over it. Because getting over it is really the only option, unfortunately.

The next morning was also not great. I thought I had a free period first thing in the morning, so my alarm was set to go off a bit later than usual anyway. Because of this, I woke up to a text from my best friend (the one I mentioned before... I have three) saying I'd already missed 15 minutes of chamber choir and I needed to get there ASAP or I would be out. Here's the problem: I had no idea we were having a meeting that morning. In fact, I didn't even know whether I was in or not until she texted me that I was missing it. So yesterday morning was interesting. After running around and begging my mom to drive me as soon as possible, I did finally get to the music room... but by that time I was 45 minutes late. Luckily, my teacher forgave me when I explained what happened. I have her for orchestra as well, so she already knows me.

That evening, we had a Rangers meeting which went downhill. Suffice it to say there was a discussion which entailed confusion, anger and resentful undertones. This was strange because nothing like it had ever happened before (even though us teenage girls have been having meetings for 4 years now...) and because I didn't know the context of the issue. Anyway, that was unpleasant.

But today was a little better! Well, in hindsight, anyway. Besides my alarm not going off in the morning and then having pain issues during the day, I had a really nice afternoon! Again, some blasting Marina and solitaire (less about distraction this time) but also some hanging out with my friend, baking cookies, and mocking Glee together. That show really is ridiculously transparent.

Hopefully tomorrow will be better. Sleeping in, 1984 discussion in English, work... Good things are in store. Now I just have to pray that life doesn't screw it up again.
(post title from Lies by Marina and the Diamonds)

What does a student of Literature look like?

Well, they wear knee socks, pleated skirts or ironed trousers, crisp, clean shirts and Tommy Hilfiger sweaters. If wanting to accessorize, they can only wear ties.

No, wait… that’s not right. That just calls to mind an extremely conservative boarding-school student whose father plays golf. That is not the kind of student that you’d want in your lit class. I mean, I’ve had 5 classes so far and half our time has been spent considering existentialism and human nature. That might frighten the tweed-jacketed sheep.

In all seriousness, that’s not even what the question is asking. And if you’re wondering, I was asked this question. We had to answer it on our first or second day of Lit, along with other questions. (What is literature? How/Why does literature appear? What is “good” literature? What value does literature have? If these pique your interest, have at it in the comments!) To answer this question, I tried to draw on my own strengths, interests and ~ideals and also on what it was that made me interested in taking literature and what I think will help me in my studies.

So what was my answer? Well, for one, it was kind of long. But at the same time, I listed my criteria and didn’t really elaborate or explain. So that’s what I shall do now.

A student of literature wants to read. This seems pretty self-explanatory, but it goes deeper than just that. Wanting to read includes learning about reading. This is not to say grade 12 students headed out into the world need to be taught how to read, Heaven forbid. What I mean is that lit students should want to be informed about all the books worth reading that they can get their hands and time (let’s face it, that’s the biggest hurdle) on. There are so many good books and stories and poems and movies out there! Really, if you’re interested in literature, you should want to consume and learn more about as many of these as possible. Learning about reading also means learning about how to read better, notice more things, draw connections, recognize symbolism and references. Every now and then, when reading the work of a really good writer, I go “holy crap, there’s so much here! Every sentence, every word, is infused with meaning!” Analyzing writing and noticing ideas is essential to studying literature, so obviously a lit student has to be interested and open to it.

In a classroom, a lit student has to be open to and curious about ideas and opinions. You'll never learn very much if you don't engage in discussion with others and are willing to consider their ideas, point of view, and perspective.

Also, everybody has those books or parts of literature that they're not interested in. But you know what? They're important, too. Because while you're not paying attention, there may be an important concept that is important later, like in other books or works. And who knows? Maybe you'll find something interesting in all that boring stuff, after all! Either way, disinterest is not worth slacking off over. If somebody considered it relevant enough to assign, it's probably at least a bit important.

You know what takes a lot of time? Like, A LOT? Reading. SO if you're in this, you have to put time and effort towards it. Don't skip over stuff, don't sparknote books. Well, not instead of reading. Researching books once you've read them, however, can be very helpful.

And the last point I put down was being respectful. That means being respectful towards other people and their opinions, the stories and works you're reading, and the materials you're using. (Most of the time the books you're using aren't yours. Don't break them. My inner bibliophile would cry and possibly punch you. So would your librarian.)

I do think there is other criteria, but this is mine. I'd like to mention that I do have passions beside books, so stay tuned for those things! In fact, I have my first theatre company meeting of the schoolyear tomorrow, so I'll probably be squealing about that. New year, new teacher, new cast, new plays... It should be interesting. There's a lot of variables, but we usually seem to figure things out.

The Dangerous Girl in the Sweater Vest

School is back in! And because apparently I don't have enough on my hands during my grad year (!), I've decided to start a blog. I'd like to think I'll be more dedicated this time as opposed to my previous attempts, especially since I've got quite a few ideas! I'm thinking deep thoughts about literature, people! High School angst! No, seriously, I have actual ideas. I'm just waiting for them to develop into coherent thoughts.

The only problem is that I do have quite a lot on my plate: Homework, trying to get into uni, scholarship applications, my job (at a bookstore, yes, it's fantastic), the school theatre company (expect reports on this later on), orchestra, probably choir and also the fact that I'm gradding this year and my life is already pretty hectic just one week into school. The good news is that I have a free period every day, so when I don't have homework I'm hoping to be able to dedicate time to this. I even got a laptop-friendly backpack this year! I really like our school library so I'm really just dying to have another excuse to spend even more time there... But seriously, I actually do enjoy being there. It's my inner bibliophile that forces me to be happy in spaces with lots of books and knowledge. (Again, I really love my job)

But yes! I believe perhaps I should mention something about myself. Um. I'm terrible at this.

I suppose I could start with some facts: I'm in my last year of high school. My hair is blonde and extremely short because I shaved it for cancer research in the spring. I play the violin. I... ack. I really am terrible at this.

Well, OK. Let's talk about this blog, and, connected to that, my life this year. I'm in a literature class this year, and it's fascinating, so I'll be talking about that quite a bit. You know, drawing on some course work as inspiration for stuff to talk about. My teacher for that class is also really cool, so you might hear about him as well.

In fact, I'll talk a bit about him now. Mr. M is a half-bald originally Italian guy who teaches English, literature and History of Rock 'n' Roll at our school. He talks A LOT. As in, he continuously spoke our entire first class this year. And I mean CONTINUOUSLY. It was a monologue. But he also has some very interesting things to say in between those words, so I don't mind. I could listen to interesting people all day.

On Friday, I hadn't finished my essay by the end of the class and asked him if I could take it home over the weekend. He said it was fine and I made a joke about how I would have easily done it if it had been to pages of normal paper instead of the foolscap he gave use. He chuckled and said "I can see you're a bit of a rebel. I like it." Awesome! I mean, when the History of Rock 'n' Roll teacher tells you you're a rebel, you're doing something right. I was wearing a collared shirt, a floral skirt and a knit vest at the time.

So, I suppose, since I'm introducing myself, that's how I'd like to think of myself: a dangerous girl in a sweater vest.

And since I have nothing else to say, have three lovely people being lovely:

(if anybody has tips on posting/using gifs on Blogger, feel free to share.)

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