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Feb. 28th, 2013 11:24 pmBack when I was writing up Half of a Yellow Sun a little while back, I happened to stumble over this course syllabus from a class at Brandeis a few years ago on Writing Twenty-First Century Revolutions.
And I happen to be writing . . . a thing . . . that involves revolutions . . . which I would like to have a nuanced and not necessarily nineteenth-century view on . . . and also, I am having a strange nostalgia for English classes . . .
So, in short, my brain appears to have decided I need to read that syllabus. THE WHOLE THING.
Uh, slowly, and in between reading stuff for my thesis, and reading stuff for classes, and reading stuff that gives me the necessary brain break from reading stuff for my thesis and classes, which basically means that so far I have read one, which is Jack London's The Iron Heel.
I was actually really excited for this! Wikipedia bragged about it, all "Jack London wrote a first-person lady protagonist! Turn-of-the-century dudes NEVER did that!"
Unfortunately, the book has its priorities all wrong, so 75% of it looks like this:
OUR HEROINE AVIS EVERHARD: So let me tell you about my super-dreamy socialist husband!
(AVIS' SUPER-DREAMY SOCIALIST HUSBAND-TO-BE: Avis, you're hot and all, but FYI, the dresses you own are STAINED WITH THE BLOOD OF THE INNOCENT.
OUR HEROINE AVIS EVERHARD: Wow, what a dreamboat!)
OUR HEROINE AVIS EVERHARD: Oh, how he opened my eyes to oppression! And everybody else's eyes, too!
(AVIS' SUPER-DREAMY SOCIALIST HUSBAND: And then I took the kindly bishop on a tour of misery until he decided to throw away everything he owned in order to lecture people about helping the poor! Ha, all his efforts are so useless and doomed and are going to lead to SUCH a tragic mental breakdown.
OUR HEROINE AVIS EVERHARD: So why are you not encouraging him to do something more productive instead . . .?
AVIS' SUPER-DREAMY SOCIALIST HUSBAND: It's a valuable life lesson! End-of-life lesson. Whatever.)
OUR HEROINE AVIS EVERHARD: Ha, and how he TROLLED those capitalists, it was a joy to watch!
(AVIS' AMAZING HOT SOCIALIST HUSBAND-TO-BE: Hey capitalists, just fyi, we're coming to murder you all in our beds.
CAPITALISTS: . . . . well, I guess it's coming about time to active Operation Oppressive Oligarchy! Thanks for the heads-up, dude.)
Then, like, 60% of the way through the book, after you've been listening to Avis extol the virtues of her super dreamy husband for SO MANY pages, Operation Oppressive Oligarchy finally takes over! And then 75% of the way through the book Avis is like "ALL RIGHT IT IS TIME FOR ME TO BECOME A MASTER SPY. Oh, and meanwhile let me tell you about my buddy Anna Roylston, who broke the heart of EVERY BOY, and also assassinated some of them, and shot one of the leading figures of the government when she was sixty-nine, and died happily in her bed at the age of ninety-one!"
And just when you're starting to tentatively think "HELL YEAH" it's time for an ill-advised plebe revolt, and everything gets really depressing and classist (because in dystopia-land there are oligarchs, and enlightened socialists who are working secretly to free everyone, and then sad uneducated plebes who don't know any better than to rampage mindlessly) . . .
. . . and then suddenly the book ends literally mid-sentence, and you're left sort of sadly thinking "but why was I not reading The Adventures of Avis Everhard and Anna Roylston FROM THE BEGINNING?"
And I happen to be writing . . . a thing . . . that involves revolutions . . . which I would like to have a nuanced and not necessarily nineteenth-century view on . . . and also, I am having a strange nostalgia for English classes . . .
So, in short, my brain appears to have decided I need to read that syllabus. THE WHOLE THING.
Uh, slowly, and in between reading stuff for my thesis, and reading stuff for classes, and reading stuff that gives me the necessary brain break from reading stuff for my thesis and classes, which basically means that so far I have read one, which is Jack London's The Iron Heel.
I was actually really excited for this! Wikipedia bragged about it, all "Jack London wrote a first-person lady protagonist! Turn-of-the-century dudes NEVER did that!"
Unfortunately, the book has its priorities all wrong, so 75% of it looks like this:
OUR HEROINE AVIS EVERHARD: So let me tell you about my super-dreamy socialist husband!
(AVIS' SUPER-DREAMY SOCIALIST HUSBAND-TO-BE: Avis, you're hot and all, but FYI, the dresses you own are STAINED WITH THE BLOOD OF THE INNOCENT.
OUR HEROINE AVIS EVERHARD: Wow, what a dreamboat!)
OUR HEROINE AVIS EVERHARD: Oh, how he opened my eyes to oppression! And everybody else's eyes, too!
(AVIS' SUPER-DREAMY SOCIALIST HUSBAND: And then I took the kindly bishop on a tour of misery until he decided to throw away everything he owned in order to lecture people about helping the poor! Ha, all his efforts are so useless and doomed and are going to lead to SUCH a tragic mental breakdown.
OUR HEROINE AVIS EVERHARD: So why are you not encouraging him to do something more productive instead . . .?
AVIS' SUPER-DREAMY SOCIALIST HUSBAND: It's a valuable life lesson! End-of-life lesson. Whatever.)
OUR HEROINE AVIS EVERHARD: Ha, and how he TROLLED those capitalists, it was a joy to watch!
(AVIS' AMAZING HOT SOCIALIST HUSBAND-TO-BE: Hey capitalists, just fyi, we're coming to murder you all in our beds.
CAPITALISTS: . . . . well, I guess it's coming about time to active Operation Oppressive Oligarchy! Thanks for the heads-up, dude.)
Then, like, 60% of the way through the book, after you've been listening to Avis extol the virtues of her super dreamy husband for SO MANY pages, Operation Oppressive Oligarchy finally takes over! And then 75% of the way through the book Avis is like "ALL RIGHT IT IS TIME FOR ME TO BECOME A MASTER SPY. Oh, and meanwhile let me tell you about my buddy Anna Roylston, who broke the heart of EVERY BOY, and also assassinated some of them, and shot one of the leading figures of the government when she was sixty-nine, and died happily in her bed at the age of ninety-one!"
And just when you're starting to tentatively think "HELL YEAH" it's time for an ill-advised plebe revolt, and everything gets really depressing and classist (because in dystopia-land there are oligarchs, and enlightened socialists who are working secretly to free everyone, and then sad uneducated plebes who don't know any better than to rampage mindlessly) . . .
. . . and then suddenly the book ends literally mid-sentence, and you're left sort of sadly thinking "but why was I not reading The Adventures of Avis Everhard and Anna Roylston FROM THE BEGINNING?"
