The Culture Enthusiast

• Epic poems

• Anything Old English

• Modern madness

I am once again posting a day ahead schedule to take part on Broke and Bookish's meme Top 10 Tuesday. Today the topic is free so I chose Top 10 Favorite Words.

1) Revival
I've been obsessed with this word lately. I find myself saying: a Tudor revival house, an Art Deco revival in the 60's, a much expected dry tomato revival. I'm just rejoiced whenever I hear it.

Meaning: "a spirit who is God's servant in heaven, and who is often shown as a person dressed in white with wings".

One of the most enjoyable experiences to me is finishing a book. For some, is buying a book, for others is starting it, for some crazies is beginning Chapter 5. I like all those things too, but nothing beats that final page rush.

I'd say I have more or less three common but different reactions when I finish a book.

The "I made it" reaction: this is how I feel when I finish difficult books. It's a mixed sense of relief and accomplishment. When I got to the last page of Practical Criticism, which took me three months to finish, it was like Rocky I: arms up, little imaginary jumps, "I finished Practical Criticism!"

I just finished reading a collection of Jane Austen's juvenilia and unfinished novels. I couldn't help feeling the difference  between her great novels, such as Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility and the writings from her youth.

I know it's not fair to judge her early material. I mean, 12-year-old Jane puts 26-year-old Paula to shame. My point is: I actually learned a thing or two about writing from these "not so great" novels. When comparing her juvenilia and unfinished novels with her more mature work, I learned that's important to:

1) Take your time

There's no use rushing towards things. Jane, despite being happy about the short length of your stories I had to go back and read them again constantly because I didn't really remember who you were talking about.

2) Properly develop your characters

While we're at it, we need to take the time to develop our characters, who they are, what motivates them. Quickly brushing through them will give the impression they are not real people.

3) Keep it classy

Far from me from accusing Lady Austen of being coarse, but some of her jokes were not as subtle as we are used to. If you're going to try humor, be careful.

4) Think outside of your comfort zone

One of the greatest stories I read in the book, Lady Susan, is not your usual Jane Austen story. It is written entirely in the form of letters and the main character is a selfish, vicious woman. That's probably why the novel is not so famous, but it is incredible nonetheless.So, it's Ok to try new things because they might turn out great too.

5) Persist (things get better)

I believe this is the best thing I learned from Austen juvenilia and you can learn that from many authors. The first things Austen wrote were far from being great. But she persisted and after some time and a lot of effort, she arrived at the level of Sense and Sensibility. As Ira Glass taught us, good writing takes time and lots of practice. Keep working hard and your writing will improve little by little.

I've learned so much by reading Austen's juvenilia and unfinished novels that I was encouraged to read my own archives and see if I can learn from my own (recent) juvenilia as well.

Have you read Austen's unfinished works? Do you like reading author's juvenilia or do you prefer their most famous works?

For more Writer's Corner posts and tips on writing, click here.

Image via The Creative Penn

I am posting one day in advance of schedule to take part on Broke and Bookish's meme Top 10 Tuesday. Today's theme is bookish people you want to meet. My list consist mostly of dead people, which isn't very realistic, but let's face it when am I ever going to meet John Green?

1) Dostoyevsky

In the dispute Tolstoy versus Dostoyvesky, I say without stuttering (even though I mistyped stuttering five times) Dostoyevksy rules. Dostoyevsky once said that it made him really happy when people wrote him saying they liked The Idiot and that he considered that person his soul mate. I guess he only said that because he didn't meet me (I prefer Brothers Karamazov, by the way).

2) Jane Austen

One of my favorite author of all times. I'd love to co-host a tea party with her. 

3) Albert Camus

Let's get real here, Camus was the cat's pajamas.

4) Louis MacNeice

My favorite poet ever and a pretty interesting person too. Besides being a poet he also traveled a lot and wrote radio plays for the BBC.  Plus, what a great voice he had.

I can only imagine us in a party, drinking champagne, laughing and making witty remarks about the other guests. In this particular fantasy, I'm capable of making witty remarks.


7) Shakespeare

It seems we know so little about Shakespeare's life. What did he look like? Did he really write all those plays? What kind of fruit did he like? So many pressing questions.

8) Paul Auster

I once read about a young man that hanged around in Brooklyn long enough to bump into Paul Auster. They had a cup of coffee while Auster gave him tips on writing. How I wish that had happened to me.

9) Rainer Maria Rilke

I'd love to be friends with him, not only because he's one of my favorite poets, but because when he did something annoying I would tell him the only sentence I know in German: "You must change your life!" That's probably why he hasn't called.

10) Tolstoy
Ok, I know I sort of dissed Tolstoy in number one, but I just remembered Tolstoy ran away from home when he was 80. How amazing is that? He was also a radical anarchist and I don't really like his books, so I guess he's more of a wild card.

Which bookish people would you like to meet?

I have some pretty exciting news. Exciting for nerds like me, of course.

As you guys know by my Writer's corner posts I'm always trying to improve my writing. So, I've enrolled in  James Chartrand's Damn Fine Words writing course. I guess part of my excitement comes from how well she promotes the course (who doesn't want their writing to bring results?)

It's a great feeling because in my last years of college I was incredibly unmotivated, I just wanted it to end. It's so refreshing to know I still want to learn stuff.

And there's so much more to go!

Just like Frasier, I've always wanted to be part of a classy club. And what's classier than a classic's club? Last week, I discovered The Classic's Club's reading challenge. You choose 50 classic books to read in 5 years. It was pretty difficult compiling a realistic list. There's so many books we say we want to read but we don't actually want to sit and read them. So, here's my list so far:

Bronte, Charlotte: Jane Eyre 

Browning, Elizabeth Barret: Sonnets from the Portuguese - Review
Chaucer, Geoffrey: The Canterbury Tales

Chekhov, Anton: Three Sisters

Chekhov, Anton: Uncle Vanya (re-read)

Chekhov, Anton: Short Stories

Dante: The Divine Comedy

de Cervantes, Miguel: Don Quixote
Dostoevsky, Fyodor: Brothers Karamazov (re-read)

Dostoevsky, Fyodor: Crime and Punishment

Dostoevsky, Fyodor: Demons

Dumas, Alexandre: The Three Musketeers

Emerson, Ralph Waldo: Self-Reliance

Forster, E.M.: Passage to India

Homer: The Iliad

Homer: The Odyssey

Huxley, Aldous: Island
Ibsen, Henrik: An enemy of the people (re-read)
Llosa, Mario Vargas: Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter
MacNeice, Louis: Collected Poems

Mansfield, Katherine: Selected Stories

Marquez, Gabriel Garcia: One Hundred Years of Solitude

Maupassant, Guy de: Selected Stories

Miller, Arthur: Death of a Salesman

Pasternak, Boris: Doctor Zhivago

Pepys, Samuel: Diary of Samuel Pepys
Shakespeare, William: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Shakespeare, William: Antony and Cleopatra

Shakespeare, William: As You Like It

Shakespeare, William: Coriolanus

Shakespeare, William: Cymbeline

Shakespeare, William: Henry V

Shakespeare, William: Julius Caesar

Shakespeare, William: Macbeth - Review

Shakespeare, William: Measure for Measure

Shakespeare, William: Much Ado About Nothing

Shakespeare, William: Romeo and Juliet

Shakespeare, William: The Taming of the Shrew

Shakespeare, William: Timon of Athens 

Shakespeare, William: Titus Andronicus

Shakespeare, William: Trolius and Cressida 

Sophocles: Antigone (re-read)

Sophocles: Oedipus Rex (re-read)

Spark, Muriel: Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

Various authors: Penguin's Poems for Life

Various Authors: Poetry Speaks
Williams, Tennessee: A Streetcar Named Desire (re-read)

Waugh, Evelyn: Brideshead Revisited

"Of course, works of art should 'call into question' - what else does the tradition of tragedy from Antigone to Hedda Gabler do? But they need to do so in far more complex and enduring ways than we find in most recent postmodernist art." Christopher Butler in Postmodernism

I usually have two difficulties when studying about Postmodernism: to figure out exactly what post-modernism is and to find neutral/critical analysis of it. Authors sometimes seem unwilling to define it and quite often people writing about postmodernism are its own proponents.

I've recently read two excellent books who manage to explain quite well what post modernism is and what's wrong with it. The first book is Postmodernism by Christopher Butler. It focuses more on culture and it covers a lot of concepts that are connected to postmodernism like feminism, deconstructionism, Marxism, irony, pastiche etc.

The other book is called Explaining Postmodernism by Stephen Hicks (available online). Hicks' book is incredibly interesting and focuses more on philosophy. He looks for the roots of postmodernism and finds them in the Counter-Enlightenment philosophers. We understand where post modernism comes from and what it proposes.

Books like these two, that talk clearly about postmodernism and neutrally analyse it, are not that easy to find - believe me.

Image source

Have your read any books about post-modernism or about our current times?

I'd like to share my latest book purchases and maybe rationalize how on Earth I am supposed to finish all of them. I bought them on the same day and almost couldn't carry them home.

In my defense, they were bargains. (Isn't that always the defense?)

Paul Johnson's preface got me really excited: "It is therefore essential that society defend itself against cultural breakdown. The best way it can do this is by grasping the importance of art to the well-being of mankind: as many people as possible making it their business to examine art constantly, inform themselves about it and develop their faculties of understanding and loving it." 

Don't worry, Paul, I'm on it.

***
I usually begin checking the summary and flipping through the chapters. It always gets me down to see the first chapter is always about cave paintings. I want to skip it but can't bring myself to do so. It looks too much like cheating.

Usually Egyptian and Greek art come after, then I get a little motivated. But most times I want to cheat big time and start backwards, beginning with modernism (usually the chapter that mentions Turner).

I'm extremely suspicious about modern art but I love reading about it. It's like a sick curiosity: I want to see it where it all fell apart. Just kidding. Sort of.

This is probably why I like reading art books, it's like a roller coaster ride. You start very slow and with  great anticipation, then there's a lot of excitement and that Renaissance high, and in the end you get slightly Andy Warhol nauseous.  

It's so strange that the book How to live on 24 hours a day by Arnold Bennet is not more popular. I used to say I didn't have enough time to read or study but this book has certainly killed that excuse. It offers tips to manage time in order to both read and ponder over what you read - which is incredibly important.  

Despite being written in 1912, it's not as stuffy as you'd thing. It's actually very clear and even funny  sometimes. Here's a part I really like (the highlights are mine) from chapter 5, "Tennis and the immortal soul":

You get into the morning train with your newspaper, and you calmly and majestically give yourself up to your newspaper. You do not hurry. You know you have at least half an hour of security in front of you. As your glance lingers idly at the advertisements of shipping and of songs on the outer pages, your air is the air of a leisured man, wealthy in time, of a man from some planet where there are a hundred and twenty-four hours a day instead of twenty-four. I am an impassioned reader of newspapers. I read five English and two French dailies, and the news-agents alone know how many weeklies, regularly. I am obliged to mention this personal fact lest I should be accused of a prejudice against newspapers when I say that I object to the reading of newspapers in the morning train. Newspapers are produced with rapidity, to be read with rapidity. (...)The idea of devoting to them thirty or forty consecutive minutes of wonderful solitude (for nowhere can one more perfectly immerse one's self in one's self than in a compartment full of silent, withdrawn, smoking males) is to me repugnant. I cannot possibly allow you to scatter priceless pearls of time with such Oriental lavishness. You are not the Shah of time. Let me respectfully remind you that you have no more time than I have. 

I fit perfectly into the description of a person who acts as if they had all the time in the world, though I do I try to change constantly. 

The only thing the book advises I failed putting in practice is to study and focus on one subject. I really wished I could read about one area only. I guess in this respect I'm a bit like Dickie Greenleaf from The Talented Mr. Ripley.

Byt the way, this book is available online on Project Guttenberg and Librivox (audiobook).

Do you struggle to find time for reading and studying? Can you focus on only one subject?

Image source

"Architecture has for its first duty, in this period of renewal, that of bringing about a revision of values, a revision of the constituent elements of the house." - Le Corbusier

I don't know why but I have this interest on Bauhaus architecture. Maybe it's because the Bauhaus is not only architecture it's also social engineering. More precisely, as the book Living Machines - Bauhaus Architecture as sexual ideology by E. Michael Jones puts it, Bauhaus "embodied a new way of living in conscious revolution against traditional values".1

This book has a very interesting and reader friendly structure: it alternates between one chapter concerning  Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius' life and ideas and a chapter examining the buildings with the Bauhaus style. The conclusion is that all these buildings brought more misery than functionality to their residents. 

People living in different places like the Projects in Chicago, worker's houses in Poland or students dorms in Harvard University all experienced similar problems. A sense of isolation, imprisonment, despair and godlessness is produced by modern architecture. Not to mention problems such as alcoholism, drug abuse, violence and the destruction of families.

The same consequences happening to people in such different cities allows no space for doubts: it was intentional, it was social engineering.

Gropius was using architecture as a means for a cultural revolution. He wanted - in his own words - " to take part in a new community which is going to create the new Man in a new environment". 2

When someone starts talking about creating a new man - beware.

What do you think of the Bauhaus style of architecture? Do you see influences of it in your own city?

Image via Wikipedia

1 and 2: Jones, Living Machines, p. 82

PS: If you're interested in this subject, I also recommend Architecture of the Absurd by John Silber.

I have some poetry books lying around which I just can't finish reading. I usually put novels on a deadline: x number of pages per day. I can't do that with poetry. Or can I? (cue evil smile and raised brow) No, I can't. We can't read poetry as we read prose.

So, I set the poetry aside and began reading Practical Criticism by I. A. Richards instead. It has been an enormous help. Richards is considered the father of New Criticism, so his book is all about close reading.

He begins the book as an experiment. He gave his students a poem without any further information - they didn't know the author, the date, nothing. This meant the poem could have been written by Shakespeare or by a four year old. 

He took students' analysis and used it to help us effectively analyse a poem. In case you are wondering, the major difficulties he pinpoints are:

1) The meaning of the poem

2) The sounds and rhythm of the poem

3) The images that are (or that are not) in the poem

4) Your own personal experiences - they cannot determine if a poem is good or not

5) Stock responses

6) Sentimentality

7) Inhibition

8) Doctrinal adhesion

9) Paying  too much attention to technical details

10) Prior demands made upon poetry as a result of theories on criticism

Keeping all of these items in mind seems like a good way to start tackling poetry. However, I don't see myself finishing all those poetry books any time soon. No wonder poetry books are not usually best sellers.

Image via My Imaginary Brooklyn

How do you read poetry? Can you finish a whole book on poetry or you concentrate only in a few poems at a time?

I just remembered I never got around to writing about Persuasion by Jane Austen. I recently finished reading all her books and that makes me happy and sad at the same time. Happy because they are all amazing books and sad because there are no more Austen novels to read. Maybe it's time to start re-reading them.

I recommend reading Persuasion after Sense and Sensibility since they're a bit similar in tone. The plot is Austean, as always: pride - not individual pride as personified by Mr. Darcy, but family pride - is again a key element of the plot. As I've mentioned before, Mr. Darcy's pride in Pride and Prejudice is of a palatable kind (Lizzy and us learn to love and forgive him). The pride showed in Persuasion is much more realistic, ugly and unpleasant.

Funny how many people say they dislike Mr. Darcy in the beginning of the book. Wait till you get to know Anne's family.

Her father and two sisters are utterly despicable. Her father's vanity and superficiality at an old age are just pathetic and sad. I visualize Sir Walter as the precursor of our metrosexuals, which means that, in my head, he looked like George Clooney.

Anne's family, people full of themselves, convinced her not to marry the man she loves, Frederick Wentworth, because he is poor and a nobody. Fast forward eight years, Anne is an old maid at twenty seven and Frederik is the successful and wealthy Captain Wentworth. And he is back in town, willing to marry. That is, to marry anyone who is not Anne.

There's not one Jane Austen novel who is not incredibly practical and educational. For those who didn't like Mansfield Park's heroin, Fanny Price, you will find Anne just as virtuous but much more heroic and stronger.

What Persuasion taught me is that virtue prevails. Anne has always been a virtuous and cautious person and this is more important than being vain or proud. Mrs. Smith, Anne's old friend, moved me so much. She wasn't always virtuous, she was a bit shallow and careless in the past (her husband managed to impoverish them both). Now, despite being old, crippled, poor and with no connections she is still joyful and she helps others who are poorer than her.

Moreover, in Persuasion you can see the difference between Austen novels and our modern romantic comedies. Most romantic comedies act as escapism for women. 

Austen novels, though they can be used as escapism if you want to, always teach you something through the characters and their actions. As a matter of fact, they teach you a lot about extremely important things. Rom-coms, on the other hand, don't.

Take Bridget Jones's Diary, for example. This movie is loosely based in Pride and Prejudice. But Bridget is neither smart not virtuous. She is - something Lizzy or any other Austen heroin is not - neurotic. See how Lizzy or Elinor never lose control of the situation. And notice how in almost every scene Bridget does - much to our amusement.

My point is: Austen tells us "take it easy, think it through and this will repay you." Bridget says: "sleep with a cute scumbag and act crazy 24/7 - you will be irresistible even to women!"

I made this comparison (Austen novels X modern rom-coms) when talking about Persuasion because it offers a device which has been explored ad nauseam by romantic comedies: the idea that "he will come back".

The difference is that Persuasion talks about the importance of making our own choices and, especially, making wise choices. Otherwise, learn how to live with the choices you made.

Anne didn't spend the past eight years living across the hall from Wentworth jeopardizing his relationships. She didn't have the certainty that, just like that, he would come crawling back to her. Many movies and Tv shows give this idea to women and not only is this escapism but it also makes them live in another reality. Unlike Anne, they won't move on.

The other day I was cleaning my book shelf, sorting through all the titles, cleaning the books, setting aside the ones that were too old and needed to be restored.

I'm posting one day in advance of my regular schedule in order to participate on the weekly meme Top Ten Tuesday hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week's topic is "freebie" so I chose childhood favorites.

As a matter of fact, I still own all of the books in the list so that means they are still interesting for adults. Here are my top 10 childhood (and current!) favorites:

Robin Hood by Louis Rhead: I can't remember how many times I've read this. I took out my old copy to see if I found any interesting notes on the margins, but I could only find passages underlined. Almost all of them are character descriptions. Maybe I had a bad memory as a child.

Alice's adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll: I was a bit of an escapist as a child, so Alice's entrance in a misterious, scary and crazy world was right up little Paula's alley. The caterpillar was one of my favorite characters.

InkHeart by Cornelia Funke: the first book of this trilogy was released in 2003, so you can guess I discovered it as an adult. But I'm not ashamed of it. I mean, there's a book binder who can bring characters to life when he reads a book out loud, there's a story within a story, an incredibly smart villain and the movie adaptation has Brendan Fraser in it - how could I not like that? How could anyone not like that?

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: A must read. So many magic lines!

Marcovaldo or the seasons in the city by Italo Calvino: I had to read two of Italo Calvino's books for school, but they aren't exactly children's books. Somehow I've never read any books by this Italian author as an adult so his books are stuck as a part of my childhood.

Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Waterson: I know these are comic strips and not a book per se, but boy was I crazy about Calvin. I used to cut the comic strips out of the Sunday newspaper and collect them. I thought I was really similar to Calvin which means I must have given my parents a lot of trouble.

Tistou of the green thumbs by Maurice Druon:  Many people compare this book with The Little Prince and I agree that both are very poetical and delicate. It tells the story of a sensitive boy who could grow plants just by touching the ground with his finger. He will go on to try to help others live a more beautiful life.

The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter: I won't lie - I discovered Beatrix Potter's works as an adult through Renée Zellweger's movie. I became enchanted by her life, her books, her sweet characters and drawings.

The Yellow Bag by Lygia Bojunga: Unfortunately not even the Spanish translation of this book is available at Amazon. I hate recommending books people can get at, but I had to include at least one Brazilian book here! This book tells the story of Raquel, a girl who puts her unfulfilled wishes into a yellow bag: her desire of being born a boy, of being an adult and a writer. One day the novel she wrote becomes true and one of the characters of her story - a rooster  - appears inside her bag. This book reflects so much of my childhood:   I also had this bag where I kept a souvenir from each family member.

The Paul Street Boys by Ferenc Molnar: I read this book when I was in 6th grade and everybody in my class was crazy about the story. It's about a bunch of boys who need to defend their playground from another group of boys who want to take it from them. 

It was a great experience remembering all these amazing stories while I wrote this post. I'd love to hear what your childhood favorites are!

Images via 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.