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Wednesday Strange Changes
Jan. 13th, 2016 11:57 amArchived from Livejournal
What I've Finished Reading
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. It took only about an hour to read (it's a graphic novel) and was absolutely worth revisiting. An understated memoir about growing up in Iran in the early 1980s, as a terrifying fundamentalist regime takes over.
What I'm Reading Now
Titus Groan is almost over -- well, there are about a hundred pages left. Gormenghast is coming apart at the seams, and leaking some vile fluids along the way, but Gormenghast couldn't ever have done anything but come apart at the seams, so it's not like it's a surprise. I feel bad for Fuchsia, almost the only character who seems really human, not stone or carved wood or billowing fungus -- for a little while, before Steerpike started his heartless social climb in earnest, I thought maybe they could be friends. Now there's no one -- just the nurse who doesn't understand anything but helpless love and the reckless wet nurse whose path won't ever cross hers anyway, and poor pompous Prunesquallor. Poor Fuchsia. I'm really enjoying this book and I'll be a little sorry when it's done. It's been a very strange, very pungent constant companion.
About Watching Television, I go back and forth -- not surprising, given that it's a book made of multiple essays by different people, but there's also a sameness to the essays. How many times can we learn that television programming in the 1980s reflects the anxieties and aspirations of Reaganite America? A lot, apparently! The essay on soap opera storytelling was predictable if mildly interesting, but the grumpy children's TV essay was a rollercoaster of discovery, and grumpy along lines that child!me would have appreciated (I really, really, really hated The Care Bears). Did you know that He-Man and the Masters of the Universe was developed by a toy company, and is essentially a commercial -- not in a sub-satirical derisive way, but literally and openly? Did you know that Gummy Bears (a then-ubiquitous jelly snack in the shape of bears) and the Rubik Cube had their own tie-in television shows? I didn't, but now I do! Actually, a lot of toy/show combinations were developed by toy companies. Strawberry Shortcake, whom I had a book about, was one, and so was Rainbow Brite and the intolerable Care Bears.
I don't know why the author is so fussed that "kids incorporate [this obvious garbage] into their fantasy life and fantasy play, into their desires and dreams"; I mean, what don't kids incorporate into their fantasy life? I like pop-culture criticism and I enjoyed this essay, but sometimes it seems as if Tom Engelhardt -- and all the writers in Watching Television so far -- feel they need to universalize in order to say something meaningful. So Engelhardt breaks out the Sloppy We of Cultural Zeitgeist, musing:
( A quoted passage, and some meandering. )
Those of you who grew up in or near the 80s: what cartoons do you remember, if any? What do you remember about them?
I'm trying to finish up the "leftover" books from last year before I move on to too many others, so a little more of Edmund Wilson from The Shores of Light: a beautiful description of a burlesque Antony and Cleopatra from 1924, a dull review of a dull book about Woodrow Wilson, and a terrific appreciation of Houdini written after his death.
Also! There's a Moby-Dick reading group happening over on Dreamwidth, so stop by if you want to talk about Moby-Dick! It's not too late to join in; this Friday's discussion is on Chapters 8-15, and the chapters are short! I've been enjoying meeting one of my favorite first-person narrators all over again.
"Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street and methodically knocking people's hats off -- then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can."
What I'm Going to Read Next
C. P. Snow's The Light and the Dark is still waiting in the wings, and so are a large number of Horrors of the Twentieth Century from my bookshelf.
What I've Finished Reading
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. It took only about an hour to read (it's a graphic novel) and was absolutely worth revisiting. An understated memoir about growing up in Iran in the early 1980s, as a terrifying fundamentalist regime takes over.
What I'm Reading Now
Titus Groan is almost over -- well, there are about a hundred pages left. Gormenghast is coming apart at the seams, and leaking some vile fluids along the way, but Gormenghast couldn't ever have done anything but come apart at the seams, so it's not like it's a surprise. I feel bad for Fuchsia, almost the only character who seems really human, not stone or carved wood or billowing fungus -- for a little while, before Steerpike started his heartless social climb in earnest, I thought maybe they could be friends. Now there's no one -- just the nurse who doesn't understand anything but helpless love and the reckless wet nurse whose path won't ever cross hers anyway, and poor pompous Prunesquallor. Poor Fuchsia. I'm really enjoying this book and I'll be a little sorry when it's done. It's been a very strange, very pungent constant companion.
About Watching Television, I go back and forth -- not surprising, given that it's a book made of multiple essays by different people, but there's also a sameness to the essays. How many times can we learn that television programming in the 1980s reflects the anxieties and aspirations of Reaganite America? A lot, apparently! The essay on soap opera storytelling was predictable if mildly interesting, but the grumpy children's TV essay was a rollercoaster of discovery, and grumpy along lines that child!me would have appreciated (I really, really, really hated The Care Bears). Did you know that He-Man and the Masters of the Universe was developed by a toy company, and is essentially a commercial -- not in a sub-satirical derisive way, but literally and openly? Did you know that Gummy Bears (a then-ubiquitous jelly snack in the shape of bears) and the Rubik Cube had their own tie-in television shows? I didn't, but now I do! Actually, a lot of toy/show combinations were developed by toy companies. Strawberry Shortcake, whom I had a book about, was one, and so was Rainbow Brite and the intolerable Care Bears.
I don't know why the author is so fussed that "kids incorporate [this obvious garbage] into their fantasy life and fantasy play, into their desires and dreams"; I mean, what don't kids incorporate into their fantasy life? I like pop-culture criticism and I enjoyed this essay, but sometimes it seems as if Tom Engelhardt -- and all the writers in Watching Television so far -- feel they need to universalize in order to say something meaningful. So Engelhardt breaks out the Sloppy We of Cultural Zeitgeist, musing:
( A quoted passage, and some meandering. )Those of you who grew up in or near the 80s: what cartoons do you remember, if any? What do you remember about them?
I'm trying to finish up the "leftover" books from last year before I move on to too many others, so a little more of Edmund Wilson from The Shores of Light: a beautiful description of a burlesque Antony and Cleopatra from 1924, a dull review of a dull book about Woodrow Wilson, and a terrific appreciation of Houdini written after his death.
Also! There's a Moby-Dick reading group happening over on Dreamwidth, so stop by if you want to talk about Moby-Dick! It's not too late to join in; this Friday's discussion is on Chapters 8-15, and the chapters are short! I've been enjoying meeting one of my favorite first-person narrators all over again.
"Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street and methodically knocking people's hats off -- then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can."
What I'm Going to Read Next
C. P. Snow's The Light and the Dark is still waiting in the wings, and so are a large number of Horrors of the Twentieth Century from my bookshelf.
