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andyleggett
14 May 2008 @ 10:05 pm
443: Go Read Medusa's in the Dark...  
So, I feel embarassed: it took [info]copperwise practically hitting me over the head to realize that I'd won first   third* place in this nifty little contest. The other two poems are really good, so worth a look. But it's nice to see that, in another "blind" contest, my poem still has enough street-smarts to rise through the crowd. Always makes *me* feel better about *my* writing...^_^

*Sub-conscious slip... I totally blame being distracted by my mad cursh, okay?!
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andyleggett
09 May 2008 @ 03:56 pm
441: *collapses*  

Can I just say how relieved I am to have finally gotten this out? I think I was just stressing out too much about it being perfect, because I know for a fact no one has ever written an academic essay on Garth Nix, at least, not to this extent. I'm very proud, no matter how rough it is, and hope to continue to write about his work. (That is, it's good for an English class, but I want to become an actual literary scholar here... I'm just not there yet...:-/)

***

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andyleggett
06 May 2008 @ 02:05 pm
437: Epiphany in Literary Analysis...  

"...what is a recurring theme in his [Garth Nix's] work—namely, the constant tension between naïveté and experiential knowledge, as seen through the psychological development of his characters, as they are forced to sacrifice their personal desires for the overall good of the society."

If you've read Sabriel or its sequels, Lirael and Abhorsen, you know exactly what I'm talking about... (And it's forming in the Keys to the Kingdom...)

Unfortunately, this may not be relevant to the argument of my current paper, but it's good to save for whenever I do the bigger one on Sabriel...

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andyleggett
18 March 2008 @ 10:33 pm
394: And This is Why We Translate...  
Lots of stuff going on the past few days... but I'm waiting for it all to pan out before I spill the beans.

Actually, I've spent most of the last two days labouring over this translation; my Italian is come-ci come-ca at best (only got to il passato prossimo), so I did this using both the excellent Word-Reference dictionary site and an archaic italian dictionary from 1611... and Grennan's helpfully literal translation. XP

(His is actually a fairly good translation, I just make different choices, and go for my own tone it seems. Methinks the boi dost improve as renderer of verse written in foreign tongues!...or something like that. XP)

Now to see if LJ will let me do parallel texts... *crosses self*

NON. Okay,

*
*
*
***

Comments are welcome, even if you don't know Italian... It's not that my translation is so loose, but I was trying to find layers, and equivocate something of Leopardi's music here. (Did I mention this was l"italiano nihilist suffering from domestic entrapment, romantic failure, and general misery and early death? Yeah, 1820's fer ya...)

Grennan's introduction helped illuminate things as well (not just his translation, but, yanno, the *theory*), and taking into account the supposed "impossibilities" of Leopardi... I think I might try line-breaks to smooth out his transitions? And though I don't stray as far from actual meaning as Grennan does, I do have the little quirks of twisting the language for double meanings, or basically anything that I thought was more in Leopardi's spirit.

Basically, does this sound like romantic poetry? Or at least, less emo and more gothic? Thanks! ^_^
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andyleggett
17 March 2008 @ 12:15 pm
393: This is Why You Read...XP  

Give me my sweater-vest,
put on my pocket-protector;
I have academic longings in me:
now no more the balm of Procrastinata's
solumny shall stem these fingers!

***

I have found my match in Geiger, who has read everything under the sun, I swear. I have an intense lust to just *read*, like, EVERYTHING. But, of course, I don't really have time to totally indulge, and I need to work on my work ethic anyway. So these things come gradually... (But do I get points for the Shakespeare? Even I have to admit he has his moments, and that is one of my favorites...)

Anywho, I'm trying to come up with the thesis for my Philosophy paper, and considering the subject for my longer paper in English. But I'll post about that later; this was mostly an excuse and explanation for the above. Don't say I never gave ya nothin'. ;P

**technically my Intro to Lit class is called "Why Read?"

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andyleggett
09 March 2008 @ 07:57 pm
383: Because I Promised...-  

Okay,

[info]jeremytblack, here's the story:

Fall of my sophomore year of high school (this would be in the months after my "suicide attempt"), I took Creative Writing; it was the first time it was offered, and I'd forgotten I'd been signed up for it actually, and because nobody reminded me, I didn't get to there until the second class. I wasn't sure what to expect, only that I'd heard the teacher would be cool, and I was excited, having spent much of the last miserable year pounding out that horrible poetry of mine.

The teacher was a very, very tall, bony woman with close-cropped black curls, and on that first day (for me) our assignment was to write a scene of some kind that was supposed to illustrate character. She read us a piece she'd done of the fly, and it blew me away.

The teacher's name? Eve Imagine.

 

 

Obviously, life-changing class and writerly growth and blah and blah. The basic point is that Eve is awesome. And though it took me forever to goad 'em out of her, she finally let me see her stories in full, and I've been in rabid love ever since. Of course, I don't envy Eve having to sometimes deal with my bumbling attempts at critique, but I like to think I've helped her improve these stories, and I defintely think she's an absolutely brilliant writer.

(In fact, my Emo post earlier today is ironically linked to her story "The Way a Woman Eats". Her book--"Body and Script"--is a loose story about recovering from such a plethora of fucked-up issues, starting with the aforementioned story which deals with her recovery from anorexia and bolemia, and culminating in "Heart Murmur", addressed to "Ms. Underwriter" in response to the letter denying her health insurance because she's had so many wacky health problems. In between, we have wonderful stories like "Housing a Foreign Object" about her I.U.D insertion, and the near-perfect "Fixer-Upper" which explores her relationship with her Punk-Adonis husband via their crumbling Victorian.

Then we have one of my favorites, "Shopping For Real," in which, after years of not really taking care of herself, she decides to splurge on fabulous clothes ("I can afford it... but do I really need it?"). And "Dad's Jew Fro", which is self-explanatory...)

Love, love, love the book. Too bad she won't let many other people see it. You can find "The Way a Woman Eats" online at the SN&R site, though, and a short piece she recently wrote about dragonflies won second place in their Flash Fiction contest.

Also, the lovely blog, http://postsweet.blogspot.com.

And that is my Eve-enly pimpage for the day!

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andyleggett
18 February 2008 @ 09:00 pm
361: Oh, and Did I Mention?  
FINALLY got all my mail today, only 'cause I demanded it, including the glorious package containing [info]matociquala's Dust and [info]cmpriest's Wings to teh Kingdom and Not Flesh Nor Feathers. Can't find Four and Twenty Blackbirds on my shelf sadly (must've got left back home somehow) so the trilogy is incomplete! ;_; Still--reading! ^_^

Yesterday I also read most of Samuel Roth's "Portnoy's Complaint". Jesus. Me and Geiger got to share a joke about liver and billboards over it in class, that the others didn't get. (I swear, that WHACKING OFF passage is a modern day classic; how this book didn't win the Pulitzer, I'll never know!)
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andyleggett
09 February 2008 @ 12:37 pm
338: THIS Happy...!  
So, got through my first two days of classes. Homework's not looking too hard so far. Switzer (my Intro to Ethics prof)  wasn't nearly as bad as advertised/dreaded. Kinda dry, but I like it straight-forward, and I think people are unrealistic in expecting *amazingly* dynamic professors all the time. I'm here for the knowledge, hopefully with as little bias as possible.

She's kinda funny though, not totally intentionally. She was wearing these crazy '60's pants and I was surprised by the size of her breasts. Her flowy blonde hair just completes the image of some elder Flower Child. She seems--not unwelcoming, but definitely not as if she's gonna hold your hand. I'm not sure how to put my finger on her personality yet.

I was also surprised how much of a head's up Philosophy in high school gave me--I actually answered the question about what discipline Philsophy is most like (Math), because of the logic part. Most of what and who she talked about was familiar to me, in a good way, and I'm excited. Maybe me get'sa A now?

Well, we'll see. The reading doesn't look too heavy, a few papers--she formed us into groups for outside discussions at the beginning of class, too. Oh, and the anthology for the class--she said we didn't have to get it; she'd scan it for us; and that if we did get it, get it somewhere besides the bookstore, for cheaper. Always awesome--but anyway, this anthology looks *amazing*. It's called something like a "Feminist and Multicultural Perspective of Western Philosophy" covering all the majors, from Plato to de Pizan to Martin Luther King Jr. Yay for Pizan!

We're starting with Mill, the Utilitarianist. Love Mill; a man after my own heart, as far as Ethics goes. I'll be reading that this weekend and we'll be working on it all next week.

Meanwhile, the Why Read? class--mm, I got the anthology for that (love these professors and only assigning one or two books!) is *amazing*. It has so much poetry I recognize from Bishop to Plath to Millay (actually, we're doing "What Lips My Lips Have Kissed" later on, says so in syllabus--so I should mention a certain song, eh, unwoman? ;P), and we're doing several plays out of it, like Ibsen's "A Doll's House". It also has a play recommended to me, called "Topdog/Underdog" (sp?) and an interesting play called "Metamorphoses". Y'know I like me some greek myths.

Screw Orpheus; Persephone's where it's at! That bitch ate the *whole* seed! XD

P.S. How happy am I that I could afford all the books I need this semester? How happy?
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andyleggett
01 February 2008 @ 04:13 pm
330: Carnival, by Elizabeth Bear  

So, seeing as I'm in the mood for reviewing things, I might as well finally get around to this...:P

This is the first book I've read of

[info]matociquala's, and I found it immensely satisfying. Granted, it wasn't what I was expecting, but this is a good thing, I think. Bear refuses to let herself get pegged by pegging herself. She knows what she is and what she's doing, and so does this book, and they don't try to be anything they're not.

I came into this book expecting something more overtly feminist. Oh, the feminist tones are there, obviously, as we are dealing with a supposedly 'feminist' society. But what makes both Bear and this book brilliant is that she portrays it, not as a utopia or a dystopia, but as what an actual society would be. That is, this is a society dominated by women, not one in which women and men are equal. It is important that what Bear is talking about is not men and women--but *people*. She's not saying men and/or women are bad, but that it is in society's nature to oppress, so what is seen in this book is neither a rallying cry or a warning, really, but a reflection of what already exists, or what we're going towards.

I also like her characters. This is not a coming-of-age story: these people are middle-aged, they've not just made mistakes, some of them have done very bad things. Their minds and their lives are a mess, as is the world they inhabit (one of nearly sociopathic paranoia). Though the ending may seem a bit neat, I think it leaves several things open and does a necessary thing, in that it offers hope, and shows that, not only did these characters have lives before this, but they will have them after. (Or deaths--either way).

All this to say, I was oddly satisfied with this book. Maybe that's because I feel Bear is a genius. Not the sort of genius who's in your face about it and her books are filled with ohmigod-that's-absolutely-brilliant things (like Toni Morrison does, say). It's in how not-obvious it is. Her very foundation is so literary. She does all those seemingly small but crucial things right: like characterization for one, and what she talks about within that, like POV, and what I think of as voice.

That is, this bitch can write. She doesn't need to be flashy about it, 'cause the skill is there, speaking for itself. Every sentence and paragraph just takes for granted that it's perfect--it's what's expected, right?

Or maybe I'm just absolutist, but anyway. Very, very satisfying for me, and this is rambly, and Dust gets here in about a week, so I'll be reading that soon...Yay! ^_^

(This was way more rambly than I intended; oh well!)

 

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andyleggett
27 January 2008 @ 09:43 pm
322: The Approaching Semester...  
I was just looking up the books I need for next semester via the college bookstore site. I am *ecstatic* that it looks like I'll have enough money to cover it. All financial aid working out and disbursing as it did for last semester, I should have an extra 200 or 300, which should be more than enough or just enough to cover it. It'll be amazingly satisfying to get all those books at once...

And if I can't use the money from the work-study checks extra to my tuition, I still have the 200 in cash, so I should be covered...

This semester, I am going to be absolutely studious and prove to myself that I can be the kind of student who can handle a double-major, and whose grades can match the amount I'm learning. ^_^ *That* is my new year's resolution. That, and to loose some more weight...:P

***

Meanwhile, this leaves me feeling so not guilty about using my giftcard to get three books from amazon. These books are, of course, [info]matociquala's newest, Dust, and [info]cmpriest's Wings to the Kingdom and Not Flesh Nor Feathers. As y'all know, I just finished Carnival, which was supremeley satisfying (review to come later), and Four and Twenty Blackbirds was one of this past summer's most highly anticipated and enjoyable reads for me. I'm mightily looking forward to the two sequels in this, I'm guessing, Not-a-Trilogy. :P

Not only are these two inestimable gals amazing Queens of LJ, but these books are actually ones I've been reading about as they wrote them, so that adds a delicious level of attachment to them already. And according to [info]copperwise, who isn't much into SF, Dust is the bomb. Of course, it also has elements of fantasy I hear, and I"m all about that...

Meanwhile, I need to *finally* finish a load of other books, as well. Aristotle's Poetics, The Poisonwood Bible, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Against Their Will: Men, Women and Rape... Basically, all the ones I borrowed from Michael. :P (Oh, and for AICH, I will be reading the Feminine Mystique. There's hope for this class taught by two guys after all...)

***

As an odd side-note, I was just looking at my amazon history, and it appears as if I have gotten one thing per year from them since 2003.

Whoa. Taking a look at this list should tell you a lot about my teenage years:

2003: Trickster's Choice, Tamora Pierce (love this book, and the sequel especially)
2004: Buffy the Vampire Slayer--the Complete Second Season (ooooh, shiny!)
2005: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (one of my favorites; "The Cave" is my favorite scene in the whole series)
2006: "Welcome Home," 'Til Tuesday (when I was getting all of Aimee Mann's albums, including 'Til Tuesday--her band in the '80's, which was equally awesome. ^_^)

Except, well, I guess none in 2007, for obvious reasons. :-/

At any rate, that's enough of bookie things... I need to do my reading for tomorrow (Latin American politics). It's only 10 pages, so I should be fine. See y'all on the flip side! ^_^
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