horrible procrastination

Yesterday as I was sitting in the library, not working on one of the five papers that is due in the next week, I wasted time with one of my favorite middle school past times: online quizzes!

I took "Which Literary Character Are You Most Attracted To?" and got Pip. (Yeah, I know...) After I finished taking it, it occurred to me that it is book related, and thus blog-able for this site, but I felt like I needed to stop wasting even more time.
But now I want to share the quiz I took yesterday, because it's infinitely better than the one I took just now.
So here is the one I got Pip for (sorry, guys, I guess you could take the quiz and describe yourself in a relationship if you want to see who you'd be...): Which Literary Character Are You Most Attracted to?

That quiz seems absolutely quality compared to the one I took a few minutes ago. I've just completed "The Literary Character Test" and received the following results:

Your result for The Literary Character Test...

Juliette

You are...

Souless, heartless and decadent, Juliette is a character from her self-titled book by the infamous (and sometimes boring) Marquis De Sade. This woman profits immensely though her debaucheries, killing husbands, lovers and others while indulging in the flesh of the willing and not-so-willing. She is crafty and evil- the total opposite of her sister, Justine.

From "Juliette" by the Marquis De Sade

Take The Literary Character Test at OkCupid

I'm pretty disappointed, and also confused by the result. It doesn't help that I've never read Juliette (or even heard of it, for that matter). I'm also always astounded by the spelling/grammatical errors in these online quizzes, especially when they're about literary characters.

At any rate... if anyone needs an almost certainly dorkier than how you already procrastinate way to procrastinate, I recommend these corny online quizzes.

pride & prejudice on twitter

The title of this post really says it all. I haven't read through this entire blog that presents Pride and Prejudice as a series of tweets, but what I've read so far is pretty funny.
http://madhattermommy.blogspot.com/2009/05/pride-and-twitterverse.html

I especially like this exchange between Bingley and Darcy in the first ball scene:

Bingley:
@Darcy I can hardly wait to dance with @JaneB. She is the most capital girl I have ever met. #loveat1stsight

Darcy:
@Bingley Any savage can dance. #proofofmysuperiority

Bingley:
@Darcy JaneB's sister, Lizzy is pretty. You could dance with her. It would be capital fun.

Darcy:
@Bingley She's tolerable, but she is not handsome enough to tempt me. Also: could you stop saying "capital" so much? #abovemypeers

there are some things we can never assign to oblivion, memories we can never rub away

I've been exploring some book blogs in hopes of finding one with posts I find interesting, and the Guardian Book Blogs offer some cool entries.

This post by Stephen Emms caught my eye because it's about a Japanese author I enjoy, Haruki Murakami:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/nov/27/falling-out-of-love-with-murakami.

Emms is basically suggesting that though he once loved Murakami's fantastical stories, he's now grown disinterested in the prolific writer. I'm a Murakami fan, but have read only three out of his massive 40+ collection of books. His writing (all in translation, of course, though it would be incredible to read them in Japanese) is strange and exquisite. Most of his novels feature parallel plots: the real world intersecting with a gloriously bizarre dream universe. I'm not a science fiction fan at all, and that's not how I would classify Murakami's writing - but it's not realistic like most of my preferred novels.

I understand Emms' complaints, and sort of agree with his statement below:

It's not the ever-modest Murakami's fault – his flight from Japan after the success of Norwegian Wood makes you wonder if he himself considers himself a little over-rated. It's just that his surreal tales about lost souls, with their inevitable choices between two different women, rather blur together.

The only thing is, I don't mind that his novels blur together in my head. Sure, it's embarrassing when I can't recollect if a particular plot point is from Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the Universe or (my favorite Murakami novel) Kafka on the Shore, but that doesn't mean I like Murakami's writing any less because of it. I tend to respect that writers perfect certain niches. If they're doing them well, I don't mind slight repetition of themes throughout their works. It's my choice to read a Murakami novel when I'm in the mood for one. He is incredible at painting unbelievable scenes of crazy alternate worlds that speak to the truth of humanity in moving terms. And when that's what I want to read, that's where I go.

It's not that Murakami's range is even that limited. The first novel I ever read of his was a realistic novel - Norwegian Wood - and, at age 15, I loved it for its explicit love scenes and adult treatment of romance and sex. Murakami's writing can be tough to wade through, but I think it's rewarding when you're in the mood for a mind-blowing challenge.

childcare

Earlier today in Barnes & Noble, after peeking through Zadie Smith's new essay collection, I noticed Lorrie Moore's new book A Gate at the Stairs and decided to read the beginning. By the end of the first paragraph, I knew I had read it somewhere before. It is such a peculiar feeling to read something that you know you've seen before, but not be able to place how you know it if it's your first time reading this particular work. I placed it soon enough, though. Moore's new novel is an expansion of a short story called "Childcare" that she published in The New Yorker this past July.

Having liked the story when I read it a few months ago, I'm now more interested than ever in reading the complete novel. It's always a strange sensation to know there's more to a story than has been presented as a complete work previously. Just a reminder of how fiction is really fictional, and can be added to in any way the writer wishes.

At the top of this post is story's cover photo published in the July 6, 2009 issue of The New Yorker. After all, the title art is the first thing we notice.

and then the music touched her, making her skin prickle and her throat hurt

I am home! Sitting in my light drenched family room, listening to my mother's Ipod blast over the spacious hardwood floors. I am playing Annie Lennox, music of my childhood permeating through my childhood home.

So it is Thanksgiving break, early for me, because I came home to attend a wedding that was just perfect on Saturday. And here I stay. Anyways, over college breaks, I try to do some reading for fun. As I've mentioned before, winter break is the time to tackle the long projects. After visiting my sitster's bookshelf yesterday, I'm now considering attempting Swann's Way this winter break, but I'm not sure how feasible that is yet.

At any rate, last week I picked up two short story collections at Carnegie to read this week. As soon as I got home I immediately started catching up on the months of missed magazines (an ongoing project, as I will probably resume Entertainment Weekly back-issue reading over lunch today), so it wasn't until last night in bed that I read the first of those stories.

The collection is called Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love, and though it's not as potentially corny as the title suggests, it definitely is light reading, though Lara Vapnyar is a talented writer. I've never succumbed to the pleasures of "chick-lit," but I do sometimes enjoy high quality fluff reading. Two of my favorite somewhat mindless reads are The Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing and Kissing in Manhattan. Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love is not as much fun as either of those two. But the first story I read did indeed contain many promising passages about the joys of vegetables. Which is why I chose this collection in the first place. I love food. And I love love.

While artistic attempts to combine the two powerful forces before have proved worse than uninspiring to me (see the unfortunate 2000 Penelope Cruz film "Woman on Top" for one example), I think that Vapnyar's collection has the potential to satiate my craving for fun, throwaway romantic and tasty reading this week. And what better week to read about food during. Thanksgiving is, after all, the most awesome food holiday of all time!

So I'll post again on my other collection of short stories soon... But now it is time to make lunch (reheating my mother's superb pasta carbonara with a side of broccoli rabe and a slice of banana cake for dessert).

it is the love that is the problem, people treat their lovers badly

More Zadie! My darling mother, knowing my affinity for Zadie Smith, was kind enough to forward me this NPR story about Smith's new book of essays: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=114173942&sc=emaf called Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays.

This new collection is exciting, because it's Smith's first major release that is not a novel. As a huge Lady Z fan, I'm nervous about her writing a book of essays. There is no doubt that I will read them. If anything, a book of personal essays about her various influences and how her upbringing with her father shaped her as a writer and a person should be more thrilling to me than a new novel because it allows a closer look at her life.

Even the interview filled me with appreciative exclamations as I was reading. "Oooooh, she's so smart" I kept alerting my roommate. It's true, though. Smith is exceptionally well-read. Here is an excerpt from the story that reveals her habits as a reader:

In "That Crafty Feeling," she confesses that, unlike novelists who avoid reading others' books while writing their own, "My writing desk is covered in open novels.I think of reading like a balanced diet; if your sentences are too baggy, too baroque, cut back on fatty Foster Wallace, say, and pick up Kafka as roughage."

Awhile ago one of the essays from this new book was published in The New Yorker. I was thrilled when I saw her name in that issue's table of contents, and reading about how her father's very British sense of humor impacted her taste was exciting. A whole book of those essays is bound to keep me enthralled.

I think Changing My Mind may have to be my winter break reading selection....

my favorite lepidopterist

Thanks to Maud Newton's blog, which I have to thank my professor for this class for recommending to me in the first place, I stumbled upon this really cool project:
http://observatory.designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=11597
21 designers were asked to create new versions new covers for all 21 of Vladimir Nabokov's novels. Called "The Specimen Box Project," because Nabokov was an avid butterfly collector, each book is presented in its own specimen box.
I love this because I'm a sucker for aesthetically pleasing copies of books I adore. Even though I know it's what is inside the cover that counts, I do think one day (when I'm an "adult" with spending money) I'd like to collect gorgeous copies of my most cherished books.
At any rate, looking at pictures of 18 of the 21 novels, I realize how much I need to read more Nabokov that isn't just Lolita - which isn't even pictured among the 18 shown.

My favorite new covers are The Enchanter, Glory, Pale Fire, but my very favorite is probably this one: