We’ve moved (did no one tell you?)

I finally decided that WordPress is not worth my time. It is out of sight and harmful to my muse so, goodbye, WP-Admin. It’s been… fine.

GO HERE FOR MORE ADVENTUROUS ADVENTURES.

We’ve moved

I finally decided that WordPress is not worth my time. It is out of sight and harmful to my muse so, goodbye, WP-Admin. It’s been… fine.

GO HERE FOR MORE ADVENTUROUS ADVENTURES:http://girlmeetsliterature.blogspot.com/

I don’t thrive on the drama

Oh Mark Twain (that’s not even your real name, is it?), somehow when I read your book, I feel as if you are insulting my intelligence. Is that your intent? Are you trying to prove how ridiculously uninitiated I am? Because it’s already been documented.

I’m not sure why I feel condescended to while reading this book. I’d like to use that as my excuse for being so slow in reading it but I’m pretty sure that’d be a lie. I’m liking Huckleberry Finn of which I’ve only read 135 pages but shhh-we’ll-get-to-that later. Somehow, though, I’m not as far as I should be.

Any why is that, by the way? Why can’t I stick to my number of pages a day schedule and finish on time? Why do I start late and procrastinate later until it’s July 30th* and I have 145 pages to read in less than 48 hours?

Remember the part in She’s Just Not That Into You where the main guy who seems like a Justin tells her that girls thrive on drama and that’s why we don’t pay phone bills until the last minute? That generally did not make sense to me. Do you think I enjoy this? Do you think I like having to spend most of my day reading so I can finish this self imposed goal on time? Don’t answer that if the answer you’re thinking starts with the letter ‘y’.

Because I don’t enjoy it. Maybe a little but mostly not. I’m a busy person. I have novels to write and tank tops to knit and early episodes of Smallville to watch, not to mention blogs to write and read and YouTube videos to view… (as an afterthought there’s also school, supposedly). I do not have eight hours on the last day of every month to finish listening to Mark Twain make supposed jokes that I don’t even understand until I read their endnotes and realize, ‘Oh that’s ironic commentary on drying your socks on the west side of your house.’**

And yet my tomorrow is going to be filled with just that. Only maybe not eight hours. That’s dramatic hyperbole.

*Happy Birthday, Neville.

**Footnote for the Alexs to my Mark Twain: this is a joke. I’m pretty sure Mark never had a comment on that.

Ridiculously behind

What does it say about me that I’m consistently behind on every book I read for this blog? Is there anyone that wants to analyze this and get back to me? Or maybe I don’t want to know. The only book that I actually finished reading a week before the end of the month was A Little Princess and that was the only children’s book I’ve read.

And to complete this blog so it doesn’t look like a grand, rhetorical question about my psyche, I will add that I’m mostly enjoying Huckleberry Finn, despite the procrastination. The weird thing is that I like to read before bed but lately that’s been hard. I just can’t keep my eyes open after 11pm. I suppose this could be seen as a good, healthy thing, but I am behind on my reading.

Note to self: renew efforts!

Princesstry

I loved this book. A Little Princess, I mean or in case you forgot. I almost did. I know we’re eleven days into July and I’m like an absent, neglectful parent of this blog and I’d feel sorry for that but I don’t see a point to feeling sorry. There’s a lot going on and not to say that this isn’t important (it is!) but it’s not as high up on the list as you might like to believe.

My foot is asleep.

Reading A Little Princess (on one of my friends’ list of books, by the by) was the first time in a long time that I read a children’s’ book that didn’t make me feel like a child. Incidentally, I do not read a large amount of children’s books but this one brought back something of a Harry Potter feeling. I love coming across an author who doesn’t dumb things down for us young ‘uns. I really enjoyed A Little Princess and not just because I admired Sara’s composure or because of the rounded cast of characters. It was just a good story. Somewhat, anticlimactic at the end, but I dealt with it. Don’t we all wish we were the strong, mature type who overcame poverty and adversity and imagined ourselves a better present and had it all turn out lovely in the end?

When you think about it, being a princess is freaking hard. I mean, you’ve got to be cordial and polite to everyone, no matter who idiotic or vindictive they are. Needless to say, I am filled with respect for Sara. She’s going on my list of heroes. It’s not a long list but she’s on it. I’ve actually been trying to channel her energy. It’s not really working but I think about it sometimes. What Would Sara Do? As I said, being a princess is hard. At least we all have something to aspire to.

A Little Princess is an amazing novel. It’s inspiring and well written and not the least bit patronizing. Thank you Frances Hodgson Burnett for writing something meaningful intended for children. It’s means a lot.

Next book is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. I’ve heard only good things about Mark Twain and I shall not be disappointed. In theory.

Absences and Dramatic Returns

Hi. Remember me? Is that a gimmicky thing to say? Sorry if you agree with me that it is. I’m afraid I don’t have any other techniques for jumping over the awkward gap left by my complete neglect of this blog and you, my mysterious reader. I won’t be pretentious enough to add a plural to that. There *has* to be at least one of you. Hi Mom.

Since we last spoke I have done a few things but I will narrow it down to things pertaining to this blog:

1. I drove a car on the road for the first time.
2. Oh? That doesn’t pertain to this blog. Oops.
3. I did not finish reading Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens.
4. I decided to read either A Little Princess or The Bell Jar.
5. I avoided posting anything at all.
6. I read A Little Princess.
7. I decided to write a blog and end the suspense.

And here we are. How was your month?

I will post my review sometime between now and June 30th. For now, I will simply say that I adored it.

*sigh* *awkward giggle* *puts on ‘here goes’ face*

I’m not going to finish Great Expectations this month. There, I said it.

I’m ceasing the efforts which, I will admit, were pitiful at best but I’m okay with that. I read about 100 pages in these past 26 days and though, yes, that is sad, I will not be conquering the remaining 370 in the next 5 days. It’s not a question about whether I could. I’m positive that I could if I wanted to. But I don’t want to. This whole “life” thing is obstructing my Great Expectations time and I’m tired of being disappointed in myself. Also, Great Expectations isn’t the gripping narrative that could have me under the covers at 1am reading by the light of my iPod. I wish it was but I’m barely slogging through.

So I’ll have to finish it some other time. As for next month, I will have to consult the list to decide what comes next. I will let you know.

Great Expectations… please don’t have them

I wanted to inform all of you (or both of you, at least) that May’s classic is Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens. I’m not sure why I picked this one but I felt it was about time to throw Dickens into the mix and because I was spoiled on the end of A Tale of Two Cities I don’t know if I’ll ever want to read it. This means that Great Expectations wins by default as it is the only other Dickens book on my shelf.

I think we’ve all heard a lot about the guy and so I’m rather excited to get started. Also there’s the potential of this conversation…

“Oh, you’re reading Great Expectations? Is that for school?”

“No, I’m just reading it.”

“Ooooh, that’s neat.”

In my head, “Yeah, that’s right, I *am* this deep.”

Maybe I’m a bit of a literature egomaniac, even if I don’t really have the credentials to be one. Yet. I cannot express how much I love being in on a literature reference. It’s the best feeling, especially when no one else gets it.

Now what does that say about me as a person?

Persuasion explained: Twilight style

I know I just posted a blog and everything and that’s great, but then I was thinking… (scary, I do that sometimes)… what do the people want? And is it sad that the answer I came up with is Twilight?

I was thinking the other day (again with the thinking, aaah!) about The Breakfast Club and how it supposedly defined/described an era. Then I was thinking about what movie would describe my teenage era and you know the sad thought that popped into my mind? I think you can guess. Starts with ‘Twi’ ends with ‘t’. No, not Twit, Twilight. And that made me a little upset. But hey, maybe we’ll continue trashing the planet so by the time we’re old and people are trying to define us, they won’t need to because we’ll all be dead. That’s a cheery thought.

Anyway, I thought I would give a shot at describing Persuasion’s plot, again, only this time trying, unsuccessfully I foresee, to draw parallels to Twilight. I hope this entertains at least me.

In Twilight’s version of Persuasion, Anne is Edward and Captain Wentworth is Bella. Jacob represents all of Bella’s other options (Louisa Musgrove). At the end of Twilight, Bella/Wentworth declare their undying love and wish to spend eternity with Edward/Anne. In the beginning of New Moon, Bella/Wentworth gets rejected. Burn.

(this is starting to confuse me already)

The end of New Moon is where Persuasions starts, however. Edward and Bella are reunited and it should normally be awkward. For Anne and Wentworth, it is. For Edward and Bella, they fight it and pretend everything is completely normal and one of them didn’t totally crush the other, basically turning them into a zombie for half a year. Meanwhile Bella/Wentworth have been toying with their options. Hey, there’s always Jacob/Louisa, right? Watching all of this, Edward/Anne are kind of tied up with all the pining they’ve been doing. Watching from afar, stalking, listening in on conversations, it gets tiring. But then, suddenly, all is clear both parties realize that they other has not forgotten loving them and they live happily ever after. Jacob/Louisa get together with the couple’s baby and… wait. No, that’s a bit to disturbing for Jane Austen. Scratch that romantic relationship with a baby part.

Obviously, Anne and Wentworth are the normal ones here. And I didn’t even add in that Edward/Anne are vampires.

It’s kind of been a month but… Persuasion wrap-up!

Perhaps I should have written this a little bit closer to when I actually finished the book. As it is, I left it and it’s been about two weeks since I finished the book and it may be a little stagnant in my mind. But I’ll start with a brief summary.

Eight years before the story starts, Frederick Wentworth* and Anne Wentworth fall in love. They were going to get married but Anne is convinced by a friend that it’s a bad idea because Wentworth is of little social consequence, being in the navy, and so she breaks it off. And that’s all very sad but if you know Jane Austen, you know it’s all going to work out in the end. So now, eight years later, Anne’s family is in a bad financial state (common Jane Austen protag issue) and Wentworth has come back to England as a super awesome captain. Anne is also on the old side (twenty-seven -gasp-) and her prospects are looking grim.

They get thrown together, both staying in the vicinity of the Musgrove family and it appears that Captain Fred is over Anne because he seems to be into these other girls while, secretly, he’s pining over Anne while at the same time harbouring hurt feelings since she, like, rejected him. That hurts. Imagine if Logan and Rory were thrown together eight years after the series finale of Gilmore Girls and you have the awkward quota that Anne and Wentworth feel.

Obviously she still loves him but she can’t *say* anything. Don’t be absurd. So gradually they both realize that the other is still possibly interested and, though it looks iffy at times, I never really questioned the end. I absolutely loved Wentworth’s note to Anne at the end but I guess I always was a fan of the written word.

Persuasion is definitely a favourite. With such a winning story of how love lasts (Jeez, did that sound corny) and such charming and redeeming main characters (unlike some books I’ve read *coughWutheringHeightscough*) obviously I had to love it. I suppose I’m just a Jane Austen fan, through and through, no matter what the Bronte sisters had to say about her. I would choose Darcy/Wentworth over Heathcliff/Rochester any day.

*you can call him Fred. Oh, Fred. *tear*