Hello!
Poor, neglected blog! When I redesigned volvita.com I had wonderful visions of a little literary home for myself on the web. Then grad school started taking up all my free time, as it likes to do, and I didn't have time for leisure reading or writing. Hence, no updates to this blog or to the site.
Now, however, the semester is over, and I don't even have work to fill up my days, as I've been knocked on my ass by a cold. Since I can take no more of the Rosie O'Donnell/Donald Trump coverage, I thought this would be an opportune time give this blog some attention.
The past few days I've been reading On Beauty by Zadie Smith. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it yet, even though I'm on page 220. It's well-written and deals with race, class, and gender, and for that I like it. I think maybe I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the Kiki/Howard relationship; Howard doesn't really seem to gel with the rest of his family. Which of course is part of the point, but it makes it hard to consider him as part of the narrative.
That aside, I really loved the following passage. Neil and I were talking about this very thing last night as it relates to the possibility of us having kids:
This was why Kiki had dreaded having girls: she knew she wouldn't be able to protect them from self-disgust. To that end she had tried banning television in the early years, and never had a lipstick or a woman's magazine crossed the threshold of the Belsey home to Kiki's knowledge, but these and other precautionary measures had made no difference. It was in the air, or so it seemed to Kiki, this hatred of women and their bodies -- it seeped in with every draught in the house; people brought it home on their shoes, they breathed it in off their newspapers. There was no way to control it (197-198).
Zadie Smith is a woman after my own heart!
One of the reasons I picked this book up is that this past semester I did a research proposal dealing with chick lit versus so-called literary fiction by women. Zadie Smith was listed by Elizabeth Merrick (I think) as one of the members of a current "golden age" of women writers. The whole process of writing the research proposal made me want to sit down and do nothing but read both chick lit and literary fiction by women. Forever. Could someone hire me to do that? Because the fact is, I like both. I'm a lot more likely to read literary fiction, but I also love chick lit queen Jennifer Weiner. I'm sure there is a lot of chick lit out there that is shit, people jumping on the Bridget Jones bandwagon just because they can, but Jennifer Weiner is a good writer. I hate that people dismiss her just because she falls under the broad chick lit label.
Anyway. I personally have not been feeling particularly writerly lately. Sometimes I miss it and sometimes I feel like it's not - and never was - a part of me. Maybe I'll at least pop out a poem or something over winter break. If so - and if it doesn't suck - I'll post it here.
Now, however, the semester is over, and I don't even have work to fill up my days, as I've been knocked on my ass by a cold. Since I can take no more of the Rosie O'Donnell/Donald Trump coverage, I thought this would be an opportune time give this blog some attention.
The past few days I've been reading On Beauty by Zadie Smith. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it yet, even though I'm on page 220. It's well-written and deals with race, class, and gender, and for that I like it. I think maybe I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the Kiki/Howard relationship; Howard doesn't really seem to gel with the rest of his family. Which of course is part of the point, but it makes it hard to consider him as part of the narrative.
That aside, I really loved the following passage. Neil and I were talking about this very thing last night as it relates to the possibility of us having kids:
This was why Kiki had dreaded having girls: she knew she wouldn't be able to protect them from self-disgust. To that end she had tried banning television in the early years, and never had a lipstick or a woman's magazine crossed the threshold of the Belsey home to Kiki's knowledge, but these and other precautionary measures had made no difference. It was in the air, or so it seemed to Kiki, this hatred of women and their bodies -- it seeped in with every draught in the house; people brought it home on their shoes, they breathed it in off their newspapers. There was no way to control it (197-198).
Zadie Smith is a woman after my own heart!
One of the reasons I picked this book up is that this past semester I did a research proposal dealing with chick lit versus so-called literary fiction by women. Zadie Smith was listed by Elizabeth Merrick (I think) as one of the members of a current "golden age" of women writers. The whole process of writing the research proposal made me want to sit down and do nothing but read both chick lit and literary fiction by women. Forever. Could someone hire me to do that? Because the fact is, I like both. I'm a lot more likely to read literary fiction, but I also love chick lit queen Jennifer Weiner. I'm sure there is a lot of chick lit out there that is shit, people jumping on the Bridget Jones bandwagon just because they can, but Jennifer Weiner is a good writer. I hate that people dismiss her just because she falls under the broad chick lit label.
Anyway. I personally have not been feeling particularly writerly lately. Sometimes I miss it and sometimes I feel like it's not - and never was - a part of me. Maybe I'll at least pop out a poem or something over winter break. If so - and if it doesn't suck - I'll post it here.
