Re-re-reblog

I shan't write a proper blog post because the universe might just implode, but Naja reblogged about my reblogging about her reblogging about my blog about graphic novels, and you can read it (that is, the first one in that list) here.

Sometimes when Naja talks about literature, I feel like she's plucked the thoughts right out of my brain and articulated them in ways I couldn't possibly. This is one of those times.

Reblogging

This is how awesome thinking comes about. Collaboration.

The fascinating, wonderful Naja linked to my previous post about graphic novels via Tumblr. I met Naja in the course of my English degree. She kept cropping up in my classes, in those delicious English classes about children's lit and fairy tales which felt like cheating because it wasn't work to study these things, not really, it was fun.

Anyway, here's something Naja says in her blog about my blog which, by the way, you can read right here:

Novels are only just a majority in my favourites collection, and sometimes I feel like a bad lit student for it, because I have such a short attention span and I much prefer WHAM POW PICTURES! to some weird snooty elite.

It's certainly not the most interesting thing she has to say (you really should read the whole blog) but I'm quoting it here because I relate to it. I have very little patience for long books, for wordy books, for overly literary books or for classics. I almost quit literature at uni after having to read Wuthering Heights in first semester, first year, but lucky for me I took a class on fantasy the following semester and fell back in love with books.

All this made me think about another blog I recently read, incidentally by Doc-in-Boots, the academic who runs all those classes on children's lit and fairy tales which Naja and I attended.

Graphic novels and 'the gang'

If you watch Australian TV, you may have noticed that Jennifer Byrne is suddenly everywhere (just this week she was a guest on both The 7pm Project and Talkin' 'Bout Your Generation). Sometimes I watch her First Tuesday Book Club, sometimes I don't. When I do, I usually find myself annoyed by the invariably literary nature of the books deemed worthy of the First Tuesday treatment, but I suppose one must make concessions for the fact that the audience of the show probably consists mostly of 'literature' readers.

A couple of weeks ago the ABC ran a special on Graphic Novels, presented by Jennifer Byrne. Why, I ask you? Why Jennifer Byrne? The woman may read a lot for her job, but this scarcely qualifies her to make informed comments on graphic novels. Her lack of grounding in the medium showed (to me, anyway), and much of the show seemed devoted to determining whether graphic novels have (or deserve) literary legitimacy. Which is somewhat beside the point. The audience that enjoys graphic novels knows that something doesn't have to meet the narrow definition of 'literature' to be good, to be worth reading, to be insightful and enjoyable and thought-provoking.

There was one part of the show I enjoyed- the part where the fabulous Eddie Campbell told it like it is. This is from the transcript:

JENNIFER BYRNE: I mean, this is part of - Sophie isn't the only one - there is talk of, finally, a focus on graphic novels as a serious form. Is it true or is it just...

EDDIE CAMPBELL: That's just what I hear. I hear that we've finally been accepted by the culture at large but at the same time, we still get... If this was true, I would be invited here... I'd be invited on shows for being an interesting personality but we still get invited everywhere as a gang.

JENNIFER BYRNE: The gang of...?

EDDIE CAMPBELL: We'll do something different this week. Get me a gang of graphic novelists.

Of course, he was right. The smugness of the First Tuesday attitude shows in the fact that graphic novels aren't considered worthy texts for the book club, and need to be presented in a separate 'special'.

You can view the special or read the transcript here.

Home Love

I have been living in my new place for four months now, and I still absolutely love it. Last week, I put Megan Morton's Home Love on my coffee table (I rotate my coffee table books about once a week) and, upon flicking through, realised how much of my inspiration for decoration came from this book.

It's a beautiful book, full of decoration and furnishing ideas which are practical enough to actually use. Here are a few snapshots of ways I used Megan Morton's ideas:

A feature wall of handbags in my bedroom, pictures hung with the edges touching, and on-display shelving for the kitchen. Another idea I'll be sure to use next month is hanging Christmas baubles from a chandeleir. I just happen to have a chandeleir in the centre of my house, and I think it will look quite festive and lovely!

Of course, my place isn't quite as polished as any of the beautiful homes photographed in Home Love, but that's the beauty of it. The ideas translate, they can be used in ordinary homes.

View on fishpond:

The fading art of readership

Laura Miller writes here about why we should make less fuss about writers and more about readers. Readers, she says, are an endangered species. Here's a quote for good measure:

Yet while there's no shortage of good novels out there, there is a shortage of readers for these books. Even authors who achieve ... publication by a major house will, for the most part, soon learn this dispiriting truth: Hardly anyone will read their books and next to no one will buy them.

On a somewhat related point, the Honours thesis I wrote this year had quite a bit to say about reading practices. In the course of my everyday conversations ("Hey Christina, how's the thesis going?" "Great! I'm looking at readership practices at the moment and [some unbelievably boring and complex philosophical aspect] is fascinating!") I was astonished to discover that most people take readership for granted. Reading is considered the most passive activity in the writing-editing-producing-reading process. It's just something that happens to people that sit down with a book.

Over the course of the year, I became a passionate supporter of the sophisticated reader. I don't mean that some people get lots out of a book because they have the knack for mining literature for little bits of gold. I mean that reading, any instance of reading, is an incredibly complex, sophisticated exercise in using one's imagination, interpreting language use, searching for cultural cues and negotiating author/reader authority.