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.

Neil Gaiman in a Tardis - Esoteric much?

I couldn't resist sharing this, even though to properly get it you need to be a geek of four sorts: A Doctor Who geek, a Neil Gaiman geek, an internet geek and a philosophy geek.

Pretty clothes *sigh*

I love beautiful clothes, and I love beautiful books. So, naturally, I love beautiful books about beautiful clothes. I don't think I will ever quite understand why I adore clothing so much, but that doesn't stop me from trying. I think one of the reasons I read about style is because I'm attempting to understand why it's so important to me.

Two books I absolutely must have are released this week.

Dreaming of Chanel is a follow-on from Dreaming of Dior, which I blogged about here. It contains gorgeous fashion illustrations of vintage pieces. I could spend hours gawking at them.

A Life in Frocks, by Sydney Author Kelly Doust, is the most beautifully produced new release I have seen in years. The cover image below doesn't do it justice. Really. Every page is printed in two colours (black chapter text and red headers), with colour fashion illustrations scattered throughout (printed onto the page, not on separate plates). The paper has a beautiful texture. My favourite touch is that when you peek at the naked book beneath the dust jacket, you find colour illustrations of cute lingerie.

Kelly Doust writes:

Over the years clothes have comforted me, given me confidence, lured love interests, made me invisible, secured jobs, aged me and given back my youth. ... It's a testament to their immense power that clothes can be so many things.

If you know someone who loves clothes as much as I do, think about getting them one of these books for  Christmas.

View on fishpond: A Life in Frocks

All hallow's read

Neil Gaiman had an idea on his blog. Lots of people liked it and reblogged it, and it became A Thing.

Now I'm joining the bandwagon and encouraging you: give someone a scary book this Halloween. Because Neil's right. There aren't enough book-giving traditions.

There's even a website: allhallowsread.com

I'm going to start by giving this one to my nephew:

Literature and technology

The ill-fated matchmaking and meddling of Jane Austen's Emma Woodhouse, for example, was seamlessly updated to include cellphones in the 1995 movie "Clueless." Of course, an Emma transposed to 2010 would have a field day with Facebook, nudging acquaintances to friend each other and forming little groups like "People Who Have Heard Quite Enough in Praise of Jane Fairfax," to the dismay of Mr. Knightley.

Which classic literary characters would embrace modern technology? Read Laura Miller's musings on the topic here.

Collected thoughts

I have exactly  one week left of Honours...

In the meantime, here's a link to a recent interview of Neil Gaiman. One thing he said about comics caught my eye: "It is not a genre. It is simply a medium."


Meanwhile, I've been browsing through a book called Jane Austen: Antipodean Views when my brain can't handle any more study (and sometimes when it can) and was struck by the insight of Tim Flannery, which actually stands out amongst the writings of English Professors, teachers and celebrities:

One of the most significant evolutionary forces currently acting is sexual selection. Women are much more selective than men, and the sort of trade-offs and carefully calculated estimations of worth of men in various capacities elucidated by Austen is, in some ways, as fine an evolutionary study as Darwin's, though it is admittedly only a single-species perspective.

Austen also investigates that eternal battleground between the mind and the genes that is humanity's unique affliction. Because the choices women are forced to make in this area are so much more onerous than men's, Austen's insights are piquant indeed.

Unfortunately I can't link you to the book. I believe it's out of print.


Something else that's been in my procrastinatory thoughts is how my concept of having 'read a book' is changing as a result of my studies. I used to think that to have read a book I had to begin at page one and read it all the way through. While that still applies to fiction, I just don't think that way about non-fiction anymore. I can say, without a guilty conscience, that I have 'read' a non-fiction book as long as I feel I've read all the interesting and relevant bits.

Don't tell me I'm cheating. I am maximising my time.