Merry Racist England

We started discussing Oroonoko in Brit Lit yesterday, and I was pretty annoyed by the time we got out. The instructor is somewhat of an Anglophile, and Brit Lit is her specialty, and she was so excited to teach this work; she claimed it was one of her absolute favorites to teach. My approach to this work is one of more dread than eager anticipation. I think the first time I read it it nearly gave me an axiety attack, what with the dismemberment and roasting of Oroonoko at the end. But what turns me off the book completely is how Behn describes Oroonoko in the first place. She basically suggests that Oroonoko is only African in skin color, and is European in every other physical aspect. He has European looks, speaks English and French; he is basically a white European aristocrat, in black face. I can't stand this point of view -- that he was a "great soul" due to his possession of Eurocentric ideals.

So I don't really like Behn. It is a real aggravating read for me from the start, and the finish is just as ludicrous. Our instructor started things off well enough, but the conversation turned when she moved on to the description of Oroonoko that I just mentioend. Several black girls in the class remarked that he seems really handsome, ohhing and ahhing about how "fine" he is. The instructor asks the class who they think could play the part of Oroonoko today, and the girls began to call out actors like Tyrese, and Tyson Beckford, and my hand shot up and I said, "I don't think anyone could play this role. This is a white person in blackface -- this is a made up person that doesn't exist..." Okay. While I might have some control of words on paper, I have limited control orally, and am often misunderstood. A black student remarked, right after my mini-outburst, that of course there are black people that look like this, implying that I was suggesting there are no black people who look European, or have European facial features, which was not my point all, but what can I do? The teacher is fostering this conversation, using Behn's time and ideals as a cover for glossing over the issue of race in Oroonoko.

All this has made me very wary of this class. I understand that we can focus on Behn's fierce royalism, her loyalty to royal ideals, but when Eurocentrism is not identified and demonized (at least by someone in the class), I have a hard time believing that there is any critical thinking going on. I used to think I was at least somewhat into English Literature, but the more I read it, the less I care, and the more I just want to focus on American Literature....forever! But I can't ignore Shakespeare, and I do like Virginia Woolf, and even the Bronte sisters. I'm just really shocked that I'm in what would be considered an ethnically diverse class, discussing things like Royalism, and the girls in the class are swooning over Oroonoko instead of punching Behn in the face for crapping on his African heritage. It's tough, I can't excuse it.

I just realized...

...that both charaters, Tom and Huck, play tricks on Jim. Huck's trick moves the story forward, while Tom's trick comes off as just a tangential aside. I see now how Jim's different reaction to the tricks says something. Not sure exactly what, yet, but this may be the beginning of a cool paper. Someone has got to have thought of this already.

Warning: Disney Ending Ahead

I never really went to Tom Sawyer's Island when I was a kid, mostly because there weren't any rides there. As a teenager, it proved a great place to play hide and go seek, as well as get some action in a dark cave. Other than that, I have consistently avoided Mark Twain, partly because I thought he wrote stories about gosh dang America, with saggy bottoms and toad catchin' contests, that is, stories of no real relevance to me.

I confess: Mark Twain schooled me.

And really, after today, I have to eat some of my words about the ponytail guy. He knows his stuff. He's quirky; okay, not my kind of quirky, but I can't hang it all on quirks. The discussion he led today about Huckleberry Finn blew my thoughts and ideas out of the water. Of course I did participate in class, and you know he WAS eyeing me like, yes, I know YOU must have something to say, front seat sitter and copious note taker, and the giving me the eye sitter. (And the eye being the eye of understanding, if you must know.) And every time I thought to bring up my idea, he said something amazing and I just didn't want to interrupt his flow, because it was so fascinating. I'm a surely humbled.

We read the passage in Huck Finn that has, I most certainly assume, become one of the more quoted passages of the book, concerning Jim and Huck. Huck plays a trick on Jim, and in the course, makes Jim feel ashamed for loving Huck. It's only a childish prank, but Jim's strong words rang out and went directly into my heart and hung there, like a dart, holding fast to me, and not giving up. What is it about us that we want to make the ones that love us feel foolish for doing so? Why do we try to hurt those that truly do care for us, and try to keep them at arms distance? We can do it with just as immature, nasty, and childish pranks as Huck's were, trying to turn love and affection and concern into a joke, where we have the upper hand. And, like Huck, we wonder why we are so awful lonesome.

So that really hit home. We didn't really discuss that in class; the discussion was centered on how these two characters grow, and there was a video we watched that defined literature as works that change us; by the time we finish them, we have grown in some way. I feel that in this respect, a close reading of Huckleberry Finn is very fine, and can achieve that change or growth in us as good as any other American Novel, maybe even better, because Clemens actually warns us not to take it too seriously, and not to throw too much stock into it. Although I initially sunk my teeth into Clemens's marvelous manuvering of satire, I ended up touched by his tenderness, and even if I don't end up writing about this author, I do feel like I've grown, and I thank him for that, and Huck, and Jim.

So excited about IDEAS and this only the second class session...

We at DH are starting American lit II off with Samuel L. Clemens's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. We are supposed to focus on things like the works view of racism, and/or if this view is offensive, look for elements of regionalism and realism, consider Huck as an American hero or antihero, consider the work a Bildungsroman, look for mythic patterns, the strange institution, the story's accessability, and finally class distinctions. This is the same guy who wants three 750 word essays from us. For the WHOLE semester. No word yet on MLA format.

So, I've been reading (having shamefully never read Clemens before...I know! And I consider myself a Faulkner devotee!) the work, looking for stuff (which I might add I never find anything on the first read for about 24 hours, after that things usually pop up like mushrooms. Yum.) I start thinking about the humor -- especially considering that this is a book with an adolescent hero, and something strikes me: why is this funny? Why is this book considered precious? Specifically why is it funny when Tom is explaining the rules of his gang, making the other boys sign their name in blood and vowing that dissention will result in death and the death of the guilty party's family, with Huck unable to even join the gang until he asserts that Mrs. Watson can be killed on his behalf if needs be. Ha. The line of business of this gang is "robbery and murder." This is funny. It made me laugh, certainly, and I'll admit in a gosh-gee-shucks-ma-and-pa kind of way. It's funny because when I think of little boys playing together I don't expect them to be "playing murderer," and the seeming contradiction in the idea of an innocent murderer, or a child murderer, well, it's kind of a basic premise for American horror -- that is, if it's not a joke. I imagine it is supposed to be satiric, with the desired effect a reaction of, oh that's terrible that little boys would play so violently, and then of course, it's like, wake up! America had practicially made a wondrous legend out of Jesse James...and then of course, the crimes of the Civil War in general.

All of this got me thinking about the horrifying/humorous principle that satire exempliefies. On the first read, it's funny -- these young kids out playing bandit, till one cries for his ma and they go home. Then, on the second read, after the initial smile, a faint alarm begins to go off. Why are these kids holding a secret meeting in the middle of the night, signing their allegiance inblood, and barely drawing the line at murdering women outrightly?! All this reminded me of Britney Spears. Yes, you read correctly. Her flashing her wares on getting out of cars makes the news and do you know what my first reaction is? Ha, ha! What a nerd! So silly. But by the third or forth time I've seen this story, I'm disturbed. At first the contrast of rich and beautiful with skanky and irresponsible in an oops kind of way is funny, and mostly who cares, but the more I think about it the worse it gets, I mean what do her actions mean? What do they reflect about me, the viewer, also a young woman...etc? I'm not sure if Britney intends to be satirical in her actions, but they do come off that way.

It's also fascinating to me that Clemens interrupts Huck's story to tell what happened to the slave that he and Tom messed with, Jim. While Jim is asleep under a tree when he is supposed to be protecting the house, Tom sneaks in to the house and takes three candles (which he leaves money for) and then when passing Jim, snoring away, reaches out and takes Jim's hat off and puts it on a limb high above Jim's head. When Jim wakes to this, the candles gone and his hat hanging up in the tree, Jim says that witches put him in a trance and rode him all over the world and hung his hat there as proof. Hmmm. Funny. But wait. This story gets so popular that black folk came from all round to hear the story or, get this, pay for a look at the nickel the witches had left for the candles. I got to thinking, why is this story here? What is it's purpose? Is Clemens trying to show that slaves were superstitious, and fell for anything, and would concoct outrageous stories in order to feel like they were an authority on something in their oppressed state? I couldn't believe that, so I came up with this: Clemens is trying to illustrate that slaves were asleep socially, and was possibly criticizing them for ever accepting that slavery was part of God's plan (therein lies the superstition blasted at them from anti-abolitionists), and that their outcome was out of their hands due to fate (also a superstition). Clemens is using the witch story to show that attempting to explain that which has a logical explanation, the placement of the hat, as a supernatural mystery, one in which the slave was the victim, was the kind of willful ignorance that had been learned by the middle aged slaves of 1840, and he is using this story to express his desire for slaves to wake up! And cease to accept slavery as a fate.

I'm thinking a major underlying theme of Clemens's work is, simply, wake up, America. So incredibly relevant, it blows my mind.

I left my heart...in Fullerton.

I'm so sappy. Seriously.

I forgot that my MW class at DH (Dominguez Hills for further reference) is American Lit II. I got to class about an hour early and was able to procure my parking permi, $80, my student ID, $5, and lunch, Subway, $5. But the quality of my English education at DH, priceless. The class itself is small, and the classroom is small and stuffy. I placed myself in the front row, of course, and waited to meet the man the psoters at ratemyprofessor.com called "sexist", a "woman hater", and "impossible". I don't really know why I go on ratemyproffesor anyway, seeing that I don't really have a lot of options in planning the next couple of years. I sort of have to take what I can get, when I can get it. The man, who I think is named, Giamotti, kind of like the actor, I think, strolled in, tall and wiry, mid fifties, with an 80's cotton turtleneck reaching for his too-high too-thin ponytail, cargo pants, and puffy hiking sneakers squeaking away accross the front of the room. He presented the syllabus from the college classroom website projected onto the screen, and in a short amount of time I learned that we were doing three papers of 750 words, and three in-class exams. No research, people. NO RESEARCH. But thanks for the training. I made myself proud by knowing all of the authors in the small pictures at the top of the webpage, Twain, Eliot, Faulkner, and Morrisson. I did you proud. We're using the same anthology that we used in Blythe's class, so I saved some dough in that department. The guy did earn some points by saying that Moby-Dick is the greatest American novel. Kudos. Maybe he will teach American Lit I and I will get to read my essay, which now that I have access to a University library, will get revised proper.

But I missed you. I wanted to telly you immediately afterward how superior you are! How much funnier, and more likeable! I'm already begining to think that the next two years won't be as hard as I thought. I hope American Lit II is going well for you, Joe.

A Hazy View

I've been reading A Room With a View, having always adored A Passage to India, and curious about this writer, who seems so in touch with the social universes of the British at large. Although removed by at least six generations from my Anglo-Saxon roots, I see some of myself in the ways of the British, but I fear mostly due to the human factor, and not much else in the way of genes. Language, however, is a great factor. How little I really know about the English language, and yet how much of my being I ascribe to it. I don't know if I approach like an artist, understanding on some deep level, out of grasp, or if I am lazy and just need to work more. Charles Olson, who wrote Call Me Ishmael was a poet, and his work of criticism is seen many times as a work of art. I think my work will tend to fall into that category. That is not to imagine that my works are or ever will be priceless, but they do and will take on that aspect of impact; I have always been a lover of feeling over thinking, but just barely.

A Room With a View is a little dizzying to me. I kind of feel like I did when I first tried to read Moby-Dick, ages ago. I can't quite get a grasp on where I am, or who's perspective I'm reading through, or what the point is. This I love, and hate. Whenever I feel like I don't get it, like the chaos is mounting to an avalanche of details, I suspect with gleeful interest that I will find something magical and mystical there. Forester does have these amazing lines. For instance, after a particularly chaotic scene in the novel where Lucy has received a kiss, and the group is going back to their hotel in carriages, a storm erupts and frightens Lucy, who is more than a little naive. Her chaperone, whom Lucy goes back and forth between despising and needing, squeezes her hand under a blanket. Forester offers this line, "At time our need for a sympathetic gesture is so great that we care not what exactly it signifies or how much we may have to pay for it afterwards." Instantly, I am hooked. This line, so carefully nonchalant, but heavy, heavy with suggestion, makes thrashing through the dizzying scenes seem like a race of endurance with enlightenment or even the small whisper of intimate wisdom, or a small sublime secret traced onto the back of your neck, the fleeting and ultimate reward.

Sentences do this to me.

The First Encounter

This morning I had my first taste of Dominguez Hills, and I must say, not too shabby. But sort of shabby.

I met with my advisor at around eight in the morning, and he was tolerably helpful. So far so good, although as part of my upper division general ed requirements I have to take ONE more science class. Eeeesh. The guy was kind of strange, but nice, like he'd once been an enthusiastic young mind, and then with just the right amount of disillusionment and florescent lighting, became a grey-hued man with a million pictures in his dingy office of his nephew and son, all baby pictures printed out on low quality picture paper with balloon captions saying things like, "Hi dad!" and "Aren't I the cutest?"

I felt bad, because the English offices looked even dingier than at Fullerton. It is an early assessment, but the vibe was also not as good as Full. Here's some news:

I could go back to Fullerton one day a week and get my AA in English. I'd prob take Ison's drama class. It would mean that sucky commute again, and I would have to go back and forth between classes, but ending my time at FC with John (where it all began!), and graduating, would be great. Since I'm getting a not-so-stellar rap by attending the not so awesome Dominguez Hills, having the AA from Fullerton would prob be in my favor. And I get to go to commencement, which means that I get to say goodbye with some panache.

That's all the news for now. I got myself a Cal State Dominguez cling for my car. Go Toros.