Upward, Onward, Ho!

I signed up for The Journey too. Lots of freedom t...

2011-03-23T08:16:32.188-04:00

I signed up for The Journey too. Lots of freedom to choose with it.

I know the feeling. I'm almost afraid to visi...

2011-03-22T20:12:18.098-04:00

I know the feeling. I'm almost afraid to visit the challenge blogs because I end up leaving with ideas of books I want to read! Almost.. :)

Carl: It's great to hear good things about the...

2011-03-22T19:13:59.769-04:00

Carl: It's great to hear good things about these books. I am very excited! I've definitely been enjoying reading your blog and getting lots of good reads in my TBR list. Haha!

DesLily: Thanks! Jonathan Strange is very long... It will be great to have a conversation about Name of the Wind with everyone.

lol hey kelly, I never finished Jonathan Strange ...

2011-03-22T17:52:41.731-04:00

lol hey kelly, I never finished Jonathan Strange either! I know I will one day though..

Jess: I think Name of the Wind is going to be one of those books that many who join will read! Welcome to OUaT!!

I am 80 pages from finishing Name of the Wind and ...

2011-03-22T13:14:31.918-04:00

I am 80 pages from finishing Name of the Wind and I love it. I tend to shy away from chunksters, but I had heard so many good things about this book that I decided to finally give in. Glad I did. I read Game of Thrones last year and it was fantastic.

The Windup Girl sounds to me like one of those mixed genre books, so I'd say it counts. I picked up a copy recently after reading Paolo Bacigalupi's excellent YA novel, Ship Breaker.

I'm so glad you are joining in. There is no failing in this one, as long as you have fun. :)

Thanks for stopping by. I've heard such good ...

2011-03-22T12:55:51.208-04:00

Thanks for stopping by. I've heard such good things about all of these books. I'm glad that you think Windup Girl would be alright too:)

Oh, The Name of the Wind was really good! I made i...

2011-03-22T11:50:27.055-04:00

Oh, The Name of the Wind was really good! I made it halfway through Jonathan Strange, life got busy, and I have never been back to it. I was really liking it, too! I have been waiting to read A Game of Thrones until the last book had a likely release date. Now that it finally does, I need to get cracking!

And, I am sure that The Windup Girl would be fine.

Happy reading!

What a wonderful exchange here in the comments - ...

2010-02-12T09:57:27.937-05:00

What a wonderful exchange here in the comments - I appreciate you sharing your questions and Emily's answers. I find no stress at all in 'getting' VW and enjoy approaching like an onion and letting all these posts expose new layers of meaning. I just love all of this and find the ideas in Ttl fascinating.

Two weeks late in going round all the posts but he...

2010-02-12T00:13:57.509-05:00

Two weeks late in going round all the posts but here I am. Jess, it is extremely difficult to "get" Woolf. I had a hard time doing so, too, even when I fell head-over-heels for this book (I didn't like Mrs D as much as this). I read an article written by Margaret Atwood (I linked to the whole article on my blog), but the gist was, in the same way that Lily painted Mrs Ramsay with her paints on canvas, so did Virginia paint her mother with her pen on paper. The painting is the the novel that is To the Lighthouse.

Echoing Emily, I think that Woolf was representing...

2010-01-30T14:37:11.238-05:00

Echoing Emily, I think that Woolf was representing the gender conventions of the time, but it is frustrating, isn't it? And to take it even a step further than we are unknowable to others, the focus on the subjective here suggests that all is unknowable in a way. As everyone sees something different (even in supposedly objective truths), can there ever be one truth? Hmmm. Lots of hmm here.

Loved your post. Thanks for reading along and hope to see you for Orlando on the 12th.

Emily - Thank you for your comments they are so in...

2010-01-29T19:40:39.559-05:00

Emily - Thank you for your comments they are so insightful and you write so precisely! Thanks for being a host to this challenge, I am really enjoying it. I look forward to following your blog!

Bellezza - I have been admiring your blog for the last six months;) I loved L'Engle as both a child and an adolescent and I can't wait to reread her as an adult and fill in the gaps I missed!

Jess, like you, I found it a peaceful read. I'...

2010-01-29T19:05:08.360-05:00

Jess, like you, I found it a peaceful read. I'm certainly not as crazy over Virginia Woolf as most of other reviewers seem to be; you are so right that if you skip a line, you're done for. Every word, every sentence, every nuance must be read carefully to pick up the cohesive train of her thought. I'm not used to that kind of writing, and parts of me like it, while others parts are annoyed. I feel like I'm meandering through mud, sometimes, and I much prefer a clear stream. I can definitely feel Virginia's emotional distress, which later caused her life. There's a certain underlying current of darkness to me, and I can't say that I loved either Mrs. Dalloway or To The Lighthouse. But, I do appreciate the way she investigates the family and the inner workings of our minds/emotions. I do appreciate slowing down and trying to figure out exactly what she wants to say.

I notice a long list of L'Engle in your sidebar, and it makes me smile. I've long loved L'Engle, and I've read all her works, most of them several times. I'm participating in the Time Quartet read along as well, so it looks like we'll have a lot to discuss this winter!

Yeah, that's an interesting question, isn'...

2010-01-29T19:00:01.194-05:00

Yeah, that's an interesting question, isn't it? It almost seems like she's reinforcing the things she's supposed to be fighting against.

I think it's that she believes almost 100% in nurture over nature. So she's making the point that culturally, women were not taught to be conscious of compass bearings, respect their own intellects, make art, etc., and obviously, if a culture doesn't systemically teach one gender those things, most members of that gender will not learn them. And then it's insufferably condescending of Mr. Ramsay, for example, to extrapolate smugly to himself that women's brains are vague from the fact that Cam doesn't know her compass bearings, when he was the one who raised her not to know them. Then there are characters like Lily, demonstrating that indeed women CAN paint/write/create, although it's more difficult for them because of all the cultural messaging about how they can't.

That opens up the whole scene for me. I really hav...

2010-01-29T17:54:52.506-05:00

That opens up the whole scene for me. I really have a hard time relating or understanding the incredible strictness of gender roles at that time. I like this idea of being sincere, and of sincere being a replacement for nice! It also seems evident in the story what you said about men always inhabiting the role of taker and women as giver, although it eluded me when reading.

Another confusion of mine (oh so many:) is why Woolf seems to continue some of the stereotypes of gender in "To the Lighthouse" like how Mrs. Ramsay does not engage in discussions or intellectual talk, Cam does not know North from South. Perhaps again it is just the constraints of the time where Cam never learned orientation and Mrs. Ramsay didn't learn to discuss or accept that she understood the poetry she read. Maybe Woolf is showing the wall, that incredible obstacle to be overcome before women Could Write, Could Paint! What do you think her purpose is in creating these scenes?

I really enjoyed this description of your reading ...

2010-01-29T14:03:18.404-05:00

I really enjoyed this description of your reading process, Jess. Re: the dinner party, I think Lily wants, not to be mean to Charles Tansley, but to be sincere with him. He's acting like a total ass to her and everyone else at the party, and she wants to be able to hold him accountable for helping other people, rather than just excusing him and engaging in a one-way relationship with him because he's a man and she's a woman. Like the section in "The Lighthouse" when she observes that Mr. Ramsay only takes, he never gives - I think this is one crucial criticism Woolf has about the Victorian gendered social structure. "Being nice to" the young man regardless of how the young man is acting towards you is, in a way, dismissing him: not holding him responsible because he's "only a man" and therefore needs help in social situations. Just like Mr. Ramsay dismisses his wife's intellect because she's "only a woman." Does that make sense?

Thanks so much for reading along!