All That Glitters -- Part 2

I've made some more jewelry designs recently, and I wanted to post them here for all to see. Several have been spoken for already, but I'm happy to create specialty pieces or sets in just about any color or style my dear readers would like.

Copper "Dream" charm on emerald glass and crystal beaded bracelet

Amethyst glass bead and silver bracelet

Purple, black, and silver watch and earring set (per request from Beth)

Turquoise, silver, and pearl necklace and post earring set (per request BWM)

Return of the Plot

Sometimes I think I struggle with the idea of great literature more than the average literature major or gradate student. The cannon bothers me, but not for the usual matters of who was left out -- although many a great writer has been ignored based on their gender or race; no, what concerns me is why did Writer A become an American standard while Writer B is berated for his/her accomplishments. Writer A may break ground in an unexplored writing style, but Writer B appeals to readers; therefore, Writer B must be a lesser writer. I must confess that I prefer a good story and well-developed characters to an explorative new genre full of page-long Faulknerian sentences.

A few days ago, a friend from grad school brought the following Wall Street Journal article to my attention: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203706604574377163804387216.html#articleTabs%3Darticle While I don't agree with all Lev Grossman says about the state of literature, I am inclined to admit that something resonates with me about the "dirty little secret" that is a good story. As an English major in college, and especially in grad school, I've always felt like I should apologize for the books I enjoy. I love curling up with a good book, and more importantly, I relish a good discussion about books, stories, and literature as a whole; but I've never understood why for a book to be "great" it has to be incomprehensible or completely outside the realm of exciting story telling. Grossman seems to harbour the same sentiments that I do concerning the loss of plot. I understand why Modernism rejected the need to adhere to plot, but many still maintained a fine line between plot and story, which illuminate the stark realities of the modern world and abolishing story altogether. These are the ones I am drawn to: their names are Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Cather, just to name a few. They didn't write to entertain, but rather to reflect the world as broken and unfulfilled as they found it. For Modernists writing and by consequence, reading itself, is a social commentary. I like that. I just don't agree that stories no longer have a place in the contemporary literary world.

Grossman writes,

After all, the discipline of the conventional literary novel is a pretty harsh one. To read one is to enter into a kind of depressed economy, where pleasure must be bought with large quantities of work and patience. The Modernists felt little obligation to entertain their readers. That was just the price you paid for your Joycean epiphany. Conversely they have trained us, Pavlovianly, to associate a crisp, dynamic, exciting plot with supermarket fiction, and cheap thrills, and embarrassment. Plot was the coward's way out, for people who can't deal with the real world. If you're having too much fun, you're doing it wrong.

This was the hippocracy I've felt lately as I've read one popular young adult novel after another. I picked up Twilight by Stephanie Meyer while in Germany this past winter. It had its good moments, and its bad, but it was always plot driven. I had to keep reading to find out how it ended. In between Twilight books, because I was sharing them amongst family members who read at different speeds and lived in different countries, I began The Gemma Doyle Trilogy by Libba Bray. I picked these up because the title of the first book, A Great and Terrible Beauty, was stuck in my head. I'm not even sure where I first heard of it, but I had to read it to satisfy my curiosity. I'm sure I have my fellow English grad student colleagues ready to ex-communicate me if they ever read these blogs. Although there are a number of holes in the plots of both series, they are compelling, and something speaks to the reader in a way that is unlike any of the "real," artsy literature produced of late.

It makes me wonder if the way to intice students to read is to give them more access to books like these, which can lead in directions which point directly to the classics. If a student enjoys Twilight, introduce him/her to Dracula and other, older vampire literature. And Bray's Trilogy is ripe with literary allusions, poems, and quotes that should draw a young reader toward more established works with more developed plot. Yet part of me feels guilty, like I should reread Ulysses or pick up a translation of Derrida and deconstruct each book as I go. Part of me doesn't feel sophisticated enough when I read, but deep down, I will always love a good story. It's not a matter of lowering the standard of books, but rather about making them accessible to readers, not a dumbing down, but ridding literature of its pretentiousness and allowing books to once again be judged by the masses.

Turn, Turn, Turn -- or Dizzing Up the Girl

Perhaps I've always experienced a dichotomy when it comes to who I am and who I want to be in my goals. On one hand, I want to be a successful, ambitious woman with a career in an exciting field; on the other, I want to be a home-schooling mom who has dinner on the table every night and spotless house. Unfortunately, I have several conflicts for each of my visions: 1) I don't know what career I am qualified for; 2) I don't know what I'm good at, other than writing; 3) I don't have kids; and 4) staying home isn't practical until I do have kids. Mr. Bookworm and I have been married over two years, but we saw each other less than a month during our first year of marriage, and in the second year, we spent approximately four months together. We're still in the newlywed stage by my calculations, and pretty soon, he will be leaving again for over a year. I don't want to grow and raise children until we can both invest time and effort in their upbringing. Logically, that would mean I should be focused on my first goal, but I'm stuck.

At the moment I'm a substitute teacher because teaching has been the career option I've returned to over and over throughout my life. Being the willful woman that I am, I didn't get certified to teach during college -- mainly because I didn't see the point in an entire class on how to make bulletin boards and cute PowerPoint presentations. If I wanted to teach, English and child psychology classes seemed much more practical, so I took those instead. By the time I graduated, I wanted to change the world instead of teach, so I became a newspaper reporter. I loved the stories, the community involvement, and the influence I had, but something was always missing, so I went to graduate school for English. As a grad student, I got a taste of teaching college students, and I loved it. I just didn't love the politics involved in universities, and I didn't want to be forced to publish books and papers just to publish them for tenure. When I write, I want to be completely involved and invested in my words, not just writing anything to compete and keep my job. Now, I'm just my thesis shy of finishing my masters in English, and I don't want to continue on for my PhD. However, I'm not qualified to teach high school or below because I don't have the certification that seemed a frivolous waste of precious credits in college. I can't teach at a university because I neither have my PhD, nor am I working toward it. I'm at a complete career impasse, and I don't know how to blaze my new trail.

I'm not even sure I want to teach high school English right now. The high school English class I subbed for was draining and inattentive, and it seems that the curriculum has changed so drastically in the ten years since I graduated that I don't know that I can even teach the way that I have always imagined and longed for. What's left if I don't teach? The secretarial jobs, I've applied for have turned me down, and I'm not in love with the newspaper business as a whole. I have a B.A. in English and Psychology, almost an M.A. in English, and nothing practical to show for it. I'm lost in this dizzy show; I just want to be good at something and do something that I love. Why does it feel impossible? I wish it were simple again.

(On a side note, the second part of my title refers to The Goo Goo Dolls 1998 record Dizzy Up the Girl. The title seemed somehow appropriate for how I feel right now.)