Final thoughts…
This has been an interesting experience. I had never taken an online class before. Heck, when I was working on my first degree the public Internet didn’t even EXIST. Microcomputers weren’t readily available to the public until I was on my third CAREER!!
That said, it was a great experience. Great enough that I am going to do it again this summer.
Anyway for all you college students out there getting ready for finals, I took this picture in Oregon last week (for work…really!). Enjoy and good luck!
Alas, Mrs Dalloway…
It would appear that I have been remiss in my postings. I THOUGHT I had posted the last two weeks but…
Anyway, the latest literary conquest has been Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway. Quite possibly the most convoluted, twisted, and troublesome novel I have ever read but well worth the trip. So much of what I see through Woolf’s eyes points out many of the social problems of her day and of ours. I could particularly liked Peter, the jilted paramour of Clarissa who could never again find the happiness he found with her.
Just wondering…
As we are reading James Joyce and examining his treatment of womens’ rights at the turn of the century, I have to wonder if these “bright lights” of the past really intended to be such. I wonder if a hundred years from now writers that were “banned in Boston” in the 1960’s will be remembered as visionaries or will instead find themselves in the trash heap of history. One can argue that excellence will always be recognized and the cream will always rise to the top. However, there is something to the statement that scandal sells whether it is in 1800, 1900, or 2007.
T.S. Eliot
In my mind I always try to compare poets with artists. After all they do the same thing; one with words and one with paint. I think if T.S. Eliot were an artist he would have been a Pointillist– one of those guys who can build a landscape out of a billion dots. Eliot seems to do that with words. If you try to really study “The Waste Land” (which I did), it is just too easy to get “lost in the dots”. It is only by standing across the room can you see the true “picture”.
Why?
The more I read material from the turn of the 20th century (British and American) the more I am amazed at how little has really changed in a century. Many of the problems faced then are the same as now. Even in the area of women’s rights we have gone from the objectification of women in 1900 to the new objectification of women in 2007. The only difference lies in the degree and that now this is considered “liberating”.
Meeting “expectations”
As we study Dickens’ Great Expectations I can’t help but wonder but how little society has changed since his time. People are still judged by their wealth and appearance and not by their contributions. I know several people who have spent weeks on the Gulf Coast helping them rebuild. You will never hear their names on the news but there are no higher “expectations” that any of us can have.
Whoops
Missed a week. It was one hell of a week too. Had a new phone system installed at work, another major upgrade in the works, trying to get all of our extant software to play nice with the time change this weekend, and managed to be sick for three days. Oh yeah, there was a little matter of an essay on Victorian lit to do. Anyway, I’ll do better this week.
