Books and Other Fetish Objects

I agree with the ideas that Gleick states. In a world that seeks to allow open access to most information, it is a understandable notion that by uploading images of all, if not most, text onto the internet the information would be drastically more widely available, and the information would be preserved more efficiently. (Even the best kept books will crumble.)

That aside and even though Gleick did produce several positive examples, the article itself may be a little biased in that he only quotes one person. I am sure the availability of text on the internet is upsetting to others besides the one English writer. 

As we have read "The History of Reading" it is understandable that for thousands of years humans have built a type of kinship with the vellum, sheep skin, paper, or even cave walls that we have written on, but just as those people that came before us, the electronic uploading of those documents will just be another footnote in our history books. This is simply our renaissance of books. 

One of the biggest things to consider is who is going to foot the bill, and however does will have control of the information. Also, assumingly the information does become widely uploaded, who will monitor if the information is changed? 

I remember a long time ago that my Uncle said that he would never use an online bible. At the time I didn't understand, but as I grew up he meant because information controlled by someone else is always subjective to the controller, and I could see that becoming a possible problem in the future. But to refute advancement for the "grain of paper and the scent of glue," I don't agree.

Wikipedia: How far can it go?

I loved this article. For just about every project, historical or otherwise, I have somehow found my way to Wikipedia or at least to some offshoot of Wikipedia. At no point do I mean that I use all the information that I find, but I use Wikipedia to get a background and a starting off point of whatever theme I am talking about. I think one of the biggest problems, aside from the things that the article mentions, is that much of the cited works that are listed below each of the articles are not peer reviewed. I'm not saying that the information is invalid, but the information that someone decides is worthy enough to be placed on Wikipedia is often cited from Uncle Bob's Website, or any other website that has no merit in the first place. I'm not sure what Wikipedia could, or should do, to fix this.

The article states that one of its objectives is the allow everyone to jump rope, toss a ball, and race on the same playing field, but I do believe that a runner with a PHD should be in the same lane as a fifteen year old that just put down an eye opening book. Wikipedia is a great source of knowledge and the group editing and discussions should be available to everyone, but in a world that thrives on misinformation and mistrust, there needs to be a little bit more control. Knowledge in itself has built limitations, but the depiction of truth is based on the speaker and the way the information is presented.

Again, this is not to say that Wikipedia has flaws that are so bad that they will pull me away from my quick searches anytime soon. Probably, because of this article I am going to start fact checking some of the articles whose information I doubt myself, but the avenue of free editing and free information should not be abandoned because of a few car crashes and muggings.

Act 3 and 4; Including Gardner

I expected the play to turn out in an all around happy ending, I was happy to find that they play concluded much more realistically. In one terministic screen I could see Eliza trying to marry Higgins or Pickering,  but as an ode to woman's suffrage I am glad that she took the alternative route and at least tries to see to her own future. In these last two acts all the characters are made much more round, or set in their ways, but the most important aspect to me was the recognition of who Higgins actually was. In the last act Eliza and Higgins discovers that they are the same in one significant characteristic, their ignorance to change. In the beginning of the book Eliza did not see that her language was decadent and was ignorant of that fact, in the end Higgins was ignorant in his decadent language (although he spoke his curses much more pronounced.)

As for Gardner, I tried to imagine each scene in order to read this play already and at times I even acted out the voices in my head--of which I pulled out every stereotyped cultural voice I thought possible. I feel that, just like a novel, the beauty isn't in the words on the page, or even how their used, but the images that they give reference to in our minds. 

For example, the three feathered hat that Eliza shows up with and was stated to not be burnt, recalled to me the images of old women in the front pew of an old Southern Baptist Black church. All of Aristotle's elements are present, including his excluded setting, but our imagination brings it all together. When our imagination is not up to the task, or when the text does not give enough to structure our imagination of a particular object, that is when a text is considered boring, over the top, or just a waste of time. 

Shaw's Pygmalion 1

Pygmalion Act 1 is all about class and how the classes treat one another. Each class is represented by the person or group that seems to congregate under the church in order to get out of the thundering storm. It took me a second to get used to this book. I am not use to reading play books and at several points I was close to asking my fiancé to act out three characters and I act out the rest, a choice that would have made me have to change my voice for each character. She declined.

So when reading the book, alone, there is a very definite lean towards feminism. I don't argue that it is invalid or anything, but I feel that the author should have allowed the feministic motif to come in sideways instead of blatantly through the dialogue of the gentleman and the note-taker. As said, everything is based on how the different classes treat one another, and further down, everything is based on how the classes treat themselves.

The betterment of Eliza sets the pretense of the control of the female lead and the notion that those of higher refinement and class have the morale right to sanction them to what is right or wrong. I believe  in act 1 & 2, the positive roles are attached to the women and the negative roles are attached to the men. Although the gentleman, Colonial Pickers, does positive actions, there is something unseemly about him that will probably arise out of the last act.

From a male perspective, feminist writings can be very aggravating because they usually depict most men, if not all men, as immoral and base to women. Because of the unfair treatment of men, it usually takes me a few moments before I can let my guard down enough to read it. To some extent, it feels like propaganda, but since the book was written in the early 1900’s, it is understandably so.

Language and Politics and its effect on Poetry

I stood like a deer in headlights while reading the first few paragraphs of Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language.” Understanding what is being stated was not the problem, the problem arrived when attempting to understand it’s connection to poetry. For several paragraphs, there was a large emphasis on the general decadence of our political system and how the failing of our political system is transmitting the same decadence to our English language.

Orwell lived during a very disruptive age, several wars, the holocaust, Watergate, etc. and his weariness  of what was being said by the world’s governments shows through his work. The government’s attempts to placate meaning to the audience, he states, has now transferred into the non-political arena and has made the English language “slovenish” and “makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.”

I did not understand the paper’s connection to poetry until the second page when Orwell writes “As soon as certain toopics are raised, the concrete melts into the abstract and no one seems able to think of turns of speech that are not hackneyed.” The concrete from abstract is what creates poetry. 

I believe poetry is a type of prose that connects inanimate and intangible characteristics, qualities, and ideas into tangible or achievable feelings while conveying some meaning thorugh the diction, the syntax, and the speech patterns. In reversal of what Orwell’s states as “bad language,” poetry tries to convert the abstract into the concrete.

“Politics and the English Language” is about the necessity of each individual to make sure there is meaning in what they write. The cause of the destruction of society is not the rampant writings and speeches that seek only to vaguely inform its audience, but those that continually produce the writing.

 I do not agree to some aspects of what Orwell writes. To some extent Orwell is seen as angrier about the situation then trying to state a solution, but even in spirited fervor, Orwell makes a good point about how orthodox politics is used to create vagueness and disillusionment.

This paper can be seen as what poetry should not be.

A Feminist Look At "Wuthering Heights"

The need to understand the experiences of historical women has lead to a resurgence of female writer's text. Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heights," being one of the most prolific female text, has been one of the most criticized and discussed.

At first glance, the introduction seemed a little long winded. From a guy's standpoint, while trying to discuss how "phallocentric" (p 452) our language is is understandable, the desire for the author to separate the negative idea from the people practicing it is necessary. The separation of the masculinity oppresses femininity idea only goes to incite anger in those males that do not agree or those that understand that to be true. Through much of the introduction I found myself shaking my head, rereading an argument, or writing questions in the margins stating "this is not true in one situation or another." With that stated,  I feel I am part of the "phallus," and as such I am probably biased toward my own textual designations. However, even if that be the case, I feel it necessary to also attach the notion that we as males have little control in how to change the language.

In Lyn Pykett's text "Changing the Names: The Two Catherines," the primary suggestion is the "consequences of [a] socially sanctioned choice" that all females had to make during that time and how in doing so, in Catherine's instance, caused her eventual self destruction(469). Pykett speaks on the requirement of Catherine to lose her "wild, hatless little savage" side and become more socially acceptable as she matured (Bronte 64) (Which resulted to her going to the Grange and eventually separating from Heathcliff.)

Throughout Catherine and Cathy's entire life there is a sense of powerlessness that reverberates throughout both generations. Catherine's inability to choose with her heart, Healthcliff, and Cathy's inability to leave Heights is a representation of the subjectivity of women and for both instances were only truly resolved by death. A resolve that lead to Catherine's death and a resolve that truly ended with Heathcliff's death.

Cultural Theory with a little Marxist Twang

The idea of studying literature as a way of understanding culture is obvious unless the ideology of your society states that all literature is contained in a "Chinese-box structure" (p. 431). As stated by each of the cultural theorist, the use of literature can either work to cement what is already believed in the culture or, as Tony Bennett states, has the ability to "separat[e] the audience from... prevailing ideologies" (p.420). 

Marxist' theory of one class superseding another, although does not translate directly with cultural theorist, states how most, if not all, literature is political in nature. This idea that all literature is political in nature has the effect of representing any given culture when it was written, what makes Wuthering Heights so different is the fact that, while writing, Emily Bronte was so far separate from society. This separation from society begs the question of how can such a remote setting, two Gothic homes on the morbid moors of England, connect to the zeitgeist of the time?

What we see and what we experience has a lasting affect on what we do, what we say, and what we write. This "lasting affect" is what is needed in order to provide the context of who we are in conjunction to who everyone is around us. Although this portion of the books speaks primarily on what cultural criticism is, it also speaks on the intrusiveness of the world around us. Emily Bronte, even while so separated from normal society, was able to write a novel that encompasses a large majority of the social discord and strife of her time. 

As large as the author's actual ability, the culture, the time period, and the social ideology also plays a  large role in creating any literary work and showing what it was truly like to be alive during those times.  Starting with cavemen drawing on walls, the social context is shown through what they draw and what they would use to draw it.

Wuthering Heights, A View Towards Legality

Where "Wuthering Heights" is a jaunty through the plot developed by Emily Bronte, this portion of the book is based on the practicality of "Wuthering Heights" application of inheritance law and the social and economic impact of the Great Potato Famine. What sparks Lockwood's interest in finding out the story of Heathcliff and Wuthering Heights is the ragtag team of family members he finds as residents in the Wuthering Hieghts household and the misfortunes that lead them to live such a miserable life in the presence of such miserable people.

A well established literary criticism of the narrative is the notion that "Wuthering Heights" depicts the patriarchal malevolence of English law against women and how, after marriage, husbands gained all of their partner's rights. In "Letter to the Queen on Lord Chancellor Cranworth's Marriage and Divorce Bill" Lady Caroline Norton describes the rights that are inherently not given to women. " A married woman in England has no legal existence: her being is absorbed in that of her husband."

Rights lost to women in marriage include:

• Loss of real and personal property
• No right for a wage
• No right for a women to leave a man (for fear of conjugal suit)
• The inability to testify in court against her husband
• No right for divorce

It further states that although these legal customs are in place some educated families avoid some of these laws by the daughter's parents setting aside some "distinct pecuniary provisions," and creating "trusteeship[s]" that will hold onto some insurance encase the husband proves to be "irresponsible," has undesirable "chances of his character," or has low success in his profession. But for those families that are less educated, and for those wives in more rural areas, they are stricken with even worse losing of rights. Many are beaten, kicked out of their families homes, and some are sold to pay of their husband's previous to marriage debts.

The main gest of the reading the disadvantageous of married woman versus the advantageous of a married man. In the act of marrying, a woman loses all rights and property while the man gains all of her rights and property, even after their divorce. 

The idea of these laws, which prevailed many years prior to this books writing, makes me question the validity and value of the "they lived happily ever after" motif found in many fairy tale marriages. 

Also described in this reading is the possible origins of Heathcliff and the cause of his repressed anger. The events of the potato famine still plaguing Heathcliff's mind when met with the overt selfishness of Henly could only help to motivate his internal rage toward those born into privilege.

Wuthering Heights

I am one of the few that spend a large portion of any book trying the fully understand the author's mindset, their culture, their history, and the way they lived their lives. Although most people deem that knowledge is unnecessary, I feel that you can never truly understand what an author is attempting to say unless you know who the author is to the world, and who the author is to himself, or herself. 

As with all literary works, there are usually introductions and sets of historical facts that help describe the zeitgeist, or spirit of the time, to help readers understand what social context a book will be taking, this book is the same in that there is such establishment time period and culture, but a distinguishing factor is how the book is introduced and edited by Charlotte Bronte. This tidbit of relational information, such as Charlotte finding and pressuring Emily to print some of her poems, and Charlotte's, Anne's, and Emily's attempts at publishing their first set of literary pieces, helps establish the character of the author and possibly stems, to a further extent to different aspects of the novel's characters. 

Throughout the novel, the notion of keeping ones own company, and enjoying it, arises several times. Lockwood states, "a sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself" and Heathcliff mutters back "delightful company" (45). This internal will longing for Lockwood to be left alone, coupled with the Heathcliff household who can be metaphysically seen throwing Lockwood out with each side eyed glance, each tear from their eyes, or their constant groaning during conversation, leads me to the conclusion that although Emily Bronte was a part of the Moor culture a large portion of her mind was not set on the pleasantries of the daily moor societies and conventions.

Another day and another blog

I'm glad it finally came and not too soon, if you don't mind me saying, but finally other civilizations became accounted for in these pages. Many times there is so much western civilization bias that there is no, or little, information about the other civilizations during that time period that significantly affected the world's turn of events. The allotment of women's ability to learn to read and write, the social impact of a certain laws, rules, dictum, speeches, or novels, and even the social stigma of reading in different cultures significantly effected the world in drastic ways.

A large aspect, to which great care was taken to note, was how it was the Islamic and Middle Eastern civilizations that maintained and transcribed the passages of Socrates, Plato, Isocrates, and many of the other Greek philosophers. To a great extent, without out this maintenance and dedication to the Greeks, we, as a Western civilization, would never have known who the Greeks really were, why they behaved the way the way they did, and how they were the first to significantly improve themselves past that of agriculture and herding through their ability to read and write. Without the exertions of the Islamic cultures, the Greeks would have gone the way of the Etruscan poets (185). There would have been marks, but all the marks would be found "silent."

The incorporation of the Chinese and Japanese cultures into this book historically resonates the mutual aggression between those two countries. As this book states, "in 1984--a hundred years after the founding of the new capital Heian-Kyo...the Japanese government decided to stop sending official envoys to China" and later Japan "began to [work] to develop a life-style of its own devising (228)." Although a necessary action, the development of a unified culture played a large role in destroying the bond between the Chinese and Japanese civilization, a bond that began with Japan strictly forbidding the use of many of the Chinese characters in their language, especially among females. This resolve to end Chinese and Japanese communication undoubtedly lead to future conflicts. 

A History of Reading: Compressing over 3000 years into 319 pages.

Between this class and all of my other classes, I easily carry around with me over a dozen books over any given week. And since many of my courses are in higher level English classes, having well over a dozen books is to be expected. The course books that are assigned for my classes are primarily fiction, a textbook or two, and, for me, the dreaded non-fiction literature. So on that steamy August day when I searched my book bag for what the syllabus mandates us to read--Manguel 1-123--I was markedly disheartened to pull out the book A History of Reading. After several attempts at forcing myself to open the book, I actually began to like and understand the notion that there is a researched, chronological understanding of how we read, why we read, and how reading (aloud or silently) has shaped our civilization and world.

At first, I have to admit the first several pages were somewhat of a drag. The overt way the author spoke of his addiction to reading was, at times, a little pretentious, but as he placed the historical facts that he learned while reading it gradually became somewhat entertaining. His historical data on how religions treated the idea of reading and writing, the Koran describes writing as "not one of the creations of God but one of His attributes, like His omnipresence or His compassion."(8) Judaeo-Christian tradition, however, believe "the key to understanding the universe lies in our ability to read"..."and master" the universe that is "made from numbers and letters."

And although he goes a far as to state that reading is his "rite of passage"(7) into manhood, his acknowledgment that "years later, I touched for the first time my lover's body did I realize that literature could sometimes fall short of the actual event" speaks to book's ability to share past lives and experiences, and instill them into the reader. This idea of a "rite of passage" for those who learn how to read never dawned on me until now. The ability to read does not only open someone up to the vast amounts of past knowledge, but it allows for independent thought from family, friends, and even teachers that can outweigh the time and place's zeitgeist. In Manguel's book, no more than a paragraph was fully written about this idea of the reader's "rite of passage," but that idea alone is enough to carry several chapters in any text.

One thing I struggled with in this book was unloading my own modern ideology. When learning that reading was performed oratorically more than silently, the notion had to grow on me. The change in culture and in social hierarchy over the years, when combined with our civilization now, is kind of a shell shock, but under this pretense the book did well showing the chronological practicality of certain advancements in reading and of certain declines.


Advancements in reading, such as the use of breaking down large sums of script for generals during war times (the Greeks), the advancements in historical preservation, retrospection, and education, and introduction of the "cumulative" sense of time that characterized literate societies versus the linear sense of time that characterized illiterate societies, all constitute a continual advancement in a societies historical thought process. And declines such as, the destruction of books, the lack of free thought about text taught in school, and the belief by early Christians that silent reading lead to "day dreaming."

From the beginning of reading and writing, up until now, the subtle practicality of reading was the belief that since we have a limited amount of time on this earth, we have to learn from the people before us. But although I would believe this is common knowledge today, the ability to see how our way of thinking came to be is rather insightful.

From all of the reading and from all of the history stated, one question still looms. Is reading and writing something we are innately made for?

The advances in reading and writing allows for more than enough evidence that there is some faculty of our mind programmed for this symbolic interpretative function, but as silent reading was not an innate ability, or not disclosed, in this book, as an innate ability, such dogmatic belief that we are supposed to read, at least for me, comes into question.

Who am I? For those that do not know.

My name is Joshua Guallett and I am a senior at Kennesaw State University. I just moved from Savannah, GA where I went to Armstrong Atlantic State University and my fiance and me just bought our first house in Kennesaw, GA. I spend most of my time with my fiance Ariana, my kitten Gilbert, and my puppy Olive Oyl (yeah, that's right, the girl from Pop Eye).

Although I spend most of my time studying,during my free time I like to draw, play video games (which I feel I don't get to play enough of), build computers, design websites, and when smitten with a good idea I freelance for the newspaper.

As of right now I work as a real estate marketing analyst and am working towards obtaining my real estate license. I have just passed my first real estate exam and soon I will also become a real estate agent. When I graduate KSU I plan on enrolling into Georgia State and acquiring my real estate law degree and possibly eventually becoming a broker.

But, all that aside, me personally, I am fairly relaxed yet overly responsible person. (Yeah, I barely understand it too) I spend most of my time between hanging out with my fiance, studying, working, and playing with the animals trying to find ways to learn something new, thinking of inventions to create (which usually fail horribly), or setting aside some time just to do nothing but watch some anime.

I love writing, reading, and one goal in my life is to finish writing a science fiction novel that does not piggyback on vampire or werewolves.

Scratch that I live werewolves.

Peace and love,
-Josh

Raise Your Glasses

Immediately, everyone knows the philosophical question I am going to ask. The most baffling, perplexing, question that has bested millions, if not billions, of our ancestor's way before my fingers ever reached these keys. Of course I'm writing about the question: "What came first, the chicken or the egg?"

The smile, or possibly even the chuckle from that one question is understandable, that one question is what some would probably consider... let's just say a little less than important. What seems more important to me is that there was not a scientific answer for that simple of a question until recently, a quandary against the evolution of science.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_or_the_egg

(Yeah, some people have a thing against Wikipedia, not me.) :)

For those that do deem these questions as less important, or possibly even stupid, it's hard to figure out what the meaning of life could be when we are having a hard enough time trying to figure out what the chickens are doing.

But as none of us really know what we're doing let's just start.

German philosopher, polymath, and mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz once asked,“Why is there something rather than nothing?”

A quote from Robert Lawrence Kuhn from the Science + Religion Today website, best summarizes the problem with the idea of ‘nothing.’

“Why not Nothing? What if everything had forever been Nothing? Not just emptiness. Not just blankness. But not even the existence of emptiness. Not even the meaning of blankness. And no forever.”

If there was nothing in the beginning of the universe how is there something now? Is there any type of organization to the universe that can be possibly seen and objectively observed? Or, is everything just a vast array of moving matter, particles, and waves that just so happened to position themselves exactly where they are to create planets, solar systems, and suns then provide one planet with the ability to create a ‘somewhat’ intelligent being. (Now don’t get uppity because I said “somewhat.”)

From an everyday stand point thinking about something of this magnitude, the evolution of the universe, may be a little perplexing and even agitating. (Especially for those out there that find it quarrelsome to linger over different concepts) But, it can also set into reason that the larger nature of the universe cannot be discovered by thought or belief alone, that rather than looking for answers from UP/DOWN answers must be discovered from DOWN/UP.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/08/30/why-is-there-something-rather-than-nothing/

http://www.scienceandreligiontoday.com/2009/06/05/why-is-there-something-rather-than-nothing/

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100319234356AAy6rTL

(That last one's just kind of funny.)