Casanova

I found this movie surprisingly entertaining and surprisingly good. Not that it reminded me of any Shakespeare plays or anything. Not at all.

The penultimate in Bronte studies

I finished my next-to-final draft (which I suddenly realized today I could call "penultimate," thereby removing unecessary words -- which I was doing a LOT of in my revisions -- and using a really cool word I don't get to use very often) of my dissertation today! Go me!

Now I'm going to take a week or so to unwind, fix the footnotes, and prepare for some Bloomington things before making final revisions and handing it in. But at the moment, it's feeling pretty good. If the footnotes were fixed and someone appeared and told me I had to hand it in right now, I would hand it over with a light heart.

Just because

My blog, like my life, has been entirely too text-based lately. So here are some pictures from travels earlier in the spring/summer.

Rome:



Peak District:

Criticism

Theoretical, not practical; I'm talking about art critics here, broadly defined.

Having just finished a decent draft of the introduction and conclusion of my dissertation dealing with George Henry Lewes as a critic of Charlotte Bronte, I mosied over to the New York Times website for a bit of brain-clearing. I encountered this article by A. O. Scott. He talks about the major disjunct between what critics think of a movie and what the public thinks of it, which he measures by box office returns. He wonders out loud -- or in print -- what critics are "for" if the public so flagrantly disregards their opinion.

I think he's missing out on a crucial point: there's a difference between thinking something is good and enjoying it. Perhaps he does not feel that distinction; maybe that's why he's a critic. But for me, at least, I can think a movie is good but not necessarily want to see it. Likewise, I can think a movie is bad, but extremely fun and entertaining. Some of it has to do with the nature of leisure, I think. You could say I'm a critic for a living, a litarary critic. (Well, I don't, strictly speaking, make a living on it yet, but next year I'll get a stipend, which is close!) There are books I think are good, books I think are criticially interesting, and books I read for fun. These overlap, but not necessarily. Moreover, because I criticize art as my job, when I go to a movie, I want to be entertained. That has various specific meanings for me. For one thing, I actually like movies that are somewhat formulaic. I like to be familiar with the story arc; this is why I like three-volume novels, screwball comedies, and many Hollywood blockbusters. But my paying money to see a movie doesn't necessarily mean I think a movie is good -- and doesn't necessarily mean I disagree with Scott. It just means I want to see the movie.

So many strawberries, part II

Hey, today the strawberries were 2 punnets for a pound! Or 69p for one. Punnet, that is, not strawberry. After a few minutes of dithering, examining punnets, starting to go and coming back (all observed by the people in the queue), I decided to spring for both. And I'm glad I did; I've already devoured aproximately 6 of them (I wasn't counting) in the past fifteen minutes or so, and I wasn't even hungry, and it's not even lunch time. Mmmmmm, strawberries. I also picked up 5 peaches for a pound (they were cheaper by the punnet, but I realized that some punnets had mold at the bottom, so I decided to opt for the individual yumminesses). AND to congratulate myself for having gotten through a somewhat rough couple of weeks and for spending less than 10 quid on groceries, I bought myself a Derby biscuit at Greg's. Saving that one for lunch.

While I realize that my grocery shopping habbits are no doubt fascinating to you all, perhaps I should unpack the side comment of the "rough week." Basically, my supervision problems continued. My supervisor did not get back to me at all -- I was beginning to think he might be in the hospital (and for all I know he might have -- long story). I was beginning to fear that I would not be able to talk to anyone about this thesis until I handed it in. So I emailed Gillian, my wonderful program coordinator, and she met with me, helped me realize some stuff, and started to search around for another Victorianist for me to meet with. Turns out there are not many Victorianists at this university. But then yesterday my supervisor emailed me and suggested we meet tomorrow. I scrambled to get him a readable draft of the dissertation -- I'm pretty sure this will be my last meeting with him, and the only one where he'll actually have read my work (assuming he actually reads what I sent him). I wish I could have had more time to prepare the material, but it actually turned out rather well! It still needs a LOT of work, but I feel good about the overall structure.

So I'm giving myself a break today, and I may go on a daytrip with flatmates and Marie on Saturday. And I have strawberries. Life is good.

7/7

A date we can agree on on both sides of the Atlantic. Just as we can agree that terrorism is bad and hurts people.

A moment of silence in commemoration of the bombings on the London Tube one year ago today





I like the London tube. My favorite tube memory is from the summer of 2004, when I was riding it back from Covent Garden and there was a yellow scarf on the seat next to me. The man sitting next to me asked if it was mine. I said no. He proceeded to ask the other people in the car, who said it wasn't theirs. He then asked if I'd like to have it. Scandalized, I said no: it didn't belong to me. The rest of the people in the car banded together to encourage me to take it, saying the person who lost it had probably given it up for lost. They pointed out that if I lost something on the NYC subway, I probably wouldn't go back to look for it. Eventually, they offered it collectively as a gift, which I accepted.

Two morals here. One is the generosity and the community of the London Underground, which I think the bombings did not ultimately damage.

The other is: if you lost a yellow scarf on the Picadilly Line in August 2004, could you please get in touch with me?

Thought on my writing process

I was feeling a bit discouraged that my third draft of one of my chapters still looks and feels a bit scketcy. So I went back and looked at the writing process for the paper I gave at the Postgrad Forum last January, which is probably the best work I've ever done.

It took me 21 drafts to turn my thesis into that paper. Not counting the drafts of the thesis--five for the first chapter, six for the second.

Should I find this discouraging or encouraging?

I think I choose to find it encouraging. Even if my writing style is weird and unconventional (which it isn't necessarily), even if it's inefficient (which it might well be), it works. The only trick is making this dissertation more like the writing sample, which I was quite proud of, than the thesis, which I wasn't that proud of. Answer: more drafts. So it seems.

Back to Microsoft Word, then.

Independence Day

So, I actually had a really good 4th of July.

I'd debated doing a variety of things, including getting a bunch of people together for watermellon and/or a cookout, going to the beach (but there's not one nearer than 3 hrs away), and walking around singing patriotic songs and throwing tea at British people. Well, I didn't consider that last for very long.

What I ended up doing was working on my dissertation in the morning and talking to friends in the afternoon (Andy, Pete, Gail AND Rebecca), then going out with Tanja to watch the Italy-Germany match in a pub. A very exciting match. And then I came home and fell into bed. And slept. As you do.

In other news, I'm starting to get frustrated with my supervisor. I met with him two weeks ago, when he told me that he's taking a vacation starting 10 July, so he'd like to wrap up with me before then. This was the first I'd heard of that. So I worked really hard and gave him some material in less than a week. I sent it off last Tuesday. And I ran into him last Thursday and he said that he'd got the stuff and he'd meet with me sometime this week. No more news. This means it's taking him longer to read it than it took me to write it. And in the mean time, what am I supposed to do? It's not likely that he'll be able to meet with me again before he goes away... and I could try to meet with another faculty member, but I don't want to schedule with anyone else until I know when he'll want to meet... After a couple of days of doing possibly excessive research and of twiddling my thumbs, I just decided to get on with it. There were a couple of decisions that I could really have used some feedback on while making, but I just went ahead and made them and I'm essentially carrying on writing. But it is quite frustrating, because if he's not going to be involved in this process, I wish he'd just tell me so I can get on with it instead of saying one thing and doing another. Although it may be that this is what he thinks a supervisor/supervisee relationship is supposed to be like. In any case, it makes me glad that I'm going back to America for my PhD dissertation where I'll have, with any luck, more of a network to work within -- writing groups, a committee instead of just one person, and a better understanding of the system.

Whoops, was that a rant? I'd meant to just come on and say how happy I am, but it looks like it's less straightforward than that. I guess I'll go spend some of this apparent verbosity on my actual dissertation.