And So it Goes.

It took several years, but I finally got around to reading Slaughterhouse-Five.  Whenever I would go to Half-Price books (and remember) I would look at the V section under Kurt Vonnegut.  Never was there a copy of any of the books I wanted until one day… one crazy day where I went in with no thoughts of any books and walked out with an armload… I found not one, not two, but all THREE of the Vonnegut books I was looking to read.

And so it goes.

I spent half of Slaughterhouse-Five reminiscing about my day spent in Dresden in 2010.  It’s been completely rebuilt– a gorgeous city once more.  I tried to take what I had seen of modern day Dresden and use it when they talked of the bombing in the novel.  I wasn’t able to, too much.

And so it goes.

Slaughterhouse-Five is an anti-war novel.  It’s about a time traveling man and his life, especially concerning WWII.  Some of the experiences, if I remember correctly, are based on Vonnegut’s own.  (Wiki confirms).  It’s an interesting read; a bit confusing at times, but it’s sci-fi fiction.

It’s how it goes.

I am a Magnet for Depressing Literature

What is it with modern day books depicting unmarried woman as leading sad lives that involve never leaving their childhood homes? And more importantly, what is it with me finding these books?

Kate Morton’s The Distant Hours revolved around both a modern young editor and three older sisters.  It was about the sisters lives during WWII (with the editor’s mother) combined with the modern tale of the editor and her meeting the sisters.  It wasn’t a bad read but… seriously? Why must it be SO depressing?

Moreover, is there an issue here with twentieth century women who do not marry?  It’s a motif I have stumbled upon at least twice now, and I have to say, I’m not a fan.

So a woman has sisters who are close knit.  So she does not marry.  So life gets fucked up when they’re in their late teens/early twenties.  That does NOT MEAN they have to forget their dreams and sit at home singing “woe is me” songs.  Ruing their lot in life.  It was their choice to stay there.

But why is this even coming up repeatedly?  Is it a leftover mentality from the age of spinsterhood, that a woman without a husband is deduced to a depressed shell?  This is definitely a topic that needs more thought and, more importantly, more evidence.  Are there any other books about unmarried sisters not leaving home and leading depressing lives?  Are there any about unmarried sisters who still remain close despite living content and independent lives?

I may be on a hunt now.

The Cultural Significance of Books

(I had a dream the other night that ended up with me yelling at people about never discussing the cultural significance of books, that they only looked at tearing things apart.  Remnants of my college life still follow me…)

Speaking of college…  I remember working on my senior paper, finishing it, and being disappointed by the grade.  My adviser wished to speak to me about it, so I obliged.  In said meeting, he told me how the English department found themselves in a funk of sorts.  See, my paper was a long story, and while it was not full on fantasy, it did have fantastical elements (i.e. mysticism, journey to another realm, elves, magic, etc).  Mine was not the only one to touch on that genre; others had written in the fantastical or science fiction worlds.  According to my prof, none of the professors in the English department were really sure on how to grade sci-fi and fantasy stories; it was an unexplored genre to them.

The way he was talking, even then I thought to myself that it seemed like this entire department was under the illusion that sci-fi and fantasy were baby genres, that they did not have the high set caliber that other genres have ascertained.  All I could think about was how sci fi and fantasy have been around longer than we think, and each has respected, classic books THAT ARE TAUGHT IN SCHOOLS.  We all know Tolkien and his influence, but even before him, and before C.S. Lewis and Narnia, we had the wonderful Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, Jules Verne, and, for the purpose of this entry, the magnificent H.G. Wells.

I’ve known about The Time Machine for a long while, even seeing the version from 2002, without ever having read the book.  That changed one night at work out of boredom.  I wanted lights off, but I wasn’t ready to sleep.  What should I find in itunes but a free version of The Time Machine?  I devoured that novel up.

Even though it is most definitely a social commentary, it is also one of the first sci-fi books.  At least, that has lasted to critical and cultural accord.  Can you imgine where we would be without this novel?  Countless novels and novelists influenced by this novella would not exist; sci-fi as we know it may not exist.  (And I know a LOT of Syfy/Sci-fi fans…)  Our entire society would be different if not for H. G. Wells and his tales.

I loved reading The Time Machine.  I knew the general synopsis, but it was nice having the cracks filled in.  After finishing it, I instantly found a copy of another of H.G. Wells infamous novellas:  The War of the Worlds.

Even more than The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds has influenced our culture.  Without this one, we wouldn’t have had the infamous tale of Orson Welles presenting it on the radio.  We wouldn’t have the amount of adaptions.  And can you imagine our take on aliens nowadays?  Would we have all the creepy and cheesy movies of aliens vs humans?  Would we have our cult movies and tv shows?

H.G. Wells thought outside of the box.  Tonight, of all nights, when I’m lamenting how it can suck to be alienated (intended) by being outside the box, it helps to know H.G. Wells existed and his works and legacy live long after him.  And to my profs, I cannot help but think: Are you really missing a bunch of really influential novels?  Do you really not see the amount of achievement in those respective fields?  There are bars in both sections; they’ve been set high.  You have no reason not to know how to grade them.

AIDS Epidemic: As Told By Someone Who Lived It

I popped into a New Age store one day.  Being me, I found my way to the clearance book section and nearly had a heart attack.  And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts was there and only THREE DOLLARS?!?! It couldn’t be! Didn’t they know what they had here?

I took the book off the shelf, heart still palpitating.  I read the back: It WAS the book I wanted to read, which I had only heard mentioned (numerous times) in passing, most notably as a discussion of sociological methods.

There was no way this book wasn’t coming home with me.

The cashier didn’t share my excitement.  None of my friends had heard of the book.  But I had.  And I was going to read it, and its incense smelling pages, Damnit!

And so, I did.

And let’s just say, being born after ALL the events in the book took place, and having only heard of them briefly, it was a real eye opener.  It put the US Government in a new light and briefly made me want to track diseases.  But the government wasn’t hiring when I looked and I lack experience and the necessary degree and yadda yadda yadda.

I have several pages marked, too numerous to feel like recounting here.  But this book: I was shocked.  I was shocked from the underhanded political dealings that went on, from the lack of listening people would do to save their own skin while meanwhile people were DYING, the ignorance that grew (and still persists…)  It’s just… It could vie for a spot on the list of “Books that changed my life”.  I really wish I had read this in college, not for my sake, but for others.

In college, we read this book on TB in Haiti and how Paul Farmer is working to bring health care to impoverished locals.  I was not a fan of the book: mainly, I did not like the writing style.  I was slaughtered for not being moved by the book.  Halfway through And the Band Played on, I read about how they discriminated against “…the ‘Four H’s’ of the disease risk groups– homosexuals, heroin addicts, hemophiliacs, and Haitians” (Shilts 197).  My friend promptly got a text:

“Paul Farmer wrote a book on AIDS in Haiti and how Haitians weren’t to blame.  Why didn’t we read that one instead?”

I really really didn’t like the book we had to read.

Going back to Randy Shilts:  You have to respect him.  He was living with AIDS while working on this book, but refused to get diagnosed until he was done.  This is the AIDS epidemic not from scientists, but from someone who lived it, someone who was at risk.  And it’s not a memoir; it’s full on facts.

I cannot emphasize enough how I think people should read this book.  I can tell you about it until I am heaving from lack of breath, but it will not be enough.

You need to read it.

The Art of Depression

It’s been a long time. I have a dozen or so books to catch up on, and I just can’t do it. Once more, I’m fighting a battle in the hundred-years-war.

I’m not good enough. I can’t do anything. Everyone else is being amazing, and I’m still in this quagmire.

I texted a friend the other night while at work. In my long message, I’ve commented on something I think about constantly: “I lost so much in high school and college, personality and vibrancy wise. The depression crept in on top of so-called intellectualism, and I was too tired, too jaded, to stop it…” That’s how I’m feeling again and again. I start to pull through, to find my way out of the riptide, only to get a cramp, and fall back into drowning in my own life.

I have no motivation.

Tonight, I almost walked into the front of a moving car. Not on purpose. But because I’m just stumbling through life, so completely lost that I forget to look where I’m going. My mind is cracking: I find myself yelling the same three sentences over and over, sentences that sound constructed by a two year old. Twenty-three years of life has disappeared, save for the memories that no one wants to remain, and I’m a toddler again, living in my parent’s care, no complete sense of self yet, a world more black and white as my palette hasn’t developed color.

On the way home, I wanted to put my foot to the gas, to drive as fast as I could. I couldn’t go fast enough. I couldn’t escape, not the thoughts, not the memories, not the emotions.

I’m off my meds. i get tired of the stigma, tired of taking them every night with a — count them!– one, two, three. Staring at them, pulling them out. I’m tired of it. This does not define me. But some days… It seems like people see this side of you, see through your melting facade, and know that you’re a lost cause.

I am strong. I am brilliant. But I keep forgetting to remind myself.

The Final Book of 2012

I knew how Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Return of Sherlock Holmes would start.  That’s the problem when you’re a reader reading a book with a spoiler one hundred years after it was published: Everyone and their mother has spoiled it for you.  So I was ahead of Watson– not that that’s a hard thing.  I’m more a Sherlock than a Watson.  And really digging the TV Show Elementary, as I love them showing Holmes as being an addict, which source material totally has him being, but alas, I digress.  But seriously!  So nice to see him a pompous addict instead of just an overly smart, classy man.  I LOVES it.

Okay, I’m done now.  Maybe.

So The Return of Sherlock Holmes.  Usual pattern.  Bunch of mystery stories as solved by Holmes and told by Watson.  Generally short stories, all.  And generally some of the better mysteries I’ve read.  And I love mysteries.  Maybe because I can solve them pretty easily.

Some days, I think I am the female Holmes.  Other days, I wish I was.

And the Waiting Never Ends…

Some days, I think Samuel Beckett was insane.  And then I think I’m insane and realize, we make a perfect pair.  He wrote Waiting for Godot, I read Waiting for Godot.  Need I say anything more?

I did not read Waiting for Godot while sick (I was really sick this past weekend; my body had entire revolution that started with passing out and ended with staying home for 48 hours straight).  And if I had, I don’t even want to wrap my thoughts around sick Ikkalee and whatever Waiting for Godot is about.  But healthy Ikkalee had a few thoughts:

According to her notes:

Waiting for Godot is either about one of two things:

1. Allegory for life: We are always waiting, we pass the time with trivialities, and we wait and wait and wait for something to finally occur.  It’s like with Finding Nemo.  According to 17 year old me, who discovered that Nemo was Latin for “No one” (According to a source I read; I could be wrong and then my entire theory has just collapsed around me) and was going through a stage of over-analyzing Disney/Pixar Movies, Finding Nemo is actually about our aimless search in life.  We are always looking for no one.  In the end, we find no one.  Wow.  I was a pessimist.

2.  Allegory of religion.  Godot is Jesus.  Dark is symbolic of death.  We are constantly waiting for Godot to arrive to bring us salvation and the meaning of life.  (Which we would all love to believe has something to do with 42.)

I’m not actually religious, but living in Western culture, it comes into my mind.  I have no idea what Beckett was thinking when he penned Waiting for Godot, but that is how an assimilated-into-Western-Culture, 20-something year old female in the 21st Century gets from it.  That’s my experience.  What is everyone else’s?