Nearly Spring

It must be spring-ish somewhere 'round these parts-- the British-born Daffies are 99p at Markies, and that's the surest sign of the season's approach. Soon there will be little bunches of daffodils in every corner Tesco, every Spar and Cooperative up and down the country, and for this, I am grateful. I've missed watching them open in the thin Aberdonian sunlight, the vase on my windowsill guarding my elbow and gradually filling my office with the scent of freshly opened petals. Anything to dispel the lingering sense of the uncanny generated by my reading of Bataille's The Tears of Eros. Absolutely anything. More on this book at some later point.

To sum up... DAFFIES ARE COMING! That is all.

Hey, look-- I can read!

... Yay, literacy!

So, after struggling with deep philosophy for the past, I don't know, it feels like forever, I'd become convinced that it was no longer possible for me to read more than a few pages of anything in a sitting. 6 pages of Blanchot and I have to get up and do some dishes, pick at my face, iron my bedsheets, anything to keep from passing out in a sludge of drooling intellectual stupor. 20 pages seemed to be my daily limit, between Blanchot, Nancy, Hallward and Hegel. Ack.

It was in a furious bout of charity shop shopping that I picked up two gently used books. The first was purchased simply to get people off my back. To all of you who have asked: "Miss Melville, have you read the new Cormac McCarthy book? You know, the one they're making/have made into a movie? The one starring Viggo?" The answer is now: "Yes, you bastards, now leave me alone!"


The book, needless to say, is The Road. The Times Literary Supplement says it's the best book of the past 10 years. I don't know about that. It is, however, a terrifying read.

I'm not much of one for zombie movies, and not because I teach film and I think they're all hack jobs. Quite to the contrary: they scare the absolute piss out of me. Anything post-apocalyptic gives me the most severe anxiety. So, thanks to all you miserable sons of whores to harassed me into reading this.

All that said, it's a brilliant book. The literary merit is solid, and I do appreciate the way he plays with a lack of punctuation to further underscore the lack of possession in the novel. It's powerful stuff. Redemptive? I don't know. Parts of it quite reminded me of King a la Cell. The description is vivid and chilling, the characters bleak and torn, the setting unsettling. The cannabalism is a horrific touch, but not overdone. All that taken in, I liked it. If anyone has a copy of Blood Meridian they'd like to loan me, please go ahead.

I read The Road in a day. Yes, that's right: ONE DAY. I started it on the bus in to Uni in the morning and finished it in the dark of night (considering I'm in Aberdeen where the sun is down by 6pm, this isn't that impressive). Inspired by this success, I moved on to another work.

More about this after the break!

Books

So, I finally bought the book that we've been discussing in my Monday reading group since last September. Yeah, I've still not read it and yet participate in every discussion as we go along. I love half-assed intellectualism on my part.

Anyway, I suck no more! Amazon.co.uk will deliver onto me the most recent addition to my Blanchot collection: The Step Not Beyond. Woot, fair reader, woot indeed.

I've also ordered The Unavowable Community and a few other gems off of Amazon.com (because the exchange rate blows) which will be delivered to a friend's house (also because international shipping blows). I'm hoping they love me enough to ship them to me in a padded envelope of acceptable dimensions. That would be great.

But anyway, I'll have the major text before the massive conference here at the Uni at the end of the month. You know, the one with the major international scholars on Blanchot all in attendance. I've basically read it over Sergi's shoulder, but now I can apply my own soft lead pencil to it. I officially declare this a win.

Book Review: The Audacity of Hope

You know how people throw about that line, the one about laughing and crying and being moved? Yeah, I'm not throwing it lightly-- I mean it. I just hope this guy does as well.

Now, I know I've kept quiet on here about the presidential election. It's a devisive topic around the dinner table at the old family homestead, but I'm coming to realize in my quarter-life age that I'm trending democratic. Mostly it has to do with a belief in solid foreign policy and emphasis on higher education. So shoot me. I also don't think the government should have anything to say about specifically moral issues and that we should keep people alive who want to die, but that's an entirely seperate post.

ANYWAY, this book. Oh, this book. I've been a fan of Obama for a while now, considering I've believed for a long time that there was no way for Hilary to win. My native country might agree in theory if not in act that a black man and a white man are equal. It will be another century before they'll say the same for a woman. No way in hell would the home of the brave elect a woman as commander and chief in the midst of a foreign campaign, no matter how ill-advised and ill-executed. It just won't happen. And so I found myself taking interest in a young senator with the oratory skills of a preacher.

His charm is undeniable. There's no beating around the fact that he is wildly charasmatic. Not that such is a bad thing-- in fact, I think the White House desperately needs a little tact and smooth-handedness-- but what's behind it? He's preaching change, which I'll agree that we need, but what does his variety of change look like? A straight answer on this was hard to find.

Until I bought his book. Yes, I walked into Waterstone's on Union Street and bought a full-priced book. Incredibly unlike me, but I'm glad that I did. I found his writing style to be easy to read, his chapters well-defined and his points clear, and the whole experience refreshing. But more than all of that, I found out what his change for America would mean. And I couldn't be happier.

A whole chapter on education reform? The world beyond our borders? Race? Religion? REALLY?!? He thinks we should be investing in retooling our struggling work force and investing in our people rather than slashing taxes in a wild bid to keep the dying industries we should have out-moded thrity years ago. He thinks that we need to listen to the rest of the world, regardless of the frustration of sitting in meeting after meeting, consulting the non-specifically involved, asking our old allies and our new colleagues on the global scene what they feel would make the entire planet a safer, friendlier, more-sustainable nest for humankind? He thinks that racism is still a problem that we can no longer talk about in mincing, antiquidated terminology or pretend to be a war of another generation? Again, REALLY?!?!

This, my friends and invisible readers, is a book everyone voting in the election should read. EDUCATE YOURSELF. Don't take my word for it. And see if you don't choke up just a little bit on the last page. I did, I won't deny it.

Here's a man who actually respects and loves the constitution as a living and historic document, not as one or the other. A man who understands the necessity of the separation of powers, who respects the singular importance of congress. A man who isn't going to speak to me like I'm an idiot or patronise me by pretending that truly complicated situations have simple and perfect solution. Thank whatever god you like, I am.

Hell, I'm thrilled at the prospect of simply voting for someone with the chops to write a book, let alone the utterly terrifying and exhilirating prospect of respecting my president again. Lo, how things just might change...

I'm giving this the full five flying flags. Take that.

Book Review: The Oldest Orphan

Written by Tierno Monenembo as part of the Duty to Remember project coming out of the Rwandan Genocide, this is not a particularly light read. This is not to say that it’s not a quick read, topping out at 96 pages, or a well-written piece, but it is certainly not easy. The narrator is accessible, but deceptive and debatably monstrous. And, frankly, any book written about genocide should be difficult—if it’s easy you’re doing it wrong.


The narrator, Faustin Nsenghimana, is 15 years old at the time of the narration, making him a newly-minted 10 year old boy at the time of the actual genocide. His story is one of brutal survival, of what he felt he had to do to continue to exist in his world, be it as it may. By alternating between reflection, memory and flashback, the story unfolds with such tact that one is never able to forget that Faustin is a victim, but becomes monstrous himself. Perhaps this is the cruelest consequence of war—the living casualty.


At the outset, the reader knows that Faustin is living out the short remainder of his life awaiting a death sentence in the Kigali central prison. What one doesn’t know until the bitter end is what first set him on his path—the manner of his parents’ death and his mutilated survival. By constantly pulling the reader back and forth between being horrified by Faustin and heartbroken by his plight, the author skillfully evades the temptation to make a saint of his narrator and with the same hand deepens the reader’s understanding of the tragedy.


In a number of marked ways, the work thematically resembles Camus’ The Stranger. Beyond the fact that both narrators are ultimately sentenced to death and they both death with the death of the mother, there are certain other elements that pull out a comparison. However, Monenembo’s descriptions are infinitely more graphic and The Oldest Orphan lacks the sense of release of tension that one gets at the end of The Stranger. While this is quite possibly deliberate, as the genocide has not gone away or been dealt with, it leaves a lasting effect on the reader.

While I would certainly recommend this short yet heavy piece of fiction, I would do so with a cautionary air—don’t treat it as a summer read, beach book or rainy afternoon solace. It is certainly none of these things. As such, it is absolutely worth a read.

Ergo: 3.5 on the 4.0 lps (literary point scale)

Not long at all...

Just a tiny little update. It's 6:44 in the morning here, I have yet to fall asleep. At midnight I decided to start a book I picked up a while back, called Water For Elephants. I just finished. This makes the second book in a month that I've read in one sitting... I don't know what that means.

In the past few days I've acquired a UK cell phone, or 'mobile' to sound authentic, and the peasants rejoiced. Here's to being able to text like the rest of the civilized world.

I had a meeting with Dr. Fynsk today-- the chair of my department-- to talk about Ph.D. work and what he thought about the general scope of my aptitude within the Center for Modern Thought. He seems to think I'm a bright, ambitious and scholarly kid who could do very well indeed. When asked about funding, he said that there might be some money in the department, but I should check out the Fulbright, the AHRC, and whatever else I could find online. Well, the application deadline for the 08-09 Fulbright is already past. I'm not eligible for ANY funding from the AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council (?) is the main source of funding around these parts) as I'm not a resident. Well, damn. I wish I were a resident... does that count? Somehow, I think not. I very much need to scout. I also bemoaned my lack of steady job, and he mentioned about being in need of a research assistant-- erm, yes. yes. and yes. please. He'll e-mail me the details. "I mean, it won't be all that much, not more than 10 pounds an hour..." I've gotten quite proficient in currency conversions in my head, and the idea of making roughly $20 an hour made me want to cry with relief. My credit card is basically maxed out at the moment and my bank account here STILL hasn't gone through. Ergo, I can't cash the $1500 worth of excess aid checks that are sitting on my desk. Buying groceries is an exercise in masochism. Dr. Fynsk offered to spot me a hundred quid, but I just can't do it. However, if goes on for much longer, I don't see as I'm going to have a choice.

However, I did get an e-mail response to a CV that I sent out some time ago, asking me to come in and meet with them. Unfortunately, I don't really remember who 'they' are and it's not so explicitly stated in the e-mail. I'll figure it out though, I'm sure.

I also got a call from M3 this morning, and we had a nice little chat. I have a copy of Anna Karenina to drop in the mail for him, and I even bought it at the Oxfam bookshop here in town. We were talking a while back, and he mentioned how he was really kicking himself for not picking up a collected works of Shakepeare that he'd seen on sale at a bookshop back in the Sault. Well, I also found a collected works at Oxfam, and got both tomes for the paltry sum of 5 pounds flat. I figure it will make a nice surprise for him.

On other fronts, I'm thinking about offering the olive branch one last time to the fellows in the flat adjacent-- it's Guy Fawkes Day on Monday, and the city of Aberdeen is hosting a bonfire down on the beach with a fireworks display and general good-timeiness for all. After all, we must remember remember the fifth on November... the anarchist within my skin wouldn't have it any other way. Also, Peter and the Greek showed up at our door on Tuesday with half a cake and an apology for being so lame last Friday-- I guess there were some ungodly long and important presentations that needed the full sum of their attention. Well, fair enough.

Well, it's no 7:00 and I should probably take a shower or something. Maybe I'll finally get registered at a doctor's surgery today... but most likely not. Leave that adventure for at least one more week.