In recent years, I have looked less favorably upon Jane Eyre than when I first read it in high school. I think that is owing largely to being disillusioned with Mr. Rochester’s douchiness. But when The Chancellor told me that there was an adaptation featuring a half-Korean, half-American young woman, I was highly intrigued. Re Jane is the story of orphan Jane Re, a young woman straddling several cultures. After graduating from a smallish college and being rejected for a job at Lowood, a financial […]
A tale of Dominican oppression, of nerd self-hate, and of my ambivalence.
I’ve heard a LOT about Junot Diaz and his works. Out of curiosity, I decided to read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. And I am super ambivalent about what I just read. Especially since a lot of parts reminded me of Julia Alvarez’s How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents–but with an extra layer of self-loathing. The novel is several stories surrounding the titular character, Oscar. He is a Dominican-American young man who is overweight and geeky, with interests in writing, science fiction, […]
An interesting glimpse at the Philippines through a literary perspective
Two different friends recommended Jessica Hagedorn’s Dogeaters to me, so I decided to give it a try. Plus, while I have my booklist for my fall class set, I am interested in expanding my own knowledge base, particularly writers throughout Southern Asia. Dogeaters is a hard-to-describe novel. It’s a series of vignettes set during the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines. There are aspiring film stars, junkies, powerful families and their wayward children, and many more individuals who give voice to the novel. The “heart” of […]
The dangers of cauliflower gratin and other lessons from Barbara Pym
Apparently, the last novel of Pym’s I have to read was also the first novel she published in the UK. I basically have jumped around her “canon” and am now reading the first novel last. I was interested to see how her first novel would shape her career, and it’s filled with what would be considered her “trademark” in her novels. Some Tame Gazelle focuses on Belinda and Harriet, two fifty-something sisters who live together, unmarried. Belinda has languished in love–the object of 30 years’ […]
Humanity: less than angels.
I’m winding down to the last Pym novels in my library stack (and that she wrote) and feeling sort of melancholy that I can’t read her again for the first time. Ah, well. It’s the danger of binge-reading a new favorite author. I’m just glad I get to share her here on CBR (and hooray to those of you who are reading her!!!) Pym tackles anthropologists and academics again in Less Than Angels. Here, a love triangle emerges between Tom, a dissertating anthropologist, Catherine, a […]
Love and academia: two subjects ripe for examination
Yay! More Barbara Pym! Aren’t you all excited? [on a serious note, this was a delightful experiment, and I am *so* glad I was determined to “collect” her] This time, the “excellent woman” makes a reappearance and Dulcie Mainwaring (don’t you love the name?) is the protagonist. Shortly after her engagement ends, Dulcie attends an academic conference. There, she meets the wary and reserved Viola Dace, and becomes tangentially acquainted with scholar and presenter Aylwin Forbes. We learn that Viola had once had an affair […]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 85
- 86
- 87
- 88
- 89
- …
- 120
- Next Page »