maggiebellemorgan

[maggiebellemorgan]

Let me start by saying that I have no clue who Robert Goolrick is, and, even though I understand he's written a memoir, I didn't Google him, because that would ruin the mysterious aura surrounding this book I exchanged in the hotel lobby for the one I finished before it on my trip.

I can't say that I've ever read a "bodice-ripper" before, but I understand that to be an activity that gets Brigerton fans up in arms. I also can't say that the cover photo makes any sense, featuring as it does a figure in a gown from the 19th if not 18th century, when the first page declares the story begins in 1907. But no matter.

In terms of noir / suspense, Goolrick does the key thing right in A Reliable Wife. Even if you're used to period dramas or murder mysteries, you'll probably be surprised by at least some of the twists in the plot. The improbable connections between characters keeps the pages turning.

What made me want to put the book down was the balance of introspection and philosophizing by the characters. While the flashbacks themselves aren't too heavy-handed, the inner monologues of the characters sometimes are. He doesn't trust the reader to arrive at the reflection on life he's musing upon, so he has the characters think it on the page, which is cumbersome to the point of distraction. Similarly, he veers towards the habitual past tense when the timeline suggests not much repetition could've occurred, which is both confusing and muddles the suspenseful pace.

Further, while the Q&A interviewer gives the author a lot of credit for the text's sense of place, and Goolrick waxes poetic about the historical text that inspired him to write about one specific town, the nuts and bolts of the setting are vague to the point of detracting from the plot. It'd read better if it were set in any anonymous Midwestern town instead of one specific one, and if Truitt just was rich and "managed his affairs" rather than setting down to try to teach how to "become more powerful and rich" and "answer [workers] fairly". He's already a morally complicated figure, you don't have to pretend he is rich and powerful, exceptionally, without becoming so off the backs of actual workers.

Speaking of power and weird romanticism of it, Goolrick writes about sex and love in that sensual but uncritical way that only a man can do. Apparently the female orgasm belongs in the world of drugs, exploitation, and decadence, and women who have love and money don't need one.

Probably there's something really profound about the redemptive quality of unconditional love that Goolrick is trying to convey, but it's smells conveniently of ahistoric romanticism that justifies the patriarchy and capitalism.

[maggiebellemorgan]

I know that I'm risking eviction from Tumblr dot com for admitting this, but I've actually never read anything by John Green before. So, I have no reference point to his fiction, which I understand to be well-known in these parts ...

Everything is Tuberculosis is one of those pieces of non-fiction that delights by explaining the origins of an endless stream of cultural oddities, sprinkled with unbelievable fun facts. At the same time, it's a compelling, verging on shrill, book about a social justice and public health issue and, really, about health injustice under capitalism and ongoing colonialism. Now, I can't explain to you why tuberculosis is still a current social justice issue without spoiling a few main points in the book; for that matter, I couldn't do it any more succinctly than Green did, because I couldn't resist any of the fun eddies and diversions he takes, either. So, you should just read the book.

I'm usually quite critical of non-fiction authors trying to braid together too many personal and historical narratives with explanatory text, but Green threads the needle. There are just enough disparate protagonists to make the reader scratch their head at the historical distribution of tuberculosis cases.

Tldr: it was capitalism all along, the system needs to change somewhat, and you can't resist this many fun facts or this compelling narrative.

[maggiebellemorgan]

Listen, if you want to be completely enveloped in a whole universe for several, several hours, this 900-page tome might just be for you.

If you've ever read War and Peace, you may recall the staggering quantity of characters involved, and involved closely enough that the reader has some access to their interiority. Moreover, a handful of those characters are historical figures like Napoleon. Now, imagine that times three or four, all set from about 1890 until the end of WWI. The Children's Book weaves decades of development of each member of a couple of sprawling families together with not only infinite details of historical upheavals but also the personalities behind them, from kings to suffragists to artists and authors. In my opinion, Byatt accomplishes this even more convincingly, with the right amount of distance from each psyche.

The horrors and unreason of The Great War are conveyed as crushingly, if not as succinctly, as by Virginia Wolfe in To the Lighthouse, and even history nerds will gain a deeper perspective into the cultural upheavals and governmental mess at the end of the Victorian.

As always, Byatt offers incisive glimpses into women's struggles to find balance in a misogynistic world. Actually, this is the first book of hers where I've wondered if she isn't veering from a critical look into condemnation of "free love", with nothing but traps and devastation coming from the affairs, many of the most manipulative of which lead back to a rather progressive, even feminist-presenting man. Child sexual abuse, more explicitly in boarding schools and more obliquely within homes, is of course raised as a source of disruption, but the text really focuses on the young adults who survived and what they do with their experiences to than, say, Babble Tower...

The story-within-a-story structure is present but more well-integrated compared to Byatt's other novels, with several stories, plays, and poems rising to the surface more naturally than some of her strict two-track tales.

[maggiebellemorgan]

I Don't Know How to Get Rid of This Book

A colleague gave me this book, and now that I've had the misfortune of reading it, I don't know how to dispose of it.

To be clear, Eddie B. and I agree on several key things: Teachers are undervalued. U.S. public schools are understaffed. Teachers are not only unsupported but undermined by districts and administrators in their attempts to discipline students and, you know, form responsible citizens, in ways that are both demoralizing and dangerous to teachers and bad for students. Teacher workplace injuries aren't taken seriously, and there's no outlet for them to express their concerns without being victim-blamed and even sued or fired for it. Parents often enable the worst in their children out of their own insecurities but in a way that stymies their own kids' growth. I could go on.

However, he clearly crosses the line into unhelpful and even ableist thinking. He props up a conspiracy theory that disability identifications are just about excusing student behavior, when we have several good explanations for why identification numbers are going up -- which have a lot to do with including children identified with disabilities in school rather than pushing them out. He seems to be advocating for a more zero-tolerance approach to school discipline, although perhaps it's not fair to say that he's advocating for anything other than for teachers to get to air their gripes without being attacked, even though research has borne out that such policies were racist, sexist, and ableist and funneled kids into prison. At no point does he point to disinvestment, austerity, privatization, charter schools, deprofessionalization, or any other systemic causes of these issues, but rather "kids these days" and their parents.

Now, I don't by any means endorse attacking him on social media with racial slurs for his hot takes on student behaviors, which is apparently a thing that has happened to him. I just think he's taking the wrong tack.

He's also out of touch. At one point he muses that a teacher must've had a great relationship with her principal if the principal had her personal number; all principals are always texting everyone on blast all the time while still being terrible, in my experience. Also, none of these stories are actually all that shocking. I only worked in U.S. public schools for ten years total, and for each anecdote shared in his book, I could think of at least a couple on the same theme that were much worse that had happened to me or a colleague.

Moreover, he needs an editor. I know it's not a big deal to some people, but the typos, strange capitalization and usage choices, inconsistencies in formatting, and overall lack of gloss was very distracting to me. He just copy / pasted submissions from social media followers and free versed his responses to them, without theme, organization, or even too much humor, in my opinion.

The colleague gave me this book, unsolicited, under the condition that I pass it on to "another traumatized teacher". Respectfully, she doesn't have what it takes to be a teacher, especially the universal positive regard for children with exceptional behavioral needs, or even the ability to not take those behaviors personally. I wouldn't embarrass myself by sharing this with any teachers, due to the bad opinions expressed in it and the weak sauce of the scandals included. I wouldn't put it in a Little Free Library where a student might read it and get any bad ideas. I wouldn't give it to a non-teacher lest they incorrectly believe this is how good teachers feel. Sound off with your suggestions.

[maggiebellemorgan]

ICED OUT

this morning my UNMASKED self helped out at school arts department here in LOS ANGELES. this is not usually something i talk about to protect privacy of my other creative life but given whats happening in LA i think its worth the mention because ICE raids hurt these kids in so many insidious ways

they have NOTHING to do with how they arrived here and right now the fear hangs over them in a way that effects everything they do. yes, they could LITERALLY get snatched off the street, and some do, but even outside of the physical threat THE THREAT ITSELF is so harmful

the strange vibes and mysterious absences hung over everything at the start of the day, but when i popped in after helping i watched the assembly i saw something really beautiful: kids having fun. they were with their buds, they were in community, they were forgetting the threat for a moment.

there are so many ways to help. you can march in the street, you can volunteer, you can use art to urge others to do the same. you can CREATE spaces like an assembly auditorium full of cheering kids. today i am suggesting a donation. here is post of suggestions im trottin

i am going to be donating my own sum as well, and DOUBLE the profits of all tinglers sold today. so if you need a reason to check out the tingleverse now is your time. LETS TROT BUCKAROOS LOVE IS REAL

FOR THOSE WHO DO NOT HAVE BLUESKY I WILL LIST SOME OF THE DONATION LINKS HERE AS WELL:

amnesty international

we are casa

chirla

immigrant defenders law center

al otro lado

mid south immigration advocates

the young center

[maggiebellemorgan]

this is so rogue but does anyone have the poetry template that went semi-viral on twitter a while back? it was designed for kids but someone gave it to their mother who has dementia and she wrote a really moving poem about her experience.

[maggiebellemorgan]

Victorians Choosing Weird Things to Disclose

I know what you're thinking: what kind of goth has taken until this late in life to read The Picture of Dorian Gray? But, look, there's a lot of books in the world to read, and I'm getting to them as fast as I can.

Of course, the gist of the supernatural phenomenon underlying the plot of this book as permeated popular culture. I believe I first heard of Dorian via some cut-rate action film from my pre-teen years. In any case, I knew that there was a portrait that aged instead of the subject, who would be hurt if the portrait was but otherwise was immortal.

Now, I'm sure this has everything to do with the direction sci-fi / fantasy / teen paranormal romance had taken by the time I came along and nothing to do with any sort of misinformation on the part of others, but what I expected was a sort of generations-long plot of some schemer constantly having to move and protect his painting to avoid peril or detection, like a vampire with another Achilles heel. Spoiler alert: that's not what happens!

Between knowing about Oscar Wilde biographically and the editor's over-the-top elaboration on everything potentially homo, it was hard to miss the suggestions of sexual deviancy, and Wilde actually does make clear that some combination of opium use and extramarital sex are engaged in by Gray. Otherwise, what does he do with him immortality? I really don't know!

Maybe I'm a debased reader desensitized by the abundance of gore in contemporary media, but I guess I expected more details about his sins, or at least more adventures in his defending of his painting. Instead, we learn a bit about his material decadence, and it's implied that he socially ruins some other peoples' lives. Until the end, but of course I won't spoil that.

Overall I didn't get what I had hoped for, which is to say the book was a lot more about what rich men with no obligations do with their time than about dark, gothic horror. That being said, I didn't hate it.

Compared with Wilde's other works, especially the plays and fairy tales, Dorian offers a lot less social critique, and almost no humor. The witticisms are almost at too high a concentration to mean anything. The only social commentary that you're likely to come away with, other than wondering yet again about how confoundingly rigid authors used to be about whipping out their unlikable greedy Jew trope, is that women got the short end of the stick, seeing as the men in this story ruin women's lives basically out of boredom. There's something deeper there about homophobia and sexual liberation, but most of that comes from the interpretation and reinterpretation. Interestingly, the decadence / dandyism / excess / aestheticism argument at the beginning of the book almost seems irrelevant. It certainly fired up Wilde's contemporaries, but I just can't care about the potential for moral degradation via excessive luxury when the plot also includes murder, extortion, drug-pushing, etc. etc. Again, I'm probably just a debased contemporary reader.

Conclusion: not what I expected, but maybe worth reading just to know what it's actually about.

[maggiebellemorgan]

There’s two ends of the horror spectrum

[maggiebellemorgan]

I've waited a while to post my review of The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth by Beth Allison Barr because I wanted to find a way to be less mean about it. To be clear from the outset: I agree with the central thrust of her actual argument. That is to say, I agree that the Gospel actually calls for radical equality and respect of people of all genders and condemns patriarchy. Further, I wish this argument, and the Bible-based reasoning she employs, could make their way into the brains of more people in today's scarily reactionary, mansophere-corrupted, trad-wife-glorifying climate. That being said, I don't know that it'll win more than a couple of people over.

Her argument is rather simple: evangelicals take a handful of verses out of context over and over to prop of patriarchy. This view is contradicted in other verses of the Gospel. Translation issues obscure the fact that some women of the Apostles and early church actually were deaconesses and had greater respect and power than would've been accepted in contemporary society. Finally, when Paul goes on about wives being subject to their husbands, a change in tone immediately thereafter ("What? Did the Gospel begin with you?") suggests that he really needed sarcasm quotes; he was parroting erroneously patriarchal beliefs back to the church he was writing to before setting them straight. Right there, based on a better reading of the Christian Bible, you can argue that women should be allowed to teach / preach in the church, and that patriarchal social structures are in fact discouraged. Further, her survey of pre-Reformation church history tells of women who were brave martyrs, religious leaders, fearless missionaries, etc., and these histories were suppressed by male religious leaders in the early Protestant Churches, which, at the same time as making Vulgate Bible translations that made the errors noted above, eliminated access to the religious basis for women's church leadership for those who converted to Protestantism -- conveniently as men were consolidating means of material production out of the home and away from women at the onset of capitalism. Insofar as I believe Barr is using true facts to make sound and important arguments, she has my approval.

But to whom is Barr speaking? The whole way through, I was struck by the fact that, though she and I are both 1) women, 2) born and raised in Evangelical - Baptist - homes, 3) graduates of advanced education, 4) including coursework in church history, 5) who live on the East Coast, 6) who now espouse more feminist beliefs, 7) and belong to a more progressive Christian sect than we did when we were younger, it felt like she wasn't writing to me, or even in a way that was easy for me to parse.

While I know that every editor will tell authors to weave their personal narrative into their research, this book really hurts for her having done so. Now, readers of my news excerpts on my main blog will already know that I tend to focus on the facts and figures, rather than the narrative. But even more story-minded readers will find themselves losing track of the plot, as biblical figures, saints, figures of early church history, contemporary Christian influencers, and people the author personally knows are picked up and dropped and then seen again. I read the book in whole chapters in just over a week, and I was constantly flipping back to figure out who we were talking about.

I know I've been out of the Baptist know for a while, but I have no clue who some of these supposedly influential fundamentalist thinkers she cites are. If I am left looking people up while holding my finger in the book, what chance do outsiders have with her very limited introductions and descriptions?

Further, academics will be distracted by her lack of context. When I was writing academic papers, I was taught that you can't introduce anyone without listing their year of birth and death as applicable and the main thing they're known for. Maybe Barr doesn't feel the need to be as strict in her pop book, but she verges into the irresponsible in my opinion. I love that she includes the example of Hildegard von Bingen to support her case for women's church leadership in the Middle Ages. But can you really list her as an example without mentioning a) that she's most famous for her visions and music, and b) she and her nuns were soft-excommunicated for her efforts to be head by Church leadership? Even worse, Barr at one point claims that she agrees with Martin Luther completely except for his misogyny. Really, everything? Even the conspiratorial antisemitism?

If evangelicalism-saavy Christians and academics are alienated, the secular interested don't stand a chance. Barr stops short of a full-throated endorsement of feminism, or even of sully articulating her sub-argument about subjugation of women rendering them vulnerable to violence, i.e. that the false patriarchy of the church facilitates the abuse of women and girls therein. Her argument lies fully within the logic of evangelicalism, so if you, like me, actually don't care about the age of the Earth, or the 6-day creation, or the literalness of God / the Flood / the Transfiguration / the Virgin birth / the Resurrection, etc. etc, then the basis of the argument is meaningless to you.

In my humble opinion, this book could've been three great works: 1) a fully-fleshed out, secular, academic text on the suppression of the history of female leadership by the Reformation, 2) a personal biography, as a long article or memoir, about Barr's upbringing, abuse in, and rejection from the evangelical church, and 3) a quippy op-ed against tradwives based on the Bible they say they care about. All mashed together, none of the potential is fully realized.

I want to recommend this book because I wish everyone, across the spectrum of belief and background, would access its ideas, its evidence, and its appeal. Unfortunately, it's a slog.

[maggiebellemorgan]

been stewing on an analytical approach to fiction which I call "is this book afraid of me?" and in order to answer this question you determine how hard the book is trying to make sure you don't come after the writer on twitter

[maggiebellemorgan]

Legitimately the funniest thing just happened in our virtual book group after someone rec’d a vampire romance to me and someone else piped up that it had a “problematic age gap.”

In a vampire romance novel.

Like, yah. I sure fucking hope so.

[maggiebellemorgan]

so important to not only write it bad but write it problematic. kill the twitter user that lives in your mind. you are not beholden to the potential criticisms of an imaginary audience.

[maggiebellemorgan]

Rare Re-Read: The Dead

One thing about me is that I almost never re-read books, re-watch movies, etc.

However, I distinctly remember enjoying Dubliners sometime around high school, even though that was quite a while ago, for me.

I do not distinctly remember how I came to possess a copy of The Dead in isolation, but I did, and I was happy to revisit this short story / novella (the length is somewhere in between) -- although that may just be because I truly do not remember it at all from the first time.

First: I'm becoming a scrooge about editing. This version has far too many footnotes. Readers do not, in fact, need the backstory on every little people of Dublin geography and Irish history. Joyce showed his love for them in the texture of the tiny details of his writing, it's true, and if you love it, you may also enjoy recalling the particularities he references. However, I doubt anyone enjoys the constant interruption of the narrative to be told the names of the streets at the intersection he's talking about it. Moving on!

The Dead is everything a short story aims to be. It's poetically dense; you can read it as a simple plot and get a laugh; you can pour over every snippet and deduce all kinds of meanings. It is an entertaining caricature of a class in a place and a time; it has something enduring to say about human nature. It is inexplicably suddenly sexual; it is agonizingly prudish and only weaves the sex into the human story rather than making it the, well, climax. It has a twist at the end, but neither so obvious that you see it coming, nor so Modernly random that it doesn't scan.

In short, this tiny text has a lot going on, in a good way.

[maggiebellemorgan]

Turns out catching COVID (but not dying of it) really helps you churn through literary tomes!

I finally reached the end of the Frederica quartet, and I continue to identify with the protagonist as much as is intended a bluestocking like myself will, even more now into my thirties. I still get to alternatively feel clever or bewildered by all the references, and now share the same inconveniences of aging as the heroine.

I was holding my breath for the, uh, sticky gore of the last iteration, but it never arrived. To be clear, violence, especially violence against women and children, continued to build and unravel plot points, but no text encompassing much of human experience could do without it. Fundamentally, realistic fiction has to address the horror of being a woman in a misogynistic society, as long as that's what we all live in.

A few years ago a recommended One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest for reasons related to shocking you out of the nice, warm nostalgia of the idealistic 60s with a reminder of how sexist, and also racist, a lot of the hippies and their thinking were. This book, besides being much better, issues the same reminder from the perspective of a knowing woman author frankly portraying characters, even wise and progressive ones, overwhelmed and perplexed by swelling changes, enthusiastic that society had to evolve yet disgusted by much of what they actually saw and were asked to either participate in or repress. While you get the Mod silhouettes and Bohemian fabrics, ecstasy of color TV and Beatles on the radio, you never get away from the cults, Vietnam War, or clergy abuse.

I unexpectedly enjoyed seeing how the characters had aged and changed, mostly softening -- if they didn't go on a murder rampage. However, I was also caught off-guard by the banality of love, too. In the first two books, I, like teen Frederica, am gunning for her to snag The One. By the end of the last one, I can accept that marriage and many of our biggest life decisions are largely shaped by accidents, and that we can be content in a number of situations, even ones far from what we'd dreamed up for ourselves.

Unfortunately topical for those of us in the USA, the text deals at length with institutionalization and the yet un professionalized world of therapy. It's a great reminder that authorities aren't always competent, para medical professionals are drawn from the general population and therefore subject to the same mistakes, and that you shouldn't drop acid with your clients!

Exhilarating to the point of being scary, fascinating in its representation of the exploding world of technology and science, pointed in critiques of both cults and universities, it's certainly not the most saccharine installment, but it might be the most complete.

[maggiebellemorgan]

use, and i cannot stress this enough, thriftbooks

[maggiebellemorgan]

If You Liked Pride and Prejudice and Have the Fortitude for LOTR

First problem with this edition: that dress is about a hundred years too new for Austen. Someone get Karolina Zebrowska on the(ir) case!

Second problem with this edition: the introduction spoiled the whole plot, and in detail. Maybe it's my fault for reading the introduction to a novel.

Austen herself is relatively faultless. The protagonist, Fanny Price, is nowhere nearly as likeable as, say, Elizabeth Bennett, to the modern reader -- or maybe at all. But the dialogue and rest of the text make it clear that she's adapted to her social station and era, and get docility, self-doubt, and refusal to act on her feelings or pursue her life interest in any way whatsoever appear to be a winning tactic, if only in the sense that older characters praise her for it.

The plot is much slower going; there is no declaration of the stakes in the first sentence like in P&P. Even Austen herself seems to get a bit bored recounting the whole family history up to the point of the start of the action, which makes you wonder why she did it at all.

That being said, the biting social commentary, reflection on the unequal status of women, and frank handling of the issues of class are exactly what you'd expect from Austen. Some readers might find the direct discussion of slavery as the source of wealth a relief, if its absence was part of their class discussion of P&P, though I'll warn you that you don't exactly her an abolitionist diatribe.

It's cozy, it's a comedy, it's period, people want to fuck they cousins, you get what you pay for (or find in the library).

This edition includes some quite silly appendices, including comedically brief excerpts from letters proving that the Austen family put on plays at home and Austen's eulogy by her brother that hardly scans in the Twenty-First Century. I'm sure some of the direct quotes from the author and companion texts have helped some students prepare for recitation or at least put a couple arguments to bed, but here's my list of helpful appendix ideas for editors of period texts:

Images of period clothing with unfamiliar items labeled

MAPS! Spare me the footnote at every place name, just include a map

Labeled samples of the kinds of fabrics mentioned in the text (you think I'm kidding, I'm not)

Samples of the smells mentioned in the text, like perfume ads in magazines

Family trees (whatever happened to family trees?)

[maggiebellemorgan]

Sally Rooney Told Me Things about Myself I Wasn't Ready to Hear

The edition of Normal People I picked up off the free shelf in the library had a blurb on the cover declaring the text demanded to be read "obsessively, in one sitting." To the chagrin of my sleep schedule, I have to concur.

There is a distinct pleasure for a reader in picking up a piece of fiction that triggers suspension of disbelief instantly and steadily, and Rooney pulls it off even when dealing with subjects that others struggle with: long periods of communication over text and email, social media, relationships that span years with long periods of separation. Each zig and zag of the central romance is devastating because, even though it is unexpected and terrible, it jives completely naturally.

Now, normally when authors address BDSM, I have critiques. Without spoiling it, I will say that Rooney errs on the side of pathologizing it, BUT, within the context of the believable, human tragedies of the interested party, I actually can't beef with her. Subs the world over will relate to the euphoria, horror, and anxiety of desiring and expressing the desire for submission, fearing that it is a manifestation of trauma and ultimately brokenness that shows when you try to hide it, scares away those who really care for you, and chases you into the arms of abusers. It's truly well-done. And gut-wrenching.

This book also wins my accolades for its treatment of class and inequality at uni. Now, Ireland is a little less dystopian for low-income college students than the U.S.A., apparently, but, as a FLIP student myself, I really resonated with the tensions, embarrassments, and furies of having to work overtime to get just a piece of what more privileged kids can do in college. While the text doesn't center on class struggle, none of the characters are ever out of the site of the class war, whichever side they are on or moving to.

Primarily, though, as someone who's tried and failed to publish a not-so-happy romance about a couple that has to have each other but just keeps misunderstanding and driving each other away, Rooney has a talent I admire. She also bears responsibility for my swollen eyelids for the following two days.