January 2013: Good and Bad and Moving and Les Miserables

I've been bad and I've been good...but I'm gonna have an Aviance night.  No, I'm not.

The badness: I've neglected my blogging.  I almost announced a hiatus because I feel so fragmented about changing jobs and changing my plans from moving back to the US to moving to Busan and getting all my paperwork in order.  Not only do I feel fragmented, my brain feels like the witches' brew in Macbeth.  Every day, one more ingredient is thrown into my seething, teeming cauldron. Moving again!  Aaargh, the books.  The packing of boxes, the ruthless paring down.  What I really love is having moved rather than the actual process.  Anyway, no hiatus for this blog.  I haven't stopped in almost 9 years and I won't stop now.

 More bad-osity: I keep wavering in and out of the TBR Double Dog Dare Challenge like a radio station slightly out of range.  It's not A.D.D.  My friend Teri got me into listening to audiobooks from the library, and no matter how much I squint at the dates, and mumble stuff about Lunar New Year they were checked out after the TBRDDD did commence.

Surprisingly, I haven't put a big 'Fail' sign up.  I was gentle-Marmee with myself. I climbed up to the garret and gave my inner Jo an apple and patted her hand (that was interesting) and kindly but briskly told her to just see how many TBRs she/I can read before April 1.  It worked.  I was back on track quicker than you can say blancmange.

So where is the goodness in all of this?  The reason I was Marmee-nice to myself and permitted myself a slight swagger on occasion is because I finished Les Miserables this month!  I loved it and have plans to read it again, but it was like boot camp with a French accent and a slightly daffy drill sergeant.  Who the hell stops a perfectly riveting storyline to go on and on about Waterloo?  Slang?  The history of Paris sewers?  The slang and the sewers were right up my alley since I'm an EFL teacher who has a secret fascination with anything to do with merde,

even though I don't pronounce it properly.  Is is mared or mare-day or do I say mare then swallow-gargle that last bit?  But Waterloo!  I was OK for a while, then I got up and started singing and playing ABBA:

I got irritated with Hugo's ramblings, but admired his moxie.  Also, I have to cut him some slack:  Dude was homesick for France.  I get homesick all the time, so I know the symptoms.

Another time I got distracted was when Victor Hugo was talking about Marius' handsomeness, and mentioned his slightly flared nostrils.  I tried to continue, but then was compelled to get a mirror and check my own.  After that, it was time for work, so I went in and sized up everyone else's nostrils.

Anyway, I'm happy I finally got it done. When I was 9 or 10 years old, I remember reading a synopsis of "Less Miserables" and thinking it sounded like a good book: A guy named Gene Valgene steals a loaf of French bread.  I like French bread!  A mean policeman chases him for 20 years.  There's also a girl, like me.  I was outraged to find that it was impenetrable, in spite of going at it with all my fledgling reading powers.

I find my Les Miserables reading project to be useful to others.  When people talk to me about the musical and express confusion about a certain point, I pipe up:  "Well, in the book..."  I'm trying to offer up my knowledge in a sweet, have-a-bite-off-of-my-chocolate-bunny's-ears way, but I can also see how I might come off as nerdish and irritating.

This post feels too long already.  You're probably thinking  fermez and C'est fini! so I'll discuss the other books I read/listened to in January next time.

Readathon: Hour 21

Blogs visited:  A lot.  Maybe 20.  I'm officially laying down my pom-poms till next Readathon.

Books read:  0

Pages read:  0

Food:  Nope.

Drink:  No, but I am thirsty.  Time for water.

ZZZZZ?  No way.  That morning nap is paying off like crazy now, just as I thought it would.

Plan:  A concentrated effort to finish The Onion Field during Hour 22.

Bookish Resolutions For 2010

Thanks to my Tough & Cool Inner Bookworm, the whole blogiverse now knows where I stand as far as last year's reading goes. Baby, I can't please you. She's back in the closet and the door is firmly bolted, but at diminishing intervals, I'll hear a sudden, muffled cry: "Wollstonecraft!" Good idea, Tuffi, but give it a rest for now. I've got bookish promises to make and miles to go before I ... oh, never mind. Here are my resolutions for 2010:

1. Read for charity. This resolution is still a little half-baked. For every book I read, I'm going to award myself 1,000 won, roughly the equivalent of 1.00 USD. (I'll have 2 bucks by the end of today.) At the end of the year, the money will go to some non-profit literacy organization. I hope I can find one that specializes in literacy for second-language learners. I haven't solicited anyone to sponsor me, but a couple of my friends have pledged to match what I've accomplished.

2. Read 100+ books. I've done this for 2 years in a row now, so I know it's possible. This goal ties in nicely with resolution #1. Plus, I get this...rush when I pop up to triple digits. Whoo.

3. Complete all my challenges:

• 100+ Books Challenge
• Support Your Local Library Challenge (50 books this time)
• 2010 Canadian Book Challenge
• Read The Book, See The Movie Challenge
• The Pulitzer Project

4. Read more books published before 1900. You see, Tuffi? I care.

5. Read internationally. I confess -- this one is difficult for me. I love books published in my native country. Heart, heart, heart, heart. I seem to fall into them the way hungry people fall into McDonald's at mealtime. Is that any way for an expat bookworm to behave? I must develop a plan.

.

6. Get caught up on my book reviews. Even if I have to put up my piecemeal notes or render everything into haiku, I will present an account of what I've been reading these past few months.

.

Six is an odd number of resolutions, but it'll have to do.

New Book Resolutions

We're already a few days into the new year and I haven't made a thing that even remotely resembles a resolution. I've shoved my Tough & Cool Inner Bookworm into a closet (if you call her "Tuffi" it makes her really mad!) and now it's time to get down to work:

1. Complete Middlemarch. I've already started my 10-year reread, but have gotten a little sidetracked by Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver.

2. Finish the Canadian Book Challenge. I'm stalled at book #4. According to John's rankings, I've been a New Brunswicker for months!

3. Read more Pulitzers. Easy enough -- I've been building my Pulitzer shelf for the past couple of years and now have an excuse to go out and buy another. The next (February 15th, if you're in Seoul) book group selection is Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. Yes! I haven't read this book since the late 90s and I'm looking forward to revisiting what feels like an old friend.

4. Make frequent use of the library at my new university. Finally getting a library in Korea, even if it turns out to be a little haphazard, is one of the best Christmas gifts I could have received, even if I can't open it until March 1st (start date).

5. Complete the Well-Seasoned Reader Challenge. I've chosen 3 books for this: Consider The Oyster by M.F.K. Fisher, Fried Eggs With Chopsticks by Polly Evans and Let's Eat Korean Food by Betsy O'Brien.

6. Study Korean. Not formally, but learning a few more nouns and verbs would be helpful.

7. Keep challenges manageable. Yeah, I know. How long will that resolution last? That "books about presidents" challenge looks so tempting.

8. Be less of a slob about writing reviews. The amount of catch-up on my plate is incredible. I won't run out of things to blog about.

9. Read more internationally. Always worth striving for, even though I always fall short.

10. Let non-fiction rule this year. Or at least break even.

I can hear a faint scratching from the closet. Tuffi must be taking notes.

Literary Cringe

One of the teenaged boys with which I work is a reader. He likes science fiction and fantasy (Anne McCaffrey is a favorite of his) which make me cringe, but in this world, we readers gotta stick together. I'll call this reader "Harry" because he's also fond of a certain series featuring a boy wizard.

Harry told me recently that one of his favorite books is ROBINSON CRUSOE, and that he's read it many times. I was embarrassed as hell. I began ROBINSON CRUSOE in the summer of 2001, but I bought a really cheap paperback copy with flyspeck print and pages so thin that the flyspecks bled through. Reading was a chore. I shelved the book. (Still have it. WHY???) Although there was this nibbling guilt that I was calling myself an English major without having completed a Daniel Defoe novel, I thought about it infrequently, especially when "Survivor" was on.

I couldn't confess to Harry that I hadn't finished this classic, so I made up my mind to read it soon. I stumbled upon a plan: Instead of hunting for another equally cheap-ass flyspecked copy, I would prevail upon Manfred, Jr. to find his poor old mother one of those abridged/adapted copies that have an illustration on every other page. I didn't have to wait long; Manfred, Jr. went back to his room and came back 2 minutes later with a copy of the book. (Manfred, Jr. has also read ROBINSON CRUSOE, which only added to my shame.)

Determined to put all shame behind me, I eagerly cracked open the book. Within one paragraph, I was in dismay. The person who adapted ROBINSON CRUSOE for the peanut gallery changed it from first-person to third-person! I'd gotten far enough in the other copy of the book (he'd been shipwrecked for about three years) to really enjoy the character's telling of his own tale. In contrast, the abridged/adapted version reads like a dry summary of events, almost like a laundry list.

Manfred, Jr. just asked me if I'm going to finish the version with which he provided me. I sighed and said, "I'll try." But in my secret heart, what I really want now is to read the CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED comic book version. If I'm going to see an illustration on every page, why not see some of that excellent comic book art with the vivid colors? (Actually, I haven't read one of these in years -- the last one was JANE EYRE back in middle school, which I thoroughly enjoyed) I'm pretty sure that with the CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED version of ROBINSON CRUSOE, the writers didn't switch to third-person narraration. One way or another, I'm getting this book done. This year.