Journal Entry #1: The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood

    Being a part of the female culture, it is easy to get into the grind of exposing the difficulties women face in a male dominant society. Especially in feminist texts, the struggles women endure are front and foremost. A lot of Margaret Atwood’s novels deal with blossoming feminism, the pros and the cons of it, and The Robber Bride isn’t much different. Since the primary characters are all female, and the men merely play second fiddle, it is easy to see things strictly from one gender’s point of view.

    But there is this one point in the novel, short, but it stood out in my mind, that men are struggling for an identity in society as well; that their role has transfigured over time as well as women’s. Just like women struggle to find that balance between being mother, lover, breadwinner, and whatever other roles they take on, men are also struggling to fit into and out of those old categorical tags we place on them. In particular to this novel, Atwood points out that women no longer know what a “good man” is, and neither do the men. It seems as though we are all still trying to fit into these archaic filing systems, despite the changes that have taken place in modern society. Women are still trying to figure out what is really beautiful without being overt, men are trying to walk a fine line of maintaining their masculinity without being chauvinistic; we are all trying to color in the lines, but who knows where the lines really are.

    This just reminded that it is easy to be hard on men in general, and beat down their complaints of fitting into their gender role, because throughout history they have had more opportunities than women to express the difficulties of their circumstances. Naturally, this is an unfair perspective. Why hold the past against the men of today? They didn’t dictate our history and are as susceptible to the flaws and follies of modern society as women are. And it is generally an unfair assumption that they would have had opportunities to express their feelings more than women. We are finally coming to a point in some cultures where men and women are both allowed to express an unhappiness with the constraints of their gender roles. But it hasn’t always been that way for either gender. This was simply one of those instances where I was reminded that the structure of a society isn’t as simple as which gender is the dominant one. I don’t generally consider myself an intense feminist, but I certainly have my moments. I like being reminded of my moments of narrow-mindedness and ultimately remedying the situation.

    Life is just so much easier at times with labels, compartments, categories. If we all fit snugly into our designated boxes, then it is easier to see where we belong in the general construction of society. Of course, life isn’t so simple. So here we are, men and women alike, trying to find a place, whether it is gender-neutral or not. It was nice to get a sharp moment of perspective in this novel, reminding me that there are always two sides to a story, that every person has unique circumstances and that it isn’t as easy as I’d like to lump people together under a label. And that it isn’t so easy to toss myself in one category or another.

 

Journal Entry #2: North and South

    I was pleasantly surprised while reading this novel, how smoothly it read. It didn’t seem to have any of the tongue-tying intricacies of language that often accompanies classical literature. I also thought Gaskell did an awesome job of creating Margaret’s character. By turns I was annoyed and taken in by her. Just like her character is in the book, as a reader I got to see both sides of her personality. There were moments when I questioned how the other characters could possibly find her stuck-up and then I would get the same vibe of her character at a moment when I least expected it. So it was nice to be convinced of the character’s foibles even though they weren’t necessarily who she was entirely. Does that make any sense? I guess what I am trying to say is that, despite having the novel primarily from Margaret’s perspective (which often lends the reader an inside view to that character’s feelings and motives, often dispelling the strength of a negative impression the character makes on other characters), I was still able, not only to understand the other characters’ impressions of Margaret, but experience their feelings toward her as well.

    I found the end disappointing though. After nearly everyone dear to Margaret dying in an extremely short period of time, that moment of happiness was extremely short-lived. I finally got to smile and even laugh at the humor displayed in the last lines and then when I realized that there wasn’t anymore to read, my jaw dropped. Since I read this book in a pdf file, I was terrified that maybe somehow I lost some of it. But everything that I found seemed to confirm that was all there was. Well, call me a sap, but I do like the happy endings. I suppose it is better that they are short and sweet as opposed to long, drawn out, and disgustingly sentimental. I walk a fine line, I know.

 

Journal Entry #1: North and South

    Perhaps it is a subconscious pull that draws me toward texts that involve the lives of orphaned children, daughters, sons… I admit though, that I knew nothing of Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel North and South until I began reading it one day. I hadn’t even read a synopsis of it or anything. It was basically a blind reading, diving head-long without the slightest idea of what I was committing to. I wasn’t disappointed.

    My initial attraction to Gaskell as an author was the fact that she wrote a biography of Charlotte Bronte just after Charlotte had passed away. Naturally, being a bit of a Bronte fanatic, I felt that it was worth a shot reading the works of those that had been considered friends of her’s during her lifetime. Well, I have the biography Gaskell wrote, and I haven’t managed to read it. I’ve started it a few times, but meh… I even have another novel by Gaskell that I tried starting once or twice and it just didn’t seem to come to anything. Then the other day, while bored to death at work, I remembered I had used Readdle to upload a few books and North and South was one of the books on there. And that happened to be the only one that seemed able of holding my attention for the time, but I was rather disposed to think my effort wouldn’t last. I was pleasantly sursprised to find that I was quickly engrossed in the book. But I’ve gone off topic…

    I had intended to make the point that there was absolutely no way I could have known that this novel would deal with a woman that suffers the losses of both parents. So I don’t have some pre-disposed tendency toward these types of books before anything is known of their content. So then it obviously has to be a conscious inclination toward these type of books. Yes, I think that makes much more sense. Especially considering that I am fully aware of this as I am writing at the moment. But it has all been a bit of a revelation today really. I came to a point in the novel where the poor Margaret’s losses did not seem capable of increasing and my empathy for her was probably at it’s height.

    At this point I (semi-reluctantly) got up off my ass and went for a lengthy walk with Princess. It was during this walk that I was thinking about the character and how part of me felt her loss so keenly and part of me understood so sincerely that striking moment of realization that she is left alone. The rational part of me says that it is ridiculous for me to understand this circumstance so thoroughly, considering (thankfully) both my parents are still alive. I haven’t suffered severe losses of friends or family in my lifetime, not to something so permanent as death anyway. And then there is that little voice in my head that doesn’t really need to remind me of my own beginnings. Because somehow those beginnings are always my foundation. It is an inverted foundation, negative space, and my life has been to fill the void as promptly. But it is a hungry beast that accompanies such a beginning. I find that I am drawn to texts about loss, especially of parents/guardians, because it is something that I have never really had the opportunity to express in my own lifetime, but have suffered from. I feel like a bag of contradictions here. But I also know that I have haunting feelings of abandonment thanks to my infancy. I think this feeling of contradiction is why I have never been able to properly mourn the loss of my biological parents… How can I possibly mourn them when I have my adoptive parents that are living and have worked hard to provide me with a good life (which would likely not have happened had I remained in the care of the bios)? It is the mixture of guilt for natural emotions that pushes me to read novels like North and South and any of Charlotte Bronte’s novels and a number of others that I thoroughly enjoy. I read them with relish, because in this strict literature setting, I am allowed to grieve and release my twenty-some-odd-years repressed emotions of loss…of helplessness…of loneliness…of abandonment. Because isn’t death the ultimate form of abandonment? Heaven or not, those that die are not coming back… Is all this morbid? Perhaps it is.

    As I begin to realize some of the feelings and motives behind my taste in books, I also begin to understand why I like books like the Harry Potter series. It’s the same basic principal of an orphaned child struggling to cope with the sense of loss that stems from an event beyond conscious memory. Maybe some people would argue here that the basic principal of the series is good versus evil. Yeah, not so much from my point of view. I have to admit that this is a bit of an obsession for me…these shrouded beginnings, swelling with a foggy sense of memory that has no real context to it, just feelings… Is there anyone who wouldn’t be obsessed? I’m I losing it? It’s not as though I allow these emotions to get in my way of day to day life. Anyway, enough rambling…. I’ll have to come back to all of this and maybe I’ll talk more about the actual book in the next journal entry.

 

Journal Entry #18: It’s all about the grit…

    I just don’t get the comment that my writing is too pretty, the language I use is too nice, too quiet. What does this mean? Why is it necessary for my writing to be dirty and gritty, harsh adjectives and severe juxtaposing. Need a dog’s bite to go with the soft fur? Is this need for the grit a new fad? Is this really the only way I’ll make it in writing, committing to the ugly, the cold and disconnected?

    I really just don’t get it. Are they really just trying to say that my writing comes off as studied, forced, pretentious? Because if that is the case, I wish they would just say what they mean.

    I uncovered another reason as to why I dislike peer editing/workshopping. I’ve never been a terribly confident writer and typically I think all my writing sucks. Perhaps some is more bareable than other writings I’ve done, but all in all I don’t think of myself as a great writer. As a result of this, I turn everything in with the assumption that I failed miserably at it. So when I have to listen to someone tell me what is wrong with my writing I feel even worse and more discouraged than I started. And that just opens up a whole other can of worms. Its not like all I get are negative comments, but being a bit (or a lot) pessimistic, I tend to focus on the negative more than the positive. I HATE disappointing, letting down, not meeting expectations.

 

Journal Entry #17: The Language of Abandon

    The thoughts came up again today, the issues of adoption and the expression of abandon. I feel as though it is an unspoken language, as though it is undiscovered. I know more people than just me speak this tongue, this language of abandon. It’s as though we haven’t found each other yet. As though we haven’t collected and made an identity for ourselves.

    It’s like speaking woman in a society based off a male-dominant language; the masculine always being the default, the feminine having no real words of her own. It’s like being atheist in a deeply religious community. You know others are out there, but they’re not the congregating kind. Voices become diminished in this linear construct. We seem to exist in parallel universes, colliding with the mainstream and becoming lost amongst it all, trying to trick our tongues into slurring false truths.

    I want to know how to speak the words of absence, how to quiet the presence that is missing and always calling for me. I don’t know my own language; I don’t know the language of my body, speaking from the inside out.

    I’m trying so hard to formulate sentences in the language of the social, the words where people are connected and living, but my story is neither. It’s about the disconnection, the deadness that is left behind in wondering. I can only be vague and round-about; there is no direct translation for what I know.