"Do We Outside Sources for our Essay?"

I've recently had to field a couple of questions regarding outside sources for the essay. Here is my answer:

To answer your question: no outside sources are required. I
like to focus on original critical analysis. But if you have
consulted any outside sources (in a general way), you can put them in
your bibliography. If you are using any original theories or
insights from those sources, you must include them in a bibliography,
and probably in an endnote. (General information, or information
that can be found in multiple sources do not need to be documented).
But, if in doubt, document.

See you soon.

Mr Mac

If you have a particular question, try me at: jmacarthur@tolland.k12.ct.us.

Well Done, Claire B!

You've won the coveted "Early Bird" Award (and there will be a prise to be collected)!

But what's up with the rest of you? It's time to start reading and making your entries. I'll be peeking in from time to time, but I plan to keep pretty much out of it. When this classblog works, it works because people are exchanging ideas and comments.

For an idea of what I mean, check this out. It's the blog last year for The Handmaid's Tale, one of last year's books. (The first entry was July 10th, so you're not far off. But some of the other book discussions were well under way at this point.)

As I say, I'll be peeking in from time to time, but otherwise keeping my distance. If you have any particular concerns, e-mail me at jmacarthur@tolland.k12.ct.us.

What Are You Doing WIth Your Summer?

Anybody doing anything exciting? Interesting? Just working? How's that going? ANybody travelled?

Me, I'm having a quiet summer, but I like that. I'm catching up on my reading (mostly free choice). Doing a lot of work around the house, particularly in the yard -- which I enjoy. In the evenings I like to sit on my screen porch watching the Red Sox. We hope to get away to the Cape for a week in August, but that may not be possible.

The most interesting thing I'm doing this year is learning to row crew. It's a varsity sport at Farmington High School, where my son will be a freshman next year. His brother rowed, and he's thinking of it, too, so we enrolled him in a program that meets three evenings a week -- and somehow I ended up enrolling in the adult program.

So what are you guys doing this summer?

What Else are You Reading?

Two of your summer reading entries are quite short. This is to allow you to have some time for other things -- including reading.

For myself, ironically enough (considering that one of the reasons I became an English teacher is that I love to immerse myself in the world of books), I don't get to do that much reading during the school year. I keep up with news and various blogs on the internet, I have a subscription to the New Yorker, but I don't get a chance to read many books. That's one of the things that I look forward to about summer.

So far I've read:

Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett. Recommended to me by Ms. O'Brien, but I can't really recommend it myself. (Sorry, Caragh.) A dinner party in a South or Central American country -- featuring a world renowned soprano -- is taken hostage by terrorists. The plan goes askew and a prolonged siege occurs, where the hostages and terrorists inexorably draw closer (see "Stockholm Syndrome"). An important force in the novel is the power of music -- particularly opera. Over the years, I've become a big fan of opera, so I can relate to that. But overall I found the storyline to be a bit farfetched.

Red Legs and Black Sox, by Susan Dellinger. I'm also a big baseball fan, including old-time baseball. This is a biography of Hall-of-Fame outfielder Edd Roush, focusing a lot of attention on the 1919 World Series where Edd's Reds defeated the infamous Chicago Black Sox, eight of whom conspired with gamblers to fix the World Series and were later banished from baseball. (For a quick overview, rent the John Sayles movie Eight Men Out -- based on the book by Eliot Asinof.) The author is Roush's grandaughter, and, as such, is privy to some inside information, but is not a great writer.

Spoonwood, by Ernest Hebert. This is the sixth novel in Hebert's Darby cycle, set in southwestern New Hampshire. The cycle follows the fortunes of the citizens of Darby, Upper Darby, and Darby Depot. Some are well-to-do, some are middle class, and some are poor. (If you've been to Maine, New Hampshire, or Vermont -- away from the resort areas -- you'll recognize these people.) I've read all the previous books in the series (writing a 45 page paper on them as part of my masters at Wesleyan), and I'm afraid I was disappointed by this one. Parts of the novel are narrated by a telepathetic baby (and a telepathic cat). Now I'm as avant garde as the next guy, probably more so, but what made the other books good was their social realism. If you want the real thing, try Hebert's A Little More than Kin.
[As a sidenote: Hebert mentions two books that influenced him in writing Spoonwood: Stone on Stone, by UConn professor Robert Thorson, and Reading the Forrested Landscape by Tom Wessel -- both of which I've read. And I wonder how many other people in New England can say that. Not many, I'll wager.]

So, what else have you been reading?

Hedda Gabler

Hedda Gabler
Henrik Ibsen

The year: 1890; the country: Norway. Hedda Gabler returns from her honeymoon to a house and life she despises, with a husband for whom she has no respect. Into this unhappy home bring two men who would become her lover – one an upstanding judge, and the other a brilliant but dissolute man with a scandalous past.
Just a word of warning about Hedda. You probably won’t like her, but she’s a fascinating literary creation. She’s more complicated than you think (if my past experience is any indicator). The actress Kate Burton (daughter of Richard Burton, who was a great Shakespearean actor as well as a movie star and celebrity) called Hedda “a female Hamlet.” I’m not sure I‘d go that far, but she’s more than just a “mean girl“.
There are reasons for everything she does, (although sometimes they are dark even to her). Take the “bonnet incident”. I think you can take her at face value when she tells Judge Brack that she doesn’t know why she does things like that.
For a key to understanding Hedda look closely at the nature of her relationship with Lovborg — especially in the past.

Enchanted Night

Enchanted Night
Stephen Millhauser

“Pulitzer Prize-winning author Steven Millhauser returns with a dreamy novella that calls to mind A Midsummer's Night Dream, were it set in modern day Connecticut. Under a magical full moon, the restless dreamers and lovers of the town slip out of their homes, drawn towards adventure. Children are lured from their beds by a piper while their long-forgotten stuffed animals awaken in attics all across the town. A middle-aged writer leaves his mother's attic, where he toils away endlessly on his novel, for weekly late-night philosophical jousting with the mother of his childhood friend. A gang of teenaged girls roam the streets, breaking into people's homes at night to steal toothbrushes and refrigerator magnets, always leaving a note proclaiming, "WE ARE YOUR DAUGHTERS." A fourteen-year-old girl sheds her clothing to bathe nude in the bright moonlight, while two lovers rendezvous, young men look for trouble and a mannequin finally meets her long-time admirer. Millhauser suffuses the mundane landscape of safe, boring suburbia with the supernatural and the ecstatic. Enchanted Night is told in exquisite prose that leaps off the page, inviting the reader into a bewitching world where anything seems possible.”

from the Random House website.

The Return of the Native

The Return of the Native
Thomas Hardy

Imagine yourself being a lively, vibrant young person stuck with a bunch of hicks in an insular location where nothing ever happens. (Sound familiar to some of you?) What can you do to amuse yourself? What would you do to get out?

The Return of the Native is a traditional 19th century novel by one of the great English novelists, Thomas Hardy. You’ll find that it’s kind of slow-paced for our tastes. But stick with it. The characters are interesting, and the situations they find themselves in are compelling. Hardy liked to subject his characters to the vagaries of fate, and that is certainly in evidence in The Return of the Native.

Warning: this book starts off slow. Real slow. It's a loving description of Egdon Heath, the setting for this novel. (The chapter gives you some idea of what it feels like for Eustacia to have to live there.)

Try to get through it. The heath is an important character in the novel. But, rest assured, the whole book is not like this. Once we start getting into characters, and especially plot, you'll like it. However, if -- and only if -- you would find yourself giving up on Hardy, (or starting to consider alternative paths), you have my permission to skip ahead. Try a paragraph or two, or to the end of the chapter if need be. But then start in again. Stick with it. You'll be glad you did.