Computer

Computer may seem a rather humdrum word these days. It describes a class of mechanical devices which are able to act on inputs and produce outputs. However, upon closer consideration, this definition is surprisingly all-encompassing. An iMac is certainly a computer, but mobile phones, MP3 players, microwaves, refrigerators, and the brain itself are all computers. Going in to this project, I knew the basic definition of a modern day computer, i.e. Turing completeness, where a computer is able to create any output based on a finite series of inputs, and I had a vague idea of the definition it had before. A computer was not always a computer. Its original meaning was a mathematically employed person, and that hints at a multitude of meanings hid beneath the surface which I am interested in.

Criticism Summary

• Frankenstein is Realist because it is impossible to determine any true good or evil, although evil is extremely present. Victor is a victim of ambition and the monster a victim of society.
• Victor and his monster are “both aspects of the same being.” They both become increasingly dependent on one another, with their roles at the end of the novel even reversed.
• Clerval and Victor are both similar in a way reminiscent of Victor and his monster, both being men of education who reject the world of business for the world of ambition.
• Almost all of the characters in the book form an interconnected family, reflective of Percy Shelley's preoccupation with incest. This connectedness also serves to underscore each death as a “death in the family.”
• Frankenstein is more structured than a normal Realist work, but “the freer the imagination is allowed to roam, the more formally shapely will be the structure of the work.” It is argued that because Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in such an imaginative way that there is a large amount of structure in the novel.

Sir Gawain and the Doctor

    In ancient times, the men were men and gave only scorn to death and danger. Sir Gawain gave himself willingly into the hands of the Green Knight, his supposed executioner, while also capturing the heart of the Lady. In modern times, priorities for a hero have changed to include living to fight another day, but the interplay of duty, self preservation, and desire is still a complex issue. The television show Doctor Who analyzes these shifting forces in a very nuanced fashion, having dealt with the same situation of “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”  in ways both different and similar to the poem's which reveal the evolution of the hero over so many intervening centuries..
    At the beginning of the stories, both the Doctor and Sir Gawain are told they will soon die. For Sir Gawain, it is the twelvemonth and a day pronounced by the Green Knight. For the Doctor, it is an alien race saying, “your song must end soon,” followed up with a human low-level psychic warning him that his death will be heralded by four knocks. While Gawain's date and time of death are more well defined than their Doctor Who counterpart, this merely reflects on the different sources of suspense that each story is targeting. It is with the  two character's reactions that the meat of the comparison lies. Gawain volunteers for his fate, says goodbye, and moves on, fighting monsters on his way to the Green Chapel. He declares, “to count the cost over concerns me nothing,” when questioned about his upcoming sacrifice. On the other hand, the Doctor is told unwillingly twice, once by an alien and once by a prophet, and is horrified, aghast that his end might be near. However, the Doctor is similar to Gawain in that neither of them neglect their monster-fighting duties, with the Doctor even taking the time to save the universe in The Stolen Earth and Journey's End.
    Once the Doctor and Gawain approach when they are going to die, both of their demeanors change in illuminative ways. The Doctor once summoned to his death by the cloister bell ( a bell signaling distress of some kind ) does not pursue his duty but instead goes sightseeing, defeats the Red Carnivorous Maw, names a galaxy, and gets married. Gawain, on the other hand, meets up with the Lord of a castle and spends his days in equal leisure. The key difference is that the Doctor lazes about out of a fear for his own life, a fear Gawain has none of. In fact, Gawain repeatedly worries that he will not get to the Green Chapel quickly enough to be killed on time. It could be construed that in the case of the Doctor his self preservation comes about due to a stash of self confidence Gawain lacks, something that reflects on the humility of the Knights of the Round Table. However, Gawain is not unaffected by his death about to be, contrary to his passive exterior he is troubled, “though he lifts not his eyelids, little he sleeps.” From the two characters' reactions to their upcoming demises it is clear that as time has passed the form of cowardice also known as self preservation has proliferated.
    When finally confronted with their deaths, the Doctor and Gawain react in even more drastically different ways. Gawain practically begs for the Green Knight to kill him, citing that he will lose all his honor otherwise. In the end he wears a green sash to showcase his dishonor for having lived another day. In stark contrast, the Doctor does not want to die at all, and in fact only meets his death because he saves a human's life in the process. Right before he steps into the room about to be flooded with radiation he complains, “But me... I could do so much more! So much more! But this is what I get, my reward. And it's not fair!” In fact, his last words before his regeneration ( death ) are, “I don't want to go.” And so the Doctor and Sir Gawain are diametrically opposed, one wanting to die to preserve his dignity, and the other being self aware, knowing he is a genuine force of good, but that he must die. An additional difference lies in the nature of their executions. Gawain is brought low, he  has no control over whether or not he dies, and it is the Green Knight who proclaims he will not die that day. However, the Doctor is self-sufficient and powerful, deciding to accept his death and save a life. While it goes too far to say this means that older literature values the weak getting off easy, this still shows a clear trend towards using self-determination as a plot point in current art.
    At the end of the day, the differences and similarities between the Doctor and Sir Gawain in the face of death mean more than the fads of art having changed in the intervening centuries. Sir Gawain's desire to prove himself through what is most easily referred to as trial by death shows a puppy-like desire for approval amongst the ideal Knight of the Round Table as imagined by authors of this time, with him gallant, humble, and subject to an all powerful outside force. In contrast, the Doctor is a modern hero, conflicted, cowardly, but in the end in control over his own morality, a far cry from Sir Gawain.

English Language Family Tree

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Sweet Jane

     Jane Eyre was one of the books I read from the summer list. I choose it for two main reasons, one perhaps more justifiable than the other. First, the song "Don't Tell Me To Do The Math(s)" by Los Campesinos quite explicitly states, "If only you would give your life to literature just / Don't read Jane Eyre! / Work on your algebra," which piqued my interest in what could possibly warrant such a vehement command. Second, I was reading Pride and Prejudice on a whim and got to the 100th page before deciding I needed to find a new book at all costs, and from its first page Janes Eyre Bronte seemed the anti-Austen. To tell the story of the struggles through the world of an orphan child, not the quest for marriage of one of however many priveleged girls.
     Jane Eyre's storytelling also turned out to be largely good, nontrivially discussing the issues of the poor and the downtrodden, although its later tendings towards being over romanticised claptrap are less than stellar. From the beginning, the way in which Jane is rebuffed from the perfectly innocent question of what she had done wrong, "Jane, I don’t like cavillers or questioners; besides, there is something truly forbidding in a child taking up her elders in that manner," establishes in so few words the character of the harsh Mrs. Reed. Jane's views towards the poor are also very well established at this very beginning of the novel, this excerpt especially shows off Bronte's talents, "I shook my head: I could not see how poor people had the means of being kind; and then to learn to speak like them, to adopt their manners, to be uneducated [...]: no, I was not heroic enough to purchase liberty at the price of caste." Later, this makes Jane's descent into poverty all the more vivid as she begs for food and lodging despite being educated. However, it is also later that Jane Eyre becomes an unabashedly romantic novel, with such saccharine speeches that quite honestly boggle the mind. One especially stands out, where Jane's lover, Mr. Rochester is leaving her, "'Good-night, my--' He stopped, bit his lip, and abruptly left me." This passage uses one the most cliche phrases ever, biting one's lip. While it may not have been as outrageously overused at the time Jane Eyre was written, it is still to modern tastes outdated at best.
     Overall, however, the romantic ramblings of Jane Eyre don't outweigh its very thought-provoking analysis of poverty in the 19th century. While it is unfortunate to have to excuse the tendencies of a book based on other strengths, in this case the overall storytelling and plot are simply greater than the minor sappy Romanticism. All in all, this book was quite worth reading despite the warnings of Los Campesinos and was far superior to the always on cliched romance of the horrible Pride and Prejudice

Second and Eight

1. Anna Karenina. It was the first of the insane Russian novels I read, and it's sheer scope and brilliance make it memorable to this day.
2. Under a Glass Bell. My friend gave me this book to read and I devoured it in less than three hours. Each short story is excellently crafted and planned.
3. Cryptonomicon. This book is a classic to me just because of its subject matter, cryptography. Add in to that three interlocking plot lines and you have a winner.
4. The Printer's Devil. It was not memorable in a good way. However, it taught me the important lesson that some writers are absolutely terrible and should be avoided at all costs.
5. Mason & Dixon. This book introduced me to Thomas Pynchon and the wonders of the dense postmodern novel. The scarring associated with this being my ID paper book also helps quite a bit.
6. Infinite Jest is Infinite Jest. I don't need to say more.
7. The Fall. This book I read at an extremely young age and ended up mistaking it for a dream I had. It started my love for all science fiction and fantasy.
8. Artemis Fowl. The character of Artemis Fowl stayed with me for a long time after I read the first book. It was the first series I read and sparked a love of extremely long storylines for me.

First!

Over the summer I read Dr. Zhivago, one of the many extremely complex, long, and entertaining Russian novels which dot the literary landscape. This novel had such great storytelling because of its interwoven plot lines, its breadth of scope, and its depiction of extreme personal change. The interwoven plot lines, as with any novel in its style ( Anna Karenina comes to mind ), provoke many moments of realization that the assumptions the reader has made are entirely wrong, as when in Dr. Zhivago a long presumed dead soldier is many chapters later revealed to just have been captured. The breadth of scope is likewise incredible in the novel, with the story spanning from the peasant towns of the Urals to the burned out husk of Moscow after the Russian Civil War. The sheer scope of the story is breathtaking and always keeps the plot turning in ever different directions. The extreme personal change in Dr. Zhivago is almost icing on the cake, but the myriad drastic transformations undergone by the characters over the time span of the book always added more tension and excitement to the plot even as the page count of this already rather difficult book crept higher and higher. It is this ability to forestall fatigue in the face of length and density that marks Dr. Zhivago as a novel with a truly remarkable knack for storytelling.

One passage in Dr. Zhivago, which references scenes long since past and serves to introduce a new storyline, is especially endemic of the novel's storytelling prowess:
"I've brought a  letter for your friend. It's lucky for him I once had a job at the post office. I don't know how many hands it's been through, it's from Moscow and it's been five months on the way. They couldn't find the addressee. At last they thought of asking me and I knew, of course--he once came to me for a haircut."
The long letter, written on many sheets of paper, crumpled and soiled in its tattered envelope, which had been opened at the post office, was from Tonia. The doctor found it in his hands without knowing how it had got there; he had not noticed Lara handing it to him. When he began reading it he was still conscious of being in Yuriatin, in Lara's house, but gradually, as he read on, he lost all realization of it.