The Year of Radical Self-Care
Most people, I think, require deep rest. If you are part of this capitalist society then you may be aware that rest is not an easily-procured thing. Oftentimes rest is considered weakness. This is true for both men and women but in some different ways. I, like most moms with a career, have not had […]
Control Causes Suffering
While wanting control is natural, it also causes much suffering in our lives as we feel how little can actually be controlled. Rather than continuously reaching for a feeling of wellbeing through what we can control, I invite viewers to experiment with surrendering control. A meditation is included.
The Fantasy of Illness
“Fantasy” is used to denote desire and not make-believe. In this video, I present the idea that during the covid pandemic the subconscious may project a wish for illness due to societal and personal value systems. The “fantasy of illness” is a desire that acknowledges one’s understanding of self as a sickly individual in need […]
Healing Using Emotion and Energy
I have not been able to workout doing anything but (sometimes) yoga for almost four weeks due to the onset of some very uncomfortable digestive issues and a yeast infection that would not go away. I had bloody stool consistently during this period, and was very worried that something was *very* wrong (as anyone will […]
Being Seen During a Wellness Journey
I have not made a post for about a month in this diary but this has not been because I have been lazy or in a binge coma. Actually, I keep considering the function of such a diary for me, at this point in my journey. I ask myself: what is the function of me […]
Be High Maintenance During the Pandemic!
Some people have reflected that they are glad that they are not “high maintenance” during the pandemic. But when I thought about high maintenance during this time, I felt that it was quite desirable and could serve our higher journeys. In this video I encourage high maintenance in the form of having, identifying, and expressing […]
Creating for Yourself
There are so many wonderful aspects of creating in order to please, entertain, or otherwise serve somebody else; however, creating strictly for your own purposes, to serve yourself, is a function with which many people lose touch as they grow. When one no longer creates for herself then a quest for acceptance from others that […]
Wellness Diary: Week 9
At the end of Week 8 I weighed myself and found that I lost a pound after staying steady for weeks. This sent me into a panic, as losing weight usually does. I am not sure that many can relate to freaking out when the scale goes down; most people celebrate weight loss. But for […]
Poem: Grendles Modor
I am so happy to announce that a poem that I wrote entitled “Grendles Modor” has been published in Danse Macabre Journal’s “DM Du Jour.” I wrote the poem when I was an undergraduate back in 1998 when I read Beowulf for the first time. Two years ago (in 2018) I went back and edited […]
Wellness Diary: Week 8, Day 3
Weight Body Fat BMI Hips Waist Bust Thigh 140.6 27.4% 24 38.5 32.2 38 21 I ate really well yesterday but my weight creeped a tiny little bit. In my life, this has been my standard: when things go really well, at first they look worse before they start looking better. Such is life. In […]
Wellness Diary: Week 8 Reflection
I have been brave and making videos for some of my other outlets this month, so I figured: why not make a video journal for my wellness journey, too?
Wellness Diary: Week 8, Day 2
Weight Body Fat BMI Hips Waist Bust Thigh 140.2 27.4% 24 38.5 32.2 38 21 No change in weight! Movement Duration Burn YogaWalk 4530 97233 Today was a lovely day of movement! Yoga with Emily is a weekly favorite. It left me with tingles in my body. The walk was really nice out in the […]
Wellness Diary: Week 8, Day 1
Weight Body Fat BMI Hips Waist Bust Thigh 140.2 27.4% 24 38.5 32.2 38 21 I continue to not lose or gain any weight. I remain around the heaviest weight I have been in my life. Movement Duration Burn Spinning 30 251 I did not want to workout today, as it is my “day off,” […]
Wellness Diary: Week 7, Day 3
Thanksgiving included a lot of eating, as expected. I started the day by eating cookies and then had a super delicious, healthy dinner, followed by pie. So, there were some good and some not-so-good choices for reaching my wellness goals. I did not get in any movement. Today, the day after Thanksgiving, I have mixed […]
You can Homeschool and Stay Sane during the Pandemic
Homeschooling your elementary school-aged child for the first time during a global pandemic, while you are working and also doing ALL. OF. THE. THINGS. was not expected to be easy — but did you expect that it would be THIS hard? I’ve heard even my teacher friends complain that they can teach students just fine, […]
Wellness Diary: Week 7, Day 2
Today’s highlight was absolutely Irish Step Dance, as far as movement goes. The day was rainy and I did not get in the walk I had planned. But I had fun dancing. Weight Body Fat BMI Hips Waist Bust Thigh 140.2 27.4% 24 38.5 32.2 38 21 My goal is now to lose 5 pounds […]
Wellness Diary: Week 7, Day 1
I realize that my plan for weightloss is not going very well. I am 7 weeks in and have not lost one pound, in fact I have gained weight. Of course, the plan is not just about losing weight but also about getting in movement, taking time for myself, eating the right foods, staying hydrated, […]
What is Karma and Why Does it Feel Heavy?
I am so excited to release my first video blog post on my “Heavy Karma” YouTube Channel! This week I present my understanding of “karma” because I wanted to explain why the channel is named “Heavy Karma,” and also the foundational idea that drives the creation of ths channel and the process.
Planet Eerst: December 2020
Have you heard? Now you can loop into the Eerst Constellations! Welcome to Planet Eerst, a monthly newsletter with insider details about the writing of The Book of Eerst, a nine-book series by me, Elan Avery. Every writer needs readers, so feel free to support my writing on Patreon if you like what you see […]
Writing for Myself
During the pandemic I have been homeschooling my child, also while working teaching various literature courses at three different colleges. While public school was still a thing, and even during the summer when my child was home, I was able to manage a groove of writing for pleasure. Sometimes that looked like stealing ten minutes […]
Wellness Diary: Week 6
This week I felt as if I was in a fog, literally all week long. I did not log in my food — not because I was “off the rails” but really just because I forgot. This was an auto-pilot kind of week, of which I have not experienced in a long time. I felt […]
Wellness Diary: Week 5
This week was a mess in terms of getting in time to reflect, breathe, or sit down to write a blog post. Somehow, even with my quadriceps injury continuing to heal, I managed to get in some movement almost every day. The week was full of moments in which I had to “pop the hood” […]
Wellness Diary: Week 5, Day 1
Well, I have had a revelation that I have reached a low place at which I feel there is an opportunity for growth and for learning. I made a post earlier today titled ” Food and Other Addictions” that explains this. Every Sunday when my daughter leaves to go with her father, I spiral out […]
Poem: I am now Binge Eating
I am a few months late here with this announcement, but I had the poem “I am Now Binge Eating” published in Rogue Agent‘s issue 65. The poem articulates the feelings of overeating and the sensations of food addiction. I wrote it to try to encapsulate these emotions while bingeing. You can find the poem […]
Food and Other Addictions
Growing up, we were poor. Poverty, I have learned as an adult, comes with its own traumas (though I often wonder if some of that trauma comes from those who have never been poor, looking in at poverty with fear). A lot of people grow up poor and plenty of them grow up into adults […]
Wellness Diary: Week 4, Day 5
omehow I actually got in 5 days of movement despite my healing quadricep. On Friday I did a morning yoga class with Katy. There were times that the movement was too much on my leg but I was able to modify some postures. Weight Body Fat BMI Hips Waist Bust Thigh 138.8 27.3 24 […]
Wellness Diary: Week 4, Day 4
Movement Activity Duration Burn Notes Weight Lifting 24 123 I forgot how much I have always loved weight training. I laid out some weights and did a great session, including triceps press, dumbell flys, triceps dips, resistance band pulls, crunches, hammer curls, wide rows, and overhead press. It felt really good. The triceps dips […]
Wellness Diary: Week 4, Day 3
Weight Body Fat BMI Hips Waist Bust Thigh 140.8 Weighing myself this morning was disheartening. When the scale creeps up, I feel depressed because I associate parts of my worth with my weight, despite decades of trying to undo that association. I know that my lack of bowel movements […]
Wellness Diary: Week 4, Day 2
eight Body Fat BMI Hips Waist Bust Thigh 139.4 27.4% 24.1 38.5in 32.2in 38in 21in Today, the stats did not move from yesterday. I wonder if I am going to be able to lose at least .5lb a week. Movement Activity Duration Burn Notes Yoga 45 min 95 I took a risk today and […]
Wellness Diary: Week 4, Day 1
Well, last week finished poorly despite my very strong efforts. On Friday I knelt down to put a jacket on my dog (first snow and cold weather) for our walk, and I tore a muscle in my quadricep. That the muscle tore was not surprising since it was sore already for over a week, and […]
Wellness Diary: Week 3, Day 4
Today’s Movement I was extremely sore today from dance last night. This old body requires a lot more stretching before dancing than I did, and my quadriceps are feeling it. However, I did 27 minutes of step aerobics because I love it so much. 220 calories burned. I was jumping all around and had a […]
Wellness Diary: Week 3, Day 3
I think that today, this third day of Week 3 is kind of like the first day of the program. I finally got up the courage to weigh myself this morning. As I suspected, I had gained back almost all of the weight of my heaviest weight of all time. I just 2 pounds lighter […]
Wellness Diary: Week 3, Days 1 & 2
Week 3 began well with a no-sugar day after I had spent the last week eating a lot of Halloween candy. After the challenges of Week 2 I was ready for some grounding and recentering. Day 1 Movement Mondays are currently my “days off” from parenting and they tend to be challenging days. I do […]
Wellness Diary: Days 4 & 5
I am honestly surprised that I HAD a days 4 and 5 this week! Go, me! If you have been following along in my Heavy Karma blog then you know that this week has been one of the worst weeks emotionally and food-wise (of course, because I am an emotional eater) that I have experienced […]
Wellness Diary: Week 2, Day 3
Today I was still feeling some of the residual effects of the retinal migraine I experienced earlier this week. I felt ready to push in a workout but I decided to hold back for one more day and just focused on yoga and meditation. Today’s Workout As usual lately I practiced yoga while my daughter […]
Wellness Diary: Week 2, Day 2
Yesterday was to be Day 2 of the second week of my wellness program, but I was hit with a rare retinal migraine, which I have not experienced for over a year now. There was a time for a span of almost 20 years, during which I experienced these debilitating migraine attacks frequently. They always […]
Wellness Diary: Week 2, Day 1
I intended to take two days off from fitness in a row at the end of Week 1, but that did not happen. The weather was too beautiful and I ended up going out for a walk with friends on Saturday and a super long hike with my husband on Sunday. So, Monday was my […]
Wellness Diary: Week 1, Day 5
I embarked on a new dance journey today! I signed up for Irish Step Dancing at my friend’s studio and had a private lesson before I join the regular adult class (which has been underway for two months already). I loved learning how to dance; it was so much fun and such a challenge. Today’s […]
Wellness Diary: Week 1, Day 4
Emotionally, today was a drain. There were a lot of challenges to confront in different areas of my life. My goal was to just try not to binge eat, because that is my default for all things uncomfortable. Today’s Workout For the workout I did 20 minutes of tap dancing. Tap dancing is an unfamiliar […]
Wellness Diary: Week 1, Day 3
While my daughter worked on some math this morning (we are homeschooling this year) I got in some movement. True, that I had to be available to help her while she worked through some complex problems, but I certainly worked up a lather. Feeling like I have my priorities straight helps a lot. Every morning […]
Wellness Diary: Week 1, Day 2
The second day was easier than the first; perhaps this is because I did some dancing today and dance is something that I really love. Fitting a workout in on Tuesdays can be tough because the day is so varied. Even though I had to pause in the middle of my warm-up yoga to bring […]
Wellness Diary: Week 1, Day 1
A little movement goes a long way! – Today’s Focus Today is a day off from parenting for me, as all Mondays are right now. It is my only “day off” from this mode and so offers some unique considerations. One is that I tend to have big emotions because my child is not here […]
Rejuvenation and the Cardinal Directions
A soft breeze is a wonderful thing, especially during the summer months. The summer is a time, too, to recharge intuitive powers. All that warmth and sunlight just invites a fresh perspective and a lighter outlook! The body feels a natural ease. To hone my intuitive powers, I engaged a “Rule of Three” spell guided […]
Angitia and Parasite Cleansing
Angitia Healing Goddess Snake Goddess Poisoning and Toxicity Thaumaturgy When I began an herbal parasite cleanse for healing and vitality I sought a spiritual guide to aid my journey. I found Angitia, a rather obscure goddess worshipped in Ancient Italy. She is/was known as a great healer, especially from poisoning and particularly in poisoning from […]
Drying Herbs
Summer is an excellent time to harvest herbs. With a surplus of wonderful-smelling plants everywhere you look, this season tells of untold pleasures especially for the kitchen witch, green witch, an Earth elemental witch, or any witch who works with nature. I dry herbs and plants such as thyme, chammomile, angelica, sage, mint, lavender, and […]
To be a Witch
“The first time I called myself a ‘Witch’ was the most magical moment of my life.” Margaret Adler, Drawing down the moon One reason that I blog is to keep good order of what I learn on my journey of self discovery, which sounds a bit strange coming from a woman of middling years. But, […]
Recipe: Vegan Broccoli Alfredo with Melted Leeks and Peppers
The change of season in Massachusetts from winter to spring has been chaotic, as usual, and my family has been craving creamy, warm dishes. By request this week I put together a vegan version of a pasta alfredo, using some colors to make it festive. It was a quick and easy dish with a high […]
Recipe: Chocolate Chia Puddings
I am always looking for ways to fill my daughter’s lunchbox with items that are delicious but also healthy — oh, and quick and easy. These simple puddings have few ingredients and set up overnight. You can make them in small lidded containers and just pop one in the lunchbox before your kids are off […]
Recipe: Creamy Asparagus Ginger Soup
My husband’s favorite meal is Cream of Asparagus soup. But shifting to a plant-based lifestyle meant looking for something to replace all that cream! I’ve made the following recipe three times now, and he loves to eat it! It’s just as good (if not better) than its non-vegan original. I hope that you savor its […]
Compassion and Pity
I recently read about one woman’s experience at a Buddhist meditation retreat in India with an aged guru, and it prompted me to question what the difference is between compassion and pity; I found that the inquiry was fruitful for my own deeper understanding of kindness. In her book Passionate Presence, Catherine Ingram delivers insights based on her […]
A Contemporary Allegory: Two Apache Sisters
Dina Polizzi’s first novella Two Apache Sisters and a Texas Gigolo was on my read-list for awhile, not only because Polizzi is my friend and neighbor but due to its marriage of magic, tarot, and its esoteric nature, which all interest me.
Blacking out and Taking Care
I began blacking out due to hormones (and possibly other reasons) when I was pregnant with my first born, who died of congenital heart disease. While pregnant with her, I was an undergraduate and would have to leave class so I could pass out on the bathroom floor. I would feel the symptoms coming on […]
Planning our 2019 Garden
Coming up is our second garden season…ever. We have high ambitions to cultivate our land in a way that inspires our neighbors to grow their own produce — in fact, we have plans to create a local project called “Squash Swap” to help transform our town into a self-sufficient trading community (we are doing this […]
Recipe: Miso Maple Bok Choy
The verdure of a bok choy cannot be overstated. It’s such a lovely vegetable. One of my favorite ways to cook it appears here in this vegan and gluten-free recipe. Ingredients (serves 4): 4-6 small bok choy, cut into halves the long way1-2 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil2 cloves garlic, minced1-2 tablespoons Bragg’s amino acids […]
Recipe: Hemp and Chia Zucchini Muffins
I am always looking for healthy snacks to put in my daughter’s lunch box. Being vegan and gluten-free, that isn’t always an easy task. Finding recipes that actually work out and that taste good is challenging. But this one was a crowd pleaser for young and old alike, with plenty of hidden goodies, such as […]
Recipe: Golden Corn and Rosemary Potage
Here in New England, the winter is hanging on. Ten days into April, and the snow continues to fall. But this is nothing that a little Golden Corn Rosemary Potage can’t clear up. “Potage” is a thick soup, which is a likely candidate for a relentless winter, corn is a signature summer item, and rosemary […]
The Fixed Period: A Time Without Violins
Brace yourself. Try to imagine a world in which the violin has become “nearly obsolete.” I know, right?! You’ve nearly fallen to your knees, begging for mercy, asking yourself why. Why, great creator, did humanity ever get to this point? I am a big fan of the violin. I am learning to play it at almost 40 […]
Recipe: Smoked Tofu and Potato Hash
Few things beat a hearty potato hash in the hard months of wintering. I often find myself reaching for my bag of potatoes and throwing together something simple and tasty, like a chunky hash. This week, I paired this hash with a colorful Artichoke and Green Olive Salad, and it was near perfection in this […]
Masculinity in The Eye of the World
Masculinity is expected to be presented and challenged in traditional epic tales. Texts that include epic journeys of their protagonists, such as The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Odyssey, and The Bible, capture challenges that call into question man’s courage, strength, intelligence, love, dedication, and more. I mean, just look at Odysseus here, rendered helpless, with the sirens encroaching: So […]
Recipe: Roasted Artichoke and Green Olive Salad with Creamy Rosemary Dressing
In the winter, I like to eat my colors. Rummaging through my cupboards this week, I pulled out some red, green, and white to add a little variety to dinner. This Roasted Artichoke and Green Olive Salad has a burst of roasted tomato, and was just the thing to pair with my Smoked Tofu Potato […]
Recipe: Wintering Sweet + Spicy Quinoa Curry
I am a fan of sweet potato and pumpkin together. When these sisters unite, I know that I am in for something redolent and creamy. Add in some coconut milk, and I am swept up on dulcet orange clouds of goodness. This winter-y crock pot curry is perfect for striking a balance between the elation […]
Recipe: Turnip “Noodles” with Creamy Artichoke and Eggplant Puttanesca Sauce
A rich putanesca sauce atop linguine is one of my favorite dishes; add shellfish to it, and you’ve got my all time favorite meal. So, going vegan and attending to my gluten and wheat sensitivities presented a quandry of troubles. I always made putanesca sauce with anchovies, you know!? It tastes great that way! After […]
Living in Henry James’s Other House
An affluent womanizer, Tony Bream. The nicest, sweetest girl, Jean Martle. A desperate lover abroad too long in China, Dennis Vidal. The odd Rose Arminger. They all seem like characters from the famed game Clue. Who was the murderer of the little girl Effie Bream; who held this child’s delicate body under the water until […]
Recipe: Vegan Baingan Bharta — Eggplant Curry
The Indian dish Baingan Bharta is one of my favorite. I’ve been experimenting with making this dairy-rich dish vegan, and have had a lot of success! Here is the recipe: Ingredients: 1 large eggplant, partially peeled and small-diced2 tablespoon coconut oil1 yellow onion, diced5 cloves of garlic, minced1 red bell pepper, small-diced1 tablespoon garam masala1 […]
Poem: Arrhythmia
I had a poem published in Aberration Labyrinth. I wrote “Arrhythmia” in 2011 when I was felt really depleted. I was recovering from some adrenal fatigue and had made a lot of changes in my life concerning my energy output. I was also reflecting upon my stillbirth from 2001; she had died from a hole […]
The Littlest Demon: Pedophilia in The Little Demon
The theatrical nature and content of Sologub’s The Little Demon had me envisioning a play on the stage for the first third of the novel. Hilarious dialogue, telling imagery, and one of the most paranoid and depraved characters in fiction made visualizing this text taking place physically before me easy. For much of this novel, […]
The Missing Touch: Rizal’s Immaterial Hero
When I picked up a novel with a stunning title like Noli Me Tangere (Touch me Not) (Filipino, 1887), I expected to encounter a work dredged in corporeal, visceral experience and language. I wanted a novel centered on the function of touch: human interaction, physicality, phenomenology, flesh. I didn’t get this in Jose Rizal’s incredible […]
The Greatest Darkness in Sanshiro
Sanshiro by Natsume Soseki is a novel about Japanese masculinity in which Sanshiro, our hero, comes to terms with his role as a college-educated man from the country. Sanshiro is a Modern(ist) hero who develops a heightened sense of self-consciousness as a result of the industrialized and urbane environment of higher education in the city, a confusing […]
Heroics in the Arctic with Satan
The motif of arctic exploration is not unique during the Romantic period in which many authors, such as Mary Shelley and Coleridge, utilize the setting of a sub-zero climate and its dangers to highlight the macabre and mysterious nature of their plots and characters. In Wilkie Collins’s short story “The Devil’s Spectacles” the artic setting […]
The Drought: A Woman’s Plague
Timelessness is the cure for a 10 year drought in Ballard’s novel The Drought (British, 1964), in which Dr. Charles Ransom learns how to navigate the desolate new landscape that surrounds him. Around him people change into picaresque, circus-like versions of their previous selves: they morph into who they truly are. For some characters, such […]
I Can’t Forgive Alice Vavasor
Victorians were skeptical, to say the least, of forgiveness. The process seemed destabilizing at best, insincere at its worst. Forgiveness never really leaves the map of the Victorian literary landscape and yet authors attempt to push it to the margin. Dismissing forgiveness as impossible or undesirable appears to be an unrealistic a goal in many of […]
The Last Man in Shelley’s Prolonged Apocalypse
One overlooked end-of-the-world text is Mary Shelley’s novel The Last Man (British, 1826) in which a plague invades Europe and, eventually, the world. This repetitive, cyclical text feels even longer than Defoe’s Journal of the Plague Year and yet less events occur to move the plot forward. Shelley’s vision of the end of times is vastly […]
The Devil in Gogol’s Portrait
I have been enjoying — very much — reading a variety of works about portraiture (but who has time with a newborn baby?!). My intention has been to write a series of posts about this theme in literature. While reading, however, I wanted to pause and address a thread from a past series of mine: […]
Murder Fantasies in Male Fiction
I didn’t intend to read book after book in which men fantasize about murdering or torturing women but this is exactly the kind of ride I’ve been on just by undertaking reading some random twentieth century fiction. This month I read four novels that seemed to be connected to each other through the trope of […]
Ruth Hall and Homeopathy
Ruth Hall (British, 1854) is, as its author Fanny Fern is careful to note, a “continuous story” rather than a novel. It is a work marked by a few covert postmodern gestures such as its vignette style, fragmented narrative, and its layers of subjectivity. At its core Ruth Hall takes up the popular nineteenth-century question of […]
Bleak House and Excrement
Freud’s claim that excrement is ailment makes a tidy frame for the familiar portrait of Victorian London, or what Dickens in Bleak House calls a “filthy wilderness.” Excrement, defined in the OED as “that which remains after a process of sifting or refining,” emerges from a laborious and sometimes painful process of internalization and elimination […]
Mysticism in Woolf’s The Waves
Virginia Woolf perhaps does, as Walter Allen suggests, look to art to make order from chaos, substituting art for religion with the “mystic’s intuition.” Allen bestows Woolf with the agency of a mystic, assuming that intrinsic intuition is the medium from which her art is wrought. Definitively, a mystical visionary strives to bring the human […]
The Hunger Games: Starving for Love
My students this semester have been really open to the exchange of literature. Every week I await the handing-over of a new favorite book from a student as we make an exchange of books. Most recently, I have read the first book of Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games (American, 2008-2010) trilogy, which is timely since […]
About Face: Cranley’s Bust in The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
One topic that interests me in literature is portraiture. I’d like to kick off a new series about portraits in literature with some snippets from an essay I wrote a few years ago about James Joyce’s Portrait. The “portrait” in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Irish, 1916) is upheld by Joyce as […]
The “Art of Pushing His Brutal Point:’ Fanny Hill and the Futurists
Fanny Hill, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (British, 1748) could be the anthem novel for the early twentieth-century movement inspired by Filippo Marinetti except Cleland’s work predates Futurism by nearly two centuries.Taken out of historical context, Cleland and Marinetti seem contemporaries in their metaphysical treatment of pleasure and pain. Futurists, in their romanticization of […]
Balzac’s Pygmalion in The Unknown Masterpiece
Either the picture portrays the core of a man or it is not a picture. – William Carlos Williams, A Recognizable Image In the “The UnKnown Masterpiece” (French, 1831) Balzac takes up the age-old debate about where nature ends and art begins. He does so, not surprisingly, through the most classic medium: the nude female […]
The Master and Margarita: The Devil is Woman Unless She Isn’t
After much effort I finally finished Mikail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita (Russian, 1967), which a student recommended to me years ago when she heard that I was interested in exploring how and why the “devil” becomes female in literature. This, my seventh installment, presents what may seem at first a challenge to the rule that […]
Song in The Lord of the Rings
Tolkien’s epic trilogy The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) is a musical. This was the second trait that jumped out at me during my first reading of this beloved fantasy novel. I was startled by the important role that music, singing, and song played in each segment, how integral was the improvisational song as well […]
Emma Courtney’s Memoirs of Stalking
Mary Hays is an eighteenth-century author obsessed with proving that she — like her romantic contemporaries — can use highfaluting language as an argument for virtue: her own virtue. Memoirs of Emma Courtney (British, 1796) is not an easy read although it is short, but the pay-offs are big. My jaw was hanging down to […]
The Color of Sickness in The Innocence of the Devil
I waited a long time to get my hands on Nawal El Saadawi’s novel The Innocence of the Devil (Egyptian, 1994), I was interested in reading a novel by a contemporary Arab feminist/doctor/writer, and I also thought that this novel would be a nice addition to my exploration of the devil in literature. This review […]
God’s Plot and Schizophrenia
Thomas Shepard’s autobiography in God’s Plot (American, 16th century, transcribed by Michael McGiffert) reveals his personal struggle with cognition in a world in which positive/negative, good/evil can not peaceably coexist. As an authority figure for Puritan doctrine Shepard purposefully constructs his autobiography to reflect the enlightened path of the ecclesiastically elite; it speaks to divine […]
True Names in Earthsea
When I came to literature as a profession I did so because I fell in love with words at a young age. Not necessarily the big words, not the dictionary or the thesaurus. I fell in love, really, with how the simple words could cause so much pain or intense pleasure. This, I saw all […]
The Devil Wears Nada
“Um,” says Andrea Sachs, that boring and undeveloped accessory of the “devil,” Miranda Priestly who is the editor of Runway fashion magazine. “Um,” Sachs repeats as prominent literary people insist how eloquent she is. “Um,” shouts Andrea Sachs as I turn another page in a novel that appears to have very little to do with […]
The Best Wound in Trollope’s Lady Anna
When I was an undergraduate with an interest in studying Victorian literature, a professor once asked me how much Trollope I had read. I scratched my head: Trollope? Never heard of him. The professor explained that Anthony Trollope used to be the backbone of nineteenth-century literature courses, so I, of course, made Trollope the focus […]
Missing Children in the Four-Gated City
Finally, I have read my first Doris Lessing novel. I admit, it may not have been the best one to wet my feet. The Four-Gated City (British, 1969) is the final book of a five-book series called the “Children of Violence.” I didn’t read the first four but only the last. I felt as if I […]
The Sorrows of Satan: When Sorrow is Power
That I have named this very blog after Marie Corelli — and her “electric creed” in the novel A Romance of Two Worlds — speaks to a fact that I don’t really need to reveal: I am in love with Marie Corelli. The pleasure that reading her books brings me is one that can only […]
William Blake’s Songs of Searching
William Blake, in many ways, polarizes innocence and experience in his book of poems Songs of Innocence and of Experience. His exploration of these are literally separated by a frontispiece and title page. Moreover, he marks the primary differences between innocence and experience by showing the evolution of poems — “Infant Joy” in the first […]
Jane Eyre Does Not Cry
A couple days ago I took some students in my class to see the latest cinematic attempt to bring Charlotte Bronte’s classic novel Jane Eyre to the public. At the opening scene of Cary Fukunaga’s film my heart sank down into my heels and then, from there, I only stomped the ground with a red […]
Emotion in Death in Venice
When I was called out for teaching some provocative contexts in my “Strange Children” course this quarter, my supervisor came to my defense by saying, “Well, it’s not like you’re teaching Death in Venice, or anything.” I had heard of Thomas Mann’s novella — and really enjoyed reading the obscure The Transposed Heads, which I […]
Cassandra and Women’s Labor
Victorians wrote love stories about work. Labor was the answer to almost every question. Carlyle’s hero in Sartor Resartus cries, “Produce! Produce! […] Work while it is called To-day; for the Night cometh, wherein no man can work.” For Victorian authors and artists, work is either placed on a pedestal as an emblem of progress, […]
The Backlands, Where Love is War
Joao Guimaraes Rosa’s 1956 novel Grande Sertao: Veradas (Translated in English by James L. Taylor and Harriet De Onis as The Devil to Pay in the Backlands) brought me back to my The Devil is a Woman series, from which I have taken a small break. The Devil to Pay is the first Brazilian novel […]
Anne of Green Gables after a Decade
My childhood friends must grimace and wince when they hear “Anne of Green Gables.” During sleepovers I would make them watch all eight hours of the PBS miniseries that was based on Lucy Montgomery’s very long fiction works. The first time that I watched it, I was in love. With everything. Anne. Prince Edward Island. […]
Of Girls and Meat: The Art of Mark Ryden
Today one of my soon-to-be students for my Spring quarter course called “Strange Children” mentioned that the course description reminded her of Mark Ryden‘s art. I, of course, looked into his work directly. Indeed, Ryden’s oeuvre is almost entirely dedicated to depictions of children — mostly prepubescent girls — and nature. The children are grotesque […]
The Nameless Dread in American Psycho
If Patrick Bateman in Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho (American, 1991) doesn’t actually sadistically kill numerous women, children, and maybe a few men, then this novel is possibly the saddest story ever told. Many years ago I watched Christian Bale play Bateman in the film American Pscyho but for some reason while I do remember the […]
William Hazlitt’s Pleasures of Hating
William Hazlitt is notorious for writing criticism that doesn’t hold back. A kind of rogue who received a large number of threats for his blatant opinions concerning authorship and culture, Hazlitt ruminated about the darker aspects of human experience. In his best-known work, The Spirit of the Age (British, 1825), he appears more tame than in […]
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