Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 359

March 3, 2014: AmericanStudying Non-Favorites: Scorcese Films

[Much of the time when I’ve highlighted something specific in this space, it’s been because I want to emphasize something positive about it, something I enjoy or appreciate. Well, the heck with that! For this week’s series, I’ll focus instead on stuff about which I’m not as keen, and try to AmericanStudy some of the reasons why. Nobody can be positive all the time, right? Add your own non-favorites in comments to help with a crowd-sourced airing of grievances this weekend!]

On why the acclaimed filmmaker doesn’t do it for me—and why that’s an American problem.There’s been a good deal of controversy and debate over Martin Scorcese’s newest film, The Wolf of Wall Street (2012). More specifically, there has been significant debate over whether the film celebrates the Wall Street swindlers and criminals it depicts, especially Leonardo Di Caprio’s Jordan Belfort; whether it instead portrays those criminals as over-the-top buffoons; and, for that matter, whether Scorcese has any obligation to think about ethics or morality at all while making a feature film about such characters (a topic on which the daughter of one of Belfort’s real-life victims has weighed in). I haven’t yet seen Wolf, so I can’t offer an opinion one way or another—but I can say that I have found these same questions to be present and a significant issue in nearly every Scorcese film I’ve seen, and certainly in his highly acclaimed Goodfellas (1990).The protagonists of Goodfellas, such as the three leads played by Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Ray Liotta, are of course far more overtly and proudly criminal and reprehensible than Jordan Belfort. But as far as I can tell (and I haven’t seen all of the film in nearly two decades), Scorcese’s film glamorizes and celebrates them far more than it offers any critique or even analysis. True, Pesci’s hot-headed and violent gangster is frightening even to his friends, but that’s due simply to his own character traits and flaws, and if anything is contrasted with the smoother (and not much less violent) other criminals. Moreover, Scorcese’s choices as a filmmaker—his montages and musical backdrops, his camera moves and bravura sequences—all seem designed to amplify the coolness and compellingness of these violent criminals. And his famous final shot of Liotta in witness protection, overlaid by the voiceover in which the character calls himself “an average nobody … [I] get to live the rest of my life like a schnook,” likewise contrasts unfavorably with the glamorous gangster life.I’d say much the same about the protagonists of many other Scorcese films—the Las Vegas gangsters in Casino , De Niro’s violent psychopath in Taxi Driver and his violent brute of a boxer in Raging Bull , even the Irish draft rioters in Gangs of New York . Scorcese may want to portray these characters with nuance and complexity, perhaps examine the social and historical worlds out of which they emerged—but I find more often than not that he ends up glamorizing their violence and their crimes, perhaps even more so because they allow them to transcend and (at least briefly) triumph over their settings. And in doing so, I’d say his works have tended to fall squarely into a tradition about which I’ve blogged a few times already: our longstanding and fraught national embrace of the outlaws and the gangsters, of the violent outsiders who seem to offer individual escapes from our social codes and limitations. Sometimes they’re targetting criminals (like De Niro in Taxi Driver), sometimes they’re the criminals (like in Goodfellas and Casino)—but the similarities seem to me more pronounced than the distinctions. As Jack Nicholson puts it in the (typically bravura) opening sequence of The Departed: “When I was your age, they would say we can become cops, or criminals. Today, what I’m saying to you is this: when you’re facing a loaded gun, what’s the difference?”Next non-favorite tomorrow,BenPS. Thoughts on this non-favorite? Others you’d share for the weekend post?

March 1-2, 2014: February 2014 Recap

[A Recap of the month that was in AmericanStudying.]

February 3: House Histories: Salem and the East: A series on House of the Seven Gables connections starts with Salem’s striking links to the Far East.February 4: House Histories: Loyalists: The series continues with the House’s lens into one of the most under-remembered American communities.February 5: House Histories: Hawthorne’s Houses: The different but equally compelling ways to think about Hawthorne’s inspirations for his fictional house, as the series rolls on.February 6: House Histories: Caroline Osgood Emmerton: The inspiring life and work of the woman who turned the house into the House.February 7: House Histories: Our Own Broad Daylight: The series concludes with how the House helps us engage with the literay and communal presence of the past.February 8-9: Elizabeth Duclos-Orsello’s Guest Post: But wait! The series is extended with my most recent Guest Post, from one of Salem’s most thoughtful and talented AmericanStudiers.February 10: I Love The Wire’s Characters: A Valentine’s Day series begins with three of my favorite American Study-able characters from my favorite TV show.February 11: I Love Du Bois to His Daughter: The series continues with lessons we can all take away from one of the most loving texts by my favorite American.February 12: I Love the New Bruce: The two entirely distinct but equally interesting most recent albums by my favorite artist, as the series continues. February 13: I Love All the King’s Men: A couple of the many things that put Robert Penn Warren’s historical novel right near the top of my list of all-time favorites.February 14: I Love My Job: The series concludes with two reasons why this is a really great gig.February 15-16: Crowd-Sourced Love: A lovely crowd-sourced post in which fellow AmericanStudiers share some of their loves—add yours in comment, please!February 17: YA Lit: Little House on the Prairie: A series inspired by my boys’ transition to chapter books begins with what we can and can’t learn from the classic children’s series.February 18: YA Lit: Encyclopedia Brown: The series continues with the youthful fun and adult mysteries at the heart of one of our most enduring series.February 19: YA Lit: The Giver: On why “banning” books is always quite as objectionable as it sounds, as the series rolls on.February 20: YA Lit: Captain Underpants: The undeniable appeal, but also a definite drawback, of extreme silliness, as exemplified by the popular recent series.February 21: YA Lit: Doctor Proctor: The series concludes with the books that illustrate what’s lost in translation and what definitely isn’t.February 22-23: Crowd-Sourced YA Lit: Another crowd-sourced post, with fellow readers sharing their favorites, memories, and thoughts on the genre.February 24: Short Shorts: Kate Chopin: A series inspired by our shortest month starts with the short short story that packs a whole lot into an hour.February 25: Short Shorts: Ernest Hemingway: The series continues with the short short story that captures the varieties and vicissitudes of human life.February 26: Short Shorts: Eudora Welty: The short short story that’s both deeply grounded and yet profoundly universal, as the series rolls on.February 27: Short Shorts: Jamaica Kincaid: The short short story that captures the wit, precision, and thematic breadth and power of a truly unique author. February 28: Short Shorts: Grace Paley: The series concludes with an exemplary effort by one of the all-time masters of the short short story.Next series starts Monday,BenPS. Topics or themes you’d like to see covered on the blog? Ideas for Guest Posts you’d like to contribute? Lemme know!

February 28, 2014: Short Shorts: Grace Paley

[To commemorate the end of our shortest month—my younger son recently asked me, “Why does February only get 28 days?!”—a series on five great American stories that are as short as they are powerful. Add your favorites in comments!]

On a story that just works, and then some.I’m not going to pretend that I’ve read much Grace Paley yet; but she’s on the short list of folks into whose works I want and need to read more, and the main reason is my sense that she was as good as anybody’s ever been at creating concise and perfect short stories. Moreover, she did so over a nearly fifty-year period, from her 1959 debut through the years before her 2007 death; her fiction and life thus seem to portray and embody numerous crucial historical and social changes over that era, perhaps especially in relationship to women’s lives and experiences. All of those elements are encapulsated in a wonderful short short story from her 1974 collection Enormous Changes at the Last Minute, “.” One last time, check it out, and come back and share your thoughts if you would!Welcome back! There’s a lot to say about “Wants,” including a couple of lines that just plain took my breath away the first time I read it (perhaps especially “I want, for instance, to be a different person”). But I think my favorite thing about the story is its use of juxtaposition—of two seemingly unconnected settings and scenarios (the narrator’s encounter with her ex-husband and the transaction at the library), of past and present, of the intimate (marriage and divorce) and the global (the war), of the ex’s voice and version of things and the narrator’s, of mild humor and cutting pain. In the span of less than two pages, Paley moves us so expertly through so much, and yet still has the ability to surprise us with the simplicity and power of her final two paragraphs. That, my friends, is a classic short short story worthy of the designation.So what do you think? This paragraph for rent!February Recap this weekend,BenPS. Thoughts on this story, or others you’d share?

February 27, 2014: Short Shorts: Jamaica Kincaid

[To commemorate the end of our shortest month—my younger son recently asked me, “Why does February only get 28 days?!”—a series on five great American stories that are as short as they are powerful. Add your favorites in comments!]

On the story that exemplifies the creation of a thoroughly engaging voice.Even if her fiction were only good, Jamaica Kincaid’s late 20th and 21st century life story—an Antiguan immigrant who began her American experiences as a New York City au pair, briefly attended but dropped out of college, and then forged her own hugely successful and ongoing path as a journalist, novelist, and creative writing and literature professor—would merit our attention. But Kincaid’s fiction is way more than good, combining passion and humor with razor-sharp precision, communal and cultural stories and frames with deeply personal and intimate ones. Exemplifying all those elements is the first story in her first published collection (1983’s At the Bottom of the River), the super short “Girl.” Again, check it out, and come back and share your thoughts if you would!Welcome back! If you didn’t laugh at least once while reading “Girl”—well, all responses are welcome here, so feel free to tell me why, if that’s the case. But I bet you did—Kincaid’s creation of her narrator/speaker is rich with telling and wry humor, while at the same time capturing so many themes—multi-generational family relationships, gender identities and roles, sex and sexuality, culture and place, social customs and codes, and more—pitch-perfectly. But I think perhaps her greatest feat has to do with reader-response: I taught the story for the first time to a class of undergrads at Temple University, and they sympathized almost entirely with the story’s youthful title character and addressee; and then I taught it recently to an ALFA class of adult learners here at FSU, and they mostly connected with the speaker’s perspective. And I think Kincaid’s story not only allows for those distinct responses, it includes and captures them within the space of its one rambling, run-on, remarkable sentence.So what do you think? This paragraph for rent!Final short short tomorrow,BenPS. Thoughts on this story, or others you’d share?

February 26, 2014: Short Shorts: Eudora Welty

[To commemorate the end of our shortest month—my younger son recently asked me, “Why does February only get 28 days?!”—a series on five great American stories that are as short as they are powerful. Add your favorites in comments!]

On the story that’s both thoroughly grounded and profoundly universal.I can’t believe I haven’t yet written about Eudora Welty in this space—but my memory indicates that I haven’t, and a search of the blog (with that handy search bar up top) reveals the same. Better late than never, I suppose, and I’m sure this won’t be the last time I’ll write about this unique and very talented 20th century great. To my mind, Welty captured the culture, society, communities, and identities of her native Mississippi just as well as the state’s most famous writer, William Faulkner; and she portrayed with a complexity and humanity that Faulkner could never quite manage. All of those elements are on display in Welty’s greatest story, and one of the great American short stories period: “The Worn Path” (1941). Again, check it out, and come back and share your thoughts if you would!Welcome back! When I’ve taught Welty’s story, I’ve tended to focus on drawing out students’ takes on two particularly ambiguous aspects: potential symbolic readings of different parts of Phoenix Jackson’s path (which bears an interesting resemblance to another famous American literary path, Young Goodman Brown’s); and whether her young grandson is indeed dead as the nurse suggests (and what the stakes are of how we answer that question). I’d certainly be interested, again, in your thoughts on either or both of those questions. But I also think attention to such ambiguities shouldn’t take away from our appreciation of Welty’s incredible balance of two often competing elements: a deep specificity about the place and time she’s portraying, and her character’s identity within them; and yet a powerfully universal set of themes to which she connects that character and her life and journey. To do either of those things successfully in a short short story is a great accomplishment; to be both is a sign of true mastery.So what do you think? This paragraph for rent!Next short short tomorrow,BenPS. Thoughts on this story, or others you’d share?

February 25, 2014: Short Shorts: Ernest Hemingway

[To commemorate the end of our shortest month—my younger son recently asked me, “Why does February only get 28 days?!”—a series on five great American stories that are as short as they are powerful. Add your favorites in comments!]

On the story that captures the varieties and vicissitudes of identity, community, and life as well as any I know.I’ve made the case for reading Ernest Hemingway before in this space, and won’t repeat all of those points here. Instead, I’ll put it more simply: if one of literature and art’s most enduring goals is to portray (and thus help us better understand) humanity in all its forms, I think Hemingway was, at his best, as good at producing complex and compelling such portrayals as any American author. Of course he had his weaknesses and flaws; but at his best, again, he economically and yet so potently peered into the depths of our identities and perspectives, relationships and communities, worlds and souls. At or near the top of that list, in his career and in American fiction and literature period, I would locate his short story “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” (1933). Again, check it out, and come back and share your thoughts if you would!Welcome back! “Clean” of course includes many of Hemingway’s trademark elements: that sparse, dialogue-driven style; the use of two of his favorite settings (a European city and a culinary establishment); a tonal and thematic mixture of cynicism and hope, the former more dominant but the latter finding its way through, somehow, nonetheless. But what I find most impressive about “Clean” is how, through its three characters and their distinct but also overlapping perspectives and situations, Hemingway manages to include so many different kinds of life experiences and stages, as well as a sense of how they interconnect with each other, with those of other people around us, with the places we inhabit and visit, with the darkest and brightest parts of our shared worlds. I can’t imagine anyone for whom some part of the story won’t hit home and hit hard, and that’s a pretty good indication of a successful short short story if you ask me.So now I’m asking you: what do you think? This paragraph for rent!Next short short tomorrow,BenPS. Thoughts on this story, or others you’d share?

February 24, 2014: Short Shorts: Kate Chopin

[To commemorate the end of our shortest month—my younger son recently asked me, “Why does February only get 28 days?!”—a series on five great American stories that are as short as they are powerful. Add your favorites in comments!]

On the story that shows just how much sixty minutes can include.I’ve already written in this space about two Kate Chopin works, both of which are pretty short and pack a hell of a punch in their own right: the controversial and unpublished (in her lifetime) short story “The Storm” (1898) and her masterpiece of a novel The Awakening (1899). But to my mind, there’s not an American short story that does more with less—less time passing within the story, less space (both in terms of setting within the story and space on the page), fewer words—than Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”(1894). My central goal for this week’s series is that I share these stories and get your takes, so I’ll say first and foremost, for each story and post: Check out the story at that link, and come back here and share your thoughts!Okay, welcome back! I don’t want to say too much about my own take, because I am genuinely more interested in hearing yours. But I will try to say at least one thing for each story, highlighting one of the many reasons why I think they’re worth our (amazingly brief) time and (nonetheless far deeper) engagement. For Chopin’s story, I think perhaps the most impressive thing is this: the story centers on the perspective of its main character, Louise Mallard, and manages to convey so much about her perspective and identity in such a brief space; yet at the same time, I would argue that Chopin likewise includes multiple other perspectives on Louise, from those of at least three other characters (her sister Josephine, her husband’s friend Richards, and her husband Brently) to that of the sympathetic but also observing outside narrator. The Awakening is often described (and I agree) as a model creation of complex narration and perspectives—but “Story” manages to do the same, and in less than twenty paragraphs.So what do you think? This paragraph for rent!Next short short tomorrow,BenPS. Thoughts on this story, or others you’d share?

February 22-23, 2014: Crowd-sourced YA Lit

[Recently the boys and I have moved into chapter books, including the wonderful John Bellairs series. So in honor of that next stage of reading, this week’s series has AmericanStudied chapter books and Young Adult lit. This crowd-sourced post is drawn from the responses and favorites of fellow AmericanStudiers—add yours, please!]

Following up Monday’s Little House on the Prairie post, my colleague Heather Urbanski writes, “While I'm not sure the Little House books count as YA (they seem more middle-grade to me), your speculation that readers learned more about that era from those books than from official school is spot on for me. I've been thinking a lot about this lately because of a recent post that came across my feeds critiquing the character of Ma. I realized that I read those books much like I encountered science fiction/fantasy: as set in a different world from mine and the details of that world were what I took away. As for other YA faves, I am still captivated by Hunger Games years after first reading it and just finished Lissa Price's Starters/Endersseries and loved it.”I would also follow up my last point in that post to note a great children’s book on 19th century Chinese American railroad laborers that I recently discovered, Yin’s Coolies.Following up Tuesday’s Encyclopedia Brown post, Tammi Minoski Tweets that “Encyclopedia Brown Gets His Man was a favorite of mine when I was in 5th grade! It was just entertaining and I remember fancying myself as a ‘little girl’ Encyclopedia Brown.” LaSalleUGirl notes that, “I used to do the same thing with the Hardy Boys!” And Rob Velella adds, “I'm pretty sure my love of literature began with Encyclopedia Brown in 2nd grade. Perhaps ironically, I don't care for the entire mystery book genre today.”Roland Gibson also follows up that post, writing, “I'm 47 years old this year, but that was one of my favorite reading pastimes growing up—when my father would take me and my older sister and my younger brother to the Littleton MA town library, and I would get Encyclopedia Brown books. As a boy, I didn't always have the focus and the speed to read longer, more involved stories, so the Encyclopedia Brown series was perfect for me.”Following up Friday’s Doctor Proctor post, commenter Jaime Lynn writes, “So interesting. I had similar experiences when reading Pippi Longstocking as a kid. (When you're a kid, it's hard to tell whether it's just normal to live with a horse if you're Scandinavian, or whether that's another of the things that make Pippi quirky and unique.) More recently, as an inveterate devourer of middle-grades and YA books despite my childless status, I've been struck by how European and Australian books meant for young readers are darker? weightier? less dumbed-down? I don't know how to describe it. Silvana De Mari's The Last Dragon comes to mind. I was surprised -- repeatedly and pleasantly -- by the depth and thoughtfulness of the book and its themes. Cornelia Funke's The Thief Lord and Inkhearthit me the same way. And if you ever have a whole day to listen to me rave about it, I'll be happy to wax endlessly about Alison Croggon's Chronicles of Pellinor (which is written in English, but brings an Australian sensibility to Tolkienesque fantasy).”On Twitter, Philip Nel highlights some favorites: M.T. Anderson's Feed , Nancy Farmer's The House of the Scorpion , Walter Dean Myers’ Monster , John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars , and Francesca Lia Block’s Weetzie Bat .Anastasia Salter does the same: Markus Zusak's The Book Thief , Libba Bray's Going Bovine , Francesca Lia Block's I Was a Teenage Fairy , Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan , and China Miéville's Un Lun Dun .@Frittersandclam does the same, noting that she “loves Scott Westerfeld’s The Uglies series so much.”On Facebook, my colleague Anna Consalvo shares some more favorites: “Anything by Neil Gaiman. I'm thinking Coraline and The Graveyard Book . Sort of a modern Grimms Brothers. I think these would be great read-withs (as opposed to on a child's own). Beautifully descriptive, warm. dark, complicated in a fairy tale kind of way. And Brian Jacques’ Redwall series? Set of stories of good and evil played out by critters in the English countryside. Well written, delightful. A tad less scary and dark -- though any tale of good and evil gets shadowy.”And Anna also shares the NY Times’“Notable Children’s Books of 2013” list.Finally, an interesting article on the “John Green effect” in YA publishing.Next series starts Monday,BenPS. So what YA lit favorites and memories would you share?

February 21, 2014: YA Lit: Doctor Proctor

[Recently the boys and I have moved into chapter books, including the wonderful John Bellairs series. So in honor of that next stage of reading, a series on AmericanStudying chapter books and Young Adult lit. Please add your favorites, memories, and ideas for the crowd-sourced weekend post!]

On what gets lost in translation, and what definitely doesn’t.Every time I teach American Literature I, I struggle with an early-semester question to which I haven’t yet found a satisfactory answer. In the second week of our first unit, we read three texts that have been translated from their original Spanish: two letters by Christopher Columbus;and excerpts from the narrativeof Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca. I think it’s vital to expand our collective vision of American literature to include such figures and texts, and if anything wish I had time and space to bring in French missionaries in Canada, Dutch explorers, and so on; but at the same time, it’s hard to ask students to read and analyze these translated texts closely, to consider the choices made by their authors, when those texts and choices were created in a language distinct from the one we’re reading. I know that many professors face this challenge of teaching lit in translation frequently, and my briefer experiences certainly confirm that it raises tough questions.Recently, I’ve been confronted with a surprising but parallel set of questions in relationship to my boys: my colleague Irene Martyniuk very generously shared the four books (to date) in Jo Nesbo’s Doctor Proctor’s Fart Powder series with us, and the boys have totally fallen in love; we’re done with the first three (each representing at the time the longest book we’d read together) and are well into the fourth as I write this. Nesbo is best known as Norway’s best-selling crime novelist (and perhaps novelist period), and the Doctor Proctor books are similarly written in Norwegian and translated into English by Tara Chace. The translations are (as best I can tell) superb, and it certainly doesn’t seem to affect how the books read; but nonetheless, there are numerous moments and details that feel very specific to Oslo, Norway, and other elements of the books’ original milieu, and for which (when the boys ask about them, as of course all young readers do about everything) I can’t provide any relevant contexts or frames. Such cross-cultural confusions aren’t limited to translation issues, of course—but they seem closely tied to those issues, and the related questions of how works from one language and culture do and don’t speak to audiences from others.Those are interesting and meaningful questions, for anybody and doubly so for a 21stcentury transnational AmericanStudier. But at the same time, to reiterate, the boys have totally fallen in love with Nesbo’s series; I think it’s fair to say that the books are their favorites of any we’ve read to date. Some of the reasons have to do with the same kinds of universally boy-pleasing silliness and disgustingness I discussed in yesterday’s post; the series is named Doctor Proctor’s Fart Powder, after all. But to my mind, the books work so well for other and more important reasons that similarly transcend any specific language or culture: the arcs of their stories, the identities of their characters, bits of recurring humor and imagery that tie not only each book but the whole series together, the funny illustrations by Mike Lowery that perfectly complement the prose, and more. If reading to the boys has taught me anything (and it’s taught me a ton), it’s that the pleasures of books and stories are truly timeless and universal and enduring—and Doctor Proctor’s one more case in point.Crowd-sourced post this weekend,BenPS. So last chance to be part of that post—what YA lit favorites and memories would you share?

February 20, 2014: YA Lit: Captain Underpants

[Recently the boys and I have moved into chapter books, including the wonderful John Bellairs series. So in honor of that next stage of reading, a series on AmericanStudying chapter books and Young Adult lit. Please add your favorites, memories, and ideas for the crowd-sourced weekend post!]

On the undeniable appeal of silliness, and a drawback to it.If I had to pinpoint one series that truly brought my boys into the world of chapter books, I would definitely highlight Dav Pilkey’s Captain Underpants series. It’s difficult to sum up the books in a simple sentence (or three), but they include two of the most delightfully mischievous protagonists ever created, a grumpy principal who turns into a tighty-whitey wearing superhero, comic book texts within the text, villains who tap directly into the schoolboy delight in the gross and grosser, and, of course, the magic of Flip-o-Rama. While those elements all appeal most especially to the ten-and-under set, Pilkey also uses a meta-textual style and other small touches (such as wryly hilarious chapter titles) that reward any adult who happens to be reading the books to his or her kids.The book’s are about an un-educational as it’s possible to get, and—to go back to the topic of yesterday’s post for a moment—I certainly would imagine that any attempt to read them in a classroom setting would lead to instant and likely successful challenges. That’s understandable, but the truth, as I saw first-hand with my boys, is that a central goal—perhaps the most crucial goal—of any early reading chapter book is simply to get kids reading in those extended and focused ways, period. It was so rewarding to see the boys able to stay with the Captain Underpants books over multiple nights, across more than two dozen chapters, following plot threads and remembering details and enjoying the way a story can unfold in that form. And certainly Pilkey’s books have been gateway drugs into numerous other chapter books and series, some (like the subject of tomorrow’s post) just as silly, but many (like John Bellairs’ thrillers, or Beverly Cleary’s Ralph S. Mouse books) entirely different from Captain Underpants. So I think that if we devalue silliness and even disgustingness, at least in such early reading books, we do an injustice to what it can help bring about. But on the other hand, there’s a part of the Captain Underpants silliness—and, I feel, of many similarly silly and over-the-top entertainments for young boys—that I find far more disturbing and potentially destructive. Harold and George, the two young protagonists, hate school, focus in that space only on finding a way to turn the school day into an extended prank—and everything about the world of their school seems designed to reinforce those attitudes. And whereas other aspects of the series’ silliness feel unique and organic to its stories and worlds, this nascent anti-intellectualism (a big word for it, but I think an accurate way to describe the thoroughgoing contempt the series demonstrates for any and all aspects of education) feels shoe-horned in because it’s “cool.” And that, frankly, is a message—especially for young boys—that’s not at all silly, but dead serious, and in the worst ways.Last YA favorite tomorrow,BenPS. What YA lit favorites and memories would you share?