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Looking a bit more like my grade ten science textbook with less colourful diagrams and more allusions to the rise and fall of American presidents, Lipton states his main thesis in an innocuous way: DNA is not the nucleus-like brain for a healthy being but the body's ability to respond to environmental signals that shapes who we are and how likely we are to die painful deaths! Nice sense of flow in lighthouse diagram.

A good section of the book, several chapters spanning two "acts" yet all within one day - a veritable Birdman in Elisabethan dress, introduces everyone you might have read about if you keep up with James Shapiro or Gabriel Egan. What is fascinating is how many historical figures have a political interest in the rabble-rousing rhetoric of Henry V, nicely deflated by the Bard planning the next season.

The final five to six chapter really take multiple turns away from the Remains of the Day territory the narrative was building towards, starting with the vicar's advice that some people weren't made for each other to the sudden outburst of violence on Sussex's cliff. It sort of seems like too many of Helen's writing group had a hand in finishing off the last few dozen pages of her first and maybe only novel.

During the nearly riotous shooting party, where bored London bankers were tempted to shoot well-meaning children, or the outburst at the staging of Partition massacre where England true colours flared up, Major Pettigrew sort of takes a stand, demanding order and respect for tradition. But when the miniaturized version of England's gentrified legacy is presented to him, he really has a foot on each side of the fence.

Last days of the Maharajah aside, there doesn't seem to be any overt xenophobia coming from the golf club crowd, and even the beleaguered secretary meant no harm shooing George to the service entrance - good for Amina, however, in kicking up a fuss. The worst racism comes from Rogers and other preening young snobs - why doesn't he seem to share his father's moral acumen? Abdul Wahid has more in common with the Major.

Those dreadful pistols, again, are the bane of Pettigrew's post-fraternal existence, and even when Bertie was alive they were nothing but problems. At least the Major now has a sneaky plan, and is doing something about it, while the rest of the community seems to be conspiring to get him and Jasmina Ali hooked up. Not expecting a lot of steamy senile scenes between them, but he must get beyond his antiquated decorum.

A romance is blossoming yet there is a sense of brooding over the heirloom shooting pistols that will inevitably end up in the wrong hands no matter what the immediate decision on the Major's deceased brother estate. An elderly concern over what is wrong with the world, basically younger generations not respecting for their ancestors enough, but his traditions are countered by Mrs. Ali's against-the-grain feistiness.

What looks like a charming tale of finding love again after the lamented loss of their loved ones may actually turn out to be a comedy of manners with a stodgy English Major (ex military rather than academia) seeing his urbanized extended family for what they really are. Mrs. Ali, on the other hand, willfully resisted the old world traditions for a newish world in Pettigrew's sleepy village with her post-spouse plan.

Moving beyond the genetic determinism that many scientists hold dear and many university students actualize in their shove-fest towards top student and tenured professorship, Dr. Lipton escapes Wisconsin for the Caribbean, and along the way discovers a new biology thanks to a smart cell of students, based upon the much italicized "belief" - the gene-like memes created by our environment. Score a point for de Lemarck!

What is surely not your dad's (or perhaps older brother's) Shakespeare in Love, this swashbuckling Rebel is full of piss and vinegar, and more of the former than the latter. John Lawley makes a complex character to inspire one of the greatest tragedies on stage yet it is really the Earl of Essex whose life will become the pattern for Hamlet, who for the moment is cast as a ice-cold Hotspur.

Took me a while to get around to this book but I am determined to get through it within a short month, especially if I want to make use of it as teaching material for secondary English language arts classrooms. Somehow the opening quote about Nashe's Festian catalogue of drunkenness may tip me off that it is not the young adult historical fiction I expected it to be - ah well, the show must, as some would say, go on.

Hard to believe firstly that Bakhtin wrote this much discourse over the relatively short period of two years, and secondly that he sustains a serious discussion of the parodic elements that go into a novel. He defines two stylistic lines, above and below the enigmatic heteroglossia, and suggests that more in-depth analysis will reveal a third dimension of any novel's reality, hopefully why we read so much on reading.

The ways of speaking and heterglossing in novels get expanded upon in a reader-friendly chat, picking up on the comedy of Dickens, the philosophy of Dostoyevsky and the parodic nature of Sterne and (of course) Rabelais. All count as champions of the unreality created by these and many other authors' words. It would have been nice if Bakhtin could have cast an eastward glance at prototypic Tales of the Genji.

Some of these utterances have already been read in one of my first PhD theory courses, it feels as new as when I first read them, perhaps as they moved out of the Russian heteroglossia when translated into English. Like all the descendants of the mythical Adam, it is rare for anyone to find words a completely new discourse read or listened to as if for the first time. Yet Dickens' Little Dorrit is new to me.

In what feels like several decades worth of reading (Bakhtin started writing on chronotopes in 1937 yet finished his conclusion in 1973 - whaa...?) time has stretched out all over the place (ha, get it!); he includes such literary luminaries as Aristophanes, Dickens and Tolstoy, each giving the reader something to enjoy as they reflect upon the speed or slowness in the lives outside of literature and across cultures.

The zeal and obsessive detail in which Bakhtin writes about Rabelais is similar to a third grader's account of Pokėmon transformations: each "series" of bodily functions serves some grander purpose of reducing the fatal aspect of time. Making baby geese into toilet paper, drowning entire cities in urine and fortifying Paris with lady parts is the zany Renaissance sense of comedy that spawned a new, filthy chronotope.

Can't always be stuck in the past, or in Bakhtin's case, the ancient European world. His comments of the historical inversion, where the present and past seem more weight simply for being is and was, as opposed to the uncertain future. Whether or not medieval chivalric romance came into their own in terms of chronotopic innovation, at least it made room for three awesome archetypes: the rogue, the clown and the fool.

In filmic terms, this is the money shot: Bakhtin takes the Einsteinian concept of space-time and creates the literary chronotope, finding examples of this device in all the purple-striped Penguin Classics (so far). Greek romances, called adventure-time (without Finn & Jake), create a life path of sudden events; the everyday adventures of unseen servants and donkeys leads to a more introspective, autobiographic space.

The novel continues to develop its complexity as Bakhtin traces the roots in ancient eras - the xenophobic Greeks primarily used the new form to make fun of foreigners until their culture was appropriated by the fun-loving Romans. Saturnalia is an excellent progenitor for one of the most enjoyable pastimes for the centuries to come. Only passing reference to early moderns authors like Cervantes and Shakespeare c'mon!

Taken up with the task of pointing out what is new about novels, Bakhtin expands upon the theory of genres that works out somewhat well for other forms of literature, the epic story for instance, but cannot contain all the newness and openendedness of a novel, no matter when it is written. The main difference between these titular topics is that epics venerate the remote past and novels laughingly look to the future.

This will be the growing-up moment of my PhD program, beyond the coursework and predigested theories, to questioning everything I believe in. So far, I can understand how takin the side of a Southern Baptist's "good people will burn" attitude may be Žižek's idiosyncratic way of introducing Lenin as a Christ/Joker-figure, but I have to come to terms with his writing off of Jung as a failure and Lacan as Freud's champ.

About time I got caught up with Bakhtin, especially as this famed collection has lots to say about literary scholarship and informs much of the literacy portion of my department. So far, smooth sailing with Michael Holquist's highlights of M.M.'s rocky road toward published preeminence. Perhaps an indicator for me of how far off the academic track a bright mind can go, similar to what I am just finding out for Žižek.

Surprising how a well-crafted social studies story (suitable for all ages) suddenly becomes more PG-13 with the lustful grabbing and stroking of some key confused lovers, finally escalating towards a Tarantino-like finale up north where the silver fox sleep. A thrilling story of love versus greed that in the isolated wilderness of Canada. But to end without Mrs. Ross' first name! Do I need to read it all over again?!

An earnest attempt to find out who murdered a trapper slowly becomes more of a soap opera, with young love and it's more wistfully mature version of it creeping into the story. Will Parker's greenhouse-scented body reignite the flame Mrs. Ross (née Hay) had for her naughty Dr. Watson? Will Donald send his letter to Susannah or is a former flame about to hobble back into her life? Did James Stewart get the plot going?

As I become more familiar with the growing cast of characters, I start noticing how much they hide their hearts from each other. Maria and Susannah are opposite ends of a sisterly spectrum, Thomas Sturrock is a multitasking fritterer straight out of a Dickens novel, and the yet-to-be named Mrs. Ross keeps the ones closest to her at distance. Even with Francis found the story is far from reaching a murder mystery end.

The race is on, trying to finish or at least make an impressive attempt at the middle, in order to bring something to the book club meeting on Tuesday. So far, I am enjoying what reads like an Upper Canadian version of The Wire with Mrs. Ross as a somewhat reliable narrator in control of first-person chapters. Donald makes an equally intriguing Company man with a knack for numbers who may be Sherlock Holmes.

So close to the end, after jumping around from part to part in keeping with my narrative inquiry course reading list, I am in a position of wanting more theory, less examples. The chapters written by Sparkes & Smith, and Franzoni dabble with awe-inspiring ideas of find narrative details from ancient philosophy and more recent narratological research but seem to water down the possibilities with selling their studies.

Back to the book for narrative analysis and the first two chapters present theories in dialogue with each other. McAdams takes on psychological themes and ends up finding a redemptive story in Gee Wiz Bush's presidential career. Funny that the Cracked Podcast today mentioned how Moore's Fahrenheit 911 may have been propaganda for the Tea Party as well as Truthers! Frank's chapter analyzes Bakhtin's dialogue.

I knew we would get along, meeting up like this again: after reading something very similar to the introduction of these selected essay right at the start of my PhD studies, I knew Louise was one of the friendly spirits to guide me along my academic adventure. Her interest in quantum physics (here called Einstein's) and Vygotsky and Carson takes up many of my interests. But isn't it now a post-democracy age?