 Monday, June 01, 2009
Here's another great addition from intern Craig Nadler. Hope you enjoy!
With the (unofficial) start of wedding season upon us (June-September), it's of no surprise that today marks the wedding anniversary of Irish playwright, George Bernard Shaw. Shaw wrote more than 60 plays during his lifetime (1856-1950) and on this day, June 1, in 1898, he married Charlotte Payne-Townsend. What I find most interesting about the Shaw-Payne-Townsend nuptials is that both professed distaste for matrimony! At the time, both George and Charlotte were in their early forties and their marriage was a marriage blanc, which means that it was made for economic or financial reasons. Regardless of the motivations, the two were married for forty-five years! The length of Shaw's relationship still baffles biographers to this day.
George Bernard Shaw was a socialist, meaning that he fought for equal economic opportunities for all people as well as the cooperative ownership of different economic systems. He wrote many brochures and speeches advocating his socialist ideals. In his writing, Shaw examined education, marriage, religion, government, heath care and class privilege; ultimately, he found them all defective! Shaw wanted to see equal political rights for men and women, fewer abuses of the working class and a universal European healthy lifestyle.
One of Shaw's most famous plays is Pygmalion, written in 1913. Pygmalion was adopted from Greek mythology and examines complex human relationships in the social world. In the play, phonetics professor Henry Higgins tries to refine the speech and manner of a Cockney girl, Eliza Doolittle. "Cockney" refers to the Londoners living in the East End of the city. Usually, the Cockney dialect is considered to be an uncivilized form of speech. Before her lessons with Professor Higgins, Eliza's speech chock-full of certain features that characterize the cockney form: H-dropping ("Consider yourself at 'ome"), the substitution of me for my ("'At's me book you go 'ere") and the use of the double negative ("I ain't seen nothing").
Shaw's play has had such an impact on the world that it has been adapted and retold in various forms throughout history! Has anyone seen the musical My Fair Lady? Or seen the movie She's All That? Both are retellings of Shaw's play! However, I don't think that these modern adaptations would receive George's seal of approval. After all, both films end with the Higgins and Eliza characters in love! And, as proven by his marriage blanc to Charlotte, Shaw was not a fan of mushy endings. It's a good thing that he stuck to writing and left the love stuff to cupid!
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Friday, May 29, 2009
Did you catch the National Spelling Bee last night? Guest blogger Kim Paras did! Here is her take on The Bee.
Not only would I not want to face any of the Scripps National Spelling Bee finalists in spelling, I would not want to play them in poker either.
Watching the bee from the comfort of my sofa (from the Arabic suffah, meaning "long bench") last night, I would find myself convinced that a young competitor did not know a word. There would be the furrowed brow, the look of being lost and confused, the placement of finger to chin as if to say, "Hmm, I don't know this one, this is it for me." But then--but then!--the competitor would ask the judges those polite but direct questions.
"Could you give the derivation, please?"
 "Could you give the definition, please?"
"Are there any other pronunciations?"
"Could you use it in a sentence, please?"
And then the poker face (poker from the French poque, a card game dating to at least the 18th century) would fade and the super-smart teen would spell words I'd never heard of. Among last night's mind-benders (they bent my mind, at least) were bouquiniste, isagoge, phoresy, fackeltanz, jacqueminot, and ecossaise.
Kavya Shivashankar, 13, of Olathe, Kan., won the 82nd annual National Spelling Bee with Laodicean--of the ancient city Laodicea in Asia Minor, and meaning lukewarm or indifferent in politics or religion.
Kavya, who likes to ride her bike and play the violin--and let's not leave out that she wants to be a neurosurgeon when she grows up--would first use her finger to write the words in the palm of her hand. Many of the competitors did that, and others closed their eyes when they spelled the words or reviewed the spelling in their minds before spelling them for the judges. When their eyes were shut, I wondered if the letters mystically (mystic from the Middle English to Latin to the Greek mystikos) came together in their minds as they did for Eliza in the novel Bee Season by Myla Goldberg.
On second thought--mysticism? Nah (American variation of no, meaning "no"). What these kids have is great discipline and determination, excellent study habits, and supportive families. (Cue Kavya's bespectacled little sister jumping up and down when her sister won. I love that kid!)
The friend who watched the bee with me first balked at the idea of watching kids spell on TV for two hours. But soon he was like me--spellbound.
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Wednesday, May 27, 2009
This entry was written yesterday, May 26, 2009 by READ's new and exciting intern, Craig Nadler, in celebration of Dracula's birthday. Look forward to more literary news and goods from him all summer long. Enjoy!
After reading that on this very day in 1897 Bram Stoker's Dracula appeared for the first time on the shelves of London bookshops, I felt a tingle shoot down my spine. Today, on the anniversary of the birth of the literary vampire, I started reading Eclipse, the third installment in Stephenie Meyer's vampire saga. After discovering this crazy coincidence, I began to wonder what it is that gives vampires such staying power in literature!? We all know that vampires are supposed to be members of the living dead. And, having learned about Dracula's birthday, I am beginning to think that the vampire is immortal in literature as well. Why? Stoker published 17 novels, but it was Dracula that boosted his literary fame. And, Meyer's four novels are all best sellers, the second of which is currently being adapted into a feature film. There must be something about these bloodsuckers that keeps us readers coming back for more! 
The protagonist in Stoker's novel differs somewhat from the one in Meyer's saga. Count Dracula is a Transylvanian nobleman who can assume the form of an animal and control the weather. Although he has the strength of twenty men, his powers are limited; he cannot enter a victim's home unless invited, cannot cross water unless carried and is made powerless by daylight. Edward Cullen, the main vampire in the Twilight series, is a modern interpretation of this classic character. Many of the characteristic traits that define Count Dracula are not apparent in Meyer's vampire. Edward is impossibly fast and strong. He is not affected by water or front doors. And, sunlight does not physically harm him; rather, it reveals his true appearance, sparkling crystal-like skin.
I have come to the conclusion that vampire stories seem to serve a greater purpose than to scare us! I think that if we dig deeper into the literature about the undead, we can find that there are many aspects in the fiction that mirror our own lives. Now, in the 21st century, it is not fair to judge a book solely by its cover. Edward Cullen, while maintaining an insatiable appetite for human blood, controls his murderous desires by remaining a steadfast "vegetarian." He, unlike Count Dracula, refrains from feeding on people. As a modern vampire, Edward is more human than one might expect. He can co-exist safely with humans in society and is capable of experiencing human emotions: love, sadness and guilt. Edward is a modern role model; he fights his own internal demons while attempting to lead a relatively normal, virtuous life.
I don't know about you, but I like the idea of a reformed vampire! I like the idea that someone can rise above his situation to live the life that he wants to lead. By transforming a ghoulish antagonist into a teenager with normal adolescent struggles of his own, Meyer makes the vampire more relatable! I'm pretty sure that a lot of us know what it's like trying to strike a balance between school, family and friends. Edward is pretty much like any other teenager living today, minus the fact that he never eats!
The vampire character has most definitely had an impact on literature. Time does not seem to affect its popularity. There is something beneath the surface of the pale white ice-cold skin that draws us in and keeps us wanting more. The vampire is an outsider. And, I think that we can all locate facets of our own personality that contribute to our individual identity. While it is not necessarily sharp white teeth that distinguish us from one another, we all have quirks that keep life interesting. And, even after a century, the vampire is still a great way to represent these eccentricities on the page!
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Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Today, Kim Paras, Weekly Reader's Manager of Copy Editing, muses on why she loves spotty dogs.
"Not long ago, there lived in London a young married couple of Dalmatian dogs named Pongo and Missis Pongo."
 And so begins the novel "The Hundred and One Dalmatians." I was thinking of that book the other day (for the uninitiated, yes, it was a book before it was a Disney movie), and I recalled that when I was in elementary school, I checked out that book every year from the school library. I am sure the school librarian wished I would feed my mind something else other than this tale of missing spotted pups, but checking out "The Hundred and One Dalmatians" from the Bolivar (Tenn.) Elementary School Library became somewhat of a ritual for me. From year to year, I knew where I could find the book--in the shelves against the back wall, about midway up and to the right. And its appearance was etched in my brain: It had a pale pink book jacket decorated with dogs on the front and paw prints padding their way up the spine, protected by a clear plastic cover. Looking back, I think the old hardback copy my school library owned may have been a first edition (1956, Viking Press).
 For all the times I read that book as a child, I don't think I ever took notice of the author. The shame! So I decided to find out. The author, as some of you I'm sure could have told me, is Dodie Smith, of Lancashire, England. Smith attended what is now the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and began her career as an actor. Deciding that pursuit wasn't for her, she later worked as a toy buyer in a furniture store, where she would meet her future husband. Returning to the arts, she began writing plays, some of which were performed on Broadway in the 1930s and '40s.
Smith and her husband, Alex Beesley, moved to the United States during World War I (1914–1918). It has been said that Smith was homesick for England when, in 1948, she published her first novel, "I Capture the Castle," which is written from the point of view of a 17-year-old girl who lives in a deteriorating castle with her family. The book is essentially the diary entries of the protagonist Cassandra. It begins with this short, but inviting sentence: "I write this sitting in the kitchen sink."
Sunday, May 3, would have been Dodie Smith's birthday. She was born in 1896. This writer who penned what would one day become a children's classic experienced tragedy in her own childhood. Her father died when she was a baby, and when Smith was a teenager, her mother died of breast cancer.
Smith died at age 94 in 1990. I think that in Smith's honor I will stop by my local library and check out "The Hundred and One Dalmatians," though I doubt it will be the copy with the pink cover that I so fondly remember. As for the Dalmatians whose adventures I will again follow? They were inspired by Smith's many pet Dalmatians, one of whom was named Pongo. 
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