Summer love... catching up on junk reads.

I am ready for summer to begin! Oh, wait. This stack of research papers is not. They will dwindle here shortly... they are so much more fun to write than read, but I will find my way through them. I just hate taking off points, and so I end up just marking them and saying, "Yay! A for EFFORT!" and then the students never care to see what could improve it to say "A for astute academic discovery!!" and so I guess in that regard... Mrs. Rogers, you get a C for over praising average students. But I feel like they all deserve A's for doing the work.

SO then after that I am going to delve into my summer reading and reflecting on movies, books, information on my mind. I keep hearing myself talk about what I am GOING to do. Teaching really monopolizes your time like that-- if you have free time you are planning and grading and not reading and researching. And so I make plans to do it later. The first summer plan will be a good light reading novel. A nice 500 page light reading book about dark scary vampires. This is as close as I can get to a harlequin novel, so I guess it is trashy indulgence.

Last night I was feeling achy & cold sniffly, so I did not do any grading. I nosed into Twitter and Twilight. I am enjoying Twilight so far-- it's a cute little adolescent read, nothing too literary about it, and some so-so kind of use of imagery and realism and symbols. I can already in the first few chapters see how it really does fall into the adolescence genre, though. It can be pretty transparent at times-- Meyers is not hiding the story at all. You can already see in the first thirty pages that the group of weird kids at this high school are going to change Bella's life. She creates connections between Bella and the Cullen kids that are so obvious-- the light skin, being outsiders, her fascination with them... Very obviously setting up some themes for the book. So we will see what happens next. I think I can predict, but I will hold on and post about Twilight again after I finish the book.

Obsession: Twilight

Magic realism:Fiction which displays a mingling of the mundane with the fantastic, giving the narrative dual dimensions of realism and fantasy. One of its purposes is to draw attention to the fact that all narrative is an invention.

I am fascinated with this genre, and I am starting to write a treatment/screenplay something or another that is quite heavily influenced by the different fantastical works I have enjoyed so long. I have also introduced my World Literature students to the study of magical realism for our Latin American works, because of my love of Marquez.

I love Marquez (the Father of Magical Realism), and I love X-Men, superheroes, twentieth century, vampire movies... it just makes sense that I would follow magical realism. I even realized (as far as I can tell) that most children's literature follows the definition of magical realism, as we were discussing whether or not "SpongeBob" falls into the genre, and we discussed Twilight a lot. My students are OBSESSED!

I am going to have to read it this summer, but it brings me to wonder: Why is vampire literature so enticing? Or more so, as a film genre? Thomas Foster points out the symbolism behind vampirism, that it is sexual and at the same time represents our egocentricism. As I re-read what Foster has to say about it, I understand now why this is so intriguing to teens. I remember watching Interview with a Vampire over and over as a teen, and I understand why it is so alluring to teens. But is it magical realism? It mixes fantasy and reality, it addresses social issues (in a very broad sense), it uses the supernatural, all the issues surrounding MR. But there is never any feel that the work understands that it is just a narrative, and so one wonders if it stiill counts. And then the larger issue at that point is, now that CG is so advanced, and our children watch more TV and have no lines between reality and fantasy, is it in any way not real? Where is the line now? I need to know. I'm going to think about this one some more, and by think I mean go see X-Men Origins.

Entering the Imaginary

A blog. Finally. I’ve only been reading and writing blogs for the last couple months, but I have fallen in love with the genre, and I have made it a mental priority to get back to writing. I put other things ahead of the imaginary world in order to find purpose and meaning and structure in my life. Now that those purposes have gotten dull, I need to come back full circle.

And ahhhhhh! I have gotten my feet wet. I am ready to begin. I cannot wait to see what I find out there.