We closed on our first house on Wednesday, and we started moving our stuff into it today, so don’t expect too much bloggery for the next day or so.

I took the precaution of not hiring a moving crew; I know it’s not Mardi Gras time, but you can never be too careful.*

*Plus one for you if you didn’t need to look at the picture to get that movie reference.

I think everyone has their book, or should be getting it in the next day or two, so I’d like to go ahead and start reading. I think by the Friday after next, that would be June the 8th on the Gregorian calendar, we should try to get part one of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go completed. The novel is segmented into three parts, and part one is one hundred and eleven pages long. If anyone doesn’t hit the mark, simply let us know in the comments section, and we’ll postpone the discussion date.On June 8th, I’ll post some thoughts about section one, and then in the comments section we’ll all get into the fray. If you’ve never marked up a book in preparation for a discussion before, I’d like to encourage you to read with a pen or pencil in your hand. Underline passages that strike your fancy. Put stars next to things that make you smile. Try to write your thoughts in the margins, because I assure you, no matter how hard you try to remember something for discussion time, you’ll forget it.

In the frequently anthologized article “How to Mark a Book,” Mortimer J. Adler states:

There are two ways in which one can own a book. The first is the property right you establish by paying for it, just as you pay for clothes and furniture. But this act of purchase is only the prelude to possession. Full ownership comes only when you have made it a part of yourself, and the best way to make yourself a part of it is by writing in it. An illustration may make the point clear. You buy a beefsteak and transfer it from the butcher’s icebox to your own. But you do not own the beefsteak in the most important sense until you consume it and get it into your bloodstream. I am arguing that books, too, must be absorbed in your blood stream to do you any good.

Confusion about what it means to “own” a book leads people to a false reverence for paper, binding, and type — a respect for the physical thing — the craft of the printer rather than the genius of the author. They forget that it is possible for a man to acquire the idea, to possess the beauty, which a great book contains, without staking his claim by pasting his bookplate inside the cover. Having a fine library doesn’t prove that is owner has a mind enriched by books; it proves nothing more than that he, his father, or his wife, was rich enough to buy them.

So get readin’ my bloggery-compatriots, and in eight days we’ll come together and share our thoughts. Have fun.

We’re closing on a house tomorrow, and suddenly, to my abject horror, I realize that I’ve inexplicably morphed into Jack’s Tragic Devotion to Corporate Sponsored Materialism.

DULCE ET DECORUM EST¹

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!– An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.–
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,–
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Wilfred Owen
8 October 1917 - March, 1918

1 DULCE ET DECORUM EST - the first words of a Latin saying (taken from an ode by Horace). The words were widely understood and often quoted at the start of the First World War. They mean “It is sweet and right.” The full saying ends the poem: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori - it is sweet and right to die for your country. In other words, it is a wonderful and great honour to fight and die for your country

• Oh…excuse me Ricky.
  This…this is the most disturbing thing I’ve seen all day. Ugh. I need to put bleach in my eyes….

I need to watch The View more often.

Hasselbeck’s probably pretty quick, and I’m sure she can stick and move pretty well, but I bet Rosie would take her down.

For our reading group we’ll read Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go.

From the wiki entry for the book:

Never Let Me Go is a 2005 novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. It was shortlisted for the 2005 Booker Prize and for the 2006 Arthur C. Clarke Award. Time Magazine named it the best fiction novel of 2005 and included it in All-TIME 100 Greatest Novels. While it contains many tropes generally associated with science fiction, it was marketed as mainstream literature.

Unless anyone disagrees, we’ll start reading on Monday. Hopefully that’ll give everyone enough time to find a copy of the book.

In regards to the symbolism in the film “Pan’s Labyrinth,” director Guillermo del Toro states during his commentary track on the DVD that, “Symbols cannot be closed to a single meaning, because if so the symbol becomes a cypher, and the tale become an equation of exact value.”

del Toro means that symbols are subject to interpretation by the viewer, regardless of the director’s intentions for the symbolism in the film. I won’t ruin the film for you, and if you haven’t seen it by all means do so, but the ending of the film is up for interpretation, and del Toro specifically ended his movie with the expectation that many viewers will interpret the symbols and symbolism in the film in different ways. Your interpretation of those symbols will determine how you view the ending of the film.

I am by no means a semiotician, nor can I even claim to fully understand semiotics. Sure, I have a general idea of how signifiers and the signified relate to texts, but as far as breaking things down into their individual structures, well, that ain’t my bag, baby. But, I do find it interesting how different people interpret the exact same symbol, or series of symbols, in completely different ways. Because we do all interpret symbols a little bit differently, don’t we? When I see the montages of the American flag in Michael Bay films, I’m quite sure the first thought that pops into my head is very different than the first one that pops into yours. Likewise, I’m sure the meanings you attach to the Millennium Falcon are very different from the meanings that I attach to it.

Arguing over the meanings and interpretations of symbols in literature and films is quite a lot of fun. Arguing over them in everyday life isn’t really all that fun. In fact, I’d say that many of the major points of contention in our society might very well stem from conflicting interpretations of symbols. Personally, I think everything would run a lot smoother if we treated everyday life like literary and film criticism. Instead of attacking each other over our contentious interpretations we could all sit down and write out an article length paper for each symbol we interpret, wherein we meticulously detail how and why we arrived at our interpretation of said symbol.

We’d be so damn busy writing all the time that no one would have a chance to even interact with another person, much less argue with one.

• Bruce Campbell is “Hungry Like the Wolf”
  This is the grooviest commercial I’ve ever seen. I’m strictly an Old Spice man from now on.
• Van Halen’s “Eruption”
  As performed via violin by Bobby Yang, a very energetic Asian guy. Suck it, EVH.

I’ve chosen seven books as candidates for our upcoming reading group. There wasn’t any particular criteria I used in selecting these candidates, but I did intentionally stay within the latter half of the twentieth century for two particular reasons: 1) For our first book I want a text that is more fun than challenging. 2) These texts shouldn’t require an abundance of historical background for a full understanding.

If this goes well the next batch will come from a more challenging time period that requires some additional research to fully appreciate. I’ll post these up, we’ll talk about them, and in the next day or so we can all vote on which book we’d like to read collectively.

And yes, there are several science fiction texts on this list. I like science fiction, but I feel like the academy, or at least the academies I’ve attended, fail to acknowledge the importance of science fiction in literary studies. So without further adieu, here’s the list:

Breakfast of Champions — Kurt Vonnegut
Shalimar the Clown — Salman Rushdie
The Gods Themselves — Isaac Asimov
Falling Man: A Novel — Dom Delillo
Stranger in a Strange Land — Robert Heinlein
Never Let Me Go — Kazus Ishiguro
War Trash — Ha Jin

So there you go; I hope you’re as excited as I am. Let me know what you think.