LoLover’s blog

The first was amazing.  The second was a little disappointing, but seemed necessary.  The third was...well...eagerly anticipated, and maybe that's the most important thing.  Even avid Pirates fans have to admit that At World's End was a little long, a little confusing, preceded by a lot of hype, and followed by a lot of criticism.  I've read my fair share of the critical response, including often hilariously-worded arguments that it was completely confusing and pointless.  My favorite was Nathan Lee's review, found here: http://www.villagevoice.com/film/0721,lee,76727,20.html.  Maybe it was just another final gasp of a trilogy, but maybe we're just asking the wrong things from Pirates if we think it comes up wanting.

Lee says: "Long before the third, fourth, or fifth climax in this endless, obligatory summer diversion, I slunk into my seat in a passive, inattentive stupor, fully submitting to the fact that I hadn’t the slightest idea what the hell was going on."

LoL. responds:  Yes, there were a number of climactic moments, though I felt that they served well to break up the nearly three-hour film into effective action-packed chunks.  After all, a three-hour movie with a single climactic moment would be a bit of a bore fore about two and a half hours-- or sustain suspense in a rather painful manner.  And is it my fault that you are utterly clueless when confronted with multiple plot lines and character entanglements?  Perhaps we'd do better to stop trying to figure out what is going on with the characters and take them at their word.  When Will Turner looks like he's trying to double-cross his entire group of shipmates, HE IS.  When Davy Jones says the reason he cut out his heart was because Calypso wasn't there when he came to shore after ten years, HE DID.  There are no ulterior motives in this movie-- just the facts.

So I think the key to enjoying Pirates is in Lee's own phrase, "obligatory summer diversion."  Disney felt obliged to milk the craze for all it's worth, and we felt obliged to hang on to our lovable pirates.  We felt compelled to go see it because deep inside we all want to identify with piratey folk and their rogue sense of simultaneous greed and integrity, and we knew what we were getting into-- eyeliner, silly puns and big words, canonfire, sword fights, love stories, fabricated ocean lore, parrots, and monkeys.  This is what we asked for, and this is what we got.  So we can't expect the mythology of the story to necessarily make sense or match up.  And we can't expect all of the characters to necessarily behave in the most logical or even characteristic ways.  We can't expect a perfect plan from Pirates 1 to Pirates 6.  Like good old Jack, these movies fly by the seat of their pants, and when, like the silly Brit, we wonder, "Does Disney plan this all out, or just think of it as they go," we're suspicious it's the latter.  But what's the difference, anyway?  We still get our swordfights and rum.

I hate to bring in literature at a time like this, but I think we're all missing a little of what Coleridge called "willing suspension of disbelief"-- meaning a willingness to enjoy something because it's entertaining even though it doesn't make sense.  He needed it to enjoy Shakespeare, and we need it for Pirates.  And if even Shakespeare needed a break like that, I think we shouldn't be so unwilling to throw Disney a little slack.  The movie had some great moments of artistry, action, and empathy, so we shouldn't cast it aside just because we all get a little lost at some point.  Besides, Captain Barbosa wouldn't have it any other way.

~LoL.

Black Boy, Native Son, and The Outsider are all common high school and college required reads, but that doesn't mean you should grab the Cliff's Notes and never glance at a page of one of Richard Wright's famous and influential works.  All three of these are very worthwhile reads, even for people who aren't particularly in to literature or African American studes.  Here's how to read these books if you're averse to books in general or to Afam Lit...

If you don't like to read:

You'll probably enjoy Richard Wright more than Shakespeare, Milton, Jane Austen, and Herman Melville.  Why?  He writes in a very accessible style used by many authors in the twentieth century.  His sentences are short and his descriptions, while lengthy in places, hinge on realism and distinct aspects of the human experience.  He tends to be concrete rather than abstract, and makes politics human in a compelling way.  Keeping up with the characters may be your biggest challenge, not understanding the action.  Black Boy reads more like an autobiography, though it also has fictional aspects, Native Son revolves around a distinctly racial conflict, and The Outsider is more of an existential piece, aligning itself with political and human conflicts rather than racial.  The Outsider especially has shorter sentences and more concrete descriptions-- think The Stranger, in which Camus deliberately went for an "American style" of shorter sentences and more direct statements.

There are decently spaced chapters in all three of these novels, not to mention they are all page-turners.  Native Son and The Outsider are both murder stories, and have a very dramatic psychological feel.  I couldn't put them down, and not just because I had to have a paper written on them by the next day.

If you don't like African American literature:

First of all, you probably don't like it because you think to yourself "I'm just a white girl.  What could this possibly have to do with me?"  That is ridiculous-- the black struggle within literature is a struggle that anyone can identify with.  You don't have to be a fisherman to read Moby Dick-- you don't have to be a soldier to read A Farewell to Arms-- so give up the lame excuses that you're not a part of the group.  In fact, feeling like an outsider to the black experience is, in a way, how Wright wants you to feel, because the people he's talking about are outsiders to the American experience and to the human experience in general.  Anything that can help you share that is useful.  Or maybe you think to yourself, "African American literature just isn't as good as 'regular' literature."  This, also, is ridiculous.  Firstly, it's a misnomer to even have a subcategory for Afam lit.  African Americans are Americans just like everyone else in America, and thus a part of American lit.  Latino literature, Asian American literature, Womens literature-- these are all completely unnecessary subcategories that create the illusion that the literature within them is somehow not normal simply because the authors weren't male and white.  This is unfair to the minority groups as well as to all those white men that we continually complain about dictating the terms of the status quo.  Consider African American literature as simply American literature-- this makes a lot more sense, because African American authors are a whole lot more American than folks like Henry James, who spent most of his life in Europe, or T.S. Eliot, who basically became a Brit.  I'm sick of having to take a "multicultural" class to learn about subcultures in the U.S.-- we're made of subcultures, so the status quo should be to read all kinds of literature and authors.  Not to mention, for those of you who still don't want to read Afam. lit, Richard Wright's novels consistently rank among polls of the best of the twentieth century-- color of the author not withstanding.  Wright was a very literary writer, and it is in no way patronizing for critics to praise and value his contribution to American Lit.  So don't think you're reading Black Boy just because he's black.

Two summers ago, I traveled to Lhasa, Tibet, the People's Republic of China, for a month and did some trips to other areas of Tibet as well, including Mt. Everest Base Camp (the original British base camp, which isn't the one that is primarily used now).  It's an awesome place to travel, though there's small chance that you'll be able to communicate much even if you do have your Tibetan phrasebook (or even speak a little Chinese).  Tibet is changing quickly, though, with the addition of the railroad from Beijing to Lhasa-- travel options have opened wide for both Han tourists and foreigners, and as a result Lhasa is going to become increasingly more developed at an exponential pace.

There's no booking a cheap flight to Lhasa--it will run about $2,000 from the cheapest source, and then you'll need to get a travel permit to the Tibet Autonomous Region from a travel agent in China.  I went through Chengdu in China, and spoke with an agent there who bought me a ticket for a flight from Chengdu to Lhasa as well as the permit.  You can also fly through Nepal, which is a better route to take if you have a couple of days to hang out and wait for your connecting flight because it will give you a chance to acclimatize to the altitude.  If you connect immediately, the altitude will definitely get you feeling a little light-headed (at the least), and waiting a few days in Nepal is probably your safest option (physically, since getting too high too fast can cause serious problems and death).  I spent only one night in Chengdu, which was a big mistake because I ended up only getting to see the airport district of Chengdu, which really sucks (like the airport district of any city), and then I felt insane when I got off the plane in Lhasa.  It was unreal, and not entirely in a good way.

There's really nothing you can do to prepare for the altitude change in Lhasa, either-- you can bring some Diamox (which will alleviate symptoms of altitude sickness), or purchase canned oxygen at a convenience store, but you'd better go ahead and plan on not being very active for at least a few days.  Even climbing stairs in your hotel will wear you out, and if you don't give your body the rest it wants you can have serious complications.  I recommend going to Tibet for at least two weeks, and planning to be only in Lhasa for the first week of it, doing low-key activities like visiting the Potala Palace and the Jokhang temple, and the Barkor circuit for some shopping.  Then, if you're interested in doing some hiking in the area or outside of Lhasa, do it in your second week when you've gotten more acclimated.  There are some great hikes in the immediate Lhasa area, as well as some monasteries and various cultural sites, so you can easily plan to spend two weeks in Lhasa alone.  Alternatively, spend a week in Lhasa and then rent a land cruiser and visit some of the smaller cities, all of which will have a central temple to visit and probably some hikes to do.

Food and Accommodations:

I strongly recommend that you stay at the Kirey Hotel in Lhasa-- it's only blocks from all of the attractions in the historic (old) part of the city, which is definitely the part you're going to visit.  The hotel costs mere dollars a day, and has laundry service (you put your clothes in a bag and take them to the desk, they're done by the next day), and a delicious restaurant called Tashi's II, which served as my staple food for most of my time in Lhasa (where you can also eat yummy yak steaks and other hearty meals for dollars a day).  There's another restaurant, too, that has a more touristy fare (and a cultural show every night), and is slightly more expensive, and an internet bar above that, with about 10 computers.  The computers initially display in Chinese, but can be set to display pages in English-- just ask the attendant.  The only downside to this internet bar is that they only play the Eagles greatest hits, which sucks if you don't like the Eagles and sucks if you do like the Eagles, because after hearing that CD for a week you'll want to break it into tiny shards and stab yourself with it.  In fact, I'd venture to say that I preferred to hear the strange Chinese versions of American songs on karaoke mixes that were playing in a lot of bars, restaurants, and random outdoor areas.  At least that was funny.  Also in the Kirey hotel (and this will be in most hotels, and is highly convenient), there is a message board for travelers to post ads for people to rent or share a land cruiser to do some area traveling, and you can usually find someone interested in almost anything you feel like doing.  If there's not a message already up, you can post one and find a way to do what you're interested in. 

There are a number of hotels and restaurants in the city-- the downside to the Kirey is that the bathrooms are shared at the end of the hall, and the toilets (like most in Tibet), are in-ground and you need to bring your own toilet paper (ALWAYS have your own toilet paper in Tibet).  For more amenities, try the Lhasa Hotel or the Yak Hotel.  There are a lot of good restaurants around the Barkor (the pilgrimage circuit) with all kinds of food-- just stop in when you see a restaurant and try it out.  Almost all menus will be in English, and prices in yuan.  For a big, American-style meal of world cuisines, try Dunya Restaurant and Bar-- it is more expensive than most restaurants in Lhasa, owned by a German couple, but the portions are big and the food comforting if you've had a long day.  My recommendations for food anywhere in Lhasa are these: Definitely try the yak steak or yak burger, and definitely DON'T try the pizza.  Pizza in Tibet is always weird.  But local fare is usually great.  Traditional Tibetan food weighs heavily on barley, and you should try tsampa (barley mush, basically), at least once, but now that there is so much Han presence in Tibet you can get great Chinese food everywhere.

Money:

It's a good idea to exchange money or get money out from the ATM.  Don't rely on anywhere to accept your credit card.  You won't be carrying exhorbitant amounts of money at any time because most things are so cheap.  Also don't be afraid to negotiate (bargain)-- even hotels may try to overcharge you because you are a tourist.  If you go to a convenience store, pay attention to the price that is marked-- I once got overcharged for a bag of oreos that had a price clearly marked on the package!  I told him the right amount and he sheepishly corrected himself.  However, don't feel bad if you do get overcharged, because it usually won't be by much.

Hikes:

Do make sure you bring plenty of food, juice, and water when you go hiking in Lhasa, because there's nothing like being tired on a high-altitude hike and not having enough to eat or drink.  Even experienced hikers will feel some fatigue when they don't expect it, so plan to do less than you probably could at least on the first hike you do in the area.  It's the roof of the world and you're in the Himilayas, so definitely get out and enjoy it, just make sure you're equipped!  Pack animals can be rented for longer hikes, though I think it's just more enjoyable to do day hikes since there's so much to see in the cities.

Attractions:

Lhasa (and Tibet in general) is a hotspot for CULTURAL tourism-- so get ready to see a lot of Buddhism!  For Buddhists, or people who are familiar with places like South Korea where Zen Buddhism is prevalent, Tibet seems to have a lot more widespread and institutionalized religion.  It's much like the Bible Belt of the U.S.-- everyone is Buddhist.  They just are.  Buddhist monks will ask for money in ways that most Buddhists would consider to be completely inappropriate-- get used to this, and try to keep your center when confronted by people in religious garb asking you for money.  It's simply a historic trend-- in Tibet, it was often so difficult to grow enough food to support the entire family that people would frequently send at least one child to become a monk or nun, regardless of interest, so the monastic culture is just heavily institutionalized and ingrained in society.  That being said, you should still be respectful to the monks and nuns you encounter in the cities, especially in the temples.  The Buddhist temples are a treasure of Tibet, so see as many as you can and admire the unique qualities of each.  Give some money if you can, buy the wares the monks are selling within the temple (the profits of which will go to them to support the monks and the temple), and ask before you take pictures.  Often you can take as many pictures as you want, but sometimes you'll need to pay a very small fee before taking all your pictures.  So just ask.  And above all, be respectful of the Tibetans who are going on pilgrimages.  They'll be kneeling, bowing, and walking in circuits, so if you need to walk around something, go in the direction of the Tibetans to make sure you're going to right way.

Safety:

Tibet is a REALLY safe place to travel, even for women alone.  Dress modestly (pants, long skirts, and at least 3/4 length sleeves on shirts), but not because you're in danger of unwanted attention-- you'll just scandalize all the Tibetans around you, who are quite conservative.  You don't need to worry much about being robbed or assaulted, just be aware of the annoyance of people asking for money anytime you show that you have some.  Transportation can be a little scary at times, but you don't have much choice when it comes to taking buses and taxis, and you're probably safer than driving yourself if you can be driven instead.  The main danger in Tibet is the many feral (and domestic) dogs-- if you see a dog acting funny, get away from it, because many dogs in Tibet have rabies.  If you get bitten by a dog, visit the hospital immediately.  If you're going to spend a long time trekking in Tibet and will be away from the cities for many days at a time, I might even recommend getting a rabies vaccine here before leaving, because it's much less expensive and less painful than being treated after the fact, and if you get bitten by a rabid dog while trekking you may not be able to reach a hospital in sufficient time to be treated.

Overall, Tibet is an incredible place, full of rich cultural heritage and a unique blend of Chinese and Tibetan ways of life.  English-speakers can get by fairly easily in the cities and you can travel between cities in a matter of hours to see different sites if you want to leave the capitol of Lhasa.  Don't feel like you have to leave Lhasa, however-- the Himilayas are incredible, but you could easily spend several weeks just in Lhasa and the surrounding mountains, and there are some rewarding hikes and vast cultural sites to see in the city.  Be prepared for some discomforts, but don't let them daunt you if you're planning a trip to this ever more accessible land of adventure.

~LoL.

What are your plans for the weekend?

My plans for the weekend are complicated.  Since I'm not in school any longer and haven't effectively entered into the next phase of my life, they are basically identical to my plans for every other day of the seemingly endless (though it's barely begun) summer.  In fact, after having been out of school for only 2 weeks, I've already lost track of the days and dates, and a weekend day is indistinguishable from a weekday.  When I realize that it's Saturday, I feel the need to relax and do something fun because it's the weekend, but I'm immediately flooded by guilt because I haven't done anything all week to deserve it.  I feel like taking a break, but a break from what?  From living in an apartment with my friends, watching movies, and eating whatever and whenever I want?  For that matter, summer hardly feels like a break after my last semester of college, in which I took only literature classes (read: reading lots of great poetry), wrote my thesis (read: received 5 hours of course credit for writing a single paper, which was all focused on a topic I had complete freedom to choose), and taught freshmen literature (read: had complete control!)-- what's to want to take a break from?

So I'll probably cook a new recipe from my Cooking Light cookbook, eat it, and then get a milkshake at Chic-fil-a.  I'll probably watch a movie with my friends (probably Pan's Labrynth or Curse of the Golden Flower).  I'll probably do some laundry and then maybe go home and help my dad paint the entire house for the next month.   I'll probably plan a trip to do the John Muir trail or go to Jamaica.  Who knows.

Last summer, I embarked on a research tour of Europe while reading James Joyce's Ulysses.  I felt that the epic work centered around homeland-exile themes above all else, and thus, in order to fully understand these themes, I needed to experience the homeland and exile experience of James Joyce myself.  A bit shady, I'll admit, but it was rewarding and priceless, and really did inform my reading of Ulysses in ways I never expected.  This description will include elements of literature as well as practical discussions of travel, so take from it what you need.

Step one: Trieste, Italy.

I began by flying to Trieste, Italy.  It's a little more expensive to fly into Italy from the U.S. than it is to fly into Dublin, so I'd recommend that others begin their trip in Dublin (which would also be a more logical order), but because of time constraints I needed to go to Trieste first to attend the week-long Trieste Joyce School, run by the foreign literature department of the university there in the city.  Look this up-- it's a fantastic week of morning lectures by Joyceans from all over the world, and afternoon seminars on the Joyce book of your choice.  The people who lead the lectures are outsanding members of the Joyce community (my Ulysses seminar was led by Fritz Sein, the head of the Joyce Foundation in Zurich and former owner of the world's largest private Joyce collection, which is what became the Joyce Foundation), and lectures include topics on the Jewish community in Dublin and Trieste, the economics of Dublin in 1904, the publication history of Ulysses and other Joyce novels, the geography of Dublin and other Joyce locations, and other more traditional topics.  The school is only about 100 Euro for the week, and well worth it, especially because you get the chance to have dinner and enjoy the Joyce community socially every night for a week!  Just being in Trieste, however, is a priceless experience in itself.  While Dublin has become a completely different city from 1904, Trieste's population has remained virtually unchanged for the past 100 years.  There is a nice statue of Joyce (my favorite statue of Joyce), and placards at all of his historic sites (like his favorite bars, theaters, his former homes, and the places he taught).  There's a brochure with a map to all the Joyce locations, and there are also a number of other famous literary figures from Trieste worth checking out (like Umberto Savo).

It's a little difficult to communicate with folks in Trieste without some Italian language skills, but it is possible to get a hotel or hostel without speaking and of course you can always order food, so you'll definitely get by with only English.  Trieste is in a cool Adriatic location, almost inside of Slovenia, so the food is an interesting coastal/Slovenian medley.  The pizza, of course, is wonderful, as well as all of the seafood, and there is great gelato everywhere.  I recommend staying at the Porta Cavana hostel, where you can get a regular hotel-type room with private bathroom, which is in the heart of the city and only blocks away from the Piazza Unita, Trieste's main square right on the sea.  My favorite restaurants in the city were El Barratolo, which is on the short little grand canal across from the orthodox church, El Fornel, which has fantastic seafood and is near the Porta Cavana, and Circus, which is really trendy and often crowded for dinner, so come early or go there for lunch.  Trieste has some shopping, but not a whole lot compared to other Italian cities, so the main attractions are literary sight-seeing and visiting some of the cathedrals and other churches.  Joyce used to love to go sit in the Greek Orthodox church on the waterfront, so go check out a service and enjoy Joyce's fascination with ritual.  You can also enjoy the beaches, though most require a nominal fee, or take a bus up the coast to see the big castle Miramare.  Trieste is also only a short train ride from Venice (it's the next stop), which is obviously worth a visit, and you can take a bus to various locations in Slovenia, Croatia, and other interesting places east of Italy.  Train tickets are easy to buy and can be bough in the automatic machines at the station, but bus tickets are a little harder and have to be bought at the news stand in the bus station.  Also keep in mind that if you fly into Trieste, the airport is about half an hour away and you'll need to catch a bus to the city.  Use the bus ticket machines in the airport-- you can't buy a ticket from the bus driver.  Make sure you catch a sunset on the pier while you're in Trieste-- being in the main piazza with almost no human traffic in the evening is an amazing experience, especially if you've seen the crowds in Venice and Rome.

Step two: Dublin

After visitng Trieste and Venice (which was crowded, but beautiful and worth the two days I spent there-- I recommend that you avoid the crowded squares and instead wander the winding alleys and get lost for a while-- and also hop on the ferry and just go on the cheap boat ride wherever it takes you.  Venice is more fun when you're aimless), I flew to Dublin.  Plane tickets within Europe are cheap and easy with carriers like Ryan Air and Easy Jet.  You can get very cheap flights even with taxes and fees-- the downside is that your flight might be leaving out of a smaller airport, not the main airport.  This was the case when I flew into Rome, for instance, later in my trip.  Just be aware of what AIRPORT you're flying out of/into, not just what city.  Dublin is a very friendly city, easy to travel and walk-- the airport is a bus ride away from the the city center, but easy to access.  In the city, there are a number of hostels in every part of the city.  Depending on where you want to be you can find budget options fairly easily.  I enjoyed the Hotel Barnacle, but also stayed in a couple of other places that were very nice and helpful.  Hostels in Dublin have a wide variety of amenities (like laundry, internet, and kitchens), so check before you make your reservation.  In Dublin, I'd recommend that you stop by the James Joyce center and get a map that will show you a couple of the routes that Leopold Bloom walks in Ulysses-- this is a fun activity for any morning or afternoon in Dublin, and although the city has changed a lot since 1904 and only some of the road names are the same, it's a cool way to connect with that past.  Some other must-see sites in Dublin: St. Patrick's Cathedral, the National Library (which had a great exhibit on Yeats when I was there), Trinity College, St. Stephen's Green, Phoenix Park, and the Guinness distillery/museum (the Gravity Bar at the end of the tour has the most delicious pint of guinness you'll ever drink, as well as some cool James Joyce quotes on the window, which were a surprise to me when I got there).  Everything in Dublin is walkable, though there are streetcars to use if you're interested.  It's a lively, growing, international city, and the Irish are the greatest people on earth.  Dublin is a rich haven of literary history (you can also visit Oscar Wilde's house and his statue), but a great destination for anyone.

After visiting Dublin, I journeyed into the countryside of Western Ireland for a contrast with the heavily British-influenced world of Eastern Ireland.  I took a bus to Killarney, which has awesome national parks and great hiking, and then to the Dingle Penninsula, which has the most beautiful small towns I've ever seen.  Dingle, Ireland, is a hot spot for Irish vacationers, has a town dolphin that plays in the bay, great seafood, awesome hostels, and every building and door is a different color.  Everything about the towns I visited in Western Ireland (Killarney, Dingle, and Dunquin) was amazing.  Definitely visit Blasket Island if you get out to the Dingle Penninsula.  This island was inhabited at one point but abandoned, and now there are just ruins of stone farm cottages, trails, and sheep running wild with wool going crazy!  When I visited, there was even a huge seal colony chilling out on the beach, which I could watch from the grassy cliffs above.  They were totally undisturbed by the people visiting the island-- it was awesome.  You can take a ferry to Blasket Island any day that they weather is good from Dunquin, which is about a ten minute drive from Dingle.  From Dingle, you can get a cab or ride a bike, depending on what you're up for.  All the buses in Ireland are extremely easy to use-- you can buy a ticket online months in advance, buy a ticket at the station, or buy a ticket when you board the bus.  It's very flexible and reliable, and I highly recommend it.  Buses are an extremely viable way to journey cross-country in Ireland and Northern Ireland as well.

Step three: Zurich

After Dublin, I moved on to Zurich-- here again, I took a cheap flight, which was a great value.  In Zurich, there is tons to do-- it's a very modern city, with a great art museum, of course a great Joyce Foundation (with a wealth of archives if you have any specific research to do), some cool churches, the largest clock face in Europe, and nice parks by the river.  Just enjoy walking around the city, here, and take in the Swiss culture.  Visit the cool zoo and when you take the tram to the zoo, go across the street to the cemetery where James Joyce is buried (there's a statue you can't miss). Any city in Switzerland is a great place to shop, because the Swiss are known for the high quality of their lives and everything they do and make.  It just makes you feel cool to be in Zurich, so spend a few days there with no particular agenda.  While in Switzerland, I also traveled around Lake Geneva, visiting Geneva and Montreux, which were both very cool places to visit.  Montreux is home to an annual jazz festival (check the dates), a huge statue (and love) of Freddy Mercury, and a general obsession (which is reciprocated) with celebrities.  There's a brochure and map in the tourist office with all the celebrities who lived in or visited the city, so you can visit the hotel where Vladimir Nabokov rented out the entire top floor for retirement, Nabokov's grave, various sites for folks like Henry James, Freddy Mercury, B.B. King, and other literary and musical stars.  It's an expensive and trendy city, with gorgeous landscaping by the lake, and despite the cost it's definitely a place you need to visit if you're in Switzerland.  It's easy to see why once you get a little money and celebrity status, you come flocking to Lake Geneva.  On a completely unrelated note, I also ventured up to Zermatt, which is just a mountain resort town-- they have summer skiing, as well as a lot of hiking.  Very touristy, but gorgeous and fun if you have some extra time and money.  It was funny to discover that Mark Twain had also been a fan of Zermatt, and there's a trail named after him.  If you visit Zermatt, definitely invest in the lift ticket to get up to the highest mountain (the Kleine Matterhorn), and do some of the hikes with great views of the Matterhorn, the Breithorn, and others.  Also stop by the old cemetery, for some sobering time surrounded by fallen mountaineers, including most of the first party to ever summit the Matterhorn.  This is a town obsessed with mountaineering, and there's no place to respect that like the old cemetery.

My final note on Switzerland as a whole-- it's expensive and very, very, nice, but if you have the money to travel here I highly recommend it.  The cultural blend of Switzerland is fascinating-- Italian, German, and French are spoken depending on what region you are in, but all Swiss people regardless of first language seem to have an appreciation for multiculturalism.  They aren't on the Euro, which I think is interesting, because Switzerland is this financial bastion against the rest of the world.  Switzerland is actually rigged with explosives so that at any time its bridges can be burned and it can be completely isolated from the rest of the world-- that is some militant neutrality, right there!  I think Switzerland is one of the most fascinating places not just in Europe, but in the world.  Oh, and unless it says otherwise, you can drink the water from any tap or even decorative fountain-- and all the water tastes like Evian!

Final step: home

After Switzerland, I took a plane back to Rome and then train up to Trieste, where I flew out from.  Again, I'd recommend starting in a different location, because Trieste was the most expensive place to fly into, but any combination works because of the ease of travel within Europe compared to the U.S.  It was difficult to organize all of this myself-- transportation, housing, food, etc.-- but it was well worth it to have the flexibility I enjoyed, and I highly recommend taking a few months to just get around Europe in whatever way you choose.  It's very easy to do and the experience of being abroad and having to plan you next step yourself is a priceless travel experience-- it's no vacation, but it's an important experience for everyone to have in their lifetime.  It helped me understand the transience of James Joyce for one thing, as well as the homeland-exile motifs I was studying, but it also grounded me as an individual and helped me appreciate the nuances of even Western culture.

While Lolita is my favorite novel to reread, Ulysses is my favorite novel, bar none.  This epic volume is arguably James Joyce's greatest, although he himself considered Finnegans Wake to be his masterpiece.

Background:

Joyce published Ulysses serially with the support of Modernist guru Ezra Pound and Sylvia Beach, whose Shakespeare and Company published the complete text in 1922.  Ulysses was banned because of explicit material in England, Ireland, and the U.S., but the ban was later lifted in all three countries.  Without the financial help of others, Joyce could never have completed the work, as he was chronically in debt.  He began the novel in Trieste, Italy, but completed portions of it in Paris, France and Zurich, Switzerland.  (I did a research tour of James Joyce sites in which I visited Trieste, Zurich, and Dublin-- for more on that, see my next blog.)

While Joyce was obsessed with Dublin in his works (Dubliners, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and Ulysses all center around the location of Dublin), he left as a young man with his girlfriend, Nora Barnacle, and never returned.  He and Nora had two children, though they did not marry until 1931.  Joyce supported the family by teaching and tutoring English abroad, though eventually his brother Stanislaus came to live with him and he ended up pushing most of the teaching onto his brother so that he could have more time to write.

The Text:

Ulysses focuses on the stories of Leopold Bloom, his wife Molly, and Stephen Dedalus (also the protagonist of Portrai of the Artist).  The novel is the events of a single day (June 16, 1904), and is drawn from numerous historical records and newspaper clippings.  In the course of the novel, Bloom leaves his home and wanders about Dublin, is threatened by his wife having an affair, and must eventually return and reclaim the home.  This is the greatest parallel with the Odyssey, the novel's namesake.  While the chapters of Ulysses are each tied to an episode in the Odyssey, they do not follow the order of the Odyssey and some are only tangentially related.  The Odyssey, rather than being a basis for Ulysses, is merely a mythic scaffold that provides a framework on which Joyce is able to build the modern epic.  When reading Ulysses, it is important to constantly keep in mind what makes this novel the quintessential modern epic-- what aspects are epic, and what aspects are modern?  This is the key to understanding characters' motivations and reactions to events.  The largest theme of the novel is arguably the homeland-exile theme, which is a large part of all of Joyce's works because of his own duality of homeland-exile sentiment toward Dublin.  This theme is especially relevant because Bloom is Jewish, and feels in a state of constant exile, while also able to establish a homeland wherever he is (he comments that Jews always build a temple wherever they go, suggesting that the homeland is where the temple is).  There are also a number of recurring motifs to look for, which often related to the homeland-exile theme and to the related theme of generation and fatherhood/motherhood.  For example, Bloom places a bar of soap in his pocket, which he notices at several critical moments throughout the play.  Also, he is called upon to make a sign for a man named Keyes, Stephen Dedalus is aware of having the key to his own apartment, and Bloom loses the key to his home and has to break in.  Pay attention to these small motifs-- they are the flavor of Ulysses.

There are two ways to read Ulysses-- you can read it cover to cover, understand only some of it, and develop your own reading and response (Joyce would argue that this is an incredibly valid way to read-- this is perhaps more true of Finnegans Wake, however, which he claimed to have written not so that anyone could understand it, but simply because he liked the sound of the words).  Or you can read it slowly with Gifford's Ulysses Annotated.  These annotations are especially helpful in identifying the meaning of references to Irish history and culture if you are unfamiliar.  I suppose the third way to read is without the annotations, but with a knowledge of Irish history...but even Joyce didn't do that-- he used a lot of historical records to make sure his June 16th was accurate.  I recommend using the annotations the first time you read-- it will be VERY slow going.  I read for three hours a day for an entire month, but it might take you more or less time.  It is extremely rewarding, however, and enables you to read it subsequent times without the annotations, which is quicker and more fun.

I also recommend accompanying your reading with the Ellmann biography of James Joyce.  This gives a lot of interesting information about where he was in his family life, financially, and geographically while writing.  It's deceiving to read Ulysses, which takes place in a single day, and not realize that James Joyce himself lived in dozens of different homes in Trieste, Paris, and Zurich while writing the book.  Understanding the patchwork of geographical experience seems intrinsic to truly understanding the importance for Joyce of expressing the homeland and exile components of a single day in a single place.  The simplicity of June 16, 1904 in Dublin is quite touching when seen against the backdrop of Joyce relocating his family from month to month when he was once again unable to pay the rent.

I recommend reading Dubliners, then Portrait of the Artist, then Ulysses-- this is the order in which Joyce wrote them, but it also makes sense when understanding the progression of his writing style into heavily stream of consciousness.  While Portrait of the Artist is not difficult to read, Ulysses is, so it's good to get an understandable taste of Joyce before moving on to the more difficult stuff.  After Ulysses, though, I do recommend reading Finnegans Wake cover to cover, without annotations, so that you can read the novel that Joyce was so proud of in the way that he intended people to read it.  It's frustrating to not understand what's going on, but if you relax and just listen to the words you can appreciate a lot of what Joyce loved about the book-- the perfect sound, using whatever language will produce it.  Above all, Joyce loved and appreciate music (he was known to attend the opera in Trieste multiple times in the same week, even when he didn't have money to feed his family), and it helps to think of Finnegans Wake as a piece of music.  Listen, don't read.  But that's another story.

~LoL.

Searchable online text of Ulysses:

http://www.online-literature.com/james_joyce/ulysses/

Welcome, readers!  The purpose of this post is to introduce you to my primary love: literature.  While I've done a lot of reading lately that I'm eager to talk about, this post will center around my username and the book that, while it's arguably not my favorite book, I have read the most of any book: Lolita.  Written by Vladimir Nabokov, it was Lolita that launched him into literary fame and enabled him to quit teaching women's college.  This is my all time favorite book to re-read, and I'll tell you why.

The plot of Lolita center's around the narrator, Humbert Humbert, and his obsession with (love for) a prepubescent girl name Dolores (Lolita, Lo, Dolly).  He first is just a tenant in Lolita's mother's house, but when the mother wishes to marry him  he sees his opportunity to get closer to Lolita, and when the mother reads his diary and discovers his love of her daughter, it is convenient that she is immediately killed by a passing car and Humbert is able to escape with Lolita in tow to galavant about the country.  Lolita's feelings toward Humbert are varied-- while she at first has a sort of crush on him, she eventually grows to resent the control he holds over her, though she never seems to specifically regret her sexual exploits (Humbert, in fact, insists that it was she who initually seduces him).

The beauty of the descriptive passages in this and Nabokov's other novels are unmatched.  His attention to the visual aesthetic comes across in his prose so fluidly that it seems like another art form all together.  The reader finds himself peculiarly sympathetic toward Humbert through the perfectly orchestrated ethos, and this is why the novel is so interesting.  How are we supposed to feel about Humbert?  What about Humbert's narration is credible and what has he told us that may not be accurate?  For instance, did Lolita really seduce him, or does he claim that she did?  Does he make false claims to mislead the reader and uphold his innocence (for he is speaking from prison), or does he make them because he is genuinely delusional and has imagined it all?  (Some aspects, like the convenient death of the mother, seem so convenient that we have to consider this possibility.)

On this same note, though, I tend to think that Nabokov has a general carelessness about detail that also can't be ignored.  For instance, the dates and numbers in Lolita often simply don't match up, and when asked about this, Nabokov replied that he just didn't care.  His attitude tends to be that whatever he writes is legitimate and that he doesn't need to have overall holistic sensical structure.  He called it insincerity, but it reads more like a lack of attentiveness.  Don't let this turn you off to Nabokov, I just think it's something you should keep in mind as a reader.  When things don't make sense, it might not even be because you don't get it.  It might just not make sense.

This is a fascinating read, though you shouldn't be surprised by your sympathy for the pedophile-- it's uncanny and disconcerting, but deliberate and if you avoid it you'll miss the point and fail to appreciate the strange beauty of the "love story".  One of my favorite things about Lolita, though, is how similar it is to many of Nabokov's other novels, but how it has somehow come together as the most commercially successful by far.  Elements of characters, locations, character types, descriptions, and even plot events resurface from novel to novel-- of course, the most easily recognizable element is his own autobiography-- the foreign nobility in America, struggling to come to terms with being jilted.  And I am just really interested in how those things have added up to marketability in Lolita in particular.  Is it the racy nature of the book alone?  Can an author achieve success from piddling publications just by adding the magical ingredient of controversy?  Could the same be true of Harry Potter-- I know that my mother bought The Sorcerer's Stone only because she heard it had been banned in some school systems.  And Ulysses?  By the time it was legal in the United States readers were clamoring to buy it without ever being able to understand it or probably even why it was banned.  But more on those later...

Anyway, the bottom line is this: read Lolita!  And love it.  And read it again.  Because you never know when they might start banning books again.

~LoL.