A Modest Proposal

In my 18th Century Character and Culture class this semester, we have been reading Jonathan Swift. We read, of course, his essay, "A Modest Proposal" which offers up a solution (completely satirical, of course) to the poverty problem in England in the 18th Century. Swift proposes that the children of the poor be served up as food for the rich. The skins of the babies could be used to make fine gloves and boots, and freeing up the amount of children that the poor have to care for would enable the mothers to find work.

It is, of course, satire, but many readers thought Swift was serious. A piece that was written in the darkest of humors that was meant to express the rage Swift felt at the plight of the poor was grossly misinterpreted.

Dr. Givan required that we write a modest proposal of our own, addressing a social issue. Mine follows below. In order to avert the mistaken interpretation that I am serious, let me just remind my readers that I am planning to enter a the hallowed halls of Academia myself. I would also like to say I harbor the utmost respect for my professors, many of whom are past the retirement age suggested in the following text. I would not have them retire for many years to come.

Yet, I wouldn't mind having their jobs when I finish my PhD program in the next five years or so.

A Modest Proposal Regarding the State of Academia

It has come to pass over the course of the past several years, that, with the increase in attendance at the institutions of higher learning, and the increased interest in the study of the literature of the English language (and other literatures and languages besides) that there are more individuals possessing the title of "Doctor" entering the field than are retiring each year. The sad result of this major success in the recruitment departments of liberal arts programs everywhere, is that there are more doctors of English being produced than all the universities and junior colleges in the country could house.

There is a surplus, a plethora, of ambitious individuals hoping to better the world by receiving a tenure track position at one of the hallowed halls of education. These well-informed individuals are desperate for a place that will allow them to theorize over and interpret not only texts that have been analyzed beyond recognition, but also to criticize and debate the theories and interpretations of said texts. Yet because of the plethora of eager individuals who are filled with the knowledge of their own self-importance, it is difficult to find a place for them to carry out this work of theorization and dissection of texts.

This very important work must be allowed to continue yet these new Doctors of English have nowhere to go. There is simply no room for them in the hallowed halls of education. Why is this? Because the very same professors that educated our new Doctors are so enrapt in the profession of analyzing texts and teaching texts that they do not realize they have reached their expiration date and they continue to teach long after it is decent or polite to do so.

As a result, the new, young, vibrant Doctors of English are forced instead into adjunct positions, teaching endless sections of Freshman Composition, becoming embittered as they grade draft after draft and finally coming to loathe the near perfect world of Academia in their resentment at not being granted an office with (for the lucky ones) a window and a placard bearing their name and titles, and wall space on which to hang the documentation demonstrating their erudite state.

In order to prevent the embitterment of these noble young Doctors of Language and Literature, it would be prudent to ensure that the old and failing members of this group are appropriately cared for once they reach the age of fifty. If the average person finishes her PhD between the ages of twenty-five and thirty, the retirement age of fifty would allow a solid twenty to twenty-five years of teaching and study. At this point, the possessors of the title "doctor" will be relocated to a new home, a facility where, under the supervision of others, they will be allowed to continue their academic studies and debates and remain completely engrossed in their field specializations. The majority of the retired professors will not even note the difference in their location, as they very rarely look up from their books long enough to notice what is going on in the world around them.

It would be prudent to ensure that the facilities that will be built for these aged intellectuals has a sufficient distribution of rooms that possess windows, and rooms that don't. The faculty that spent the majority of their years in windowless offices and archives may experience agoraphobia if they suddenly have an outside view. Likewise, those who became accustomed to the slight distractions of viewing the outside world could become melancholy should they be deprived their only experience of Nature. The relocated Academy will be allowed to possess its books, with the majority of the personal collections to be allocated for the facility library. It is highly important that the Academians be allowed the experience of the amenities they were used to at the Universities, otherwise the relocation will be more obvious to them. Ensure that a poorly functioning microfilm and microfiche reader is available, and that, on various days, the equipment malfunctions. It is imperative for their mental abilities that they be challenged with practical problems from time to time, not just those dealing with the issues of dissecting texts.

In this fashion, the aged doctors can still maintain the feelings of importance that they acquired during their years of carving texts to be served up for the edification of students, and only of interest to other scholars, while not interfering with the ability of the young to carve the same texts to be served up for further edification of new students and other scholars.

I feel that it is imperative that this relocation program be put into practice immediately, beginning gradually at first to ensure a balance between experienced and new faculty members in the universities. It is important, however, that it be in place in full force in the next five to six years, to ensure that students beginning their doctoral programs in the near future will have the benefit of immediate employment upon completion of their dissertations.

Swiftly Going Mad

I have been reading, this past week, Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels. I thoroughly enjoy a good satire, and Swift certainly writes some of the best.

It becomes increasingly difficult, however, to tell what it is that Swift satirizes as the reader

progresses through the pages.

There are moments when he ridicules the other peoples he visits so thoroughly, that it is entirely too easy to forget that he is using humor, and so must not be taken in an over serious fashion.

For example, many of his descriptions of women, which some of my classmates choose to see as proof positive of Swift's misogyny (at worst) or his dismissal of women (at best) are, in my reading of the text, representative of the cultural concepts and ideologies regarding women. Swift merely portrays the flaws of vanity and silliness that exist in some women, and that are assumed by 18th Century society as a whole to be inherent truths, and exaggerates these ideas.

I find it amusing when the mistake of equating the voice of the narrator with the voice of the author is consistently made by "experienced" English majors and wonder if they even remember that the narrator is not named Swift, but Gulliver.

The Travels become even more complicated to sort through with Part 4, the section that recounts Gulliver's stay with the Houyhnhnms, and his unpleasant experiences with the grotesque and entirely too human Yahoos.

Dr. Givan asked us to note what is not perfect about the Houyhnhnms, particularly because this is the book that is often interpreted as possessing Swift's idea of the Ideal culture. The main mistake, again, is forgetting that the text is a satire, and Swift is not likely to present an Ideal when he has spent the entire text creating imaginary worlds for the purpose of pointing out flaws.

It is my perception, and also a conclusion that the class reached together, that the Houyhnhnms represent the cold reason of the 18th century. Peace and prosperity resulted in the complete reliance on reason, but empathy and basic compassion were severely lacking. In essence, the Houyhnhnms represented loss of humanity in favor of reason. The 18th century's obsessions with reason and science are portrayed at their most extreme in the Houyhnhnms. The lack of war and barbarism is appealing, but at what cost? Feeling no love for spouses or children, feeling no real emotion whatsoever.

Humanity may be flawed and stupid and make mistakes as a result of our emotions, but the human capacity for love is what makes us human. The cold reason of the Houyhnhnms was not Swift's ideal, but perhaps his version of hell instead.

Gaiman + Christmas = Deliciously Dark Humor

I had my students read this story today for an exercise in suspending judgment and analyzing.

They were disturbed when I said I find the story to be delightful and hilarious. They would probably be even more disturbed to know how much I enjoyed the looks of horror forming on their own faces as they read.

Nicholas Was...

older than sin, and his beard could grow no whiter. He wanted to die.

The dwarfish natives of the Arctic caverns did not speak his language, but conversed in their own, twittering tongue, conducted incomprehensible rituals, when they were not actually working in the factories.

Once every year they forced him, sobbing and protesting, into Endless Night. During the journey he would stand near every child in the world, leave one of the dwarves' invisible gifts by its bedside. The children slept, frozen into time.

He envied Prometheus and Loki, Sisyphus and Judas. His punishment was harsher.

Ho.

Ho.

Ho.

Marxist Literary Theory

So, over-achiever that I am, I am joining two other graduate students this fall for an independent study in Marxist Literary Theory.

I am a bit behind on the background reading that I was supposed to study before the semester started, and am currently reading Marx's Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. My mind is too filled with the ideas in the text to write much, but I just want to quote this:

"If the product of labour does not belong to the worker, if it confronts him as an alien power, this can only be because it belongs to some other man than the worker. If the worker's activity is a torment to him, to another it must be delight and his life's joy. Not the gods, not nature, but only man himself can be this alien power over man" (78).

There is something wrong when one person works in misery and exists in a state of alienation in order to produce joy and delight for others.

Source:

Marx, Karl. "Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844." The Marx-Engels Reader. 2nd ed. Ed. Robert C. Tucker. New York: Norton, 1978. 66-175.

Love at First Bite II

Okay, a friend's comment, and discussion with another friend about this book, led me to the realization that I overlooked a key character in Bloodsucking Fiends. The Emperor of San Francisco. In the novel, this character is a homeless man that keeps watch over the city, and often cautions people with the phrase, "Safety first!" He travels with two dogs, Bummer and Lazarus, and desires to rid the city of vampires.

I loved this character while reading the novel, but found out when I was discussing it with my friend, that the Emperor was actually a real person. He dubbed himself the Emperor of San Francisco, the United States, and the Protector of Mexico. His name was Joshua A. Norton. The residents of San Francisco treated him with respect, and when he died, they buried him in the rich cemetery, rather than let him have a pauper's grave.

Google him. It's really fascinating.

Love at First Bite

I finished reading Bloodsucking Fiends by Christopher Moore today. As always with Moore's books, it was wickedly and delightfully inappropriate, not quite up to the level of impropriety in Fool, or even in Lamb but I credit that to the fact that he seems to rise to greater levels of lewdness when he is dealing with topics that people typically revere, such as rewrites of Shakespeare's King Lear and recounting Christ's childhood and adolescence.

Moore is not for the faint of heart, just to warn you, regardless of which books you read. He thinks nothing of inventing foul language if that already in existence doesn't suffice. Yet, in spite of what some may call "lowbrow" comedy, Moore writes with class and eloquence, and, amid the comedy, delves into topics that get right at the center of the human question.

Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story addresses the topics of alienation, loneliness, individuality, and death. There are probably more, but that's what I can think of right now. The plot, briefly, and without giving away anything you won't find on the back cover, begins when Jody, a woman dissatisfied with her job, and her penchant for going from one jerk to another, is attacked and wakes to find that she is a vampire. Quickly realizing that she can't manage her predicament alone, she looks for a man to help her and finds Tommy Flood, a Beat-obsessed wanna-be writer who calls himself C. Thomas Flood and dreams of being Fitzgerald and finding his Zelda in the City.

Jody's predicament first makes her lonely, then empowers her as she learns how to be a vampire.

Of course, the vampire that changed her did it for a reason, and adds complication to the plot.

I won't say more; I don't want to spoil the book for anyone who might read it.

Soon, I'll start blogging about my reading for school, which will consist of 18th Century British lit, such as Jonathan Swift and Henry Fielding; Marxist Literary Theory, material relating to medieval women, and, last but not least, my students' papers. :)

So, I guess what I'm saying is, the blog for the next few months may not be interesting to anyone other than myself. Hang in there. I'll get back to Christopher Moore again, with the sequel to Bloodsucking Fiends, eloquently entitled, You Suck.