Weeknote 20
by Sunita
I should just have a standard opening for September: “work is kicking my ass. again. I’ll be back to more regularly blogging soon.”
WORK
We are almost done with the month, which means I might just get my midday hours back. Classes are going reasonably well; the students are engaged and for the most part I am managing not to lecture them in the seminars. I’ve found a rhythm for my law school JSD class, which helps.
I’m almost done with my immediate administrative responsibilities (how often have I typed that sentence?) and now it’s about making sure the stuff that’s been planned is implemented properly. Luckily we have a great staff to support us so it should be fine. I have a few more meetings to set up and a bunch of job talks to attend in October, but at least the faculty meetings are slowing down. Did I mention I had all of three free lunchtimes (our usual meeting and department event time) in September? One got filled at short notice so I went down to two. Come on, October.
I did get my paper revisions done so that it can be sent out, again. Let’s hope for a smooth review process and that it isn’t desk-rejected as not appropriate for the journal. It is turning out to be harder to place than I expected, for a variety of reasons, although it’s morphed into something that looks like other articles in a literature I didn’t foresee, so that’s promising.
With that paper gone I can turn to revisions on another piece of work that I’m refashioning to present in a seminar in early November. It will undoubtedly wind up taking more time than I think it will. Oh, and I have two dissertations to read for defenses in the next two months, neither of which are in political science. Good times.
READING/WATCHING/LISTENING
I’m reading more from the Booker shortlist and I’m about two-thirds of the way through Salman Rushdie’s Quichotte. I’m enjoying it immensely, far more than I thought I would. It’s been ages since I read Rushdie and I’d forgotten how joyous his writing can be. The reviews have been mixed and I can see why, but I’m along for the ride and the bagginess and occasional literary self-indulgence doesn’t bother me. It is very much a novel about where we are now, but written by someone who has seen a lot of life and is coming to terms with age. So the Quixote angle makes sense.
I’ve got three more of the shortlist in my TBR, but aside from the Ellmann I’m not sure how quickly I’ll get to them. The Booker just isn’t that fun for me this year with the Atwood entry taking up all the oxygen in the literary sphere. The promotional blitz is just so over the top. I don’t blame Atwood for this, although she did choose to write the sequel after the TV show exploded, so it doesn’t feel entirely imagination-driven. But the Big Reveal, the endless reviews, interviews, and accompanying feature pieces just scream “click here, it’s not your grandmother’s litfic.” We are so busy identifying Big Important Events that I wonder if the Really Big Important Events are happening without us noticing.
I started reading Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent, which has been in my ebook TBR since I had a Sony ereader. It’s very good and the writing is excellent, as you’d expect.
We’re still watching very little TV, although we did return to the George Gently series and watch the first episode of the first season again. Before I watched for Martin Shaw, but now I’m concentrating on Lee Ingleby, who is stellar. I also spent a night when TheH was away revisiting the Gwyneth Paltrow version of Emma after many years. She really was good in it, and Julie Stevenson and Alan Cumming are always a delight.
The news has exceeded the time I have to watch it; every time I tune in something else enormous has happened. I did follow the arguments before the UK Supreme Court and read the verdict (I did not expect it to be unanimous, but I don’t think most experts did either). I’m reading the latest US stuff with my mouth hanging open, like everyone else, and keeping a judicious finger on the mute button when I watch the Newshour. Hearing how presidential conversations are memorialized has been fascinating, though. Thanks to Nixon, we no longer have tapes even though we have multiple people transcribing the conversations. I dread the media coverage of the next few weeks/months, but I’m fascinated to see how it unfolds. And no, I have no idea.
The A’s have played wonderfully and will probably go out early in the playoffs. They just don’t have the right kind of pitching staff for short series (assuming they win the Wild Card). Liverpool has won six in a row to open the Premier League season but managed to lose to Napoli in the Champions League group stage opener. Good thing the former counts more than the latter.
PRODUCTIVITY
Our Hobonichi order arrived, and I think the Weeks weekly planner is going to work really well as my office diary/notebook. The free gift is a Japanese playing card game, which would be awesome if we could read Japanese. Ah well. I also splurged for another organizer, which Hobonichi calls a “drawer pouch” in the in-between size. I already had the small one, which I use for pens and short cables, and I’m filling the new one with cards that don’t fit in the Hobo, earbuds, my smaller ereader, and a few other odds and ends. I love the Liberty prints, as you can tell.
I continue to rack up steps and even meet the Garmin’s “activity minutes” weekly goals, but I’m not exercising the way I’d like to.
THIS WEEK
October is coming! I can only hope the weather takes note and stops giving us 90F days with humidity over 50 percent. Blech.
ReaderWriterVille 
I thought of you when the MacArthur fellows were announced yesterday. Three authors that I had actually heard of: Ocean Vuong, Valeria Luiselli and Emily Wilson. Now I really need to read Wilson’s translation of ‘The Odyssey’. I expect you are pleased for Luiselli. I may even give Vuong’s novel a look.
I hope October grants you more free lunch hours.
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I was recently fortunate enough to attend Rushdie discussing Quichotte with Gish Jen. Jen was an excellent choice: she was fabulous at drawing him out, and her affability and humor seemed to relax him. Unlike the other one or two times when I’ve seen Rushdie read, he was funny, humble, and engaging in explaining his thoughts about Quichotte.
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Agreed on the Paltrow version of Emma. I am always a bit sad that Jeremy Northam never got cast as Mr Darcy, too.
I have been firmly resisting the draw of the Hobonichi planners but oh, those pouches! I fear the international shipping will make it just too far out of reach, though.
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Ughs to September. Same here. There’s something about the return to school and the routine that has to set in that throws everything else off. I guess that’s the price of the long, leisurely, reading summer.
Also, the other great thing about that Emma is Miss Bates … 😉
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I read enough reviews of the Rushdie to guess that I was someone who would not enjoy it. I got Ducks, Newburyport as soon as it came out and now it’s staring reproachfully at me from the bookshelf while I make my way through my library pile at a snaaaaaail’s pace because it’s September and I’m too tired to read much. And I haven’t even got the first papers in yet.
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I was indeed very happy to see Luiselli and the other authors on the MacArthur list. And a woman philosopher!
The Rushdie is definitely not for everyone, and in another author’s work the style might have really irritated me. But Rushdie strikes a chord in me, not least because we share an era and area of Bombay. We went to the same stores and borrowed books from the same private libraries, although years apart. Dan, I would have loved to see that interview. He really does seem different in this book; still supremely confident in his talent and style, but also more self-reflective.
I had the opportunity to spend time with Rushdie a few years ago when he came to give a talk and he was charming, funny, and warm; not what I expected, given some of what I’d read about him. A while ago I started Joseph Anton and put it aside after a couple of chapters for a time when I could read it properly. I have to go back to it.
Ros, the Hobonichi shipping is bad but not totally outrageous, and it’s partially offset by the reduction in local tax. But yes, it’s a hit and it’s why we try to make a bulk purchase once a year, or twice at most.
Kay, I thought of you when I watched Emma! You are obviously so much closer to the real Sophie Thompson, but my goodness she is perfect in that role. And so, so hard to watch in the Box Hill scene. They are all excellent; even knowing it’s coming that scene is gut-wrenching.
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I agree on all the Atwood publicity. It’s stifling. Also, a reviewer I follow on Goodreads reports that Atwood hasn’t done anything with this book that a handful of the better YA authors haven’t accomplished before her, so I’m even less inclined to read Testaments than I was before.
Yesterday I got a copy of Girl, Woman, Other. I doubt I’ll have time to read it before the winner of the Man Booker is announced but I’d love to hear what you think if it’s one of the ones you have waiting in your TBR pile. And what others here think, too.
I saw that same Emma in the past couple of years and had mixed feelings about it. I had listened to the audiobook (performed by Juliet Stevenson) and I felt the movie was terribly abridged. It’s a problem many film adaptations have. Paltrow did a pretty good job but there’s something I find grating about her, not just in this role. It feels like she works too hard at being winsome.
@Barb, I’ve had that Wilson translation of the Odyssey for close to two years; maybe we should do a read-along sometime.
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I have Girl, Woman, Other on the Booker TBR and definitely want to read it. I will report back!
Definitely the movie Emma is abridged, but given the constraints of a 2-hour running time I thought they did a really good job. I’ve given up on Austen or any other 19thC adaptation being a faithful reflection of the novel, the latter is just too complex and rich to reproduce. Even multi-part TV series can’t do it. I’m still waiting to watch the TV miniseries of North and South because of the changes.
Generally I don’t much like Paltrow, but this and Shakespeare in Love caught her at the right time in her career and life stage for these roles, I think. She is just luminous, and while her pertness and metaphorical foot-stamping verges on too much, it does feel like a fair representation of the character to me.
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Any guesses as to who will win the Booker?
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I have no idea who will win the Booker, Janine. I’ve thought about it, obviously, but it could go to any one of the six books depending on the criteria used, whether a subset of the judges truly hate any of the books (and wind up compromising on a less polarizing choice), etc. etc.
I will say I’m increasingly put off by the reporting of bookmaker odds on the Booker and other prizes. They have nothing to do with literary factors and everything to do with non-literary ones.
Given how the Nobel in literature went, I’m just happy that this year’s shortlist doesn’t have any I hope will not win. Atwood’s sequel is at the bottom of my list, but if it wins it’s more of a shoulder-shrug for me than “what were they thinking?????”
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Well, not as bad as the Nobel by any means, but another double winner announcement. I am sorry because Atwood will get more of the attention than Eravisto this way.
I’m also giving the judges the side-eye for their “decision to flout the rules.” If you can’t compromise then suck it up.
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As it turns out, I had enough of a rant to make a separate post out of it and just put it up this morning.
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Yeah, I agree, they should have bitten the bullet and picked one person. There is precedent, though: there were two Booker winners in 1974 and again in 1992. I don’t know the 1974 winners, but it looks as if in both cases there was one more accessible and one more challenging book. I haven’t read the Evaristo yet, but that pattern fits this year too.
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