Chapter 5: When Good Monks Go Bad

(We're going to ignore that part where I should apologize to you about my lack of posts for the last month or so. I'm pretty sure we're past that part in our relationship. Plus, I'm sure you've pretty much seen through my B.S. and know I am unreliable as this crazy spring weather we're having.)

I've told you already about my Gothic Literature class and the crazy stuff we've been reading. However, when we got to The Monk by Matthew Lewis the crazy levels just went off the charts. I don't want to give away too much in my review but hopefully I will give enough that you will be influenced to go pick up this book because even though I'm still not sure if I actually liked it or not, it's definitely one of the most fascinating things I've read in a while.

The story follows three distinct couples. There is Ambrosio and Matilda. Ambrosio is this monk who has been sequestered away from the real world his entire life, the furthest he's been into the outside world the monestary is to preach in the attached church. Therefore, he prides himself on his purity and sinlessness. However, he finds out that one of the newer monks to join the ranks is actually a woman in disguise who did it out of a desperate desire to be near him. Matilda has been in love with him for years but claims she is content to just be near him in an unromantic capacity but if he forces her to leave she will have to kill herself. Now with the though of a woman so close, Ambrosio starts feeling things he knows, as a pure monk, he shouldn't.

The next couple is actually the first one you see in the book. Antonia, is much like Ambrosio in the respect that she has been highly sheltered from the world by her protective mother and there is a comment made that she doesn't even know the difference between men and women! (Of course at this point her crazy aunt starts trying to describe it for her which is quite hilarious.) Lorenzo, a young sword she meets in church while waiting to hear Ambrosio speak, is completely captivated by her beauty and is determined to do anything he can to be able to claim her as his wife. In an effort to not reveal too much here, Antonia is the typical gothic heroine, whatever can go wrong, will and her perspective of the story sucks! It's like watching a train wreck.

The last group is Raymond (a friend of Lorenzo) and Agnes (Lorenzo's sister). They are the couple who are always making plans and always failing. The first thing you learn about them is that Agnes has become a nun out of despair of Raymond's abandonment but now they have reconciled but she cannot just leave the nunnery. Oh, and he gets her pregnant in the cloister gardens. Then she goes into this big annoying spiel about it's all his fault and he should have protected her virtue cuz she's a weak woman, blah, blah, blah. It takes two to tango lady! (Lewis had some interesting ideas about women and if you don't know that yet, you will by the end of this book.) Anyways, the Prioress finds out and flips her lid and fakes Agnes' death. Raymond spends the majority of the book doing everything he possibly can to find and free Agnes.

Like I said before, still not sure if I actually liked this book or if it just fascinated me. There's so much going on and everything moves so quickly from bad to worse you just can't look away. If you read it, the ending will definitely surprise you. Just remember, in all Gothic novels, the bad guys always get what's coming to them. And how!

(Yes, the creepy bastard in this picture is Ambrosio. Foreshadowing anyone?)

The Monk by Matthew Lewis (496 pages)
Judgement: Fascinatingly Disturbing (8 out of 10)

Ficticious Fridays: In Which Harry Potter Sings a Ditty

I still remember the first blissful notes of Wizard Rock (or wrock as it is more commonly referenced). I was about 12 years old so it had been two years since I'd discovered Harry Potter purely by accident one night when I was kicked out of my bed and slept under the living room bookshelf. My sister was going to art school in the city and getting to have a sleepover with her in her dorm. Oh the wonders of iTunes sharing, and my world was forever expanded!

There's no shortage of creativity inside the Harry Potter community. A simple google search will yield pages and pages of fanfiction (some of which should be read with caution), fan art, jewelry, clothing, poetry, films, costumes, furniture, and of course music. I've been a devoted HP fangirl since that initial reading (a self proclaimed Ravenclaw if you must know but sometiems I wish I was a Hufflepuff) and having gone to religious schools most of my life, I've spend a good deal of my time defending my passion. However, now that I'm older I realize it's not so much about the stoires themselves (though I'll always hold up the books as an example of great literature) but it's important because of the impact it had on its fans. It inspired us in so many ways and connected us together, one of the few books to create a true community.

So after all this rambling I should get back to my intended topic: wrock. Harry and the Potters were the ones that first taught me a book could be so much more than a book. They were the start of the whole movement, teaching us you don't really have to have a whole lot of musical talent to make unforgetable songs and inspiring a whole new group of musicians to pick up where they left off.

I'll post below a list of my favorite wrock bands. I hope my fellow HP fans among you will enjoy and get as inspirited as I have. Nox!

- Harry and the Potters
- The Remus Lupins
- Tom Riddle and Friends
- The Moaning Myrtles
- Gred and Forge
- The Whomping Willows
- The Quaffle Kids
- Ginny and the Heartbreakers

Chapter 4: Gothic Introductions

A possible reason for my sudden influx of posts is that I have recently started school again. For most this might cause a decline in reading but as an English major I find it quite the opposite. One of my more interesting classes that I've enrolled in is a study of Gothic Literature. Having gone to my first two classes I've realized how little I've known of this genre up until now. My only exposure so far has been Poe (and who doesn't like a little Pit and Pendulum?) and assorted Victorian poetry. To me, the word Gothic brought up pictures in my mind of ghosts and monsters and damsel's-in-distress (a la the intro sequence to Masterpiece Mystery which I used to both love and fear as a child). However my first forrays into the genre have revealed some things I wasn't quite expecting.


The first story I read was The Old English Baron by Clara Reeve and I hated it. Granted, it was an early Gothic novel and one that was trying to be minimalist about its Gothic elements but it was soooo boring. It really felt like one of those old courtly romances where all the characters are stock and perfect and way too obsessed with honor to do anything interesting. There were tiny glimmers of supernatural with a few ghostly visitors but they didn't even inspire interest in the characters, let alone me. I can see how it was important for setting up the boundaries of the genre but if I have to go through another 30 pages of epilogue and castle hopping I might go mad.

The Old English Baron by Clara Reeve (176 pages)
Judgement: Dreadfully Dull (1 out of 10)

The next one I read, which I later learned should have been the first if I was to read chronologically, was The Castle of Otronto by Horace Walpole. This, was a crazy book! If you're looking for complete ideas and fulfilled plot points this is probably not the book for you but there is certainly a good deal of excitement to be found, especially noting the giant helmet that falls from the sky and crushed a boy about halfway through page two. This became almost a humerous meme in my Gothic Lit class, along the lines of "Well, it wasn't like being crushed by a helmet but..." The author was a bit all over the place and it had a feeling of being unfinished but there was a lot of fun and humor (sometimes probably intentional). There were ghosts and spirits and miracles galore as well as love triangles and fights and revenge. It had the distinct feel of a Shakespearian play and I would suggest it as a fun, light read to anyone who's a fan of the bard. All in all, not one of my favorite books but definitely not the worst I've ever read for a school assignment (see above).

The Castle of Otronto by Horace Walpole (176 pages)
Judgement: Ridiculous but Readable (6.5 out of 10)

Chapter 3: Monsters, Vikings, Dragons... Oh My!

It is no secret to my family and friends (and probably my roommates as well who have to see the poster outside my door everyday) that one of my favorite movies of all times is How to Train you Dragon. Yes, I realize how much I fail at being an adult. When I was younger and my mom caught glimpses of what I was reading she would always make comments about how, though she appreciated that I liked children's or young adult literature, she wished I would read some books for adults some time. When I told her about my blog last night and that I was planning to write this article she seemed really excited but a little confused for a moment. Then out of nowhere she said, "You really do have a passion for adolescent literature. Maybe that's something you should pay attention to." That really meant a lot, thanks. If you're reading this now, hi mum!

Anyways, review! Anyone who enjoyed the movie and thinks they want to read the book I should put up this comment that the plot is nothing like the movie. In some ways I think that makes it better. In the movie, it's set up where all the vikings have a hatred of dragons and Hiccup is the first one that considers the idea that they could be trained. In the book, all vikings have a pet dragon that they train to fight and fish for them however their method for training comes from a book where the only advice is "Yell at it!" Hiccup develops a new way of training that involves learning dragonese and talking with them. Both are great stories and I loved that though I already knew most of these characters I got to explore them in a new world and with different circumstances. It was a whole new adventure. I personally think more book-->movie productions should be done that way, it keeps people from complaining about how important parts were left out, blah, blah, blah.

How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell is one of the best children's books I've read. It's one of those stories that makes you laugh out loud with its ridiculous disregard for history, descriptions of characters so stereotypical they become caricatures, and silly details of viking life. The characters in this story really stand out. Though they may be vikings that lived thousands of years ago all of them are people you could recognize today. Everyone knows a Fishlegs, that asthmatic, allergy ridden, too talkative, nerdy kid whose good intentions don't always work well. Snotlout is another recognizable figure, that one person who is good at all the things you fail at and has no qualms about rubbing it in your face. My favorite was probably Old Wrinkly, and not just by hilarious name alone. He's Hiccup's grandfather who fancies himself a prophet purely on the grounds of his age, not that any of his predictions ever come true.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, it's one of those series I want to buy every book of and someday read to my children. I'd recomend it to anyone who has an appreciation for the ridiculous and satire and, of course, dragons. Though, I have to admit that I didn't exactly "read" this book, I listened to the audiobook which is read by David Tennant (not kidding guys, I almost just wrote Doctor Tennant there XD) and I highly recommend it. He is great at doing voices and the way he does Toothless's voice is nothing short of hilarious. I've heard from some people that because I didn't read from the book itself I shouldn't be able to count it towards my word count but my response is, this is my blog. I say it counts.

How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell (240 pages)
Judgement: Ridiculously Impressive (9 out of 10)

Note - I know I've been doing a lot of really impressed reviews here at the start but I've read some crap in the last couple of months so I promise some bad reviews are on their way!

Another Note - There was a mix up with scheduling last week, there should have been a special Friday article that was never posted (thanks a lot blogger...) but I've hopefully fixed it and there will be fun things next week! Sorry about that guys!

Chapter 2: Once More Baking... With Feeling

Since my last book was one I chose for myself, I decided this time to go with a recommendation. Perhaps that will be the pattern I will follow with the rest of this blog. This recommend came from one of my favorite yet probably most over looked resource - Genevieve. She recomends books, movies, and music to me all the time but saddly I think I only get around to about a quarter of them. Maybe after this book I'll pay more attention because it was, in a word, fantastic.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender was one of the best books I've read in a long time. It was the kind of book that I literally could not put down. I ate all my meals one handed, precariously with an unprecidentedly large number of ranch dressing related incidents, so I could hold the book open, I navigated via perepheral vision down the sidewalks with surprising success, and there were a couple of days where I didn't even open my laptop. Lemon Cake (as I have been reffering to it in my head and will continue to do here for the rest of the article) tells the story of a young girl who discovers, unhappily, on her birthday that she can taste the emotions of the people who prepare her food. It is through her chocolate frosted, lemon, birthday cake that she learns of her mother's crippling depression. The story follows her as she grows up, learning so much more about the people around her than she'd like to. Her "gift" or "curse" alienates her from others and reveals, frighteningly, the fragility of her own family.

I loved this book because it was such a unique and interesting concept told by such a striking narrator. The prose is beautiful and all the details just click and make perfect sense. Being an Empath in my own way, I can understand how hard it is for her to be bombarded constantly with the emotions of others but I can only sympathize with the entrapment she must feel being completely unable to escape it. I would highly recomend it to anyone who has an interest in psychology and tales that are slightly morbid.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender (304 pages)
Judgement: Eye Opening (9.5 out of 10)

Chapter 1: In Which A Secretary Conquors The World... With Food

"Oooh, Julie and Julia." I stood snooping around my roommate's desk after I'd killed my internet catching up on Glee and Bones, looking for some new entertainment. "I saw the movie . Is the book good?"

"Dunno," she mumbled from behind her newest used bookstore find, "haven't read it yet. You can borrow it if you want."

I hardly think she intended for me to hold onto it for two years, long after we'd moved out of that suffocating dorm and into separate states of our own. Though considering she's still holding onto a couple books of mine as well, I don't feel all that bad about it. It took me a loooooong time to get into it. I'd pick it up every few months, read a few pages, and then put it down again a few days later when something else caught my attention. Honestly I can't be sure whether this is due to a problem in writing style or a problem of my own attention span but when I picked it up as my last resort (after a particularly traumatizing book experience involving some graphic werewolf snogging that interrupted a perfectly nice Victorian setting and... *ahem*) I was determined to give it a decent chance.

Either way, once I got into the story, I was hooked. Julie Powell's narrative style can be both hilarious and heartbreaking within the same sentence. As I continued through the book I'd almost get this eerie feeling that her emotions were my own. In parts of the book where she was irritable and stressed, I would be irritable and stressed. When good things happened to her, I was happy. I'm not sure my fiance, Sab, appreciated these unexplainable mood swings so much but it was definitely one of the more extraordinary reading experiences I've had.

NOTE OF CAUTION: I don't know how many of you have seen the movie but if you have, you may remember how big of a deal it is for Julie to cook a lobster, she essentially freaks out and receives sympathetic help from her husband (accompanied by the song Psycho Killer which cracked up my brother and I in ways only an inside joke can). The movie did not, by any stretch of imagination, capture the horror I felt while reading the book. I visibly cringed, my skin crawled, and I almost could not continue reading her descriptions of cramming the still living lobsters into the too small pot and trying to crush the lid down onto their twitching heads. Let alone the part where she had to dissect one while still alive... I almost lost it. As if I wasn't already certain of my distaste for eating a food that looks like a giant cockroach, this books has successfully assured I never, ever will. I feel nothing but pity for those beady black eyes as I pass them in the super market. Oh the horror...

Julie & Julia is an amazing, true to life story of a woman, like so many in our day, who grows up and still doesn't know who or what she is, questions that she finds answers to in one of the most unlikely of places. In stories, the end is always graduation or marriage but Julie shows us there's no shame in getting to that point and still not having everything figured out. I think this books deserves its place as my first review her because in a way, it inspired me to start this whole project. Not that I'm expecting that kind of drastic change and surge into fame from this blog but I want to challenge myself to do something new and maybe in the end I'll be better for it

Julie & Julia by Julie Powell (362 pages)
Judgement: Emotionally Stimulating (8 out of 10)

The Prologue: Once Upon A Time...

I can't really tell you what possessed me to take on this project other than being an exhasperated English Major who's tired of the fact that the only thigns she reads any more come out of 5,000 page anthologies, most of which she's sure would be infinitely more interesting if they were written in a bigger font than size 2. I've found myself staring longingly at other people reading best sellers and romance novels on the metrotrain. I've missed that feeling of being able to hold a book in my hands instead of awkwardly trying to balance it on my lap while still making it close enough that I can read it's ridiculously tiny print.

So here's the goal I'm setting mysef: 10,000 pages. I don't want to set an expiration date for myself, mostly because I don't want to stress myself out about it. This is supposed to be fun, a kind of lighthearted project, not semething to pressure me more than school already does... So here's a few rules just for me, mainly things to keep me from slacking off and cheating (which I might do anyways, just warning you you).

The Rules:

1. No Rereads = As much as I would love to rant to you fellow readers about my love of Hunger Games or Fahrenheight 451 or Cottage Witchery, I feel in all fairness to the project, I must refrain. This 10,000 page journey should be a new one. In novels the hero only gets to return home once the quest is done and that is a tradition I intend to honor.
2. All Recommendations Must Be Read At Least 1/2 Way = I have a bad habit of dropping books about 20 pages in if they don't immediately catch my attention. I feel particularly bad about this if it's something I've heard raving reviews about from friends. If I'm going to tell them they have bad taste I might as well have 1/2 a book's worth of evidence to support it. to facilitate this I have set up an entirely new Goodreads account so I can keep up with what I've read for the project as well as recommendations made by you guys.
3. Variety is Key = Upon seeing my bookshelves I'm sure, due to enormous amounts of young adult literature (and occasionally picture books, no judgement right guys?), the casual onlooker might mistake me for a braces-wearing, 16-year-old, geeky teenager. However I am a 20-something English Major and though John Green may speak directly to my soul there is no reason something by whatever author graces the best seller list this month can't do the same. This whole project will be a failure if I don't find something worth reading in every genre.
4. School Reading Counts = I know some of you may believe otherwise but given that I am an English Major, 90% of my homework consists of reading. Sometimes this leaves no time for simple pleasure reading. Also, I'm being assigned to read some of the most influential literature that exists in the world, it would be a shame to ignore it just because at some point it may be a test question.
5. A Minimum of 1 Post per 2 Weeks = Whether I finish a piece of writing or not there are plenty of liter-related subject matters I can touch on. I'll try and reserve Fridays for non-review entries and you can look forward to a spattering of author/release news, me geeking out about books-->movie trailers, humerus pic dumps, book lover merch, and more.

Seems like a pretty fair start to me! I've gotten my first project book read so look out for Chapter 1 coming out soon. If you guys have any more rule suggestions or book recommendations go ahead and comment or visit My Goodreads. See you on the next page!