my addiction

I suffer from an acute addiction to novels. I don’t read during the year because I know that if I picked up a book and started reading, I wouldn’t be able to stop until 5am…and the next day…and the next week…and the next month. Over the summer, I choose to read instead of watching movies, which is apparently not what the general population does.

Being a book reviewer would probably make me the happiest person in the world (or a photographer for National Geographic), but I can’t even write coherently, let alone elegantly and persuasively. I have immense respect for novelists, because it seems impossible to be able to create people and ideas from nothing, then fixing them on paper. In my eyes, writing nonfiction is less difficult because the idea is already present, and crafting the style requires less subtlety and skill than for fiction.

The best books I’ve read are those which have excellent characters, superb language, and a good to excellent plot. It does seem slightly abnormal to rate plot as the least important of the three (though still very important), but this is also how I approach most things in life.

When I was very young, I started off exclusively reading horror, Tom Clancy, and John Grisham. It was all very straightforward and I got my kicks from the shock, the intrigue, and the violence. I believe this was followed with a brief sci-fi/fantasy period, where spaceships and dragons were what I thought about all day (and being a CIA agent). Fantasy is great for ten-year olds because well…everything is great when you’re ten years old and everything seems so new and exciting. Even though I no longer read espionage novels, the best I have read is Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Identity, which gets a 9 out of 10 for plot and average marks for everything else. Even though I adore British dryness, sarcasm, and literature, Le Carre is just a wee bit too dry and aloof for my taste.

Following the fantasy period was the historical period, Jean M. Auel and Margaret George. I still think that Auel is one of the most, if not the most creative author in fiction. In research, what you really want to do is to take a leap onto something solid or bridge a gap. There’s a mess of disconnected pieces lying around, and Auel comes along and she’s the only person to not only see that they belong to the same puzzle but also which way the pieces fit. Her main characters are amazing and impossible not to empathize with, and her style is solid. On the other hand, Margaret George’s books seem painstakingly researched (I rather think she would make a better historian than author if she’s not already), and her writing falls slightly on the flat side. One aspect of history/fantasy that I never liked was the King Arthur stories. I did not respond positively or negatively to The Once and Future King, The Mists of Avalon, etc. and I don’t know why.

After this, I only read for school, and these were without doubt the best books I’ve read in my life. I had to dissect each one, turn them inside out, break them apart, and put something back together again. When you spend that much time and effort on books, you find yourself on an entirely different plane. I don’t think I’ve done much critical and creative thinking since high school honors english. The two books that I enjoyed the most from that period were 1984 and Candide. I can’t even describe how I felt after reading those two books, which is perfectly fine since thousands of critics have already done it for me.

After high school, I couldn’t go back to reading books just for plot. Character became more important, and I viewed plot as something that was a part of the character. The plot basically revolves around the decisions that people make and their response to events (usually calamities) that happen to them. Essentially, the characters in a novel carry the plot along. If the two are separated or not correctly joined, then it’s a pretty crappy book. That was when I started getting into my humanistic and magic realism period.

During this period, I adored John Irving and Pat Conroy, both because they created such amazing characters, original storylines, gorgeous imagery (Conroy), and virtuoso style (Irving). At the time, I thought that Irving’s novels were so close to perfection, especially The Cider House Rules and The World According to Garp. His characters made you think that Irving knew just about everything there was to know about being human and life itself. The only problem with his books was that every climax was anticlimactical. There were usually several climaxes per book, and the ending just felt lifeless by the time I got to it. Conroy’s characters were alive more so than Irving’s, and his writing style was superior, but Irving just had that something that made me think that he was so close to the ideal.

Of course, magic realism followed, which was a combination of humanism, witchcraft, rituals, and miracles. The two authors that I enjoy in this category are Isabelle Allende and Gabriel Gael Marquez. Of the two, Marquez’s novels are more put together, and Allende’s were slightly inconsistent. The ideas were wonderful, and the writing flowed, but there was always something in their books that made me think that there was a piece missing or a chunk that didn’t fit correctly. Moreover, the magic part reminded me of my slight distaste of fantasy. Sci-Fi and fantasy has been bashed over the years and accused of being lower quality then most other novels. In some sense, I think that it’s true. Since fantasy is appreciated mostly for its ingenuity and ideas (as well as generally being written for younger readers), character development and style are sometimes sacrificed.

Since then, I’ve been reading Nick Hornby and Dave Eggers, which I would describe as realism. Their books are a combination of the sad and the poignant and the funny. Essentially, both authors point out the problem with modern life and modern people, but do it in such an uplifting and graceful way. Since I’m an overly enthusiastic fan of sarcasm of any kind, I love Hornby’s matter-of-factness and dryness. I admire how much Hornby can get across in so few words. It’s quite a feat.

I’m now in my Jane Austen/George Eliot phase, which is a mix of extremely clever writing, less emotion, and some history. It’s almost the antithesis of Conroy’s tense emotion and Irving’s melodrama, but nice and balanced, which I enjoy. I’m also attempting to reconnect with my sci-fi/fantasy self of more than ten years ago. However, it’s not going terribly well, seeing as my computer’s almost an extension of myself and there’s nothing intriguing about the matrix and data streams present in sci-fi novels. And I think I’ve just grown out of fantasy.

The two books that I will always go back to are The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Those books are the closest physical approximation to the excellence of the human spirit. The sheer magnitude and drive of the ideas and characters wrapped in those two books transcend anything else I’ve ever read. It is the one case in which the ideas in the book are so important that the characters and the style don’t matter. The words just live and breathe on their own. Although I know I will never reach that level of excellence, it’s worthwhile to get a glimpse once in awhile, however fleetingly.

teaching...or something like it

Now that my prelims are over, I can no longer shirk my TAing responsibilities and hide in the topmost corner whenever I skulk into class. Since there's a midterm coming up, I've been wound up at the thought of giving office hours. Considering that the students had a month's head start on me (not to mention an intro class) for learning the material, I freaked myself out. Originally, I was supposed to hold a review session last Friday and freaked myself out in the process (It's what happens when there's nothing at all going on). In class, the professor announced that he'd be holding it...okay...I did a double take and was given a temporary reprieve.

This week, I held 5 total hours of office hours, which is pretty crazy. The first student that walked in had a PhD in EECS and wanted me to prove that certain formulas were equivalent to others and certain approaches could be the same as other approaches and could I please prove all of this. Um. No, I can't. Sorry? I walked into that room, and he whipped out his list of questions. After he asked his first question, I just felt my stomach drop. It's one of those moments when you know that you're falling and that you're just going to keep falling and nothing's going to stop you. Thankfully, he only stayed for half an hour after he became aware of my incompetence.

The other students were nice, and I was able to answer some of their questions (I hope). Today I sat sown with this student that came down from Boston and went through both practice midterms with him, step by step. For someone who can't even concentrate for an hour of lecture, it was intensely tiring. Two hours and some change later, I felt like my brain was going to melt into a puddle in my skull.

Actually being a professor and orating for three hours must be draining beyond belief. Honestly, I can see how people can't get research done when they're teaching. Obviously, teaching a class requires knowing the material and much more. I realized that I knew exactly how much work I've been putting in for the last three weeks (shocker) and not much more. In fact, I probably know as much as the average student in my class. That's not too encouraging, but how much I put in is how much I get out (I'm descending into the valley of triteness).

These executive MBA students are pretty dedicated. Imagine being a VP at some job, being married with kids, and coming to class every other weekend to top it off. Then again, they didn't get to where they are in life without working hard and sacrificing something (sleep, no doubt). The eMBAs are much nicer and less openly aggressive than regular MBAs, who lug around egos the size of a small island and exude an overpowering combination of youth and insecurity. I'm not intimidated by eMBAs when I'm sitting down next to them, but I don't feel like an instructor either. I have a healthy respect for people who got to where they are in life, successful by all counts, by the time that they're thirty. I can only hope to be so lucky.