Villette by Charlotte Bronte

*spoilers*

I love Jane Eyre, so I expected to love Villette too. I think I do? It's just that it was more depressing, without a clearly happy ending, and somehow an even more slow-moving plot. I took a break in the middle of it and kind of forgot things that happened, because the narrator will just casually mention things that turn out to be important later, but by the time that happens you'll have forgotten it. Also, p. much all the French parts are untranslated, which is supremely unhelpful if you don't read/speak French. Thank God for the Google Translate app, which has the real-time text-translator. In the app, you just point your camera to the page and it will translate a block of text for you. I was able to get the gist of what was being said thanks to that, the few dozen words I know of French, and my knowledge of Italian and Spanish. I really wish the edition I'd bought simply because of Mallory Ortberg's introduction had footnotes with what they were saying in English, or even endnotes. It's like that in Jane Eyre, but there's wayyyyy more French in Villette due to its setting. I really do not get the reasoning behind not having translations for the French parts. It drives me nuts.

Bronte's heroines are simultaneously unnecessarily dramatic and irritatingly passive, and are in a way rather identifiable if you're a shy emotionally stunted bookish introvert like me. Lucy is forever looking for private places to read letters or walk by herself, yet she almost goes insane because everyone left the school over break and she was almost entirely alone. She contemplates converting to Catholicism because she's so desperate for kindness and companionship, but she also hides away her feelings from everyone, including the reader. Lucy is surprisingly assertive in some things (sailing to France by herself without knowing a soul there in the hopes she'll find employment, taking charge of her first class by shoving the most troublesome student in the coal closet and locking her in, playing a male rake character in the school play) yet annoyingly passive in others (quietly taking M. Emanuel's criticism and bullying when they're just coworkers and he doesn't have any right to be treating her that way, being like "lol classic Mme. Beck" whenever her boss spies on her and not-so-secretly rifles through her stuff). Perhaps Lucy doesn't mind Mme. Beck spying on her because she's so used to being invisible and overlooked that she likes being paid attention to. That might also explain why she lets M. Emanuel harangue her like he does.

The author's love for brooding hunx rears its head in the final love interest. When it comes to M. Emanuel (also called M. Paul, which really confused me until almost at the end his entire name is given, Paul Something Something Emanuel), the first two-thirds of the book are spent showing us what a petty tyrant he is towards everyone, especially Lucy, then the last third of the book is spent telling us what a great guy he is and how desperate he is for Lucy's friendship and affection just as she's desperate for affection from the world at large. It's rather bipolar. If a man treats you like that, bossing you around and constantly berating you then turning around to act all remorseful and nice, you should not be in a relationship with him. That's abusive behavior.

Another typical aspect of the Bronte heroine, always dressing as plain, boring and gloomy as possible, is mostly continued, as Lucy is godmother-pressured into wearing a pink (!) dress with black lace. Jealous because Lucy was with her guy friend from childhood, M. Paul starts raging at her about how shallow, frivolous and worldly she is with her scarlet dress. ??? Like have you even met her? It does turn into bantering kinda at the end, with both of them like tsundere teasing each other, but I still don't buy it. I need to read Charlotte Bronte's other books, but it's interesting to me that both her plain heroines have two love interests: an age-appropriate handsome boring guy who's good on paper, and an older not handsome dark brooding/raging weirdo, and the latter is the one she always chooses (by default in Lucy's case, but still).

tl;dr I did like this book. Wikipedia says it's really more about Lucy's psychological state than about the plot, which is accurate. It's definitely worth reading if you like Jane Eyre, although don't expect it to be the exact same. It's slower, more depressing, and less Gothic (although there is a bit there). 4/5

The Frenemy's Beauty Survey

The Frenemy is an awesome blogger. She did this fun survey a while back and I've wanted to do this for a while.

1) What are the 5 products you would take with you on a desert island?
SUNSCREEN in SPF 90+ (although I read anything above SPF 30 or so is basically the same as 30) in a huge Costco-sized container, chapstick (I use chapstick for lip balm the way everyone uses Kleenex to mean facial tissue) with sunscreen as well, black kohl chubby eyeliner pencil to outline my eyes to avoid glare a la the Egyptians (and also feel like a badass goddess), coconut oil (multiple uses), and Garnier Fructis leave-in conditioner. Can you tell I'm worried about sunburn? #theunbearablewhitenessofbeing
2) What are the 3 products you would splurge on if somebody gave you a giant gift card to Sephora?
This Benefit eyeliner, since I've heard it's good and I love doing winged eyeliner, a Really Good Red lipcolor, and either a really good eyebrow pencil or Benefit Lollitint
3) What’s the beauty product you are most afraid of using?
False eyelashes. I refuse.

4) What’s the lipstick that makes you feel the most powerful?
I don't know about feeling powerful. I think red lipstick looks really good on me, but I'm always paranoid it's coming off or smearing.
5) What’s your everyday makeup routine?
Aveeno sunscreen SPF 60 on my nose (and ears if I'm wearing my hair up and am going to be in the sun), hella old CoverGirl pressed powder I bought when I was like 18 for mattifying and shine, blush (either the pink CG I think or the peach Physician's Formula my sister gave me b/c it made her break out), eyebrow kit from e.l.f. to fill in brows, eye makeup. That can be a swipe of eyeliner, eyeshadow stick, full eyeshadow contouring, or winged eyeliner, etc. I usually save mascara (a sample of this one in black or CG naturalluxe in black-brown) for church and special occasions. Lipgloss or -stick or balm. Neutrogena concealer if I'm wearing contacts. The face stuff varies less than the eye or lip makeup.
6) Top 3 drugstore finds you cannot live without?
I buy almost everything at the drugstore, so I can't choose three. I'd say probably my e.l.f. studio makeup brushes. OH WAIT MY e.l.f. MAKEUP REMOVER PEN. Q-tips (knockoff) and cotton rounds.
7) Top 3 higher end finds that were actually worth the splurge?
I like never splurge on anything. I use coupons for the drugstore products I buy. I think my mom was the one who bought this, but I really like Cetaphil face cleanser. My mom and sister and I used to get Clinique Dramatically Different Moisturizing Lotion or Gel and I looooooved them. I may buy it again now that I have money. I also have this Clinique lipstick (Color Surge Bare Brilliance in 22 Pink Beach) that I love that's probably discontinued, but if they have it when I'm out of the tube I have I'll buy it again.
8) What’s your nighttime skincare routine?
Hahaha so bad for someone as old as I am. Half the time I just sleep with everything on. If I'm being good I use a makeup remover wipe, rinse with water, use this gr8 dollar store knockoff toner that is basically the exact same thing as Clinique's Clarifying Lotion 2 to wipe extra gunk off with a cotton round, and moisturize with Equate baby lotion. If I'm being medium, I wipe eyeliner off with a tissue. I also have eye makeup remover I got when my visiting cousin left it behind; I use it to take off my eye makeup with a cotton round (usually just if I was wearing liquid eyeliner and/or concealer). When I'm at my parents' I use Simple eye makeup remover pads (sample) and Cetaphil face cleanser, which is pretty good. Lately I've had dry patches around my mouth and I've been using coconut oil on them.
9) Products you keep buying even though you have too many?
Lipgloss, eyeshadow sticks, nail polish. Usually these are from the dollar store or e.l.f. products so they don't put too big of a dent in my pocket

10) Eyeshadow colors you gravitate towards? If you could only keep one eyeshadow palette, which one would you keep?
Browns (because they make my blueish eyes pop) and purples (my favorite color). I like grays a lot too. I don't really have palettes, just maybe duos and trios. Oh, I do have one mini travel palette in a fake metallic pewter snakeskin case. It has a purple trio (eggplant and two shades of lilac) in one side and a quad of sheer golden, brown, sheer silver, and sheer teal in the other. I use it a lot. It was a gift.
11)What’s the one makeup brush in your collection that you would keep if you had to get rid of the rest?
My e.l.f. blush brush, probably. It's a struggle deciding between that and my smudge and contour eyeshadow brushes (also e.l.f.).
12) What’s the one product you hate putting on?
I kind of suck at putting everything on. Stuff doesn't blend right, mascara clumps and gets on the wrong places, etc.

13) Best makeup tip you love telling other people about?
I can't think of one.

14) Is there a product you started using recently that you can’t believe you didn’t use before?
Brow filler. After my e.l.f. kit is done I think I'll splurge for something a Sephora girl pushes on me. The e.l.f. kit is ok, although the gel color is too dark and the brow powder is too light and reddish. My mom has an Anastasia Beverly Hills brow gel wand (like mascara), but the eyebrow hairs are not what I need to be darker. There are gaps in my brows where the hairs refuse to grow in/over and I need them filled in. I look like Groucho Marx's granddaughter rather than Frida Kahlo with this kit. I've only just started doing it, so I'm sure I'll get the hang of it.

15) Best Beauty Advice?
Do what you want and what works for you. Take care of your skin.

Flash book reviews: October

There was an ebook I read in October that I'm not going to share the title of because it was stupid, but it annoyed me that the Mexican American protagonist was said to have "two middle names" which turned out to be just her full name, including both parents' surnames, which is the Spanish naming custom. I don't remember exactly what the protagonist's name was anymore, but I'll use Maria Elena Garcia Romero as an example. The author/characters were trying to pass this off as Maria (again, not her name but I don't remember what it was) having two middle names, Elena and Garcia, even though that is NOT how the naming thing works in Hispanic cultures. Both surnames are considered just that, surnames. AND, they said that the surnames were her mother's first and her father's second. That is not how it works either!!!!! You always put the father's surname first and then the mother's. UGH. Authors, do your research before writing stuff about people from cultures that are not yours. This annoyed me a lot.

Graveyard Shift by Angela Roquet, early-mid October (free Nook ebook)
This book is about a Reaper (Grim is their boss) whose job is transporting souls to the proper afterlife and making sure demons don't get them. She's drawn into a larger political scheme that threatens the very fabric of Limbo and has to juggle that plus dating an angel. This is the first in a series so it didn't have a resolved ending. There is a lot of exposition, basically tons of world-building through explanation. None of the characters really stood out to me much. I thought it was interesting how all the different mythological and religious characters from various cultures coexisted in Limbo (I don't think that's the actual name but I don't remember what it was and I'm too lazy to look it up). I also thought it sucked that the protagonist and her friends went through the same stuff as ordinary human people: a job that can be a drag, having to pay overpriced rent, etc. This author's definitely read Pratchett and Gaiman but isn't them. I can read any amount of fantasy but when it involves angels I get uneasy. I kind of want to know what happens next but I doubt I'll go out of my way to get the other books. Maybe if I come across them in the library or their ebooks become free. 3.9/5

The Shadow and the Rose by Amanda DeWees. October 12 (free Nook ebook)
This book is based on Tam Lin (one of the few fairytales I haven't read) and is the first of a series. An ordinary girl falls in love with a hot dude who is in thrall of a powerful gorgeous woman and has to save him. I had high hopes for this one (I love books where the girl saves the guy as well as fairytale retellings) but it fell flat. The characters all were cardboard cutouts and I was mad at myself for not figuring out what the villainess was before being told, despite it being pretty obvious in hindsight. There was a bizarre plot point that just made it too much for me. I do want to read the others, kinda. 3.9/5

The Ink Readers by Thomas Holdeveult. October 12 (free Nook ebook)
This is a short story/novella set in a Thailand village about wishes. There's a wish festival and the villagers have different wishes that all end up coming true in some way, although not in the way the wishers expected. The writing was lyrical and humorous, but ultimately I am skeptical of white authors writing about cultures not their own. I feel like it might be a little dodgy race/cultural appropriation-wise, and I hated that a child in the book died (and this somehow answered his wish? His murderers got their comeuppance at least). There was some crude stuff too. 3.9/5

Until I Found You by Victoria Bylin. mid-late October (free Nook ebook)
Christian romance set in SoCal. The heroine is a graphic designer who has to take care of her grandmother who's had a stroke. On her way there she gets into a dramatic car accident and is saved by a hot newly Christian magazine editor and like many other books the heroine has to Learn To Trust and Open Her Heart To Both Love And Jesus etc. etc. Also the endangered California condors are a theme throughout (they mate for life!). Here is a bulleted list of all the things I found problematic, typically from a feminist standpoint:

• super wimpy and damsel in distress-y heroine, always crying and needing to be saved by the hero
•  Bad thing happens, heroine cries and the hero saves/helps her, rinse and repeat. It's like that was the only thing the author knew to do to move the plot along and create conflict.
• all-too-common work vs. family choice that women so often have to make, made to be about her faith and relationship with the guy. Like choosing to continue as a famous rich celebrity's graphic designer for her spa ads would have been the unChristian thing to do and then the guy wouldn't have been able to be with her because of her worldiness? choosing self?, which is bogus. The core choice by itself is already hard enough without adding that.
• Seriously, the famous celebrity and the hero squared off on a virtual battle over the heroine's soul. I'm not kidding. The celebrity was all "I'm going to make her my successor and the daughter I never had and I won't let YOU get in the way!" and her plastic surgeries and focus on youth and multiple failed marriages are harped on a lot. This book takes a really weird and regressive view of Women With Ambition.
• guy's one night stand (before he became a Christian, of course) painted as abandonment to the resulting baby he didn't even know about, because he just slept with the woman and didn't make a commitment. O...kay? They took precautions against getting pregnant which didn't work, but the woman didn't tell him she was pregnant. She obviously didn't want him in the picture and only hit him up for financial help for all the medical bills and funeral costs after the baby died. That's really sad but it doesn't really mean he Abandoned the baby. It wasn't his fault. 
• grandmother's anecdotes about not being able to have children and her resulting grief and emotional estrangement from her husband painted as her being Selfish and Self-Centered and A Bad Wife As Well As A Bad Christian. Her husband, instead of trying to comfort her in her grief, was all "is that all I am to you, just someone who can give you a baby?" Once she repented and "served her husband with her body" EW EW EW EW EW, she eventually got the baby she so craved. 
• The baby grew up and got married and had the protagonist and died tragically young along with his wife, so clearly no one in this story is allowed to have nice things. Lotta death in this book. Body count: the grandfather (past), the heroine's parents (past), the hero's baby (past). P. unnecessary imo

3/5

Science Fiction & Fantasy class essays: Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness & Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland

Gender and Science Fiction

Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland both deal with alternately gendered societies, but in different ways. Herland is a country that has been peopled only with women for hundreds of years; the women become pregnant independently, through asexual reproduction. The Left Hand of Darkness takes place in Winter, where everyone is genderless, except during their mating periods when one individual becomes male and one individual becomes female in order to reproduce. These lands are seen as very strange by the protagonists, who are men from our society/world.

The authors of both these books were women, which is unsurprising considering how in-depth and concerned with gender and its role in our and the alternate societies both stories are. In contrast, male SF writers such as Burroughs and Bradbury have written SF stories where the male themes of exploration and colonization/domination take place on Mars, a newer Wilder West. Many men who wrote SF have used the genre as a way to satirize their cultures or human nature, but they have not dealt with gender anywhere near as much as these two authors have. But then, men don't really have to deal with gender the way women do.

Broadly, female SF writers use SF as a way to imagine a differently cultured world, a different society, where gender does not shape the people, their destinies and their culture the way it does in our world or society. They want to explore worlds where gender is a non-issue: Gilman because there are no men and as such only one gender with nothing to contrast with, and Le Guin because no one has a gender and everyone is the same. To me, these books earn their science fiction status not because they take place on other planets (only Le Guin's does), but because they deal with the soft sciences: sociology and psychology.

Science Fiction & Fantasy class essays: Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles

Science fiction and fantasy stories are always placed together, and with good reason. Fantasy uses magic and myth to explain or drive its stories along, while science fiction uses science. To me, fantasy is dreaming about the past, back when things were shadowy, mysterious, holy, when there were any number of gods and spirits and fey folk. Science fiction is dreaming about the future, when technology makes all kinds of things possible and the limit has blasted past the sky. However, science fiction is sometimes only fantasy with a light dusting of science, mythology set in space. Stories like The Martian Chronicles blur the line between the two and act as a sort of transition.

Ray Bradbury posits in his introduction to The Martian Chronicles that his stories are "pure myth", which lends to them staying power: "If it had been practical technologically efficient science fiction, it would have long since fallen to rust by the road. But since it is a self-separating fable, even the most deeply rooted physicists at Cal-Tech accept breathing the fraudulent oxygen atmosphere I have loosed on Mars. [...] Myth, seen in mirrors, incapable of being touched, stays on."

In "And the Moon Be Still As Bright", Spender says of the Martians, "They blended religion and art and science because, at base, science is no more than an investigation of a miracle we can never explain, and art is an interpretation of that miracle." Stories are literature and literature is art. No matter the setting, we tell ourselves and each other stories, reaching toward the miracle, trying to explain it and capture it and understand it better. Within that miracle lies the key to who we are.

Science Fiction & Fantasy class essays: A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

While reading A Princess of Mars I kept thinking, is John Carter a Gary Stu? A Gary Stu (or Marty Stu) is "an annoyingly 'perfect' male fanfiction character"[1] who is unbelievably great at everything and loved by everyone in the story. Wikipedia links this trope to that of the competent man, "a stock character who can do anything perfectly, or at least exhibits a very wide range of abilities and knowledge"[2].

John Carter already has fighting and wilderness survival skills as a Civil War veteran and prospector, but once he inexplicably finds himself on Mars, he becomes almost a superhero. Mars' lesser gravity means he can leap huge distances in a single bound, and his strength is also magnified to this extreme, enabling him to overpower and even kill at one blow huge Martians three times his height and weight. He rises up in the Thark ranks ridiculously fast. He's also a genius; it takes him less than a week to learn the Martian language, and while he can read everyone's thoughts telepathically, they cannot read his.  Obviously he and the titular princess fall in love and marry. Most interestingly, John claims not to remember anything before the age of thirty, and that he is ageless as well as immortal.

What keeps John from fully being a 'competent man' trope is that there are explanations given for most of his skills. One could argue that the term Gary Stu doesn't apply to John either since there is no evidence that Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote him as a self-insert character, but the Barsoom series are based on the writings of the astronomer Percival Lowell [3], so in a sense those (and all science fiction) are fanfiction about science. Such perfect characters seem to speak to a universal longing to be better than we are, to have the strength and skills to face an obstacle-filled life and come out on top.

1. nscangal. (June 27, 2005). "Marty-Stu." The Urban Dictionary. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Marty-Stu

2. "Competent man." (last modified April 30, 2015). Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competent_man

3. "A Princess of Mars." (last modified May 1, 2015). Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Princess_of_Mars

Science Fiction & Fantasy class essays: H.G. Wells

Science as the Enabler of Evil

It is interesting to read the stories from when science was new and unknown. These authors during the early modern era seem to have seen science as a marvel, a new magic, something fearful and fascinating. The level of new discoveries and scientific possibilities was the highest since the Enlightenment, and because it was so new it was feared due to uncertainty and unfamiliarity.

Since the dawn of time, stories have been filled with people who had some fatal flaw that brought about their destruction, but science and advanced knowledge drive the stakes higher. The bigger they are, the harder they fall. There is more to lose, and more evil to be wrought due to this increased knowledge.

In The Island of Doctor Moreau and The Invisible Man, as in Frankenstein and some of Hawthorne and Poe's stories, science is a medium by which men who wish to further their and the world's knowledge and make a difference end up becoming obsessed. This obsession corrupts them and leads to their downfall, and they end up unleashing some new horror into the world instead of improving it. Science is then seen as a medium by which man's hubris may more fantastically, horribly and more speedily lead to their ruination.

We saw this first from Shelley's Frankenstein, but Wells especially seems to suggest that science can do away with our empathy and compassion. Dr. Moreau cares only for the advancement of knowledge that his vivisection experiments bring him; he doesn't care one whit about the pain he inflicts upon the poor animals and the ethical questions raised by his experiments. Likewise, Gibson's invisibility from his experiments gives him an advantage over others, and thus he becomes more and more violent and selfish as his story goes on. Wells et al. seem to suggest that science accelerates our natural selfishness and willingness to hurt others.

I don't think I mentioned this before, but these class essays were written in one go the night before the due date (as I'm sure you can tell). They could have benefited from some editing and reflection, but self-editing has never been my strong point and I was always too tired from work. After uploading her or his essay to Coursera, each student then had to grade three or four other students' essays. I had the harshest criticism of probably my entire academic career from this essay. One of the students who graded my essay hated it, reviled my writing and actually accused me of not having done ANY of the readings for the class. It was like the written equivalent of Donald Duck's tantrums. It was so irate and over the top that I went straight past hurt and offended and landed squarely on amused. Coursera lamely won't let me see anything I've done in that class since it ended, otherwise I would share the original feedback with you. 

Science Fiction & Fantasy class essays: Dracula by Bram Stoker

That Dracula has heavy religious, especially Christian, influences throughout the story is obvious. The crucifixes, Holy Wafers, funeral prayers for the dead, etc., all act as weapons against the vampire and his powers of evil. The life-giving blood the men selflessly give Lucy in order to try to save her is the opposite of the awful “baptism of blood” Count Dracula forces upon Mina in order to damn her. Dracula and the vampire wives are four, an unlucky number associated with death in Chinese culture, while our group of heroes number seven, a holy and/or lucky number in Western culture. Even some of the characters’ names are significant: “YAHWEH has given” (Jonathan), “will/desire to protect” (Wilhelmina), “light” (Lucy), “YAHWEH is gracious” (John), while Arthur and Abraham are important literary and biblical heroes, respectively. The group fights Dracula not just because of the suffering of the women they love, but because they feel a moral obligation to stop him. To be a vampire or to succumb to one means that one will be damned and cut off from salvation. Dracula is a deeply religious book, which seems strange since it is also a horror and fantasy book, but such contradictions are common in Christianity: one must die to live, Jesus is both man and God, etc. Van Helsing’s discouraged words after their protections for Lucy keep being thwarted echo 2 Corinthians 4:8-9 (“We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”). Suffering and helplessness in the face of the enemy are common themes in Christianity, but since the protagonists trust in God and do all they can to do what’s right, they succeed.