SevenEves: 600 pages of info-dump leaves little room for plot

Neal Stephenson doesn’t shy away from big concepts, long timelines, or larger than life events. His most recent novel, SevenEves, begins with the moon blowing up. Readers never find out what blew up the moon, because all too quickly humanity discovers that the Earth will soon be bombarded by a thousand-year rain of meteorites — the remnants of the moon as they collide with each other in space, becoming smaller and smaller — which will turn Earth into an uninhabitable wasteland. Humankind has a 2-year deadline to preserve its cultural legacy and a breeding population. The solution is to make extended life-in-space a possibility. The first two thirds of the book follows a group of astronauts and scientists who are among those who will form the new colony orbiting Earth, waiting a few millennia for it to become habitable again. The last third shows us what has become of humanity after 5,000 years in space, as they begin their slow return to the surface of the planet.

From the first sentence of the book (“The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason”), I thought this concept had brilliant potential to be both scientifically and emotionally compelling. But about 200 pages in, I realized that not much had happened yet … well, you know, other than the moon exploding. Further, I realized that I still didn’t really have a strong sense of the main characters. I flipped back through what I’d read and saw that for each single line of dialogue, there were about two dense paragraphs of exposition — essentially infodumping — usually geared towards explaining complex engineering or physics problems with which the human race was now faced.

Infodumping isn’t a dealbreaker for me, nor is a little educational material in my fiction. Some of my favorite facts come from fiction, such as the idea of a tesseract in A Wrinkle in Time, the curvature of space and time as explained in Michael Crichton‘s Sphere, the explanations of seventeenth-century trade and economics in Stephenson’s BAROQUE CYCLE, or literally anything about rabbits from Watership Down. But when I’m reading fiction, I also expect to equally enjoy other aspects of the prose, such as, for instance, character building, internal and external conflict, scenes, dialogue, or even just “events that are happening.”

The first 400 pages of SevenEves, on the other hand, functioned mostly as a lecture to the reader so that a) they could appreciate how hard the task of creating long-term self-sustaining space habitats is, and b) marvel at how Stephenson, a scientist himself with a background in computing, geography, and physics, had come up with workarounds for the problems inherent to the task. Part of me wanted to say, “Well, goody for you, Neal; you figured it out. Can we please get back to the task of creating a story now?”

One of the reasons I never connected to the characters is that Stephenson spreads himself too thinly by following a few different point-of-view characters, instead of one particular character. This strategy works for a lot of books, but in such an information-heavy novel, which already skimps on character development and scene-building, it would help to at least anchor the readers with one p.o.v. character. However, since SevenEves didn’t do that, I felt relegated to the surface of each of these character’s interior lives, instead of getting to know one of them more deeply. I wasn’t sure why Stephenson chose to follow the characters he did, either. One of them (a clear reference to Neil DeGrasse Tyson) didn’t contribute much of essence to the plot. While he was intelligent and relatively sympathetic, he ended up playing the role of a very highly-educated observer. His life and efforts neither helped nor hindered the plan for human survival. However, Julia, an appealingly Machiavellian former U.S. President who cheats and manipulates her way up to the space colony instead of dying on the surface, was not a p.o.v. character. I would have liked to hear her internal monologue, especially as she ended up playing a large role in the eventual outcome for humanity.

Around page 400, things really picked up and conflicts exploded — political, personal, practical — across the page. The second half of the book had a plot that I would even deign to describe as “rip-roaring.” As if the moon blowing up and destroying life on earth wasn’t enough, after a few years in space, the survival of the human race is put up against odds that are practically insurmountable. The last third of the book occurs 5,000 years in the future and we get to see how humanity has met those odds, succeeded, and (most thrillingly) evolved. And there are wonderful surprises waiting, too, that Stephenson has seeded into the plot from the beginning. The end of the book made me want to cry, not only because of feels (*sob* “Life really DOES find a way!” *sob*), but also because of the beautiful way in which Stephenson wove his ending together.

This does not, however, erase the fact that the beginning of the book also made me want to cry from frustration and anger that such a great idea had been squandered.

It pains me to say anything bad about Stephenson’s books. In addition to writing lots of books that I love, he wrote Anathem, my favorite book. And the ironic thing is that, for many readers, SevenEves may not feel that different from Anathem, which also has lots of infodumping, in this case regarding philosophy and theoretical physics. Much of Anathem consists of philosophical lectures in the form of dialogue between characters. But the concepts Stephenson expounded in those lectures ended up being thematically central to the plot of the book, whereas in SevenEves, I felt like it was too much engineering talk for a book that was not really about engineering.

Maybe I’m being condescending to the practical sciences here. Why can one book be “about” philosophy, and another one not be “about” engineering? Perhaps Stephenson, and other readers, might argue that the book isabout engineering: all of the human knowledge and ingenuity that is devoted to guaranteeing the survival of humanity. It’s for those readers that I’m loath to give SevenEves a low ranking. I believe that many people will love this book, perhaps with the level of fervor that I feel for Anathem. However, despite the impressive ending, I felt largely frustrated and let down by a sub-par execution of a fantastic story.

This review originally appeared on FantasyLiterature.com, where I gave the book 3.5 stars.

5-Star Books and "Literature with a Message"

I've been reading for FantasyLiterature.com for a couple of months now. At first, I wasn't sure how easy it would be to adhere to their rating system. I tend to be an overly expressive, enthusiastic person--hey, my hero is Leslie Knope!--and I worried that I would be tempted to give out the coveted 5-star rating like Halloween candy. 

But it's turned out to be very easy, and not just because I've read some real stinkers. To put it simply, the books to which I award 5 stars have made me cry.

Not just some little verklempt tears at an especially touching scene, but a full-on lay my head down weep after I turn the last page. The kind of cry when you're overcome by the goodness of the world; when you want the book to go on and on; when you feel, for a glimmering moment, like you might want to try and be a better person.

The three 5-star novels that I've read recently are Lev Grossman's MAGICIANS trilogy (mostly the last one, The Magician's Land, but the themes and plot I talk about span all three novels), Katherine Addison's The Goblin Emporer, and Gregory Maguire's forthcoming Egg and Spoon. 

These three books have a lot of things in common. They each portray the coming-of-age of a young person. Each employs subtle, layered characterization, not exaggerations or stereotypes. None of the three is fundamentally preachy, although they do have messages that float to the surface. 

Most importantly to me, each novel is life-affirming without portraying life as easy or perfection as attainable. The civilizations and human relations portrayed are realistic and complex, despite being based (at times) in worlds of fantasy. For instance, in The Magician's Land, Quentin realizes that magic entails hard work, not easy times. Egg and Spoon does not gloss over the struggles of the poor in the face of massive wealth and oppression. And the political machinations of The Goblin Emporer are just as subtle and back-biting as they are in the real world. Despite these realities, each protagonist emerges with a positive view of what the world can offer them. In these novels, people are, by and large, good.

This speaks to my biases, certainly. For one thing, they are all (ultimately) feel-good novels. This is not to imply that they are light and fluffy. Quite the opposite, especially with Grossman and Maguire who both show us real human darkness and evil. However, they each end with some measure of joy and hope, as do most of my top-tier books such as Neal Stephenson's Anathem, Woolf's Orlando, and Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. I'm a hopey-changey kind of person [see above re: Leslie Knope], so, no matter how technically impressive, I'm less likely to give a 5-star rating to a book with a negative or nihilistic message.

This isn't a standard I hold to, but more of a pattern I'm identifying. After all, I love Jeff VanderMeer's recent SOUTHERN REACH trilogy, and both Kraken and Perdido Street Station by China Mieville rocked my world. Not that those are negative or nihilistic, but I wouldn't say they're especially hopeful, either. That's not really what they're about. And I prefer Middleton to $hakespeare, and goodness knows there's nothing more pessimistic about goodness than Women Beware Women. 

This predilection could be called naive, and I accept that. There is certainly a lot of stuff in the world to make me question the inherent goodness of humanity, one of the most important tenets of my humanist worldview. And just the phrase "literature with a message" sort of makes my skin crawl, probably because it sounds like the tagline for a cheesy Christian bookstore. This de facto rating system would probably not be popular in a contemporary literature classroom, either. It's not really that cool to look for meaning, although we still do, undercover of other stated agendas. And the way I approach reading might change. Reading Kelly Link lately has made me question why I read, and push against some of my own readerly expectations such as the idea that there has to be a message. 

But rating any work of fiction is subjective. And, for good or ill, I like what I like. So for now, my 5-star ratings are reserved for the books that shake me--in a good way.

The Wheel of Time and Women

As anyone who has heard me go on for an extended period about the Wheel of Time series my boyfriend Wil can tell you, I have strong opinions about the Wheel of Time books, created by Robert Jordan. On one hand, I can't stop reading (and re-reading) them. On the other hand, they're sorta terrible.

So, unlike the time when I promised to review every classic Disney movie and then didn't, I'm going to write a series of posts explaining why the Wheel of Time books are simultaneously so good and so bad, addressing issues ranging from characterization and prose style to Jordan's take on race and gender issues.

Today's post is about women in the Wheel of Time. 

White Tower by Rob Christianson

Women are crucial to the series, as individuals and in groups. One of the most compelling inventions of epic fantasy is the White Tower of the Aes Sedai, which blends all of the raw magical and political power of the Bene Gesserit with the wide-eyed wonderment and growing pains of Harry, Ron, and Hermione as they train at Hogwarts. The Aes Sedai are a group of women who have received training in channeling, which means manipulating elemental forces to alter the world. Because of these powers, they are feared and/or revered across the world. Their headquarters and training ground, the White Tower, has three and a half thousand years of history behind it, and several important prophecies mention its role in the coming apocalypse, the Last Battle.

Basically, it's a huge all-girls' school-slash-abbey for training in magic and world domination. Which. Sounds. Incredible.*

Jordan has spent a lot of time fleshing out the Aes Sedai and the White Tower, giving them rules that both make sense and contribute to the plot, nuanced political factions within the tower, a diverse reputation across the various lands, and lots of cool gadgets. Their history is just as important a part of the Wheel of Time as the history of Rand al'Thor himself (the legendary savior called the Dragon Reborn) and the end of the series makes it clear that they will continue to guide the world even after the Last Battle. They are so central that you could rewrite the entire series just from the p.o.v. of the White Tower and its members, and not really lose a lot of plot. (IMO, that would be a better series, but I'll talk more about that as we go.)

The Aes Sedai are just the most prominent group of women influencing events in the Wheel of Time. They are joined by the equally impressive, charismatic Aiel Wise Ones, the Kin, and the Windfinders and Wavemistresses of the Atha'an Miere. 

Individual women in the Wheel of Time are also strong, brave, powerful, and important. I'm hard-pressed to think of any of the major female characters who only serves as a prop for a male character; they all have complicated inner lives and motivations.*

Picture by Seamus Gallagher

My favorite (everyone's favorite?) is Egwene al'Vere, who is basically the BAMFiest BAMF of all time. She's accomplished and talented. She faces danger when she teaches herself how to dreamwalk, works hard when she trains as an an Aiel Wise Woman while she's training for the White Tower, and puts up with no shit from anyone when she becomes the youngest Amyrlin Seat ever. She also has great inner strength, a reserve which she draws upon and intentionally deepens whenever she encounters difficulty, such as being manipulated by older counsellors in the Hall of the Tower, being captured by enemy forces, or tortured by rival Aes Sedai. 

But Egwene is not just a bad-ass woman, with the hardness and emotional emptiness that often accompanies that stereotype. Jordan lets us see her insecurities, her vulnerability, her growing sense of purpose and calling, as she struggles between her personal relationships and her duty as Amyrlin Seat. 

So . . . all of that sounds great, you say. Where does Jordan go wrong?

While his women are awesome, strong, fully-realized characters, he also plays on the most overused, banal gender stereotypes imaginable to create them. For instance, the idea that women are super dramatic, emotional vomit machines.

A great example of this are the Aes Sedai. One of the hallmarks of this group is that they have great emotional control. Their faces are smooth and give nothing away, an affect which is very intimidating for any Muggle-types treating with them. We are told this fact about them many times. So, that's how they are in action, right?

Oh yeah, EXCEPT for literally ANY TIME they are "on screen," when Jordan can't wait to tell you how much drama was going on and how shocking it was to see the famed unreadable Aes Sedai displaying emotions by any number of verbal or physical tics such as: gasping, crying, staring daggers, making a face, yelling, snarling, cursing, smoothing a skirt, twisting a skirt, bunching up your fists in a skirt (lots of skirt-related drama), etc. Even the WoT Wiki recognizes this, as it defines women as: "People who sniff, stare, smooth their skirts, and fold their arms under their breasts, and other stuff also, but mostly that."

Nynaeve by Jeremy Saliba

Nynaeve's ever-loving braid pulling is the most extreme example of the emotional-vagina syndrome in the Wheel of Time. Nynaeve is already supposed to be a pretty high-strung person, ("even for a woman," I hear Jordan saying from Epic Fantasy Heaven right now) but whenever she gets mad, she pulls and tugs at her braid. There are approximately 407 references to her pulling her braid in the entire series; she is mad almost all the time. Cause, women, right?

The other fun gender stereotype that Jordan draws on is the somewhat muzzy idea of "femininity."

This comes out in the way women control their half of the Source, the force that keeps the world turning and allows them to manipulate the elements. Because men can channel, too, in the Wheel of Time. Early in the series, they don't channel as much as women (we'll get to why next time) but they can access the Source. And when they access it, they fight it, like a raging fire. It almost consumes them, and they battle it for dominance every time they tap into its power.

But women . . . no, women don't get power by fighting, strength, or brute force, no sirree. That would be unfeminine. Women flow. For women, channeling involves flowing with the Source as if it's a river. It involves imagining themselves as a flower opening to the sun. Primarily, it involves surrender. Geez, who wrote this, Robin Thicke?

I can't even get into all the ick I feel about those images being connected to the idea of a woman's power. If I try, I just sound like a freshman whose mind has just been blown by their first women's studies course. Suffice it to say, the connotation of women as a delicate flower and the necessity of surrender ("In magic as in love, grasshopper") is overplayed and pretty cheesy here. 

What's the takeaway? For me, it's this. Jordan's series tries real hard to be feminist. You don't create a world in which women control most of the magic for centuries, in which half of the nations we encounter are ruled by women, and in which the central organization for both magic and politics is run entirely by women, and not have some kind of feminist message. And, in some respects, it succeeds beautifully. If I ever write fan fiction, it's gonna be White Tower fan fiction. But the strength of Jordan's message and his storytelling was undercut by his own gender biases, as will be even more clear when I talk next about masculinity and the Wheel of Time. 

*It's like the concent from Neal Stephenson's Anathem, except just with women! Aghghghgh!

*I dunno, except maybe for Min? I feel bad saying it, because I like her a LOT more than I like some of the other aggressively "sassy" lady-type characters, but she may just be a prop for Rand. Dang.

Books (other than scholarly) I read in 2011

Sometimes I need to remember that I love to read.

Here, in recognition of that fact, are as many as I can remember of the (non-scholarly) books I read (for the first time) in 2011:

• The Magicians; The Magician King, Lev Grossman: These two books might be the best fantasy I read all year. Narnia, Harry Potter, eat your heart out. This is adult fantasy (and not in the just-off-Highway-11 way, either)
• Bluebeard, Kurt Vonnegut: Loved it, really weird and good and redemptive; the last few scenes were amazing. 
• Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut: It was good, but I liked Bluebeard better, honestly.
• Absurdistan, Gary Shteyngart: This book was hilarious and the main character pathetic, in all senses of that word.
• The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald: I cannot believe I made it this far without reading this, but after reading it, I felt transcendent. This book deserves its place in the canon.
• A Dance with Dragons, George R. R. Martin: Meh. It was okay. The Bran parts were my favorite. I sort of liked where Daenerys' story ended up, too. Obviously I was going to read it, but it wasn't awesome by any means, and in parts it was sort of a slog.
• The Wise Man's Fear, Patrick Rothfuss: Great followup to his first novel. Right up there with Grossman for best fantasy read of the year.
• Quicksilver, Neal Stephenson: Engrossing, informative, but a bit confusing. I got bogged down so I didn't finish the series, but I probably will someday, since Stephenson is a literary genius and he wrote my favorite book in the entire world (which I am now reading for the third time, thankyouverymuch.)
• The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, Catherynne M. Valente: Super. Weird, satisfactory, a little twee but in a good way.
• Deathless, Catherynne M. Valente: Darker than the other, but still good. I felt a real desire to go to Russia after reading this book. Also, I was hungry. (She writes about food a lot.)
• My Antonia, Willa Cather: I miss Nebraska. This book was good. Not as much of a revelation as the Great Gatsby, though.
• Barchester Towers, Anthony Trollope: Good, sort of a cross between Eliot and Dickens. Not as emotional as the former or as hilarious as the latter, though.
• Good Omens, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett: Oh yeah. Read it twice. Not sure how to put my finger on the nature of this collaboration . . . is it more Pratchett or Gaiman? . . . they do it so seamlessly and it works so very well. 
• Thief of Time, Terry Pratchett: Very good, but this is one of those that doesn't stand alone as well as some others. I felt the need for more background. Oh well, time to Discworld in order, I guess!
• Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett: The first Pratchett book I've read that I felt was too long (and I've read like 10+ of them). 
• The Yiddish Policeman's Union, Michael Chabon: Hilarious and dark. A great alternative history. 
• Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman: Good but not as good as . . . 
• American Gods, Neil Gaiman: Really well-crafted, dark, and doing something that I have felt for a long time needs to be done for America.
• Monsters of Templeton, Lauren Groff: Holy cow, this book was great and a real surprise. A contemporary literary novel with a real monster in it, and such a tender, delicate monster!
• Towers of Midnight, Brandon Sanderson and Robert Jordan: I like Sanderson better than Jordan. This, like GRRM, is just one of those I had to read because it's finishing a series I'm invested in. However, these books have less art and more annoyances than GRRM, by a long shot. Sanderson does a good job of toning those down while still staying true to Jordan's vision. Finally! Wheel of Time is coming to a close!
• A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson: Wow. I so enjoyed this book. I do not, however, remember much of what I read. Bryson provides so many facts, theories, and anecdotes that, while I'm sure I'm smarter after reading it, I'm not sure how to prove that.

As you can see, my reading breaks down roughly: 70% SF/F, 20% classic literature, 10% stuff my boyfriend recommends. I expect that, once prelims are over, I will get back on that SF/F train again with the brick of a book, REAMDE, by Neal Stephenson. My friend Scott has floated the idea of me doing a podcast about literature, so I think I'm going to do one on  sci-fi/fantasy where I undergo a (perhaps slightly less) rigorous reading schedule as if I'm reading for a SF/F prelims, reading both seminal primary and secondary works in the field, and then comment on what I've been reading in a weekly podcast.

Narrative Therapy

I have finally made a tentative prelims list. It's three pages long right now and might get longer as I run it by my other committee members. I feel like crying almost every day when I think about how long it is and how dumb I am. BUT! Like I've said before, the point of this exercise is to gain expertise. Of course I don't have the expertise already, otherwise I wouldn't need to study for prelims. Right? Right. Pass the Kleenex.

My recent trip reading/entertainment has been going really well. Earlier complaints still stand, but I am learning so much from Stephen Greenblatt's book Will in the World. Reading about early modern England in such a laid-back, narrative form is helping me remember and contextualize facts much more easily than reading extremely specific academic articles. Each chapter, while purporting to focus on one narrow aspect of $'s life, also explicates a larger aspect of Elizabethan culture. I'm learning about the religious atmosphere of the time, expectations for romantic relationships between husbands and wives, and, lately, criminal activity and consequences in London.

Along with Dat 'Blatt, I've also been watching The Tudors. Yeah, yeah, it's not completely historically accurate. Don't worry--I don't plan on writing any papers where I support my arguments with examples taken from a TV show. (Or, at least not in early modern drama; I will probably write a paper about Game of Thrones sometime soon. For fun. Because writing academic papers is so fun.) But seriously, watching The Tudors is, again, helping me to remember and contextualize who people are. For instance, why are so many people named Thomas during this time? Thomas Cromwell, Thomas Cranmer, Thomas More, Thomas Wyatt . . . geez. And they don't go by Tommy, or Tom-Bo, or Big T either. So, if anything, by the time I finish watching The Tudors, I should have all my Thomases figured out.

Speaking of all the Thomases, why wasn't a king of England ever named Thomas? Is it the doubter stigma? After the Norman invasion, they're named William, Henry, Richard, Edward, James, Charles, and George. I wonder why those names became regal while perfectly normal names like Christopher, Samuel, Dylan, and Theodore were not. Even today, the three men in line for the throne are named, in order: Charles, William, and Henry.

Finally, the Neal Stephenson book Quicksilver is a lot more helpful to me than I initially supposed. It's largely set in Restoration and Interregnum England and Enlightenment Europe, but I'm getting kings and queens and takeovers and factions sorted in my head, which retroactively helps sort some of the earlier stuff, too. Also, I'm learning all kinds of awesome stuff about the history of science or, as they called it, "natural philosophy." Many natural philosophers are characters in the book: Newton, Hooke, Liebniz, John Wilkins, Benjamin Franklin, etc. As their theories are explained through the voice of a contemporary narrator, older scientific theories are displaced, many of which were in vogue in the early modern period.

At any rate, though, my life of ease and fun, light reading is at an end. I read More's Utopia today and found it better than I had supposed, but still sleep-inducing. Ah, well.

Open Letter to Neal Stephenson

Dear Mr. Stephenson,

I am an avid reader and lover of books. Like many bibliophiles, when asked "What's your favorite book," I squint my eyes, sigh, gesture ineffectually, and attempt to explain how books are like clouds or children or sexual experiences and that one can never really pick an all-time favorite. But the truth is, I have tiers of favorite books.

Books that I have loved: too numerous to list.

Books that have influenced my mental and emotional and imaginative growth: These are listable, but really, is a fan letter the place for that? What do you care? Let's give it a ballpark and say there are about 50.

Books that have shifted my mental landscape irretrievably, to which I return again and again and still reap the rewards of reading: A year ago, there were two. Now there are three: The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien, A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard, and your book Anathem.

I haven't read all of your works, or even your most famous books. I'm currently reading the Baroque Trilogy. I'm currently writing a paper on The Diamond Age. And I've read Anathem twice. And each book is so awesomely different.

I love Terry Pratchett, and I could never do what he does. But you read a Terry Pratchett book, and you know you're reading a Terry Pratchett book. There's a pattern, a rhythm to the jokes and images and plots that, even if you can't predict it ahead of time, when you look back, you say, Yes. That fits with all the other stuff I've read by him. But your books don't read this way. They share themes, of course, but experiencing each one is like moving to a new country or a new planet. Toto, we're not on Discworld anymore!

Have you ever played a game with yourself, trying to make yourself uncomfortable but not terrified? Maybe you drive around, trying to lose yourself on unfamiliar streets, hoping that you'll still be able to find the way home. Maybe you're in the ocean and you swim out past where you can touch the bottom. Your heart beats, you're thrilled and alive and extremely uncomfortable. The thing about your writing is that each book pushes my mind into terra nonfirma and makes me sit there a while. The land does not eventually become solid for me. The streets are too strange; the water is too deep. I wouldn't say, even after writing a paper on The Diamond Age, that I totally get what the book is trying to do. But my mind becomes more brave each time I play the game.

Thank you for sharing all of this with all of us.

Exhilaratedly yours,

A Fan

Summer Readin'

I'm leaving for my first summer trip on Wednesday. I'm spending a week at Panama City Beach with my parents, driving up to Kalamazoo, Michigan for conference, and then hanging around Berrien Springs and Chicago for general visiting. I'll ending by visiting Tupelo, Mississippi for a high-school graduation. I'll be gone for about two and a half weeks, and log over 2,200 miles of driving.

And, of course, I need reading to bring along. But I don't really want to start the hard-core prelim reading on a trip. I mean, that's just silly, right?

So, instead, I've gotten some more fun reading to bring along. And, like the smart cookie I am, I made everything *sort of* relate to my prelim reading. Sort. Of.

1) Stephen Greenblatt's "Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare." This book is pretty dumb so far. I mean, in the introduction, Greenblatt says that Shakespeare's writing makes him seem more like a god than a mortal. Yikes. Okay, Greenblatt, you and Harold Bloom go stand over there, and the rest of us will have adult conversation.

But Greenblatt is a well respected scholar, even if this particular book is . . . um . . . how to put this . . . imaginative. And I figure, it can't hurt to read some pop scholarship that sort of immerses me in the world of early modern England.

2) Neal Stephenson's "Quicksilver," the first volume of the Baroque Cycle. This is historical fiction, set in late 17th century England, France, and America, focusing on knowledge, communication, cryptography, etc.. Again, immersing myself in a world that, if not Jacobean early modern England, arose from was influenced by those political and cultural contexts. Okay, I know it's a stretch. But it's Stephenson. He's magic. I know my mind will be expanded by this.

3) Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything." Of course it relates. It's history! Of everything! And also, it has a lot of science stuff in it, which, while not directly relevant to my major project, might be helpful later . . . because animals are science, right?

I haven't thought of any other books to bring, but I might get another audio book, if I can find a good one. The library has a two-part series about Dante, who seems like someone I should probably know about, right? But it's only a seven-day rental.

Anyways, I'm proud of myself for getting mostly smart books, and not crap fantasy like I usually do. It's time to buckle down and read serious stuff (no more RoJo, for starters). It is strange to look at the process ahead of me and think about the result at the other end.  I am about to become a learnéd person, a classically well-read person, an expert of sorts. I don't feel that way at all right now, and I probably won't feel that way at the end of it. But it sounds fun, to dedicate myself to reading in one field and to get super-smart in that area. Yay!