At the beginning of my final undergraduate year, I had my initial meeting with my dissertation supervisor – who is also, by an immense stroke of luck, to be my PhD supervisor from October onwards. I think we had a brief conversation about university in general, and I mentioned an autobiographical piece I had written for a creative writing module in 2nd year, and she said she’d be interested to see it. I gave her a copy, and a while later she returned it remarking, with her usual wisdomocity and profoundness, that she found it interesting that I see my life through books. I hadn’t thought of it this way. In the piece (supposed to be a first chapter of an autobiography) I’d talked about this photo that my mother used to bring out at Christmases, with me on my bed, in a My Little Pony nightie, with a pile of books at the end of my bed. This used to happen a lot - I was a short-arse until I got to about 11, and couldn’t reach the end of my bed. I was, apparently, obsessed with my parents reading me a story every night, which was fine when they were Fireman Sam short stories, or chapters from such ace books as ‘The tiger who came to tea’ or ‘Orlando the marmalade cat’. Then I discovered Goosebumps and (shudder) Sweet Valley High. The reading agreement was broken due to the extended length of the expected texts.
As a by-product of four years of studying university-level English and reading books for the sole purpose of extracting something essay-worthy, I have lost my ability to read anything, *anything* uncritically. I’ve had an immense stack of texts to read for the MA, which have been really interesting and have broadened both my academic and reading horizons – but as a result of having to read on average 4 books and several extracts a week, reading became more about timing. I pride myself on having read a 468 page novel in a day. In the midst of Shakespeare, travel writing extracts, and eighteenth-century women poets searching for an authorially-inclined identity, I managed to read 2 non-course books between September and July: ‘Atonement’ and yet another re-read of ‘Little Women’. I also read about 6 chapters of Bill Bryson’s book on Shakespeare, but I didn’t finish that. I was quite amazed about how easily I slipped into the critical mindset: I wasn’t reading ‘Atonement’ for sheer pleasure (though I do love it), I was picking out interesting things about narrator function, representing authorship, depictions of women, etc. The same thing has happened in the last week or so. For some reason, I have developed this urge to read about depressed, suicidal, generally messed-up people. I attended a film screening of ‘Girl, Interrupted’ a few months ago, and I think it was that that set me on this track. I can’t even pinpoint why I’m interested in this. Is interested the right word? It seems fairly masochistic and morbid to be ‘interested’ in suicidal memoirs. Intrigued? I’ve never been even close to depression etc myself, so it may be that. Anyhow, I paid to a visit to the almighty John Rylands university library in Manchester a couple of weeks ago: I took out one dissertation-related book, and three pleasure reading books, one of which was ‘Prozac Nation’ by Elizabeth Wurtzel. I read this in about a week, evenings and work breaks only. I found it fascinating, and strangely perverse to be reading about someone’s *actual* mental breakdown, rather than a fictional depiction. I took some books out from Chester library last week, including ‘The Bell Jar’ by Sylvia Plath. I’d heard it mentioned a lot, but had never read it. I’ve literally just finished it. I enjoyed it: I love Plath’s style of writing. One phrase particularly stuck in my mind: ‘I am, I am, I am’. I love this. It’s going on my list of cool quotations for possible tattooage. But, of course, the critical thinking starts. There are a lot of contrasts to be made between these two books: I’m really interested in the relationship between mental health (or lack of it) and space. In both of these works, the depressed protagonist searches out different physical places (Cambridge MA, New York, London, etc) for various, essentially subconscious, reasons. Another thing that struck me was the role that sex plays: in Wurtzel’s text, the character is a compulsive shagger before she’s integrated into the whole mental health/therapy malarkey. In Plath’s however, ‘Esther’ appears a staunch defender of her right to virginity, and only has sex right at the end, incidentally before she leaves Belsize, the institution masquerading as a country club. Yet another intriguing factor is how both authors begin. Wurtzel depicts herself as sprawled on a bathroom floor, drugged up to block out the depression, while a party booms in her front room. Plath’s Esther is presented to the reader as a highly successful scholarship girl, 15 years of straight As, living the dream in New York with a flight of fashion entrepreneurs eating caviar and downing champers. And one more (finally) cool thing is how depression (Wurtzel ironically dismisses ‘mad’) is related with writing. Both women are writers, and Susanna, in ‘Girl, Interrupted’ is also a writer (I gleaned this from a film screening only, it may not be utterly correct). These are all trains of thought that I’d really like to investigate in the future. ‘Girl, Interrupted’, the text, should be on its way now to the porters lodge for my block of halls, and I’ve also bought the autobiography that the film ‘Patch Adams’ is based on. I thought it would be interesting to see how differently men and women either deal with, or represent, mental disorders. Thank God for Amazon.
As a by-product of four years of studying university-level English and reading books for the sole purpose of extracting something essay-worthy, I have lost my ability to read anything, *anything* uncritically. I’ve had an immense stack of texts to read for the MA, which have been really interesting and have broadened both my academic and reading horizons – but as a result of having to read on average 4 books and several extracts a week, reading became more about timing. I pride myself on having read a 468 page novel in a day. In the midst of Shakespeare, travel writing extracts, and eighteenth-century women poets searching for an authorially-inclined identity, I managed to read 2 non-course books between September and July: ‘Atonement’ and yet another re-read of ‘Little Women’. I also read about 6 chapters of Bill Bryson’s book on Shakespeare, but I didn’t finish that. I was quite amazed about how easily I slipped into the critical mindset: I wasn’t reading ‘Atonement’ for sheer pleasure (though I do love it), I was picking out interesting things about narrator function, representing authorship, depictions of women, etc. The same thing has happened in the last week or so. For some reason, I have developed this urge to read about depressed, suicidal, generally messed-up people. I attended a film screening of ‘Girl, Interrupted’ a few months ago, and I think it was that that set me on this track. I can’t even pinpoint why I’m interested in this. Is interested the right word? It seems fairly masochistic and morbid to be ‘interested’ in suicidal memoirs. Intrigued? I’ve never been even close to depression etc myself, so it may be that. Anyhow, I paid to a visit to the almighty John Rylands university library in Manchester a couple of weeks ago: I took out one dissertation-related book, and three pleasure reading books, one of which was ‘Prozac Nation’ by Elizabeth Wurtzel. I read this in about a week, evenings and work breaks only. I found it fascinating, and strangely perverse to be reading about someone’s *actual* mental breakdown, rather than a fictional depiction. I took some books out from Chester library last week, including ‘The Bell Jar’ by Sylvia Plath. I’d heard it mentioned a lot, but had never read it. I’ve literally just finished it. I enjoyed it: I love Plath’s style of writing. One phrase particularly stuck in my mind: ‘I am, I am, I am’. I love this. It’s going on my list of cool quotations for possible tattooage. But, of course, the critical thinking starts. There are a lot of contrasts to be made between these two books: I’m really interested in the relationship between mental health (or lack of it) and space. In both of these works, the depressed protagonist searches out different physical places (Cambridge MA, New York, London, etc) for various, essentially subconscious, reasons. Another thing that struck me was the role that sex plays: in Wurtzel’s text, the character is a compulsive shagger before she’s integrated into the whole mental health/therapy malarkey. In Plath’s however, ‘Esther’ appears a staunch defender of her right to virginity, and only has sex right at the end, incidentally before she leaves Belsize, the institution masquerading as a country club. Yet another intriguing factor is how both authors begin. Wurtzel depicts herself as sprawled on a bathroom floor, drugged up to block out the depression, while a party booms in her front room. Plath’s Esther is presented to the reader as a highly successful scholarship girl, 15 years of straight As, living the dream in New York with a flight of fashion entrepreneurs eating caviar and downing champers. And one more (finally) cool thing is how depression (Wurtzel ironically dismisses ‘mad’) is related with writing. Both women are writers, and Susanna, in ‘Girl, Interrupted’ is also a writer (I gleaned this from a film screening only, it may not be utterly correct). These are all trains of thought that I’d really like to investigate in the future. ‘Girl, Interrupted’, the text, should be on its way now to the porters lodge for my block of halls, and I’ve also bought the autobiography that the film ‘Patch Adams’ is based on. I thought it would be interesting to see how differently men and women either deal with, or represent, mental disorders. Thank God for Amazon.
