Contemporary Academia in a Nutshell...

...especially now that the nebulous mess called "cultural studies" has all but swallowed English literary studies whole:

Fiction Fragment 2

Here's the second installment of the story I guess I'm working on. As with the first installment, suggestions and comments of any nature are more than welcome. Since I have only a little more of an idea what's going on or where it will go from here than you do, you potentially hold a lot of power over its direction.

***

We circled it, looking for a break in the pattern of stacked and staggered rectangles that might lead us to an idea of its origins or purpose. Finding none, we tried to climb a neighboring tree to try to see its top-- as it was surrounded by thick forest, we could only view it from close, which kept us from seeing how it terminated. Was it an obelisk, a funerary monument for the industrial giant of a lost civilization? Or would we find a statue, a triumphant emperor seated on his steed, made immortal and immobile for his heroic achievement in expanding the empire to this remotest of outposts? Or would we find at its summit the thing that in those moments of wonder seemed the least likely of all: nothing whatsoever? But as anyone who has ever tried to climb a birch knows already, the futility of the idea became immediately apparent. There were simply no branches low enough to reach and strong enough to support a man.

The sun was by now well behind the trees and light was beginning to fade. Reluctantly, we moved on from the enigma. We found a clearing nearby, and immediately erected our tent while the lingering daylight still accommodated.

To the north, behind the dark green curtain of the thick wood out of which we had just come, the darkly aged brick of our monument was just visible. We were glad, in the way one might be glad that a black widow is still visible. There was the irrational and unspoken notion among us that while we held it in our vision it would remain a very inexplicable stack of bricks, but that as soon as it was lost from view, anything at all might happen. Visions of midnight masonic rituals or pagan sacrifices danced in our heads. In the low-grade delirium of that evening, it felt like the monolith might move closer to us under cloak of darkness, might tip itself over and crush us in our tent, or might vanish without a trace. Somehow, the last possibility was the most disconcerting.

Still, though, we were glad when it was finally obscured behind the growing gloom. There was nothing comforting about our find, as there might have been about tire tracks or electrical wires. It was man-made, but the men who made it had long since left, apparently, and there was something grotesque in its remaining.

A Fortunate Find

Don't ask me why it didn't happen sooner, but today I found The Window in the Garden Wall--A C.S. Lewis Blog. This blog is based on the beautifully simple idea of posting one bit of Mr. Lewis's writings each day.

And what was the most recent post? The top ten books that influenced C.S. Lewis, from a 1962 article in The Christian Century.

It would be extremely difficult to overstate the importance this has for me. Many years ago (by a youth's standards) I ran across the passage of Surprised by Joy in which Mr. Lewis lists some of the reading material he enjoyed as a schoolboy, and I immediately set out to read as much of it as I could. I only got through Candide, and at the time it was way over my head. The list wasn't ideal though-- it was the list of Jack the schoolboy, not Mr. Lewis the man, which is fine if I wanted to emulate the younger model, but (even then!) I was aiming higher, and I still am.

In Miracles, he recommends reading Symbolism and Belief by Edwyn Robert Bevan, which I'm about halfway through, and Poetic Diction by Owen Barfield, which I'm still looking for.

But those-- the student's list and the spare recommendations-- are small potatoes compared with this find. Check it out, as well as the rest of the blog. You'll at least have a very good idea of what I'll be reading for pleasure in the next long while.

A post regarding my recent adventure is forthcoming, hopefully soon.

Fiction Fragment

I made another timid attempt at creative writing a few days ago. It's very short, as I have zero writerly endurance, and it's only a piece of a possibly much larger whole. Thing is, I have no idea what that whole will be, and that's where you come in. I welcome any suggestions on where to take it from here-- as well as comments and suggestions on what I already have, of course.

***

The pattern in the brickwork seemed to us some faded shrine to a long-forgotten god. He lies face-down under the sand of a distant desert while we scan his only lasting residue-- gray lines on grimey red, supporting nothing, signifying-- what? Some lines went straight as a horizon, others wandered in confusion; but this is wrong, they were all one, for the one that went straight was part of the one that went crooked and fed into the other until all distinctions were forgotten. But even now this is a lie, for the truth is there were no lines-- there was a huge mortar net, thrown by magicians (mathematicians? engineers?) across the surface of a single massive brick, tipped on its end in the middle of the __________.

At least, those were the thoughts that found us as we found ourselves in the shadow of that singular find, beset by hunger and cold and the intolerable memory of a soft, warm bed. It was quite simply a brick monolith among the trees, vying with them for height, around two arm-spans in length and width. Perpendiculars, that was it-- for weeks the only ones we'd seen had been those approximations peculiar to nature. Where a tree met the ground or a branch met the tree, these organic nearly-ninety-degree angles had given us no relief from our thirst for any minute hint of civilization. And now-- and now there it was before us, a completely meaningless chunk of London or New York with all its old-fashioned modernist exactness, crowding the birches and besting their perpendiculars. It was nuts.

****

So that's all I have, just two paragraphs. Clearly, a lot of questions remain to be answered. Who are the "we"? Where are they, besides a very remote place with birch trees, and why are they there? What's the deal with the monolith? Is this the beginning of the story, or some place in the middle? What do they do from here? Which of these questions should actually be answered in the story, and which should be left open? The e-mail and comment lines are open! It's like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, except that you might flip to the page and it'll say "Eh... thanks for the suggestion, but I don't think I'm gonna use it," and then you wait a month or two to find out what does happen next. Don't let that stop you though.

Fr. Neuhaus's Rome Diary

In all the talk about the recent ecclesiastical events in Rome, I've seen no one mention or reference Richard John Neuhaus' Rome Diary at the First Things site. It is-- as it seems everything is that Neuhaus writes-- insightful, entertaining and worth a read, especially if you (still) have an interest in these events.

Here's a tantalizing quote I liked:

There is something deliciously satisfying in watching the more than six thousand reporters accredited to these events, along with their hundreds of satellite trucks and anchorpersons at the ready, being forced to watch a stove pipe for a puff of smoke.

I Know What You're Looking For

You're looking for an easy recipe for good chai tea. And it's a good thing you made it here or you might have been looking for a long time. I've found this one to be very nice and easy, as long as you have a reasonably well-stocked spice cabinet (as I, a college student on the other side of the world from home, certainly...do...?)

Something about my adventure coming up, hopefully soon.

Prepare for Giddiness

This is just a quick post to spread the word: http://www.narnia.com . The Disney marketing juggernaut has started to roll, and it's never been so beautiful.

Wait for the handle to finish turning and make sure your sound is on. If you have dial-up you may be waiting some time, but if you're at all like me you'll be glad you did. Aside from the serious threat this discovery poses to focusing on your essay-writing.

More regarding my adventure hopefully soon (the predicate of this clause is implied), but if you're holding your breath, please stop and have a glass of water and maybe take a nap or a walk if the weather's nice.

UPDATE: Looks like they've made changes to eliminate the long load times. Unfortunately this also eliminates the amazing Flash extravaganza that got me so jazzed originally, but of course the website is still great as it is. Curious, though, that I can't find the original anywhere. The link at the bottom just reloads the same page, for me. Let me know if you find it.