American Troglodyte
Currently reading:
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Killing Me by Michelle Gagnon
I might set Killing Me aside for the time being. To be honest, I’ve found the main character incredibly grating since I started reading, and I have had zero impulse to pick up the book since the new semester started. This is not a The Shards situation.
Books finished this week: 1
★★★★☆
Where this book came from: Barnes & Noble, my first, my last, my everything
Why this book: I definitely purchased Frankenstein not long after watching the movie The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which kicked off my obsession with Victorian and Gothic literature (embarrassing). I filled my shelves with B&N Classics in high school, which I then proceeded to . . . mostly not read——except for Dracula and The Picture of Dorian Gray, because Mina Harker has my heart and Dorian is a little shit. Instead, I read the LXG comics and eventually became obsessed with Penny Dreadful.
Thoughts: To start off, I know this is a grad school book, but I’m counting it toward the Library because it has been a part of the library for probably half my life at this point. Now that we’ve cleared that up, I’m so excited to say that I genuinely enjoyed this book! I had the opportunity to read it in eleventh grade English, but I chose whatever the alternate novel was, because this sounded boring. And, like . . . yeah, it kind of is, at points. Do we really need to know so much about the De Laceys? Also, Victor is insufferable, in a way that sometimes made me mad. And I was fully on board with the Creature until he started demanding a girlfriend and going on and on about how the world was cruel and nothing was his fault—like father, like son, amirite? But, overall, I’m very glad to have finally had the chance to read this, especially while in a class where smarter people can explain things to me.
Library updates:
I saw Here Lies Love with a friend (hi, Tori!) two weeks ago now, and though the show was confusing——not the plot, just the reasons why it exists at all and why the story is presented the way that it is——I’ve had approximately 85% of the soundtrack stuck in my head ever since. Damn you, David Byrne!! I don’t really understand what an “American troglodyte” is, but I am embracing that as my identity.
Anyhow, things aren’t perfect, though I think perhaps they’re improving——or, at least, my mental health is. Incrementally. There are many things I’m frustrated with or not feeling entirely fulfilled by in my life right now, but school is not one of those things. In fact, I wish I was fabulously wealthy, so I could quit my job, give up all responsibilities, and dedicate all my time to reading and writing and furthering my education. I know, it would probably get old pretty fast, with nothing else to do and nothing to compare it to. But it’s a nice daydream when things get tough.
And I’m just thankful to be learning again. I started school again back in May and I got a lot out of the summer, but there’s something about returning to academia in the fall that makes all feel right with the world. I’m so thankful for workshop discussions and for reading even frustrating critical essays on Gothic poems and novels.
The word I keep coming back to is fulfilled, perhaps because I’m not feeling that way in other aspects of my life. It’s making me rethink some things. I would like to find my creativity again, because it seems to have fled——inconvenient, considering I have to submit pages for workshop in another week or two——but I still feel like I’m moving forward on that writing path. I’m learning a lot and really sitting down to pore over books and essays in a way I haven’t since college. It’s making me appreciate reading and writing in a deeper, different way. And it’s making me realize that I deserve to feel like this in as many facets of my life as possible——if not all of them.
Closing thoughts:
Sometimes dreams are just dreams. But sometimes they’re worth thinking about in a little more detail, to see if you can make them a reality.
