Finally Finished DFW's Infinite Jest...

BOOM.

Thence, of course, answering the question of "What did you do this weekend?" Nothing less than puzzle through questions of entertainment and addiction and consumerism and dependence and contemporary culture, and of course tennis. Lots and lots of tennis. This monolithic, immense, gargantuan, verbose novel is one I've been wanting to read for a while, and I'm glad schoolwork (and fast-approaching deadlines) made me buckle down and do it!

Now, to turn to final papers and the last three weeks of the term. You dear readers might not hear very much from me until then; I'm going into hibernation mode. Or "study cave" mode, as I like to put it.

An (Actual) Academic Update

February just marches along, doesn't it?

I spent the weekend in Oxford again, doing schoolwork, although I got to meet up with a deaf British woman from Manchester on Saturday -- she's worked in high-level jobs before in the British foreign service (which is how I met her, through a foreign embassy official I met in DC before coming to Oxford), and is now dedicating most of her energy to working toward greater access and equality for people with disabilities in the UK, particularly in the workforce. We chatted about access, equality, and the existing barriers to those two things in the US and the UK and worldwide, and I got to learn more about lipspeaking (a method of access that she uses, based on lipreading and different from sign language interpreting) with her lipspeaker who came along to Oxford. Fascinating stuff, and combined with several brunch/coffee/dinner dates with friends it made for an enjoyable but busy weekend.

Another view from another day in another library

Now the week has brought its usual flurry of working on reading and schoolwork while catching up with friends and taking care of miscellaneous other commitments. I'm feeling just about back to normal after the accident, or close enough, and have been easing back into the gym and into some yoga and more, yes, speedwalking about town -- how glorious it feels to have my body back again! I've been reminded not to take these things for granted, which is a good perspective to have, and even things that can get tiring -- such as spending all day in the library, for instance -- I need to treat as a gift. Fortunately, however, I'm working on some academic projects at the moment that really excite me, and since several readers of this blog have told me that I don't write nearly often enough about school (supposedly my primary reason for being here in Oxford), here are a few tidbits of that:

My major project of the week has been wading my way through David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, a true behemoth of a novel that lives up to all the hype about it -- both good and bad. It's mind-blowing and staggering in its genius (yes, I would call it genius, as one of the works that helped define a generation and a time in American literature, as overwritten as it is at times), but also mind-blowingly and staggeringly dense and excessive. I've nearly made it halfway through, with a week left to read the rest, and am already planning on writing about the character Mario Incandenza and the whole concept of the crippled/physically limited artistic muse and the wide range of linguistic registers that Wallace uses to describe those things. Along with Wallace's essay collection Consider the Lobster, my mind is a bit full of footnotes and explosive sentences and quirky specialized-cum-slang vocabulary and other Wallace-isms these days. I'm learning to enjoy the guy more and more, I admit, and as much time as I'm spending on Infinite Jest I also admit that it's a thoroughly worthwhile experience.

Infinite Jest isn't all, however. I've also been looking at e-books and digital editions of texts for a material methodology course, focusing specifically on a 2011 iPad app version of T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" by Touch Press and Faber & Faber. The app raises questions about the performativity of texts and modernist poetry (or modernist writing in general), the intended audience for multimedia apps like this one, and the ways in which the reading experience changes when one encounters such a seminal work as "The Waste Land" in digital form versus in a more traditional book. As much of a hard-copy book purist as I am, I've had some fun flipping through the app during the last week and thinking of all the questions I could ask about it. I find it incredible to think about all the ways in which digital publishing could change the reading landscape, and I've never taken the opportunity to write about it (in such a case-study mode) before.

There's also been time for other things -- for instance, another Rhodes House meet and mingle on Friday night

Finally, there's my dissertation. More of it will follow after I've finished the term and these two major papers on Wallace and digital publishing, but in short I'm looking at Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury and McCullers's The Heart is a Lonely Hunter to try to determine the role that disabled characters play in the novels' narrative, as well as their placement in the Southern gothic (slash grotesque) tradition in general. Disability seems to me here to be a problem of linguistic representation or linguistic access, and also a problem of oversimplification (in which one character becomes more remarkable for his/her metaphorical significance for the narrative, by virtue of his/her disability and what that represents, than he/she does for other character traits or three-dimensionality). There's been a lot of theorizing about the Southern gothic and grotesque traditions (and oftentimes a lot of overlap between those two terms), and I think understanding this exact representation of disability through language can help add another layer to determining the exact function of the grotesque. Does it need to be physical, can it be linguistic, what is its overall aesthetic, et cetera. This is all very rough, but it means that I get to continue reading more works of fiction and more critical theory on the subject, which I'm looking forward to. After classes are done this term, I'll have all of Trinity term (i.e., until the end of June) to work on this dissertation project. Prepare for more days in the library…

And, now, back to my work in the library instead of procrastinating by giving updates on what I ought to be working on. (But, not to worry, my immediate future isn't only in libraries! I'll be in Oxford until the end of the term, just to continue taking care of myself, but then after that I'll be heading off to Turkey, Albania, and Greece at various points of the spring break! Excited, and more on that soon.)

To close: a very wet, very colorful Oxford sunset

Reporting from Deep Within a Library Somewhere...

Hola! This correspondent has little to report from the last few days, except that gloomy Oxford weather does make for good studying indeed. Though we did have one or two days of sun! (I am becoming very British in my preoccupations with the weather.) I've been working on dissertation reading, other class reading, some research for the end-of-term papers coming up, and even some personal writing (yahoo!), but all that means more time spent in libraries and cafes than I'd like to admit. After falling behind earlier in the term, I've had to sprint to catch up and be where I would like to be. It's been a little frustrating, but onward!

That said, I won't bore any of my dear readers with details of my recent study spree (but if you'd like to talk about topics as diverse as enhanced ebook publishing or the blurred lines between autobiography and fiction, or about David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest or the problems of language and narrative in William Faulkner, by all means shoot me an email; happy to comply). Instead, here are some views from around Oxford during the last week or so -- it's a little laughable that I took all of them en route to (or inside) some library or another, but there you go. The library tour continues, and there are many pretty study spots here.

En route to the St. John's library through the beautiful Canterbury Quad -- with sun!

Detail of Canterbury Quad, with stone grotesques. I have to remind myself to stop and soak in these quirky Oxford details sometimes.

One of Oxford's most iconic sights, the Radcliffe Camera, looking gorgeous on another sunny morning. (Yes, I usually only pull out my camera when it is sunny… false advertising, sorry not sorry.)

And my newly discovered study spot for the morning, the gorgeous reading room in the Taylor Institution Library near the Ashmolean museum. What a book lover's dream!

House Hunters, Episode 1

I'm back in a normal routine, more or less, which means that I'm back to drinking copious amounts of tea and sitting in cafes for study dates and doing a lot of reading and glaring out at the rain falling steadily from grim skies. It's been pretty incessant over the last few days, along with some gusts of wind -- this is the UK, after all. Nothing new about complaining about the weather here. Even if I've been entertaining myself with all the adjectives with which to describe it, mostly consisting of words such as hideous, gross, disgusting, soul-crushing, etc.

But how good normalcy can feel, even normal complaining about British weather, and even if I'm not 100% to "normal" yet. (I'm accepting 90% as close enough at this point.) I'm a bit worried about catching up with all this schoolwork, getting ahead on my reading again, and writing a few big term papers and starting my dissertation, and have also not been feeling so great about avoiding physical activity/intensive exercise as I attempt to rest up and let my back recover fully -- working out is one surefire way to beat the winter doldrums with all this rain, after all! I've been feeling fidgety and at times annoyed with my recent need to take it easy. The good part, though, is I've had continued good company and plenty of things to keep me busy. This past week and weekend, that meant our very own Oxford episode of House Hunters!

Right now, I am living in a college room at St. John's, which has easily the best and cheapest student housing in Oxford. It's a nice room in a very nice, new building on the main grounds of the college, with my own bathroom and a little kitchenette down the hall. I haven't gotten a bike yet because everything around Oxford is nearby and easily walkable. And, once again, it's very cheap especially compared to other college housing options and/or nearby lease options… considering all of this, why would I want to move out of college for next year?

The answer: community. Friendship. Company. Having my own house and couch to lounge on and kitchen to cook in. Not feeling like I'm in a dorm room again (I'm so over that). I've enjoyed living in St. John's this past year, but am even more excited about the prospect of living with friends in a house in Oxford next year -- so, starting last week, a group of Rhodie friends and I set out to look for a place in Jericho, a nice neighborhood in northwest Oxford, near St. John's and also near many of our other friends. I'd never really needed to sort through a serious housing search before, since all students at Stanford live on campus and the housing draw (even if much-hated and full of "drawma") took care of our room assignments, year after year. Same for the summers; I just lived at Stanford or elsewhere. So it was pretty exciting to head out and view different houses in Oxford with friends, to discuss priorities and location and amenities and rent, and also to anticipate having some of these people as roommates. Long story short, we soon discovered that many houses available in Oxford for student letting span the spectrum from run-down and gross to nicer and more expensive. After a few days of searching through too many listings and going to too many so-so viewings, we finally found a good compromise between nice and affordable and signed a lease this past Tuesday. It'll be five Rhodie women (including some of my favorite people here in Oxford) living together in a nice five-bedroom house at the heart of the Jericho neighborhood -- photos coming soon, maybe. I'm excited! And still cannot believe how quickly the time is passing here. Soon it'll be next year already, Year Two at Oxford. Eeeek.

Now, off to class! (And off to more walking through the rain. At least I can walk, hey?)

Creeping into February

How can it be February already? Okay, so the last part of January was a bit of a strange scramble, after which I'm still trying to regain my footing and my normal routine. But at least February means that the days will continue to get longer now, right?

I moved back into my room in St. John's toward the end of this past week and have been using the weekend to get back into normal-person things. Such as going out to coffee shops and actually, you know, studying, now that the aftereffects of the concussion have started to recede. And meeting friends around town. And going to a friend's crowded but still fun birthday party on Friday night. All of the activity leaves me feeling more physically and mentally tired than usual, and I have moments when I fall into a bit of brooding, but I'm on the up and up. I've continued to have great company, though -- and have also gotten into the next Oxford adventure, namely looking for housing for next year with a group of friends. (Never has the Stanford housing draw seemed any simpler, compared to sorting out properties and prices and options in the immediate Oxford area.) We're hoping to live in the popular Jericho neighborhood in north Oxford, near St. John's, and have gone to see a few options already. None are exactly what we're looking for (to put it lightly), so the episode of "House Hunters" continues!

I also suppose it's a good sign that I'm starting to look ahead and plan for future weeks and future trips and future adventures with friends for the rest of this academic year, even if I think I'll wind up sticking around Oxford until the end of this term for the most part. I'm already itching to get back out and plunge into being fully active again, but will need to give myself a bit more time before that happens. With the cold and the gloom and the rain, it's all a good reminder not to take anything for granted. February might be a bumpy month of giving myself time and playing catch-up and coping with that annual bit of winter doldrums, but I'll get myself through it. Books and tea and conversation are as good a consolation as ever. Onward!