Review: Fifty Shades Darker

Which shall henceforth be known as Fifty Shades Better.

It is shockingly, amazingly better than the first.  Better written - I didn't feel a need to keep a list of the very worst quotes just to maintain my sanity - and its depictions of independence, bodily autonomy, and gender roles are far less horrifying, even approaching rational.  It turns out that reading only the first book is the worst thing you could do (sadly, I think most people only do read the first book).  A lot of the necessary criticisms about the unhealthy relationship idealized in the first book are addressed, even reversed, in book two.  It became clear, partway into book two, that the trilogy was conceived as a single book, much like Lord of the Rings, such that splitting it up is not only unhelpful but downright deceptive.  Perhaps I'll even read the third book to see where the truly dreadful first book was originally aiming.

Baking and Books: Chocolate Mascarpone Brownies

Forget any brownies I've made before (we certainly have) - these ones take the cake!  A little more labor-intensive than my typical brownies, but completely and utterly worth it.  I made these for a choir party yesterday and they were a perfect addition to our outdoor (rainy) barbeque.

The book is Ann Bridge's Illyrian Spring, which came highly recommended by Rachel, and because I misread her original post, I'm enjoying it far more than I expected.  I've been alternating it with Victor Hugo's Les Miserables (my current bedside book) and several of Brian Jacques' Redwall books, childhood favorites that have helped keep this busy end of the semester calm and enjoyable (and are just as good as I remember, though I notice different things in them as an adult).

On to the brownies!  I've never baked with mascarpone before, but if it makes things taste this good, I'm going to have to search out more things to do with it!


Chocolate Mascarpone Brownies

1 cup unsalted butter
4 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, finely chopped
1 1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder (extra-dark, dutch processed cocoa is best)
1/2 cup mascarpone cheese, softened
3 large eggs, at room-temperature
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup all-purpose flour, sifted
1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 325°F and prepare a 8-9" square pan with a little nonstick spray and line the bottom with parchment.

In a small saucepan, melt the butter over medium low heat. Once melted add the chocolate to the sauce pan and pull off the heat. Give the pan a little jiggle to submerge the chocolate and then allow to stand for a minute then stir until smooth.

Sift the cocoa powder into the chocolate mixture and then add the sugar and salt, mix well and set aside.

In your stand mixer using the paddle attachment, beat the mascarpone, eggs, and vanilla on medium speed until smooth. Pour the butter and chocolate mixture into the mixing bowl and mix until no streaks remain.

Remove the bowl from your mixer and gently fold the flour into the batter. Pour the batter into your prepared pan and spread evenly with an offset spatula.

Bake the brownies for 45-50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Place the pan on a wire rack and allow to cool completely.

Bookish News: The Library of Unborrowed Books

The Library of Unborrowed Books by Meriç Algün Ringborg: an installation of hundreds of books that have never been borrowed from the Center for Fiction’s library.

"The Library of Unborrowed Books bases itself on the concept of the library as an institution manifesting language and knowledge, of the passing of awareness and the openness to all types of people and literature. This work, however, comprises books from a selected library that have never been borrowed. The framework in this instance hints at what has been disregarded, knowledge essentially unconsumed, and puts on display what has eluded us. Why these books aren’t ‘chosen,’ why they are overlooked, will never be clear but whatever each book contains, en masse they become representative of the gaps and cracks of history, or the cataloging of the world and the ambivalent relationship between absence and presence. In this library their existence is validated simply by being borrowed, underlining their being as well as their content and form by putting them on display in an autonomous library dedicated to the books yet to have been revealed."



My husband, the anthropologist, was immediately fascinated by the question of why these books weren't checked out.  Who decided to buy these particular books, and what agenda did this person hold?  Was he or she trying to shape literary taste through the purchase of these books, or was he or she catering to the whim of perceived popular taste?  Many libraries face budgetary crises, so book purchasing is no longer so automatic.  Individual books represent a much more significant investment in the library's growth.

I, however, find myself incredibly taken by the symbolism of these unread books as unconsumed knowledge.  Does the knowledge truly exist if it isn't ever disseminated?  (If a tree falls in a forest...?)  As an academic, I intend to publish books, but I recognize that academia is a small market and that it's likely very few people will ever truly read my work.  Does that make it worthwhile?  If my books sit unread on library shelves, were they worth writing in the first place?  Has my work truly been shared?

This installation makes me desperately want to go to Manhattan and rescue a few of these unloved, unread, unconsumed books.

You can read more about it here.

Medieval autobiographies, letters, and more!

This is one of the reasons I love being a graduate student - periodically, professors who retire or, terribly sadly in this case, pass away, pass along their books to upcoming young scholars.  My husband was working in the Divinity School library the other day as usual when a new cart of free books was put out.  Like the wonderful fellow scholar that he is, he snagged me a copy of a 15th-century primary source that I've quoted in conference papers but have never had the chance to read fully for myself.  I've been dying to read The Book of Margery Kempe and thanks to him, now I own a copy (and in modern spelling, no less!)  When I came to meet him later, I found a few other books on the cart that will be either useful for my research or just really interesting summer reads.

 Three of them are part of a standard series on the history of England, but the other three are less textbook-y.  I debated whether to bother posting these finds on my blog - after all, most of my readers probably aren't terribly interested in a book like "English Society in the Early Middle Ages" - but then I realized that despite their age, several of these books actually might be of interest to book bloggers.  Who among us doesn't love a good autobiography or set of letters?  Well, The Book of Margery Kempe is the earliest known English autobiography and a fascinating look into the life and faith of a medieval woman.  The Pastons: The letters of a family in the Wars of the Roses promises both historical interest and an intimate portrait of domestic life.  Finally, Christine de Pisan's The Treasure of the City of Ladies is an early 15th-century book directed at women, a sort of etiquette guide and survival manual for the practical realities of living as a female in a patriarchal society.

My summer reading list is enormous but I will cheerfully add these three to the pile!  And in about a week, my summer will officially commence!  Until then, I just have to turn in seminar paper #2, finish edits on paper #3, and turn my detailed outline into paper #4.  Best of luck to everyone finishing up their semesters.  Does anyone have any fabulous summer plans?  What do you hope to read this summer?

A Saturday morning in Durham

As the semester winds to a close, I find myself constantly working.  I awake each day planning the hours I can use to write papers and prep presentations.  I'm actually relatively on top of things, so I'm not terribly stressed out, but paper-writing will hang over my head as a constant obligation for the next three weeks or so.  Which is why it's important to also take time to step away from the work and away from campus.  The farmer's market on Saturday mornings has become one of my husband's and my favorite activities, a place to get away from our academic selves and enjoy time together choosing delicious food for the week, a chance to feel connected to our community outside the limits of the university.  Now that it's spring, a lot of new vegetables have come into season, and I'm absolutely delighted by the beets, brussels sprouts, asparagus, and strawberries.  We're also planning to start growing herbs in our window boxes, so one of these weekends, we'll come home with a tray full of little herb plants.  Furthermore, there's absolutely wonderful breakfast to be had downtown - if not from the bakers who sell at the farmer's market or the food trucks nearby, from one of the many coffee shops or bakeries downtown.

Today was a particularly wonderful morning in downtown Durham.  Not only did we come home with fresh strawberries (I see a strawberry pie in my near future), asparagus, tomatoes, and potatoes, we also came home with books!  The Durham Public Library is having its semi-annual sale this weekend.  You may recall my excitement last semester when I found the sale quite unexpectedly and brought home a number of Viragos.  This time, I knew about the sale in advance (and may have been counting down the days...but hey, when you're an overworked graduate student, you have to have something non-academic to look forward to!)  I even persuaded my husband to come along, and he enjoyed browsing the religion and sociology sections.  As usual, the music and history sections yielded nothing useful for my research, but the fiction section is always bound to have something interesting.

Disappointingly, there were almost no Viragos to be had.  No green spines jumped off the shelf.  Happily, there were a couple of black Viragos.  Two of these were Antonia White's Frost in May, which I already own.  The other, E.H. Young's The Misses Mallett, promised a Jane Austen-style comedy about English spinsters, so it promptly jumped into my bag.  Since adoring Wives and Daughters, I've been trying to pick up additional books by Elizabeth Gaskell, so this copy of Ruth similarly caught my eye.  And then, I branched out a little, and bought Russian novels for the first time.  Between the many people recommending Anna Karenina to me lately - the recent film must have put it more in the public eye - and a dear friend who is currently in Moscow researching her dissertation on the history of tea culture in Russia, I've been meaning to put aside my fear of the enormous Russian novels.  Once I finish Hugo's Les Miserables, my current bedside table book, I will start either War and Peace or Anna Karenina.  Finally, the nondescript brown book is a copy of Cassell's Latin dictionary.  It's awfully foolish to be a scholar of sacred music but unable to do my own Latin translations, so I'm taking two Latin classes this summer.  This edition is older, so it doesn't have the handy tabs to help you jump from letter to letter, but I'm fairly sure the content is the same...after all, Latin hasn't changed that much in recent years!

Baking and Books: Double Chocolate Cookies

It's Holy Week!  Which means that my life just got extraordinarily busy (though far less so than when I was a staff singer in St. Louis).  For once, schoolwork is not my top priority this week.  To kick off this new mindset, I took some time this afternoon to bake cookies for my Vespers group tonight - we sing Latin Vespers in Gregorian plainchant and then share dinner together.  I've been so busy this semester that I've rarely made it, but tonight, I'm definitely going.  It's Palm Sunday, and that's more important than an extra hour or two to avoid doing homework.  And happily, I got enough writing done yesterday to feel good about my progress this weekend.

This was my first time making this recipe, and they turned out quite lovely.  I'm especially fond of the coarse salt sprinkled on top.  I made these with white chocolate chips instead of semi-sweet, to use up the last of them.

It's hard to see the title of the book I'm reading - that's because this library copy is a 1944 first edition.  I'm not sure I've ever read an old first edition before; it makes this reading experience that much more special.  Plus, being an old book, the spine is loose and the pages will stay open by themselves, so I was able to keep reading while I folded two loads of laundry last night.  It's Margery Sharp's Cluny Brown, which I requested from the library on a whim after reading Thomas's review.  It's even better than he said!  Utterly delightful.  I'm a little disappointed that it is no longer readily available, because I'd love to own a copy myself.

I know a lot of the country is still facing winter weather.  Even here in Durham, temperatures have been in the 40s for the last couple of days, which is highly uncharacteristic for this time of year.  These cookies are delicious, easy to make, and super cozy: just right for a cold, drizzly afternoon.  Why not try them out?  If you do, let me know what you think, and whether they're good with regular chocolate chips.

Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) cold, unsalted butter, cubed
1 1/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup cocoa powder
2 1/4 cups flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
2 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
Coarse salt (Kosher or sea salt)

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the butter and sugar. Beat together on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes.

Blend in the eggs one at a time, scraping down the bowl as needed. Mix in the cocoa powder until well blended. Add the flour, salt and baking powder to the bowl and mix on low speed just until incorporated. Fold in the chocolate chips with a spatula.

If necessary, transfer the dough to a work surface and knead briefly by hand to be sure the ingredients are well combined. Roll each portion of dough into a ball and flatten just slightly into a disc. Sprinkle with coarse salt.

Place on the prepared baking sheets, a few inches apart. Bake 16-20 minutes. Let cool on the baking sheets 5-10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Review: Villette

Villette is a much harder book than Jane Eyre.  It is significantly darker in tone, with a clinically depressed protagonist of questionable veracity.  Lucy is not really as passionless or as passive as she makes herself out to be, and at times, her first-person narrative skims over her own outbursts and the moments in which she lashes out at her acquaintances.  And Villette has a deliberately vague conclusion, one that is easily read as tragic – but tragic for whom?  It’s up for debate (and a number of English scholars have indeed debated it).  I don’t want to spoil the entire novel by revealing the ending, but suffice it to say that beyond Villette’s theological themes, I spent the most time contemplating the ending, and I even looked up a few essays on it.  Though dense and slow-moving, this novel is beautifully written and well worth the time.

Villette is the only one of Charlotte Brontë’s novels that is not named for a character (Jane Eyre, Shirley, The Professor) but for a place: the fictional town of Villette, based on Brussels.  So already we have a book that is very different than the England-based Jane Eyre.  Englishwoman Lucy Snowe, an orphan due to unspecified reasons (possibly a shipwreck?), finds herself alone and desperate for an occupation, so she ends up teaching English at a girls’ boarding school in Villette.  Lucy is an outsider, longing for England, “that dear land of mists” (141). 

Villette’s themes, political, religious, and psychological, are very much a product of the novel’s historical context: nationalism, imperialism, and slavery; conflict between Lucy’s dour and prim English Protestantism which leans extremely Puritan and the extravagant continental Catholicism; physiognomy and changing perceptions of race; and isolation and clinical depression.  All of these conflicts are bound up together.  For example, Lucy struggles for self-respect among her students, who not only lack self-respect themselves but welcome a teacher’s sarcastic blow to their own dignity.  They only warm to Lucy after she makes them feel shamed.  Lucy muses on the difference between them and English children (and incidentally, this was the quote I displayed when I took Villette as part of my exhibit for the book-collecting contest):

Imprimis – it was clear as the day that this swinish multitude were not to be driven by force.  They were to be humoured, borne with very patiently: a courteous though sedate manner impressed them; a very rare flash of raillery did good.  Severe or continuous mental application they could not, or would not, bear: heavy demand on the memory, the reason, the attention, they rejected point-blank.  Where an English girl of not more than average capacity and docility, would quietly take a theme and bend herself to the task of comprehension and mastery, a Labassecourienne would laugh in your face, and throw it back to you with the phrase, – ‘Dieu que c’est difficile!  Je n’en veux pas.  Cela m’ennuie trop.’ [‘Goodness, this is difficult!  I don’t want to do it.  This really bores me.’] (91-92)

But she also considers the difference between their religions.  She cannot understand why Catholics privilege failing to go to mass as a greater sin than lying, and when all of the other teachers and students attend evening prayer each night, she takes to wander alone in the garden.  Lucy, and by extension, Brontë, clearly knows her Scripture; Lucy quotes the Bible a lot, often to make associations that you won’t pick up on unless you know more of the stories she alludes to than just the phrase itself.  Most interesting to me was the fact that the fearful apparition that so scares Lucy was a ghostly nun!  That whole thread ended up clarified in a very different manner than I was expecting, but even with the tidy explanation, I think it spoke to a deep-seated suspicion and fear of the Other within Lucy.  Because I had such a focus on the Protestant/Catholic conflict throughout my whole reading experience, I thought the book could have safely ended sooner than it did – towards the end was a remarkably cathartic chapter in which all of these theological differences were resolved on a small scale, when it is determined that Lucy and her Roman Catholic friend worship the same God.  It was a stunning chapter and, to me, a more satisfactory conclusion to the many themes of the book than the actual ending itself.

You’ll note I haven’t actually talked about the plot much.  There’s a lot of thematic discussion packed into this novel, which results in it having a fairly minimal plot despite the nearly 550 pages.  Lucy’s actions and personal growth are important, but not as important as the greater points the book makes.  Villette is a fantastically atmospheric, continually thoughtful, and often terribly sad novel.  Just perfect for winter.  Now I need to find a copy of Shirley or one of Anne’s novels for next winter break’s annual Brontëfest.

Have any of you read Villette before?  What was your response?  Did you focus on different aspects than I did?  If you’ve read it multiple times, did you find that your focus was different each time?