Me and Mrs. Dalloway

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I have got to say up front that Mrs. Dalloway put me through the most difficult reading process I ever made it through (and I have read a lot of academic texts, Egyptian tomb inscriptions and stuff). That was not because it is a bad book. It is because Mrs. Dalloway is not so much a book in the conventional sense with plot and such. It is basically a herd of consciousnesses invading your mind and running rampant. It is often hard to follow whose head you just switched into. It is somewhat like what I imagine being a mind reader must feel like. It's so utterly exhausting; like you wouldn't believe. I had to stop and take a break about every 30 pages and re-motivate myself to move on.

But while it was painful and hard to get through, it was also very rewarding and worth the effort in the end. It is hard to believe that this was first published in 1925. I mean, for example, how could this women so accurately (from what I understand at least) describe PTSD and recognize it as the serious illness that it is - long before it even became a diagnosis? And how come that it took the medical community so much longer to come to that same conclusion? (Their arrogance again and again their stupid arrogance. Like Woolf rightly recognized. And most infuriatingly still, they just don't learn from that mistake ever, it seems. Not from this. Not from the whole “gentlemen's-hands” debacle. Never. But I digress.)

All that would have been remarkable enough on it's own, but that is actually not the only issue she is surprisingly spot on about – again especially considering when this was written. She manages to step into the heads of all these characters and accurately portray them; young and old, male and female, everyone unique and life-like (i.e. with real issues); it's baffling. It makes me wonder if my paranoia about some people maybe being able to read my thoughts might have been justified after all …



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On Grief

Grief is a somewhat curious process. It is definitely not this step by step process they say it is. It's not like you master one level and go on to the next. At least for me it is not. What really happens is more like flipping back and forth between the stages. Like you think you grasp this new reality now and you're mind is otherwise occupied for a while or you sleep, but then you look up and - wham - it hits you again and you are right back where you started.

Then you are back to asking yourself if this really is the new reality now? If this is a world now in which this person no longer exists? Or if it has all just been a bad dream? Which might sound like a horrible cliche, but it is how I feel - or at least the most fitting articulation of this feeling that I can think of. Or maybe I think of it, precisely because it is such a cliche and my mind is just so occupied processing the new reality and in no condition to come up with more original expressions.

However that may be, it is not the worst part of the experience. The worst part is not even the guilt about all the bad things you ever thought or said about them. That will go away pretty soon. No, the worst part is the self-deprecating question of whether or not you were close or invested enough to justify your pain – no matter how close or closely related you actually where, I might add. And I don't know if this is just me or if other people feel this as well, because this is the particular monster I never dare to touch upon in conversations. Funerals are the habitats it really thrives in - among all those other people and their pain and anecdotes about things you were hitherto totally oblivious about - there and then it gets its biggest growth spurt. And this monster stays with you even after the worst of the pain has passed. And its company makes the next of its kind thrive even better. Maybe that is one reason why I get so much more affected the older I get and the more people cease to be.

I remember my first funeral. It was a somewhat distant relative that I had seen a couple of times, but was never close to. My grandmother said it would be good for me to come for “practice.” So that it would not be as bad when it was someone that had mattered more. She could not have been more wrong. This is not the kind of thing you can practice. I know that now. I don't know if she does.

I have been to several funerals at this point and merely one wedding. What does that say about me? I study cultures from the past – their relationship with their dead and funeral rites among other things. And I have come to think that funerals are more for the living then they are for the dead. The question is for which of the living? Not me, evidently, because funerals do not give me closure or comfort like I know they do for some other people - on the contrary. My grieving and healing happens elsewhere in much more private venues and rituals.

On Why Hogwarts is a Terrible School

So I've just read the Harry Potter Books ... for the first time. It's 2014. I know I've been late to the party - as usual. I had my reasons. Anyway, now that I've read the books, liked them and look at the fandom, I kind of wonder ... am I the only person who wouldn't want to go to Hogwarts?

I just don't think it would be such a nice place to be if one actually went there. For one thing, there is the division into different houses. What does that do, besides creating animosity - especially since they have them competing against each other for the House and Quidditch Cup. I guess some would argue that shared goals and responsibilities make the students within every one house bond and look after one another. But we see in the books that it doesn't work quite like that - as was to be expected. Because, you see, when somebody messes up and jeopardizes the victory they're gonna have a pretty hard time in their own house. And inter-house friendships prove to be rather difficult to maintain, since there hardly is any neutral place to hang out. You're likely not going to sit with people from other houses during meals. You can hardly have a conversation in the library. And besides that, where in the castle could people from different houses hang out? You're left with the grounds or the toilets, maybe the Room of Requirement.

And this is, I think, where the crux of the matter lies. You're not really supposed to mingle. The division of the houses is really sort of a divide and conquer strategy. One that has clearly gotten out of hand, since the teachers are as invested in the rivalry as the students are and even the parents. Because to many parents it is very important that their children end up in the "right" house - as illustrated by Sirius Black. And though the Weasley's wouldn't have been quite as harsh as that, had any one of the kids ended up in a different house, it would have surely impacted his status in the family. Because this isn't just about where you're dormitory is, it's basically a stigma. If you end up in Slytherin, people from other houses are going to assume that you're a criminal in the making. And people from your own house are going to make sure that your believes line up, if they don't already do. I think this system was largely responsible for the failure of Snape and Lily's friendship and why he ultimately ended up with the Death Eaters.

The other things that really bothers me about Hogwarts are the curriculum and the teaching methods. I find the curriculum rather narrow. It's almost entirely devoted to the use of magic (or magical creatures and substances), whereas the questions of understanding magic, ones own origins or the world at large hardly get touched - even in such subjects as History of Magic, Care of Magical Creatures and Muggle Studies. Neither seems critical reasoning much encouraged. It is not surprising therefore that even "good" wizards such as Ron hold some rather alarming believes and attitudes. And that despite the fact that most wizards have Muggle relations, not even the people from the ministry's Muggle related departments understand the most fundamental things about them or other magical creatures for that matter.

In general there seems to be hardly anyone concerned about ethics. The teachers only make their students brew the potions, practice the charms and what not. They hardly provide any context or caution. The best wizard according to Hogwarts standards is the one who can use magic to the greatest extent and in the most complicated ways - not the one who uses it most wisely. There is no real discourse on the line between use and abuse, which also makes the subject of Defence Against the Dark Arts hard to define, since the Dark Arts themselves are kind of a wishy-washy concept. There is some general idea that they are magical implements that are clearly intended to be used to somebody's disadvantage. But that could be said about most magical practice. And it is clear that even the unforgivable curses are not exclusively used by bad people. Hell, Harry himself uses two of the three.

Then there are the teaching methods. In general Hogwarts seems to operate under the false assumption that when you are good at something you are also good at teaching it. That is obviously not the case as nicely illustrated by Professor Binns, who holds his History of Magic monologues barely even aware of the students' presence, as well as Snape, who just writes the potions recipes on the blackboard and makes them hand in the results at the end of each lesson. And the essays they have to do for almost every subject are usually not more than senseless occupational therapy. Though, to be fair, on that particular account Hogwarts probably doesn't differ all that much from regular schools, but for the fact that the essays are for the most part mere practical recitations of the how-to-variety rather than critical reflections. The other very Hogwarts-specific problem is that the teachers - especially the heads of houses - have got an underlying agenda and hardly even make a show of treating students equally fair to put it mildly.

All in all I think Hogwarts, though certainly a fascinating place, is not a great environment if your ambition is to become a well educated and responsible wizard. In a way it is like our schools on steroids, but we at least get taught where we come from and how we work - usually that is.

On New Year's Resolutions

The Year is already a couple of days old by now and I still keep getting bombarded with New Year's Resolutions left and right. Though I find some people's resolutions rather interesting to know, I'm not a big fan of them. I've never made any actually. I have goals, all right, but they tend to kind of evolve rather naturally all year round and I adjust them once I see how things are going. Because with most goals you tend to under- or overestimate the difficulties you'll be facing. There are always things you just can't foresee and you need your goals to be flexible enough to take that into consideration.

That's also one of the reasons I don't like telling people about my goals at first. It puts you in that all or nothing mindset, because they'll hold you to what you said.  So that instead of being proud of the progress you have made towards your goal, you'll feel like you failed and give up all together. And then there's also some evidence that suggests that for people who are in it for the social appraisal - or whatever you want to call it – the declaration of the goal and the ensuing admiration from other people are satisfying enough and they might not even bother to get started. Like displaying pretentious books that you never intend to read on your shelves. I don't know, if I ever done something of that kind. I don't think so, but my adolescent self was kind … well, I don't get what she was thinking most of the time. And people tell me things that I can hardly believe. So I wouldn't entirely rule it out. It's like I've been possessed for a really long time. Evil spirit be gone.

However, I didn't achieve everything I wanted to before the New Year, but I don't see that as a failure. It's not like I haven't achieved anything. It just means that it's an ongoing process. And considering the circumstances, I'm actually quite satisfied with what I've managed to accomplish last year.

On the Difference between Meaning and Translation

With all the language studying and teaching I'm doing this year, I noticed that there is one problem that just keeps popping up again and again. That is the misconception among many language learners that the meaning of a sentence is it's translation. People keep asking what something means, when they are really asking for a translation. I tend to get a lot of puzzled looks when I ask them to make the distinction. Because people who are not fluent in a language tend to extract the meaning from the translation rather then the original word or sentence. They take a detour, if you will. And they don't grasp that their native language is a tool in that process, not the objective. I guess it is especially hard when you learn your first foreign language, to wrap your head around the idea that your native language is not the ne plus ultra of communication.

The thing is though, that any given language system encodes meaning independent of another language system, which is why at a certain point in learning you won't need the help of your mother tongue to decode the meaning. And despite the fact, that we tend to equate grammatical phenomena as much as possible across languages, there are in every language certain things that you can't quite imitate in every or most other languages. This is what gets lost in translation.

For example, when I want to greet someone in German by saying “Hello, nice to meet you,” unlike in English, I have to convey meaning about the nature of my relationship to that person. I have to decide whether or not to address them formally or informally. And this can have far reaching consequences. Say, for example, I meet someone in a business setting and he uses the informal pronoun “du” (which is something that happens all the time because I'm female and look a little younger than I am). Well, big deal you might say, it's just a tiny little word. But with that tiny little word he has just put me in somewhat of a loose loose situation. He is basically patronizing me. I can now either say nothing and let him patronize me or call him out, which will probably have a negative impact on my future relations with him and everyone to whom he communicates that I'm kind of 'difficult'. This is even more detrimental when said person is above me in the hierarchy. Because in that case I still have to address him formally regardless of how he addresses me and if my male coworkers - whom he is addressing formally - take note of that, they'll assume superiority regardless of our job descriptions or performance. And there you have your worst case scenario. So tiny word – major implications.

Long story short to really understand a language you have to grasp these nuances and be aware of them regardless of whether or not you can recreate them in translation. Because it's the meaning your after.

On The Manic Pixie Dream Girl Trope and Paper Towns

Paper Towns by John Green

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I've heard quite a few people criticize Paper Towns for being the cliche manic pixie dream girl story. Having read it myself, that kind of makes me wonder … have we read the same book? I mean, of course it is all ABOUT the manic pixie dream girl trope, since the whole thing is an attempt do discredit this trope. And Green could hardly have been more obvious about it. If anything, I would criticize him for this obviousness. That's somewhat of a reoccurring theme of his (among others). And it might stem from crafting a novel around a concept or idea – like fables or fairy tales – rather than letting the story evolve from the characters. But lots of people do this, and you can usually tell. It's a matter of personal preference whether one likes one or the other approach better. I personally enjoy both kinds of stories.

The most interesting thing about his endeavor is the approach Green took to attack the trope. He could have done it in loads of different ways. But he chose to basically build Margo up as a manic pixie dream girl, only to reveal in the end that it's all just been in Q's head. I think that's why a very cursory reader might mistake this for the actual trope. And in fact, one might wonder what the big difference is? Because that sounds like she basically serves the same purpose that every manic pixie dream girl does: helping “broodingly soulful” Q learn a life lesson that is going to be key to finding his own happiness. Now how's that for a conundrum? A manic pixie dream girl dispelling the myth of the manic pixie dream girl. Except, that's not quiet it, because unlike other manic pixie dream girls, Margo also learns a valuable lesson from the whole fiasco.

I think there is a rather strong indication – indication as in Green spells it right out (That's the obviousness I've been talking about.) - that Margo herself is initially somewhat infatuated with the idea of being someone's muse or manic pixie dream girl. And she initially sets herself up as one. She makes an effort to plant the idea in Q's head, and thinks the thing is done. She thinks she did something to effect an important change in someone's life, meaning that by extension she herself was important in this life she left behind – something she's been doubting for obvious (again) reasons.

What she doesn't reckon with, is how this idea evolves inside Q's head, leading him to recreate her into this larger than life “precious thing” that he needs to save, effectively making him her hero. So essentially they both want the same thing. And that's a problem. Because in order for one of them to be the hero and safe the other, one of them will have to be the damsel in distress. Neither of them identifies as such.

So when they finally meet again, they're both confronted with the implications of what they attempted to create. They learn to see each other as real life people rather than mere tropes and means to an end. And they both realize – Margo a little sooner than Q actually – that a muse or manic pixie dream girl is not what an actual person is, but merely the two dimensional unattainable thing another person makes them out to be – unattainable because real people in all their complexity can never achieve the level of simplicity a fantasy needs to be unambiguously positive.



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On the Supposed Demigods in White

It's been way too long since I have written a post – two weeks now, in fact. Two weeks in which I have sadly been way too preoccupied freaking out about the dentist appointment I've just had ... looking up the procedure and all possible complications ... imagining all kinds of horrible scenarios … you get the picture.

The blog wasn't the only thing I neglected for this, but it thankfully didn't affect my studies too much. Yeah, the summer is over and classes have resumed. The good news is that I started off rather well, because when it comes to reigning in obsessive thoughts, it's much better to give my brain something to focus on – like language studies – than to let it roam freely – like I do when I write. And it just so happens that I'm doing a lot of language studies this year.

However, the more interesting question here is, where this panic comes from. Because weirdly enough it doesn't stem from some horrible dentist experiences. I haven't really had those. Thank god! In fact, I haven't experienced much on the doctors front at all – much less than most people I know – as has been repeatedly pointed out to me these past weeks.

I have, however, time and time again seen doctors employ diagnostic processes that looked a lot more like guessing games than educated opinions. Not only that, but when I look at my circle of friends and acquaintances there is hardly anyone who hasn't been subjected to some kind of medical malpractice. But even though they might still suffer the consequences, their trust in doctors seems unshaken - a lot less shaken than mine at least.

To most of them doctors are still demigods in white. I just can't muster this kind of blind faith. What comes to mind when I think about doctors are their failures, both in the here and now and in historical times - because history major, you know. And most infuriating thing is that despite all this evidence they still got this disgustingly condescending air about them. Think 'doctors are gentlemen, and gentlemen's hands are clean.' Also, they may have studied medicine all they want, but what good is that, if they don't even know how to listen to what their patients tell them – if they don't even ask the right questions?

Speaking of studying medicine, seeing medical students in their natural habitat didn't help much to strengthen my trust either. Because at university they look as much as demigods as you and I. And in fact, when it comes to academic bulimia they're among the worst offenders. So long story short, even though I might be kind of a hypochondriac, when it comes to doctors, I'd rather keep my distance and double check everything before I commit to anything.