Climbing the Family Tree

For the past several years my aunt and I have been researching our genealogy. Or, researching it as well as we can while managing school and work and being thousands of miles away from each other. It's a strange mixture of exhilaration and exasperation, and I can only spend so much time on it before I start to question reality and have to stop in order to preserve my sanity and sense of self.

The problem is that so much of the work is based on assumptions and faith. You have to follow the line of documents like you climb a ladder, hand-over-hand one rung at a time, trusting the steps you've already climbed to support you. But the ladder is endless. And the higher you get the more you wobble in the wind, and you keep hitting tree branches and, I don't know, power lines. 

Say you have a name, the name of your great-grandfather. You know when and where he was born and when and where he died and where he and your great-grandmother lived while they were married. You find a census record for a man that fits with the information you already have, and contains the name of your grandparent during the proper time frame, so you know the man on the record is probably the man you're investigating. (Ah, probably. What a hateful word.) You use the census to find out that your great-great-grandparents were born in a different state--though you don't know their names--and you search for the censuses from the time your great-grandfather was born, looking for him as a child to establish who his parents are. You find one that looks promising--the dates are close enough, the places are right--and so you have new names, new leads. 

Wash, rinse, repeat. Apply other records as necessary. 

Never mind that there are about fifty bazillion "John Smith"s in that state's census for that year, or that everything is handwritten in cramped, casual cursive--"Is that a c or an a," you ask yourself, nose pressed against the computer screen. "Does that say Olive or Oline?"--and you'd be foolish to expect to find something which exactly matches the information you have. Never mind maiden names, and the ordeal of immigration records, complete with name changes and spelling discrepancies and the promise of records in foreign languages. 

There is no confirmation email, no seal of approval, nothing to guarantee the accuracy of the family tree you're constructing. You just have to trust in probability, in the strength of your matches, in the fact that whether or not it's applicable the information on the documents is true. And, at least in my experience, the more documents you handle the more muddled you get. The result is that before long a sense of paranoia sets in, and I have to stop because I honestly feel like I'm going to go crazy if I continue. Wait, why am I searching naturalization records for Gladys? Oh, right, to confirm Gladys's immigration. Which I know happened because the 1890 census said Myron's parents were born in Poland. Remind me again why I care about Myron? Oh, right, Bertha's birth certificate said Myron was her dad. Remind me again why I care about Bertha? Who ARE all these people? Why do I care about any of them? Where did these names COME from? How do I know this is really who I think it is?! HOW DO I KNOW THAT'S REALLY MY MOTHER, HMMMM?! ...The house of cards will fall very, very quickly if you poke it too much. 

I was at a genealogy center the other day getting help (because seriously, immigration records are a pain in the ass), and the person helping me discovered that I'd gotten someone's maiden name wrong, and so the people I had been looking for records for, Conrad and Wilhelmina, were in no way related to me. With one click of a button they were deleted from my tree, gone, and I was left with a new last name and the vast, enticing openness of possibility. I had been thinking for months that I was connected to these people. It's unsettling to think how easily familial ties, a core foundation of our society (and of most others), lauded throughout literature and media and history and common culture as A Bond Above Others, can be discredited.   

And it's unsettling to realize how connected we are to people we've never even met. My grandparents on my mother's side each had seven siblings, and my great-grandma had fifteen. My aunt and I stopped putting the siblings on our tree because it was just getting ridiculous, and we weren't really interested in the siblings, we were interested in the parents. But those siblings all had families of their own, husbands and wives and children and grandchildren and sons-and-daughters-in-law who all have parents and siblings of their own, who...you get the idea. It sounds obvious, but I've never really thought about it before, about its implications, about these people as more than names. A lot of the information we've added has been based on information from other people's family trees, who had been interested in the same people we were and had already done the research on them. Because they're related to them too. My great-great-great-grandfather is also someone else's great-great-great-grandfather, some distant cousin I've never even heard of or given a thought to but who, from Simon backwards, has the exact same family tree as I do. And on their trees, they treat my great-grandma as I treat their relatives, disregarding her as an obscure aunt they don't care about, another name on the census, whereas to me she is of the Utmost Importance, because she's mine. It's even stranger when people have posted pictures of your shared relatives' graves; it really hits me that there are other people out there, strangers, who have the same eager interest in and reverence towards these predecessors, that they have the same claim to them as you do.  

I recently discovered that my great-great-great-great-grandfather had the same birthday as me. He was born in 1830 in Norway. The way we attach ourselves to the dead, create links and loyalties, really is very odd, when you think about it. Yet when the genealogist helped me trace one line of my mother's family to 16th century Denmark and another line to 16th century Germany I was as proud and possessive as if I'd known these people personally. At what point do these connections become irrelevant, meaningless? Because with all of the marriages and births that would have occurred (and did occur) in five hundred years, then everyone is connected, however obscurely, to everyone else. And people certainly don't act like it sometimes. 

--Flannery      

The Adventures of Merlin (Warning: Here There Be Spoilers)

Remember when I said I was going to blog my way through Merlin? Yeah, well, I finished the series about a month ago.

...I promise I had a life away from my computer screen. I promise.

Anyways. I find myself in an odd position--I liked the show, a lot, but remain as unimpressed with it as I did when I started out. Okay, I'm a little more impressed by it--but it really is a pretty bad show.

When I first started watching, I would make a tally every time "destiny" was mentioned. There got to be so many tallies that I had to stop. The episodes are repetitive and get boring very quickly: There is some magical problem, either a creature or a sorcerer, which is trying to kill either Uther or Arthur, and Merlin is The Only One who can save them, because of his Awesome And Unsurpassed Power. A friend pointed out that a lot of TV shows are formulaic in that way, and I suppose that's true--but other shows have some kind of side plot that advances with each episode, or the characters grow or change, perceptibly, and I didn't feel like Merlin had that. It was just monotonous; and I don't think I'd have minded, except for a few things that I couldn't get over.

One was the way in which Merlin kept running off to the Dragon (of Destiny) for help--sometimes I could see when it was necessary but other times I thought he could have handled the problem on his own, or didn't think the Dragon's input was relevant. Merlin let himself be influenced too much by the Dragon. Another was that in the very first episode Uther was talking about how Camelot had been free from magic for years and years, how he had eradicated it. And yet the show was based around all of the magical problems that plague the kingdom, all of the sorcerers and creatures that are clearly not eradicated. The show's most fundamental concept is hypocritical. It wouldn't have been that hard to have a subplot about how the Old Religion was rising again (that might have been really interesting!), or even just have someone--anyone! It doesn't matter who!--say a line along the lines of "Gee, this is strange, isn't it?"

Another problem, along the same lines, was that not only was the show formulaic, it was formulaic to the point of using almost the exact same lines episode after episode, particularly when it came to Uther. "Magic is evil, magic is evil"--it gets boring, and then annoying, and the force of Uther's hatred loses any impact it might have had. The characters never change--not Uther; not Arthur: caught between his father's will and his own, but always falling back into compliance; every episode it seems like they're going through the same motions.

I was disappointed by how they handled Morgana's becoming evil. She was such a great character before--passionate, funny, smart--and after she started attempting to ruin Camelot, she lost all of that. She became flat and one-dimensional; there wasn't even any internal conflict or regret or second thoughts--she was pure evil, defined by her desire for revenge. And no one is pure evil. Conflicted villains are the best, both because they're realistic and because when they're done well, they're interesting; and it was like she had never been the person we came to know in the beginning seasons, like she never even remembered seasons 1 and 2. I loved her relationship with Morgause--even that would have been great, seeing a villainous sister duo! But that didn't happen.

The show's family-friendliness also got on my nerves. I have nothing against family-friendly shows; I think it's great that they're getting kids interested in history and mythology and that there's a show that parents and kids can both watch and enjoy together. But the fact that there would be scenes in which people would stab each other, and there would never be any blood on the weapon, ever, irked me. I'm not saying everything should be bloody and violent! I think the media and entertainment industries have made people too desensitized to violence, and don't appreciate violence for violence's sake--but not having any blood at all is just unrealistic and not only takes away from the show by drawing the viewer out of the world that's been created, but takes away the impact that showing realistic wounds would have had--violence has consequences, and showing the results of those consequences makes it real for the character and the audience in a way that passing over it doesn't.

So, with all these complaints, I was surprised to find myself enjoying the show. I really started to like it after Uther dies and Arthur becomes king. I've said that the characters don't grow, but that's not strictly true--they  grow, they just grow very slowly and mostly after Uther dies, and it's a long time to wait. We see Arthur grow so much more as a character after he's free from the constraints of Uther's mindless bigotry. I liked seeing how the show interpreted the myths; as a history nerd it was fun to see how things were portrayed. And the cast remained super hot, which just made everything better. I mean really, Knights of the Round Table. I think I know the kind of criteria Arthur had in mind when he was selecting y'all, and I very much approve.

It's very enjoyable to watch all of the characters interact with each other; they have great friendships, great relationships, that are interesting and heartwarming and make you care about them all. You can see the love between them, and you feel included in that love. That, I think, is why I kept watching--I came to care about the characters, and wanted to stick with them till the end. Arthur and Gwen's relationship was sweet if a little sappy. (And I was wrong about Gwen, she turned out to be a very strong character. Though I'm not sure I approve of her returning to Arthur after he banished her. From a storyteller's perspective, I think it would've been cool if the two of them went their separate ways, Gwen married that bandit-lord and Arthur married Mithian, and then later they had to reconnect as respective rulers and deal with their history and any lingering feelings. From a person-perspective, I think it was crappy of Arthur to treat her like that and I'm not sure I like the underlying message being sent when Gwen goes back to him--she doesn't have to take that from him, and it felt like throughout that story arc, until she and Arthur were reconciled, her character was defined by her love and pining for Arthur. To some extent it was like that even after they reconciled.) Arthur and Merlin's relationship was the real treat of the show. The bromance episodes were few and far between during the first seasons, and I got annoyed by Arthur's awful treatment of Merlin. But then the bromance scenes came more frequently, and the two of them were just so funny and cute and touching and the last episode was heartbreaking. Really heartbreaking. (They should have kissed. Just saying.)

I know there's a lot of controversy over the very end of the show, but I actually liked it. Once I got over my initial surprise that that was how it was ending--no scenes of Gwen's grief, no aftermath--just a clean break with Gwen's coronation, and then the quick connection to the modern day--I thought it was a clever way to do it. It really adds a sense of finality but also continuity, and puts the series firmly in the context of a story, and in the past. We don't get to see Gwen's reign, we don't get to see what happens to the knights or Camelot or Gaius, or even the rest of Merlin's life--we're not supposed to know that. That's not part of the story we've been experiencing. And the sudden contrast between the mise-en-scene of Camelot and the mise-en-scene of the present day reminds us that it's a legend that we've been witnessing--the Arthurian legends that we know on paper have been given substance and depth, given life; and now they are dead. It's not sad. It's the closing of a book.

Now that Merlin is over, I must find other TV to watch. I'm really enjoying Orphan Black on BBC America, though it's not normally the kind of thing I go for; don't talk to me about the current season of Doctor Who unless you want a long conversation about the problems with the recent episodes; Smash is being cancelled, unfortunately (I kind of saw it coming, and I don't blame them, but still!). I've spent the last week re-watching Avatar: The Last Airbender on Netflix Instant Watch, a most beloved show that I'm really enjoying watching straight through, and I may or may not have almost finished it. But it's summer, and I'm sure I'll find other things to do with my time. Like reading Le Morte D'Arthur, and re-watching this fan trailer over and over again. Long Live Arthur Merthur ;)

--Flannery

The Quest For Camelot Begins: A Foray Into Merlin

I watched the first episode of Merlin when it premiered and was...not impressed. Many people have recommended it to me/told me it's something I would enjoy, but I have...remained dubious. One of my good friends here at school is a huge Merlin fan, and throughout our acquaintance I have consequently been subjected to much enthusing over the show as it progressed through its final season. I grinned over the cute Merther (the Merlin/Arthur ship) gifs she showed me on Tumblr--watched with a bemused expression as she and another friend of ours freaked out over the series finale, whispering in case any of the rest of us ever wanted to watch the show from the beginning--celebrated alongside her as Merther became canon.

My former snootiness over the...questionable quality...of the show has diminished, and I decided to give it a second shot. So, I watched the first two episodes tonight while completing my Linguistics homework. I've decided to blog my way through the series, because I have Thoughts and because I think it will be fun. And make me stick with it, in case, you know, I end up not being that impressed with it after all.

Well, here we go: Season 1, Episodes 1 & 2.

If for no other reason, I would probably stick with the show because boy, are Colin Morgan (Merlin) and Bradley James (Arthur) attractive. And they have accents. Never underestimate the swoon factor of a  British accent. At one point in the first episode Merlin got wounded, and his Mentor set about healing said wounds.

MERLIN'S MENTOR: Take your shirt off.

ME: Yes, please do that.

I can certainly see why people ship them, and why people fawn over them in general. I admit that going into this I am predisposed to ship Merther, having soaked up my friend's enthusiasm, though I probably would have ended up shipping them anyway. There were several moments within the first two episodes where I wanted to yell at the screen "YOU ARE ADORABLE. KISS. KISS NOW". Knowing going in that there is ample support for a Merther relationship, I will doubtless be picking up on those lines/looks/hints more than I normally would have. I certainly did in the first two episodes (in any case it's not that subtle. The Dragon is a Merther fan, I can tell. He's very vocal about it. But I'll get to him in a moment). If I wasn't going to ship Merther, I would probably ship Gwen/Merlin. Though who knows. Within these episodes, there was a lot of sexual tension. This included sexual tension between:

• Morgana/Arthur
• Morgana/Merlin
• Merlin/Arthur
• Gwen/Merlin

I'll just leave that with it's excessive love-triangle potential where it is. 

Also, continuing with my oh-so-scholarly thoughts on characters, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Gwen is black. I leave you with Sarah Rees Brennan's thoughts. 

Moving on to plot-y things! 

The villain of the first episode is a Creepy Old Woman, and, you know, I really really dislike Creepy Old Women. For whatever reason, I find them terrifying. Give me a CGI monster--I cringe and announce how much I Do Not Like This. Give me suspenseful music and unsettling shadows--I squirm and curl up in my chair and am spooked. But give me Creepy Old Women--I was sitting watching those parts of the episode in utter terror. I jumped, literally almost out of my chair, when a door slammed down the hall. There were shivers and skin-prickliness all up and down my back. My only hypotheses on the subject is that it stems from growing up with The Princess Bride. I remember that the old woman in the crowd in Buttercup's dream terrified me when I was little. She doesn't anymore, but maybe that fostered in me some far-reaching fear of malevolent elderly women? 

Creepy Old Woman from The Princess Bride 

Infinitely Creepier Old Woman from Merlin

The other plot-y thing I wanted to make note of, and which is a much longer-term plot element than the villain of one episode (however much it might scar me) is the Dragon. The Dragon was one of the reasons I stopped watching originally. There were many Cliched-Lines and Cliched-Themes in those scenes and I wanted to bang my head against the coffee table. The Dragon likes to make cryptic comments about the future. I will hereafter refer to him as the Dragon of Destiny.

Merlin finds the Dragon of Destiny in a cave under the castle (I sense there are problems involved with keeping a secret dragon under your castle. The show does not choose to dwell on such problems. Such as the fact that Merlin was quite easily able to find the dragon under the castle). The Dragon of Destiny seems to have some kind of telepathic link into Merlin's brain, as throughout the first episode you hear an ominous voice caaaallllliiiiinnng to Merlin in his mind. The episode is, in fact, titled "The Call of the Dragon". I'm guessing he's an important character.

The Dragon of Destiny, Merther fan that he is, makes vague, mysterious, not-at-all-foreshadow-y and assertive comments about Merlin's destiny, and the fact that it is his destiny to be with Arthur. That is his only preferred subject of conversation. Who knows, maybe someone else will stumble upon the not-so-secret dragon and he will make generic, grand-sounding comments all about their future love life destiny! I've got my eye on you, Dragon of Destiny.

Merlin receives love advice from the Dragon of Destiny

The teaser for Episode 3 looks quite intense (as they always do), and seems to feature Gwen more. I believe she was in peril. Oh, lady characters, why do you always have to be in peril when you're heading an episode? We shall see what happens.

--Flannery

The Paradox of Pain

I write this with a gutted feeling in the center of my chest, after just finishing Fables Volume 18 ("Fables: Cubs in Toyland").

There are some plots--in TV, books, movies, etc--that are are predictable. This does not mean that they're bad. Sometimes, especially when I've had an exhausting day, all I want is something straightforward and simple, something that won't make my brain or heart hurt. And I'll freely admit: I love Downton Abbey to the bottom of my heart, and boy does it ever make my heart hurt, but it is not exactly subtle. I can usually see the hurt coming from a mile off and attempt to build whatever hasty fortifications I can. Do they work? Not really. And I'm not criticizing it for the fact that I can (sometimes) anticipate events--I'm just pointing out the fact.

However, while predictable plot lines aren't bad, and can be quite engaging, and moving, and surprising, and powerful despite the fact, as with Downton Abbey, they never have quite the effect as things that take you really by surprise. And a lot of that surprise has to do with the suspense that comes from accepting the possibility of pain, from knowing that there are no limits that the creator isn't willing to cross.

There are some shows, books, movies, etc, that you know will never do anything drastic. You know the ones I mean. You can always tell--maybe you've read/seen other work by that creator and know what you're in for, maybe throughout the work there are opportunities to take it to the next level and it doesn't go there, maybe it's just a feeling you foster, throughout the experience, based on writing style or the choices the creator makes. However you arrived at the knowledge, you know that nothing truly bad will ever happen to the main characters. Nobody "important" will ever die, all of the scrapes and dangerous situations will be escaped from, there will inevitably be a happy ending in which everything has been worked out and everyone is settled with their Romantic Interest. And again, I'm not saying that happy endings are bad things. But when you know that it's coming, it makes the journey of getting there a whole lot less impactful.

The stunning ones, the ones that live in your bones, are the ones that rip your heart out. Maybe early on they kill off a character unexpectedly, or take the story where you never thought they would. They do something heart-wrenching, something mind-blowing, that you never thought they would dare to do. Because not many stories dare to be daring. Generally, people like happy endings, like knowing that the people they are reading about/watching are safe, and producers and publishers like people being happy (they're the ones that will keep spending money). Deus ex machina is the beloved of the audience, for its presence ensures and reassures that the creators are not willing to do anything truly injurious to the characters, and thus will not do anything injurious to them, ever. But the daring ones take away the safety net of predictability. By demonstrating that they are willing to take that leap past the point of no return, they establish the pervasive, ever-hovering threat that they will do so again. They obliterate the limits of expected story lines, and that is a scary thing for audiences. It indicates that they are serious. That they have no qualms about doing the unimaginable. In this they create the suspense that is the hated and adored of all fans.

Just knowing that something irreparable can happen, because it's already been done once and what's to stop them from doing it again?, makes the thing so much more alive. Every emotion is heightened during the experience--every cliffhanger more frightening and every hint more meaningful. It is an exhausting state to be in, a horrible state, a state of constant tension and paranoia. It is a wonderful state. You become so much more attached to the characters, so much more invested in the story. The experience is that much sharper and that much more powerful. You soak everything up, all of the dialogue and the choices and the hilarity and the happiness, all of the dilemmas and the characters and the relationships between them. They become precious things, when if the unthinkable hadn't happened, they wouldn't be, not to the same extent. Because you never know. Everything is coated in a poignant layer of disquiet, all within the audience's mind.  

This is why I love it when books and TV shows make me cry, when I am left reeling and in pain for days. As much as I hate it when bad things happen to the characters I love, I love it when bad things happen to the characters I love.

A few of the stories imprinted on my heart because of their proficiency in this torture :

• Fables, a graphic novel series by Bill Willingham and Mark Buckingham. This is one of the most striking things I've ever read, because 1) the story line is incredibly original, complex, and continuously surprising and nuanced, 2) the artwork is astoundingly beautiful, and adds a whole other layer to the plot and to the reading experience, and 3) it breaks my heart with every volume. 
• Primeval, a British TV show that finished airing in 2011 (though all of it is on Netflix Instant Watch and I'm sure various other internet-places). The season finale of Season One is the episode that changes it all, and from then on the punches just keep coming. There is no reprieve. Amazingly disregarding of customary narrative conventions. You learn quickly not to get too comfortable with the state of things. It has great characters and relationships, and is very, very funny when it's not throwing you for a loop.
• Fringe, an American TV show which just aired it's series finale on Fox a few weeks ago. Shockingly inventive, and yet somehow believable from the beginning, I can't remember exactly when you realize that this show does what it wants. The plot arcs are incredibly complicated and complex, everything building on and off of everything else to create a layered web that you don't even really notice the depth, and genius of, until you start exploring it. It has some of the best characters and character depictions I've ever seen. The kind of show that is truly willing to do anything. Anything. No matter what kind of pain it inflicts on the viewers in doing so.
• Unspoken, by Sarah Rees Brennan. Arguably all of her other books too (particularly The Demon's Lexicon series), which are just as powerful and suspenseful and heart wrenching, though less notably so than in this one. The full extent to which the author will go is not evident until the very last pages ("She can't," you think while reading. "Sarah Rees Brennan won't. She just won't." And then she does, and the book becomes that much more intricate and emotional, and you realize that you never really expected her to in the first place, because what she does is downright cruel to her readers). Her fans constantly complain about what she does to them in this book, and she takes great pride in her reputation as a heartbreaker.
• Doctor Who, a longstanding British TV show which is wonderful for many reasons, and which I am including here because when my friends and I watched the finale of the latest season (Season 7, episode 5 of the current series), we cried not once but twice, the last time for a good twenty minutes because Things Happened and they were not Pleasing Things. I've watched intermittent episodes of previous seasons, all within the current series, and have cried multiple times, notably during the momentous episodes.  

There are many other books which possess this quality, and which I love very much, but the things listed above are the things which I hold most notably in my mind as examples of this. I could also give a list of shows and books which aren't daring in this way, and which I still adore. Though this is one of the features of stories that I appreciate the most while reading/watching, and which I think can change the whole tone, depth, and impact of them, it itself is not an exclusive indicator of a good story.  

There are many of those which do not cause intense emotional distress. 

--Flannery   

Book People

...Or, A Post In Which Flannery Carries On About Jane Austen, A Quest For The Time Machine, And Questions Concerning Her Future.

(Disclaimer: I am the one who is not concise. It is one of many traits my pseudosister possesses that I sometimes wish I could steal. I make my apologies now.)

I have been having a lot of feelings about books lately. Not in a "I just finished this awesome novel, allow me to fangirl for a while" way (though admittedly that happens a lot), but in a "I want to be involved in the literary world, look at these awesome things, and the awesome things people are saying--let me join in" way.

In addition to being a Pseudosister, I'm an administrator for the Jane Austen page on the Fandom blog. Today, Dear Readers, was the 200th anniversary of the publication of Pride and Prejudice. I will not allow this to devolve into a P&P-appreciation post, but suffice it to say that that novel is very near and dear to my heart, as is Jane Austen and her works in general (am I staying up far later than I should considering I have class tomorrow morning watching my collection of adaptations on my laptop? Did my friend and I spend a good five minutes making incomprehensible noises and dancing around the hallway after we watched today's Lizzie Bennet Diaries episode? ...Maybe. Maybe). And I spent most of my day between classes and chorus and eating and other important things like that scouring the internet for links and dates for my "200th anniversary" post.

What struck me was not only that there was stuff about it everywhere--in newspapers, on blogs, in museums, in ads, in recently-released books--but that everyone was still talking about it in the first place. 200 years is a long time. It's a testament to Austen's skill as a writer and the universal themes of her story that after all this time people are still as enamored of it as they were in 1813. It's never been out of print! There have been 20 million copies sold worldwide! So many movie adaptations, and book adaptations, and books and art and other things inspired by this novel; people regularly dress up in period costume and hold events like those of the Regency era; there is merchandise and fan fiction and I don't even know what else. (This is starting to turn into a litany of Jane Austen Enthusiasm, isn't it? ...Heh.) The devotion of the fans is incredible (and if there's one thing the internet has taught us, it's not to underestimate the emotions of a fan). It has been debated and analyzed in all kinds of academic settings and scholarly discussions.

And the awesome thing is that the same can be said about any number of literary works. So many books continue to inspire and encourage people, providing enjoyment and prompting wide varieties of conversations, despite their age. This is what I love.

As someone who grew up in a household full of books (literally full of. We're almost at 19,000 and counting, and no, I am not making that up), and was taught to understand and enjoy both the overreaching and personal importance of them (basically what I'm saying is that I was born and raised a nerd), I love that people are so eager and willing to express their feelings about a novel, be they positive or negative, and that these feelings are getting so much widespread attention in today's society. I love that people are talking about books, in, at least from what I saw, a civilized manner. There were no personal attacks in the comments, no blind promotion or hatred, but rather explained, respectful opinions.

I know that the kind of comments I just described are not necessarily normal (oh how I wish!)--I need only to go watch a music video on YouTube to see the truth in that. But this brings me to the core of this post, to the feelings that prompted this post in the first place. I can't help but feel that book people are good people. That statement is pretty naive and generalized, I know, but...seeing people be happy together over books makes me happy. I can't help but think well of someone who can have a logical discussion on the merits or lack-thereof of a novel, or who can happily devote the time to writing an article about a book or character or adaptation, etc, or who gets so attached to a piece of writing that they spiral into incomprehensible noises and dances in hallways. Hey, I'm a nerd. It's what I do.

It's not just today, though, with the Austen post. Whenever I have an English class I try to buy the books at one of the fabulous independent bookstores in town rather than from the campus bookstore. For my sci-fi/fantasy class I needed a good long list of them, and so into the first indie I went. As the clerk was looking up the titles, we got into a conversation, started by the fact that they didn't have a copy of The Time Machine and that that was actually the one I needed first. He kept telling me that they could order it, but that wasn't really the point.
"It's fine that you don't have it, I just wanted to see if any of the local stores had the books I needed before getting them from school," I told him.
It was like a magic key. We began talking in earnest, with him saying several times how appreciative he and his fellow clerk (I have a feeling they were the owners) were for my going to indies, and he went on a bit of a mini-rant about universities and their ways of tricking students (this post isn't a plug for independent bookstores, I promise, though really. Think about it.). The clerks asked what course the books were for, what professor I had, and I told them. They happily exclaimed that the professor shops there often!
"Oh, I know we have this one in stock, my fellow clerk loves it! Your professor probably got this recommendation from her!"
I bought what books I could and placed and order for the rest, and as I was paying the clerk said, laughing, "This is a long list! I'll tell [your professor] to go easy on you guys next time he's here!"
I left filled with a renewed love for and pride in book people. It's this kind of relationship, this camaraderie, that I adore. It was a short, pretty impersonal conversation. And yet there was kinship, based on the mere shared love of books and the recognition of that love in the other person.

(As I read over this, I want to add that in a sense I'm talking about nerds as well as book people--there's the same feeling of connection about all sorts of things people are passionate about, be it Doctor Who or Jane Austen or what have you. This wonderful quote from John Green, which I have immortalized on a poster on my wall, encompasses the emotion and bond I'm trying to relate: "Nerds like us are allowed to be unironically enthusiastic about stuff. Nerds are allowed to love stuff--like, jump-up-and-down-in-your-chair-can't-control-yourself love it. When people call people nerds, mostly what they're saying is "You like stuff," which is not a good insult at all. Like, "You are too enthusiastic about the miracle of human consciousness.")

It happened again in the next store I went into (still on my quest for a copy of The Time Machine). The person behind the desk was one I was familiar with, the woman who headed the Young Adult section there and who I had bonded with in a similar way, as I just had with the other clerks, on previous occasions, when I had gone in to buy new releases of things and we ended up trading book recommendations for a good ten minutes. She told me that they were out of The Time Machine, and then--
"I love your pin!" gesturing to the "YA Saves" pin I have on my coat.
I beamed, thanked her, and left. It's rare that people know what my pin means--the only other time someone has commented on it (apart from giving it confused looks/ignoring it/cautiously asking me about it) was in fact in the only independent bookstore near my hometown, when the clerk said "I love your pin! Mine's at home!". I felt again that kinship, that sense of "You're a part of my world and I'm a part of yours, and I acknowledge and appreciate that fact".

I love being a book person, being a part of that world. And I guess I'm getting around to the other part of my post. I want to spend my life being in that world, I want to be allowed to do that for a job. People always say to do what you love, and...that's it. Writing, of course, is part of it--I will never stop dreaming of becoming a published author--but apart from that, which I can not see going over very well with the parents when I graduate college ("Guess what! I'm not going to get a job with an immediate income! I'm going to spend all my time writing novels and trying to get them published!"), I want to do something with literature. Whenever I have encounters like the ones I did in the bookstores, as well as when I simply read an article about issues in publishing and the YA world or current YA trends or the problems with the portrayal of certain YA trends, I get such an intense feeling of "when can I do this?". I want to talk about these things. I want to write about these things. I have more intense feelings and opinions about these things than I do about many others. The problem...is that I don't actually know what I want to do. 

I have been somewhat apprehensive lately about the fact that I really have no idea what actual job I want to do after I graduate, or even what I want to major in. As a first-year college student, I know that it's okay not to know that yet, but I can't help but feel that way when literally almost everyone I talk to, first-years included, has a plan for their college education at least and in some cases for their future careers. I can't say how reassuring it was to be in my Introduction to Comparative Literature class this afternoon, where everyone but one is a first-year, and have virtually every single person admit to not knowing what they want to study.

Whatever I end up studying--English? Comp Lit? History? Anthropology? American Studies? So many possibilities...--I know where I want to end up. The specifics of that (publishing? Translation work? Publishing?) may be a little less clear, but I know where I want to end up, in a vague, indefinite sense. And I know that even while I'm figuring it out, even once I have figured it out, I will always be a Book Person. And I take comfort in that.

--Flannery

(P.S. I wanted to share some of the Jane Austen pieces that made me especially happy and proud to be a Book Person, such as Huffington Post's debating articles on who the best Mr. Darcy is in the movie adaptations--the comments are lovely--and Sarah Rees Brennan's insightful discussion on sexism in the literary world.)