Something Fun To Do

I just discovered something amusing.

I am reading Bless Me Ultima, which is about the most boring book I've ever read. I remember being pretty bored when I read the beginning of it in high school, too.

The group leading our class discussion asked how we would have felt reading it when we were younger, and I told them I didn't like it and couldn't relate to it, and that even though I took Spanish in high school, the frequent Spanish words made it hard for me to connect with the story.

Well, it was true, and I remember none of the rest of my class liked it either, but this class cares more about diversity than I do. They think it just excellent. And relating to something that we can't relate to teaches us even more than reading about white people. It teaches us that we have things in common with other cultures. Because all cultures have myths and we all care about culture prejudice and self-discovery. And wandering through a boy's dreams and stuff is deep and inspiring to them.

I am insensitive, I guess. But there are more interesting ways of bridging the cultural gap, I think.

So to feel better about it all, I Googled "I hate Bless Me Ultima" and read things other people had written. I am not the only one who thinks this book is boring.

AND THEN! I had a brilliant idea. I started reading the ONE STAR reviews on Amazon, right here in class. Okay, I agree that there are some nice things about this book, but reading bad reviews made me feel much better about not just loving every page.

Here are some of my favorite parts:

Slow, slow, slow, December 18, 2008

By	Dr. John Laughlin (Glenn Dale, MD) - See all my reviews

This is a rather long work tha plods along like a melting glacier about the story of a youg boy, his family and his attachment to a healer known as Ultima. You expect the book to pick up steam on the next page only to contiue in this slow, endless march through blandness and bordom. How it won awards is beyond me.
John, author of Reading Thomas Merton



WORST BOOK EVER WRITTEN,

June 30, 1999

By A Customer
I'd have given this book negative five stars if it were an option. This novel has a mind-numbingly boring storyline, with almost zero plot, characters you couldn't care less about, unrealistic scenes, cheap symbolism and dumb 'plot twists'. Why anyone would want to read about a stupid little boy who follows an old con artist around 'curing' people with 'curses' that are probably nothing more than the flu is beyond me. I found it difficult to care about Tony's family and their problems. I felt that it was a quasi-noble effort to represent a struggle between good and evil, considering that no one in the story was pure good or pure evil.

Let me wake up from my deep sleep,

December 10, 2001

By	Mackey (VeGa$) - See all my reviews

"Bless Me Ultima" was a story that always put [m]e to sleep. If I needed a nap, this story never let me down. It took me hours to read just a few pages. I would sit down to read the book and then after a few minutes my eyes would get heavy and dry and the story never helped me wake up. I would rather sit around looking at the ceiling and counting how many holes there are in it. Or maybe even see how many fibers I could count in the carpet. Any of those things were more interesting than "Bless Me Ultima".
...
Another annoying thing about the book was the frequent use of Spanish throughout the dialogue. I don't speak Spanish so this put a real hamper on my pleasure of reading the book (if any at all). The Spanish always ruined the mood of the events happening. It made you stop and think, "What is this person trying to say."

I was waiting the whole book for it to get interesting, but it never did. There started to be a little bit of action towards the end of the story, but then it stopped with the end of the book.

Another thing I didn't enjoy was the frequent use of symbolism. I am not a fan of symbolism. I wish that writers could just tell it as it is without having to show it as something else.

The only reason why I gave this book one star was because that was the least that I could give it. If I had a chance to, I would rather give it no stars. I guess you could say that that one star was for giving me long nights of great sleep.

Thanks everyone for hearing me out.
-MACKEY

badnews, March 8, 2002

By	STEVE (Walla Walla, WA USA) - See all my reviews

there is no adjective in the english language to describe the horrors of reading this "book". PLEASE, don't fall victim to reading this atrocity.

****

Weren't those great?!

I should probably finish this post and start paying attention to class again...

School

Well, my classes started this week, and things are okay so far.

I'm taking four classes.

1. English 2700: Diversity in American Literature
2. English 5920: Intellectual Movements
3. English 3703: Intro to Lit History 3 (which is the modernism part)
4. English 5880: Children's Lit

I feel like I'm taking the same class four times. And when I talk about my classes, I want to say "in my English class", but then I realize that all of my classes are English classes.

Yesterday I was hating my life, wondering why I'm majoring in English, but today I feel really optimistic about this semester. Here's why: I have excellent professors this semester.

Here are the interesting things about each of the classes, so far:

1. Diversity in American Literature. I'm taking this one because it satisfies the university's diversity requirement AND part of my English major requirement. It's a lower level English class, though. So it feels like high school English. Where the professor defines words like "simile" instead of just words like "post-structuralism".

I'm not wild about the professor for this class (yet, anyway), but everything seems pretty simple, so I think that as long as I do the reading it should be a breeze. And the reading seems pretty simple, too. The professor for this class dresses really artsy. The first day she came in wearing a bright purple coat, a lime green sweater top, a goldenrod scarf, black pants, and red boots. And a beret.

2. Intellectual movements. This is a very-upper-division class, and the idea behind it is that the professor picks something that like, changed literary history and we study it intensely. And to celebrate the 150th anniversary of On The Origin of Species, we're studying Darwin and evolution! Greaaaat. I'm very secure in my religious beliefs, and I don't mind discussing evolution, but I wasn't too thrilled about a whole semester of it. EXCEPT! So far it's my favorite class! The professor is hilarious. She's really sarcastic.

We were talking about evolution (of course), and Lamarck, and how species all just want to progress. She told us that he was all into inheritance of acquired characteristics. Like, the giraffe reached a little bit to get higher leaves, and the next generation, and the next generation, and gradually the neck got longer and longer. She said, "as anyone who has had a nose job and then looked at their children knows, this does not work." She also told us about a guy, August Wiseman? who "hacked off the tails of about 2000 mice and did not produce any tailless mice."

And then later, "The giraffe wants a longer neck, the African people want to become British. There's no question about it. It's obvious." (Like from the perspective of the British, back when people were first starting to talk about evolution.)

Or another time we were talking about the problems with the new idea of evolution, and one problem is that if you're not in the upper class, you may wonder why not, wonder why your ancestors didn't do whatever they were supposed to to evolve. And the prof whined like a kid who wanted candy and her mom wouldn't buy it, "Moooooooom, why aren't you letting me eevvooooolve?"

Or, we were going over the syllabus, and we're reading Heart of Darkness (which we're also reading in one of my other classes), and then we're reading Tarzan of the Apes, "which is Heart of Darkness, but happy!"

The people in the class seem good, too. Before the class started, one of the guys was talking to the girl behind me. "Break seemed really short, didn't it?" he asked her, and they talked a bit about it. And he explained, "You see, I don't count the days that were snowing as part of my break. So break was like three days. Weekends don't count towards break either." And I could not agree with that more. And later she was talking talking more about Tarzan, and she said "There are like a million of them! Tarzan Goes to Mars, Tarzan Meets the President, and by the end of the series Tarzan is like a Jack Bauer. We're just going to read the first one, from 1914."

So. That class is really entertaining.

[Also, when I first started this blog post, I went downstairs in the library to clock out, and I ran into this Prof! I said hello, and we talked about the big Darwin displays that they put up in the library yesterday (which I had told her about). She had found one and was going to go check out (ha!) the other one. And as we quit chatting, she said "Emily, right?" Yes!]

3. Intro to Lit History 3. I think I will hate the content of this class the most. Because the prof already said we're doing poetry this week, and the rest of the readings sound gross too. BUT, he has personality, and the structure of the class is: we come in and chat about what we read. Which I can handle.

It was funny, when he first started class he said, "I'm not going to ask you why you're here. My first class here, there were 60 people! Modernism was my first class and I said the University of Utah is the Best Place Ever! All these people are interested in modernism! That's great! So I had them each write a little paragraph about why you're here. All of the answers were 'It's at 10 o'clock. It's required. I made a huge mistake, if I only would have studied math instead, I would have been alright." So he understood that we didn't really care about modernism.

And then he had us go around the class and name our favorite and least favorite works from the 20th century. And people all had favorites like Ulysses. Gross.

Oh, one funny thing that he talked about was using the dictionary.

"Look up words that you don't know, and that you do know." He talked about people using words wrong, and he said that words are our tools. "If you go into a chemistry lab, you don't just pour stuff out of bottles, and say 'I don't know what that was.'"

4. Children's Lit. Um, this is going to be okay. I somehow got the one Children's Lit teacher that thinks kids read adult books and adults read kid books, so we shouldn't limit our study to books for children. Too bad! She is also very interested in the Holocaust. And group projects. (I hate group projects. Because they usually just mean Emily projects. And I want to do my own work, not work for 5 people, thanks.)

Also, I'm a little afraid of this professor, because in her syllabus she tells us that we should use professional language when we e-mail her. She specifically says not to address her with "Hey". And that is definitely something I would do, because I wouldn't write, "Dear Professor," or "Hello Professor". (My coworker said I can just start it with "Professor," and that will work. If I remember!)

But in the end, she said she hates grades. So she wants to give us all good grades, and she will, but we have to give the class our very best. We need to attend classes, do a great job on our presentations, and a great job on our papers, and then we'll be fine. And if we don't then she'll adjust things...but she doesn't want to have to do that. No tests. No midterm. No final. And that's a pretty sweet grading policy.

So things should be okay. I have a few other things to write about, but I'll save them for later.

The Old Testament

I went to an Institute class this morning that was fantastic. It's a class on the second half of the Old Testament, which is perfect for me, because I'm to Proverbs and one of my 2009 goals is to finish the Old Testament. The class started at 8:35 am (and like seriously, the Old Testament), so I knew it would be a small class, except that, oh wait, it was actually two classrooms big. There were a bunch of people! And I'm sure some people are ambitious and go to the first class and stop coming partway through the semester, but still!

Turns out, it's basically because the teacher is amazing.

He was telling us, you go to the Old Testament for a first person account of the Atonement. He said that next to the book of Luke, the Old Testament is the best place to go to get to know Christ. Mostly the second half of Isaiah, and the stuff David wrote. I thought this was kind of interesting, because I always just sort of assumed that the Book of Mormon would be the second best. Or like, Matthew would be, or something. But as we were talking about it, I could see what he meant.

We mostly talked about a few Psalms today. Psalms are not just a poetic part of the scriptures; they're basically the hymnbook of their world back then. It was the same as it is for us. When we're going through hard times, sometimes we sing hymns. The LDS pioneers sometimes sang "Come, Come Ye Saints" when things were rough. Just as we draw on hymns in times of trial, Christ quoted Psalm 22; "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me,". But he wasn't just saying that line; he was quoting the first line of this song. And people back then would have known that he was quoting it.

So to know better how Christ was feeling, we can read the rest of the psalm. Instead of us looking up at the cross, like we are in the accounts in the gospels, reading this takes us right up onto the cross with him, because it's in first person.

7 All they that see me laugh me to scorn : they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,

8 He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.

(Shoot out the lip = stick out their tongues. They're mocking him. Which, we knew.)

He told us the most poignant account of the crucifixion is Psalm 22. It's Messianic literature.

With Messianic literature, there are two ways of looking at it:

1. The writer saw Christ and was writing about it. (This is more true of Isaiah.)

2. David had experiences, and he had a deep heart and could express some of the deepest feelings of our hearts. (He compared this to Shakespeare, who can write from the perspective of Juliet, who is a teenager in love, and also from the perspective of King Lear, who is like, a bitter old man. And he writes the depth of emotions that all different kinds of people experience so well that his stuff stays around. Not very many people can express deep emotions so well, but Shakespeare was one who could, and so was David.) And David's writing is Messianic because Christ drew upon his words and said that's exactly how he felt.

So with Messianic literature it's partially people writing about Christ, and partially people expressing deep emotions so well that Christ quotes it later.

16 For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.

17 I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me.

18 They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.

These things are literal, and then verse 19:

19 But be not thou far from me, O Lord: O my strength, haste thee to help me.

They can do all these things to me, but I can handle all that; but Lord, don't you leave me. These verses give us perspective into how Christ was feeling during the Atonement.

He said a bunch of other stuff, and gave other examples, but it's late and I'm tired, so I'll just share a couple more things from my notes.

Psalm 69.

9 For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up; and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me.

20 Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none.

21 They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.

Again, we're on the cross with Him, looking down, instead of being with the apostles, looking up.

He said we sometimes talk about "the cup of trembling" or the "bitter cup" when we're talking about the Atonement, and he said that the two go together. When we drink vinegar, we don't just say "ew", and he made a face as though he'd tasted something bitter, and when people taste bitter things, their faces pucker and crinkle up--bitterness causes trembling. (He told us, "You go home tonight and drink a cup of vinegar and you'll understand the image very well.")

And then just one last thing he talked about; Psalm 107. He said sometimes Christ deliberately did things to fulfil prophecy. He would specifically duplicate the miracles of other prophets.

That was the way they did things back then. I wish I remember all of the examples he gave, but basically, like Moses parts the Sea, so other prophets parted other things. And that repetition happened a lot. It was part of assuming the mantle of a prophet. Or something like that.

And back in the day, because they did that, you couldn't say "Oh, I believe Abraham was a prophet, and Moses was, and I believe in Elijah, but I don't know about this Elisha..." because that would be gross hypocracy.

In Psalm 107, he showed us this:

23 They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters;

24 These see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep.

25 For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof.

26 They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble.

27 They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man and are at their wits’ end.

28 Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses.

29 He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.

(He told us that the phrase "at their wits' end" came from that verse of the scriptures.)

I asked him if the apostles would have recognized that from the psalm when he calmed the storm. He told me they would have. He said they knew the Psalms really well, just like we would recognize stories from the Book of Mormon if we heard them.

Anyhow, it was a really good class. I'm looking forward to the rest of the semester. I was telling my coworkers about it today, and my boss asked who was teaching it. I looked it up, and I told her. It's S. Michael Wilcox. I thought the name had sounded kinda familiar, but she knew who he was. Apparently he's also an author. He's written a bunch of books I've heard of. Deseret Book has like 15 of his books listed. Hm. Neat.

I'm Glad I'm a Boy! I'm Glad I'm a Girl!

I have something so amazing to share, you're not even going to believe it.

Like a week ago some other library returned this book that they'd borrowed. We have a copy of it, and not too many libraries do, so apparently people request it pretty regularly. One of my coworkers took a look at it and all of us read it, shocked. It's a kids book that would never, never, never get published these days. I love gender roles. I really do. But I just know that this would be like, a lawsuit on every page.

It is very much out of print, but if you want your own copy, you can purchase a used copy on Amazon for $300. It's kind of funny because half of the reviews there like "THIS DESERVES ZERO STARS!!!! WORST BOOK EVER!!!!" and half are like "5 stars. We've come so far..."

Anyhow, I'm posting the whole thing. Fair use? And maybe it's like money where you can reproduce it as long as it isn't the right size? Otherwise, you would just be in suspense forever, because you'd never know how it ended.

UPDATE 5/12/09:
- Apparently this book was actually published as satire. A few people have mentioned this in the comments. It was published in 1970, which is late for this stuff, so that makes sense. I guess what happened is, Darrow published this as a joke and reviewers took it seriously. His obituary is here. It sounds like he was a pretty funny guy.
- A couple people leaving comments have been rude to me for not knowing that it was satire when I posted this. This is my personal blog, guys. I thought it was neat, so I posted it for my friends. I didn't expect hundreds of thousands of people to be reading my blog. Similarly: when I said it would be a lawsuit on every page, I was exaggerating. I do that sometimes. No more comments about that, please.
- If you wish to comment, please note: my mom reads my blog. I welcome your comments and discussion about this post and book (whether or not I agree with you!) but I like to keep my blog family-friendly. Please be respectful towards each other. I will delete even clever comments if they contain profanity or are vulgar. This was not initially a problem, but over the past few days it has become an issue. Thanks.

WHY WE NEED A MAP - C.S. Lewis

I typed this up awhile ago because I wanted to post it on my blog. On my mission it was one of the spiritual thoughts we would leave for people who weren't home. I saved a copy because I like it.


WHY WE NEED A MAP

In a way I quite understand why some people are put off by Theology. I remember once when I had been giving a talk to the R.A.F., an old, hard-bitten officer got up and said, “I’ve no use for all that stuff. But, mind you, I’m a religious man too. I know there’s a God. I’ve felt Him: out alone in the desert at night: the tremendous mystery. And that’s just why I don’t believe all your neat little dogmas and formulas about Him. To anyone who’s met the real thing they all seem so petty and pedantic and unreal!”

Now in a sense I quite agreed with that man. I think he probably had a real experience of God in the desert. And when he turned from that experience to the Christian creeds, I think he really was turning from something real to something less real. In the same way, if a man has once looked at the Atlantic from the beach, and then goes and looks at a map of the Atlantic, he will also be turning from something real to something less real: turning from real waves to a bit of colored paper. But here comes the point. The map is admittedly only colored paper, but there are two things you have to remember about it. In the first place, it is based on what hundreds and thousands of people have found out by sailing the real Atlantic. In that way it has behind it masses of experience just as real as the one you could have from the beach; only, while yours would be a single isolated glimpse, the map fits all those different experiences together. In the second place, if you want to go anywhere, the map is absolutely necessary. As long as you are content with walks on the beach, your own glimpses are far more fun than looking at a map. But the map is going to be more use than walks on the beach if you want to get to America.

Theology is like a map. Merely learning and thinking about the Christian doctrines, if you stop there, is less real and less exciting than the sort of thing my friend got in the desert. Doctrines are not God: they are only a kind of map. But that map is based on the experiences of hundreds of people who really were in touch with God--experiences compared with which any thrills or pious feelings you and I are likely to get on our own are very elementary and very confused. And secondly, if you want to get any further, you must use the map. You see, what happened to that man in the desert may have been real, and was certainly exciting but nothing comes of it. It leads nowhere. There is nothing to do about it. In fact, that is just why a vague religion --all about feeling God in nature, and so on--is so attractive. It is all thrills and no work; like watching the waves from the beach. But you will not get to Newfoundland by studying the Atlantic that way, and you will not get eternal life by simply feeling the presence of God in flowers or music. Neither will you get anywhere by looking at maps without going to sea. Nor will you be very safe if you go to sea without a map.

In other words, Theology is practical: especially now. In the old days, when there was less education and discussion, perhaps it was possible to get on with a very few simple ideas about God. But it is not so now. Everyone reads, everyone hears things discussed. Consequently, if you do not listen to Theology, that will not mean that you have no ideas about God. It will mean that you have a lot of wrong ones--bad, muddled, out-of-date ideas. For a great many of the ideas about God which are trotted out as novelties today are simply the ones which real Theologians tried centuries ago and rejected. To believe in the popular religion of modern England is retrogression--like believing the earth is flat.

-- C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity, Book IV Chapter I)