British Novel Week 8

The book for the final week of the British Novel is At-Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien. The author spent 5 years writing At-Swim. According to Gass's introduction, it was a book that Joyce loved and Hitler hated. According to Anna Clissman, At-Swim is an anti-novel if you rely on the following definition by M.H. Abrams: "... a work which is deliberately constructed in a negative fashion, relying for its effects on omitting or annihilating traditional elements of the novel, and on playing against the expectations established in the reader by the novelistic methods and conventions of the past." The narrator of the story, who is never given a name, is a university student who spends more time in his room, sleeping and writing than he does at the university. The narrator is writing a story with Trellis has the main character. Trellis, the owner of a public house, also spends more time sleeping and writing than attending to business. He, too, is writing a novel. So, we have stories within stories which made for some slow reading. This book was probably the most difficult and the least favorite of the 8 books I have read for this course.

British Novel Week 7

This week's novel is Brighton Rock by the English author and playwright Graham Greene. The novel opens with the line "Hale knew they meant to murder him before he had been in Brighton three hours..." Greene himself states that he began the book as a "detective story" but that "the first fifty pages of Brighton Rock are all that remain of the detective story." Greene employs the third person omniscient point of view in this novel. The view shifts among a selected number of characters. As the story progresses, tension builds. The death of Hale at the beginning of the novel sets a series of events in motion. Ida, a companion with Hale just before his death cannot accept that he died without anyone asking why. She becomes his avenging angel. Members of a small time mob commit more murders in an attempt to cover up their involvement in Hale's death. Rose, an unsuspecting waitress becomes the center of focus for both a mob member and Ida who is running her own investigation on Hale's death. This novel has suspense, death and pits good against evil. The novel was made into a movie in 1947 and again more recently with a 60's setting. The movie would be worth seeing based on the suspenseful story line in the novel.

E. M. Forster

The book of the week is A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh. Waugh was a 20th century British novelist and journalist. His father was a publisher and his brother Alec was an editor. Waugh attended private schools as a boy and later Oxford University. Waugh used family circumstances and acquaintances as settings and characters for his later novels. A Handful of Dust employs black humor to comment on the social norms of the time. Waugh utilizes black humor and satire to comment on British imperialism, the decline of the aristocratic estates, adultery, divorce and death. The third person narrative form makes the novel easier to read than the stream-of-consciousness technique employed by previous British authors. Tony and Brenda are the novel's main characters. Tony's priority is his ancestral home. His wife, Brenda, discontented with the isolated, estate life, travels to London. She takes a flat there and only returns on week-ends. The longer she is gone, the more distant she becomes from her life with Tony at Hetton Abbey. Brenda's next step is to take a lover. She finally requests a divorce and the alimony will cost Tony his ancestral home. At first he goes along with the idea but then refuses to give Brenda a divorce if it means that he will lose Hetton Abbey. Tony leaves his home to get away from everything but ends up lost in the Brazilian jungle. He is presumed dead by everyone back home but actually ends up held captive by a Mr. Todd in the jungles of Brazil. In addition, Tony is forced to read Dickens' books daily to Mr. Todd. Waugh's use of black humor keeps the novel entertaining to the very end.

British Novel Week 5

Lady Chatterley's Lover reflects third-person omniscient narration. This was a welcome relief from the stream of consciousness technique of our previous weeks. Lawrence explores class differences in England along with industrialization. The main theme of the book is sexuality. Connie, Lady Chatterley, is married to Clifford. After only one month of marriage, Sir Clifford goes off to war and returns paralyzed from the waist down. He spends the rest of his life in a wheel chair. At first, Connie is content with an intellectual life versus a physical life. It is Clifford's intellect that excites her. As time goes on, the isolated, intellectual life at Wragby Hall wears on Lady Chatterley. A lover enters the picture but only for a short time. Then Lady Chatterley forms a sexual liason with Mellors who is Sir Clifford's gamekeeper. Connie's sexuality is awakened. This union turns out to be the union of a lifetime in the physical, sexual sense. Eventually, Connie's only goal is to leave Wragby Hall and spend the rest of her life with her lover . The novel ends with both Connie and Mellors waiting on divorces from their significant others. Also, the couple is expecting the birth of their child in the Spring. However, the irony is that with freeedom comes separation. They cannot be together until Mellors' divorice is final. D.H. Lawrence wrote Lady Chatterley's Lover in the 1920's. It was immediately attacked and later banned in his home country. In 1928 it was published in 1928 in Italy. It was not until the Penquin Books Trial in 1960 that Lawrence's book was published in Great Britian.

British Novel Week 4

The book of the week is Passage to India by E.M. Forster. This was the author's first book in over a decade and his last book. Forster actually lived in India which makes the story more believable to me. It is a very sad story about the clash of two Cultures. The British have colonized India and brought with them their own English value system. Rather than understand the Indian people, they have decided to live separate and apart from them. The people of India and the people of Britain have different cultures, religions and ideologies. An accusation and trial pit the English against the Indians. The few characters who try to bridge the gap between East and West are practically ostracized. No one really wins. I did find this book so much easier to read than the previous books that utilized the stream-of-consciousness technique.

Week 3 British Novel Class

It is Week 3 of my British Novel class. The book of the week is Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. I actually enjoyed reading Mrs. Dalloway. Virginia Woolf utilized the stream-of-consciousness technique for this novel. However, it was much easier to read than Joyce or Ford. Woolf's choice of words seemed simpler and more modern. That may have made it easier to read. I located the story in a film starring Vanessa Redgrave. The film came out in 1997 and seems timeless. I was able to draw on the visuals from the film while reading the book. Clarissa Dalloway is the central character of this book. The whole book encompasses one day of her life. Through the stream-of-consciousness technique and memories the reader is shown what Clarissa was like in her youth before she became Mrs. Richard Dalloway. Also, we view what she is now. Mrs. Dalloway is a celebration of Clarissa's life. Through memories, everyday lives and a suicide, we realize how tenuous life really is. Clarissa celebrates life through her morning walk, her selection of flowers and her parties.

It is week 2 of my British Novel class. The reading assignment for this week was Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier. The story is told by the narrator John Dowell. He opens the book with the statement " I don't know how it is best to put this thing down - whether it would be better to try and tell the story from the beginning, as if it were a story; or whether to tell it from this distance of time..." The narration jumps back and forth in time. The reader is left to figure out the sequence of events based on the narrator's disconnected thoughts and perception of the characters and of the events. We want to believe Dowell because he was there and he was a witness to the events. Unfortunately, Dowell was viewing social behavior and his perceptions of this behavior. All is not as it seems. The characters were acting one way in public and another behind closed doors. Dowell is duped and deceived by both his wife and his friends. Is Dowell a reliable or unreliable narrator? Dowell was viewing social behavior for 9 years and never seemed to look beyond the social norms of the time. However, as the story unfolds and the truth is revealed to Dowll, he does pass it on to the reader. By the end of the story, we have all of the events, perceptions and truths that Dowell is able to provide.

British Novel 1900 to 1940

I am currently enrolled in a British Novel class. My introduction to the genre was James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. This introduction also included a literary technique called stream of consciousness. Through this technique the reader is exposed to a character's disconnected, random thoughts. As the main character grows in self awareness, his development as a writer and artist grow as well. The poem at the end of the book sums up Joyce's story and Stephen's (main character) attainment of personal growth.

Are You Not Weary of Ardent Ways

From A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

By James Joyce

Are you not weary of ardent ways,

Lure of the fallen seraphim?

Tell no more of enchanted days.

Your eyes have set man's heart ablaze

And you have had your will of him.

Are you not weary of ardent ways?

Above the flame the smoke of praise

Goes up from ocean rim to rim.

Tell no more of enchanted days.

Our broken cries and mournful lays

Rise in one eucharistic hymn.

Are you not weary of ardent ways?

While sacrificing hands upraise

The chalice flowing to the brim,

Tell no more of enchanted days.

And still you hold our longing gaze

With languorous look and lavish limb!

Are you not weary of ardent ways?

Tell no more of enchanted days.

Hidden in Plain View: A Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad was written by Jacqueline Tobin and Raymond Dobard, Jr. It is a controversial book that promotes the theory that quilts were used as codes for the Underground Railroad. The whole book is based on a single oral testimony. In Africa, everyday objects were used for communication. Quilts were everyday objects seen on southern plantations in the 1800s. It is estimated that 4 million slaves escaped but only 1 percent of them headed north. Slaves fleeing for freedom would watch for a sign that it was time to start their journey. According to the book, each quilt block was assigned a different meaning. It is said that the quilts contained road maps and secret messages. The Monkey Wrench , The Star, and the Wagon Wheel were common patterns in slave quilts. The Monkey Wrench was a signal for the slave to gather everything he would need for the journey. The Star signaled to follow the north star to Canada and freedom. The Wagon Wheel was a signal for the slave to pack provisions for a trip by wagon. An article by Kris Driessen, Putting it in Perspective: The Symbolism of Underground Railroad Quilts, discusses quilts as they are related to history. Many quilt blocks were renamed in the late 1800s to correspond to historical events. There actually are Underground Railroad quilts composed of Jacob's Ladder blocks. Most believe that they are just that. The consensus is that the Underground Railroad quilt codes are a romanticized myth. Either way, they are a gentle reminder to all of us that quilts are interwoven in literature and history.

The Log Cabin Quilt is a children's book with a focus on quilt scraps. The children's mother has just passed away and their father has decided that the family will travel by wagon to Michigan. Grandma takes a bag of quilt scraps with her on the journey. By the time they arrive and build the log cabin, it is winter in Michigan. While the father is away hunting it becomes very cold. Grandma works on her quilting and the children wait for their father to return. The mud between the logs freezes and falls out. Elvirey comes up with a great idea involving the quilt scraps. They use the quilt scraps to fill the holes between the logs. The cabin now becomes a colorful scrap quilt for all to enjoy. Many children's books center around quilts: The Quilter's Gift, Sweet Sara and the Freedom Quilt, Selena and the Bear Paw Quilt, The Keeping Quilt, and Bess' Log Cabin Quilt. The quilt theme is a great teaching tool. It allows teachers to combine many disciplines in the process: reading, history, art and math.

This is week 2 of my summer Advanced Composition class. This posting discusses a play that uses quilting as part of a woman's character. Trifles is a one act play by Susan Glaspell. The play is actually based on a true story that the writer covered when she was a journalist in Des Moines, Iowa. The storyline revolves around the murder of a woman's husband. The woman is in jail for the murder. Several people enter the farmhouse to look for evidence. They include the sheriff and his wife, a neighbor and his wife, and the county attorney. The women notice the untidy kitchen and the jars of preserves that are cracked and frozen. However, the men pass this area off as insignificant, mere trifles. The women also find unfinished quilting. While looking for sewing materials to take to the woman in jail, they find a box containing important evidence. The men have already dismissed this area of the house that is so blatantly a woman's world. Because the women are concerned about these trifles of another woman's life, they found evidence that the men never would have found. When the men return to see what the women are up to, they notice the quilt pieces but again overlook the evidence. The jailed woman's life is now in pieces just as her quilt project is in pieces that may never be put together.

I am enrolled in an Advanced Composition course for the summer. One of the requirements is to have a blog. I've decided to use my existing blog. However, instead of discussing my latest quilt project, I would like to share stories about fabrics and quilts found in literature. Homer's Odyssey is a great first example. Homer wrote The Odyssey around 8 B.C. It was a sequel to his Epic poem The Iliad. You may have read about the adventures of Odysseus, also know as Ulysses, during your middle school or high school years. In The Odyssey, Odysseus is the main character. Odysseus was the king of Ithaca. According to legend, his parents were Laertes and Anticlea. Odysseus married Penelope and had a son. Then,when his son is 1 month old, he leaves to participate in the Trojan War. The Odyssey is about Odysseus' adventures after the Fall of Troy. His wife, Penelope, is left at home. Because Odysseus has been gone many years, Penelope is bombarded with more than 100 suitors for her hand in marriage. She devised a plan to hold them at bay and give her husband time to return home. She told everyone that she was weaving a burial shroud for her father-in-law. Once the shroud is completed, she will pick one of the suitors. However, she undid her weaving every night. She wove her fabric during the day and undid it each evening. This went on for years. Finally, Penelope is betrayed by a chamber maid who gives away her secret. Unfortunately, the suitors return but Penolope still waits for Odysseus to return. In Homer's Odyssey, Penelope is known for her loyalty, fidelity and steadfastness. She worked tirelessly on her fabric for years. Most of us who quilt work on our ideas and fabric for years as well. Although our fabrics and projects are not usually saving a kingdom, we, like Penelope, are loyal and steadfast, seeing our project through to the end.

This particular tee-shirt is all about fitness, endurance, and determination. My time at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar was very filling and the mission was all consuming. One of the few ways to de-stress was through exercise. We were working 24 hour shifts when we pulled duty crew. We would go directly from a medical mission to duty crew. This entailed 24 hours of launching and recovering medical crews, picking up medical equipment, and configuring aircraft. At 98% humidity on the flightline we really got a workout. The duty crew was followed by 12 hours of crew rest. From there, we went to crew alert and, hopefully, we were alerted for another medical mission into Iraq. Once we completed our mission we went right back into duty crew. Needless to say, there were a lot of 12 hour crew rest cycles over the 4 month period that I was there. Several of us had a routine set up. During this time, we would spend our mornings at the gym, our afternoons studying professional development courses, and our evenings running and walking across the base. Originally, my goal was to achieve the 100 mile tee-shirt. Once I reached that goal, I needed another goal. Hence, the 200 mile tee-shirt followed. Towards the end of the tour I was determined to receive the 300 mile tee-shirt. During those last few weeks most of my free time was spent either on the treadmill or trekking across the base to earn miles towards the final tee-shirt. This tee-shirt represents a quest for fitness, the endurance to achieve additional goals in the face of adversity, and the determination to go the extra mile to achieve those goals.

This tee-shirt represents not only several deployments but my last deployment in a war zone. I spent two tours in Afghanistan totaling almost one full year of my life. I lived at Bagram Air Base just outside of the capital city of Kabul. My home was a plywood hut with no running water. I spent a lot of time on the flightline overseeing medical evacuation operations. We ran a 24/7 operation. I worked seven days a week with no days off. When we were short of medical crews, I filled in and flew to forward operating bases to bring the patients back to Bagram Air Base for treatment. During the first tour, I made numerous site visits to Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. I met with Critical Care Teams and medical crews to work through medical evacuation issues specific to that part of the country. You learn a lot about yourself in dangerous situations. You learn to be flexible. You learn to rely on your experience and your training. You learn that you are part of a team, part of a mission bigger than yourself. Also, you learn to take life one day at a time.

This tee-shirt represents a 30 year career in the United States Air Force. I joined the service right after high school. Within the first year I was assigned out of the country. That was the beginning of many new friendships and experiences for me. There was a lot of traveling during that time. Thanks to the Air Force I was able to visit places I could have never managed on my own. I was introduced to people and customs that left me with lasting impressions. I learned a lot about myself over those years. Patience and flexibility served me well. Putting the mission and others above self became routine. Towards the end of my career my focus has been on mentoring others to take over when I am gone. It is also a transition period for me to prepare for the next phase of my life. All in all it was a memorable 30 years.

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I've decided on this desert tan tee-shirt for the next shirt in the quilt. There are a lot of memories and hundreds of pictures that go along with this experience. The year was 2003. I was on my way to a small country called Qatar located on the eastern side of Saudi Arabia. Another desert...Deja Vue! The accommodations were better than in 1991. This time we were billeted in tents with floors and air conditioning. My living space was 4 by 10; small but it was all mine. The humidity was 98% on any given day and the temperatures on the flightline closer to 120 degrees. I remember drenched tee-shirts under our flight suits from the heat and humidity on the ground. Once we reached altitude we froze in the aircraft due to the soaked tee-shirts. We still had a long flight ahead of us. We were tasked to bring patients out of Iraq and back to medical facilities there at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar. The missions were almost surreal. We would don flak vests and helmets as soon as we reached Iraqi airspace. We went in at night and under low light conditions inside the aircraft. You held your breath hoping that nothing would be fired at the aircraft or trigger the tracers. We would land, keep the props running, and load the patients as quickly as possible. Each run included several stops within Iraq before heading back to Qatar. Returning to Al Udeid was always a welcome relief! This tan tee-shirt represents a lot of friendships through shared experiences. Also, it represents a commitment to care for the patients regardless of the danger, the conditions or the circumstances.

This is the second tee-shirt of the 12 that I will be using for my quilt project. Several of the aircraft pictured here are aircraft I have flown in or been in at one time in my 30 year Air Force career. The C-130 aircraft was my primary aircraft for patient evacuation. I was an Instructor and taught others how to work in medical crew positions aboard this plane. My daughter is now an Instructor and an Evaluator for this aircraft. The plane can be configured to hold up to 70 litters. My experience with the C-141 included a lot of hours configuring for heavy patient loads in 2004. I also spent months directing the off-load of patients returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. The C-141 was retired in 2006 after 43 years of service. I've flown aeromedical evacuation missions on the KC-135. This aircraft is a tanker and refuels other aircraft in-flight. On occasion it was used to transport patients utilizing special litter pallets. AWACS is special to me because my brother-in-law retired from AWACS and he is a special kind of guy. The C-5s were in my life at the beginning of my Air Force career. When I was 19 years old I was placed in the engine of the aircraft for a photo opportunity. The photograph was printed in the Air Force Times and went global. Now at the end of my career the plane has returned. It is linked to my new son-in-law who is a loadmaster aboard the C-5. Just as the first tee-shirt held memories, this one, too, reminds me of places I have been, and the memories along the way.

I originally considered starting out with a tee-shirt that depicts several planes used for aeromedical evacuation. However, after input from my daughter, I have decided to start with a very significant tee-shirt that will be part of this quilt project. It is my tee-shirt from Desert Shield and Desert Storm. I have spent 20 plus years in aeromedical evacuation as a medical technician on flying status. In 1991 I was relatively new to the career field. I had trained to fly medical missions on the C-130 aircraft and knew that this plane could go anywhere. It could even land on dirt runways. In January of 1991 I left friends and family to evacuate the wounded from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War. Large numbers of casualties were expected. Fortunately, for all concerned, these numbers did not materialize. After a week of traveling, we landed in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. We spent some time in transient quarters, small trailers set up with cots. I was there when the first scud missiles were fired on Riyadh and OPERATION Desert Shield became Desert Storm. I witnessed the explosions as our Patriot missiles intercepted the scud missiles. The following week we traveled north. I slept on tent floors. I also spent time in bunkers with my gas mask on as more missiles were fired in our direction. I eventually ended up 11 miles from the Iraqi border in the middle of nowhere. The scenery was similar to the terrain on the moon, grey and desolate. We put our efforts into setting up a Mobile Air Staging Facility next to a dirt runway surrounded by berms. Our time was spent preparing and waiting for patients. We lived in tents and were given 1 hot meal a day. Every few days, we were trucked across the desert to take showers . These showers were set up in tents and timed to last only 3 minutes. Despite the hardships, all of us believed that we were there to serve the greater good, to take care of patients in need and to do our part towards the success of the mission. This tee-shirt represents those hardships as well as the commitments and the camaraderie during that time in my life and during that moment in history.

Latest Project

For my latest quilt project, I have settled on 12 tee-shirts from my travels. The tee-shirts represent times and memories of the past. As I work on the quilt, the memories will come back along with the people who shared them with me. The quilt layout and the colors are flexible but the memories will not change. I will post pictures of the project as I go. Comments are welcome!

3/10/10 I am contemplating my next tee-shirt quilt. I have gathered many tee-shirts in my travels to different areas of the world and would like to put these tee-shirts into a quilt. This project should take 2 to 3 months from beginning to end. I am in the thinking stage this week and should be in the implementation stage by next week!

3/9/10 History of the pictured quilts is in yesterday's comments. In the future, I will remember to create a post each time instead of commenting on my own post! Let's just chalk this up to a new blog and the learning curve!

3/8/10 I've just set up my blog. Setting up the blog is similar to a quilt project. You toy with the color and layout before you settle on the final pattern. So, I'll toy with this blog layout a few more days before I settle on my final layout.