Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

Her Fearful Symmetry opens with Elspeth Noblin’s death from leukaemia. Elspeth had been estranged from her twin sister, Edwina, for twenty-years. After her passing it is discovered that she has left her flat to Edwina’s children, Julia and Valentina Poole, who are also identical twins – under the condition that they live there for one year and that their parents never cross the doorstep. The twins grew up in America, and they find the prospect of moving to London quite exciting. Elspeth’s flat is in Highgate, a beautiful area of London, and it borders the famous cemetery of the same name. Julia and Valentina soon get to know the other inhabitants of Vautravers Mews, living and deceased, and are forced to face uncomfortable truths about their own relationship.

Her Fearful Symmetry was widely discussed all over the blogging world two years ago, and its release came after some of the most eager anticipation for a new novel I remember seeing. Considering that this was Niffenegger’s follow-up to The Time Traveller’s Wife, the excitement was hardly surprising. I was as eager as anyone else, but once I actually had the book in my hands, I kept putting off reading for no particular reason. In the end it took me two years to actually get to it – funny how that happens with so many books we think we need to have right away, isn’t it?

Anyway, the point of this anecdote is to say that for once I’m actually glad it took me so long to get to a book – in 2009, I might very well have been mislead by my expectations, as many other readers were. But right now, not only had my expectations been adjusted but this was absolutely the right book at the right time. I read Her Fearful Symmetry in early September, when the weather was turning cooler and the first signs of Autumn were beginning to show; and I read it right after a visit to Highgate Village and Highgate Cemetery. I wanted a story that captured the atmosphere, richness and historical resonance of the place I had just visited, and what could have been more perfect than this novel?

As most of you probably know, Her Fearful Symmetry is a ghost story. Although Elspeth dies in the opening chapter, she remains trapped in her flat and observes Julia and Valentina as they attempt to adjust to their new lives. One thing that initially surprised me was the novel’s mood: it’s subtle, quiet and subdued, and it put me in mind of gentle, benign ghost stories such as A Fine and Private Place by Peter Beagle.

But this initial sense of security is misleading, and things eventually take a much darker turn. Though nothing about the plot was exactly unexpected, there was a certain scene that still gave me shivers – the way Niffenegger describes Robert Fanshaw’s dawning realisation and the wrongness of everything that is happening is impressive. But I loved that even then, things are dark and dangerous in very human ways. Her Fearful Symmetry is unsettling because people can be unsettling, and personally I find this far more effective than purely supernatural horror. People mislead and manipulative each other; people are afraid and hurt those they love. The mistakes these characters make out of fear, desire, or a combination both are far more troubling than the ghosts alone could ever be.

My favourite thing about the novel, though, was part of its gentler side: Martin and Marijke Wells’ plotline. Martin and Marijke are two of the residents of Vautravers Mews, but Marijke leaves before the twin’s arrival because even though she loves her husband she can no longer live with the rituals his obsessive-compulsive disorder imposes on their lives. I loved the tenderness and compassion with which Niffenegger portrayed this couple; I loved that she explored the intersection between love and all the other things that are needed for a relationship to work; and I loved the touching conclusion of their story.

It’s this knack for capturing relationships and each character’s emotional landscape that will always keep me coming back to Audrey Niffenegger’s writing.

They read it too: Stella Matutina, Book Addiction, Lit&Leisure, The Sleepless Reader, Serendipity, Leafing Through Life, somewhere i have never travelled, where troubles melt like lemon drops, books i done read, Jenny’s Books, Rhapsody in Books, Eclectic/Eccentric

(Have I missed yours?)

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How do I love thee, Six Feet Under? Let me Count the Ways

Back in July, when I was in the middle of my summer reading slump and when my dissertation-related stress levels had reached their maximum, my boyfriend got me the complete Six Feet Under boxset to cheer me up. My experience with this series was a good reminder of why I should devote more time to stories told in other media. Books will always be my first love, but I love being able to share a story with another person as I discover it. You can always urge your partner or friends to read a book you love, of course, but there’s always a little bit of a delay.

Also, I’ve always felt that what gives books the edge is how easily they can show us what’s going on inside a character’s mind. TV and films can’t do that unless they use voice-over (which more often than not sounds contrived), but on the other hand, a good actor can get so much across with a silent look or a simple gesture. Both media have strengths that allow stories to be told in unique ways. And anyway, there is no point in pitting different media against each other, as fortunately we live in a world where we can enjoy both.

It only took us two months to watch the whole of Six Feet Under, and now that we’re done I feel a little like I always do after finishing a particularly long and engrossing series (think Harry-Potter-is-over levels of bereavement): saying goodbye to the characters was like parting ways with good friends, I can’t stop thinking about the story, and for the time being it’s hard to imagine ever enjoying another series as much as this. I really miss it, I can’t wait to watch the whole thing again, and I really want to talk about. Hence this tribute post:

• I love that although the concept behind Six Feet Under could have been gimmicky – a show about a family who runs a funeral home and where each episode opens with a death – it really wasn’t at all. The characters are too fully fleshed out for that to ever happen. The funeral home is there, but what the show really is about is people and relationships and being a human being. The backdrop of constant contact with death gives it an added sense of urgency, but it never feels like a contrived plot device.

• Similarly, although dealing with mortality is a major theme of the series, it avoids pitfalls such as excessive existential angst, facile New Ageism, or anything in between. Instead, a wide range of views and philosophies are represented – you see different people coping and making sense of death in a variety of ways, and all are treated with seriousness and respect.
  
  
• I love that although there’s plenty of black humour (some of the opening deaths are pretty funny), it never crosses the line into insensitivity, and no one is ever dehumanised.
  
  
• I love how diverse the cast is. This is true in terms of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation and disability, and it goes for both the main and the supporting characters. I thought it was particularly interesting that the show’s two main characters who suffer from mental illnesses were male, which goes against the dominant trend in pop culture representations. People more knowledgeable than me would be in a better position to assess the quality of these representations, but I loved that neither Billy nor the other character (I don’t want to give away who he is, as his illness is only revealed slowly) were reduced to bipolar disorder or psychotic depression. They were vulnerable and human, and they suffered because of their conditions, but that was not the total sum of who they were.
  
  
• I would love the show for David and Keith alone - they quickly became my new favourite fictional couple. At the centre of this story there is a gay multiracial couple, and their relationship is perhaps the strongest in the whole series. This shouldn’t be worthy of note, but in a world where glbtq representations are still so rare, it really is. Also, [potential spoiler ahoy] I love that their romance isn’t just will-they-won’t-they, even though they go through that for the first few seasons. But eventually their story becomes about what staying in a relationship is like, and it counters the myth that a love story ends once people get together. Last but not least, I love that there are so many physical affection scenes featuring David and Keith – as many as for any other couple. Again, this shouldn’t be worthy of note, but the impression I have is that this isn’t exactly common in a television series.

• I also love the fact that although David goes through the whole coming out and finding self-acceptance storyline in season one, they then take his story far beyond that. Obviously there is a place for that kind of story, but I don’t want it to be all a glbtq character ever goes through. And with David that’s certainly not the case. (Can you guess who my favourite character is yet?)
  
  
• I love that Ruth Fisher, the family matriarch who becomes a widow in the pilot, is shown to be a sexual being. I can’t think of that many pop culture representations of older people, let alone of older women who are shown to experience desire and are not ridiculed for it.
  
  
• Though not everything was perfect, I was generally happy with how the show dealt with gender and sexuality. I had some misgivings about the storyline involving Brenda’s self-destructive sexual behaviour, but I liked that in the end this wasn’t tied to her gender, which I suspect most other shows would have done. Much of what she does is socially acceptable in men but not in women, but the reason why she had a problem is because she’s making herself unhappy, not because she’s a woman who is trespassing. When she decides to go to therapy, she meets men in similar circumstances, which clearly challenges the sexual double standard. And in the end, her sexuality is not framed as a sign that she’s damaged – she’s just a person learning about intimacy and doing the best she can.

• I loved that Claire’s penchant for dangerous boys is challenged rather than romanticised. Yes, in the beginning I rolled my eyes, especially because in the ten years since the show began, what Jodie called the “every girl loves a psychopath” trend has gotten really out of hand. But the point is that Claire learns better – not in a I Shall Now Be Punished For My Stupidity sort of way, but rather by realising that there’s far more to life than babysitting troubled boys and moving towards more egalitarian relationship models.
  
  
• I love how dark and daring the plot is. Yes, there were times when I wished they had gone further, especially in terms of relationship dynamics and exploring alternative models, but overall there’s very little they shy away from. The ending of the third season! The final five episodes! Part of me is still in shock.

• Finally, the music: not only did the show use excellent songs, but it used them in absolutely brilliant ways. Lucky by Radiohead playing as the Fishers make a bonfire out of the wrecks of their previous lives; Claire and her friends singing along to Death Cab for Cutie’s Transatlanticism; Ruth and her sister and their friends singing Calling All Angels over the body of a deceased friend; The Arcade Fire’s Cold Wind closing the second to last episode (for which it was especially written)…wow.

I know there are other series out there I could love as much as this (and yes, dear blogging friends, I will watch Buffy), but for now I want to enjoy the bittersweet feeling of having something so wonderful come to an end. It perfectly fits the ethos of Six Feet Under, after all.

Are you a fan of Six Feet Under as well? If not, what are your all-time favourite TV series?

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The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson (& Advent with Austen)

The Psychopath Test - A Journey through the Madness Industry opens when journalist Jon Ronson is called to help a neurology professor unveil the mystery behind a book she received in the mail: a carefully produced and cryptic object that has been sent to several academics around the world and over whose meaning they cannot stop puzzling. Ronson’s investigations make him consider the fact that most of us operate under an assumption of sanity – we expect things to make sense and have a logical explanation. But in the world he’s about to enter, this isn’t always the case.

Ronson’s research puts him in contact with Tony, a young man who has been locked in Broadmoor for years after faking madness using classic movie lines to escape a heavy prison sentence. You’d think that the doctor’s inability to spot his obvious appropriations of pop culture would speak volumes about their lack of reliability – and yet there’s more to Tony’s story than meets the eye. Ronson also meets Bob Hare, the author of the Hare Psychopathy Checklist, the most commonly used psychometric tool to assess psychopathy. Ronson is put off by Hare’s tendency to refer to psychopaths almost as if they belonged to another species, yet when reviewing the history of alternative and more compassionate treatments, he comes across rates of recurrence that give him pause. The result is an inevitable period of confusion: in a world where experts are at such odds with each other, who do you trust?

My favourite thing about The Psychopath Test was the fact that it balanced a resolutely critical approach to unfounded expertise and sloppy science with an acknowledgement that there are people out there with serious problems who need professional help. Ronson is aware that mental illness is very much real, and he takes care not to sensationalise, dehumanise, or exploit those who suffer from it. But his compassionate approach goes hand in hand with a refusal to flinch away from asking uncomfortable questions to experts who have very few certainties but often pretend otherwise.

Ronson knows that the reality of mental illness doesn’t diminish the fact that we live in an age where there’s a lot to be gained from pathologising human behaviour - or as he puts it, reducing people to their maddest edges. There is also a problem with approaches that divorce madness from its surrounding social context. For example, many of the items on the Hare checklist can be positively recast as “leadership skills” if identified in a sufficiently powerful person. This causes Ronson to wonder “if sometimes the difference between a psychopath in Broadmoor and a psychopath on Wall Street was the luck of being born into a stable, rich family.”

A lot of the ground The Psychopath Test covers was familiar to me: as a psychology major, I studied not only the DSM-IV, but also “On Being Sane in Insane Places” and Thomas Szasz’s anti-psychiatry movement. But my familiarity with both sides of the argument didn’t detract from my enjoyment of this book – quite the contrary. It was very interesting to revisit the difficult questions I first encountered all those years ago, and it was wonderful to see such a highly readable book that puts it all so clearly and encourages critical thinking without pooh-poohing people who suffer from very real problems.

I read The Psychopath Test in a single day in August, right in the middle of my I-can’t-concentrate-on-anything funk. I didn’t expect a non-fiction book to pull me out of it, but there you go. Ronson combines thoughtfulness, complexity and intellectual rigour with engaging, accessible prose and a wonderful sense of humour. I’ll be sure to seek out his other books.

Favourite passages:

I didn’t know what to think. There are a lot of ill people out there whose symptoms manifest themselves in odd ways. It seemed untoward for Lady Margaret – for all the anti-psychiatrists, Scientologists or otherwise – to basically dismiss them as sane because it suited their ideology. At what point does querying diagnostic criteria tip over into mocking the unusual symptoms of people in very real distress? The CCHR had once sent around a press release castigating parents for putting their children on medication simply because they were ‘picking their noses’ (…). The thing was, parents weren’t putting their children on medication for picking their noses. They were putting them on medication for picking them until their facial bones were exposed.
But as her list continued it was hard not to wonder how things had ended up this way. It really did seem that she was on to something, that complicated human behaviour was increasingly getting labelled as mental disorder. How did this come to be? Did it matter? Were there consequences?

When Robert Spitzer stepped down as editor of DSM-III his position was taken by a psychiatrist named Allen Frances. He continued the Spitzer tradition of welcoming as many new mental disorders, with their corresponding checklists, into the fold as he could. DSM-IV came in at 886 pages.
Now, as he took a road-trip from New York down to Florida, Dr Frances told me over the phone he felt they’d made some terrible mistakes.
‘It’s very easy to set off a false epidemic in psychiatry,’ he said. ‘And we inadvertently contributed to three that are ongoing now.’
‘Which are they?’ I asked.
‘Autism, attention deficit, and childhood bipolar,’ he said.
‘How did you do it?’ I asked.
‘With autism it was mostly adding Aspenger’s, which was a much milder form,’ he said. ‘The rates of diagnosis of autistic disorder in children went from less than one in two thousand to more than one in a hundred. Many kids who would have been called eccentric, different, were suddenly labelled autistic.’
I remembered my drive to Coxsackie Correctional Facility, passing that billboard near Albany – EVERY 20 SECONDS A CHILD IS DIAGNOSED WITH AUTISM.
Some parents came to wrongly believe that this suddenly startling outbreak was linked to the MMR vaccine. Doctors like Andrew Wakefield and celebrities like Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carey promoted this view. Parents stopped giving the vaccine to their children. Some caught measles and died.

I think the madness business is filled with people like Tony, reduced to their maddest edges. Some, like Tony, are locked up in DSPD units for scoring too high on Bob’s checklist. Others are on TV at 9p.m., their dull, ordinary, non-mad attributes skilfully edited out, benchmarks of how we shouldn’t be. There are obviously a lot of very ill people out there. But there are also people in the middle, getting over-labelled, becoming nothing more than a big splurge of madness in the minds of the people who benefit from it.

They read it too: Devourer of Books, Linus’s Blanket, Layers of Thought, The Girl from the Ghetto, Book Sake

(You?)

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And now for something completely different: Advent with Austen, an event I’m helping my fellow bloggers Alex, Yvvan, Teadevotee and Iris host, invites you to celebrate all things Austen during all of the advent – that is, between November 27 and Christmas Eve. You could read Austen herself (of course), read a biography or a book about her work, read a modern reimagining or sequel, or watch one of the many TV and film adaptations. Yvann has posted all about the rules, different levels of participations (which are named after Austen characters), and side events, so I’ll point you towards her blog. I hope you’ll consider joining us! As for me, I’m planning to use this as an excuse to finally read Persuasion and watch a TV adaptation. Perhaps Northanger Abbey?

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The Sunday Salon - To Spoil or Not to Spoil

Photo Credit

Sakura at Chasing Bawa wrote a post the other day which included a discussion of spoilers– she asked her readers how they thought bloggers should handle them, and it was very interesting to read through the comments and see all the different perspectives. Kinna, with whom I almost always agree, said she wished people were as accepting of spoilers in contemporary novels as they are in classics, as the experience of reading a book amounts to more than plot. This reminded me of that spoilers study that made the rounds a few months ago - according to this study, spoilers don’t actually lessens people’s enjoyment of literature or films (for once I’ll try not to go on about how much sweeping generalisations based on a sample of thirty participants irk me.)

I actually agree that there’s far more to one’s reading experience than plot, and that in many cases knowing how a book or movie ends will not ruin it for you. This isn’t just because of all the things that go beyond plot, but also because like those thirty participants reported, it’s perfectly possible to enjoy a story more when you know what’s coming – I have many friends for whom that’s usually the case. Yet as you might have noticed, I’m very cautious about spoilers in this blog. The reason is that I believe that although the word ‘spoiler’ may be a bit of a hyperbolic misnomer, wanting to know plot details in advance or not comes down to individual preference, and I want to give each reader the choice to see them or not.

One troubling thing I sometimes notice in these conversations is that individual preferences get wrapped up with assumptions about why people read. Not minding spoilers is often associated with a preference for theme, language, and characterisation; avoiding them with an investment in narrative that is perceived as a less sophisticated way of reading (and this could be the topic of a whole other post). But the association doesn’t really hold – it’s perfectly possible to have a deep love for narrative and still want to know how a story ends in advance. And it’s equally possible to avoid spoilers while being perfectly aware of all the things literature does besides tell a story.

People do read for different reasons – not only that, but the same person reads for different reasons at different times. But their attitudes towards spoilers don’t really say much about what those may be. Personally I read for many reasons, and I love many things about both literature and narrative that go beyond how events unfold. And yet I wouldn’t trade the pleasure of reading, say, Fingersmith for the first time for anything in the world. This novel has a twist that many readers more perceptive than me found very obvious, but I delighted in being completely taken by surprise. If I had seen what was coming, Fingersmith would certainly still have become one of my all-time favourite novels – I love it for the writing, the period detail, the characterisation, the way it handles themes such as gender, sexuality, social inequality, patriarchal definitions of madness, etc, and for Sarah Waters’ astonishing sensitivity, depth and insight. At the end of the day, those things matter more to me than being surprised. But the experience of being taken aback by the plot is still something I deeply treasure.

It’s not just story – but to see a story unfold is nevertheless a wonderful pleasure to me, and I don’t want to do without it if I have a choice. This is as true of a brand new novel as it is of one 150 years old, and it’s the reason why I no longer reader introductions or back cover synopses of classics before I’m done with the book.

(ETA: What Eva said.)

(ETA II: I also recommend that you read Teresa’s take on the subject at Shelf Love.)

How do you feel about spoilers? Do you associate them with different attitudes towards reading? Do you ever wish other readers would be more careful, or would get over themselves and just embrace spoilers? Do you feel differently about them if the story is a classic? As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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Happy Banned Books Week! If time allows I’ll use this week as an excuse to finally read Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. And if you head over to Chelsea’s blog, you’ll see a review of a different banned book every day this week.

Last but not least, I wanted to let everyone know that nominations for this year’s Independent Literary Awards are now open. I’m a judge for the speculative fiction category this year, so I would be especially grateful if you told us what your favourite speculative fiction books published in 2011 are. Any reader can use the form to nominate their favourites - you have until the end of the year to do so.

Have a great Sunday, everyone!

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In Which I Mourn My Loss of Access to an Academic Library

This summer I was going to READ ALL THE BOOKS. As I promised/threatened a few months ago, I was going to write a series of posts on all the gloriously nerdy gems I found in my university library. I made a list and everything, and I kept telling myself that if I committed to it, I could go through at least 50% of it before September came and these books became unavailable to me.

Well, September is here, and like many of my other summer plans, none of this ever really happened. I didn’t count on how exhausted my dissertation would leave me – for a while there I couldn’t even read novels, let alone demanding non-fiction. But as you can imagine, I’m now heartbroken that I can no longer borrow books from an academic library (library memberships are available for alumni, but they don’t include borrowing rights – and there’s no way these would get read if I couldn’t bring them home). It’s especially sad because many of these books are hard to find in public libraries and/or prohibitively expensive. Though I understand the practical reasons that make this difficult, I would love to live in a world where academic libraries were open to anyone interested.

Perhaps one day my circumstances will change and I’ll have access to them again, but in the meantime, I thought I’d post my list to a) keep these books on my radar, b) so you could share my pain, and c) so some of you could perhaps read them on my behalf and then tell me if they’re as awesome as they sound.

Here it goes:

• English Feminism, 1780-1980 by Barbara Caine — from the author of Victorian Feminists, which I very much enjoyed, comes a history of feminism in England with an emphasis on “the relationship between feminist thought and actions”. Why didn’t I borrow it while I could?
  
  
• The Victorian Press and the Fairy Tale by Caroline Sumpter — a study of the literary fairy tale in the nineteenth-century and of the social history behind it, which won the Mythopoeic Award for general myth and fantasy studies this year. WANT.
  
  
• Silences by Tillie Olsen – the publisher describes it as “a study of the crucial relationship between circumstances - of sex, economic class, colour, the times and climate into which one is born - and creativity (…) Tillie Olsen focuses on the financial and cultural pressures which obstructed, or silenced, their work. She then turns to those who have lost most: women writers, their energies deflected into domesticity and motherhood; black American writers, only 11 of whom published more than two novels from 1850-1950”.
  
  
• Victorian Fiction: Writers, Publishers, Readers by John Sutherland — A history of the social and cultural context where the Victorian novel developed. What’s not to love?
  
  
• Seduction and Betrayal: Women and Literature by Elizabeth Hardwick — a critical analysis of several women writers, including Virginia Woolf, Zelda Fitzgerald, Dorothy Wordsworth, and Sylvia Plath.
  
  
• Charlotte Mew and Her Friends by Penelope Fitzgerald — Charlotte Mew’s poetry has been recommended to me several times, and I know I should read it before I embark on a biography. However, the library had lost its copy of The Farmer’s Bride but had this biography instead, and I was very tempted by it. The fact that it’s written by an accomplished novelist only makes it sound more appealing.
  
  
• Victorian Suicides: Mad Crimes and Sad Histories by Barbara Gates —This has been on my wishlist ever since I read Sarah Waters’ Affinity. The first chapter is available at Victorian Web and it makes the whole thing sound great.
  
  
• Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin de Siècle by Elaine Showalter — With a title like this, do I need to add anything? Also, it’s Elaine Showalter, whose writing I usually love.
  
  
• The Female Malady: Women, Madness and English Culture, 1830-1980 by Elaine Showalter – see above.
  
  
• A Woman of Passion: The Life of E. Nesbit by Julia Briggs — E. Nesbit sounds like a fascinating woman. The fact that she inspired Olive Wellwood from The Children’s Book only adds to the appeal of this biography.
  
  
• Intellectual Impostures by Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont — a companion to Fashionable Nonsense, which, now that I think of it, I also haven’t read. On the bright side, I do own Edward Slingerland’s What Science Offers the Humanities, so I could go read that instead.
  
  
• Lizzie Siddal: The Tragedy of a Pre-Raphaelite Supermodel by Lucinda Hawksley — if you’ve been reading this blog for a while you probably know all about my interest in the Pre-Raphaelites. The fact that I’ve yet to pick up this book is quite a gap in my reading.
  
  
• Half the Human Experience by Janet Hyde — reading this bulky psychology textbook for fun sounds a bit daunting, but I think it would be worth the time investment. Hyde is a famous critic of gender essentialism, plus I’ve read some of her journal articles in the past and her writing is extremely accessible. Publisher’s description: “Hyde examines the balance of cultural and biological similarities (and differences) between the genders, noting how these characteristics may affect issues of equality, and also how men and women behave towards one another. By putting into context the proliferation of research in the field and clearly explaining the relationship between gender and emotion, the author helps demystify the scientific process and study of feminist psychology”.
  
  
• Josephine Butler by Jane Jordan — Butler was a Victorian feminist and activist who battled the Contagious Diseases Act at a time when ladies were not supposed to either speak in public or acknowledge the existence of prostitution. I first read about her in Victorian Feminists, and I would love to learn more.
  
  
• An Experiment in Criticism by C.S. Lewis — Laura Miller is to blame for this one – she wrote about it in The Magician’s Book and made it sound wonderful. Fortunately for me, this is far more affordable and easier to find that the rest of this list.
  
  
• To Herland and Beyond: The Life and Work of Charlotte Perkins Gilman by Ann J. Lane — I actually had this biography out of the library at around the time I read Herland — Claire Tomalin’s biography really enhanced my understanding and appreciation of Mary Wollstonecraft, and I was hoping for the same here. But the timing wasn’t right and it just didn’t get read. One day!
  

If you’ve read any of these, I would love to hear what you thought!

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All Done!

Well, my dissertation is off to the binders - although it will be a few days before I can hand it in (and even longer before I “officially” graduate), I’m going to go ahead and give myself permission to do a happy dance now.

Earlier today I was remembering my library school induction, which was exactly one year ago tomorrow. It was a very intensive year, and in many ways very different from what I had imagined, but looking back now it all seems to have gone by so fast. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure how I feel. There’s relief, but I also feel a little lost now that something that took over my life for so many months has been completed, especially as I’m still not sure what the future holds. As my fellow book blogger and recent library school graduate Stefanie was saying a few months ago, if only this milestone came with a shiny new library job wrapped up in a bow.

One thing I do know for sure, though: I’m incredibly happy that I’ll have the time and the energy to read outside my research topic again, and I can’t wait to resume regular blogging, commenting and e-mailing. I’ve missed talking books with you all, and most of all I missed the sense of intellectual companionship that comes with it. The last few months were intellectually engaging and satisfying, but working on a big project on your own is also a lonely experience. It’s wonderful to be able to come back.

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Time for another hiatus

I feel like lately I've spent more time going on blogging breaks than actually blogging, but if all goes well this will be the last one for a while. My MA dissertation is due at the end of the month, which means that between now and then I should step away from any distractions and focus on forcing my draft into the stipulated word limit (always the hardest bit for me) and making it the best it can be.

Sadly this means I'll miss fun events that have everyone excited, such as the RIP Challenge or Book Blogger Appreciation Week, but something has to give. I feel like I've been a terrible blogger for the past six months or so, not to mention a terrible commenter and even worse event participant. I won't apologise for the 100th time, but hopefully once this is behind me I'll once again have time and energy to do other things that matter to me and reconnect with blogging friends (not to mention to read - I've been in the middle of the same books for close to three weeks now, which is something that hadn't happened to me in years).

To end on a brighter note, I'm very much looking forward to one final distraction: I'll be going down to London this Sunday to finally see The British Library's science fiction exhibition and to attend the Worlds of Wonder event, featuring Neil Gaiman, Peter F. Hamilton, Kari Sperring and Farah Mendlesohn. One of the most exciting things about it is how many blogging and twitter friends will also be in attendance - if you're one of them, do say hi!

Of course, I know I'll be tempted to blog about it when I return, but one of the goals of going on a hiatus now is exactly to allow myself no excuses for distractions. I can always tell you how it was in October. In the meantime, you'll probably still see me complaining about wrist pains and stress on Twitter as I make it through the final stretch. See you on the other side!

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