Wednesday Creatives: Simon Thomas

Two summers ago, my first Sunday in Oxford, I was at church, meeting lots of new people and one of those was a a guy named Simon.  After some casual conversation, I learned that he was "reading" English Literature for his D-Phil at Magdalen, specializing in obscure female authors of the 1930's.  Oh, and he works for the school library - which in his case, happens to be the Bodleian.  Impressive.  But then he mentions, yah, he has a blog...

Come to find out he has a rather famous book blog, "Stuck in a Book."  Famous as in: several hundred followers, gets invited to Penguin events, and the official Lizzie Bennet Diaries facebook page - they follow Simon's blog.  Oh and on top of being a grad student, working part time for the Bodleian, now and then, part time for Oxford University Press (I'mnotjealousI'mnotjealousI'mnotjealous...), he must read 130+ books a year and then, of course, blogs about them. I consider myself lucky to count Simon as a friend and fellow Janeite, to have discussed LBD episodes via facebook comments, to have followed his trips to Chatsworth and the home(s) of Virginia Woolf, and to have taken up some of his book recommendations [I'm sorry I didn't love Agatha Christie more, but London War Notes was beyond compare!].  And I've mentioned him here before for his review of Peter and Alice.  I'm sure he's going to go onto an illustrious career in publishing or writing or blogging or academia or whatever he chooses to pursue. 


All that to say... He has branched out from book reviews to post some short creative writing, like these witty poems.  Each little one is dedicated to an author and they go something like this:

What the dickens?

Oh Charles, you saw
The humble poor
In such disarming detail -
But somehow missed
In all of this
A single real female.

Dear Aunt Jane

"Sweet, ineffectual Jane, the dear!"
Of all misreadings, wrongest.
Her barbs will last two hundred years;
Her laughs, both loud and longest.


Aren't those fun?  Do check out both parts 1 and 2   Also quite good is his "One place, Many Simons" article, regarding the idea of the same place becoming part of our story in many different ways.

Today, though, he outdid himself.  A fan of hilarious, literary, and/or witty short stories? Read "Jane Austen wrote the works of William Shakespeare."  Having experienced one or two academic conferences and after writing my thesis on the critical history comparing Austen to Shakespeare - this made me cry with laughter.  Such a joy!

31 Days of Books: Tale of Two Cities

Title:  Tale of Two Cities

Author:  Charles Dickens

Published:  1854

Year I read it:  2004, 2006

One sentence summary:  The classic novel of the French Revolution; of doppelgangers; of family devotion, betrayal, and shame; and of the relation of two cities: London and Paris.

Interesting fact:  Dickens's only historical fiction novel. 

Three reasons to read it:

• If you, like me, think Dickens is a bit heavy-handed in his symbolism and caricatures and length, etc... Let me assure you, this book is better than most.  [It's like Spielberg's Lincoln - he seems to have stepped back enough to let the characters breathe and fill the space he's created.]
• Sydney Carton.  No, I'm not just fangirling.  I may have a thing for complex, quasi-scoundrelly protagonists.  But it's not just that.  Sydney is genuinely amazing.  He's brilliant creation and he makes the rest of this story work.
• This is one of those books that you have to trust that the author is weaving a web of plots and that they will somehow connect in the end.  Dickens does a fabulous job of bringing all his threads together for a spectacular climax - no loose ends, no characters wasted. 

One reason you maybe shouldn't:

• Being that it's Dickens, there are still (in my opinion) the issue of the weak-or-evil-female conundrum. 

Great quotes:

“A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.” 

“I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul.” 

"Oh, you will let me hold your brave hand, stranger?""Hush! Yes, my poor sister; to the last.”