School is (almost) out I: best fictional schools

I have been counting the days to the end of school: this school year has been the dullest ever, making me want it to end fast so I can move on to new challenges and academic motivations. To celebrate the fact that there are only three days to go, here are three fictional schools I would have liked to attend. Though the first choice was very obvious to me, the fact is that most schools captured on film and literature are settings to teenage angst and existential misery, often populated by charismatic, entertaining to watch bullies who no one would like to cross paths with. I will also post the fictional schools I am most glad I did not go to.

I am not unhappy about my school life in general - I have been lucky to succeed at school, to make good friends, and to have had a few teachers who truly inspired me. That said, I never felt at home at school: it was always just a place where I went for a few classes, a place where I spent many hours but which was still a fringe of my life. The following five fictional schools are just the opposite, places where the characters' life is intense, where learning is an all-absorbing, precious experience, where people are mysterious and charismatic, where there are secrets waiting to be uncovered, where what happens at school takes central stage. On the other hand, I think these schools are appealing settings to flights of fancy, not for real life (for example, I am very glad I did not go to boarding school and grew up close to my family) - but isn't making us dream one of the jobs of fiction?

Honourable mention: Malory Towers
I liked this series of books so much when I was younger! They have a lovely old-fashioned charm, and I suspect every eight-year-old girl would dream of going to boarding school, playing tricks on teachers, having midnight feasts, staging theatre plays or going swimming and horse-riding.


3. St Gallway School, Special Topics in Calamity Physics

I loved this novel, an erudite, thrilling mystery set at an exclusive school where the leading character becomes friends with a group of rich and alluring teenagers and is eventually led to question her whole life story. The plot is an extraordinary structure, intricate, dream-like and filled with life. You can't help being surprised and thrilled at each extraordinary plot twist, while emphasising with the smaller, more normal components of the characters' life and being provoked to think by the philosophical asides. This book combines so many things I like it seems it was written specially for me - most notably, the leading character and narrator has a voice which sounds very similar to my inner monologue, which gave me the illusion of being inside the book, participating in the action. This is a fascinating romance - I really recommend reading it. If you want a taste of its brilliance, you can read a few brilliant quotes here, e.g. 

I was aware too how strange adults were, how theirs lives were vaster than they wanted anyone to realize, that they actually stretched on and on like deserts, dry and desolate, with an unpredictable, shifting sea of dunes. 

Having said so, why would I like to have attended St Gallway's? It is a typical example of the elite American high school or college captured in literature, a luxuriously beautiful set of ancient buildings stretched out across vast meadows, with a mountain range in the distance to add up to the rich melancholy of the place, and filled with students who combine intelligence, culture and confidence far beyond what's usual. 

2. Cutler's Grammar School, The History Boys

The History Boys is a witty dramedy on a group of British boys working to get into Oxford to study History. Thanks to the intelligent dialogues, strong performances by all the actors and fun soundtrack (amongst other factors), it's a fun story that leaves you with a smile on your face and makes you value education as a way of expanding your mind and sharing with others. It helps that school is a familiar place where classes are zany, creative and stimulating, including long strolls and open discussion, role-playing, playing music, debating, saying poetry and hopping between a variety of intellectual themes with the guidance of teachers with a vast culture and enthusiasm. 

1. Hogwarts

The very, very obvious choice. Well, what can I say? Hogwarts is literally magical, filled with surprises  and an unparallelled childish sense of wonder (classes in transfiguration! spells! etc; moving staircases and paintings!; secret passages!; flying broomsticks!; invisibility cloaks!). JK Rowling also profited from the traditional - and lovely - image of the British boarding school, and she populated it with characters anyone would love to become friends with (or to have as enemies - proper enemies make life so interesting in fiction...). In a way, I spent so much of my fantasy life as a child there that I did go to Hogwarts. 

Gauss, the Chuck Norris of Mathematics

Gauss was an 18th century German mathematician who made very significant contributions to many different areas, becoming known as "The Prince of Mathematics" after he died. It's a cool title, but I think the Chuck Norris of Mathematics has more potential for silly jokes like the ones you'll find at http://www.gaussfacts.com/.

Uncle Vanya

Those who come a hundred or two hundred years after us will despise us for having lived our lives so stupidly and tastelessly. Perhaps they’ll find a means to be happy.

Yesterday I went to the theatre, which is something I really enjoy: I find seeing great texts come to life just in front of me very gripping and satisfying. Theatre can be, in a way, augmented reality: the characters' lives are happening a short distance from you, in a condensed period of time and through a powerful, precise use of verbal language and physical movements. Checkhov's Uncle Vanya is a very good example of these qualities. Having read about how revolutionary his approach to play writing was, I had long wanted to watch a play based on one of his texts, and I was not disappointed: the naturalism and universal   relevancy of his themes really resonated with me.

Uncle Vanya is about the tensions that arise when an elderly Professor and his attractive young wife visit his provincial relatives (his daughter from his first marriage, her Uncle Vanya and her grandmother) who support their urban lifestyle. It is not an epic tale - actually, its themes and tonality are very similar to Madame Bovary's: ennui, failure, the absurd way we carry on living what we know to be a meaningless existence, the loss of joy and humanity due to the emptiness of the relationships we establish. The social atmosphere masterfully portrayed through the characters' behaviour is one of dull mediocrity. However, unlike in Madame Bovary, there is some hope to be found here: in Vanya and Sonya's stoicism and acute conscience of their own failings and in Astrov's idealism and dedication to the future. 

The play feels like real life: what is left unsaid and undone is what truly defines the characters' lives, which are marked by the (perhaps inescapable) failure to communicate their inner richness to the outside world. This distance between who we feel ourselves to be and the person others perceive is possibly at the root of our constant dissatisfaction as human beings, and it is certainly a tragical aspect of life. However, as Checkhov manages to transmit, there is something inherently comical about this maladjustment. This play succeeds in showing in stark light the absurdity of our expectations and the bitterness of failure - it both makes you laugh and leaves you close to tears. There's a sharpness to the dialogs, particularly when they appear to be on petty topics, which hits close to the core of emotional and social experience (how not to laugh and feel uncomfortable at a line like When a woman isn't beautiful, people always say 'You have lovely eyes, you have lovely hair'?).

How are we to live? How - if at all - can we fit in the world, match our inner world with what is outside? How can we give meaning to our existence (which is by nature, meaningless in the vastness of an uncaring Universe)? These are some of the questions posed, by showing us a tragicomical stage version of ourselves, that this play asks.

Madame Bovary

Certain books can determine my emotions to a surprising, slightly scary extent: it's as if the outside world was covered by the book's phantom world. Of course I don't actually start behaving as if I was inside the book - that would give rise to many interesting situations, though -, but I create analogies between my surroundings and the book's mood. Madame Bovary, with its flawless writing, is one such book. I have to say I am glad I have finished it, because it made my reality dull, claustrophobic and nauseating while I was reading it - just like the world of this book.

Don't get me wrong: this is a compliment to the book's power to reach deep inside the reader, make him or her connect to the characters and explore the social setting and, from there, question his or her life choices. It is a classic for many good reasons and I recommend reading it, but it is definitely not a story to leave a smile on you face. Much to the contrary.

As you probably already know, it tells the tragic story of Emma Bovary, a doctor's wife in provincial late-eighteenth century France, trapped by social convention and eaten away by boredom (ennui, in the original French - just because it is closer to the texture of the original). Emma, raised in Romanticism, marries Charles, a doctor who is lacking in intelligence or charm (but who would do anything for her; despite his stupidity, he has a good heart), and, disappointed and bored with her life, takes two lovers (though not at the same time): Rudolphe, a charming member of the nobility who never sees her as a human being capable of feeling, and Leon, a young clerk who she is able to manipulate while the affair lasts. She is not a sympathetic heroine: she spends away the money she doesn't have, neglects her husband and daughter, and eventually wrecks their lives. She lives in a fantasy world and is unable to deal with the dull reality around her. Her actions are determined by her cultural background - she is a victim of Romanticism and of her illusions as much as of the dullness of bourgeois society. 

All the same, there is an ambiguity in the way Flaubert treats Emma: he seems to both despise and admire her at the same time. At the time, women enjoyed very little freedom, so Emma's adultery and consumerism are, in a way, brave attempts to escape from her stifling social position. The book masterfully transmits why Emma so wants to escape: the detailed scenes of provincial life are described with unbearable realism, rendering the shallow and dull nature of each and every character (including, alas, Emma Bovary) painfully evident. Flaubert's perfect style - filled with irony, able to reflect the characters' mental state, with each word carefully chosen and placed for maximum effect on the reader - greatly contributes for this effect, and is deserving of every accolade. Though the sentence construction is so well-achieved that it is a source of aesthetic beauty, it must be noted that the nausea pervading the book is achieved through a focus on human ugliness, including quite a few detailed, unflinching descriptions of physical defects and illness. These intensify our sense of the moral and cultural decay of the bourgeoisie, in particular, of the leading character, and force us to confront our own dissatisfaction, illusions and choices. 

After all, Emma is killed by the weight of her fantasies, excessive for her own weak character and for the smallness of society around her:

"N'importe! elle n'était pas heureuse, ne l'avait jamais été. D'où venait donc cette insuffisance de la vie, cette pourriture instantenée des choses où elle s'appuyait?... Mas, s'il y avait quelque part un être fort et beau, une nature valeureuse, pleine à la fois d'exaltation et de raffinements, un coeur de poète sous une forme d'ange, lyre aux cordes d'airain, sonnant vers le ciel des épithalames élégiaques, pourquoi, par hasard, ne le trouverait-elle pas? Oh! Quelle impossibilité! Rien, d'ailleurs, ne valait la peine d'une recherche; tout mentait! Chaque sourire cachait un bâillement d'ennui, chaque joie une malédiction, tout plaisir son dégoût, ot les meilleurs baisers ne vous laissaient sur la lèvre qu'une irréalisable envie d'une volupté plus haute."

The fault is is herself, as member of a society she rejects but is unable to fully evade. "Love" fails to save her: there are no magical solutions for existential boredom, which comes from deep inside. Only through facing our own illusions and surroundings and developing our own character can we ever find a form of peace and happiness, though that will probably be very different from the one which resides in our fantasies. 

Madame Bovary is a brilliant book, very rich in both ideas and style and extremely influential (looking back, there are echoes of Emma's tragedy in every tale of suburban dullness). The following link is an excellent in depth analysis of the book:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/jul/27/classics.asbyatt?INTCMP=SRCH

Just a tender love song

John Martyn, Couldn't Love You More

Regina Spektor's What We Saw From the Cheap Seats

Isn't she pretty?

Regina Spektor is one of my favourite musicians/ singers/songwriters. Her lyrics are very literary and take on a huge variety of different topics (seriously, you would say Regina has lived a thousand lives...) in a vivid and sensitive way; her voice is really rich in emotion and, due to her accent, quite distinctive; and her combination of classical piano with contemporary beats really sets her apart. I like the way her music can be both playful and tragic, often almost at the same time - it really rings true to life (at least, to my perception of it).

I like the album cover: simple, in red and black
(a colour combination I like), and Regina wearing
 a silly/awesome cap.

Her new album What We Saw From the Cheap Seats has just come out and it has been colouring my studying/daydreaming (two activities which mix so well that I am unable to say where one begins and the other starts!). Compared to her early albums, it is much softer around the edges, with a clean, luscious production, no strange yelps or unpredictable vocal twists, and no macabre lyrics, but it is still a very lovely and personal output with that blend of upbeat mood and melancholy which her music encapsulates and reflects my own emotional outlook. 

Four of the songs (Small Town Moon, Don't Leave Me, Patron Saint, and Open) are studio versions of songs she had already played live, the rest are new material. Right now, my favourites are:

Small Town Moon 

very close to how I feel about my future at the moment, now that I am waiting to start anew. Giddy excitement and fear and apprehension live close together.

How can I leave without hurting every one who made me? 

All the Rowboats 

a song about museum pieces being locked away forever and trying to escape; it can be read as criticism to our obsession with conserving the past, or to the way we desire to reach eternity, which is cold and lifeless. I like its eeriness.

On the other hand, I really dislike Ballad of a Politician - it sounds very unpleasant to me, even though its criticism of political power and how it is reached is spot on. Maybe it will eventually grow on me, though - it has happened before (I disliked Dance Anthem of the 80's when I first listened to to it, but it grew to become very relevant to my own experiences and I eventually listened to it countless times). The rest of the songs are quite good, and I suppose I will go through phases of listening over and over to at least some of them depending on what's happening in my life. 

Overall, it is definitely worth a listen. I am really glad to have some new songs by Regina to explore: getting to know their textures is a joy to me, and listening to them is like having a cool friend - both wise and fun - speak to you of her life experiences. 

Great journalism - Amelia Gentleman

I usually read the news on-line at the Guardian website. I like reading what is going on in the world from the perspective(s) of the left, and I appreciate the range of opinions you can find in that spectrum and the balanced, fair way in which issues are presented. Their in-depth articles are often illuminating, and contribute to an increase in social consciousness. In particular, I have recently been reading a series of articles on the fringes of society by Amelia Gentleman, winner of the 2012 Orwell Journalism Prize.

These are truly brilliant pieces of writing, with an enviable clarity of presentation and humanity in the treatment of difficult subjects. She never takes the easy, sensationalist approach; instead, she allows the reader to form his or her own judgement of the situations described and to understand the reality of people living in social exclusion. They make for an engrossing, often challenging, trip to the dark corners of capitalism, and they are a refreshing antidote to the (deeply wrong) majority view that the people who inhabit them are sub-human. I whole-heartedly recommend reading them thoroughly!

England riots: the personal cost 
Life in a Young Offenders' Institution
Behind the Scenes at a School for Troubled Youngsters
Benefit Fraud: spies in the welfare war
Disability Benefits: why the new tests are failing
Caring for the Elderly: a day in the rounds

On the Road

I have recently read On the Road and it left an impression on me. It has a high power to transport you to its inside - 1950's Beat America - and therefore creates a complete setting inside your mind, where you are free to wander. 

With any narrative, you will eventually forget the story's flesh, no matter how much its details moved or amused you while reading; the book will only subsist in your spirit when it corresponds to a particular mental landscape. Only then does the book become yours, a mental window into another world you would never get to experience otherwise. Actually, the window analogy is imperfect in this case - the book's impression on the reader depends both on the author's construction and on the reader's effort to connect, which hangs on past experiences, an open mental state and that non-defined constant we call "personality". When this connection is forged, I believe it is lasting: the mere idea of a book can bring you physical and emotional sensations and a specific, though most often not verbalised, intellectual outlook on life.

On the Road. Isn't it an evocative set of words? To me, it now brings: a winding road in the middle of nowhere, the taste of dust and the dry softness it sets on your skin, the thick smell of tar, the exhilaration of movement on, the sense of possibility of looking at the stars when you might just go anywhere, the burning ache to feel everything at once. 

Kerouac's musical prose, filled with a weary but unstoppable enthusiasm for life, echoes the melancholy freedom of jazz music. The way the narrative is built resembles an impressionist painting in its vast, seemingly aimless scope of events and characters that, once you step back one step to look at it, are what gives the image meaning. His writing's brilliance, however, never feels like a prim stylistic touch. It is a genuine expression of a way of life, which is probably why this book is the icon of a particular generation's search for happiness.

Would I live like they did? Were they courageous or senseless? From a rational perspective, one would have to admit their behaviour was reckless and destructive and that they often treated others, particularly women, as objects. But it somehow doesn't see fair to judge the Beats from a fixed rational point of view, which they so strongly rejected. Instead, while reading, I tried to erase myself into the characters, in other words, to feel their experiences and not to analyse them. There's freedom in escaping from yourself as far as possible, which is why books like this one are tools of liberty for people who, on the outside, live quietly.

A film adaptation is coming out later this year. Though I think that the director Walter Salles is perfect for the source material, it would truly be a masterful achievement if he manages to convey that same sense of emotional freedom - sensuous and destructive, appealing and repulsive at the same time -through film.

In the Backseat

I like spending days travelling.

Inside the van, there open up gaps in everyday reality and you get fleeting glimpses at a different life, one in which time is unified and space itself - in the form of a changing landscape, with the light growing and then decaying into milky darkness - flows by you outside. Stories are told, stories big and tragic like the stuff of fiction but taken out of the fabric of reality. Revelations are made without even flinching - there can be no secrets in this movable world. In some intuitive way, we all notice that life is a blink of an eye, and there is an urgency to share all those experiences we feel as uniquely ours, those which we feel contain the core clues to the mystery of our own identity.

The backseat is a parenthesis.

And outside the landscape flows. The most beautiful moments are sunrise and sunset, when it somehow seems that the world might turn out a million different ways. The dawn is grey: before the sun rises, objects seem translucent. Then, colour blooms into the world and fleshes itself out throughout the day, ever-changing. The outside scenery suggests indefinite memories of things that don't belong to you but to the universe of human experience: longing and loss are contained in the van's unstoppable motion forward, a reminder of the constant mutability of our lives.

A sense of possibility, above all, awaits you at the backseat, when you're exhausted and hungry and your body is broken but you carry on speaking and looking people in the eyes as if that was moving the van, and, in that way, moving the whole world.

One!

This is my first blog post, so I suppose I should introduce myself. I am a 17-year-old girl from Lisbon, Portugal, though I'm moving to Oxford in a few months to start an undergraduate degree in Maths and Philosophy there (why did I have to say this straight away? I'm just too damn excited, that's why :) ). I started this blog because I felt an indefinite yearning to communicate and think more/in a more structured way. Basically, I want to write about things I find interesting and share them with whoever cares to read my ramblings. Comments are more than welcome! :)

Amongst the things I like and hope to post about here are:

Books

I have always loved books. As you can see from the picture on the left, I have plenty of them (you can also see I'm not the neatest person on the planet). Even before I knew how to read, I remember spending quite a lot of time listening to my parents reading to me, puzzling over the meaning of words (which were, of course, just strange marks on paper: isn't it amazing how we are able to assign meaning to sounds and graphical marks?) and inventing my own stories based on the pictures. Then, when I already knew how to read, I stumbled upon the Harry Potter books and fell for that whole imaginary universe (like so many other people). This obsession spread to reading in general - so much that I was once in a while forbidden to read! (How geeky is that?)

I try to read all sorts of books: classic and contemporary romances and novels, short stories, fantasy, poetry, pop science, biographies, memoirs, history, comics, children and young adult novels... You'll get to know my tastes in detail, because I'll definitely write quite a bit about books.

Music

Just like (almost) everyone, listening to music is very important for me to keep my mental stability and to feel connected to others - there's always a song for the way I feel. The name of this blog is a play on the title of Nick Drake's second album, and I chose it both because he's one of my favourite artists and because I just really like the sound of  the words - ethereal and filled with longing, just like Nick's music. This is his song Riverman - isn't it just beautiful?

Cinema

When I was 12 or so, I had a blog where I posted film reviews, though I eventually grew tired of it. I have to say I'm not nearly as much of a cinephile as I used to be back then, when I even entertained the fantasy of becoming a film director, but I still like watching films and find myself challenged to perceive the world in new ways and to connect more deeply with other people's experiences through cinema.

A screenshot from Splendor in the Grass,
just because I like it.

Philosophy/Maths/Science

After writing about my more or less socially acceptable interests, I have to mention that I really enjoy learning mathematics, thinking about philosophical problems and engaging with scientific ideas, particularly in the areas of physics and neuroscience, though I have to admit I know much less than I would like to. Nevertheless, I would say that the type of thinking involved in these areas is at the core of how I interpret the world (I hope that doesn't sound pretentious or too much like a personal statement). 

Politics and Society

Be warned: I'm a liberal on the red side of the political spectrum. I enjoy discussing politics and social issues, particularly related to education, which I believe (like so many others...) to be very important if we want to build a different society, one where there actually is equality between people, and therefore all are granted freedom to fulfill themselves personally and as members of humanity. I hope to be able to participate in the project of building that world throughout my life.

Then, I have a bourgeois side: I like nice and pretty things (scenic views, good-looking people, clothes, cooking, etcetera). 

I hope to write often and about different things, and I also hope that you enjoy reading!

Xx