The semester wrapped up about a week ago. With all the end-of-semester shenanigans, it seems I neglected this blog. I have also had nothing worthwhile to write. I write this with the hopes that it breaks the habit of not posting.
I will not make this long, but I wanted to quickly post about two books that I’ve started in the past few days. First is Matterhorn, by Karl Marlantes. My dad gave this to me for Christmas, but at 550 pages, it wasn’t something I wanted to start in the middle of the semester. It’s a novel about a platoon of Marines in the Vietnam War. Unlike many war books I’ve read, this one carries some serious literary value. The characters are much more complex and evolving than I’m used to, and the issues it deals with are not just war issues. Racism, ambition, deceit, and politics have all been major themes. Perhaps I’ll have more to say about it later.
The other book is Stanley Fish’s How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One. Fish is a very controversial intellectual, but one that I admire. He gets me to think, and that’s all I really want. For a long time, I’ve wanted a re-education in writing well, and I ran across an article about Fish in “The Chronicle of Higher Education.” It referenced this book, it sounded perfect, and picked it up immediately. I anticipate I’ll get these wrapped up in the next couple days (maybe longer for Matterhorn).
I’m also working on another project, dealing with writing for my students. I’ve had some revelations from last semester that have inspired me to take a different approach to writing instruction: not a radically different approach, but a different way to teach what I’ve already been teaching.
Natural Causes 