divine angst

This is the last in my series of campus reviews. Despite spending four days in Chicago, I did not make it down to the University of Chicago. Surprisingly, we just didn’t have time. (We didn’t have a car, which would have made getting down there easier; on public transportation, we didn’t have time.) My sister-in-law’s brother and his wife went to UoC, and I think she’s going to sic them on me for getting a little down about the place, but I honestly don’t think I’ll get in, so I don’t feel too bad about not making the visit—or about complaining about how hard it would be to get there on public transportation.

OK. Back to Northwestern.

I’ll set the stage: it’s a cold (19°), windy morning in the Second City. Mr. Angst and I are crabby because we’ve wandered around a bit trying to figure out where to get CTA day passes. Our toes are cold, our faces are windblown, and we’re hungry. We eventually got our passes, made our way to the train, and got to his stop. I had to abandon him there, because I needed to transfer and he needed to get to his appointment—I felt bad about that since I’m the map lady and he wasn’t entirely sure where to go. Sorry, sweetie!

I made my way on the Red Line to the Chicago stop (Chicago Avenue) and began walking east. Towards the lake. Into the wind. Remember the 19° temperature? Remember the icy toes? *whimper* I was pretty chilled within two blocks. Then I reached the medical school and got hopeful. Too soon. The B school…still not there. Finally, I saw a door that said “Law School” and ran inside.
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I requested this book at Christmas on, actually, the recommendation of a blogger (can’t remember which one now) who mentioned it as an alt-history. You know, the kind of book that takes as a premise, “what if x had not happened and y had?” I love those sorts of speculative fictional histories, so I put it on my Amazon wish list and, voilá, I received it.

I was not as pleased as I hoped I would be.

In the end, I was reminded more of Sophie’s World than any other book I’ve read. Rather than exploring the true historical options presented by a world in which the Black Death completely eradicated Christian Europe, the author took that opportunity to explore the philosophical options. The course of human history remains basically unchanged in this novel: technological innovation including wireless communication, motorized travel, and even the atom bomb are introduced without impediment. Yes, north America as we know it is colonized from the west (over the Pacific) rather than from the east—a big point in the back-cover blurbs. But in the end, north America figures very slightly in the book, so don’t expect much from that revelation.

As a philosophical exercise, the novel has much to recommend it. Robinson delves deeply into the differences and similarities of eastern religious thought—primarily Islam and Buddhism—and does a lot of good writing about the two. But I felt cheated. I expected a greater focus on what historical differences might be expected in a world where western civilization never unfolded. Can we really expect that science would develop with the same linearity as in western civilization given the vastly different perspective of eastern thought? Really, my big gripe started to surface in the third quarter of the book when technologies we take as givens began to appear—some sort of air travel, some sort of radio communication, steam locomotion. I’m not bothered by their existence in this universe, but I did want more explanation. Instead, in many cases, they simply appear. Meh.

Also, despite this eastern-based world originating post-Roman empire, there is little discussion of the impact of Greece and Rome on philosophy or technology. A few fleeting references give some credit for certain mathematical concepts to those two cultures, but otherwise they are ignored.

Also, Christianity and Judaism are assumed eradicated—which is completely within the rights of the author, but somehow unbelievable. Christianity is presumed destroyed by the plague, even though there were Christian settlements in the Middle East and Northern Africa at the time. My undergraduate major (or one of them) was religion, so I’m bothered by this religio-historical oversight. What happened to the Christians who weren’t living in Europe (and there were some)? The plague is said to have killed “all the Christians,” leaving Europe essentially vacant, while the Middle East (and presumably Africa, which also is NEVER mentioned) untouched. So what about Ethiopian Christians and Jews? I was hugely bothered by this. Perhaps you noticed that?

Basically, I was disappointed. I was hoping for an alt-history that might delve into some of the religious and philosophical issues we face today—the relationship between the three “peoples of the book”—Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. I was hoping for a novel with some insight into the cultural differences between these cultures, as promised by the promotional blurbs. What I actually found was an exposition on Buddhism as it relates to Islam as well as some philosophy on higher thought and the meaning of life.

If you enjoyed Sophie’s World, you’ll enjoy this. If you’re expecting a true alt-history, go elsewhere.

If you’ve never been to Austin, it will be hard for you to appreciate how much UT’s campus dominates the center of town. As you drive through on I-35, there are two major landmarks that will invariably catch your eye: the Capitol building and Royal Memorial Stadium. You’ll also note the Tower, that great big phallic symbol.

UT’s campus is BIG. It takes a long time to walk from one side to the other. It’s pretty pedestrian friendly, though, and you’ll see lots of students, faculty, and staff roaming around. You’ll also see lots of visitors since UT has several museums and the like on campus.

It’s hard for me to be objective about the campus as a whole, since I’m really familiar with it (though I did not go to UT). I’ll try, then, to focus on the Law School as a separate entity.
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I visited George Washington on the same day I visited GULC. It was a week before Christmas, and GW students were all in the middle of exams.

OK, so Mr. Angst and I were sort of tired that afternoon, and I was a bit cranky. We had been hauling luggage all over DC, using public transportation, and we were operating on about four hours of sleep. I think I expended all my social energy at GULC, coming up with questions and talking to people.

So I probably wasn’t in the best frame of mind to evaluate GW, and you know what? I really liked the campus.
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I’ve been meaning to review the campuses I visited in December for a while now, and have been sort of lax in getting it done. But it’s never too late to make a good start.

The first campus I’ll review is the first one I visited, Georgetown University Law Center.

First, GULC is not located on the main Georgetown campus. Some/most of you may know that; it took me a little bit of time to figure that out. It’s mentioned on the website, but only in one place. The map of the campus makes it clear it’s not with the rest of the campus, but I wasn’t paying attention to the map until I started planning my transportation to the campus.
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Remember when I told you that my iPod battery was dying?

Well today, I took my dying Precious to the local Apple store so I could take advantage of my warranty period and get a new one. I figured I’d let the store send it in for me so I could be sure that it got there safely.

Oh boy howdy! Not only did they not charge me a penny (I thought I might have to pay $30 for, essentially, shipping), they handed me a shiny, clean, refurbished iPod on the spot.

Time without iPod: 0 minutes.

Currently: charging new iPod in preparation for importing all my music back on to it.

I won’t bitch about Apple’s corporate practices for a good month now. That’s how happy I am.

Today I went and heard the author of Barman, Alex Wellen, talk.

And he said one thing that I thought was very interesting and encouraging. He said (and though this will be quoted, it’s really a paraphrase), “At heart, most lawyers are really writers.”

Yes, yes, yes! I mean, that statement sort of holds my entire reason for going to law school. Of course, I obviously have an interest in the discipline, but if I didn’t feel that a career in law would afford me opportunities to write and publish, I probably wouldn’t pursue it. Because there are lots of disciplines I find interesting but don’t want to study in graduate school because I’m pretty sure that that, once I had the degree, I wouldn’t write about the discipline I found so interesting any more. I’d be busy doing other things. But lawyers—well, they may do other things, but mostly they write. Write and write and write.

So, yay for Alex Wellen. (Who has a blog, though he updates infrequently because he is on the junket.) Yay for someone saying out loud that lawyers are writers.

One more thing: a statistic he offered up—there are 1,000,000 lawyers in this country and 400,000 of them are not practicing lawyers.

LawMom writes about Banned Book Week.

In honor of fine literature everywhere, go read a banned book. Some that I’ll recommend:

1. The Catcher in the Rye (the classic banned book)
2. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret
3. Anything by Judy Blume, if you like young adolescent fiction, which I do. Her books appear on the most challenged books list yearly, and she is one of the most challenged authors. I particularly like Iggie’s House, Blubber, and Tiger Eyes.
4. A Wrinkle in Time, which I can only imagine was challenged because it suggests that there may be life elsewhere in our universe, and does not attribute creation to God? Fact is, Madeline L’Engle is a remarkable author who, like C. S. Lewis, imbues her work with good old-fashioned Christian morality without coming out heavy-handed-ly and shoving it down the reader’s throats. In the last book in the series begun by Wrinkle, titled A Swiftly Tilting Planet, the entire Murray family sings dona nobis pacem around the Thanksgiving dinner table, while they pray for peace.
5. Any book with frank discussion of adolescent physical changes. This would include number 2, above, as well as the What’s Happening to my Body? books.
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, which I imagine is on the list because of its use of a particular ethnic slur. (Huckleberry Finn is on the list for that reason, too.)

Note a theme? Young adults, adolescents, children, are the ones whose literature is most affected by book challenges. Adults have the freedom to choose what to read and what to ignore, and the freedom to be as closed-minded as they wish. But children—children have such a small voice in these matters. Bless the American Library Association for recognizing that all books are worthy of being on library shelves, even those that parents may object to for ridiculous reasons.

I’m not generally very good at reviews, but I recently enjoyed two movies and a novel that I’ll share some general comments on.

First—and I admit it’s a little out of date, but I didn’t really make it out for the summer movie season—we rented 50 First Dates this weekend. I should preface by saying that, in general, I can only take so much Adam Sandler. He’s funny and endearing and all that, but often the humor gets to be a little too much. Still, this was a cute movie—a good rental, in fact. Sweet and charming, and there were some damn funny lines, one in particular delivered perfectly by Dan Ackroyd. (Who is another comedian I can usually only take so much of. Thank goodness he seems lately to be restricting himself to small, juicy roles.)

Second movie: Hero. We saw this last night at the local have-dinner-while-you-watch-the-movie movie theater. (We had some free tickets and a buy-one-get-one free dinner coupon. A cheap evening!) OK, I like kung fu movies. I loved Crouching Tiger. I don’t really have an opinion on Jet Li, but he’s certainly talented. My one beef with this film was that it seemed like a flim version of a story that might have been recounted by one of the main characters in Crouching Tiger. (Or, even, with a stretch, Kill Bill.) It hardly seemed worth a whole movie. Very symbolic throughout, though, with some beautiful cinematography. I’m glad we didn’t pay regular movie prices for it, but it was nice to see on the big screen.

Lastly, the novel: The Time-Traveler’s Wife. I am only 3/4 of the way through this book and I already have the feeling that I may cry at the end. I have a sinking suspicion that, while it may not have an unhappy ending, it probably won’t end with sweetness and light. But it’s marvelous, nonetheless. The writing is really excellent, particularly the author’s use of dialog. I am eating the book up, far too quickly, really, since I just started it Saturday afternoon, and I wish I weren’t almost done with it. I’ll probably reread it.

So there are my opinions on three things, and, if you think about it, a brief recap of my weekend.

Watching To Kill a Mockingbird. God, I love this movie. The book is good (I haven’t read it in years—probably since middle school) but the movie is phenomenal. I just love Atticus Finch.