Pitchwars 2017  -- The Art of Always

This is going to be quick.

I wrote this book because it was in me. I am Brazilian, and I wanted to tell a story about things I love: that country, which I left so many years ago, its people, who smile easy and often live a tough life. In Brazil, everybody sings, everyone dances, music is the very essence of life. And visual art has a special role in representing all this beauty even when things get hard (and especially when they do).

I also wanted to write about the academic world—something I also feel I understand inside out, as I have been an academic all of my adult existence (and thinking back, way before then too). Life on campus is magical, but spending all of one's time in one's head is not always easy. I wanted to show that process of analyzing, second guessing and asking questions, which is what my protagonist often does.

So my book is split-time, the tension between past and present, Brazil and the US always there, much like the influence and pull of these two countries is often vivid in my life.

Writing this book has been one of the greatest challenges I have had the good fortune of engaging with. I am a veteran writer of six non-fiction books and numerous chapters and articles. But this is harder—so much harder. In fiction, my analytical skills cannot replace connection to the reader and expression of emotion, so I had and still have a lot to learn.

I hope my love for this story is evident in it.

If you are curious about the other things I write, you can go here (Amazon link): http://amzn.to/2vacMmv

Thanks for reading, Patty

Things I love about mentors:

1. When they are honest but kind
2. When they understand mentorship can change a person's life
3. When they become dear, life-long friends
4. When they inspire me to pay forward

Random things about me:

1. I danced ballet for 20 years
2. I speak four languages: English, Portuguese, Spanish and French
3. I hold a black belt in Tae Kwon Do
4. I love Sherlock Holmes
5. I believe no one is a better writer than Jane Austen

Today, I have a short celebratory post on the launch of the spring issue of Trivia: voices of feminism, for which I had the pleasure of co-editing a special issue on (pre)Occupation.  From my editorial: "Being a linguist, I found it impossible not to turn to the etymology of ‘occupy’ in this editorial.  The many meanings associated with the term range from ‘seize’ to ‘take possession,’ from ‘dwell’ to ‘take space or time’…The women who contributed to this issue knew these meanings all along. I don’t know if they consulted an etymology dictionary; more likely they consulted their minds and hearts and accessed the kind of knowledge and wisdom we sometimes don’t even know we have. And they expanded the meanings of ‘(pre)occupy’ without ever losing sight of our common denominator and of the invisible cable (yes, also same origin) that holds it all together.”

Make sure to access Trivia @ triviavoices.com to take a look at the wonderful prose, poetry and visual images by some very talented women.

The Brazilian Crônica

So I was selected to participate in this very exciting collective publication effort, where different writers stretch the boundaries of a genre. I chose to work with one of my favorites - the Brazilian Crônica. It will be a real challenge because much of the appeal of the crônica lies in language that mirrors the ways everyday people talk. Another challenge is that the crônica presents urban elements familiar to the people who read it (including the names of streets and places). But I am up for it! 

Since the group has a Tumblr, I wrote a short text about the crônica for it. And more and more, I found myself thinking of my favorite cronista: Stanislaw Ponte Preta. So here is that very short text with the bonus of Ponte Preta according to himself embedded at the end. Enjoy!

The Brazilian crônica is a short story literary genre that narrates everyday occurrences in the lives of ordinary people. It has a real urban cultural background that functions almost as an additional character. In the crônica, slight criticism, as well as humor, is combined with a defined chronology (hence the name crônica), colloquial dialogue, and simple language throughout to create a narrative that hangs between fiction piece and journalistic tale. The names of streets, squares and shops are well known to the people of the urban area in question, and the reader feels like the events could have happened “just down the street.”

Yet, through this seemingly simple narrative and plot structure, the crônica is capable of capturing much of the comedy and tragedy of a place and time. What worries do everyday people have? How do they handle family, money, politics? What do their houses, streets, and relationships look like?

Barderston contends that the crônica manages to “express the contemporary culture of the city in its manifold manifestations.” It is one of my favorite things to read, and while it is very unassuming, in time the crônica acquires historical value. For one can tell much about the cultural history of a city through its crônicas.

One of my favorite cronistas is Stanislaw Ponte Preta (penname of Sergio Porto). I could say something about him, but it would neither do him justice nor sound as witty as it should. So here is a little snippet of Ponte Preta according to himself, almost intact and as intended (except for what my loose, but well-intended translation might have misplaced and misrepresented):

Stanislaw Ponte Preta (1923-1968) self-portrait (source http://www.releituras.com/spontepreta_bio.asp):

Professional Activities: journalist, radio personality, television personality (the term does not yet exist, but the activity is said to), theater person currently on recess, humorist, publicist and bank clerk.

Main Motivations: Women.

Paradoxical Qualities: a bohemian that loves to stay home, an irreverent that revises everything he writes, a serious humorist.

Vulnerabilities: A complete incapacity to be swept by politics. Has never had a fully-formed opinion on any public figure, national or international.

Home-available panaceas: When something hurts below the belly button: Paregoric Elixir. Above the belly button: Aspirin.

Strong Superstitions: None, except for the day before the World Cup final. On such occasions, even a spiritual leader of African-Brazilian religions looks skeptical by comparison.  

Irresistible Temptations: Walk in the rain, laugh at inappropriate times, whisper in the ear of a conceited woman that she is not as good as she thinks.

Absurd fears: Any hefty insect (from cockroach up).

Secret Pride: Cook a sunny-side-up egg with the same skill with which Pelé scores a goal. As a matter of fact, great cook in the hardest of culinary areas: everyday food.

From Cairo to New York

I might have been sleeping under a rock when both Cairo Time (2011, director Ruba Nadda) and Margin Call (2010, director J. C. Chandor) came out. I say this because I have no recollection of hearing anything about either movie. Ever.  As it often happens between good movies and me, I stumbled upon these two quite accidentally, on days when my mood exactly matched what they could offer (my one psychic power?). What do they have in common? Besides being good, hardly anything at all. One takes place in Cairo and is understated; the other takes place in Wall Street and is much more pretentious. But both are elegant movies, with actors that are grown up people (not that there is anything wrong with not being grown up), and both remind us of how fast things can change.

Cairo Time tells the story of budding feelings between a wife, who is supposed to meet her UN-employee husband in Cairo, and a former colleague of her spouse, who is entrusted with keeping her company when the husband is delayed. Think Before Sunrise with older, less high-strung characters (I love Before Sunrise and its sequel Before Sunset nonetheless) with little to prove and a certain self-assuredness that makes the protagonists pleasant to follow.  An always-chic Patricia Clarkson plays Juliette, a stylish and discreet magazine writer opposite a very charming Alexander Siddig (Tareq). They are our tour guides through an expertly shot Egypt, filmed from the vantage point of hotel balconies, pyramid-front gardens, a boat on the Nile, and wedding-party dance floors. This is one of those films to savor while it lasts, like a fine meal in which the ambiance, the music, and the company all contribute to the experience (if only I could have Juliette's turquoise dress!). In sum, getting to the end is not really the goal here. In the process, we see the characters go from strangers to soul mates through little more than piercing stares (if we can call those “little.”)  Cairo Time looks the way an elegant book reads, and its open, larger-than-life spaces seem to remind us to breath and take in the views.

Margin Call is claustrophobic in comparison. Quite literally so. The story unfolds in the hermetically sealed offices of Wall Street on the verge of the economic crisis of 2008. It is a movie about cause and effect, about the house of cards that financial, rather than production-based economies have become, and about the domino effect that results from sometimes single but far-reaching actions. But it is also a movie about responsibility, yours and mine (Wall Street alone is too easy a target) and our part in constructing the illusory sense that we live “within our means.”

My favorite quote from the movie is also a lesson (albeit a moralist one – but again which lesson isn’t a bit that way?) spelled out with great simplicity. Here a boss talks back to his risk management analyst when the latter shows concern for the “real people” who are about to wake up to the beginning of a market collapse:

If you really want to do this with your life you have to believe that you're necessary, and you are. People want to live like this with their cars and their big f** houses they can't even pay for - then you're necessary. The only reason people get to continue living like kings is because we've got our fingers on the scales and we're tipping in their favor. I take my hand off, well then the whole world gets really f** fair really f** quick, and nobody actually wants that. They say they do, but they really don't. They want what we have to give but they also want to play innocent and pretend they have no idea where it actually came from; and that's more hypocrisy than I'm willing to swallow…

Find among the cast the great Jeremy Irons, a convincing Kevin Spacey, and a circumspect Demi Moore.

1808 and Yesterday’s Rain

Torrential rains happened upon São Paulo yesterday.  It was the perfect day to hide and read, something this Arizonan is always wishing for. But as it often happens with wishes, this one had a tragicomic way of coming true. Before I could curl up with the book, I had to drive through flooded streets where the unlucky pedestrians sunk their feet in calf-high muddy water and carried their shoes in their hands. Afraid of getting stuck, I, like most drivers, did not venture to drive into the lateral lanes, choosing instead the center one where it was still possible to occasionally see the ground.

Except for the presence of motor vehicles, it could have been 1808, which was the first year of the stay of D. João VI in Brazil after having escaped from Napoleonic troops. 1808 also names the excellent book by Laurentino Gomes that I was hurrying home to read.

But it was not 1808. It was 2012 in the largest metropolis in South America, where the streets still flood when it rains and where stray dogs are still emblematic of underdevelopment despite the recent economic growth and the numerous skyscrapers constantly sprouting from the ground as if nurtured by the rain.

1808 explains many things as does 1822, the next book on my list. With his knack for details and historical anecdotes, Gomes creates a very clear picture of the cultural history of a period that once more paves the way (or sometimes does not pave anything) to present day Brazil, a place full of idiosyncrasies. From the unplanned development of megacities like São Paulo, to a culture that at times promotes a take-what-you-can mentality toward the land, the book delineated the historical roots of certain problems that seem to never go away.

I love Brazil. Always have and always will. But the fact that I left it gives me the sometimes-uncomfortable position of a pseudo-outsider. If a geopolitical limbo exists, I inhabit it. In many circles, critiquing any aspect of Brazil’s being is taboo; it is as if the act of tolerating every-day injustices enhances and strengthens the Brazilian spirit.  Although I was born several years after the slogan “Brasil, ame-o ou deixe-o” (Brazil, love it or leave it) was made ubiquitous by the military government in 1964, its words still ring in my ears, my personal actions (motivated by personal rather than political reasons) assessed by the merciless message of that motto.

1808 entertains while it educates. The roots of problems are often deep and well established, and in the case of Brazil, it is no different. Brazil is an improvised nation, put together ad hoc, like the great works of engineering displayed in bridges and tunnels in São Paulo, built to alleviate traffic but which, in the end, funnel it into one-lane streets unable to accommodate the ant colony-like flood of cars. Gomes does not judge; he simply tells of a country caught between being a colony and the center of an empire, between greatness and mediocrity, between development and underdevelopment. And in telling he says much more than political rhetorical discourses or late night bar philosophies ever could. 

Patty's Pet Peeves

For one reason or another, I found myself thinking of grammar this week (who am I kidding? I think of grammar every week!). I also thought of the complication in being a linguist involved mostly in descriptive pursuits and then coming up with a list of prescriptions.

However, to me the fact remains that language changes (and change is great and healthy) to both better serve societies with which it is associated and also further signal social phenomena that have already occurred. In that sense, when a new concept or object comes about (e.g. computer), we need a word to name it. When a certain group wants to show identity markers, slang, to which (initially) only group members are privy, appears; and when a term does not reflect a given social climate anymore or becomes unacceptable in the eyes and ears of a given group, it is dropped (e.g. changing terms for ethnic groups).

All right, I am making it a lot simpler than it really is, but you get the idea: we don’t have to mess up with language just for the heck of it! (This is probably the least elegant sentence I've ever written.)

The point here is that a belief in change and the evolution of language does not preclude an attempt to avoid that which does not make sense or, just plain and simple, irritates a person (and if that person is me, then just don’t do it!). That is why I am calling this entry Patty’s Pet Peeves (it will reoccur when need be). These are to be sure not the most serious things in the world: we do have famine, conflict and great injustices to contend with.  But when it comes to little mishaps, these are the ones I could live without. Here are two of the top offenses:

The dangling participle/modifier – This is the king of all my pet peeves, and an irritatingly common occurrence in day-to-day discourse, on TV, and in books. It usually takes the following forms:

By painting the walls, it makes the room much brighter. (Imagine me cringing as I write this.)

As a new writer, the work is very intensive.

While leaving the house, the key disappeared.

What do all of these constructions have in common? They all beg the question, “who the heck is painting the wall, doing the writing, and leaving the house?”

To make it better, just ask the question and respond by inserting that individual as a subject:

By painting the walls, the artist makes the room much brighter.

As a new writer, I find the work very intensive.

While leaving the house, Tom realized his key had disappeared.

No, do not change the order of the clauses.  The key disappeared while leaving the house still makes the key the subject, and I see with my mind’s eye a little key carrying a red purse and wearing sunglasses being kidnapped as it tries to make its way through the door.

Countable/uncountable nouns

With dangling modifiers out of the way, allow me to get even pickier. To me nothing says, “don’t buy this juice” more than reading on the carton “less sugar and calories.” I understand orange juice companies and the like want to save on ink, but would it take all that much more money to write, “less sugar, fewer calories?”

You see, I am a stickler for respecting the fact that some nouns are countable while others are not. If a noun is countable, we use few/fewer/number/many. For example: “I would like to consume fewer calories,” or “I won’t have that cake because it has too many calories,” or still “The number of people at the party surprised me.” If I had a dime each time I hear “the amount of people….” Yes, rich woman.

These are only two of the items in my long list of grammar pet peeves. I will share them parsimoniously so I don’t bore you to tears. But now that you saw them here, you are obligated to pay it forward by teaching someone else.  Languages, in this case the English language, thank you.

The Best Exotic is quite good and less exotic than you think

Last night my teenage daughter and I found ourselves in a movie theater where we were a minority. We were there to see The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, a delightful movie about a group of British retirees who decide to outsource their retirement to India. This time we were not an ethnic minority (and may I take this opportunity to digress and say that according to the census minorities are now the majority in the US*) but an age minority. For almost everyone in the theater was over fifty-five, a fact that did not go unnoticed by my over-analytical brain as it immediately went to work on the matter.

I found the age homogeneity of the moviegoers to be a problem for several reasons. First of all, in my own egotistical ways, I like to be surrounded by as diverse a group of people as possible: I think it is the way we learn best, teach best and enjoy life best. I find it boring to only interact with those likely to think like me, live like me, and do things the ways I do, so I would have liked to see a population as diverse as possible watching this little gem. Of course we were there to see a movie and not chitchat, but there is something to be said about what makes people laugh at the theater, the comments we whisper to one another, what we disapprove, and all of these moments are learning experiences.  Part of the reason we go to the movies is the collective nature of the event, and “the collective” in this event was telling.

Second of all, I hate to think of this beautiful movie as simply an attempt to cater to a population that is underserved by the media (which is true but too crude a reason for my sensibilities). I think both the population in question and the marvelous actors of this movie (July Dench, Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, among others) deserve better than that.

But most of all, I find it disturbing that many people would only care to see stories of people who are “like” them, and live like they do, at the time of life they are. As a person who thoroughly enjoys The Diary of a Wimpy Kid and who thinks Maggie Smith is the best actress in the world, I want to live vicariously through people who are not me.  I also find ageism a particularly wicked form of exclusion, one borne out of a silly attempt at staticism**. 

Many with more gifted minds than mine have pointed out how prevalent ageism is in some societies, including American society. Research has also shown that both self-perceptions and social perceptions of aging extend (when positive) and shorten (when negative) life span. In societies where aging is closely associated with wisdom, people live longer, more fulfilling lives. Where the opposite is true, well, you get the idea.

Ageism is not about a particular age although one can probably infer that it gets more marked as one’s age advances, but I know I have experienced it since my mid-thirties, and now, at forty, I have heard many, many disparaging comments about my age. I honestly don’t know why we aren’t able to turn things around. As people age, chances are they have more resources, financial and otherwise, and experience should account for something.  But going back to the movie, which I seem to have abandoned several paragraphs ago due to my outrage, it is precisely the issues of ageism and what happens when things don’t turn out quite the way they “should” that is at stake here.

The Best Exotic… is also a movie about new beginnings for a judge who goes back to India to solve a 40-year old issue, a retired housekeeper who outsources her hip replacement to the country, a widow left with debt, a loveless couple who lent their retirement money to a failed .com venture by their daughter, a divorcee who was used to (now-declining) opposite-sex attention, and a man who just feels plain lonely. In the heart of this supposedly light comedy lie many of the issues inherent not only to their age group but to other brackets as well: love, healthcare, sex-orientation, prejudice, costs of living, employment, friendship. Each character of course will find in the overstimulation provided by their new environment reason to make decisions about that which afflicts them.

If you are a fan of movies such as Calendar Girls, Saving Grace, Love Actually, I Capture de Castle, and anything with Hugh Grant in it, chances are you will like this movie. But critics have been lukewarm to say the least (Ebert has been kind), and it seems that some are reluctant to admit that they laughed aloud with the rest of us, that they sometimes wished they were staying at the Marigold Hotel. That’s when they start making up stuff.

Lisa Schwarzbaum, writing for EW.com, says that,

The cinematography shows off the overwhelming sensory stimulation of the place while stepping briskly around less-than-colorful images of real poverty, squalor, overcrowding, and despair. 

Critics and thinkers in the so-called developed world seem to often assume that people in the (equally inaptly-named) developing world are perpetually “in despair.” It makes me think of the saying going viral on the internet, “Every sixty seconds in Africa… a minute passes,” reminding us that people are still having fun, loving, enjoying the company of their children even in the midst of great challenges (we do know some challenges are immense). And it also makes me wonder if Ms. Schwarzbaum watched the same movie I did since the images that stayed with me are those of children paying happily on the streets; a maid sharing a meal with an initially stuck up, grumpy woman; a young couple in love defying cast rules to stay together. I don’t remember one single scene that could possibly signal despair.

I think sometimes people are rather overwhelmed by the fact that when you remove layers of chintz, lead-free paint and scented oil plug-ins, we are all essentially the same. And more shocking still, they are amazed by the fact we can be happy and re-find our humanity without big screen TVs and surround sound (even if modern movie theaters are the epitome of those). I was once stunned and offended by an ad I saw on a bus when I had just arrived in the US. It was for one of the international aid groups, and it went something like “That family only had one egg, and they gave it to me.”  I found it patronizing and wrong, because it tried to focus on the local family rather than show that the newcomer had been surprised to find his/her own humanity when and where they least expected.  

I am ready to watch The Best Exotic again and again. I read someone refer to it as a big, warm hug. Others refer to it as a “safe” movie, and I am cool with safe. But the one question that has been bugging me since I watched the movie and read some of the reviews is “why do people react so badly to feeling so good?” 

*Wrongly, some have pointed out that it is the first time in history when this has happened, embarrassingly forgetting that once there were no white Europeans in the continent…

** The dictionary says it does not exist, but I am fine with neologisms. 

Note to Open English: a medium is not a method

Here was I, in my pretty Ivory Tower, thinking that concerns over who is best, native or non-native teachers, were as extinct as a tyrannosaurus rex, when a flood of messages about a commercial by an online language school that is airing on Brazilian television woke me up from my Sleeping Beauty slumber. The messages I read were from concerned teachers of English, many of them second- and additional-language users of English, but some not, who felt offended and put down by the message of the ads. I could just post the commercial, but I decided not to do free advertising for this company. I will instead, using a little bit of discourse and text analysis, well, and a little sarcasm, describe what I saw.

The commercial is based on the idea of contrasts between online and face-to-face classes. The student taking face-to-face lessons needs to drive to school, so he looks bored by what is in the ad an invisible traffic jam. The online student is content, able to log on to his computer anywhere, any time he pleases. The student in ‘traditional’ courses carries a heavy pile of books. The online student is refreshed and freed from the weight of books; after all, he only needs his trusty laptop to learn.  Notice both are “he,” and both are young because women and those over 25 seemingly don’t need to learn.

Then comes the worst part: the face-to-face instructor is a woman. She looks and behaves a little disheveled (her name is Joana, a beautiful name pronounced as if it were an insult). She wears clothes made to look unfashionable. She is a little heavy-set, and she is waving her arms trying to convey “chicken” to the students. We discover, and I think they want us to feel horrified, that she is a non-native user of English. The narrator tells us that she learned English in Buenos Aires, and at this point we, the viewers are not sure whether the advertisers forgot to change the script to contain a Brazilian city, don’t know that Buenos Aires is not in Brazil, or decided to add Argentines and Porteños to the room full of people they are trying to offend. On the other hand, the teacher you get with the online school is blond and slim (her name is Jenny, so that should be reassurance enough that she knows what she is doing), and she intentionally speaks Portuguese with an ‘accent,’ so apparently accents are now good, except when they are bad, and the latter is only true, according to this view, if you are not American.

I feel sorry for the students who might fall for this kind of positioning: in a few seconds, the aspiring ‘educators’ managed to disparage women, ethnic groups, people whose biotype is not slim blond, non-native teachers, Argentines, Brazilians. Phew! They must be really tired. They put so much effort in trying to ridicule people who were just working, going about their business, that they forgot to mention we live in a world of multiple varieties of English, some acquired natively, others acquired as a second language, others yet as a foreign language. They also skipped mentioning anything about methodology, approach, techniques. Apparently the medium IS the method. And here I was for years, doing a whole PhD to understand language, students, methods, political concerns better. Silly me!

The student who falls for the native speaker fallacy will have a rude awakening when they discover they have to negotiate meaning with a multitude of users, who speak different varieties; thus, these same students would be better served in most cases by being exposed to multiple dialects, spoken by a multitude of people, native and non-native. They might also one day realize that only a teacher educated to be such will be able to put together lessons that accomplish that much and that also focus on STRATEGIES of communication. We cannot teach students every single variety of English they might come across, but we certainly can teach students how to negotiate meaning once they do encounter such varieties. Native teachers can do that, non-native can too (I’m sorry, I feel really awkward even writing down these outdated terms!)

I am glad teachers in Brazil are taking a stand, denouncing this kind of amateur behavior.  I am glad Braz-TESOL’s president Vinicius Nobre has written a statement that translates the sentiments of many of us who felt unnecessarily attacked by this kind of advertising.  I hope the momentum gathered by this event is productive and leads us to reflect not only on TESOL as a profession but also in the ways that communities of teachers can reiterate their commitment, professionalism and work towards ever-growing recognition of this career path.  Here is that text by Vinicius Nobre:

As the president of the largest association of English teachers in Brazil, I feel I have to take a stand and express my outrage and disappointment with regards to the TV commercial that has been broadcast on national television promoting an online English course.

I am NOT a native speaker of the English language, I do not have long blonde hair, I do not live in California and I do not wear a tight T-shirt to teach my students. In fact, I NEVER had a native speaker of English as a teacher. I never even lived in a foreign country. I simply studied the English language in my own developing country, and then four years of linguistics, literature, second language acquisition, morphology, pronunciation, syntax, education, pedagogy, methods and approaches. I have only dedicated 16 years of my life to the personal and professional growth of thousands of students. I have not bragged about my passport or my birthplace because I was too busy trying to understand my students’ linguistic and affective needs. I am NOT a native speaker of the language; hence - according to this TV commercial - I do not qualify to teach. I probably qualify as an irresponsible and grotesque mockery of a teacher.

Like me, thousands of hard-working, gifted, committed, passionate and under-valued educators (from Brazil or ANY other non-English speaking country) are depicted in 30 seconds of a despicable and desperate attempt to seduce students. I have met outstanding teachers regardless of their nationality and many of which who were native English speakers. The best English speaking educators I have met, however, were always dignified enough to acknowledge the qualities of a non-native speaker colleague.

Foreign language education has developed tremendously so as to guarantee the fairness and respect that all serious language professionals deserve (native speakers or not). At least among ourselves. If students still insist that a native speaker is better, we should at least rest assured that in our own profession we can find the respect and the recognition that a committed and qualified professional needs to have. It is sad, however, to be ridiculed by another (so-called) educational centre.

As the president of BRAZ-TESOL, as a non-native speaker of the English language, as an admirer of teachers regardless of their nationality, I resent such an irresponsible joke. But then again, who am I to even think about saying anything about the learning and the teaching of English? I am not Jenny from California - the utmost example of a foreign language educator.

AN UPDATE:  Dr. Francisco Gomes de Matos, Emeritus Professor from Universidade Federal de Pernambuco and an international authority on language rights and peace linguistics has shared the following statement:

"The commercial is a reminder to the LANGUAGE EDUCATION profession that reflection on MARKETING LANGUAGE LEARNING-TEACHING is conspicuously absent, a serious gap to be filled as urgently as possible. The commercial is a violation of educational-cultural dignity and a shameful instance of discrimination. Could say more, but... let's move on and be constructive, by creating conditions for a serious MARKETING LANGUAGE EDUCATION tradition to be built universally."

                        Sunniest abraço,

                                             Francisco

The Grey Area

This past week, I was browsing the bookracks at a popular store, looking for John Irving’s In One Person so as to add to the ever-growing list of books I want to read (at the rate I am going, I will be done with the current titles by 2030!). Suddenly, as I reached the bestsellers section, I was surprised to notice that a large area of the top shelf was completely empty. Guessing the reason, I looked closer to decipher the contents of the little yellow tag under the desolate metal structure: yep, my hypothesis was confirmed – the area was reserved for books one, two, and three of the Grey trilogy.

Let me digress here. Writers usually take one of two approaches to looking at a book phenomenon. Some completely embrace the trend, read avidly, worship the writer, and dream of the day it will be them achieving that kind of success and publicity. Others scoff at the craze and grump their way in and out of the misery they feel over the state of things: and why do people want to read this, and what could they possibly see in this book, and this is what literature has become, etc. etc.

Me, I take a different approach (I know writers who are right there with me): I go to work. First, I read the material in question (most likely with a highlighter, or two, or three in hand). Then, I try to assess what other people are thinking and saying. Finally, I try to put myself in the shoes of the average reader. Only then do I decide what lesson I can draw from that particular work and its approach to writing (I did the same with Harry Potter, which I love, and Twilight, err, not so much). And sure enough there is always a lesson to be learned.

The first thing to notice about Fifty Shades of Grey is that it is currently number one on Amazon’s best seller list and a bunch of other lists. Book two and three are second and third respectively. It seems silly to me not to try to understand what is behind such success, so I read the work cover to cover. As a consequence, the second thing I learned (I have only read book one) is that Fifty Shades is (how shall I put this?) an uninhibited book, and this feature is undoubtedly at the center of its success. Let’s hand it to E.L. James: she was able to figure out what kind of sensual fantasy would appeal to a large number of women (and some men) of different ages, socio-economic profiles, educational levels, and life interests in the year 2012, and this is no small feat. The social scientist in me kept reflecting on contemporary women and their lives, and the kinds of dynamics that have caused them to crave this book and its content. Call it luck, call it a calculated move; James’s strategy must have worked because women are buying these books by the bushel.

Then comes the difficult part. The more I write my own fiction, the harder it becomes to critique other works because I know how much labor goes into crafting a novel and how much courage it must have taken this writer to write what she did. But as I read through the pages, I noticed I was much more offended by the multiplying dangling participles than by the content, more taken aback by the relentless repetition of the same facial expressions, exclamations, and phrases than by the lack of verisimilitude in the plot, by the multitude of British vocabulary items coming out of American mouths without any possible explanation other than the fact that the author is British (the most distracting ones being ‘”laters,” “ringing” instead of “calling” and university “tutors”).

I stopped to think about this and wondered if I was noticing language so much because I am a writer and a teacher (and a grammar nerd). So I went on to read what the reviews of readers who did not like the book were about, and sure enough they were complaining about the same things.  The hard question is despite these problems, many of them editorial in nature, the books are selling like hotcakes, and really, where do you go from being number one? The answer eludes me, and yet as a writer, one who often engages in a sort of adoration of language, I cannot ignore these flaws. Have I become the grump in my second paragraph, the one that lifts the hands to the sky asking why right after he/she throws the book against the wall? Not at all. I wish James continued success. There is a place for everyone under the sun. And perhaps one of those discontented readers will one day pick up one of my books, and if I got it right, they will smile, knowing that someone understands. 

(Caution: Fifty Shades of Grey contains adult content that might not be suitable for some readers)

My Gothic Week

I have been having a gothic week. No, you do not need to worry. Phoenix continues to be perpetually sunny and dry (not that I have anything against settings that subvert the genre), and things in the so-called real world have progressed as expected these last few days. Instead, my gothic week has been a result of my movie and book choices.

It all started with my decision to re-watch Shutter Island, a movie that I actually enjoyed more the second time around, followed by some movie-going to see The Raven, a film that pays homage to Poe through a very, very fictionalized rendition by John Cusack. In the meantime, I ordered three novels with gothic elements, continued to read The Ghost Writer, added Ghost Writer (a completely different story) to my Netflix queue, made a written allusion to Rebecca and The Castle of Otranto, and skimmed through The Picture of Dorian Gray. Decidedly gothic week, you say? You bet!

I’m probably the millionth person to say that novels and movies with gothic elements are strangely comforting. Is it the relief of not being in that particular stronghold that allures? Is it the rush of adrenaline after a scare? Is it because the gothic allows us to externalize fears that live inside all of us?

I’m inclined to suggest that it is all of the above and more. Gothic tales usually present some puzzle for the reader/viewer to solve; therefore, for the duration of our reading or watching, we are forced to suspend our own problems and engage with the problems and mysteries of others. In the process, our brains get a welcome break.

So here is a sample of my gothic must-read list (it is really long; here are a few highlights):

The Thirteenth Tale – By Diane Setterfield

The Shadow of the Wind – By Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Rebecca – By Daphne du Maurier

The Picture of Dorian Gray – By Oscar Wilde

A Reliable Wife – By Robert Goolrick

(I am skipping the very obvious Wuthering Heights and anything Poe as well as my favorite Austen, Northanger Abbey)

And here is my current to-read list:

The House at Midnight – By Lucie Whitehouse

Mysteries of Winterthurn and Mudwoman – Both by Joyce Carol Oates

Half Broken Things – By Morag Joss

Don’t be mad at me if your favorites are missing (many of mine are too!). Instead contribute to other people’s reading lists by adding your own choices.

Happy reading!