Student Review: V for Vendetta by Alan Moore & David Llloyd

Comic trade paperback, 288 pages
Published 2005 (contents: 1982-88)
Acquired December 2013
Read April 2014

V for Vendetta

Written by Alan Moore

Art by David Llloyd
Coloring by David Lloyd, Steve Whitaker, Siobhan Dodds
Lettering by Jeannie O'Connor, Steve Craddock, Elitta Fell
Additional Art by Tony Weare

This was the one novel I assigned this semester despite having never read it before. I think it turned out okay, despite that:

• "I loved War of the Worlds and V for Vendetta. The stories were really interesting and the ideas and themes too."
• "V for Vendetta, War of the Worlds, Bloody Chamber- no one ever teaches these and i think they have a lot of cool things going on for them."
• "I think it's up to you to teach V for Vendetta or War of the Worlds -- since V was taught during the last week of class it was an easy read for us students who have already checked out mentally for finals."
• "I thoroughly enjoyed 'Frankenstein,' 'War of the Worlds,' and 'V for Vendetta.'"  
• "I think that V for Vendetta was the most enjoyable."
• "Keep V for Vendetta on the condition that you cover The Filth as an addition to the theme of Dystopia."
• "drop V for Vendetta"
• "Keep V for Vendetta and War of the Worlds, both interesting reads that add a great variety to the course, you don't find many courses here that let you explore more modern works of British Literature."

Student Review: Adam Bede by George Eliot

Trade paperback, 655 pages
Published 2008 (originally 1859)
Previously read May and November 2009

Acquired December 2013

Reread April 2014

Adam Bede
by George Eliot

If I learned anything this semester, it's don't assign 600-page Victorian novels in the last four weeks of the semester:

• "Liked all books but Adam Bede"
• "[...] it's difficult to pay attention to something so long near the end of the semester." 
• "replace Bede"
• "I think you should teach Adam Bede, Arthur & George and Frankenstein (which I had already read in high school but didn't get that much out of at the time) again definitely"
• "Adam bede was a great read!"
• "I had a little trouble understanding how Adam Bede fit into the themes of the course so maybe that could be dropped [...]"
• "Adam Bede should definitely be taught again because I think it was a good example of realism."
• "In my very biased opinion 'Between The Acts' was somewhat painful due to its lack of plot, as was 'Adam Bede' due to its very slow advancement + painful dialect in some parts."
• "I personally disliked Adam Bede, though I definitely see its importance within the course."

Student Review: The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells

Trade paperback, 240 pages
Published 2005 (originally 1897)

Acquired and previously read February 2009

Reread March 2014

The War of the Worlds
by H. G. Wells

Finally got my chance to teach this book!

• "I loved War of the Worlds and V for Vendetta. The stories were really interesting and the ideas and themes too."
• "V for Vendetta, War of the Worlds, Bloody Chamber- no one ever teaches these and i think they have a lot of cool things going on for them."
• "I think it's up to you to teach V for Vendetta or War of the Worlds [...] I think War of the Worlds is just a classic since it introduces us to the 'first' alien story -- they don't change too much after that, and this was written in the 1800's. So yes, while a bit of a flat book, it's a must read just for the story itself."
• "I thoroughly enjoyed 'Frankenstein,' 'War of the Worlds,' and 'V for Vendetta.'"  
• "[...] I thought War of the Worlds was the most boring reading-- sorry! I know it's your favorite [...]"
• "War of the Worlds was a great one, as many are familiar with Americanized versions of the story and this one highlights many British elements that differ."
• "Keep War of the Worlds"
• "Keep V for Vendetta and War of the Worlds, both interesting reads that add a great variety to the course, you don't find many courses here that let you explore more modern works of British Literature."

Student Review: Between the Acts by Virginia Woolf

Trade paperback, 220 pages
Published 2008 (originally 1941)

Acquired January 2010

Previously read April 2010
Reread March 2014

Between the Acts
by Virginia Woolf

Is is possible for a group of undergraduates to like Virginia Woolf? I sure didn't, but I'd take Between the Acts over Mrs. Dalloway at least. They were frustrated:

• "Between the Acts was a first draft."
• "I didn't like virginia woolf a book.."
• "Arthur & George and Between the Acts were my least favorites as the 'density' of the text and slow pace made it really hard to get through." 
• "I did not enjoy Between the Acts."
• "The Virginia Woolf was certainly hardest to get through."
• "Between the acts needs to go.."
• "If you had to drop one book, I would recommend dropping Between the Acts and perhaps replacing it with a more popular Virginia Woolf novel. That way, students who enjoy reading 'the classics' would read it with a more open mind, even if it is a challenge."
• "Between the Acts should be dropped."
• "In my very biased opinion 'Between The Acts' was somewhat painful due to its lack of plot [...]"
• "Teach Between the Acts again! Virginia Woolf is an amazing author and despite the fact that nothing much happens in the plot the book is extremely thought provoking and is probably the best example of modernism I have read."
• "Drop Between the Acts because it was a first draft [...]"
• "Definitely keep Virginia Woolf in there."
• "dont teach between the acts (didnt like it)"
• "I'm all for dropping Between the Acts in favor for excerpts from Virginia Woolf's work, it just feels out of place within the course."

Student Review: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Trade paperback, 273 pages
Published 2003 (originally 1818)
Previously read January 2011

Acquired December 2013

Reread February 2014

Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus
by Mary Shelley

I think like two-thirds of my class had read Frankenstein before, many of them in high school, many others in the introductory class to the English major (professors in our department usually focus on one text that allows them to demonstrate a wide variety of critical approaches, and one often teaches Frankenstein). By focusing on it as a work of early science fiction, though, I think I hit a new angle for most of them:

• "[...] I also enjoyed Frankenstein."
• "I think you should teach Adam Bede, Arthur & George and Frankenstein (which I had already read in high school but didn't get that much out of at the time) again definitely"
• "I thoroughly enjoyed 'Frankenstein,' 'War of the Worlds,' and 'V for Vendetta.'"
• "I really liked Frankenstein, The Thing in the Forest, Sherlock Holmes, and Arthur and George."
• "teach frankenstein (interesting approach)" 

I did realize that I should teach the 1818 text next time, not the 1831 one; the book was less interesting than I remember, and I think that's why.

Student Review: Arthur & George by Julian Barnes

Trade paperback, 445 pages
Published 2007 (originally 2005)

Acquired May 2007
Previously read December 2009

Reread February 2014

Arthur & George
by Julian Barnes

I always like to ask my students what they thought of the books we read when the semester is over, though this semester I did not allow for as much time/space as I did in the past, so the comments are consequently less detailed. In any case, my impression of the reception of Arthur & George is vaguely positive: they felt it was slow to start, and were frustrated with the lack of resolution, though I think I got them to at least comprehend why that was the case with our discussion of postmodernism:

• "Drop Arthur and George"
• "I think you should teach Adam Bede, Arthur & George and Frankenstein (which I had already read in high school but didn't get that much out of at the time) again definitely"
• "Arthur & George and Between the Acts were my least favorites as the 'density' of the text and slow pace made it really hard to get through."
• "I really liked Frankenstein, The Thing in the Forest, Sherlock Holmes, and Arthur and George."

Review: The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould

Trade paperback, 423 pages
Published 1996 (originally 1981)

Acquired November 2011

Read November 2012

The Mismeasure of Man
by Stephen Jay Gould

Stephen Jay Gould takes on everyone who's ever tried to quantify human intelligence with a simple numerical value, be it measuring skull capacities or the Stanford-Binet "intelligence quotient." It's an illuminating look at how easy it is to blind yourself. It's a nuanced critique of objectivity from someone who (unlike many who critique objectivity) is sympathetic to the overall epistemology of science. As he states it, "I criticize the myth that science itself is an objective enterprise, done properly only when scientists can shuck the constraints of their culture and view the world as it really is" (53). His gist is that science will always be a culturally embedded enterprise, so rather than deny that fact, scientists should work to understand their biases, because, ideally, science can "be a powerful agent for questioning and even overturning the assumptions that nurture it" (55).

His discussion of Samuel George Morton, who measured over one thousand skulls in order to prove black mental inferiority, is fascinating (see pp. 83-104). Morton was an adherent to polygeny, the theory that the races of man have separate origins, which allows one to ethically endorse all sorts of racist practices. He fudged his analysis to prove his point, but could not have done so consciously, because he published his raw data along with his work, easily allowing anyone to discover the fudging. Whenever he miscalculated in favor of his own theories, he never double-checked, because he "knew" that he was right.

Gould shows how this kind of thing happens again and again-- but offers the promise that good science, well conducted, will root out this kind of bias, hopefully sooner rather than later. It's easy to laugh at some of the ridiculous judgments made in the name of "science"... until you realize that this kind of science has informed the slavery debate, immigration policy, school reform, and many other things with massively real consequences for real people. Hopefully we can console ourselves with the belief that most of these people probably would have been racists anyway (!); science was just a convenient crutch to lean on.

Review: The Victorian Scientist by Jack Meadows

Hardcover, 202 pages
Published 2004
Borrowed from the library
Read November 2012

The Victorian Scientist: The Growth of a Profession

by Jack Meadows

This volume functions as a sort of "biography" of the Victorian scientist in general (using anyone who achieved eminence from the 1830s to 1900 as source material), divided up into sections concerning schooling, home life, training, research, jobs, and so on. There is frustratingly little on how the scientist was perceived within society, aside from small mentions of public enthusiasm for popular science texts and such. I also found the book's handling of women scientists (a small section in the final chapter) kind of perplexing. But on the whole it provides as effective a depiction of the career of the "typical" Victorian scientist as you are ever likely to find.

Review: George Eliot and Nineteenth-Century Science by Sally Shuttleworth

Trade paperback, 257 pages
Published 1986 (originally 1984)

Acquired May 2012

Read November 2012

George Eliot and Nineteenth-Century Science: The Make-Believe of a Beginning
by Sally Shuttleworth

Along with Levine's Darwin and the Novelists and Beer's Darwin's Plots, this is one of the three foundational monographs about Victorian literature and science to be published in the 1980s. While Levine and Beer look at narrow scientific field and a wide literary one, Shuttleworth sticks to Eliot, providing analyses of each of her major novels in the context of Victorian science. Shuttleworth brings out how Eliot does not use literature to simplify science, nor science to simplify literature: science is complex, and so are Eliot's subjects, and she uses the complexity of the one to bring out the complexity of the other. For example, she says that Middlemarch "offers no simple endorsement of theories of organic social harmony. Rather... it explores the complexities and contradictions within organicist social theory" (142). It was her discussion of Middlemarch that I found most illuminating, suggesting that the world and the people in it are perhaps ultimately unknowable... but that doesn't mean we should ever stop trying to know the world or each other.

Review: Public Moralists by Stefan Collini

Hardcover, 383 pages
Published 1991
Borrowed from the library
Read November 2012

Public Moralists: Political Thought and Intellectual Life in Britain, 1850-1930

by Stefan Collini

I'm sure I picked this book up because something lead me to think it would deal with scientists as moralists, but that didn't really turn out to be true. It did, however, provide some insight into the political thought and actions of John Stuart Mill. Collini does discuss the way science was used by Mill: Alexander Bain called Mill's commitment to equality his greatest error as a scientific thinker, but Mill turned his opponents' belief in inequality into a symptom of bad science. Collini suggests that though we now remember Mill for his Utilitarian justifications, it was his actual, unequivocal morality that made him who he is: Mill's tone suggests dispassionate social fact, but he was actually tendentious and disputable. The insight that I particularly liked (and wished more politicians seemingly followed) was that Mill might compromise his measures, but never his opinions.