Hot off the Shelf: What I'm reading - 'Trainspotting' by Irvine Welsh.

No spoilers. Explicit Language.

I thought I'd enjoy this in the same way I enjoyed A Clockwork Orange. Interesting language devices, violence, drugs, an antihero that makes you really think about the human society etc.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. What's the book about? Well in a nutshell, it's almost a collection of short stories, revolving around the lives of a group living in Edinburgh who are all either on heroin, have other addictions. or are affected by those addicted. It covers all the typically associated - alcoholism, violence, HIV etc. It's mainly from the perspective of Mark Renton, or Rents, who tells us about his daily existence - on heroin and off - and about his interactions with his friends, other 'classes' of society and himself. However the story does occasionally switch to the POV of other characters, who are often introduced to the reader without any backstory or warning. This can get a little confusing. You have to be on the ball with this book. Not least because of the dialect.

As with the Nadsat in Orange, once you get into the Scottish dialect of Trainspotting, it's fairly easy to read. It just looks daunting initially. Top tip: Put aside at least half an hour to begin the book. It's not something I found easy to just 'dip into'. I needed time to get used to the way it was written, then I was away. A random example below:

"Naw but, listen the now. You jist think aboot it. In the army they dae everything fir they daft cunts. Feed thum, gie the cunts cheap bevvy in scabby camp clubs tae keep thum fae gaun intae toon n lowerin the fuckin tone, upsetting the locals n that. Whin they git intae civvy street, thuv goat tae dae it aw fir thumsells."

That's a fairly easy example. It's actually very clever and I wish I had the skills to be able to pull something like this off. Reading this book feels like your emotions are getting slapped with a wet, very Scottish, fish. You'll feel disgusted, you'll laugh, you'll feel actual scorn and hatred, you'll want to punch something and you'll want to hug the characters all within half an hour.

So what's got me essentially feeling a bit...meh, about Trainspotting. After all, it's hailed as a cult classic, "the voice of punk, grown up, grown wiser and grown eloquent". Danny Boyle made a film about it in 1996. I think I'll watch the film, as it will be interesting to see how some of the scenes play out onto screen. Fans rave about it the world over. So what on earth is my problem?

I just...didn't really get the point. Nothing had really changed by the end for most of the characters. I understand the message that the image of a classless society is a false one. I understand that it's making big points about reality and image. Everyone associated with Rents is messed up somehow. I understand the points it made...I just didn't care. Which sounds horrible. But there was no plot. No resolution, apart from the notion of escape at the very end. But it doesn't even put that across fully, as Rents will never really be free, because of the actions he performs at the end of the novel. I didn't care because a lot of the time, the character of Rents made me not care. I thought I'd feel the same way about Rents that I did about Alex in Orange- emotionally tied - thinking about the bigger moral picture. Maybe that's my problem, I'm trying too much to compare it to Orange. I just can't help it. They're similar, but Trainspotting just didn't leave me as thoughtful afterwards. I didn't really care what happened to Rents. He was a very selfish character. And I think that's what got to me the most. There was nothing to like him for because he cared for nothing and no-one really apart from the big H.

One thing I did like about Trainspotting was that it painted a very real, bleak and sometimes pure gross image of what taking drugs can do to a person. We're talking grim here. It didn't sugar coat anything. The times Rents talks about how heroin is the best thing since sliced bread:

“take your best orgasm, multiply the feeling by twenty, and you're still fuckin miles off the pace”

are really shot down by the picture painted of the aftermath and effects. If you're teen has just read Junk by Melvin Burgess and thinks that there's not really anything too bad that can happen if you take hard hitting drugs, because everything will turn out okay in the end, get them to read Trainspotting and they'll probably run a mile if offered.

Blah. This has been a very ranty review. I'm finding it difficult to put across my feelings for this one. I think it's worth a read. Because it will make everyone feel different things. It didn't offend me, it just wasn't my cup of tea. So, onwards we read.

Over and out.

Comics Unmasked at the British Library

A couple of Friday's ago I visited the British Library, to have a looksee at the ‘Comics Unmasked’ exhibition.

I can’t consider myself a comic fanatic. My experience thus far into comics includes Brian Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim series, a few Manga, Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis and more recently Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series (which by the way, is excellent).

I am a huge fan of the Batman/X-Men/Iron-Man/Avengers movie and game releases and would love to begin reading some of these in their original ink and paper format. I plan to research where to even begin with these and where I can source the comics from cheaply [or for free: *library dance*] over the summer.  

So what did I, as a comic-amateur, think of the exhibition?

It was great. The exhibition was interestingly broken up into various themes, such as gender, politics, violence etc with an area on sex that was curtained off slightly, so you could bypass it if you visited with children, or were likely to find it offensive. When you first enter you’re met with a series of quotes speech-bubbled along the wall from various famous people, my favourite of which is below:

 

Sorry about the quality - it was very dark and I was trying to be sneaky.

 

These were great as the quotes were not all favourable of comics and it introduced the idea right away the comics have always been a controversial topic.

Unfortunately you can’t take pictures inside the exhibition so you’ll have to imagine: A dark high ceiling that gave each illuminated display an almost stage-like quality. Looming from the shadowy corners were groups of mannequins, each sporting  V’s mask from V for Vendetta (a graphic novel written by Alan Moore – although the film version is possibly more well-known), giving the eerie impression I was being followed by a collective hidden gaze as I shuffled around.  

Some of the series I’d heard of, so it was really interesting to learn more about them – they had Judge Dredd’s mask, worn in the most recent film by Karl Urban (I think the mask was from the most recent film!) and it was amazing to see Neil Gaiman’s handwritten letters and sketches for the Sandman series, and learn about his earlier Punch and Judy works (very creepy).  But what was really great was discovering just how far back comics go. They had works from the Victorian times, and even prior to that! Some in huge, bound volumes and some that would have appeared simply in newspapers. Simple sketches and bold black and whites ran alongside intricate, detailed colour work.

Looking at the themes of gender and race through comics was especially fascinating for me. People tend to associate comics with white, male writers, but this exhibition showed examples of when this began to change and who was writing what, when Britain was undergoing different political and cultural shifts. The exhibition remained very central to Britain’s history which was great as well, as again, people tend to associate most comic work with American writers.

There was some thoroughly disturbing viewing to be had in the Sex section, including Penis monsters, anthropomorphic testicles and an almost scarring take on Rupert Bear. I would suggest no-one younger than 15/16 venture there.

Apart from an embarrassing moment, where I leant so close to the glass casing that I smacked my giant forehead on it, it was an excellent trip. A great way to spend an hour or so, even for comic-book novices. In fact, afterwards, I could recommend heading to Tottenham Court Road tube station, as from there it’s easy walking distance to Foyles Bookstore (they have dedicated manga and graphic novel sections) and the Forbidden Planet London megastore – their basement is any comic book or graphic novel fan’s heaven.

Entrance!

The exhibition at the British Library is open until the 19th August 2014. It’s £9.50 for adults and £5 for concessions. For other prices and to book tickets follow the link here.  

Over and out.

The Prison Book Ban

I’m actually hoping, whilst studying for my masters next year, to undergo a fieldwork placement in a prison library. Whether this is actually possible is a different kettle of fish. I won’t go into the reasons for wanting this, but I do often look around prison librarian blogs, news and related affairs and this caught my eye recently. Chris Grayling, conservative and current Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice has been rattling cages recently with his ban on books being sent into UK prisons.

His defence, as I can gather from the various articles, seems to be, in short, that books can be used to smuggle in contrabands. Prisoners have access to reading material through their prison library or can earn money to buy books. Prisoners are allowed up to and including twelve books in their cells at any time.

Now, even to me – a person with limited knowledge of the prison system - that seems like weak reasoning.

According to politics.co.uk most ‘entry’ level or ‘standard’ level inmates will earn no more that roughly £15 per week. Most will earn less. Now even I, an admitted bookworm, wouldn’t be spending my £15 per week on books, if I was in prison. As a child or partner of someone in jail, it would upset me that I couldn’t send any gifts, as the ban covers more than books, and I imagine it would impose restrictions on any charities sending in supplies to aid rehabilitation through reading etc.

Inmates are allowed access to the library, good behaviour permitting, for 30 minutes per week. In reality understaffing can often limit this. Again it boils down to money: If public libraries are struggling with cut-backs, then I imagine prison libraries are experiencing the same troubles. I quote from an article in the telegraph:

Prison libraries are funded by an agency of the Ministry of Justice, which gives the money to the prison’s local public library authority, which in turn provides a library service to the prison. According to Ministry of Justice guidelines, the size of the stock should be 10 times greater than the prison population, and the stock should be replaced for wear and tear every five years. If this really happens, then prison libraries are as well-stocked as our public libraries.

Does this mean, with dwindling money for library services, that soon library authorities will have to basically decide which they put their money, their staff, their books and resources, into - our prison or public libraries? Which would you choose? It seems simple on the surface: prison inmates are in prison for a reason. Why should they be allowed library privileges over the general, law-abiding public? I understand this. It is a reasonable argument. However of the prison population of England and Wales, roughly three quarters cannot read or write (according to CILIP). There’s a great article from The Guardian that mentions that if a prisoner goes straight into a job upon release he/she has only a 10% chance of reoffending, compared to 90% if they don’t. Now, if you can’t read or write, what chance do you have of getting a job upon release? I don’t have a percent for that, but I bet it doesn’t involve double digits. To help rehabilitation through education whilst in prison, to help them learn basic reading and writing often requires books. Sometimes expensive books that £15 per week is not going to pay for. And an understaffed, underfunded library cannot afford either. Thus a stalemate is reached. Inmates serve their time, and go back into the world still illiterate, the figures against them that they’ll be back in soon enough, costing taxpayers more money to run the prisons they’re in. A fab quote comes from the BBC interviewing Mark Haddon on the subject: "Even prisoners in Guantanamo Bay can get given books as gifts"

It’s not a simple matter. And the points I’ve covered here don’t even scratch the surface of the issues facing libraries. But banning books being sent into prisons from the outside, to me, is just not helping. If you’re going to give an inmate any chance of improving their education level whilst serving time, and thus allowing them to come back to the public world with a better chance of finding employment and contributing to society (I hate that phrase) then allowing books to be sent into our prisons seems sensible. If I had £6.31 (minimum wage for anyone over 21), I’d rather pay someone for an hour to check thirty incoming packages of books from outside sources, than spend it on one book for the prison library that only one inmate at a time can have amongst his twelve books on his bookshelf.

I hope this makes sense. I have so many questions about prison libraries. But I wanted to write about this to begin to make sense of my thoughts and feelings on our prison libraries. Maybe one day I’ll get to experience them first hand.

I'll leave this with a link to a charity. The Shannon Trust aim to make every prisoner a reader. It sets up schemes that have reading prisoners teaching their fellow, illiterate inmates through a peer to peer reading scheme. They're active in almost every prison in the UK.

Over and out.

The Boring Librarian.

So my cage was rattled recently. Long story short – when one student learnt that a work colleague and I were friends, the pupil apparently asked my friend:

“The librarians’ assistant…but isn’t she a bit boring?”

Okay bear with me. This is not going to be a blog post about how fascinating I am, because I am most definitely not the world’s most exciting person. My question is:

What makes a person boring? Because clearly working in a library does.

 

I’ve never met this pupil. Which leads me to the conclusion they’re basing their assumption on the only thing they know about me – that I work in a library.

Why is that? I thought to myself? I’ll tell you why:

Stereotypes

*vom*

I’m assuming when the term ‘Librarian’ is thrown around, they either picture this:

Photo credit:kdkbooklove

 

Or this:

 



Basically, I’ve got to be aged 60+, perpetually angry for unknown reasons and have a finger permanently stuck to my pursed, wrinkly, hairy lips to SHH you aggressively. OR I can be no older than 25, wear ‘geek’ glasses to make obvious the infinite extent of my knowledge and have a finger held daintily to my plumped, lipsticked mouth to SHH you and then probably giggle afterwards.

Oh and all I had to do for those images was search for ‘librarian’ in google images. Apparently librarians are all females too, because I swear I could probably count on one hand the amount of males that the search produced.

Anyway.

The annoying thing about a stereotype is that it does what it says on the tin. Everyone is lumped into one or two defining categories. It’s bad – but not so bad – if say your stereotype is an excellent one. Oh you’re a doctor?  How clever you must be! Oh you’re a fashion designer? How creative you must be!

Oh you’re a librarian?

How…um… erm…

Librarians just got lumbered with an unappealing stereotype. But does that make me as an individual 'The Boring Librarian'?

So, first things first: Do I conform to the stereotype? So here are some things that came up when I googled ‘Stereotypical Librarian’:

Wears hair in a bun.

I do not do this. And if I do it’s probably because I didn’t wash it that day and I’m trying to hide the unwashed-ness.

Wears glasses.

Only when I’m looking at a computer, because the shiny, magical light that they emit is just too much for my naked eyeballs apparently. ‘Spectacle shaped force-field’ makes it sound edgier. And just to note - my glasses neither make me look like an OAP, or super sexy.

Smells like coffee and cats.

I don’t like coffee, not even in chocolates. I probably smell like cats.

Wears cardigans.

Yup. Love me a knitted garment.

Reads all day.

Na, I have a job. And just because it’s one where I’m surrounded by books, doesn’t mean I can sit around reading them all day. As much as I’d like that, no-one would pay me. *sadface*

 

Anyway the one thing that struck me most about most of the stereotypes is that THEY ARE ALL VISUAL! Basically bun + glasses + coffee/cats + cardigans = Librarian. And not in a good way.

Why?? What is it about cardigans, and the odour of cats that makes one a boring Librarian.
Because this is the thing about boring: it is stereotyped itself.
Boring stereotypes include those of cardigans and glasses. And somehow they’ve wormed their way to nestle alongside Librarian to produce not a very exciting connotation.

So to some people I probably am boring. But to others I’m really fun. I like movies, yes – reading, getting tiddly and dancing tiddlier, Chinese food, laughing loudly (yes even in the library!), but most of all I like being with people who like me – in other words, socialising. That’s the one stereotype I’d like to break permanently. You can judge me for my cats and glasses if you like. But librarians are humans and if you come and talk to us we might be the most interesting people you’ve ever met, even only if to offer excellent advice on which colour cardigan would go nicely with your cat.

The main point of all this rambling is that no-one is truly boring because boring means different things to different people. To pre-judge a librarian as 'boring' before talking to them is almost as bad as assuming a blonde is, by definition, significantly lacking in intellect and will do sillier things than her brunette and red-haired counterparts in a bar environment. Or that teachers don't have lives beyond the classroom. Or that police-men are all terrifying and speaking to them will get you send straight to jail without passing go. Or collecting two hundred pounds.

Basically, don't judge a book by it's cover. Even if it does smell like coffee.

Over and out.

Hot off the shelf: What I’m reading – ‘Studio Ghibli: The Films of Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata’

This one is by Colin Odell and Michelle Le Blanc - the post title was long enough already!

It’s summer. Not officially – but it’s like a billion degrees out there and although the weather says rain is on the way (good old England), I have that summery feeling. So what do I do? Instead of reading inside, I take my books outside and expose my pale limbs to some vitamin D. I swear all you need when the sun is shining is some books, a blanket, some friends and snacks and it’s pretty much the best feeling ever. Oh and a day off – you need one of those too.

I had mine yesterday, my one full day off for the week. So what was I reading? Well, it was my birthday on Monday (I swear, after you turn 21, there aren’t any more exciting birthdays.  I am essentially just aging. Woo!), and thanks to various kind friends and JJ, I received some books, one such book being that mentioned in the title of this very blog post. It sports a friendly looking green cover with Totoro - arguably studio Ghibli’s most famous character, and their logo mascot - romping through grass with Mei and Satsuko.

For those of you unaware, Studio Ghibli (pronounced with a soft ‘g’, like ‘genie’) is a Japanese animation company pretty much created by the above names. This book was especially relevant, as Miyazaki has just announced his retirement after completing The Wind Rises, which is showing in cinemas as I write this (although he has done this before, only to return to work on Howls Moving Castle in 2004, so maybe he’ll do another film yet. We can only hope.) Various Ghibli films you might be aware of include My Neighbour Totoro, Ponyo, Princess Mononoke, Kiki’s delivery service and the most recent DVD release From up on Poppy Hill. These films and all of the others are well worth watching – beautiful animation and simple, yet honest storylines bring a totally refreshing film experience. I am a big fan – so what did I think of this book?

Great! For die-hard fans, and Ghibli novices alike, this book holds the secrets of Ghibli, without being too ‘non-fiction’. It doesn’t feel like an information book. It’s easy to read and the way in which it is set up really lends itself well to those especially not well educated in Studio Ghibli’s films or history.

The first part of the book explores animation and what Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata were up to, pre-Ghibli. There’s some great examples of earlier work produced or directed by both before they formed Studio Ghibli, and especially about Nausicca – a film I believed to be created under Ghibli, but was actually pre-Ghibli. Nausicca was actually the success that led to the two being able to form Ghibli studios. The second section takes you through the films, in release order, made under the Ghibli name. It gives the director for each one and a small plot outline, peppered with other interesting tit-bits about its production or themes, for example. There are a couple of pages in the middle picturing some stills from various films. The third section is called 'other projects', detailing things like music videos, TV shorts etc that Ghibli have worked on, with a small section about the Ghibli museum in Tokyo and a section on collaborations with other Studios to finish.

Overall I’d rate this 9.5 out of 10. I’d loved to have seen some more pictures and obviously there hasn’t been an updated version to include Ghibli’s releases post Ponyo (in release order: Arriety, From up on Poppy Hill and The Wind Rises). However this makes an excellent companion text to all of the films and gives a great sense of background to Ghibli and its works. I definitely went straight to my DVD collection after finishing it and watched Kiki’s delivery service to round off the experience!

Over and out.

Book Club Activity: Quotes Quiz

Where was everyone? We only had about half of our usual number on Friday for our book club meeting I help run at the school. Due to language oral examinations at the school where I work, currently there are no bells going off signifying end of lessons, which meant a lot of them forgot. No worries! The smaller group enabled me to let each of the students talk for a lot longer about what they were reading and how it was going. It meant I could speak to them individually as well, whereas – due to the usual bigger group – I’m usually addressing them three at a time or so. So after a catch up and some well needed brownies, we had a little quiz.

Hopefully I’ll find a way to post the sheets and quiz online, so other people could use them if they wanted to. I know there’s somewhere to share resources on the shadowing site I’m just not sure how.

So with our small number there were two teams of four. I tried to make sure there was a few in each group who’d read a fair number of the books so they were equally matched. Basically I read out a quote, and they had to try and guess which book it came from. Both teams did well, however one just pipped the other to the post and guessed all eight correctly.

Everyone seemed in good spirits anyway. This activity took us about 15 minutes – both the quiz and the marking afterwards. But perhaps it would have taken longer if the full group had come. Not sure what I’ll try next week, but I’ll let you know how it goes!

Over and out.

Book Club Activities: Tension Graphs and other ideas

So as mentioned before, every Friday I’m helping to run a book club with our year sevens (age 11/12). They’re taking part in the Carnegie shadowing scheme and so far it’s been successful, with three curious new faces last week at our third meeting. I wanted to do some posts about activities we’ve done and activities I hope to do. ‘Share your ideas and resources’ was something that came up a lot at library camp so here I go. I’ll probably edit this post a lot as I think up more activities and I’ll link up other posts I do on how they went too.

Tension graphs: This was something we tried last week, at the suggestion of my colleague. Her idea was to get them to plot the ‘action level’ of each chapter of their books onto a graph. I took that idea and simplified it. We only have half an hour for our meetings so this needed to be snappy, and I wanted to do something that involved them working as a team.

We divided them up into ‘book groups’, so some who had read ‘Ghost hawk’ in one group, other’s who’d read ‘The Child’s Elephant’ in another, and so on until we had a few of the books represented. I then had one group at a time up at the front where I’d stood a giant flip-chart, and they plotted the tension levels of their book on a graph, 10 being very tense and 0 not very tense at all. Sort of like this:

This is in no way an accurate representation of their feelings on the books – there was a lot more fluctuations and scribbles as they argued back and forth about which bits were more tense!

This went down really well. We had a few new members, so it was good to let them see the other member’s thoughts on a few of the books to help them choose what they wanted to read first. Our one rule at book club is NO SPOILERS. So it was interesting to let them explain why they were rating the middle a 10, for example, without giving anything away. Lots of giggling ensued when they made their lines really erratic for uber-emotional parts. It was nice to let them have the floor for a change as well, giving them confidence (not that most of them need any confidence boosting!) and hopefully getting across their enthusiasm to each other.

So that was last week. Add that activity to the way we always start, which is swapping all the books around for those who’ve finished, and we finished right on target time-wise. So this activity lasted us about 20 mins: Dividing them into groups, letting them discuss between themselves for a bit and finally allowing each group to come and draw on the graph and allowing for discussion at the end. Oh, and cake eating, there was lots of that too.

Other activities I hope to do in the future include:

Quotes Quiz. This is already prepared for Friday, so I’ll let you all know how that goes. Basically I’ll be reading out eight quotes and they have to match it up with the eight books in the shortlist that we’re shadowing. They’ll be in teams and to save on time I’m made some answer sheets so they can just write “Quote 1” next to the picture of the book they think it matches to. [Edit: See here for how it went]

3 word/One sentence reviews. I was hoping to get a video of each of the pupils holding up one of the books they’ve read so far and describing it in three words. For the shyer members, we could maybe have words written on whiteboards and held up. I could then go away and edit the video, putting funky music in etc to show at the next meeting. I think a lot of them might like the chance to be in the limelight. I’ll suggest it on Friday and see what they think.

A characters meeting. What it says on the tin. Questions about the characters that have most affected/annoyed our readers. Prompt questions like “If you were stuck on a desert island with one character, which one would it be and why?” “Which character would you most like to date?”  “One character has to keep you alive in a video game, who would it be and why?” etc.

Crafts! I have no idea what, but I love crafts so I’ll have to think of something! Bookmarks maybe. Book themed bracelets even. Who knows.

Two truths and a lie: A general icebreaker. Perhaps for a meeting when not many of them have finished their books. Everyone goes around and says three facts about themselves, two are truth one is a lie. The others have to figure out which is the lie. Good team building I suppose, but perhaps a bit null, as they already live at school together. I just added this as I did it at uni and really enjoyed myself.

Movies: Discussing which of the books would make good movies. General discussion about which other books they’ve been reading have made good movies and seeing which actors/actresses they would like to star in a movie adaptation.

And that’s all I’ve got for now. If I end up doing any of these and writing a blog post on them I’ll link them up back to here. SO MUCH LINKAGE. Any other suggestions would be fabulous if anyone out there is reading this. Lemme know.

Over and out.