Passive Voice

Writing can be so joyful, and it can be so demoralizing. 

I can't seem to get beyond the passive voice in my writing. I know that we aren't supposed to use it...but I'm not convinced of WHY we shouldn't use it. Certainly, when I am talking about myself, I would avoid the passive voice. but why can't I say, for example, "the envelope rhyme scheme is executed masterfully." Why do I have to say "The poet executes the envelope rhyme scheme masterfully." ?

I realize that active voice "makes for forcible writing," according to the masters of style. I guess I just don't see it as such a big deal, though. I don't think that forcible necessarily makes an argument stronger. I think the facts and reasoning that you lay out is what makes an argument compelling. This is pretty much always a number one reason I get marked down on papers. Granted, I admit that I am prone to use passive voice when I am rushing through a paper. So, there are usually other problems with those papers that result from editing in a rush. However, part of my problem with editing is precisely that sometimes passive voice seems like the natural way to make an argument, and I have a hard time editing it out.

For example, for me, the passive voice allows me to present facts and examples that support my argument while letting the literature maintain its authority. In the example of the sentence on rhyme scheme, I think that the passive voice allows me to remain deeply in the poem and in the language and "located" on a certain line. It feels to me that making the poet the subject of that line takes the emphasis off of the rhyme and instead focuses too heavily on the technique of writing rather than the AFFECT of the rhyme and its ability to move me.  Passive voice helps me to stay inside of the poem rather than having to talk about the author's technique from the outside, I can unravel the technique from the inside.  I'm not saying the author is dead or anything that profound...but I want to be able to use passive voice without it weaking my argument.

Am I the only one out there who actually likes to use the passive voice? Any grammaticians or rhetoricians out there who really care about passive and active voice?

My Worst Nightmare

Okay, maybe its not my worst nightmare.  But it's definitely up there.  What is it?  The thought of Nicolas Cage being immortal.

I can't stand Nicolas Cage.  My disclaimer is always the same, I love the movie Adaptation, but really it works out because his character is meant to be so dreadfully annoying in it.  I can't stand him in anything else, and I refuse to watch his movies.

How horrified was I today then to come across this creepy Civil War era photo of someone who looks just like him.  I really don't even know what to say to this since this is way more uncanny than seeing the face of Jesus in a piece of toast.  My horror also makes me wonder if there is a profit to be made out of this.  If I didn't hate Nicolas Cage so much, perhaps I could take the Jesus Toaster idea (which is AWESOME!  I want one so bad!) and make....toast of Nicolas Cage's face?  Absolutely not.  I hate his face so much; I could never stomach it.

One thing I love about this photo mystery is that, in some small way, it shows how truly unoriginal Nicolas Cage truly is.  I also love when literature and life intersect, and this is one day when it most definitely does.  I've been thinking about faces all week, and in general, I think about faces a lot. 

My favorite theorist, Barbara Johnson, got into "thing theory" in part because of an aversion to eating things with faces (she uses the example of an aversion to gingerbread men).  In literature, we are kind of obsessed with simulacra, and I love this trope in movies, like Paul Henreid in The Scar.  So, this whole face thing with the photograph is creating a real conundrum for me. I want to think about the uncanny similarities between these two faces, but I really can't think about Nicolas Cage anymore than I already have for this posting.

The Marble Faun

In addition to taking a full course load, working on the research portion of my thesis and preparing PhD applications, I am also five weeks away from taking the comprehensive exams. The six-hour exam that culminates the master's program...and yet, is scheduled right in the middle of the two-year program. Anyway, they have reformatted the exam this year, and on October 29th, I will be one of the guinea pigs taking this new format.

This weekend I finished Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Marble Faun, which is on the comps reading list. At its heart, it is about the transformation from innocence to experience. Yet it manages to do so without being didactic.  It explores the complicated dynamics of love, innocence, knowledge and desire setting the scene in Italy, which balances the deep interpersonal questions with meditations on art, travel, the beauty of Rome, and the Italian countryside. There is a lot more in the novel too about religion, for example, but those were some of the things that intrigued me most.

It's most interesting aspect, in my opinion, is the steady concentration on what it is that makes us human and how that can and cannot be communicated through the arts. It is a great novel, and I highly recommend reading it! Maybe it's because I'm returning to his work more than 10 years after reading The Scarlet Letter, but I enjoyed this way more than that book. It is also the kind of novel that we don't really find being published anymore.

If you do decide to read it, let me know. I'm dying to talk more about it!

Winning the Moral Victory

To make a long and very emotional story short, I got ripped off on the grade of my final paper in one of my classes this summer, which in turn gave me a lower-than-deserved grade in the class overall.  I went and spoke with the professor about it who conceded that he had not honored the strong scholarship of the paper despite some of the flaws in the structure of my paper.  This concession was supposed to lead to him changing my grade in the class.  Now, two months later, the grade is not changed.  I spoke with another professor about it who advised me to let it go and take solace in the fact that I won the moral victory...and to gain closure by getting the paper published.

It's good advice.  I know it is good advice, especially the publishing bit.  However, I keep thinking -- a week later -- about winning moral victories.  What does it mean to have failed to inspire or enact a change while knowing that most people agree that change is necessary...dare I say "moral"?  I'm not trying to conflate issues here (although it is a tendency of mine!), but there seems to be some resonance between the specific way that my personal singular "moral victory" feels like failure and the fact that this situation translates to so many broader issues.  

Have YOU won any moral victories that you might like to share to give me some comfort?  

Just for kicks, I wanted to see if Google could support me in detangling this concept.  Searching for "winning the moral victory" leads you to a bunch of sports-related "moral victory" pages.    Is this language outdated?  Is everyone too afraid of people like Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry to talk about moral victories? 

97 Blueberries

Have you ever experienced a moment -- or an extended moment -- of OCD?  Well, I had one of those moments this week.  I had a handful of five blueberries, and one of them went tumbling to the ground.  As I watched it fall, I experienced a brief moment of stress.  I immediately picked it up so that I wouldn't step on it and make a blue squishy mess on the floor.  And then, I actually couldn't bring myself to throw it away.  I washed it off and ate it.  Yes, I did.

What makes me drop rice all over the floor...and while we are at it, let's add pieces of apple, a stray ring of chopped onion, etc...and not care one bit.  But this single little blueberry, well, I just couldn't let it go.  This is the moment that brought me into uncritical, full blown OCD.  I proceeded to re-open the refrigerator and pull out the carton of blueberries...and count them all, one-by-one.  I counted 92 + the 5 I had just eaten = 97.

In case you were wondering how many blueberries you get for your buck, it's about two cents a berry.  Not bad.  

This is for all kindred spirits out there who continue to ponder things like how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop.

 

This is the Modern World!

Tonight was my first day of my second class, Global Mobilities.  If you are interested, you can actually read a little bit about here: http://globalmobilities.wordpress.com/course-overview/.  I love this course's starting idea of constant motion in the modern world.  We already had three articles to read in time for tonight's class....and I was happy to dive right in, head first.

I love thinking about feeling and how the more connected we are through technology, the more often (I believe) we actually feel isolated because our interactions are ever more mediated.   And now, I have a whole semester to meditate on it.  The best part?  Lauren Berlant, currently my favorite affect theorist, is on the syllabus too!  I'm just finishing her book, Compassion, which has been wonderful summer reading. 

Ah yes, I do love modernity.  And I look forward to spending my future in academia exploring modernist notions of interiority and making fun of it...while also taking it seriously.  Perhaps this is why I always like the band, The Jam?

Enjoy!