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Showing posts tagged theatre
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…do some more walking! Yeah, that’s it! And dancing!
The past week (I can’t believe it’s only been a week) has been hectic with a side of crazy, but I’ve also been loving every last minute of it — yes, even those minutes when my feet were hurting and I was hungry and the weather was about as consistent as someone both indecisive and bipolar.
Since my last post, I’ve officially moved in at Queen Mary. I live in Pooley House, which is the largest residential dorm in the relatively new student village on campus. I have a single room in a suite of seven. We have our own toilets and showers in our rooms (small, but ours) and we all share a kitchen. I’d post pictures of what my room looks like, but right now it looks a bit like Ground Zero — I’ve been so busy doing things and meeting people (and trying to find push-pins for my corkboard, and finding out that the Brits call them “drawing pins” only after attempting to fruitlessly describe to a salesperson what I was looking for) that I haven’t had time to put up any of the room decorations I brought with me, excepting the large rainbow-striped “PACE” flag I bought this summer in Florence (pace is Italian for peace; when I was in Italy four years ago these things were everywhere, and I really liked them, plus mine packed small and really brightens up an entire wall of my room).
Although I’ve only known them for a week, I feel like I’ve found (best) friends in some of the other University of California students who are studying in London. There’s a core group of about five of us who have been hanging out together a lot (more on this later) and I just feel comfortable with these people. I also really love my flatmates. In Pooley Flat 3 we have four girls and three guys. One of the other girls is actually a UC kid, and one of the aforementioned (best) friends — our singles are literally next door to each other.
Yesterday was the first day since moving into Queen Mary that I ventured back into central London. Me, Jessica (my nextdoor flatmate), Sam (short for Samantha), Reno (yes that is a girl’s name), and Oren (actually, that’s a boy’s name) went shopping on Oxford Street, where I was willingly talked into a beautiful pair of brown ankle boots that make me feel like I waltzed out of a period piece. These would be the aforementioned UC students at Queen Mary that I feel I’ve gotten really close with. I’ve hung out more with Sam and Jessica, but Oren and Reno are both English majors and we’re taking a lot of the same classes. In fact, Oren and I have every single English class together first semester. This should be good times.
After shopping, we ended up searching in vain for a pub near Covent Garden (where our theater was). We actually ate at this Australian bar/grill place that was slightly pricier but had huge portions to make up for it and could actually sit the five of us comfortably. Then it was a quick walk to the Fortune Theatre and The Lady in Black.
The play is billed as the scariest ghost story in London theatre. The first half of the play was not at all frightening. And then the second half was just *shudders*. It does a really great job of building tension and always revealing just a little less than you want to know but a little more than you want to think about. It was in a more gothic tradition of horror, which I appreciated — I have a feeling Edgar Allan Poe would have enjoyed it. We bought the tickets in Leicester Square for a discount rate, paying about 25 pounds for seats that normally go for 45. I wouldn’t have seen the play for full price, but it was definitely a necessary experience (and better than The 39 Steps). I just feel so London-y: I’ve seen two west end shows in the space of a week.
I suppose I’ll round out this update by discussing my classes. I managed to figure out my schedule, and it makes me exceedingly happy. First semester, I only have classes Tuesday through Thursday; I pick up a Monday class second semester, but still have my Fridays off. I could’ve had a Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday schedule, but I would’ve been missing out on one class I really want to take.
In the British school system (or at least at QM) it’s possible to take year-long classes, or “modules” as they’re called here. I am taking two year-long English modules both focused around London: The Dickens City (where we read a bunch of Dickens books about London — seven within the first semester alone! — and supplement that with walking tours of Victorian sights) and Representing London: the 18th Century (aka 1700s, which is the class that meets on Thursdays and which I really wanted to take and almost couldn’t get into, but literally the girl in front of me in line dropped it and I nabbed it up before anyone else could).
First semester, I’m also taking an English course called Fiction and Narrative, which appears to focus on different types of narrative fiction. The first book for the class is Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler, but the syllabus also contains everything from Jane Eyre to Jane Austen (Persuasion) to Henry James to the graphic novel Maus. The readings span a pretty wide time period, and I’ve never taken a class that does that, so I think it’ll be interesting to compare narrative strategies across centuries. I’m also taking Beginner’s French I because there was nothing else I really wanted to take as an “easy” course, and no way I’d take four English courses in the same semester — that’s like suicide. I have plenty of reading as it is.
Next semester, I keep all the year-long modules, but in place of Fiction and Narrative I’m taking the equivalent of a Senior Seminar course called Race, Gender, and Empire in Women’s Fiction 1790-1900 (for which I am also reading Jane Eyre — excitement!). In fact, my entire rationale for taking the course was that I knew we would be reading Jane Eyre, and that I’m kinda interested in women’s fiction as a distinct entity in the 1780s-1820s (thank you, Professor Goldsmith!). In place of Beginner’s French I, I am taking The Classical Hollywood Musical 1930-1960 in the film department…which should be amazing. I’m really excited.Well, that’s it for now, folks! I have a few books to read before courses officially start on Tuesday, and it would also be nice to finally set up my room and sort through all the admin stuff I have to get done. Expect more in another week or so. Cheers! (See, I’m British already.)
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…go to The Library. (Yes, it’s in caps for a reason.)
Oh man. As is usual I’ve done so much stuff since the last time I posted that I can’t even keep it all straight.
I’ve been doing a lot of going out and exploring London. Last weekend (I can’t believe it was only last weekend — the time moves so strangely here, I swear!) I went with some of my friends and did a tour of the Houses of Parliament on the last day that the offer tours before the fall session of parliament starts up again. It was actually really awesome, I’d recommend it to anyone who happens to be in London and has a passing interest in history or politics. The Parliament building itself has portions that date back to 1300. I have stood upon the spot where Charles I stormed the parliamentarians debating in the House of Commons and threatened them with their arrest; I have walked up the steps atop which the aforementioned king was tried and beheaded by the English people, the first king in western history to meet such a fate. Guy Fawkes was tried in that same room. Every year before the state opening of parliament, the security team does a sweep through the basements, just to make sure that no one’s trying the same trick again. I think I have to credit at least some of my enjoyment of it to my Milton class; without the brush-up on English political history that I received from Milton’s works, I wouldn’t have enjoyed the historical aspects of the place nearly as much.
This Friday, I also spent a full day in London. Me and Sam and Jess (two other girls here with the UC exchange program) woke up early to get to the theatre box office when it opened and secure 15 pound front row seats to the recently-opened production of Breakfast at Tiffany’s starring Anna Friel (from Pushing Daisies) and Joseph Cross (from Milk and Running with Scissors), which ended up being a fantastic play. I didn’t really remember much about the movie, except that I hadn’t quite liked it as much as I’d hoped I would when I first saw it, but the play was much better than my memory of the movie. Both the leads played their parts very well, though I particularly fell in love with Cross’s facial expressions, which were perpetually spot-on (and generally adorkable).
Between purchasing the tickets in the morning and going to see the play at night, me and Sam and Jess went to the Churchill Museum and War Rooms, housed underground in a building in Whitehall where, serious to God, Churchill and his underlings actually directed the Second World War. The museum and displays were extensive and we spent three hours in there, finally exiting only in response to the groans of our underfed stomachs.
Also, I should say that on our way to the Churchill Museum, we saw a short convoy of official-looking vehicles leaving Buckingham Palace area via Trafalgar Square. There were policemen who stopped traffic, and the people in the cars waved at us. We didn’t know who they were but Sam took a picture and later figured out that one of them was Camilla Parker Bowles!
After we ate lunch (at Pret, an eating establishment whose praise I will have to sing in another entry) we hopped on the tube and made the pilgrimage to the British Library. I may have mentioned my reaction to seeing the British Library for the first time this summer, but for those of you who do not already know, it’s pretty easy to sum up: I am in love with the British Library. One of my main goals in life is to undertake some sort of literary research that is sufficient enough excuse for me to get a reader’s card at the British Library. In the one room of the collection that is viewable to the public reside more treasures than any grand museum or art gallery (in my opinion, of course). In fact, three of the most stunningly beautiful works of art I have ever seen lie practically side-by-side in a stretch of glass case less than 5 feet long.
First, one of John Milton’s “commonplace books,” in which he would record his observations and thoughts about articles that he read, current events, and debates in the public arena. The pages to which this particular book is set open are a record of some of his early readings on the subject of monarchy, and how a monarch may rightfully rule. It’s hard to read some of it even though his handwriting’s clear, because he switches from English to French to Latin seemingly at whim depending upon which source he’s quoting or commenting upon. Page numbers and article titles are minutely detailed, presumably so that Milton could look these works back up if he so desired. There, in his own hand, are the seeds of political thought that would later justify the execution of an unjust king and attempt to create the authority necessary for Cromwell’s parliamentary government to succeed. There, in that ink, is the beginning of the story that does not end in the failure of the revolution, or even Milton’s death. His words became the inspiration for the revolutionaries that followed him.
Second, the manuscript copy of the last chapter of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, in a cramped and practically illegible hand, scrawled on small pieces of paper that, as the explanatory note informs the viewer, were likely intended to be so small that Austen could hide them away quickly if someone caught her at her writing. The pages have been backed and bound into a small volume that lies open upon Jane Austen’s own writing desk, a small inclined wooden surface inlaid with a green velour material that’s lost its plush over time, with spots for inkwell, quill, and glasses. Sometimes, looking at it makes me feel as though Austen herself has just been writing there, and been distracted for a moment, leaving her manuscript out so that she might return to finish it any moment now.
Third, Charlotte Bronte’s complete “fair copy” of Jane Eyre, perpetually open to the final chapter’s triumphant declaration: “Reader — I married him.” Charlotte’s hand is easy to read, much easier than either Milton or Austen, and as much as I admire seeing the other two specimens behind the glass, this is the one I would most like to remove from the case, to read through with my own two hands upon the pages where hers once rested. It makes my heart catch in my throat, just a little, to think that someday I might actually have that chance, if I become the kind of professor that I may be becoming, someone important enough to the world of scholarship that that hallowed volume might be taken gently out from its enclosure and placed upon a table in a small, quiet room just for me.
It seems strange now (as it seemed strange then) to come out of this temple of literature and go back to the world outside, where it was raining (apparently it does that here). We made our way back to Covent Garden, where I had a dinner of paella that I watched being made by a man running a food stand outside. They’re British, so rain doesn’t stop them!
I’ve spent the rest of the weekend getting work done mostly, since next weekend I am making my first journey further abroad. From Thursday through Sunday, I will be in Rome, staying with my aunt and exploring the city with my friend Andy, who’s an English major at Berkeley and who is studying abroad at Trinity College in Dublin. I’ve also made plans to go to Paris with friends at the end of the month — in fact, I will begin writing my NaNoWriMo novel (which I still need to figure out, but more on this later) in that magical city. It also seems likely that I will be visiting Berlin and Vienna and/or Prague during the second week of November. Part of me feels terribly guilty that I’ll be spending so much money, but most of the time that part is quickly shut up by the fact that this is most likely a once in a lifetime experience and I should make the most of it while I can. Besides, I can always take a vow of poverty when I get home.
