shawcat reads

Let’s talk about some of my favorite stuff: critical animal studies. And let’s talk about it in the context of one of my favorite authors: Charles Dickens. In recent years there has been a surge of interest in and scholarship about critical animal studies and the use of animals in literature. Significant attention has been paid to Charles Dickens’s own various uses of animal and animal imagery in his works. Dickens often used animals or animal imagery to explore the dehumanization of Victorian England’s poor and working class. Despite its length, Bleak House may be my favorite Dickens novel, in part because it offers one of the most interesting opportunities to think about these questions in particular. Here I’ll look closely at some scholarly pieces on this topic, with the next post delving into my own thoughts and a stronger focus on my favorite character in Bleak House , the orphan Jo. In “Dickens and Savagery at Home and Abroad,” Valerie Kennedy looks closely at the way in which D...

WOW. This book. As a YA book, it deals with a lot of issues that are of concern to many young people today. There’s the usual teenager and high school life concerns, like crushes and hooking up, bullying, parties, feeling alone and misunderstood, being judged and labeled by your peers, sexting, slut shaming, rebellion against authority… you name it, it's here. There’s certainly family conflict and drama. But there’s also so many bigger, broader societal problems that this book addresses. I mean, it is LOADED. There is some heavy stuff to deal with in here. I cried, and I don’t do that often when reading. But this book brought me there. The main character, Emory, is going into her junior year of high school and lives in a place called Mill Haven. Her family is well-off, her mother the descendent of the family that built and operated the eponymous mill the town derives its name from. Emmy’s older brother, Joey, struggles with addiction, as do many other ancillary characters in this b...