Arts & Culture

Reading in Times of Distress

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When I first started writing this article, my mind was on the election and my fears for the future. Now, our reality has become steeped in even more tragedy that has left many in our community reeling. Amidst everything, I found myself turning to books — and the escapism they provide — to cope with the unrelenting sense of uncertainty and heaviness around me. 

In moments like these, it can be difficult, dealing with a flood of emotions or maybe even more so to feel them slip away behind walls. There are many coping mechanisms out there, but, in my opinion, none come close to the power that escapism through reading can offer. Reading goes beyond distraction, it offers a liminal space to indirectly connect with feelings and to discover pieces of yourself.

Arts & Culture

Jane Austen, The Original Girl’s Girl 

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As every single person in the lecture hall raised their hands when Prof. Elisha Cohn, Department of Literatures in English, asked who had read Jane Austen before, I shrank into my seat. It was the first day of classes of the fall semester and the English major in me was ashamed to admit it, but other than that one time my thirteen-year-old self had cracked open Pride and Prejudice before promptly proceeding to stuff it back into my bookshelf, I had never read anything by the famous English author. 

But why would that even matter? Jane Austen wrote all six of her novels just over 200 years ago in a time that seems distant and abstract to us today. Her worlds of ballgowns and marriage markets seem foreign and fantastical, and yet there’s something at the heart of her stories that’s proven to be everlasting. Every raised hand in that room proves it — Jane Austen has staying power.

Arts & Culture

Plato’s Cave and Trump’s Next Term 

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A sentiment echoes across the United States, and it stems from “the people.” Just last week, “the people” elected a president. How can we understand this political moment better? Let’s go back to Plato and his cave. Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” from the Republic, helps us understand populism in the U.S. today and its role in Donald Trump’s rise. 

The “Allegory of the Cave,” aims to understand the effect of education, or lack of it, on our nature. Plato describes his allegory as follows: There are humans living inside of a cave that extends far with an entrance leading to the outside world.

Arts & Culture

Stephanie Garber’s Spectacular is a Love Letter to Holiday Magic

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Holidays are a time laden with magic. Like the spirits being closer to the living on Halloween, during the holidays magic is so heavy in the air you feel that if you were to just reach out you could grab it and bottle it forever. But that is part of the magic of the holidays, afterwards, it disappears like a mirage or hazy dream. Not quite sure it was real, we are left to return to everyday life awaiting the next year just to feel the touch of that uncanny magic again. Reading Spectacular, Stephanie Garber’s newest illustrated novella, felt just like this.

Arts & Culture

Seven Magical Books to Get Lost in this Fall

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The season of reading is upon us as Ithaca transforms into a canvas of scarlet and gold redolent of crisp air and foggy mornings. There is no better time to get lost in the enchanting, and sometimes spooky worlds of fantasy — so here are seven must-read fantasy books to add to your list this fall. House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig

House of Salt and Sorrows was one of my favorite fall reads from last year. Craig crafts an eerie, atmospheric tale based on the “Twelve Dancing Princesses” which contorts opulent balls into horrifying vestiges of beauty, blurring the line between reality and nightmares. Annaleigh Thaumas and her remaining sisters live at Highmoor, a manor by the sea, which is haunted by the mysterious and increasingly tragic deaths of their four sisters.

Arts & Culture

The Art of Adaptation as Seen in Two Autumnal Films

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As the year progresses further in autumn and summer fades into the distance, I find myself reflecting on the media I’ve consumed during this seasonal transition. Two pieces that I find myself returning back to are Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Virgin Suicides and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, both of which I read for the first time in recent months, although I initially watched their movie adaptations years ago. They are both critically acclaimed novels, focused on sets of sisters, possessing at least somewhat autumnal atmospheres, and adapted around the turn of the century by two burgeoning directors who later found great success. So what makes Joe Wright’s Pride and Prejudice (2005) click for me, and Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides (1999) disappoint? Considering this question means entering into the contentious debate about what a movie adaptation should aim to do.

Arts & Culture

Who is Han Kang, Winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature?

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According to the Nobel Prize website, Han Kang was born on Nov. 27, 1970; she currently resides in Seoul, South Korea; she was the sole recipient of the prize; and she was awarded the prize “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.” She has written eight novels, The Vegetarian being one of her more well known pieces. She has also written some short stories and poetry. She is obviously a popular novelist, incredibly talented and apparently, deserving of the Nobel Prize. This begs the question:

Why haven’t I heard of her before?

Arts & Culture

On Walden

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Last February, I picked up Walden on a Saturday morning and hoped to get through the first chapter. But by evening, I had not started any work, had not eaten and had torn halfway through the book. On my walk back from the library, I felt that I was holding something sacred in my bag.