AGTO Day Six: The Seminar

Friday was the Harry Potter day, but we actually spent almost an hour discussing an extra reading Maria had given us. It's called "The Problem of Susan," and it's from a short story collection by Neil Gaiman. Maria wasn't sure what the book was called, and neither am I. If you do, let me know. So this was a really weird story. Very sexual, and it's not totally clear what's going on and, more importantly, why. Personally, I'd read it, thought, "Huh, that was weird," and moved on. Some people were really stuck on it though, and it was quite the interesting discussion trying to figure out what on Earth was going on in the story, and whose dreams were who, and what was the whole Mary Poppins thing about? I can't really talk much about it in a way that will make sense unless you've read the weirdness, so if you have, or do, let me know and let's talk. Because man, that was weird. What was he trying to say about C. S. Lewis?

AGTO Day Four: The Seminar

Wednesday was the C. S. Lewis focused day. Since we were going out to The Kilns, we only had about an hour for discussion, which was a shame since we'd had some really interesting reading the night before. If you have the time, I would suggest reading "Prisoner of Narnia," by Adam Gopnik from The New Yorker. It was really interesting. I didn't know very much about Lewis' early life, and the article talked about that as well as his writing. We also read Lewis' "Of This and Other Worlds."

AGTO Day Two: The Seminar

On Monday, after a hearty English breakfast, the seminars began. Literature and the Fantastic is being lead by Maria Cecire, a Rhodes Scholar whose doctorate is in connecting classic texts to children's fantasy literature. The seminar will be mostly discussion based, starting with Tolkien and Lewis, then moving to Pullman and then to more contemporary authors like J.K. Rowling and yes, there will be talk of Twilight.

Maria gave us a packet of the facsimile of the original Lewis Carroll manuscript (just the first few pages) which was then called Alice's Adventures Under Ground. It is written in his own hand with his own illustrations. We talked about things that struck us, and how Alice's voice is mature for child, which makes sense since Victorian children were expected to be little adults, but she still acts like a child, not thinking, just dashing ahead. We looked at how Lewis Carroll was playing with words, physics, and twisting everyday school lesson for the amusement of the Liddells, who he was telling the story for.