contemporaryamericannovel-blog

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#ENGL698: The Year in Memes

With inspiration provided by K-State Associate Professor Wendy Matlock, who has her students meme through the Medieval period, the members of English 698, came, they read, they memed. They memed about Binary Star, about Victor LaValle’s The Changeling, and about Izzy from Little Fires Everywhere. There were lots of memes about Izzy. 

Binary Star

The Changeling

Little Fires Everywhere

Goodbye, Vitamin

The Australian

Sing, Unburied, Sing

How to be Safe

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Creative projects: Cooking with Ruth in ‘Goodbye, Vitamin’

A note from Dan: I did not expect the students from #Engl698 to be inspired to cook by Ruth in Rachel Kong’s Goodbye, Vitamin, but, well, here we are with three creative projects related to Ruth and food.

Malorie’s Creative Project – Fine Dining: Jellyfish Delights

Look at this beautiful creature. Does it make you think of floating serenely in the ocean? Does it make you ponder the beauty of the unexplored and mysterious deep waters? Does it make you hungry?

Jellyfish are thought to be a sort of super food for the brain and memory. As we learned in Goodbye, Vitamin, Ruth prepares her father a meal entirely out of jellyfish to try and prevent any further damage from his Alzheimer’s and protect the rest of her family from the disease.

I was touched by Ruth’s willingness to do anything, no matter how new or strange, to help her father and protect herself and her family from the terrible effects of the disease. Thus, I began my journey to prepare a meal of jellyfish.

The first step (which I hadn’t really thought much about until I was starting the project) was actually obtaining the jellyfish. This isn’t an ingredient that I use on the regular, so a quick trip to Dillon’s wasn’t going to work for me. I did some online research and found a quaint little market in downtown Manhattan called Yi’s Oriental Market. I came home with everything I needed, including one packet of sliced jellyfish.

The trip to Yi’s Oriental Market was a little bit daunting. The store was jam-packed with ingredients that were new to me. I thought about Ruth, the protagonist of Goodbye, Vitamin, who is afraid to go out to the mailbox during the day for fear of running into the mailman, and pictured her in a store like this, completely out of her element. It definitely made me realize that, although in her own life she was fearful of many new experiences, she would get as far out of her comfort zone as she had to in order to procure an ingredient for a recipe she thought might help her dad. The trip to Yi’s Oriental Market made me admire Ruth’s ability to assume an air of bravery and march right into a new, probably scary experience.

Ruth made a wide variety of jellyfish plates for her family:

I decided to make two jellyfish salads: a Korean Jellyfish Salad and a Water Chestnut and Jellyfish Salad.

The preparation of the ‘meal’ was actually much easier than I expected. It mostly involved simple steps like boiling and soaking the jellyfish, combining ingredients, and chopping ingredients into very thin slices. The jellyfish looked deceivingly like noodles.

As I prepared the salads with my best friend, Amber, it made me realize that a jellyfish dinner would be something an entire family could help prepare. The simple steps of the recipes would make it ideal for a multi-participant preparation. Though it seems like Ruth did the first one on her own, I thought about how there was potential for an entire family effort for a meal like this. A jellyfish meal might not only be healing to the brain, but also to family relationships.

The final results were actually pretty aesthetically appealing.

When reading about the jellyfish meal, I thought, Hey, how bad could it possibly be? I’ve had calamari and Rocky Mountain Oysters, jellyfish can’t be any different than these culinary wonders!

I was wrong. Very wrong.

The salads, despite their colorful, cheery, promising look, were—in a word—revolting. When Ruth says that the eaters of her jellyfish meal were polite, I now know that they were not just polite, but downright heroic.

The texture of the jellyfish was what got me. It was spongy and rubbery at the same time, but without the satisfying, pop-like cruch of calamari. It was endlessly chewy and no amount of competing flavors could mask the horrible truth: jellyfish is just not meant to be consumed by this human.

So, although this was not the delicious, gourmet meal I had hoped for, it was still a new adventure. It definiely helped me see Ruth and her family in a new light, and it taught me something about myself, too. (Primarily that I never want to eat jellyfish again in my life!)

If you’re looking for an adventure, wanting to protect your memory, or are just downright curious about what jellyfish tastes like, I’ve included the links to the recipes I used: bon appétit!

Korean Jellyfish Salad  (This is the more colorful one)                                                                                                                                                       Water Chestnut and Jellyfish Salad  (This is the greener one with the sesame seeds)

— Calorie Wagner

Caitlin’s project: Oven Roasted Tomatoes and Spaghetti à la Ruth

Originally posted: https://caitisrandom.wordpress.com/2018/03/20/oven-roasted-tomatoes-and-spaghetti-a-la-ruth/

In the same way her mother quit cooking, threw away canned goods, and pots and pans with the belief years of using these things caused her husband’s dementia, Ruth, tired of vitamins, juices, and take-out (cooked without aluminum, of course), begins cooking.

“On my way home I stop at the grocery store and buy a head of garlic and a can of tomatoes. Canned goods are forbidden, of course, but I am feeling defiant, and how is Mom going to find out, anyway?

Mom’s thrown out everything but a glass baking dish. She claims she’s shopping for safer cookware. I spread the tomatoes on the baking dish, with salt and oil, brown sugar, slices of garlic, and ancient dried oregano from a sticky plastic shaker.

While the tomatoes are roasting, I rinse the tomato can out and boil the water in the can itself. I cook the pasta in batches in the small can. I toast the almonds from the pantry and blend them with the garlic and the tomatoes and the herbs. Suddenly there is pasta and there is sauce and the semblance of a real meal.”

This first meal Ruth cooks fascinated and captured my attention because of her resourcefulness. I really really wanted to cook spaghetti in a can, but was a little skeptical of the ingredients she uses — almonds and brown sugar with tomatoes??

Nevertheless, I went to Walmart and purchased a can of tomatoes, almonds (because my family’s pantry lacked them), and some cloves of garlic. I followed Ruth’s directions, and what follows is my interpretation:

Prep: 15 minutes Cook Time: 10 minutes per batch of spaghetti noodles; 40-ish minutes to roast tomatoes Total Time: About 60 minutes

Ingredients: 1 — Box of Spaghetti 1 — 12 oz can of peeled tomatoes Brown Sugar, enough to sprinkle over tomatoes Extra Virgin Olive Oil, about a tablespoon(?) Salt (handful) Handful of Almonds, chopped (I used roasted and slightly salted ones) 2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped

For the tomato sauce:

1.    Heat oven to 375° F.

2.    Peel and chop two cloves of garlic. Chop a handful of almonds. Set aside.

3.    Empty tomato can into a 9×13 glass baking dish and spread evenly. Drizzle extra virgin olive oil over tomatoes and sprinkle a handful of salt over the olive oil. Add enough brown sugar to very lightly cover the tomatoes, oil, and salt.

4.    Cook tomatoes for about 30-40 minutes, until bubbling and garlic golden.

While that cooks,

1.    Peel label off tomato can and rinse, filling with water. Bring water in the can to a light boil and add a handleful of spaghetti noodles, broken in half. Reduce heat to avoid water boiling over. Cook according to directions (about 10 minutes) and strain. Toss noodles with olive oil (to prevent sticking), and let sit in pasta strainer. Repeat as needed — I cooked 3 batches of spaghetti.

2.    Spread chopped almonds on baking sheet with parchment paper and roast, about 10 minutes.

3.    Once spaghetti noodles are cooked, tomatoes should be done. Garnish with roasted almonds.

4.    Spoon juice and tomatoes onto plate of spaghetti and eat!

Despite my skepticsm about this dish, I can report that it surprised me with its flavor! The brown sugar melded nicely with the tomatoes, and I loved the garlic flavors. It truly smelled fantastic while cooking, and the almonds also added a nice, nuttiness (though I went easy on them, if I’m being honest). The most time-consuming part was peeling and chopping garlic cloves — I had no idea how long this actually takes, and boiling the pasta in batches took awhile.

I can’t foresee myself boiling pasta in a can ever again, but this dish was a success, and I could see myself making a version of it again.

— Caitlin Morgan

Emily’s project: Almond joy

Since spring break, I have been purchasing and eating an absurd number of almonds. Why? Well, I had an inclination to understand Ruth from Goodbye, Vitamin and her fascination with “almond anomalies” a little better. Throughout the story, there are flashes of Ruth collecting misshapen almonds and saving them. I was incredibly curious about this behavior because she didn’t eat them, at least not in good time, but she did deem them worth saving.

Based as closely to Ruth’s criteria as I could, I searched for “almonds with the slight curve, the ones that hold your thumb” and “also the nuts that don’t have the standard tear shape, that are shaped more like buttons, with a rounded edge instead of a point.”

As I found these almonds, I began to think about why I was seeking out imperfections. It seemed depressing at first. However, throughout the book, Ruth considers and deals with her own imperfections, as well as the imperfections of her mother and father, but strives to accept them, much as she does with these almonds. In a way, it’s as if she is idolizing the imperfectness of the nuts by keeping them and deliberately not eating them.

Then, when she does finally decide to eat her first collection early on in the novel, “they’re stale and it hurts to chew.” It’s fascinating because as the nuts were saved to be valued, they ended up losing their value as a food over this time.

Then, later in the novel, she can’t control this compulsion to collect the nuts and when she finds two deformed almonds, she “put the two anomalous nuts into a jar” and then writes it’s  “because, well, what can I do?” This occurs shortly after she makes moves to push her life forward, like applying to earn a sonography certification. To me, this shows it is a comforting mechanism of support for her. It made me consider the almonds that she collects and how for some, the divots “hold your thumb.” As I tried this with the almonds I picked out, I noticed the comfort it brought to have that space that perfectly fit your thumb. I began to notice how that may be important to Ruth more specifically than, say, an almond that had broken in half or one that was shriveled. Instead, its curve may be an imperfection that causes it to become comforting.

On a deeper level, I began to share that feeling. Don’t we all seek imperfections on some level? Aren’t imperfections comforting? When I think about those I love, none of them are perfect, but I want them around to treasure them and all their imperfections. They comfort me as a support in my life. Relating, whether through human flaws or “almond anomalies,” is a key comfort in our lives. We find value in imperfect humans, much as Ruth finds values in these imperfect almonds.

— Emily Moore

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Grandma’s Ginkgo

           The first time I remember my grandma having memory issues was one day when I wanted to order pizza. We lived on Ft. Riley at the time—my parents, my grandma and I—and the only to-order pizza place was on Custer Hill. This pizza place was about a 10-minute drive from my house—7 minutes if traffic wasn’t bad, but 20 minutes if we were caught during a post-wide retreat. I was somewhere between 13 and 14 at the time, meaning I didn’t have my driver’s license and was dependent on adults ifor transportation. As it was during the middle of the day during the middle of summer break, the only person who could take me to pick up the pizza was my grandma.

           That is, if grandma remembered where the place was. To this day, I’m not sure if there was a short-circuit in Wernicke’s area, or if grandma legitimately forgot where the pizza place was, but instead of referring to the location of the pizza place (near the Burger King by the old PX), she simply referred to the location as “on top of the hill.” While this might not seem out of the ordinary, “on top of the hill” was a phrase she solely reserved for locations of some of my friends’ houses. For her to describe the pizza place is such a way, while not inherently shocking, was cause for pause, for peering at her with my head cocked back a few more degrees than normal, through slightly silted eyelids. We eventually made it to the pizza place, but things were never the same after that incident.

           My grandma was so embarrassed about her forgetting things—she tried so hard to hide her mind’s calcification from me. I don’t really blame her because I will probably do the same when I have grandkids. I can only hope to remember being on the other side of it.

           Forgetting things stored in the short-term memory must not have been easy for her, but the real kicker must have been when my mom and I needed to start paying more attention around her. She definitely noticed, but none of us talked about the phenomenon. We had to track where she put her wallet, where her lighter was, and to remember to call her back when her mind trailed off mid-sentence. Eventually we all fell into a rhythm, but it wasn’t until my senior year of high school that things really started to deteriorate.

           Grandma would get angry, cry, and ignore us at random intervals. Looking back now, I understand this was a psychological response to the frustration and fear she must have felt: everyone, on some level, accepts there are some aspects they can’t control about life, but to have your body turn against you…that’s something completely different and existentially terrifying. It was around this time of mood swings that my mom, at the recommendation of a doctor, started my grandmother on ginkgo biloba. To this day I’m not sure how well this treatment worked. All I know is that I wished with all my heart that it would have been the miracle drug the internet and a decent number of medical professionals claimed it was.

           But, it wasn’t. And it was beyond expensive—almost $14 for 120 mg. In Goodbye, Vitamin, by Rachel Khong, Ruth’s mother experiences her own frustration at being the caretaker for someone with Alzheimer’s. Not long after the opening of the novel, and not long after Ruth returns home to help her mother take care of her father, Ruth catches her mother accidentally spilling ginkgo biloba pills. “On my way to the bathroom,” Ruth recounts, “I catch my mother shouting, ‘No, no, no! You’re expensive!’ to a vitamin she’s dropped. Ginkgo I think” (4). In this moment, I felt connected to the work. While I never had the responsibility of organizing the multitude of my grandma’s pills, I can only imagine the stress that can be projected onto such a tiny mistake. Especially when the stakes are as high.

           These pills hold the potential of change within them. The leaves of the ginkgo plant—from which the ginkgo biloba pill is derived—is shaped like a butterfly. My jury is still out on whether or not “intelligent design” means anything to me, and my jury is also out on how I feel about coincidences. But this instance helps me come to terms with the fact some things are beyond the scope of human comprehension.

           Butterflies are not always butterflies, and through a process still barely understood by scientists, become the beautiful, revitalized creatures that bring such beauty into the world. While I’m not too sure about the metaphysical mysteries of the universe, I like to believe this is no accident. For a family whose loved one’s mind is wrapping itself in its own kind of cocoon, it is wonderful to believe that the essence of the butterfly can help repair that which is damaged—even if it is just the shape of the plant; even if it is just the prospect of hope. For Ruth’s family, and for my family, not only did we place our trust in these pills, we also placed the lives of our loved ones in them too. To drop any number of them, to render them un-consumable, is almost unimaginable. To drop any number of these pills, would be akin to crushing the chrysalis before any transformation has time to take place.

— Matthew Champagne

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Dan’s creative project: Mia Warren’s reincarnated bears

Okay, before I explain, please bear with me (pun intended). Here’s the before:

And here’s the after:

In homage to Mia Warren, the secretive photographer in Celeste Ng’s novel Little Fires Everywhere, I purchased this bear at the Manhattan, Kansas, Goodwill (for $1.70), split one of its seams, pulled it inside out, and sewed it back together. Mia (see the passage below) is much more meticulous with her deconstruction. I didn’t take the bear totally apart or get rid of the visible fringy seams (please consider this my ode to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein), and, well, I lost the bear’s ears completely.

This project, however, got me thinking about the metaphorical value of how Mia might pull things (especially people) into new shapes as she photographs them. We won’t discuss Little Fires Everywhere until April 3, so I won’t say anymore yet, but the project helped me think about Mia and her art and her life in new ways.

Okay, sure, my bear is not perkier, but it certainly looks reincarnated, ready for some new and other life.

In English 698, each member of class will have to do some kind of similar creative project. That doesn’t necessarily mean a craft project. Rather the requirement is to take something that happens in one of our novels and recreate it somehow in real life, then write about the experiment in this blog. This assignment is another of our attempts to see these books in new ways and to use our books to understand our lives and our lives to understand our books.

Here’s the bear in its previous habitat before I freed it from the realm of no-longer-wanted Hello Kitties. Mia and I and Celeste Ng—but mainly Mia and Celeste—allowed it to live some new, richer life.

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Online writing assignment

One of the goals of #ENGL698: The Contemporary American Novel is that we discuss our books with the greater world. Here’s the prompt and guidelines for the class’ online writing component:

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So it begins

English 698: The Contemporary American Novel — in which we will binge on novels published since 2014 — had its first class meeting today, and let me tell you, I said some really exciting things about the syllabus!

I’m actually not being ironic. This class is going to be great. We’ll be reading 12 novels, doing creative exercises, Tweeting about books and at these authors (We hope some will Tweet back! Some have even promised!), and posting all kinds of reports and insights from the class on this blog. 

On Thursday, we will discuss our first book, Sarah Gerard’s spare and aching Binary Star. Just in case anyone wants to follow along at a distance, here’s our reading list/schedule:

Jan. 18: Discussion of Binary Star

Jan. 23 and 25: Discussion of The Throwback Special

Jan. 30 and Feb. 1: Discussion of Forest of Fortune

Feb. 6 and 8: Discussion of The Regional Office is Under Attack

Feb. 13 and 15: Discussion of We Love You, Charlie Freeman

Feb. 20 and 22: Discussion of The Underground Railroad

March 13 and 15: Discussion of Goodbye, Vitamin

March 27 and 29: Discussion of The Changeling

April 3 and 5: Discussion of Little Fires Everywhere

April 10 and 12: Discussion of The Australian

April 24 and 26: Discussion of Sing, Unburied, Sing

May 1 and 3: Discussion of How to Be Safe

— post by Daniel A. Hoyt (Dan)