Happy 800th Birthday to the Wise King - Feliz 800º cumpleaños al Rey Sabio

On November 23, 1221, a boy was born who would become Alfonso X, King of Castile and León. 

Even his political enemies couldn’t tarnish his legacy of intellectual curiosity and cultural open-mindedness. 

I took the opportunity of Alfonso’s personal appearance in in Cantiga 321 to portray the empathetic and kind ruler I personally hope he was in Our Lady's Troubadour. (The excerpt is from "Clear Water." But more about that story in another post.) 

Happy eight-hundredth birthday to the Wise King! 

In honor of this extraordinary occasion, I'd like to share my translation of one of the most autobiographical Cantigas de Santa Maria. 

Every tenth cantiga is a song of praise. These usually don't have plots, but do have more daring poetic and musical forms. Cantiga 200 is special among these special cantigas because here, Alfonso X himself uses the form of praise to present an autobiographical sketch of sorts. It's general, but it's told from an emotional point of view, unlike other, more specific such stories. 

Cantiga 200

Refrain: I've praised, I praise, and I will keep praising St. Mary.

Because among all the most honored men alive today, she's shown me the most blessings, as I will recount.

She made me descend from good people and wanted me to fully rein and be king.

And with her mercies, she aided me in grave illnesses. Therefore, you must know that I will serve her. 

And to those who wished me ill and conspired and plotted against me, she gave them what they deserved, as I will prove. 

She pulled me out of great poverty and gave me riches, and so I will tell all her noble qualities that I can.

She who doesn't err and never erred made me the lord of a good land and helped me in every war when I called on her. 

She delivered me from misfortune, death, and injury. So, know, good people, that I will die for her. 

So everyone help me pray with good will for her to help me, since I have need.

And whenever she desires, that she will take me from the tumult of this world, and that I will see her whom I've always loved. 

***

I believe and hope Alfonso X achieved what he's asking for in this personal poem. 

Perhaps the greatest present we can give him on his birthday is the feat of remembering him 800 years later. 

This is the main goal of Our Lady's Troubadour. 

And, as Our Lady's Troubadour is available in both English and the Spanish Alfonso X did so much to create: 

El 23 de noviembre de 1221, nació un niño que se convertiría en Alfonso X, rey de Castilla y León.

Ni siquiera sus enemigos en la política han podido mancillar su legado de la curiosidad intelectual y mentalidad abierta, al final.

Aproveché la oportunidad de su aparición en la Cantiga 321 para retratar a un soberano empático y bondadoso, como yo personalmente espero que fuera. (La foto tiene un fragmento de "Agua clara". Escribiré más sobre ese relato en otro momento).

¡Feliz 800º cumpleaños al Rey Sabio!

Trovador de SantaMaría es mi humilde obsequio. 

Keeping The Brain Active

I happened onto Dictionary.com this week (what a distracting place!) and saw that one of their feature articles reported on a study that concluded that being actively bilingual can stave off dementia for another five years. The article is here.

Everyone knows that practicing a language is one of the best things you can do for your brain, but I am especially comforted by these findings because I've spent most of my life dedicated to becoming fluent in Spanish, which is not a language that was spoken at home. At all, ever. I'm not aware that anyone in my immediate family ever considered the concept of "Spanish" before I came along shouting about it, inspired by who knows what past life experience or divine inspiration.

But then of course another part of me says, "Twenty years of passionate discovery and relentless practice, expensive but joyful travel and the emotional Calvary that is graduate school, plus all the movie-watching, conversation-seeking and music-listening I do in the future, and it only buys me five years at the most?"

This brain of ours is one demanding organ.

Book Length as Cultural Index

At the beginning of January,  Goodreads released a list of "Books of 2010," obtaining votes from users for a list of pre-selected tomes as well as a few write-in winners. And so we confirm yet again that there are too may wonderful books to ever read.

I noticed a strange trend. Most of the most voted-for books were over 500 pages long, and many of these were mere parts of a series, meaning that the entire story would run thousands of pages. For some reason, I remembered English classes in grade school, which were just one long string of students complaining about how many pages the assigned books were. When we had to read Great Expectations, only the abridged version was required. Those of us who were curious enough to read the uncut version may have received extra credit just for intrepidness.

Are these people who would read the unabridged Dickens the same ones driving the voting for Goodreads' Best Books? Maybe they consider themselves "serious readers," who have to set themselves apart by reading epic tomes just for fun.

The long book phenomenon may have something to do with publishers, whose biggest cost is actually the paper the book is printed on. A shorter book doesn't generally become cheap enough for publishers to lower the price to meet consumers' expectations. And so, publishers choose to print longer works that make the readers feel they're getting their money's worth of paper and words.

Not to mention that series become addictive, and sales of one volume in a series boosts the next volume's sales, etc.

Another trend we've seen in the last few months is the increasing popularity of e-readers and thus, e-books. Obviously, paper costs are not an issue for e-books. Publishers can cut the prices significantly while delivering less traditional lengths of quality writing. Shorter books might have a fighting chance! I think that's the logic behind Amazon's recent announcement of a new category in e-books:

"Each Kindle Single presents a compelling idea--well researched, well argued, and well illustrated--expressed at its natural length."


"Natural length" here is defined as 5,000 to 30,000 words. I've always valued economy in writing: getting the most out of each word, making extra ones unnecessary. So I welcome the advent of this new category with open arms.


Tree/House fits neatly into the Single category. I'm not too snobbish to say that I valued a fast read without excess a full two years ago, when I, a publishing pioneer, first made Tree/House available to the Kindle reading public. I've waited patiently for the novella form to again fall into favor. Thanks to you, users of e-readers, it's well on its way! 


The best-selling novella, Tree/House: Now Unveiled in Its Proper Place as a Kindle Single! Thank you so much for reading. 

"Unpredictable Factors" as an Educational Piece, Plus! Check Out My New Site

When "Unpredictable Factors in Human Obedience" was published in Bewildering Stories, I was pleasantly surprised to see it featured in Issue 414's "Challenge." The editor's observations, implied in the questions he posed, showed a degree of insight that not only flattered me as a writer, but also got me thinking about the story in completely new ways.

I now believe that "Unpredictable Factors" could be used in the classroom as a jumping-off point for discussions of professional ethics. The story presents both the education and science research sectors and would surely result in some great critical thinking. So, please suggest to the story to any rhetoric, reading or writing instructors you may know.

Here, I've adapted the editor's questions as possible discussion points.

What political or cultural statement does the story imply?

Even if Emily Mattheson weren’t a schoolteacher, she ought to know better than to do what she does. How is she characterized?

As a hardened criminal?

As a sociopath?

As a terrorist? 

As an opportunist? (As the author, I vote for this one!)

As a naive and careless incompetent? (This one works, too.)

What other endings might the story have?

Why might the author choose to avoid having the story associated in any way with her business plans?


I would like to take this opportunity to announce that I have finally been able to obtain my own domain name: www.jessicaknauss.com! When I get the site up and running, it will include book club guides and fully developed teaching tools for my fun and meaningful stories, among many other wonderful things. I am in need of some funding before this can be realized, however. Please take a moment to take advantage of the never-again-lower, limited-time price of Tree/House in Kindle edition. Or make the decision now to add the paperback to your library. As everyone knows, Tree/House is the most desired novella among book clubs. All proceeds will go directly into a fund for site hosting. Ever wanted to be a philanthropist? I will even put your name on a donor page! Thanks!

Learning in College

A recent article from the AP, "Student tracking finds limited learning in college," reported on a study of university-level learning. The findings ranged all over, but focused on a potentially depressing trend in college students to just not try very hard. Because of this general lack of effort, they didn't learn a whole lot while attending these universally expensive institutions.

Failing to learn anything in college is a terrible waste of time, money, and a spot in a university program. But the only reason the study found trends is that learning is a personal effort. My anecdotal evidence is that there are not a lot of people willing to work hard for any reason, much less for something so intangible as the ability to think critically. The anecdote is supported by two of the findings cited in the article:

• Students who studied alone, read and wrote more, attended more selective schools and majored in traditional arts and sciences majors posted greater learning gains.

• Social engagement generally does not help student performance. Students who spent more time studying with peers showed diminishing growth and students who spent more time in the Greek system had decreased rates of learning, while activities such as working off campus, participating in campus clubs and volunteering did not impact learning.

In plain English: nerds do better. They do better because they have a personal commitment to making the effort to learn. The commitment makes them prioritize learning, thinking, and growing intellectually over all the cited social activities. It makes them read and write more than others, and for that reason many of them can attend more selective schools. 

I was a nerd throughout my schooling, but I never realized it at the time, because my priority was to learn and to get everything I could out of my educational opportunities. I had a few friends with the same priorities as me, and I didn't care what anyone else was doing. I never compared myself, negatively or positively, with the "popular" kids, because they obviously didn't have the core value of love of learning that I had. There was no basis for comparison. 

Whether nerds' personal commitment to learning comes from within or from something environmental is up for debate. I would suggest that, if the government is concerned with producing more smart people, someone should look into what makes those "nerds," who put out the effort to learn, want to do so. Because when it comes to learning, wanting it badly enough to work for it is the only secret. 

Visual Inspiration

I started this blog, not many months ago, with a picture of something that helped me really focus on writing. I think we're about due for some more visual inspiration.

Autograph manuscript of the collected works
of Christine de Pisan. Probably Paris,
1410-15. British Library BL Harley 4431, f. 4

First, we have the amazing Christine de Pisan (1364-1430). She is shown here as author and scribe at her uptilted writing desk, a faithful dog at her side. She writes with a very small stylus in her right hand, with a scraping knife in her left hand, ever ready for self-correction. This picture is found in an "autograph manuscript," meaning that studious people believe she actually penned the whole thing by her own hand.  Such a book was as rare in the fifteenth century as it is now, because most authors dictated to a scribe, and then copies and copies of copies were made whenever there was enough writing material and money. Most scribes were men, and most of them were monks. That Christine could read at all can be credited to a father who wanted to foster her learning, another rarity of the time and place. That she went on to write several eloquent, engaging, proto-feminist books, which were "bestsellers" of their age, is astounding. Everything about Christine and her book is extraordinary, and she had this picture painted on the first page to draw everyone's attention to that fact. She wears richly dyed fabric in the shade of Virtue, and has a pleasant face in the portrait. Being her own scribe, with the added ability to correct her own mistakes, gave her complete control over her words as they were handed down to posterity. This picture is justly famous and incredibly inspiring to anyone who sets out on daunting tasks.

You Are Here! But Why? Artist Unknown,
with color by Jessica Knauss

Second, we have the intriguing "You Are Here! But Why?" This was the cover of a brochure I picked up -- snatched up! quickly! -- when I was really not sure what I was doing at the University of ____. It turned out to be a piece of marketing for positions in the university food service. Somehow, putting dishes through the washer will improve one's future employment prospects. The brochure was not answering the question I was asking.

I like to contemplate the picture and its question and come up with my own answer. Depending on the situation and my mood, it can range from snarky to... inspiring.

At the Vicarage

In his recent book, At Home,  incredibly entertaining author Bill Bryson explains in one of many instructive asides that during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the only solid requirement for a post as a country clergyman in England was a bachelor's degree. There were virtually no check-ups from the authorities, who also provided books of pre-approved sermons, and thus, men who had studied literature, classics, science -- anything but religion, in fact -- could and regularly did obtain sinecures all over the country. They then used their spare time (there was a lot of it) to write lasting works of literature, make important scientific discoveries, and invent some of the implements of the industrial revolution.

What a great system! I, as a former academic, can imagine myself quite happy tending to my flock, meanwhile creating works of great imagination! Like the historical vicars about whom Bryson writes, I was unwilling or unable to get a job teaching at a university, but that doesn't mean I have nothing to contribute to society. Unlike them, however, I don't have that nifty net to fall back on, and I'm still stymied as to what I can actually do in the world in such a way that I can get paid. I guess the non-university grads got tired of tithing so their pastor could just sit in contemplation. I can't blame them. Back then, I would have been one of them. I wouldn't have had a real chance to go to university. Even to get into a classroom I would have had to exhibit extraordinary ingenuity.

But, because I was born long after the struggles for equality among classes and genders had made great strides, all I had to do to get into a very good college was do well in school. Somehow, I never got the message that more was expected: I was happy with the small but enthusiastic shows of encouragement and praise I got, and that was enough. It was enough through a BA, an MFA, two more MAs and a PhD. So, although I had original thoughts and new ways to do things on a small scale, I never had to think outside the box entirely. Since I followed my bliss instead of my bank account, now I'm earning nothing, married to a wonderful, underemployed man, during an economic depression, scratching my head, my tummy rumbling.

I've always disdained money as a driving force, but, wow, do I have some ideas about what to do with it if I had some.

If only there were some system to sustain people like me who show some potential but haven't realized it...

My best hope is that, when we move, a library or book store will allow me to earn some kind of wage for taking care of books. For reasons I'm sure to elaborate on later, I dare not hope my own books could make me a living. In the meantime, I'll be thinking of a way to go back in time as a British gentleman.