The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Tuesday, October 29, 2019 — 5

Fall came on my birthday this year. Not officially, 
and not according to the seemingly arbitrary “first 
day of fall” that our calendars mark every year. On 
that official day, the high was 82 degrees. Given my 
unconventional love for cold weather, this sequence of 
events seriously depressed me. There was not a golden 
leaf in sight, and I was sweating on my way home from 
class. 
I had to wait several more weeks for the real fall 
— the tangible fall — to grace us with her presence. 
By the time she showed up for good it was the first 
week of October. The air turned crisp and a prickly 
breeze danced across my cheeks. The tree outside my 
apartment shimmered with hints of gold, and I wore 
boots to class. It was the best birthday present I could 
have asked for. 
I grew up in a California beach town where we have 
no seasons. We divide the years into rainy halves and 
dry halves and live in a year-round temperature range 
of 50 to 80 degrees. It’s beautiful weather, sure, but 
when deciding on the college that would take me away 
from home I knew it had to be somewhere with more 

temperature variation. I wanted to watch the leaves 
turn for the first time and feel my skin contract in 
bitter cold. I wanted to see the flowers come out from 
hiding and watch the sun melt the last bits of snow off 
the sidewalk. 
Out of all the seasons, though, fall is so easy to 
love. It is not too harsh nor too long, and it brings an 
unbeatable color scheme. It offers me sweaters and 
boots and scarves and pumpkin bread that my mom 
sends me in the mail. The crunching leaves create 
soundtracks for my walks to class and the crispness of 
the air in my lungs makes me smile. I am not swollen or 
sweating; I am cozy and comfortable and happy. 
The closer we come to brushing shoulders with 
winter, the more I recognize fall’s communal spirit. 
She brings us together as we prepare for the looming 
frost. Friends often disagree with me. They say that 
cold weather separates us. That, apparently, our thick 
coats and hunched postures encourage isolationist 
tendencies. 
But I think that a gust of cold air and a fallen leaf 
will teach us more about the meaning of community 
than anything else. I point to the Big House on the 
first Saturday that the air is just a tad too cold to be 
comfortable. I gesture toward the thousands of us who 
still march toward kickoff, gloves in hand. I make a 
note of the crop tops that 
have 
become 
sweaters 
and the sunglasses that 
have turned into beanies. 
I point to the loyalty 
of Michigan’s fans, the 
friends huddling together 
under the lights of a rainy 
night game and the beat 
of students jumping along 
to “Mr. Brightside” just to 
get their blood pumping. 
I point and smile at our 
unbreakable spirit, as I’m 
reminded what it really 
means to be a Michigan 
Wolverine. And then I 
shiver, because it is cold, 
and I can’t seem to get 
enough of it.

Autumnal musings: Finding
warmth in the falling leaves

ZOE PHILLIPS
For The Daily

COMMUNITY CULTURE NOTEBOOK

LITERATURE COLUMN

In the past month or so, I have 
started keeping track of what books I 
want to read next by placing them in 
a short, orderly stack next to my bed. 
This is a step forward from my previous 
method, which was to make a spur-of-
the-moment decision after finishing a 
book. I would look at my shelf, suddenly 
enamored by the possibilities it holds for 
a giddy moment before finally lighting 
on one almost by chance. This seemed, 
ultimately, like an odd way to pick 
something that I was to spend several 
hours with later. I thought it would be 
worth considering the structure of my 
reading. 
This 
hasn’t 
been 
going 
well 
at 
all, of course. I 
spontaneously 
move 
things 
around, 
add 
books I deem 
necessary 
for 
whatever 
I’m 
working on, put 
books back on 
the shelf for the 
simple 
reason 
that 
I 
don’t 
really feel like 
reading 
them 
just now. The 
stack of books 
has 
become 
a 
representation 
of my confusion 
and flightiness 
rather than the 
solution to it. 
I don’t study 
literature 
in 
school, but have 
recently started 
taking 
reading 
more seriously. 
My 
reading 
has 
taken 
on 
a 
furtive, 
almost desperate quality, balanced as 
it is between vocation and distraction. 
It’s frequently what I retreat to when 
everything else is too much, and I 
forget that reading is, in fact, work, and 
difficult work at that. In a related way, 
I tend to forget that reading is slow, 
and any given 200-page book might be 
a commitment of ten or so hours, and 
longer if I choose to annotate it. The 
other day I looked at my bookshelf, 
which is full of unread books, and calmly 
realized that it will take me years at my 
present rate to finish everything on it. 
This is a source of mild stress to me as 
much as it provides me with a wellspring 
of possibility. I pass by my bookshelf and 
sometimes open a book at random, flip 
through it, put it back. I feel ambivalent 
about this impulse — it feels cursory, 
usually leaves me feeling hollow. I 
sometimes wonder what the point of 
my collection is, why I’m overwhelmed 
by it, but keep continuously adding to 
it. I can spend hours browsing around 
bookstores, even as the unread books in 
my room pile up. 

I’m reminded, of course, of Walter 
Benjamin’s 
famous 
1931 
essay 
“Unpacking 
My 
Library,” 
a 
semi-
personal 
investigation 
into 
“the 
relationship of a book collector to 
his possessions.” Benjamin wrote the 
essay on the occasion of moving, after 
an acrimonious divorce, into a half-
furnished apartment with crates full of 
nearly 2,000 books. He seems sheepish 
about his habit even as he enumerates 
its appeal — toward the end of the essay 
he admits that “this passion is behind 
the times,” and more than once adopts 
a sort of ironic position that suggests 
the ridiculousness of the collector. 
“Writers are really people who write 

books not because they are poor, but 
because they are dissatisfied with the 
books they could buy but do not like,” he 
writes, deftly compressing all of literary 
endeavor into that of the collector. The 
real thesis of the essay is that collecting, 
at its core, is about appreciating and 
preserving 
the 
kind 
of 
historical 
memory that coalesces in old objects, 
something that has a quality of childlike 
“renewal” of objects. 
The essay is beautiful, generous, 
self-aware and judiciously funny. I 
never really liked it; I don’t find myself 
agreeing with Benjamin most of the 
time. At one point he mentions that the 
“non-reading of books” is characteristic 
of collectors. An unread book is, for me, 
an assignment. Too much of them and 
I can feel them 
staring 
at 
me 
reproachfully. 
I have friends 
who, 
like 
Benjamin, own 
thousands 
of 
volumes. 

It 
seems 

terrifying. 
It’s 
worth 
noting 
that the great 
philosopher 
wrote 
his 

essay 
as 

someone whose 
collection 
is 
specific to topics 
that he had a 
special interest 
in: 
children’s 
books, theology, 
Baroque 
German 
literature. 
It 
means 
something else 
to be in your 
early 
twenties 
and have such 
a 
voluminous 
collection. 
There’s 
an 
element here of 
self-creation, divorced from the actual 
work of reading, that feels slightly 
distasteful to me. 
And yet, this attitude is still more 
legible to me than that of my friends 
who only acquire copies of books by 
happenstance, or only own what they 
read in class, or my housemate, who 
returned from the bookstore one day 
and said, like it was the simplest thing 
in the world, “I finished my book, so 
I went and bought a new book.” A lot 
of the time, these friends are better-
read overall than I am, but just have an 
uncomplicated relationship with the 
physical objects associated with them. 
I am still compelled to buy books, to 
wonder what my collection says about 
me as a reader, a writer, a person. 
Maybe I envy them. Sometimes 
I look at my (still comparatively 
modest) bookshelf and wonder if it 
has a mnemonic quality, as if I will 
not only forget to read these specific 
books but will forget to read at all if 
I don’t have the force of my unread 
books compelling me. On the other 

hand, there is so much pressing on my 
attention that I don’t get to choose: A 
book offers immersion and solace that 
is elusive elsewhere. To have a large 
collection of books is to have a large 
and varied window of possibility that I 
can take comfort in when my world is 
feeling small. This is a silly, irrational 
feeling that is only tenuously related 
with actually reading, but it’s one I 
treasure for its silliness — it reminds 
me that in every ostensibly serious 
thing I do, there is always an element of 
indeterminacy and blind passion. I live 
my life, as Benjamin wrote, somewhere 
in between the “poles of order and 
disorder.”

A library between the
poles of order, disorder

EMILY YANG
Daily Literature Columnist

Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia, was deemed great 
for a reason. “Catherine the Great,” the mini-series, hasn’t 
quite decided what that reason is just yet. 
HBO’s new historical drama “Catherine the Great” stars 
Helen Mirren as the titular Russian queen who assumed the 
role following a coup that dethroned her husband, Peter III. 
The premiere follows Catherine and her advisors, including 
the cautious and calculating Minister Panin (Rory Kinnear, 
“The Imitation Game”), as they determine how to handle her 
tenuous grasp on power.
After giving a speech calling for the end of serfdom, 
Catherine struggles to maintain control over her court of 
wealthy landowners and military leaders. In the midst of her 
shaky political future, she is met with a young man’s claim: 
He is the rightful heir to the 
throne. Fearing a possible 
revolt, Catherine ultimately 
decides to disregard her 
liberal principles and call 
for him and his conspirators 
to be executed. This violent 
and 
out-of-character 
decision 
marks 
the 
beginning of her struggle 
to uphold her values while 
cultivating respect as a 
leader. 
As Catherine navigates her life with absolute power, 
she juggles the personal relationships that have defined 
her legacy in history as much as her policies have. Former 
lover and accomplice in dethroning Peter III, Grigory Orlov 
(Richard Roxburgh, “Moulin Rouge!”) demands more of 
a share in her rule due to his involvement with the coup. 
However, handsome military lieutenant Grigory Potemkin 
(Jason Clarke, “Zero Dark Thirty), begins courting the 
queen, much to the chagrin of Orlov. The men, in hopes of 
obtaining bureaucratic influence and wealth, compete for 
Catherine’s affections.
While the costuming and set design beautifully reflect 
the royal grandeur of the Golden Age of Russia, the rest of 
the show does not seem nearly as powerful. Throughout the 
premiere, the threat to the throne and a looming war with 

Turkey feel inconsequential and take back seats to romantic 
subplots. This, of course, is perfectly fine, but without any 
significant dramatic stakes, “Catherine the Great” fails to 
excite in the ways it could.
Helen Mirren, though committed to her role, does not get 
to play with some of Catherine’s more outlandish personality 
traits. Frequent mentions are made to the queen’s infamous 
promiscuity, but she is never shown doing anything more 
than making suggestive eye contact. Rather than dive into 
Catherine the Great’s salacious reputation outright, the mini-
series substitutes any lewd content with tangential scenes of 
lesser court members exchanging sex for power.
This is just the most visible failure of the show to engage 
its audience with the most compelling parts of this woman’s 
history. Catherine’s dynamic with her murdered husband 
and her ambitious son, Prince Paul (Joseph Quinn, “Game 
of Thrones”) is hinted at but ultimately unexplored. In 
splitting its focus between the 
members of her court instead 
of solely Catherine herself, 
the show dilutes whatever 
cultural impact it could have. 
On 
a 
network 
known 
for its provocative content, 
“Catherine the Great” has 
the opportunity to present 
a 
history-making 
and 
enlightened 
female 
ruler 
within the context of her 
own sexuality. Given the chance, the show could break 
expectations of women in politics and present a more 
thorough examination of how power and femininity interact 
in a conservative environment. 
While undoubtedly beautiful, this mini-series does not 
seem to understand its angle in depicting Catherine’s history. 
Not quite political and not quite shocking, “Catherine the 
Great” has trouble choosing what its audience wants. Mirren 
delivers a few lines that strain to be potential feminist adages, 
but the appearance of depth proves as fabricated as the cast’s 
lustrous outfits.
All things considered, “Catherine the Great” is a fine 
show. Though nothing about it is distractingly poor, the 
series suffers from its hesitance to make waves and commit 
to its own controversy. Here’s hoping they at least pay 
homage to that horse rumor.

‘Catherine the Great’ shies 
away from its own potential

ANYA SOLLER
Daily Arts Writer

HBO

TV REVIEW

Catherine the Great

Series Premiere

HBO

Mondays at 10 p.m.

Sometimes I 
look at my (still 
comparatively 
modest) 
bookshelf and 
wonder if it has 
a mnemonic 
quality, as if I 
will not only 
forget to read at 
all if I don’t have 
the force of my 
unread books 

COURTESY OF EMMA CHANG

KATELYN MULCAHY / DAILY

