“He knew exactly what she meant: to get a place where you could love anything you chose–not to need permission for desire–well now, that was freedom.”
“He knew exactly what she meant: to get a place where you could love anything you chose–not to need permission for desire–well now, that was freedom.”
““The future was sunset; the past something to leave behind. And if it didn't stay behind, well, you might have to stomp it out.”
Beloved is, among other things, an examination of the obliteration of the self by slavery – the method in which chattel slavery served as a deep destruction of everything that made one know their own selfhood. And Beloved, the physical iteration of Sethe’s trauma, is also an obliterater of self, both Sethe and Paul D’s and Denver’s.
The novel blends back and forth between time almost to indicate the degree to which slavery blends time – the past trauma becoming both a present haunting and the literal present. Beloved is a past come literally back to haunt.
““For a used to be slave woman to love anything that much was dangerous, especially if it was her children she had settled on to love.”
I really like this book’s acknowledgment of the killing of a child to protect them from slavery as an act of love — a dark act, a horrifying act, but an honest one.
This is an unbelievably dark book, but it ends with a community – and specifically a community of black women – serving as savior of Denver and even of Sethe, despite their distrust of her. Baby Suggs loses that community after Sethe kills Beloved – you almost forget the community exists beyond her until the end. But as soon as she asks for help, Denver regains it.
There’s an additional really interesting thread where Paul D, oddly enough, has sex with Beloved, which he describes as not even fun, but:
“A brainless urge to stay alive… a life hunger overwhelmed him and he had no more control over it than over his lungs… and afterward, beached and gobbling air, in the midst of repulsion and personal shame, he was thankful too for having been escorted to some ocean-deep place he once belonged to.”
I think this thread is so interesting because it quite horrifically parallels the full-on assault his enslavers commit against against Paul D. Beloved removes his selfhood, returning him to his memories of being enslaved — and, because they have sex where Beloved died, she relives the space where her selfhood was both destroyed and spectacularly preserved in perpetuity.
There are several other interest things I could note here. There’s the fact that the house is named 124 – child 1 2 and 4 survive, and 3 is dead. There’s the fact that Sethe kills Beloved with a saw in a woodshed – like cutting down a tree – and she reappears on a stump. There’s Beloved’s odd pregnancy at the end. I think this book is utterly brilliant.
“That anybody white could take your whole self for anything that came to mind. Not just work, kill, or maim you, but dirty you. Dirty you so bad you couldn't like yourself anymore. Dirty you so bad you forgot who you were and couldn't think it up. And though she and others lived through and got over it, she could never let it happen to her own The best thing she was, was her children. Whites might dirty her all right, but not her best thing, her beautiful, magical best thing – the part of her that was clean.”
I couldn’t quite understand how an ordinary man’s good qualities could become crushing accusations against a guilty man.
An enrapturing, exhausting
I couldn’t quite understand how an ordinary man’s good qualities could become crushing accusations against a guilty man.
An enrapturing, exhausting novel about Meursault, a man devoid of guilt or remorse.
I felt deeply exhausted by this novel. When Meursault meets his fate, there is no joy or relief to be found. Even as he has consistently and constantly lacked true compassion for any characters, he has shown occasional moments of something approaching kindness. He simply isn’t a cruel enough force to root for death. But you also see so easily how he could be condemned to death. He is remorseless, after all. It exposes the mundanity of evil – the mundanity of death, and the simple mundanity of death as punishment for death.
But I think it was a mistake even to consider the possibility. Because at the thought that one fine morning I would find myself a free man standing behind a cordon of police on the outside, as it were at the thought of being the spectator who comes to watch and then can go and throw up afterwards, a wave of poisoned joy rose in my throat.
A genuinely brilliant selection of poetry. I never understood before this the degree to which Satan could be a heroic and compelling character.
One ofA genuinely brilliant selection of poetry. I never understood before this the degree to which Satan could be a heroic and compelling character.
One of my favorite of Milton's takes is his depiction of Eve as the smarter of the Adam and Eve pair. Eve's submissiveness, though appealing to Adam, is on some level a deception. In reality, Eve does not wish to stay as his twin, as she fears becoming only his rib: “Was I to have never parted from thy side / As good have grown there still a lifeless rib” (Milton 9.1153-9.1154). Eve is chosen by the Serpent for her desire for power.
Though Milton's text eventually wraps into a space that I think would be hard to characterize as anything but misogynistic, I think the character of this is deeply interesting; Adam and Eve’s punishment for the transgression of gender roles comes in a shift to gender roles. Eve is punished with first pain in childbirth and then submission: “To thy husband’s will / Thine shall submit, he over thee shall rule” (10.195-10.196). So though gender roles are the desired outcome, they're also used as a punishment. And specifically a punishment for the transgression of gender roles, too - the Son of God says to Adam: “Was she thy God, that her thou didst obey / Before his voice, or was she made thy guide / Superior, or but equal, that to her / Thou didst resign thy manhood” (Milton 10.145-10.148).
“Why, he’s just one of the kindest men I’ve ever met.” “Pompous old bore.” “I don’t think you ought to speak that way.”
Death on the Nile is Agatha C
“Why, he’s just one of the kindest men I’ve ever met.” “Pompous old bore.” “I don’t think you ought to speak that way.”
Death on the Nile is Agatha Christie at her best: Funny, interesting, and cleverly difficult to untangle.
The cast of characters is as follows: ▷Linnet and her new husband, Simon Doyle; ▷Jackie de Bellefort, the woman from whom she stole him; ▷Mrs Allerton and her son Tim; ▷Rosalie, “the sulky girl,” and her mother Mrs. Otterbourne, the sex scene writer; ▷Cornelia Robson, Marie Van Schuyler, and Schuyler’s nurse, Miss Bowers; ▷Andrew Pennington, the financer, Ferguson, the anti-capitalist, Fanthorp, the quiet lawyer, Richetti, a businessman, and Fleetwood, with a secret; ▷Dr Bessner, the doctor, and Louise Bourget, the maid.
With a revenge plot seemingly active, Linnet’s potential enemies everywhere, a murderer on board under an assumed name, and a passenger list filled to the brim with secrets, it’s a complex crime to solve. But Hercule Poirot has every intention of doing so.
I absolutely adored this novel. I think this is one of my favorite mystery novels I’ve ever read, and certainly my favorite Christie so far. It’s as usual a complex and compelling plot, but what stands out to me about this one — over any of her other novels perhaps maybe Murder on the Orient Express — is the degree of care shown to each and every character. Christie has such superb talent at getting you invested in even bit parts. These characters are just so damn entertaining; they felt so consciously distinct. There’s a side romance that I particularly enjoyed [my partner and I find the knowledge that they changed the ending of this in the movie extremely upsetting].
Anyway. I really like Christie. I think you should read this book if you also enjoy her.
Decidedly one of the more interesting classics I’ve had the treat of reading through my English coursed. Alice’s diving through at first a rabbit holeDecidedly one of the more interesting classics I’ve had the treat of reading through my English coursed. Alice’s diving through at first a rabbit hole and then a looking glass entails a diving away from childhood, one toned differently in each novel. Alice is at once the child who does not understand social conventions, and the most mature character in the novel, an intriguing contradiction. I'm sure this novel will stick with me for a while, and I'm glad I finally had the chance to read it.
John Lyly was an extremely fashionable playwrite in the generation immediately prior to Shakespeare, and one of the influences of Shakespeare's favoriJohn Lyly was an extremely fashionable playwrite in the generation immediately prior to Shakespeare, and one of the influences of Shakespeare's favorite trope: Crossdressing.
Gallathea bases itself on a conceit wherein Neptune asks for the sacrifice of the fairest virgin every five years. Shepherd Tyterus believes his daughter Gallathea will be chosen, and thus asks her to go into the woods dressed as a boy; Melebeus believes the same of his daughter, Phillida, and thus concocts... the exact same plan. Naturally, Gallathea and Phillida meet. And they immediately fall in love.
Hijinks ensue. The play ends with Gallathea and Phillida finding out about their status as both girls, informing everyone that they're horrified, and then informing everyone that they're still in love with each other. Venus, who is also here (for the hijinks), decides to turn one of them into a man so they can live happily ever after. She does not specify which girl will be turned into a boy. As you do.
A very fascinating and very, very queer play. Lyly's style is one defined by his earlier Euphues (1578), involving a highly conceited/patterned style: sentences with the same length, balanced elements, antithesis, correspondence, and alliteration. The better way to say this is that his monologues are at times incredibly confusing to read, and the plot of this play is ridiculous. It's a great read. Highly recommend.
After many years of agony and absence from one’s home, a person can begin enjoying grief.
This feels a little silly to rate given that it’s the O
After many years of agony and absence from one’s home, a person can begin enjoying grief.
This feels a little silly to rate given that it’s the Odyssey, but I did read it and I did enjoy myself.
Some notes on things I enjoy about this translation:
➽ Emily Wilson in her intro focuses on Xenia –hospitality. The villains in the Oddysey are villainous because they either pervert hospitality – by eating guests instead of feeding them – or fail to engage with pompe [sending] as defined by Menelaus’s declaration that “To force a visitor to stay / is just as bad as pushing him to go”. The suitors, too, pervert hospitality by eating too much; and ultimately, so does Odysseus in slaughtering them.
➽ There’s a similarly intriguing focus on the character of Odysseus as not good or bad but clever and cunning above all. As established as the chapter begins, Odysseus is not the favorite of Athena because he is good – he is the favorite because he is clever.
➽ Penelope is a very compelling character. I kind of enjoy the ambiguity as to whether she knows her husband is home – that being said, I think she definitely has an inkling.
➽ The translation’s focus on repeating Homer’s “smaller units of sense” and its simple language to convey that “stylistic pomposity is entirely un-Homeric” is very fun.
➽ Another conceit I really enjoyed: The focus on the doglike women’s face. “The idea that it is not the woman or goddess herself, but her [Helen’s] face, that is like a dog suggests that it might be male perceptions of women, rather than female desires themselves, that threaten the social fabric.”
➽ The penultimate book – Odysseus’s slaughter of the suitors – is brutal and animalistic, with gorgeous but oddly terrifying imagery. I enjoyed it quite a bit and may at some point have further thoughts about its use of violence.
I find Victorian horror so interesting as a microcosm of reaction to social norms of the time, to the buttoned-down and repressed social climate of thI find Victorian horror so interesting as a microcosm of reaction to social norms of the time, to the buttoned-down and repressed social climate of the time, to the “new moral standards” of the church and the new questions brought up and hidden away by scientific thought. But under the fabric of late Victorian society lay wide ranges of change; the increased marriage rate and idea of the domestic sphere for women giving way to the New Woman, the upper class vs. lower class divide giving way to a new middle class. With the growth of the economy came new ideas of English excellence; with the growth of scientific thought, scientific racism.
Literature, as is usual, struggles to react. With a growing counterculture in literature came the reaction to such; at the trial of author Oscar Wilde, passages from his only novel were read to prove that he liked men. Soon after, Bram Stoker, formerly his acquaintance, began writing Dracula.
The result is a book drenched in fear of the unknown: In xenophobia of the time, in homophobia, and in the anxieties that come when that who embodies both appears. That is what sticks with me, to this day, about Dracula.
Loading...
