resolve your schemes and indulge your dreams
Man, I have so many posts to write. Well, first off, Wuthering Heights. Because it kinda shellshocked me into love.
Read it over two court days and these are the notes from my journal so apologies for disjointedness because I wanted to finish it and jot down my thoughts before diving into Nation.
I felt so sorry for poor Hareton and so glad to see young Catherine grow to love him, how the two of them are such a wonderful improvement on the previous generations while Linton goes from ridiculous to monstrous and vile in weakness as his father is in hardness. Huh. Only just got that.
What a curious position Nelly Dean occupies, perfectly between upstairs and downstairs and so very outspoken. And, ha, I only just realised she may have been developed around the same time or more likely under the same influences as Jane. Such wonderful strong characters, even if two of them scare the living daylights out of me! Sheesh. Not even Patrick Bateman's that scary!
The transition at the end is abrupt but I guess that couldn't be helped by sheer dint of the narrative device Emily chose. It makes for narrative logic but the tone is very jarring and yeah, does feel like we've stepped into another novel. Still once we realise what's happened and that it is a change for the better, I'm thinking the sheer gladness and relief soars us past the initial disorientation.
We do see both Catherines grow up so it's particularly marvellous how differently they go even though there is a similarity of passion. But younger Catherine has compassion and tenderness while classic Catherine is forever savage.
To horribly oversimplify, it's almost like a tale of modernity. That the ancient forces are terrible and destructive, barbaric in their ferocity. And it's the younger generation who is kinder and more willing to be tempered. Ahhh, but there's Linton to blow that theory to bits. Violent little Napoleon. Ha, awesome!
And oh, I love how the supernatural is so inextricably bound up with the psychological, that we know exactly what it is Heathcliff sees in those last few days of ecstatic starvation, even though it's never said. The novel may start out external and melodramatic in a sort of penny dreadful Gothic way but, like the best Gothic traditions, it goes ever inward til the unseen and the mind's phantoms are more powerful than any external spectacle.
But still, WHY does Lockwood rub the child's wrist on the broken glass?! I can understand Heathcliff hanging the puppy and Hareton doing the same with the litter. That savagery has been established by Heathcliff's nature and Hareton's nurture. But Lockwood?! He's a ninny, a mere foil and I was so furious that he just rode away after hearing the entire horrific story. He rode away, the ass! The simpering foolish ass! He's not smart, not fascinating, has no depth of character --- and nor do I expect him to, for the most part --- so where does that moment of unthinkable cruelty come from? Wouldn't you just throw off the hand and keep trying that? Would I do that?
Hmm. I suppose it's explained by the fact that shaking doesn't work. And I suppose there is the point to be made that such unthinkable cruelty is possible by anyone, no matter their spirit or intelligence. But still ... jesus fucking christ.
Maybe it's just the horror of that moment that sets up and establishes the horror of the entire narrative to come, that awful gory cruelty that goes from physical and spontaneous to emotional and calculated and so viciously viciously sustained.
But my god, I love Catherine's words in their last scene, the way she grabs his hair and keeps him on his knees and says "Why shouldn't you suffer? I do!" Same moment of fierce recognition as In The Cut Frannie saying "You think I'm obsessed with you?"
God, yes!
I realise now I do love melodrama. It feels like such a shameful thing to admit but it's like watching a car crash or a horror movie, just so appalled you can't look away and have to see it through to the end. Of course I like to think that the melodrama I love --- Moulin Rouge, The Crow even though technically I'd call that myth, the best Hindi movies --- are done with an eviscerating intelligence or at least a fuckload of wit. And when it's done right, it pierces to the heart of human existence deeper than anything else.
I've totally broken this secondhand ancient Penguin copy from my uni days. Damned middle section has come entirely loose. Anyway, I want an edition with a cover as perfect as my red room cover of Jane Eyre. I do like that this one has Branwell's painting of Emily but I can't re-read this copy. And I have to re-read this, omg.
Definitely wanna track down more analyses. That Freudian one about the sexual significance of the windows sounds totally ridiculous but equally fascinating. And oh I so had Larry and Merle in my head through that huge scene, the image of her white white gown trailing to the floor and her collapsing in his arms, that final lethal faint from which she never wakes.
Oof.
He's so awful, Heathcliff! He's such a sadistic monster I can't believe people actually named their children after him, that women named their baby sons after such a violent man. Were we reading the same book?! Christ, Rochester's a total gentleman compared to Heathcliff and I used to think he was scary. Pfah!
I should read that again. Jane, I mean.
Can't really comment on the language and literary devices this time cos I was so devoured by the power of the plot.
Poor Hareton ... that he, of all people, was the one to feel Heathcliff's death the worst and mourn him so sincerely. Oh, Hareton. *hugs the woobie*
It was only after I began it that I realised this is exactly the kind of book a guy at work meant when he said most scathingly "old time Mills & Boon." I'm gonna slap him down so hard! Well, no. In a way, he is right but that doesn't necessarily mean love stories don't go to the depths of the human condition and parameters of moral philosophy. No, you know what, I am going to slap him.
And today I went hunting through all my bookshops for a non-classic cover. Shocked to discover Borders had no copies at all, Kino had only the tedious black and orange kind as did A&R. Then I asked the Dymocks guy and he led me around the corner to the classics section and I experienced a very violent jolt of terror/ecstasy because *shriek*
I had to buy it. And then I had to buy this because okay, now I have four copies of the same book but two of them are totally falling to bits and cannot be read and the third is still my favourite but how am I supposed to resist any edition of Jane Eyre that has the red room on the cover! *passes out wif lit!geek happiness*
Which, as it happens, is the scene I'm in at the moment because I totally started reading on the bus back from Dymocks and guh! Kills me every time.
Also I have to note down something that chills the fuck out of me and I always forget to mention. Those images she mentions from Berwick's Book Of Birds, technically titled Bewick's History of British Birds but I kinda like my title better *lol* ... I love how they so eerily reappear in the drawings she shows Rochester later ... and ow fuck, I am still terrified by the black horned thing seated aloof on a rock, surveying a distant crowd surrounding a gallows. *whimpers* I never noticed the gallows bit before because I was always caught in wondering what the fuck that great 'black horned thing' was ... *shudders* Argh. God, Charlotte, how I adore you.
Her use of colons totally mystifies me, again with some horror. A small breakfast-room adjoined the drawing room: I slipped in there. It contained a book-case: I soon possessed myself of a volume, taking care that it should be one stored with pictures. I mounted into the window-seat: gathering up my feet, I sat cross-legged, like a Turk; and, having drawn the red moreen curtains nearly close, I was shrined in double retirement. p6.
It struck me that had someone presented this paragaph to me in writing group, I would have to forcibly stop myself from asking with all concern "Have you suffered some sort of stroke?" And yet, it works. It works because the rhythm is beautiful, a lovely lilting cadence, and I can't imagine that effect achieved any other way. And it works because that was then and this is now and there is absolutely no need for colons in this day and age, thank you very much. Employ a freaking full stop. Still, dear god, how I love the use of 'shrined' and what a curious mirroring of hyphens. *sighs*
I love this book so much. Eternal, this book, this voice of Jane. She is always real, always relevant, whether she's age ten or age twenty-something. And dear god, how does Charlotte do that?
Fairly certain that when I finish this re-read, I'm going right back to Wuthering Heights because now that I've been shellshocked by what Emily does, I want to figure out how she does it. Dear god, the violence. I'm still stunned. Not just the physical cruelties but the emotional violence. And there was so much of both. Argh jesus. Must re-read and absorb and learn.
It really is true, isn't it? A writer learns by reading. No better training. Boy, would I like to throw that edict at the head of the clueless element in our writing group.
While I'm on books, I'd just like it noted that it is currently torture to read Gaiman's journal.
Because The Graveyard Book only comes out here in November --- now, see, wouldn't it be nice if it came out on his birthday not just because of the obvious but also because that would be at the start of the month rather than the end? *sighs heavily* --- and I know I could order it from Amazon ... omigod, I just realised.
I could get it from Amazon UK which, you know, would actually be spelt properly ... urgh, no, I can't. Stupid delayed date and wrong damned cover! I want this cover. Or this one.
And seeing a reading appear every day is even worse cos I'm so tempted but then I'll have his voice in my head when I do get the book and that is just too weird even for a Gaimanite like me. It doesn't make the book my own.
Damnit!
*kicks interwebz/international publishers and goes off to sulk*
Read it over two court days and these are the notes from my journal so apologies for disjointedness because I wanted to finish it and jot down my thoughts before diving into Nation.
I felt so sorry for poor Hareton and so glad to see young Catherine grow to love him, how the two of them are such a wonderful improvement on the previous generations while Linton goes from ridiculous to monstrous and vile in weakness as his father is in hardness. Huh. Only just got that.
What a curious position Nelly Dean occupies, perfectly between upstairs and downstairs and so very outspoken. And, ha, I only just realised she may have been developed around the same time or more likely under the same influences as Jane. Such wonderful strong characters, even if two of them scare the living daylights out of me! Sheesh. Not even Patrick Bateman's that scary!
The transition at the end is abrupt but I guess that couldn't be helped by sheer dint of the narrative device Emily chose. It makes for narrative logic but the tone is very jarring and yeah, does feel like we've stepped into another novel. Still once we realise what's happened and that it is a change for the better, I'm thinking the sheer gladness and relief soars us past the initial disorientation.
We do see both Catherines grow up so it's particularly marvellous how differently they go even though there is a similarity of passion. But younger Catherine has compassion and tenderness while classic Catherine is forever savage.
To horribly oversimplify, it's almost like a tale of modernity. That the ancient forces are terrible and destructive, barbaric in their ferocity. And it's the younger generation who is kinder and more willing to be tempered. Ahhh, but there's Linton to blow that theory to bits. Violent little Napoleon. Ha, awesome!
And oh, I love how the supernatural is so inextricably bound up with the psychological, that we know exactly what it is Heathcliff sees in those last few days of ecstatic starvation, even though it's never said. The novel may start out external and melodramatic in a sort of penny dreadful Gothic way but, like the best Gothic traditions, it goes ever inward til the unseen and the mind's phantoms are more powerful than any external spectacle.
But still, WHY does Lockwood rub the child's wrist on the broken glass?! I can understand Heathcliff hanging the puppy and Hareton doing the same with the litter. That savagery has been established by Heathcliff's nature and Hareton's nurture. But Lockwood?! He's a ninny, a mere foil and I was so furious that he just rode away after hearing the entire horrific story. He rode away, the ass! The simpering foolish ass! He's not smart, not fascinating, has no depth of character --- and nor do I expect him to, for the most part --- so where does that moment of unthinkable cruelty come from? Wouldn't you just throw off the hand and keep trying that? Would I do that?
Hmm. I suppose it's explained by the fact that shaking doesn't work. And I suppose there is the point to be made that such unthinkable cruelty is possible by anyone, no matter their spirit or intelligence. But still ... jesus fucking christ.
Maybe it's just the horror of that moment that sets up and establishes the horror of the entire narrative to come, that awful gory cruelty that goes from physical and spontaneous to emotional and calculated and so viciously viciously sustained.
But my god, I love Catherine's words in their last scene, the way she grabs his hair and keeps him on his knees and says "Why shouldn't you suffer? I do!" Same moment of fierce recognition as In The Cut Frannie saying "You think I'm obsessed with you?"
God, yes!
I realise now I do love melodrama. It feels like such a shameful thing to admit but it's like watching a car crash or a horror movie, just so appalled you can't look away and have to see it through to the end. Of course I like to think that the melodrama I love --- Moulin Rouge, The Crow even though technically I'd call that myth, the best Hindi movies --- are done with an eviscerating intelligence or at least a fuckload of wit. And when it's done right, it pierces to the heart of human existence deeper than anything else.
I've totally broken this secondhand ancient Penguin copy from my uni days. Damned middle section has come entirely loose. Anyway, I want an edition with a cover as perfect as my red room cover of Jane Eyre. I do like that this one has Branwell's painting of Emily but I can't re-read this copy. And I have to re-read this, omg.
Definitely wanna track down more analyses. That Freudian one about the sexual significance of the windows sounds totally ridiculous but equally fascinating. And oh I so had Larry and Merle in my head through that huge scene, the image of her white white gown trailing to the floor and her collapsing in his arms, that final lethal faint from which she never wakes.
Oof.
He's so awful, Heathcliff! He's such a sadistic monster I can't believe people actually named their children after him, that women named their baby sons after such a violent man. Were we reading the same book?! Christ, Rochester's a total gentleman compared to Heathcliff and I used to think he was scary. Pfah!
I should read that again. Jane, I mean.
Can't really comment on the language and literary devices this time cos I was so devoured by the power of the plot.
Poor Hareton ... that he, of all people, was the one to feel Heathcliff's death the worst and mourn him so sincerely. Oh, Hareton. *hugs the woobie*
It was only after I began it that I realised this is exactly the kind of book a guy at work meant when he said most scathingly "old time Mills & Boon." I'm gonna slap him down so hard! Well, no. In a way, he is right but that doesn't necessarily mean love stories don't go to the depths of the human condition and parameters of moral philosophy. No, you know what, I am going to slap him.
And today I went hunting through all my bookshops for a non-classic cover. Shocked to discover Borders had no copies at all, Kino had only the tedious black and orange kind as did A&R. Then I asked the Dymocks guy and he led me around the corner to the classics section and I experienced a very violent jolt of terror/ecstasy because *shriek*
I had to buy it. And then I had to buy this because okay, now I have four copies of the same book but two of them are totally falling to bits and cannot be read and the third is still my favourite but how am I supposed to resist any edition of Jane Eyre that has the red room on the cover! *passes out wif lit!geek happiness*
Which, as it happens, is the scene I'm in at the moment because I totally started reading on the bus back from Dymocks and guh! Kills me every time.
Also I have to note down something that chills the fuck out of me and I always forget to mention. Those images she mentions from Berwick's Book Of Birds, technically titled Bewick's History of British Birds but I kinda like my title better *lol* ... I love how they so eerily reappear in the drawings she shows Rochester later ... and ow fuck, I am still terrified by the black horned thing seated aloof on a rock, surveying a distant crowd surrounding a gallows. *whimpers* I never noticed the gallows bit before because I was always caught in wondering what the fuck that great 'black horned thing' was ... *shudders* Argh. God, Charlotte, how I adore you.
Her use of colons totally mystifies me, again with some horror. A small breakfast-room adjoined the drawing room: I slipped in there. It contained a book-case: I soon possessed myself of a volume, taking care that it should be one stored with pictures. I mounted into the window-seat: gathering up my feet, I sat cross-legged, like a Turk; and, having drawn the red moreen curtains nearly close, I was shrined in double retirement. p6.
It struck me that had someone presented this paragaph to me in writing group, I would have to forcibly stop myself from asking with all concern "Have you suffered some sort of stroke?" And yet, it works. It works because the rhythm is beautiful, a lovely lilting cadence, and I can't imagine that effect achieved any other way. And it works because that was then and this is now and there is absolutely no need for colons in this day and age, thank you very much. Employ a freaking full stop. Still, dear god, how I love the use of 'shrined' and what a curious mirroring of hyphens. *sighs*
I love this book so much. Eternal, this book, this voice of Jane. She is always real, always relevant, whether she's age ten or age twenty-something. And dear god, how does Charlotte do that?
Fairly certain that when I finish this re-read, I'm going right back to Wuthering Heights because now that I've been shellshocked by what Emily does, I want to figure out how she does it. Dear god, the violence. I'm still stunned. Not just the physical cruelties but the emotional violence. And there was so much of both. Argh jesus. Must re-read and absorb and learn.
It really is true, isn't it? A writer learns by reading. No better training. Boy, would I like to throw that edict at the head of the clueless element in our writing group.
While I'm on books, I'd just like it noted that it is currently torture to read Gaiman's journal.
Because The Graveyard Book only comes out here in November --- now, see, wouldn't it be nice if it came out on his birthday not just because of the obvious but also because that would be at the start of the month rather than the end? *sighs heavily* --- and I know I could order it from Amazon ... omigod, I just realised.
I could get it from Amazon UK which, you know, would actually be spelt properly ... urgh, no, I can't. Stupid delayed date and wrong damned cover! I want this cover. Or this one.
And seeing a reading appear every day is even worse cos I'm so tempted but then I'll have his voice in my head when I do get the book and that is just too weird even for a Gaimanite like me. It doesn't make the book my own.
Damnit!
*kicks interwebz/international publishers and goes off to sulk*