Much Moaning about Nothing
Today has been quite lovely. Got ut at around 9, after approximately an hour of reading Dickens in bed - page 243, and counting. Proceeded, post-breakfast, with making notes on the American electoral system, the parties, interest organisations, Presidential elections and a few lines on checks and balances (fondly christened "checks and fucking, or bloody, balances" by yours truly). Due to previous frustrations I now feel particularly accomplished on account of my most recent feat: I understood American Presidential Elections, by reading the woebegone explanation "Tapestry" offers on the subject. Applause, darlings?
And so, feeling all intelligent and confident, I went to school to sit through psychology. Most fruitless endavour of today, seeing how my teacher complained of a terrible headache - she was quite confident she would be going blind if she had to teach us - and informed us that she simply couldn't stand us today. Spent an entire 45 minutes there, and got home after an hour and a half's worth of break from the work.
Ended up skimming through the catalyst of my current situation - the "Module 2" project, my "On Outsiders" - yesterday, and I am vehemently annoyed at school in general, and Vigdis in particular. I wrote beautifully! And now it seems I'll never write that way again. God, I miss it! I miss my creativity; I wish I had Nabokovian promise and ability. I want to write again! I want to publish something, entirely void of point, and to stir people. And I want to write an afterword so irresistibly charming in its arrogance that no one dares analyse a word. (I sound like a spoiled brat, don't I? For, however little it may seem that way, I am horrendously grateful for the opportunity the school, and particularly my teachers, are offering me; I just wish it wouldn't be at the expense of my creative abilities.) I have a few wonderful paragraphs in there, the parenthesis - almost Nabokovian -, the wonderful flow of it all. - I feel like a Romantic, writing about his affection for children's innocence and how "we murder to dissect", orbed to the present and blended with a few cups of "emo".
They are outsiders by choice. Not on a single occasion do they socialise with anyone outside the Greek class. They are condescending - Francis’ first conversation with Richard: he seems to be assessing him, using Greek to question him. Having asked Richard a question he does not understand, Francis does not care to translate, but discards it as insignificant. Shaking hands, he does not introduce himself, merely assumes his reputation has preceded him. Henry, in Richard’s first class, questions him on his reading (“What else? Homer, surely. And the lyric poets.”) and when he does not answer rapidly enough, discards all interest with a Latin quote, he, too, not bothering to translate. - Arrogant, considered Devil-worshipers, intelligent, and striving, perhaps unconsciously, for ideals long gone.
--
His points are, by all means, valid and well written. But I’m left with a vague sense of déjà vu as I finish reading: his take on outsiders is good, but haven’t I heard the same thing before? Haven’t there always been those longing for the courage to stand out? Had it not been for his clever and highly effective wording and imagery, I would’ve discarded the poem entirely. Now I am left with a certain admiration for his abilities as a writer, and a wish to read more of a different perspective. The quest to exalt the individual is in no way completed today than it was when Whitman wrote, but it is futile and from a literary perspective done one time too many.
I think Dickens is bad for me, he makes me long to write magical fiction. He makes me dream of writing like Nabokov did; of writing a Lolita of my own. Yes, Dickens is decidedly bad for me. Nabokov is worse, but they are both so gorgeous. Dickens admittedly a little tedious, and none too great with characters in shades of grey - he prefers them black, white or dis-coloured. And now I'm getting entirely off-track, I set out to write a short post, ending with a "bottom-lined" version of American Politics behind a gracfeul cut, to keep any poor readers from a very boring death, but it didn't quite turn out that way. Now I want to go see Beauty of the Beast or some other Disney movie. Anastacia, perhaps?
My French inabilities annoy me. I need to learn French. 5 years of lessons, and I can hardly compose a text. Much less a sentence without a dictionary. Learn French, or create the theatrical RPG I've been toying with lately?
PS: I can't believe I was compared to this woman on Saturday. If that is even close to how I come off when dressed up, I'll be utterly delighted. But then again, red lips tend to do peculiar things to people.
PPS: It's adorably windy outside tonight. Wind is generally great fun if it's not winter, and I'm not freezing several semi-vital body parts off.
This post has turned ridiculously and pointlessly long. And it is high time I end it. Perhaps I might one day rival Woolf on stream-of-consciousness?
And so, feeling all intelligent and confident, I went to school to sit through psychology. Most fruitless endavour of today, seeing how my teacher complained of a terrible headache - she was quite confident she would be going blind if she had to teach us - and informed us that she simply couldn't stand us today. Spent an entire 45 minutes there, and got home after an hour and a half's worth of break from the work.
Ended up skimming through the catalyst of my current situation - the "Module 2" project, my "On Outsiders" - yesterday, and I am vehemently annoyed at school in general, and Vigdis in particular. I wrote beautifully! And now it seems I'll never write that way again. God, I miss it! I miss my creativity; I wish I had Nabokovian promise and ability. I want to write again! I want to publish something, entirely void of point, and to stir people. And I want to write an afterword so irresistibly charming in its arrogance that no one dares analyse a word. (I sound like a spoiled brat, don't I? For, however little it may seem that way, I am horrendously grateful for the opportunity the school, and particularly my teachers, are offering me; I just wish it wouldn't be at the expense of my creative abilities.) I have a few wonderful paragraphs in there, the parenthesis - almost Nabokovian -, the wonderful flow of it all. - I feel like a Romantic, writing about his affection for children's innocence and how "we murder to dissect", orbed to the present and blended with a few cups of "emo".
They are outsiders by choice. Not on a single occasion do they socialise with anyone outside the Greek class. They are condescending - Francis’ first conversation with Richard: he seems to be assessing him, using Greek to question him. Having asked Richard a question he does not understand, Francis does not care to translate, but discards it as insignificant. Shaking hands, he does not introduce himself, merely assumes his reputation has preceded him. Henry, in Richard’s first class, questions him on his reading (“What else? Homer, surely. And the lyric poets.”) and when he does not answer rapidly enough, discards all interest with a Latin quote, he, too, not bothering to translate. - Arrogant, considered Devil-worshipers, intelligent, and striving, perhaps unconsciously, for ideals long gone.
--
His points are, by all means, valid and well written. But I’m left with a vague sense of déjà vu as I finish reading: his take on outsiders is good, but haven’t I heard the same thing before? Haven’t there always been those longing for the courage to stand out? Had it not been for his clever and highly effective wording and imagery, I would’ve discarded the poem entirely. Now I am left with a certain admiration for his abilities as a writer, and a wish to read more of a different perspective. The quest to exalt the individual is in no way completed today than it was when Whitman wrote, but it is futile and from a literary perspective done one time too many.
I think Dickens is bad for me, he makes me long to write magical fiction. He makes me dream of writing like Nabokov did; of writing a Lolita of my own. Yes, Dickens is decidedly bad for me. Nabokov is worse, but they are both so gorgeous. Dickens admittedly a little tedious, and none too great with characters in shades of grey - he prefers them black, white or dis-coloured. And now I'm getting entirely off-track, I set out to write a short post, ending with a "bottom-lined" version of American Politics behind a gracfeul cut, to keep any poor readers from a very boring death, but it didn't quite turn out that way. Now I want to go see Beauty of the Beast or some other Disney movie. Anastacia, perhaps?
My French inabilities annoy me. I need to learn French. 5 years of lessons, and I can hardly compose a text. Much less a sentence without a dictionary. Learn French, or create the theatrical RPG I've been toying with lately?
PS: I can't believe I was compared to this woman on Saturday. If that is even close to how I come off when dressed up, I'll be utterly delighted. But then again, red lips tend to do peculiar things to people.
PPS: It's adorably windy outside tonight. Wind is generally great fun if it's not winter, and I'm not freezing several semi-vital body parts off.
This post has turned ridiculously and pointlessly long. And it is high time I end it. Perhaps I might one day rival Woolf on stream-of-consciousness?