status report (ea chapter ten)

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I have been terribly negligent of my promise to keep you informed of the update-status for Elective Affinities -- apologies!

It will probably not surprise you to hear that Chapter 10 is fully planned. Unfortunately, very little of it has actually been written. I am concurrently working on finishing a chapter of my master's thesis and that has,

Comments

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♥ ♥ ♥ --- your comment has reduced me to a level of incoherency below even internet-speak. Severus is quite appalled, but Harry approves heartily --

Celan -- yes! If I could take only one book of poetry with me onto a desert island, it would probably be a volume of his collected poems. Most of my tricks I've learned from him, and there are still so many poems of his, so many new techniques and images and devastating emotions I have yet to discover.

The edge is what I have. Indeed, I am also an admirer of Roethke's work! although I must confess that I don't know nearly enough about him and have not read nearly enough of his work. "Epidermal Macabre" and "In A Dark Time" are two poems I have kept close to my heart since first encountering them some years ago, but I don't know much else. (Any suggestions?) Anyway, I love how you made a connection between Roethke and Dumbledore; it's one I would not have made on my own, but that immediately makes sense and is proving to be infinitely helpful. McTabby's story is also brilliant, and I am

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Thank you again for introducing me to Popa -- I believe I'm becoming addicted. In contrast to Celan's In the Snake Wagon, which I cited here because it seems to describe Snape's internal journey from a distant, meta-perspective, Give me back my rags captures the immediacy of his anger, the force of his subjectivity. The poem is remarkable in its own right, but I think I love it especially because of how extraordinarily well it expresses Snape's inner state of being. There are an unbelievable number of parallels between the poem and the character. Just pop into my head/My thoughts the better to claw your cheek -- or Get out of my walled-in infinity -- express succicintly and with unbelievable power the urgency with which Snape uses Occlumency and closes himself off from the world. And the appearances of "freak" and "double-crosser" make it seem as though the poem was custom-written with Snape in mind. An incredible discovery, my friend.

One of the things I love about Snape is his temperature, and that he is, perhaps, the hottest of

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My last response was much too perfunctory -- I was surrounded by family and couldn't think properly -- so I hope you don't mind me trying again.

Dumbledore is quite a puzzle, isn't he? I am coming to the conclusion that he is a magnificent creature, one of the most interesting JKR created, but hardly a character that I can think too much about without becoming angry. To be more precise, it is not Dumbledore's Machiavellian plottings in general, but rather his dealings with Snape in particular which make my blood come to a near boil. (You can see how angry I can get in my discussion on this topic over at dreamwidth with o_mayari and perverse_idyll.) I fear some of this anger may end up spilling into Elective Affinities, so I am deeply grateful for your reminder that there are indeed countless aspects of Dumbledore to love, not least being his clever, mild sense of humour. Roethke is helping me reconnect with that aspect of Dumbledore as well

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If anything, Dumbledore made me realize that a true Slytherin would never let themselves get sorted into Slytherin.

I love, love your analysis of Dumbledore. And I agree that he isn't cold. I tend to think of Dumbledore as someone who has, after Gellert, put himself through a kind of purifying fire -- symbolised, perhaps, by Fawkes -- who has attempted to burn away those parts of him which, burning, emotional, as we have seen in Snape, would hinder his utilitarian cause.

Get them to start thinking for themselves, and maybe they'll figure out that they don't have to be on the front line at all - that they don't need to be sacrifices.Exactly. Every moment where Snape and Harry begin to make motions of thinking for themselves, Dumbledore finds ways to distract them, to utilise their anger for his cause. Really, I can't say this any better than you. I love how you phrase concepts by no means simple so succinctly, so comprehensively. I need to read your fic

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I am very, very sorry to hear about your grandfather. That kind of loss -- I cannot describe such loss, it is so great, so incredibly hard to grasp. I hope that his was a peaceful passing, and that you had a chance to say proper goodbyes.

Thank you for the marvellous poem -- I am now motivated to read more of Popa's work, which I had only been aware of before in theory. I have much more that I'd like to say about it, and about your brilliant characterisation of Snape as someone who has passed some sort of thermonuclear threshold and come out the other end, like superheated plasma that has to be cooled and contained just in order to function without exploding everything. Just. What an incredible description! I haven't reached my thesis wordcount deadline for the day, however, so I will leave the rest of my comment for tomorrow morning. Know, however, that your words have been dancing in my head all day, firing the synapses in the most unexpected and wonderful ways. Thank you for that, and for taking the time to discuss these things