Comments | katranna: Penthesilea, House, etc

katranna

Penthesilea, House, etc

Apr 14, 2006 00:23

Ugh. I am struggling to plod through Middlemarch, and I have to say, my love of George Eliot has not grown from my freshman year in college and Mill on the Floss. I find her cumbrously wordy, and I find Dorothea tedious. Or odious. Both, probably. Celia is the one bright spot in the narrative, and she's not even a major character. (She does, ( Read more... )

quotes, tv/movie ramblings, academia, book talk

Comments 20

aliterati April 14 2006, 05:28:56 UTC

Yay for Romantics. ;P

Seriously, read Kleist 'Prince von Homburg' next. It's amazing. It's like Hamlet. Only I didn't actually like Hamlet, and I love this.

katranna April 14 2006, 06:51:13 UTC

Okay--I can't read it now, because I have to read a ton of Hoffman (whom I don't really like all that much) first, and then papers like crazy. But it's in the book right after "Penthesilea" so i shall do that as soon as I get time. :-)

...I liked "Hamlet."

Do you also find Hoffman kind of difficult to read and boring? Because I do, but he's one of the more preeminent ones, and it seems like I should like him, but no. This is the second time I couldn't get through "The Golden Pot" because it's so...long, dull, and complicated. (The "complicated" is supposed to make it exciting, I think, but for me all the ridiculous plot details just make it duller.)

aliterati April 14 2006, 13:59:02 UTC

Well, good, if you like "Hamlet," maybe you'll like "Homburg" all the better ( ... )

katranna April 14 2006, 17:42:03 UTC

I've read it... it was better than "Golden Pot," definitely, but still not so great. His writing always comes across as so clumsy to me! It may be the translation, though it was clumsy in Russian, also.

Don't worry, I'm reading thess for a German Romanticism class, so we definitly deal with the philosophy.

It's like... at the end of Heinrcih von Ofterdingen, there's a fairytale. It's also on crack, and impossible to read for pleasure, keeps going on forever, and is bizarre in a fairly off-putting way. That's kind of how I feel about Hoffman, though less intensely so. I prefer it that when the Romantics use their fiction as a medium for their philosophy, they make the fiction engaging on its own account. Kleist does this really well, and most of the rest of them don't always.

Thread 6

sinclair_furie April 14 2006, 07:23:35 UTC

Pretty. Very pretty. Shallow, you say? Prettiness is a good cure for that. Speaking of pretty boys, I finally watched Breakfast on Pluto. Among other things, I really want to give Kitten a hug.
Also, the talking oneself to death is a very cool concept.

katranna April 14 2006, 07:27:21 UTC

Yes, I'd noticed you saw it from your icon. ;-) Glad you liked it!

sagemessalina April 14 2006, 14:42:58 UTC

What is with both you and Anna classifying Modernists as Romantics?

...Fine, I suppose they can and are both. But :p

aliterati April 14 2006, 17:14:52 UTC

Wait, maybe we're not talking about the same thing. Because the way I've heard it, "modernist" refers specifically to the early part of the 20th century, leading up to WWI and including the interwar period. (So James Joyce at the beginning of the century would be a "modernist," and T.S. Eliot in the twenties would be a "high modernist.") I've never heard the early-1800 writers referred to as modernists... Is it in a different national context?

katranna April 14 2006, 17:44:12 UTC

Agreed... Who else is Romantic but the early 1800's German idealist writers? (I mean, yeah, the English Romantics like Wordsworth, but they're the ones who started it!)

sagemessalina April 15 2006, 01:59:51 UTC

I'm defining it as the separation of morality/politics/etc from aesthetic judgement (i.e. Goethe doesn't condem Werther's suicide, making it modernish). Or my professor who's the expert on German Modernism defines it that way. I think every Ph.D tries to claim certain groups for their own specialty. If he's making freaky definitions, at least there's a splinter group of a few other academics who do too.

And you have Hylas and the Nymphs! Or the nymphs, at least. Yay.

Thread 6

greensword April 14 2006, 14:50:27 UTC

Oh, I love House. And House. But mostly House. A lot of the other characters bother me. The way women get written on that show. And I like Foreman better than Chase, I think.

We should watch it together sometime.

katranna April 14 2006, 17:46:04 UTC

Yeah, I haven't seen enough epoisodes yet to really say I love the show... but yay House. The show seems well-scripted and engaging, but even so formulaic at times. And I hadn't noticed about the women, though now that I think of it, I don't really care for most of the female characters. Hmm.

They should've just gone with House's pov if they wanted to write annoying women.

We should!

__magimus__ April 14 2006, 18:20:02 UTC

Oh...come on. I am totally in love with the way-too-skinny girl. She's a total sap, but she's also brilliant. And I think the most importnat thing here is that House is played by Hugh Laurie. Hugh Lauie. THe guy who was in 101 Dalmations and Blackadder and all of these funny but silly slap-stick comedies...and now he's a serious actor with an American accent - it's crazy!

I used to make my ex watch them with me because I was too embarrased to watch them alone :) Medical dramas...

katranna April 14 2006, 21:44:15 UTC

Way too skinny girl? Which one is that? I haven't really seen the show enough times to really know the characters. (I even had to look up the name of my innapropriate objet d'lust.) Is she the cute wee brunette assistant?

Thread 5

shveta_thakrar April 15 2006, 20:51:13 UTC

I mean, House is all clever and sarcastic and crotchety, and we're obviously supposed to love that, and dammit, I do.

Heh, heh, heh. :)

As for Kleist, he does rock.

Speaking of fine writers :P, I have started a gift piece for a friend starring Medusa. I'll have to show you what I have on Monday! Of course, I'm working on this instead of on my papers, like I should be. . .:`(