Spidermouse, spidermouse, does almost nothing a spider can

[wwidsith]

I was reading Madame Bovary this morning when I came across a passage in which we're told that Emma's greyhound “donnait la chasse aux musaraignes”. Hullo, I thought. Strange word. . . presumably some kind of small rodenty mammal.

Yes - it's a shrew, of all things. The Latin word was musaraneus (see also Spanish musaraña), which literally means ‘

Comments

[surrealkitten]

"xanthippe was a spidermouse." it adds a whole new level of fun to me reading about socrates. woo-hoo. :)

is madame bovary as much a book about a homosexual getting literary revenge on the gender he wishes he was as i think it is?

[wwidsith]

It's too early to tell, I'm only on about page 40. But to be honest I'm not very good with plots, I am more interested in how people write on the level of the sentence. And Flaubert writes very beautiful sentences. So far he seems very sympathetic to Emma, but we'll see what he makes her go through later....

[surrealkitten]

oh, wow, so this is your first time reading it? oh, enjoy it. Please do tell me what you think.

[wwidsith]

Yep, first time. It's mostly for French practice, so it's fairly slow going..

[herself_nyc]

God, I love your posts. This one is a classic.

[wwidsith]

Aw, thanks!

I have just found a great picture of us two by the way, that Hannah took! I must get it uploaded to show you.

[herself_nyc]

Yes, please!

[desayuno_ingles]

You crack me up. I was just thinking of you b/c I arrived in London today and one of the busses said Ha*mumble mumble* Weald and I wondered if a weald is a meadow or wide-open space and if it is linguistically related to veldt.

[wwidsith]

You're in London?! Awesome! Is it just a holiday? Where are you staying?

[desayuno_ingles]

Yeah! I'll be here for a week before heading through to Spain on 8 December. I'm staying with my boyfriend in the furthest western reaches of London, Uxbridge. He's gone back to school and living in a dorm there for his first year of uni.