From Out the Boundless Wednesday
May. 6th, 2020 05:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
evelyn_bWhat I Completely Forgot To Mention Last Week
- William Allingham is a delight and everyone who likes a good diary should read him, even if you think you don't care about Victorian lit guys at all. I did not think I cared about Tennyson, but I laughed so much at Allingham's reports of his conversation, and his ongoing battle with his next-door neighbor, Mrs. Cameron, who badly wants to photograph him and SHAN'T - the diary makes you feel as if you're hearing a new story about someone you've already known a long time. This is an "annoy your housemates by reading every other paragraph out loud" book for sure.
Tennyson repeatedly disappoints Allingham by being glibly and indestructably prejudiced against everything Irish. (Allingham is Irish, but he's also Tennyson's friend, so he doesn't count). There are many sad episodes in which A. tries to explain or bring out the subtleties in some issue of Irish life (political, literary, cultural) and runs up against the blind wall of Tennyson's condescension. He tries to defend the idea of Irish history, for example, and gives up because Tennyson never seems to hear a word he says and just keeps making jokes about cow-stealing. Later, he tries to enlist Allingham's help in composing an "Irish brogue" poem in eye-dialect, but doesn't listen to any of his suggestions or caveats. Other than that, T. is a good friend, but he never manages to become a better one in this respect. Thomas Carlyle is equally prejudiced but not as disappointing, because Carlyle is just being Carlyle all the time. I enjoyed Carlyle the most when he is bombastically declarative about his own terrible taste.
Browning shows up frequently and is contrary and likable. Dante Gabriel Rosetti makes a memorable appearance. Allingham hates Darwinism and is pained by how little any of his friends seem to understand his "abhorrence," but later he meets Charles Darwin in person and has to admit that he seems like a pretty nice guy.
- I've returned to my May 1974 issue of Ms after a LONG hiatus and it's fantastically good. It has the title essay of "In Search of Our Mother's Gardens," a series of photographs of men who are trying to be better fathers than their fathers, a first-person piece about getting kicked out of Masters & Johnson sex therapy for being hopeless, a didactic but still kind of good short story about being an underappreciated editor at a magazine, a truly terrible and hideously illustrated environmental fable called The Last Forest (in a section called "Stories for Free Children,") and more. The bad news is I love this magazine far too much now to get rid of it and it will have to live on my shelf for the time being. The good news is it's the best and doesn't take up much space.
What I've Finished Reading
This has been a rare week in that, for four days in a row, I didn't pick up a book at all except the ones by my bed (Small Gods and, while it lasted, Offshore). The last time I didn't read anything for this long, it was during my failed attempt at Julia Cameron's "reading fast," but this time it wasn't on purpose. I've just been doing other things.
I'm running out of day so I will either post about Offshore later this week, or save it for next week. My excuse for not saying much about Fingersmith is that I'm not going to spoil it for you. It leans hard into its sensation-novel roots and brings exactly what it promises, plus extra.
What I'm Reading Now
John L. Stoddard Lectures: Canada, Malta, and Gibraltar is one of a series of books (this one published in 1903) meant to be read in preparation for or as a subsititute for travel - excitable, patriotic, occassionally personal descriptions of places, with brief notes on history and national character, lavishly illustrated with photographs. The photographs are printed so that they spill enticingly out of their frames, with rivers rushing and trees stretching into their respective margins.
The first sentence of The Loneliest Band in France, a sixty-one page novella by Dylan Fisher, is fifty-three pages long. Did it have to be that way? That remains to be seen.
What I Plan to Read Next
My other used bookstore just sent me Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, an early overview of - well, exactly what it says. It looks promising, but I'm not sure how soon I'll get to it.
- William Allingham is a delight and everyone who likes a good diary should read him, even if you think you don't care about Victorian lit guys at all. I did not think I cared about Tennyson, but I laughed so much at Allingham's reports of his conversation, and his ongoing battle with his next-door neighbor, Mrs. Cameron, who badly wants to photograph him and SHAN'T - the diary makes you feel as if you're hearing a new story about someone you've already known a long time. This is an "annoy your housemates by reading every other paragraph out loud" book for sure.
Tea: enter Mrs, Cameron (in a funny red open-work shawl) with two of her boys. T. reappears, and Mrs. C. shows a small firework toy called ' Pharaoh's Serpents,' a kind of pastile, which, when lighted, twists about in a worm-like shape. Mrs. C. said they were poisonous and forbade us all to touch. T. in defiance put out his hand.
'Don't touch 'em ! ' shrieked Mrs. C. 'You sha'n't, Alfred ! ' But Alfred did. ' Wash your hands then ! ' But Alfred wouldn't, and rubbed his moustache instead, enjoying Mrs. C.'s agonies. Then she said to him: 'Will you come to-morrow and be photographed?' He, very emphatically, 'No.'
She turned to me — 'You left a Great Poet out of your Nightingale Valley, and have been repenting
ever since in sackcloth and ashes — eh?' She meant Henry Taylor.
I tried to say that the volume was not a collection of specimens of Poets, but she did not listen. Then she said graciously, ' Come to-morrow and you shall be taken.'
After dinner we talk of dreams. T. said, 'In my boyhood I had intuitions of Immortality-- inexpressible! I have never been able to express them. I shall try some day.'
I say that I too have felt something of that kind; whereat T. (being in one of his less amiable moods) growls, 'I don't believe you have. You say it out of rivalry.'
Tennyson repeatedly disappoints Allingham by being glibly and indestructably prejudiced against everything Irish. (Allingham is Irish, but he's also Tennyson's friend, so he doesn't count). There are many sad episodes in which A. tries to explain or bring out the subtleties in some issue of Irish life (political, literary, cultural) and runs up against the blind wall of Tennyson's condescension. He tries to defend the idea of Irish history, for example, and gives up because Tennyson never seems to hear a word he says and just keeps making jokes about cow-stealing. Later, he tries to enlist Allingham's help in composing an "Irish brogue" poem in eye-dialect, but doesn't listen to any of his suggestions or caveats. Other than that, T. is a good friend, but he never manages to become a better one in this respect. Thomas Carlyle is equally prejudiced but not as disappointing, because Carlyle is just being Carlyle all the time. I enjoyed Carlyle the most when he is bombastically declarative about his own terrible taste.
Browning shows up frequently and is contrary and likable. Dante Gabriel Rosetti makes a memorable appearance. Allingham hates Darwinism and is pained by how little any of his friends seem to understand his "abhorrence," but later he meets Charles Darwin in person and has to admit that he seems like a pretty nice guy.
- I've returned to my May 1974 issue of Ms after a LONG hiatus and it's fantastically good. It has the title essay of "In Search of Our Mother's Gardens," a series of photographs of men who are trying to be better fathers than their fathers, a first-person piece about getting kicked out of Masters & Johnson sex therapy for being hopeless, a didactic but still kind of good short story about being an underappreciated editor at a magazine, a truly terrible and hideously illustrated environmental fable called The Last Forest (in a section called "Stories for Free Children,") and more. The bad news is I love this magazine far too much now to get rid of it and it will have to live on my shelf for the time being. The good news is it's the best and doesn't take up much space.
What I've Finished Reading
This has been a rare week in that, for four days in a row, I didn't pick up a book at all except the ones by my bed (Small Gods and, while it lasted, Offshore). The last time I didn't read anything for this long, it was during my failed attempt at Julia Cameron's "reading fast," but this time it wasn't on purpose. I've just been doing other things.
I'm running out of day so I will either post about Offshore later this week, or save it for next week. My excuse for not saying much about Fingersmith is that I'm not going to spoil it for you. It leans hard into its sensation-novel roots and brings exactly what it promises, plus extra.
What I'm Reading Now
John L. Stoddard Lectures: Canada, Malta, and Gibraltar is one of a series of books (this one published in 1903) meant to be read in preparation for or as a subsititute for travel - excitable, patriotic, occassionally personal descriptions of places, with brief notes on history and national character, lavishly illustrated with photographs. The photographs are printed so that they spill enticingly out of their frames, with rivers rushing and trees stretching into their respective margins.
The first sentence of The Loneliest Band in France, a sixty-one page novella by Dylan Fisher, is fifty-three pages long. Did it have to be that way? That remains to be seen.
What I Plan to Read Next
My other used bookstore just sent me Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, an early overview of - well, exactly what it says. It looks promising, but I'm not sure how soon I'll get to it.
no subject
Date: 2020-05-07 12:00 am (UTC)because Carlyle is just being Carlyle all the time.
OMG I KNOW. Poor Jane. (Like seriously how did she live with that man???)
no subject
Date: 2020-05-08 10:40 pm (UTC)Also profuse in their gifts: the immortal spirit of windbaggery on earth, William Allingham's diary.
no subject
Date: 2020-05-10 03:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-05-13 10:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-05-07 12:54 am (UTC)How? Why? What??? I am baffled as to how that works. Also, if you've already got a fifty-three page sentence, why not stretch it to last the whole novella?
Allingham sounds delightful.
no subject
Date: 2020-05-08 11:03 pm (UTC)Fisher didn't stretch the one sentence to the whole novella because there were more sentences in the story. However, if you want to read a book that is all one sentence, I've heard Ducks, Newburyport fits the bill (as it were?). It's over a thousand pages long!
Allingham is EXTREMELY delightful, 100% recommended (short sentences and fragments only, sometimes a highly relatable poem for variety):
no subject
Date: 2020-05-07 07:58 am (UTC)Aw, well that works out!
Allingham does sound like fun indeed. I enjoyed just these extracts.
The first sentence of The Loneliest Band in France, a sixty-one page novella by Dylan Fisher, is fifty-three pages long. Did it have to be that way? That remains to be seen.
Which immediately begs the question of why Dylan Fisher didn't make the whole thing one sentence. He was only 8 pages short!
no subject
Date: 2020-05-07 03:40 pm (UTC)RIGHT? That was my first thought, too. How could he give up when he was SO CLOSE?
Maybe he set out to be deliberately frustrating.
no subject
Date: 2020-05-08 11:14 pm (UTC)Allingham is fantastic. Part of me wishes there were more, but I wouldn't want to go back in time and accidentally turn his diary into a chore - it's good as it is.
It wasn't all one sentence because the first sentence had come to its natural and correct end! There were some separate parts that had to come after. I don't think the very long sentence was an absolutely necessary choice (having now read the book twice!), but I will say it's one I liked.
no subject
Date: 2020-05-09 07:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-05-07 09:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-05-08 11:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-05-07 06:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-05-08 11:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-05-09 04:25 pm (UTC)