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Warning: Lit Post, plus 'Living History' news
Today I read the best ever description of the Enron collapse and subsequent scandal:
"How many great [men] rob their petty tradesmen, condescend to swindle their poor retainers out of wretched little sums...? When we read...that one or other owes six or seven millions, their defeat seems glorious even, and we respect the victim in the vastness of his ruin. But who pities a poor barber who can't get his money...or a poor carpenter who has ruined himself by fixing up ornaments and pavilions for my ladies' dejeune; or the poor devil of a tailor whom [the man] patronizes, and who has pledged all he is worth and more to get the [customized clothing] ready... When the great house tumbles down, these miserable wretches fall under it unnoticed; as they say in the old legends, before a man goes to the devil himself, he sends plenty of other souls hither."
Quick...where is that from? The New York Times? The Wall Street Journal? Some progressive blogger on the Internet?
Give up?
It's a passage in Vanity Fair and it was written in the 19th century.
I read the above passage and nearly dropped my coffee cup. Obviously, I cheated when I reposted the section here. I removed the language that would date it or place the passage in England, but 99 percent of the quote is complete.
Astounding. The more things change the more they stay the same.
I've been on a "classics" reading kick. The difference between college and 10 years after is frightening to contemplate. I know for a fact that had I read Vanity Fair in college, I would've given up 100 pages in and gone with the Cliff Notes. But here and now, I'm utterly transfixed. It's like reading Dynasty in book form (I hated Dynasty, but I adore this book) and Becky Crawley (nee Sharp) is basically Alexis Carrington's evil twin sister.
I actually had no plans to read the book, but when the movie came out I kept reading the plot summary. While I have no interest in seeing the movie, the reviews where the book was mentioned made me think I might enjoy it. So, it was with great trepidation that I invested in the 800-plus page book and began reading.
Jeez, no wonder why the public was hooked when Thackeray was releasing chapters in dribs and drabs to a subscribing (and adoring) public.
The satire here is much more subtle than Jonathan Swift's. There is the surface, which is the soap opera that unfolds in the pages, and then there's the deeper complaint: What kind of society tolerates such abuse by the upper classes solely on the basis of blood and family connection? And even more interesting, is the criticism on how the monied classes (even if they came from 'umble beginnings themselves) have no compunction about abusing people they perceive as "beneath them." And, as a final point, how can two selfish creatures like Becky and her husband Rawdon manage to swindle their way through the upper classes and still get away with it?
In truth, the back-to-back chapters 'How to Live Well on Nothing a Year' and 'The Subject Continued' is maybe the best dissection of any society that values wealth, power, and family connection above all else, whether it's 19th century England or 21st century America. The sensibility and outrage in these chapters are so modern in that you could swear Al Franken was whispering in Thackeray's ear as he wrote it.
What's truly hilarious about the whole business is that Becky is actually not very good at swindling people. An awful lot of people see right through her and she's not fooling almost 95% percent of the people she encounters. The key, however, is the 5% she does fool: people with money and power and the right kind of family. However, sooner or later, even they catch on about her--usually because Becky overplays her hand--and bit by bit manage to cast her out of their lives. This is ultimately what will hurt Becky in the long run. At least, that's what I guess will happen. I'm still mid-way through the book, but already some her past actions have (justifiably in some cases, unjustifiably in others) come back to haunt her.
However, as for those who don't trust her from the get-go, almost all of them are people no one will listen to: servants, tradesmen, soldiers with no family "name," and other women. Only one in this group, Dobbin, comes from good family and money, but he also tends to shy away from confrontation and so deals with Becky by simply keeping his exposure to her as small as possible.
Another person who dislikes Becky straight away in the indomitable Mrs. O'Dowd, who is married to the head of Dobbin's regiment. What's interesting is Thackeray sets her up as an object of derision. She is a loud, rude woman who is insanely outgoing; believes her Irish countrymen are the best in the world and her family the greatest in all the lands; who literally pussy-whips her soldier husband; and wears ridiculous clothing as if trying to attract more attention than is her due. Yet, when the chips are down, her husband is truly a great soldier, they truly have a happy marriage, and the woman is genuinely a great lady underneath all the bluster. She is courageous and loyal and even with the canons going off in Waterloo some 10 miles distant, refuses to leave town or her friends unless her husband sends word that she is to flee for her safety. And even then, you suspect, that she would bodily carry her friends out of town if she was told to leave.
Reading the book, I can now understand what horrified critics about Vanity Fair the movie. In the modern adaption, Becky Sharp is set up to be a "feminist." Unh, as someone who considers herself a feminist, can I just say, please don't help me in this way? Becky is a pretty awful person, pretty on the surface, but ugly where it counts. Is she living in an unjust and unfair society? Yup. There's no excuse for that. While the external circumstances do stack the deck against her, she consistently hates back and chooses (in many ways) to go the easy route. She goes for the short-term gain and one-upmanship, rather than scheming to improve her lot over the long run. As is pointed out in the book time and again, it is possible to land in comfortable circumstances through the use of honesty, cleverness, and hard work, provided you're not aiming for that tony address in Vanity Fair next door to all the other fine folk of the land.
In truth, these late-life discoveries of classic literature are somewhat embarrassing. I read them now with an older eye and I just know that had I read them even five years ago, I couldn't possibly appreciate what they were trying to say. I'll say it again: we are making a horrible mistake in forcing high schoolers and college students read these books. They don't have the life experience to realize the deeper universal truths that hide behind the 19th century language and stilted social conventions of the time.
What's more, I don't think any idealistic kid is ready to receive the message: Human nature really doesn't change. You'll run into these people time and again, whether it's in battling it out with high school cliques, or people in the workplace, or in just carrying on with your day-to-day life. There will be good people, there will be selfish people, there will be people who look like winners even though they're really losers in the all the ways that count, and there will be people who look like losers and fools even though they are truly the best people you'll ever know once you get beyond the surface.
Another part of it is that I have always been enamored of 19th century New England literature, which is maybe why I've (until recently) given 19th century British literature short-shrift. A lot of it is simply regionalism. On a fundamental level, I understand Hawthorne and Melville. I've visited their graves, I've walked the streets they've walked (in Hawthorne's case, I've lived in his backyard), I've visited the Old Manse more times than I can count, and I can still see echoes of their society even in modern New England. What echoes New England's whaling past better than the modern lobster fisherman? What reveals more about New England's fascination with the supernatural than the tourist traps of Salem?
Against the geographical background of Hawthorne, Melville, and other authors of the Transcendentalist and anti-Transcendentalist schools of literature, someone like Stephen King (for all his faults as an author) was practically destined to come into being. And I guarantee that once Stephen King becomes past tense, there will be another New England author who'll take his place.
New England authors, at their core, have a hard granite that doesn't change, no matter how much wind, rain, and snow pounds against their words. They are marked by this enamor of the normal person facing off against supernatural elements. Yet, underneath the surface is still that cat-like sniff: We all know that supernatural ain't real. How many times do I need to read in a Stephen King interview where he states that every book is simply real life blown up into insane proportions? Christine isn't real. It's based on a near-accident where his son was almost run over by a car (for example). The Shining isn't real. It's based on a resort in Colorado that he thought was pretty cool.
Yet, like Hawthorne and Melville before him, King is fly papered to the supernatural. I often wonder if New England authors protest far too much for their own good.
I suppose I'm as protective of Hawthorne and Melville (and King to a lesser extent) as some Southerners are protective of Faulkner and O'Connor (two authors, I must admit, that I've never warmed to because I know I'm missing extremely important regional subtext). In many ways, my basic understanding of human nature and even storytelling comes from these two gentlemen.
From Melville and Hawthorne I learned one important fact: In many ways, people choose their own fate. Are there some things we can't control? Sure. Calamity happens, good luck reverses, and there are days when you're pretty sure the universe is out to get you. Despite that, there is an awful lot that we still do control, such as how do we react to adversity? Do we rise above it? Do we sink below the surface? In fact, it's our choices that are important, not what life throws at us.
At the end of the day, Captain Ahab chose to chase a White Whale to the exclusion of all else, something that not only sealed his doom, but the doom of all his crew.
At the end of the day, Young Goodman Brown followed the devil into the woods and chose to believe what he saw there: that everyone is as bad as the devil claims.
Hawthorne threw his characters into pretty fantastic situations. Reading his short stories, there's a constant theme: the supernatural is real and, when the supernatural invades the life of a normal person, that person must deal with it. Some fall into despair. Some fight back. No one walks away unchanged.
Melville saw nature as just nature, no hidden hands anywhere. He seems to say that humanity's penchant for assigning supernatural reasons to the bad shit that happens is nothing short of hubris. A whale is just whale and to think it something more is a stupid way to live and die.
Thackeray is so close in sensibility to Melville that it's frightening, but he goes one step further: not only is there nothing supernatural, such a possibility is not even acknowledged. It's simply the ups and downs of life and how you deal with that is what's important.
They key, I think, for all three authors is not what happens, but how the characters act and react through changing fortunes.
As for Living History, real life has kept me busy. A few long hours at work, gearing up my work-out routine, and dealing with a needy bird has me hopping.
However, I am still chipping away at the next scene. At long last, I understand why Xander can be frustrating character to write at times. It's pretty much canon that Xander will try to avoid confrontation with his friends to the point where he'll fluff it off, make a joke of it, or not mention it at all.
The scene I'm working on involves a recovering Willow trying to get out of Xander the truth of what happened with her down in the caverns. This scene is hella important to get right for several reasons:
1) It leads to Willow making an executive decision that affects everyone in the Cleveland house without their knowing it. It's somewhat on par with Xander's lie in "Becoming Part II," and yet post-S7 I can see Willow making the call for a lot of good reasons.
2) It has to show that Xander has changed enough that he will finally tell someone he loves an unpleasant truth (no matter how reluctantly) while still showing that canon unwillingness to do so. It's such a fine balancing act (and a frustrating one) that it's no wonder the BtVS writers never tried to tackle it. Usually (canonically speaking) whenever Xander tells someone an unpleasant truth, it's because he's furious and frustrated. Now I've got to write an adult version of that guy who will do it because he realizes that not doing so will hurt more. Yeesh.
3) It also has to point out fundamentally different ways Xander deals with people in his life as far as Living History goes: Faith he'll toss the unpleasant truth at without a thought (as I've written time and again). He still avoids unpleasant truths Buffy, although he dances around the margins. This conversation with Willow signals a shift in how he deals with her: from Buffy-like keep-away to a more honest way of dealing with her.
I've been working and re-working the conversation and it is coming into focus, but Xander still doesn't sound quite "right" to me. I a little more tweaking and it should be right (I think). *snarls in frustration*
"How many great [men] rob their petty tradesmen, condescend to swindle their poor retainers out of wretched little sums...? When we read...that one or other owes six or seven millions, their defeat seems glorious even, and we respect the victim in the vastness of his ruin. But who pities a poor barber who can't get his money...or a poor carpenter who has ruined himself by fixing up ornaments and pavilions for my ladies' dejeune; or the poor devil of a tailor whom [the man] patronizes, and who has pledged all he is worth and more to get the [customized clothing] ready... When the great house tumbles down, these miserable wretches fall under it unnoticed; as they say in the old legends, before a man goes to the devil himself, he sends plenty of other souls hither."
Quick...where is that from? The New York Times? The Wall Street Journal? Some progressive blogger on the Internet?
Give up?
It's a passage in Vanity Fair and it was written in the 19th century.
I read the above passage and nearly dropped my coffee cup. Obviously, I cheated when I reposted the section here. I removed the language that would date it or place the passage in England, but 99 percent of the quote is complete.
Astounding. The more things change the more they stay the same.
I've been on a "classics" reading kick. The difference between college and 10 years after is frightening to contemplate. I know for a fact that had I read Vanity Fair in college, I would've given up 100 pages in and gone with the Cliff Notes. But here and now, I'm utterly transfixed. It's like reading Dynasty in book form (I hated Dynasty, but I adore this book) and Becky Crawley (nee Sharp) is basically Alexis Carrington's evil twin sister.
I actually had no plans to read the book, but when the movie came out I kept reading the plot summary. While I have no interest in seeing the movie, the reviews where the book was mentioned made me think I might enjoy it. So, it was with great trepidation that I invested in the 800-plus page book and began reading.
Jeez, no wonder why the public was hooked when Thackeray was releasing chapters in dribs and drabs to a subscribing (and adoring) public.
The satire here is much more subtle than Jonathan Swift's. There is the surface, which is the soap opera that unfolds in the pages, and then there's the deeper complaint: What kind of society tolerates such abuse by the upper classes solely on the basis of blood and family connection? And even more interesting, is the criticism on how the monied classes (even if they came from 'umble beginnings themselves) have no compunction about abusing people they perceive as "beneath them." And, as a final point, how can two selfish creatures like Becky and her husband Rawdon manage to swindle their way through the upper classes and still get away with it?
In truth, the back-to-back chapters 'How to Live Well on Nothing a Year' and 'The Subject Continued' is maybe the best dissection of any society that values wealth, power, and family connection above all else, whether it's 19th century England or 21st century America. The sensibility and outrage in these chapters are so modern in that you could swear Al Franken was whispering in Thackeray's ear as he wrote it.
What's truly hilarious about the whole business is that Becky is actually not very good at swindling people. An awful lot of people see right through her and she's not fooling almost 95% percent of the people she encounters. The key, however, is the 5% she does fool: people with money and power and the right kind of family. However, sooner or later, even they catch on about her--usually because Becky overplays her hand--and bit by bit manage to cast her out of their lives. This is ultimately what will hurt Becky in the long run. At least, that's what I guess will happen. I'm still mid-way through the book, but already some her past actions have (justifiably in some cases, unjustifiably in others) come back to haunt her.
However, as for those who don't trust her from the get-go, almost all of them are people no one will listen to: servants, tradesmen, soldiers with no family "name," and other women. Only one in this group, Dobbin, comes from good family and money, but he also tends to shy away from confrontation and so deals with Becky by simply keeping his exposure to her as small as possible.
Another person who dislikes Becky straight away in the indomitable Mrs. O'Dowd, who is married to the head of Dobbin's regiment. What's interesting is Thackeray sets her up as an object of derision. She is a loud, rude woman who is insanely outgoing; believes her Irish countrymen are the best in the world and her family the greatest in all the lands; who literally pussy-whips her soldier husband; and wears ridiculous clothing as if trying to attract more attention than is her due. Yet, when the chips are down, her husband is truly a great soldier, they truly have a happy marriage, and the woman is genuinely a great lady underneath all the bluster. She is courageous and loyal and even with the canons going off in Waterloo some 10 miles distant, refuses to leave town or her friends unless her husband sends word that she is to flee for her safety. And even then, you suspect, that she would bodily carry her friends out of town if she was told to leave.
Reading the book, I can now understand what horrified critics about Vanity Fair the movie. In the modern adaption, Becky Sharp is set up to be a "feminist." Unh, as someone who considers herself a feminist, can I just say, please don't help me in this way? Becky is a pretty awful person, pretty on the surface, but ugly where it counts. Is she living in an unjust and unfair society? Yup. There's no excuse for that. While the external circumstances do stack the deck against her, she consistently hates back and chooses (in many ways) to go the easy route. She goes for the short-term gain and one-upmanship, rather than scheming to improve her lot over the long run. As is pointed out in the book time and again, it is possible to land in comfortable circumstances through the use of honesty, cleverness, and hard work, provided you're not aiming for that tony address in Vanity Fair next door to all the other fine folk of the land.
In truth, these late-life discoveries of classic literature are somewhat embarrassing. I read them now with an older eye and I just know that had I read them even five years ago, I couldn't possibly appreciate what they were trying to say. I'll say it again: we are making a horrible mistake in forcing high schoolers and college students read these books. They don't have the life experience to realize the deeper universal truths that hide behind the 19th century language and stilted social conventions of the time.
What's more, I don't think any idealistic kid is ready to receive the message: Human nature really doesn't change. You'll run into these people time and again, whether it's in battling it out with high school cliques, or people in the workplace, or in just carrying on with your day-to-day life. There will be good people, there will be selfish people, there will be people who look like winners even though they're really losers in the all the ways that count, and there will be people who look like losers and fools even though they are truly the best people you'll ever know once you get beyond the surface.
Another part of it is that I have always been enamored of 19th century New England literature, which is maybe why I've (until recently) given 19th century British literature short-shrift. A lot of it is simply regionalism. On a fundamental level, I understand Hawthorne and Melville. I've visited their graves, I've walked the streets they've walked (in Hawthorne's case, I've lived in his backyard), I've visited the Old Manse more times than I can count, and I can still see echoes of their society even in modern New England. What echoes New England's whaling past better than the modern lobster fisherman? What reveals more about New England's fascination with the supernatural than the tourist traps of Salem?
Against the geographical background of Hawthorne, Melville, and other authors of the Transcendentalist and anti-Transcendentalist schools of literature, someone like Stephen King (for all his faults as an author) was practically destined to come into being. And I guarantee that once Stephen King becomes past tense, there will be another New England author who'll take his place.
New England authors, at their core, have a hard granite that doesn't change, no matter how much wind, rain, and snow pounds against their words. They are marked by this enamor of the normal person facing off against supernatural elements. Yet, underneath the surface is still that cat-like sniff: We all know that supernatural ain't real. How many times do I need to read in a Stephen King interview where he states that every book is simply real life blown up into insane proportions? Christine isn't real. It's based on a near-accident where his son was almost run over by a car (for example). The Shining isn't real. It's based on a resort in Colorado that he thought was pretty cool.
Yet, like Hawthorne and Melville before him, King is fly papered to the supernatural. I often wonder if New England authors protest far too much for their own good.
I suppose I'm as protective of Hawthorne and Melville (and King to a lesser extent) as some Southerners are protective of Faulkner and O'Connor (two authors, I must admit, that I've never warmed to because I know I'm missing extremely important regional subtext). In many ways, my basic understanding of human nature and even storytelling comes from these two gentlemen.
From Melville and Hawthorne I learned one important fact: In many ways, people choose their own fate. Are there some things we can't control? Sure. Calamity happens, good luck reverses, and there are days when you're pretty sure the universe is out to get you. Despite that, there is an awful lot that we still do control, such as how do we react to adversity? Do we rise above it? Do we sink below the surface? In fact, it's our choices that are important, not what life throws at us.
At the end of the day, Captain Ahab chose to chase a White Whale to the exclusion of all else, something that not only sealed his doom, but the doom of all his crew.
At the end of the day, Young Goodman Brown followed the devil into the woods and chose to believe what he saw there: that everyone is as bad as the devil claims.
Hawthorne threw his characters into pretty fantastic situations. Reading his short stories, there's a constant theme: the supernatural is real and, when the supernatural invades the life of a normal person, that person must deal with it. Some fall into despair. Some fight back. No one walks away unchanged.
Melville saw nature as just nature, no hidden hands anywhere. He seems to say that humanity's penchant for assigning supernatural reasons to the bad shit that happens is nothing short of hubris. A whale is just whale and to think it something more is a stupid way to live and die.
Thackeray is so close in sensibility to Melville that it's frightening, but he goes one step further: not only is there nothing supernatural, such a possibility is not even acknowledged. It's simply the ups and downs of life and how you deal with that is what's important.
They key, I think, for all three authors is not what happens, but how the characters act and react through changing fortunes.
As for Living History, real life has kept me busy. A few long hours at work, gearing up my work-out routine, and dealing with a needy bird has me hopping.
However, I am still chipping away at the next scene. At long last, I understand why Xander can be frustrating character to write at times. It's pretty much canon that Xander will try to avoid confrontation with his friends to the point where he'll fluff it off, make a joke of it, or not mention it at all.
The scene I'm working on involves a recovering Willow trying to get out of Xander the truth of what happened with her down in the caverns. This scene is hella important to get right for several reasons:
1) It leads to Willow making an executive decision that affects everyone in the Cleveland house without their knowing it. It's somewhat on par with Xander's lie in "Becoming Part II," and yet post-S7 I can see Willow making the call for a lot of good reasons.
2) It has to show that Xander has changed enough that he will finally tell someone he loves an unpleasant truth (no matter how reluctantly) while still showing that canon unwillingness to do so. It's such a fine balancing act (and a frustrating one) that it's no wonder the BtVS writers never tried to tackle it. Usually (canonically speaking) whenever Xander tells someone an unpleasant truth, it's because he's furious and frustrated. Now I've got to write an adult version of that guy who will do it because he realizes that not doing so will hurt more. Yeesh.
3) It also has to point out fundamentally different ways Xander deals with people in his life as far as Living History goes: Faith he'll toss the unpleasant truth at without a thought (as I've written time and again). He still avoids unpleasant truths Buffy, although he dances around the margins. This conversation with Willow signals a shift in how he deals with her: from Buffy-like keep-away to a more honest way of dealing with her.
I've been working and re-working the conversation and it is coming into focus, but Xander still doesn't sound quite "right" to me. I a little more tweaking and it should be right (I think). *snarls in frustration*
no subject
If I read your thoughts on Vanity Fair when I had to read it in college, I would have actually read it in college!
Also, I love your thoughts on Xander & his reluctance to tell his loved ones the ugly truth. I can't wait to read your next chapter of Living History
no subject
Naturally, there are some 19th century literary conventions you have to get by, such as "sate" for "sat." Plus, I think Thackeray probably could've used a little editing because some of his tangents are a little loopy (even though there's a method to his madness).
But, it's important to note that during this time period authors were getting paid by the chapter (if not the word), which is why some of those Victorian novels are so freakin' long. All of them are essentially collections of chapters that were published indvidually.
The modern-day equivalent is Stephen King's "The Green Mile," which was originally issued in individual chapters. I think I remember reading an interview where King said he did it as an experiment because he wanted to see if he could pull off the same deal as 19th century authors, so it was a very deliberate thing on his part. The only reason why he was allowed to do it was because, well, he's Stephen King. What's his publisher going to do? Say no? Not likely.
He proved it could be done (sort of), but that at the end of the day you probably have to be him or someone like him with a devoted following to make it work.
Ummm, which has nothing to do with anything. Ignore the book geek.
*must go cook now*
no subject
Never! Us book geeks have to stick together!
And you're right - only Stephen King could get away with publising in chapters. When I was in high school (crap! that was 2 decades ago! when did I get old? /tangent) the humor columnist in local paper wrote a novel in serial form, published in the paper. Readers were encouraged to write in suggestions for the direction of the plot, etc. While I enjoyed each chapter -- they were amusing as far as they went, and were entertaining to read--there didn't seem to be an overall, cohesive plot. I think the writer got tired of the format and wrapped things up without resolving anything very well. On the other hand, it did involve a modern woman having an affair with a ghost from the American Revolution, so how much realism could I expect?
no subject
On a classics note, have you read any Alexander Dumas? I'm thinking particularly of The Count of Monte Cristo here, but any of the five Three Musketeer books are just as fascinating. I'd be interested in your reactions eventually.
And on a side note, I think you and Lilac City together have officialy turned me into a Xander/Faith fan. I automatically paired those two together in my last fic I wrote! Guess I should blame you for all the reactions I got for Sleeper now...
no subject
The words "evil genius" spring to mind. And such a delicious way he goes about exacting revenge on people who did him wrong and paying back people who tried to help him.
I haven't read the The Three Musketteers (yet) mostly because I have this pile of books I have to get through.
You wrote a Xander and Faith story? *kicks computer* Thanks for letting me know because I have to read it now. I've been unable to really get online this past week due to craziness, so I've not kept up on my FList at all.
Unfortunately, I can't do it today. Today I am a cooking fool so I won't be able to do it. :-(
no subject
I don't know why VF clicked with me back in college, because I fully agree with you about the wrongness of asking kids to read books before they're ready for them. There's no reason why I should have been "ready" for Vanity Fair, when I so obviously wasn't ready for Middlemarch, a book that I hated and resented having to read in college, but just adored beyond the telling of it once I'd been out in the world for a few years.
And now you make me want to go read Hawthorne, a shameful gap in my own education.
If you haven't read Dickens' Hard Times yet, I'd recommend it.
no subject
Your refusal to see Vanity Fair the movie is the exact same reason why I refused to see Demi Moore's *ptui* adaption of The Scarlett Letter. It's that same "no, no Hester should be a feminist icon!* And, oh, her and Dimmesdale really do escape to England and live happily ever after! Which is completely missing the feaking point! (Again!) Hester in the book is unbelievably strong, so strong that by the sheer dint of her inherent goodness, she's able to make people forget what that scarlett A stands for. Hawthorne was criticizing a society that couldn't see past a single mistake to the point where it turns its back on the one person who really needs community support and help. Plus he was talking about taking responsibility for your actions, no matter how much it sucked. Hester took responsibility and she's the only one in the whole book who did so. End result? She is the only one who gets something resembling a happy ending. And the movie....gah! Hate!
Don't feel bad. I was forced to read Middlemarch in college. (Sort of. I gave up and went with the Cliff Notes.) Couldn't stand it either.
As for Hawthorne, I highly recommend going with the short stories first. The Celestial Railroad has some of my favorite short stories of his: Roger Malvern's Burial, Young Goodman Brown, The Minister's Black Veil (creepy squared), Dr. Heidegger's Experiment (science fiction before there was such a thing), and Rappaccini's Daughter.
Rappaccini's Daughter is the most interesting of the bunch because it contains a thinly disguised accusation against his in-laws. His wife, prior to their marriage, was one of those quiet mousy types. Once she married him, Mrs. Hawthorne became quite an activist for women's rights and equality, something which Hawthorne whole-heartedly supported. She was vivacious and brilliant. It is *believed* that Hawthorne was accusing his in-laws of doping up their daughter to keep her complacent and quiet.
Too many teachers I think try to force students to read The House of Seven Gables or The Scarlet Letter, which can both be difficult reads. Furthermore, they are both so extremely 19th century Salem(MA)-centric that would shoot over the heads of most people that didn't grow up on the North Shore.
The House of Seven Gables is further handicapped by the fact that the tacked-on happy ending feels and looks tacked-on. Hawthorne was forced by his publishers to put it there and the end of the novel practically ooozes resentment.
My personal favorite part of The Scarlet Letter are the opening chapters where Hawthorne goes on and on about his time in the Customs House (which you can still see in modern-day Salem; it's located just down the street from the House of Seven Gables and Hawthorne's birthplace) where he talks about his co-workers and the joy of government work. Hilarious in all respects because more than a century and a half later so much of what he wrote still holds true for Salem.
Sorry. I'll stop being a Hawthrone fengurl now.
no subject
Which has nothing to do with anything, but it relates somehow.
no subject
While I'm glad I got the chance to read Frankenstein and Dracula in their original forms, I really could've done without George Elliot and a number of other authors. My distaste for the class was so strong that it took me *years* before I was willing to read Jane Austen (hated her in college, love her now). Truthfully, I have to thank the BBC's adaption of Persuasion (the newer one) for making me want to give Austen another try.
Looking back, I think my issue was that I really wasn't "ready" for them (although I already had a fierce love for Hawthorne, so go figure).
I don't think the professor helped. He basically said that all 19th century British literature was about sexual repression and drug use. Unh, okay.
Needless to say, I aced the class simply by spitting my class notes back at him. I certainly didn't do it by actually reading the books, since I only read maybe a quarter of the assigned workload.
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I went through a classics kick awhile ago; read a bunch of Charles Dickens, my favourite of which is still David Copperfield. I remember my first exposure to Dickens was in high school; we studied Great Expectations. I thought it was so romantic (but then, at 16, everything was about romance!)
I've never read Thackery. Shall have to try Vanity Fair.
**waits patiently for next chapter of Living History**
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dialogue and such
That said, I'm extremely confident you're going to pull out an incredible, kick-ass scene. You're a very talented, incredible writer, and I can't wait to read this scene -- in whatever capacity -- because I'm sure that, like always, you're going to blow us all away.
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And by the way, no pressure hunh? :-)
Re: dialogue and such