Letters and icons

[icepixie]

Dear Mother Nature,

In case it's escaped your notice, this is Nashville. Will you quit with the snow already? Good grief.

Shiveringly yours,
Me

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Dear Long, Clause-Laden Sentences in the Fic I Am Writing,

Where are you coming from? How can I make you stop? One or two for effect are nice, but the fic is starting to read like a Cormac McCarthy novel (only with punctuation), and that is NOT A GOOD THING.

Yours in desperation for periods,
Me

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Dear Jack of All Trades

HOW did you get the Marquis de Sade episode past the censors? I...wow. Just wow.

Astonished,
Me

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Icon meme from fallingtowers. Let me know if you want your own.


Caprica getting nuked to oblivion by the Cylons in the BSG miniseries. The quotation is the title to an exceptionally bitter autobiography by a WWI vet, who basically spends the book lambasting everything about the English social order of the time, the war, etc. etc. It seemed appropriately tumultuous for the beginning of BSG.


My favorite Astaire/Rogers publicity photo (from Roberta) paired with lyrics from Swing Time's "The Way You Look Tonight." The pose comes from the "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" dance, which also happens to be my favorite, 'cause I love gloriously slow dances. It came out of my epic icon-making spree. I don't really post about the films much anymore, but I keep it around for somewhat sentimental reasons (always the best reasons for Fred and Ginger, aren't they?).


Scully yelling "Noooooooo!" as Mulder gets shot in "Monday." A product of my sporadic rewatch this past spring; mostly I find the image amusing, because Big Nos are generally hilarious to me.


One of my favorite events from B5: Ivanova, Delenn, and Lyta staging a rescue of Sheridan after he dies at Z'ha'dum. Okay, so it's not successful, but for 1997 or whenever this aired, it's still pretty awesome that they're taking over the war. "Strength" is also an accurate descriptor; not only are they strong in the face of personal grief over Sheridan's apparent death and the consequent near-fracturing of the alliance, all three of them are strong characters in their own ways.


Peter and Olivia from Fringe talking to the nutty Star Trek fan in...uh, whatever episode that was. Late S1, I think maybe "The Road Not Taken"? Anyway, the fact that Peter's enough of a fan to play along with the crazy informant by telling him to live long and prosper makes me giggle. (P.S. Fringe returns tomorrow! Eeeeee!)

Comments

[kungfuwaynewho.livejournal.com]

Interesting - I'm not hugely familiar with that style, though I can certainly imagine it. Hee, you reference Mrs. Dalloway and Ulysses, and I'm like, I read books about robots.

(I'm a bad reverse-snobby SF fan in that I sometimes find myself rolling my eyes when it comes to literary novel stuff - but I don't have anything against all that in theory or anything. I just don't read it.)

Part 1

[icepixie]

Interesting - I'm not hugely familiar with that style, though I can certainly imagine it.

Here are brief examples! (Sorry, sorry, Modernism brings out my lit-nerd side like nothing else. Everything they did with representations of consciousness and narrative technique is in such contrast to Victorian realism, and has had such repercussions on modern literature, that I find it utterly fascinating, even though few people outside an English department do.) Anyway, two passages from early in Mrs. Dalloway to illustrate the stream-of-consciousness Woolf was doing:

Her only gift was knowing people almost by instinct, she thought, walking on. If you put her in a room with some one, up went her back like a cat’s; or she purred. Devonshire House, Bath House, the house with the china cockatoo, she had seen them all lit up once; and remembered Sylvia, Fred, Sally Seton — such hosts of people; and dancing all night; and the waggons plodding past to market; and driving home across the Park. She remembered once throwing a shilling into the Serpentine. But every one remembered; what she loved was this, here, now, in front of her; the fat lady in the cab. Did it matter then, she asked herself, walking towards Bond Street, did it matter that she must inevitably cease completely; all this must go on without her; did she resent it; or did it not become consoling to believe that death ended absolutely? but that somehow in the streets of London, on the ebb and flow of things, here, there, she survived, Peter survived, lived in each other, she being part, she was positive, of the trees at home; of the house there, ugly, rambling all to bits and pieces as it was; part of people she had never met; being laid out like a mist between the people she knew best, who lifted her on their branches as she had seen the trees lift the mist, but it spread ever so far, her life, herself. But what was she dreaming as she looked into Hatchards’ shop window? What was she trying to recover?



The hall of the house was cool as a vault. Mrs. Dalloway raised her hand to her eyes, and, as the maid shut the door to, and she heard the swish of Lucy’s skirts, she felt like a nun who has left the world and feels fold round her the familiar veils and the response to old devotions. The cook whistled in the kitchen. She heard the click of the typewriter. It was her life, and, bending her head over the hall table, she bowed beneath the influence, felt blessed and purified, saying to herself, as she took the pad with the telephone message on it, how moments like this are buds on the tree of life, flowers of darkness they are, she thought (as if some lovely rose had blossomed for her eyes only); not for a moment did she believe in God; but all the more, she thought, taking up the pad, must one repay in daily life to servants, yes, to dogs and canaries, above all to Richard her husband, who was the foundation of it — of the gay sounds, of the green lights, of the cook even whistling, for Mrs. Walker was Irish and whistled all day long — one must pay back from this secret deposit of exquisite moments, she thought, lifting the pad, while Lucy stood by her, trying to explain how

"Mr. Dalloway, ma’am"—

Clarissa read on the telephone pad, "Lady Bruton wishes to know if Mr. Dalloway will lunch with her to-day."

"Mr. Dalloway, ma’am, told me to tell you he would be lunching out."

"Dear!" said Clarissa, and Lucy shared as she meant her to her disappointment (but not the pang); felt the concord between them; took the hint; thought how the gentry love; gilded her own future with calm; and, taking Mrs. Dalloway’s parasol, handled it like a sacred weapon which a Goddess, having acquitted herself honourably in the field of battle, sheds, and placed it in the umbrella stand.

Part 2

[icepixie]

(I'm a bad reverse-snobby SF fan in that I sometimes find myself rolling my eyes when it comes to literary novel stuff - but I don't have anything against all that in theory or anything. I just don't read it.)

I think for Modernist writing especially, though the same is true to a lesser extent for most periods, you've got to take the first couple on faith that once you have enough of it under your belt, you'll see what the authors were doing, why they were doing it, how they fit into the history of western literature, and thus why they're so famous. I haaaaaated Virginia Woolf my first time through, but now I count MD and Orlando among my favorite novels of all time, and much of my appreciation comes from understanding the context. (I recognize that probably most people think a book should be enjoyable in and of itself the first time through, and I think it's a totally valid way to approach literature. I mean, I do think the literary novels I love are beautiful and full of wonderful characters, but I probably wouldn't have gotten to that point without consciously practicing how to see them so that the beauty is visible, if that makes any sense. And there are definitely novels that no amount of contextual understanding are going to make me love, CHARLES DICKENS I AM LOOKING AT YOU.)

Re: Part 2

[kungfuwaynewho.livejournal.com]

I think for Modernist writing especially, though the same is true to a lesser extent for most periods, you've got to take the first couple on faith that once you have enough of it under your belt, you'll see what the authors were doing, why they were doing it, how they fit into the history of western literature, and thus why they're so famous.

I think this is part of my aversion to the whole thing, to be honest. It's the same way I feel about certain films - specifically the small art house films with a small cast, all shot in digital, always depressing to the extreme. (The epitome of this would be anything that is actually or aspires to the Dogma 95 genre, which I find to be kind of the antithesis of what film should be doing.) For me, at the end of the day, as much as I might appreciate the artistry or the technique or what-have-you, I want to be entertained. I sort of feel that there's this attitude in certain circles, and it's there in film, too, that if something is enjoyable then it's just for the dumb plebians; let the "average person" watch their comic book movies and their comedies - real cineastes watch this. And I know that's conflating the academic and critical stuff with the work itself, which isn't always - or perhaps is never - fair, but it can be hard to separate that stuff out.

I see what you're saying about this style of writing being an important link in the chain of literature in general, and I don't discount that. Again, to compare to film (because that's all I know, lol), I feel that way about the French New Wave. Hugely important in the history of cinema, and Cahiers du Cinéma later influencing more populist filmmakers like Coppola and Lucas and Spielberg, and you can't study film without studying New Wave. But God almighty if I don't find the movies pretentious and annoying. Let me never watch Godard again as long as I live, please. (And I'm secretly pissed that everyone still subscribes to the auteur theory, but that's neither here nor there.) I'm sure I would have my film major card revoked if it came out that I didn't like Breathless, but there it is, and the same is kind of true for literary novels.

Not that I don't appreciate you explaining it all to me! It was an interesting excerpt to read. I think I am a-okay with enjoying brief passages like that, where I can really just concentrate on the language and the devices employed - I don't know if I could work through an entire book like that, though. Not while trying to follow a plot. (Or, as it sometimes seems, wishing there were more of a plot.)

Re: Part 2

[icepixie]

Oh, I know what you mean about the art-house films. I've just given up on anything labeled "indie" unless the plot synopsis is just mindbogglingly intriguing. (Dogma 95, oh Jesus YES, that stuff is awful. I saw a play based on Festen once, and I wanted to just close my eyes and scream by the end.) I completely understand appreciating the artistry and technique but not actually finding something entertaining, and if it's not your field, then there's no point in putting in the time to appreciate it if you're not actually getting any entertainment value of it.

I've never heard of Breathless, but I just looked up the Wikipedia article, and D: D: D:.

Or, as it sometimes seems, wishing there were more of a plot.

Heh. You would definitely not like Mrs. Dalloway, then. Seriously, the only thing that actually happens in the real world/present time is that she prepares for a party she's giving that night, talks with an old friend who's come to town, and gives the party. :)