Francisca > Recent Status Updates

This is going to be “currently reading” for a very long time: I’m taking it slow and hopping around.

The brief biography was fascinating, though: I didn’t realize many of his poems were written when he was (unjustly) thrown in prison for nine months! He composed them in his head until finally someone gave him some paper to write them down

“The Night Before Christmas” reads like a farce and is the reverse of the previous story: here the devil gets tricked into becoming a flying carpet by the judicious use of the Cross. Also, memo to everyone: coal sacks are a terrible place to hide.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

First Ukrainian Tale: St John’s Eve

When you make a deal with the Devil, there are pretty horrifying consequences. Watching someone make a deal with the Devil is like watching characters in a horror movie decide to split up to find out what’s making the weird noise. Just don’t do it!

"There is a mode of novel-writing which used to be much in vogue, but which has now gone out of fashion. It is, nevertheless, one which is very expressive when in good hands, and which enables the author to tell his story with more natural trust than any other, I mean that of familiar letters. I trust I shall be excused if I attempt it as regards this one chapter..."

Changing economic prospects due to industrialization; contentious electioneering and accusations of bribery and fraud; perils of speed dating.... 1858 and 2021 keep sounding more and more alike :D

"From my tedious way of telling it, the reader will be led to imagine that the hand-squeezing had been protracted to a duration quite incompatible with any objection to such an arrangement on the part of the lady; but the fault is all mine: in no part hers. Were I possessed of a quick spasmodic style of narrative, I should have been able to include it all ... in five words and half a dozen dashes and inverted commas"