Ben Walker > Recent Status Updates

Greene here talking about needing a certain amount of money to be have a writer’s life and produce quality writing, which is what I think A Room of One’s Own is about, but especially with regards to women

Loving this bit about nature and us having traits of poor and rich, ‘rainbow and granite.’ And we don’t understand why our inner nature compels us to be or act a certain way. This metaphor of sailors sailing blindly. ‘Nature, who has so much to answer for besides the perhaps unwieldy length of this sentence, has further complicate mates her task by adding to our confusion by providing not only a perfect …

'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.' A Bible quote I didn't understand so had to look up the meaning but very relevant in this story about black people in America in this era where not every day is promised to them and everything could be torn away from them at any minute, so best not to think about potential horrors and concentrate on the present

This recurring topic of being scared to love and to grow attached to anything as slaves, as you don’t own anything, even your own children, and anything can be taken away from you at any moment is just heartbreaking. I love this quote - ‘to get to a place where you could love anything you chose - not to need permission for desire - well now, that was freedom’

Omg the drama ! That wake was like a soap, and I just actually hate Luzhin with a passion like he genuinely believes he’s still in the right! Poor Sonia and Katerina Ivanovna I feel so bad for them like they have genuinely suffered more than Jesus. I’m glad Raskolnikov is as smart as he is to realise his plan in framing Sonia for stealing just to get back at him and win back Dunia

Major slay from Dunia and Raskolnikov and their mum ganging up on Luzhin there omg, wish they had went in even harder on him

This conversation between Raskolnikov and Porfiry is interesting, where they are talking about men being split into two groups: one of ordinary men who follow rules and do as they should, and men who break rules and laws and move humanity forward. I think Raskolnikov is potentially one of these men who thinks he is in the second group but is actually in the first

I like this bit about a man on his way to be executed who says he would rather live on a tiny platform surrounded by cliffs on all sides, only big enough for his feet, for all eternity, than die. You can tell this is about Dostoevsky’s own experiences in this he lead up to his own mock-execution

This whole description of how the former field-hand slaves are behaving with their newfound freedom after the war is so so racist and it genuinely seems like Margaret Mitchell must take the view of the confederates that they didn’t deserve to be emancipated. Some of the language used and the descriptions as monkeys, apes and creatures of low intelligence is horrific.

‘A pagan hearing the lapping of the waters around Charon’s boat could not have felt more desolate.’

"This time last year I would have run to Sam Hamilton to talk."
"Maybe both of us have got a piece of him," said Lee. "Maybe that’s what immortality is."

Adam and Samuel and Lee are discussing the story of Cain and Abel while trying to name the boys. The whole part about everyone thinks they invented sin themselves but virtue is taught is interesting, and that’s why this story of original sin makes Adam feel less guilty. Also literally just realised the mark on Cathy’s and Charles’ foreheads are potentially the mark of Cain?

Love this whole bit about the energy pent up inside the idle upper classes making them go for the first thing that looks acceptable to marry, causing them to rush into marriage, putting their energy into ‘excess sensuality’, compared to the working classes who eat acceptable amounts and work off this food so they act more rationally.

Cathy is actually a crazy bitch - telling Nelly to tell Linton she’s gonna go mad and lose her temper and that he should be scared, getting annoyed at her for not caring or looking concerned, then carrying out the pre-planned tantrum. Wtf

Omg - ‘The human being stares hopelessly through the barred window of his personality at the high walls of outward circumstance’

The Frau Consul’s illness is upsetting to read as I feel I would act and feel the same as she does: angry at her illness and desperate to get better, unwilling to believe she is actually deteriorating. It reminds me of The Death of Ivan Ilyich, in the sense that it feels like someone dying before their time and they feel this injustice. The way she is pushing away her family too and talking only to the doctors

Love Thomas’ thoughts on success and age and the actual thing being less exciting than the buildup - ‘When it is finished the pleasure is already gone[…] When one gets one’s wish too late, or works too hard for it, it comes already weighted with all sorts of small vexatious drawbacks - with all the dust of reality upon it, that one did not reckon with in fancy’

I love this quote, in a letter Consul Buddenbrook to Tony : ‘We are not born for that which, with our short-sighted vision, we reckon to be our own small personal happiness. We are not free, separate, and independ entities, but like links in a chain, and we could not by any means be what we are without those who went before us and showed us the way.’