W.R. Gingell > Recent Status Updates

still lots of hard-core gothic description that i love, still moments of sublime meaning

i've slowed down bc brain does not want to co-operate; hopefully that will change again soon!

i've been having some really cool dreams after reading this before bed--plus i'm getting good sleep

so win/win

the imagery in canto 7 of inferno is particularly visceral and cinematic

up to canto 4, which will be for tomorrow (or later when i'm tucked up in bed). back to my other book!

so many good lines so far; my highlights are going to be CRAZY by the time i'm done

the Ciardi translation is so much better than the Longfellow one, which is so bad that i would dig longfellow up just to punch him in the face

anyway i am LOVING this already and i'm only 2 cantos deep

"Greatest & first of a man's lies are usually those he tells about himself. Hitler could not have forced the "big lie" technique down the throat of Germany if he had not began by lying about the goodness & wisdom of Hitler...Well for us if only great men could be great hypocrites, but unfortunately this sort of greatness is possible to us all"

"The road to Calvary was lined with many of us whited sepulchers--with scribes who claimed knowledge they had not, and pharisees who claimed holiness they had not...Denunciations of lying have been loud & frequent...and yet we all know the meaning of the words "pious fraud". From the beginning, the devil has loved to tempt the devout to lie for the sake of their good cause--and thereby make it a bad one."

"Have we got a society riddled with theft? There are two good places to look for the answer--in the headlines and in our hearts. We recognise that dishonesty seems to be a commonplace in our political life; and...we usually accept thieves in high places as inevitable...but what about the thief in the mirror? the dishonesty privately lurking in...us, without which our public dishonesty could hardly exist for long"

my lil girl is growing up so fast!

this kid..!

"...she would not be surprised if even in Henry and Eleanor Tilney, some slight imperfection might hereafter appear; and upon this conviction she need not fear to acknowledge some actual specks in the character of their father, who, though cleared from the grossly injurious suspicions which she must ever blush to have entertained, she did believe, upon serious consideration, to be not perfectly amiable."

Henry being especially sweet with Catherine so that she doesn't throw herself into an abyss of self-blame and excoriation 🥹

And Catherine, after recalling herself very sensibly from the brink of that pit; "she had only to forgive herself, and be even more happy"

Henry is now being grumpy about the phrase "faithful promise" in an entirely correct and entirely pedantic way

(and of COURSE he knows how to use the word "infer" correctly)

and then in a few moments he goes on to scoff that a thing can't possibly happen bc, and i quote, "remember that we are ENGLISH, that we are CHRISTIANS"

so i guess he gets to fall flat on his face sometimes too 😂

“THERE MUST BE MURDER”

have never felt so seen as i have reading mr henry "THERE MUST BE MURDER" tilney ranting for ten minutes about Catherine using the word "nice"

this is my favourite re-read so far; i'm guessing because of my age?

the chapter on "thou shalt not commit adultery" was full of small, thoughtful things, but what i mostly took out of it was how much Lewis was on Joy's mind

in this, the chapter where she's discussing marriage, remarriage & the christian ideas & ideals of both, she quotes lewis at least three times, which i find adorable. yes girl, i see the unconscious shifting of the mind toward lewis when you consider marriage ^-^

"They dreamed of revenge...a prince of war, who would smash the enemies they could not smash for themselves. Blind with hatred...even their law...had become corrupted into pointless rituals...a reassurance that they were indeed different from other people, a true super race.

What did he tell them, those bitter brooding men?

...that they must forgive their enemies!"

(2/2)

"....In part, this interpretation calls into question the equation of authenticity with resistance to the status quo...instead, individuals are constantly deciding how to manage and express competing and even at times contradictory cultural values."

from the chapter on Thecla:

"...women, including Christian women, might choose conservative expressions of modesty as they demonstrate their agency....This interpretation of women's agency is an important corrective to earlier scholarship's thesis that agency is synonymous with autonomy and can only be seen in countercultural moves and poses of resistance" (1/2)

absolutely fascinating so far!

reading to edit and WHAT A RELIEF to find that this book is much better than my gremlin brain tried to convince me it was

it's getting cuter, you blokes

LET👏A👏 TALL👏 QUEEN👏 WEAR👏 HER👏 HIGH👏 HEELS👏

ok, everyone in to grab Louis and beat him up behind the bottle-o, yeah?

very fond of this:

""A lot of people talk about relationships being two people becoming one," Andie agrees. "And that's true, but you're still talking about two different people with two different backgrounds trying to merge their lives. Without knowing what the other needs and being willing to help support them is ripe ground for misunderstandings to arise."

giving the anxiety-brain to the male mc and not the female mc is GENIUS and also i'm SO delighted to see that Chase is so willing and open to consider that *he* might be the issue when it comes to his...well, issues--even if his gremlin anxiety brain is what's mostly eating at him

i am a very happy camper rn

being inside Chase's anxiety-riddled gremlin brain is fun and also very, very familiar

give 👏 this 👏 boy 👏 his 👏 therapy 👏

Claire just casually dropping bangers in the narrative:

"Lily hadn't killed but she was still lost to the madness...No one had taught her control or how to craft her own fetters for the urges. Her maker had been the one to control her, and now he was dead"

as a woman coming from a controlling patriarchal church background, this was the thing that hit hardest about the privilege of self-government/responsibility

snaffled an early copy of this book and i CANNOT WAIT 🤩

yesssss marriage of "convenience" is a go!

also loving the theme of strong female friendships that continues on from book one; the women are allowed to be complex, difficult, and dangerous to navigate.

they're allowed to be wrong (and even unpleasant) while the book reminds us that they still deserve not to be assaulted, mistreated, and hurt.

we're also navigating friendships with difficult parts, betrayal, and potential to hurt, and i love that