Emma > Recent Status Updates

Arousal, when it came, was an inconvenience - a wrench in the routine and a distraction. It was a heavy blanket weighing her down in the night, it was the drag of honey into lungs.

That night, she woke up with the dredges of a dream still hot in her mouth: a pooling heat in her belly, the drag of a hand, the puff of breath on her neck. She thought someone had been in her room, but there was no one. There was only she.

These last few years you have carried a great burden, and carried it alone - [...] You are stooped, you are worn, you are bowed under the weight of your past, and you are only twenty years old. Now let go. Let others bear the burden, who are stronger, and appointed by God to carry the cares of state. Look up at the world, instead of down at your prayer book. Try smiling. You'll be surprised how much better you feel.

Henry's father is ill, but he is not ready to die. This is a problem for the king himself. It is an even more serious problem for everyone else. A semi-functioning king is far worse for the realm than a dead one.

When the final overtures for peace have been made and refused, a little after midday, the trumpets and drums sound. The cry 'Advance banner!' goes up. Then, to a chorus of yells, the twang and quiet hiss of arrow-shot begins on both sides. Soon the sky is hailing sharp death.

For God's sake let us sit upon the ground / And tell sad stories of the death of kings

Grief boundeth where it falls, / Not with the empty hollowness, but weight. / I take my leave before I have begun; / For sorrow ends not when it seemeth done.

[Richard II] satisfied himself on the basis of one brief visit that he now understood all Ireland's problems.*
*This remains a common English delusion. (lol)

Mercy has now entered into her old age. She is the lady of the house, but she mostly keeps to her own part, a book open on her knees. She reminds him of an image of St. Barbara he saw once in Antwerp, a saint reading against the noise of a construction site, backed by scaffolding and raw brick.

The word 'however' is like an imp coiled beneath your chair. It induces ink to form words you have not yet seen, and lines to march across the page and overshoot the margin. There are no endings. If you think so you are deceived as to their nature. They are all beginnings. Here is one.

He is reminded of a picture he saw once in the Low Countries, of a saint being flayed alive. The skin of the man's calves was folded neatly over his ankles, like soft boots, and his face wore an expression of unblinking serenity.

His past lies about him like a burnt house. He has been building, building, but it has taken him years to sweep up the mess.

The square is empty again; and he himself only a black shape against the brickwork, a fragment cut out of the night. If I ever need to vanish, he says, this is where I shall do it.

He takes the child to a looking glass so she can see her wings. Her steps are tentative, she is in awe at herself. Mirrored, the peacock eyes speak to him. Do not forget us. As the year turns, we are here: a whisper, a touch, a feathers breath from you.

"...especially when men write verses to them, and there are some who say that Wyatt writes better verses than me, though I am the king." He blinks at him: four o'clock, sleepless; you could call it harmless vanity, God love him, if only it were not four o' clock.

You can have a silence full of words. A lute retains, in its bowl, the notes it has played. The viol, in its strings, holds a concord. A shrivelled petal can hold its scent, a prayer can rattle with curses; an empty house, when the owners have gone out, can still be loud with ghosts.

He feels a moment of jealousy towards the dead, to those who served kings in slower times than these; nowadays the products of some bought or poisoned brain can be disseminated through Europe in a month.

There are twenty-one chapters. If it keeps raining I mean to read them all. Some of these things are true and some of them lies. But they are all good stories.

he wolf on my hall till I cromwell

Oh priscilla lammeter, the feminist icon that you are

Gradually these situations arise, she can see that now, just one step after another, and by the time a few weeks or months have passed, your life is no longer recognisable.

(about british writer Kinglake): "His ostensible purpose in the book is to prove that travel in the Orient is important to 'moulding of your character - that is, your very identity,' but in fact this turns out to be little more than solidifying 'your' anti-Semitism, xenophobia, and general all-purpose race prejudice." wow, he reads these victorians to filth!!

Very readable, relatable, immersive. Appreciate rooney's own take on stream-of-consciousness narration and the distinct voice of each brother

so enlightening (and encouraging) to read about the methods of effective activism put forth by chomsky. weighing the risk of potential backlash against the very real possibility of change on the ground.

this man really hates his wife huh.

The inmate of an asylum; someone who could not possibly look back at his life with any kind of pleasure. Yet there was, in the thin light of his winter eyes, a certain slaty grandeur, as if failure had raised him up, had scoured him in a way one might almost envy.

The rest was glass and concrete. Angular dummies in winter modes. Doors opening into scented air. Some excitement of money.

very juicy first chapter. quiet suspense. the feeling of something terrible about to happen.