Matthew > Recent Status Updates

Fantastic showpiece scenes with supporting characters like Éponine, Enjolras, and Gillenormand keep me going, but I'm not sure that this student revolution is how I would've most preferred this novel to culminate. In the end, however, it's Hugo's decision, not mine.

Switching to Marius as a protagonist wasn't as difficult as I expected; he's admirable and sympathetic. Plus, it's sweet to briefly glimpse Cossette and Valjean from his point of view, such as when he notices a monogrammed handkerchief left behind from where they sat in the park. It smells so prettily, he's certain it must be Cossette's. Turns out, it's gentle old Valjean's!

Hugo claiming to have found Valjean's handwritten record of a troubling dream and reproducing it for the reader in full ("Forms Suffering Takes During Sleep") is a literary gag worthy of Melville or Joyce.

"If the bulk of American sf could be said to be written by robots, about robots, for robots, then the bulk of English fantasy seems to be written by rabbits, about rabbits and for rabbits." (p. 203, 204)

"The swift Southern twilight had already veiled the forest as I stepped out of the cabin to smoke a cigar and promenade a bit and cogitate. A last trace of color lingering in the west faded out as I looked; the gray glimmer deepened into darkness, through which the white lake vapors floated in thin, wavering strata across the water."

Dreary.

Phenomenal. This will stay with me.

"I beg my reader’s pardon, but my reader will see the necessity for the author’s absolute accuracy in insisting on detail, because the story that follows is a dangerous story for a scientist to tell, in view of the vast amount of nonsense and fiction in circulation masquerading as stories of scientific adventure." (Ch. XIII)

The references to pizza, Walkmen, conga lines and the like grate, but I'm trying to stay on board with Pratchett's vision.

Halyard was in his library, cleaning a revolver, when I entered.

"Your room is next to mine," he said; "pleasant dreams, and kindly refrain from snoring."

This is pretty dull stuff.

"On the first sight I lov'd you: since which time,
Though I have travell'd, I have been in travel
More for this second blessing of your eyes."

Contract work in editorial took me away from this, and now I'm finding it difficult to get back in. We'll see if I finish this.

An impressive, spirited beginning. Sackville-West's narration is witty, bitchy, and alive, yet also built upon the back of sturdy scholarship. "Charles VII could not help being born a backboneless creature"...

Revisiting this as I'll be directing 10-year-olds in it this August.

I wasn't going to read this immediately but the essay "Wave ciao ciao to the camera" completely and totally fucked me up. So here we go

I wonder if Darnielle was thinking at all of Oslo's Helvete as he invented Monster Adult X.

Or, "Yum! Sodomy and the Lash"