Matthew > Recent Status Updates

"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"

Notably departs from the plays; for one, in Falstaff having survived the events of Henry V, but, most glaringly, that he's viciously and villainously horny, constantly bragging about the size of his penis and claiming to have fucked his nursemaid as a newborn and his niece as an old man. It doesn't feel like Falstaff, but it's drawing me in nonetheless; references to obscure Falstaffiana like Hugh Evans will do that.

I was reading this, enjoying it, bopping along-- when I left it at my uncle's house. Oops! To be continued.

Delightfully historiographical opening to chapter three-- assorted scraps and remembrances of Orlando's term as the English ambassador to Constantinople, disconnected from his point of view because of a supposed fire at the embassy, and that disconnection only further illustrating the depth of his isolation. Isolation which leads, of course, to a revelation for which this novel has become famous.

It's a bit of a comedown to read this after having recently read Moby-Dick and Orlando-- this is not writing of the same order, and I'm surprised to see it here rated higher than both of those other books. But it's fun.