Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

So this book is really, really awesome.  It ends a little suddenly, and it has a weird needless interlude, but other than that it is so good.  So it starts off with Catherine, our heroine (as Austen never forgets to remind us), visiting Bath for the first time (WATCH OUT FOR WICKHAM!).  She makes friends with a girl named Isabella, who I had a great dislike for from the start--I'm just saying, she seemed like bad news to me from the get-go.  Female intuition?  Sure, why not?  So she meets this fellow, Henry Tilney (I find it interesting that he's referred to by his first name, when Mr Darcy hardly ever is.  I wonder why that's so... Change of time and customs, maybe?  Though I believe they were only written ten years apart, if that...) and instantly falls for him, though Isabella seems quite interested in pushing her stupid brother on her.  Isabella's family does everything in their power to keep Catherine away from the Tilneys, which leads to several scenes where if I could blue skiddoo into books, punching would have occurred.  Meanwhile, Isabella starts flirting with Henry's brother and basically becomes the female Willoughby (I could kill her, I really could!).  Catherine visits the Tilneys and the weird interlude is when Catherine imagines that Henry's father killed his wife because he seems unaffected when people mention her.  It makes sense in that Austen warns us that she enjoys Gothic novels and scary stories but at the same time it's kind of distracting and from Jane Austen, it feels like it's coming straight out of left field.  And then a little while later Catherine goes home and the end magically occurs.  Awesome!  Now let's get to this...


First of all, instead of saying etc. or et cetera, people back in the day just used &c.  That's awesome because one, it's an ampersand (though I don't really like it touching the c.  It's a little too awesome for the c, but okay, fine) and it makes sense.  'Et' means 'and' in Latin, and I think it may mean that in Spanish too.  Maybe.  Yes, I thought it was worthwhile to mention this.  Please stop judging me.

There's a biographical note from the 1818 edition included within this edition.  Here is a section from its first paragraph: "And when the public, which has not been insensible to the merits of 'Sense and Sensibility,' 'Pride and Prejudice,' 'Mansfield Park,' and 'Emma,' shall be informed that the hand which guided that pen is now mouldering in the grave, perhaps a brief account of Jane Austen will be read with a kindlier sentiment than simple curiosity" (3).  Those... Those Victorians sure have a way with words... Talk about tact.

"No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her born to be an heroine" (13).  All right, comma splice and weird improper use of language aside, Jane Austen once again creates a great (and somewhat backhanded) opening sentence.

"Mrs Allen was one of that numerous class of females, whose society can raise no other emotion than surprise at there being any men in the world who could like them well enough to marry them" (20). MRS BENNET?  This kind of makes me wonder if Jane's mother or one of her aunts was like this...

Oh, when they first meet Mr Tilney, he tells them that he buys his own cravats.  Boy knows his cravats?  SNAP THAT MAN UP.

"'Thank you; for now we shall soon be acquainted, as I am authorized to tease you on this subject whenever we meet, and nothing in the world advances intimacy so much'" (29).

Jane Austen also interjects a lot too, in a Kurt Vonnegut-ish manner.  I've been reading the Hipster Disney Tumblr, so I'm tempted to make a joke, but I'm going to resist.  I think what may be more interesting is though this is one of the first books she wrote, I believe it wasn't published until after her death.  I thought that this way of hers had developed in her later books (it comes through a little in Mansfield Park), but I guess not.  Maybe that's why it wasn't published when it was originally submitted to the publisher...?  The fact that she's a she probably didn't hurt either.  But maybe that's why it tones down a little later on.  (There will be more on this later...)

"Mr Tilney was no fonder of the play than the Pump-room" (35).  A pump room, according to Google, is a microbrewery of sorts.  (Perhaps a pub?) This is the only time I've seen her mention it, and she mentions it at least three times every fifteen pages.  Before I looked it up (IE, before two minutes ago) I thought it was a sort of boiler-engine room sort of place (which doesn't even really make much sense in the story since it talks about men going there to smoke, but my brain is always keyed for steampunk, okay?), which made this really, really funny... Like Oscar Wilde if steampunk had actually happened when it should have... But now it's not.  Sigh... I just want everything to be steampunk!  And as long as I'm dreaming, I would also like to be dating Ben Barnes.  Cool, thanks, bye.

Isabella starts talking about how partial she is to the profession of the clergyman (cough cough Catherine's brother) and she sighs a little dramatically when she tells Catherine about this.  "Perhaps Catherine was wrong in not demanding the cause of that gentle emotion--but she was not experienced enough in the fineness of love, or the duties of friendship, to know when delicate raillery was properly called for, or when confidence should be forced" (36).  Spoiler alert: nobody actually does.  Even when they think they do and seem pretty confident, refrain from believing it.  Trust me.

Anyways, here is a (long) example of what I mean by Jane Austen's little interludes:
"They... shut themselves up, to read novels together.  Yes, novels;--for I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom so common with novel writers, of degrading by their contemptuous censure the very performances, to the number of which they are in themselves adding--joining with their greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such work, and scarcely ever permitting them to be read by their own heroine, who, if she accidentally take up a novel, is sure to turn over its insipid pages with disgust" (37).  Okay, you know what, I can't put this all down here.  She goes on for about two pages and starts lecturing the entire world because they honour authors such as Milton or Pope but then bash contemporary novelists and their novels and treat bookreading with shame. Et cetera, et cetera--it boils down to the fact that Jane Austen is not subtle.  (Though I do agree with her.)  This thought process will be echoed later in Pride and Prejudice, when someone degrades the importance of reading (when Elizabeth is teased for preferring reading to cardplaying?) and Mr Darcy says that he respects and agrees with that (or whatever it is exactly he says, all I know is that he's got Elizabeth's back) and earlier when he's talking about his library at Pemberly and someone is complimenting it and Mr Darcy's just like, psh, yeah, "'I cannot comprehend the neglect of a family library in such days as these'".
Oh, and Wilde complains about the same thing, possibly in his essay "The Critic as Artist" (don't quote me on that one, though...).  He says that people should not use classics as bludgeons with which to beat new novels into shape.  It's really well-written, though, I'm not doing it any credit at all... Then again, of course it's well written.  Look who wrote it!
"Let us not desert one another; we are an injured body" (37).  This actually does not occur in the story's context, this occurs in Jane Austen's little lecture.  Authors of contemporary novels insult each other and put each other down (especially if their heroine picks up a book that is contemporary and puts it down with disgust) in an attempt to make themselves stand out and seem better or more moral or what have you, thus deserting each other when they really should be standing together and supporting each other under the public eye, and so on.
By the way, on page forty-eight we get an illustration of the stupidity of Mr Thorpe (Isabella's father), who is just as foolish as his daughter is a flighty scoundrel.  Mr Thorpe is almost as stupid as the headmaster (or whoever it is Humbert Humbert speaks to at the girls' school) in Lolita.  Catherine asks him if he has ever read Udolpho and he says that he never reads novels, for he always has something else to do.  He then says that novels are "'all so full of nonsense and stuff; there has not been a tolerably decent one come out since Tom Jones, except the Monk; I read that t'other day; but as for all the others, they are the stupidest things in creation'" (49).  Later he admits to liking the writing of "Mrs Radcliff"--the author of the book Catherine has suggested that Mr Thorpe read.  He then attempts to cover for himself by saying he confused it with a French book named Camilla--a book which, despite my never reading it, he has clearly misunderstood its point and deeper meaning.  Though I have never read anything of Tom Jones (though the name sounds familiar) or "the Monk", it's clear that he's exactly what Jane Austen has just railed against, and that he is a fool.

Isabella's brother attempts to attract Catherine--the whole family tries to pull them together in very annoying ways--and at one point he attempts to distract her from Mr Tilney by way of another dance.  But how does he ask?  "'I suppose you and I are to stand up and jig it together again'" (59).  LINES THAT WOULD WORK ON ME.  Well, if they were from someone other than John Thorpe.  But still.  I pretty much died laughing.  I know it was probably normal slang for the time, but still.  Best.  Thing.  Ever.

Also, like Mr Darcy, Catherine has an awesome "bugger off" scene.  Mr Darcy's "bugger off" scene is when he's writing a letter to his sister and one of the girls who so desperately want to win his attention are continuously up in his grills, talking incessantly, and he shuts her down continuously.  I'm not doing the scene any credit.  (It's in the first half of the book, in case if you're so curious... One of my posts about Pride and Prejudice specifically probably include it, but you'll have to find that yourself.)  Catherine's scene comes with Isabella--"'Do you know I get so immoderately sick of Bath; your brother and I were agreeing this morning that, though it is vastly well to be here for a few weeks, we would not live here for millions.  We soon found out that our tastes were exactly alike in preferring the country to every other place; really, our opinions were so exactly the same, it was quite ridiculous!  There was not a single point in which we differed; I would not have had you by for the world; you are such a sly thing, I am sure you would have made some droll remark or other about it.'  'No, indeed I should not.'  'Oh, yes you would indeed; I know you better than you know yourself.  You would have told us that we seemed born for each other, or some nonsense of that kind, which would have distressed me beyond conception... I would not have had you by for the world.' 'Indeed you do me injustice; I would not have made so improper a remark upon any account; and besides, I am sure it would have never entered my head.'  Isabella smiled incredulously, and talked the rest of the evening to James'" (70-71).  SHUT DOWN, ISABELLA, SHUT DOWN LIKE A BITCH.  OOOOH.  Haha, awesome.  I hate Isabella so much.  Does it show?  (Good job, Catherine, even if I'm not sure if you were intentionally shutting her down, but I'm pretty sure you were!)

"And now I may dismiss my heroine to the sleepless couch, which is the true heroine's portion; to a pillow strewn with thorns and wet with tears.  And lucky may she think herself, if she get another good night's rest in the course of the next three months" (90).  Okay, so Jane Austen's being a little bit of an intense romantic.  But this is after the Thorpes attempt to separate Catherine from the Tilneys so that John Thorpe may be able to snap her up... UGH IT MAKES ME SO MAD.  The Thorpes suck.  Hey, I have an idea.  Isabella can marry Mr Murdstone.  Regret being a gold digger now!?  Well, it's too damn late.
The means they do it by is forcing Catherine to break dates with the Tilneys (sometimes by actually using physical force) and then they make deceitful reasons up for Catherine.  Is this high school right now, Thorpes?  Your kid is a slovenly mess, your daughter is a gold digger, and you guys aren't exactly the plastics.  I will fight all of you.

"'If I am wrong, I am doing what I believe to be right'" (100).  Again, the Thorpes are trying to screw up Catherine's relationship with the Tilneys.  Isabella and her brother literally grab her by the arms and hold her back.  UGH, they make me so mad.  While I was reading the book I wanted to hurt somebody.  And I know Victorian women were supposed to be restrained and whatever, but I hate being manhandled.  I would have seriously punched them both in the face.  Or at least struggled.  Maybe I would have kicked them.  It would probably a little different from wrestling with my brother, in that they wouldn't be expecting it and I would have defeated ALL OF THE THORPES.  Yeeeees.  And the crowd goes wild!  Can't you hear them cheering?  Ah, my public!  Don't dream it, be i--Oh, sorry.  I'm confusing myself with Tim Curry again.  My bad, sorry.

"'Young men and women driving about the country in open carriages!'" (104).  NO!  Anything but that!  Say it isn't so, Jane!  Next they'll be showing off their--dare I say it?  Their ankles, and maybe even their shoulders! The very thought of it makes me faint...

"'A monstrous deal of good nature, and it is not only good nature, but you have so much, so much of every thing; and then you have such--upon my soul I do not know any body like you.'  'Oh! dear, there are a great many people like me, I dare say, only a great deal better'" (123).  I love Catherine's cute little naive response to the compliments being placed upon her.  Also, I love it when Jane Austen uses the adjective 'monstrous'.  How much?  I consider it equatable to my love of Colin Firth yelling...

So by the time volume II starts, Isabella starts growing distant because it's becoming clear that the Thorpes' plan isn't going to work out, and also because Isabella is a scheming manipulative little Willoughby.  Man, Isabella is even worse than Susan!  Catherine also takes a time at the Tilneys' where because of her love of Gothic horror novels becomes convinced that she will uncover some crazy mystery.  She also becomes convinced that father Tilney poisoned his wife or something, because he didn't seem very upset when talking about his late wife (to be fair, she died nine years prior).  This part of the book is kind of arduous to stick to--if it was any other author, it probably wouldn't be so bad, but from Jane Austen it was kind of like, uh... What the hell are you doing, Jane?   The end is, like I must have mentioned but don't care to actually check, wraps things up sort of suddenly while playing off of this as well, so this bit is kind of what keeps it from being next to Emma on the 'classics' shelf.  (Also: it's really bothering me that I can't think of what book would be on its other side.  I'm pretty sure it would be The Martian Chronicles, but...)  Anyways.  This is kind of putting my 'final thoughts' paragraph first, but whatever.  Let's continue, shall we...?

Oh, and Isabella tries to convince Catherine that she's always been in love with or eventually fell in love with the brother Thorpe.  No, Isabella, your brother sucks.  Then she attempts to make Catherine agree to an engagement and Catherine is just like no... And then Catherine's beloved's brother appears and the two of them start flirting and I could kill Isabella, for serious.  I'm not going to blame the Tilney brother for being seduced by her, for clearly he's an idiot.
"'Circumstances change, opinions alter'" (146).
"'I wish your heart were independent.  That would be enough for me.'  'My heart, indeed!  What can you have to do with hearts?  You men have none of you any hearts.'  'If we have not hearts, we have eyes; and they give us torment enough'" (147).  This actually occurs between Isabella and her Frederick Tilney.  This bit is okay, but then it becomes clear that he means it as a flirtation, not as a "I hate to look upon you because if you were a man your name would be Willoughby", it's a "It tortures me to see you if I can't be having sex with you an open carriage ride with you.

"'No man is offended by another man's admiration of the women he loves; it is the women only who can make it a torment'" (151).

"'I understand; she is in love with James and flirts with Frederick.'  'Oh! no, not flirts.  A woman in love with one man cannot flirt with another'" (151).  This--especially the second bit, the first bit is just there for sort of context--seems like it could exist in one of Wilde's plays easily.  (Speaking of which, I really need to reread those...)

So when Catherine is still convinced that father Tilney murdered his wife, she asks son that she's in love with about it.  He gives the most backhanded description of him: "'You have erred in supposing him not attached to her.  He loved her, I am persuaded, as well as it was possible for him to--We have not all, you know, the same tenderness of disposition--and I will not pretend to say that while lived, she might not often have had much to bear, but though his temper injured her, his judgment never did.  His value of her was sincere; and, if not permanently, he was truly afflicted by her death'" (197).  IE, "He loved her, probably, but he never showed it--I'm pretty sure he loved her though.  Yeah.  Really."  Okay, snarkiness aside, I did like this passage, even as unsure as it is.

And theeeeeen I skip about another forty pages.  Upon discovering that Isabella and Frederick Tilney have practically eloped, Catherine begs to go home and of course the Tilneys grant that wish.  So...
"Catherine was too wretched to be fearful" (230).

"In the embrace [of her family], as she stepped from the carriage, she found herself soothed beyond any thing that she had believed possible... In the joyfulness of family love every thing for a short time was subdued" (233).

"For soon were all her thinking powers swallowed up in the reflection of her own change of feelings and spirits since last she had trodden that well-known road.  It was not three months ago since, wild with joyful expectation, she had there run backwards and forwards some ten times a-day, with an heart light, gay, and independent; looking forward to pleasures untasted and unalloyed, and free from the apprehension from evil as from the knowledge of it.  Three months ago had seen her all this; and now, how altered a being did she return!" (237).

"She was assured of [Henry's] affection; and that heart in return was solicited, which... they pretty equally knew was already entirely his own; for, though Henry was now sincerely attached to her, though he felt and delighted in all the excellencies of her character and truly loved her society, I must confess that his affection originated in nothing better than gratitude, or... that a persuasion of partiality for him had been the only cause of giving her a serious thought.  It is a new circumstance in romance, I acknowledge, and dreadfully derogatory of an heroine's dignity; but if it be as new in common life, the credit of a wild imagination will at least be all my own" (243).  First of all, why the hell can't Jane Austen seem to understand the proper use of 'an'?  My guess is that she must 'ave 'ad an accent that cut out the 'h' like so.  Thus, she was right for applying the 'an' rule... I guess.  Well, whatever.  I'm still trying to figure out what exactly Jane means by this passage.  At first I thought that it was a sort of bitterness--then I was like nope, not possible.  But then, I realized that yeah, it's possible.  I definitely sense some bitterness, or at the very least biting sarcasm.  I imagine that she liked somebody, but they could have cared less because she never did anything about it, or not enough to suggest anything more (this would also explain that line in Pride and Prejudice when someone--possibly Elizabeth's mother--says that women must show more than they actually feel).  It could also be just Jane Austen complaining about novels of the time making overdramatic love stories (et tu, Jane Austen?) that are completely unrealistic and what Jane has described as an alternative is much more real, thus creating irony because her idea is not so wild or unusual at all.  But funny story Jane Austen, your little love stories ARE unusual and wild.  Life is not that nice!  (Now who's being bitter?)  Way to accidentally create your own standard that can't be lived up to, cough cough Mr Darcy cough that entire book cough.

So, father Tilney isn't ecstatic with Henry and Catherine's union, probably because Catherine was convinced that he murdered his wife.  Okay, no.  The real reason is that Isabella's brother got mad at Catherine for turning him down so he told the senior Tilney that Catherine's family was destitute.  Henry doesn't even care, and he goes to marry anyways, and at that point papa Tilney is just like, whatever.  I guess you're not as poor as I thought.  Sure.  I'm not even kidding you.  Let me spoil the end real quick: "On the strength of this [discovery that they do have some money], the General, soon after Eleanor's marriage, permitted his son to return to Northanger, and thence made him the bearer of his consent, very courteously worded in a page full of empty professions to Mr. Morland.  The event which it authorized soon followed: Henry and Catherine were married, the bells rang and every body smiled... It will not appear, after all the dreadful delays occasioned by the General's cruelty, that they were essentially hurt by it.  To begin perfect happiness at the respective ages of twenty-six and eighteen is to do pretty well; and professing myself moreover convinced, that the General's unjust interference, so far from being really injurious to their felicity, was perhaps rather conducive to it, by improving their knowledge of each other, and adding strength to their attachment, I leave it to be settled by whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny, or reward filial disobedience" (252).  Although Jane wraps it all up nicely (I must admit) it's just like, ummmm, I'm done writing now.  Peace!  The problem solves itself in less than two pages, and this whole conclusion of happy marriage I've just quoted for you is literally back-to-back with the General realizing that they weren't exactly beggars.  Maybe the in-between stuff would have been a tad boring, but at least it would have seemed a little more fleshed out than the General just shrugging and saying, "Well, I guess this isn't the worst thing that's ever happened to the family."  Lazy writing, Jane!  (I guess this post did turn out kind of bipolar, though not as bad as Mansfield Park, of course.  I fully intended to go into this praising Jane to the heavens.)  Oh well.  I still like her a whole lot.  I love Jane Austen--I guess it's kind of like my abuse of Jeff Goldblum.  I love him, but I guess it's hard to tell some most all of the time.
Either way, this is definitely an Austen book I'd suggest to people.  It may be a little sloppy, but that's probably just because that this is probably her actual first book (or at least the second).
Speaking of it being sloppy, I'm pretty sure I was praising her for writing her own straight-up commentary into the book, like Kurt Vonnegut is wont to.  I've since decided that she didn't do it out of genius or novelty (well, maybe a little out of novelty), but that she didn't do it with finesse--because she didn't really know... how to write, if you know what I mean.  Still, not half-bad at all.

Also, she seriously abuses semicolons.  Like, I feel like I need to go through semicolon detox.  Jeez, Jane.  I should go reread Lord of the Rings.  When you find a semicolon in there you know you've got something special... Even though there are pretty much a million places where semicolons would be appropriate and preferred, TOLKIEN.

Oh, and there was a page I marked but couldn't remember why I marked till I lost it--it is mentioned, while Catherine is riding home, that she must stop to change the horses.  That's so weird!  I mean, I guess it makes sense--you can't just run the horse till it dies, and I mean you can't just fill it with gas or give it an oil change and it be good for another fifty miles... But what of the horses?  How do you get your horses back?  Was all of Regency England just forever trading horses across the country?  How did these things work?

Also, I finished this book while I was the mic runner for the school musical, Working.  It was pretty fun to see people rushing in and out of boiler room trying to get their outfits on in time or picking up mics or what have you while I was very placidly just reading Jane Austen by flashlight.


MLA Citation Information: Austen, Jane.  Northanger Abbey.  Oxford University Press: London, 1975.



What else?  Lately my brain has just been shutting down.  I've been spelling wild "Wilde" and further "Furthur".  The first one is my own fault, and the second one is usually accompanied with me silently cursing Robby D.

Also, does anybody remember Animorphs?  Can anybody believe that it's been ten years since it ended?  I sure can't... How did life go on?  I thought I would die when it ended, for real.  But here I am... Watching Doctor Who... Oh my God.  Animorphs/Doctor crossover.  How hard would it be!?  (Well, the Andalites would probably have some trouble with the Doctor.  Christopher Eccleston would probably Marco out, David would have been more of a Jake, and Matt... Matt would be funny Marco, not paranoid, kind of crazy Marco.)  But yeah.  The world should think about this.  Or maybe the BBC could make a good Animorphs TV series?  I'd trust them with it.



Last post's cryptic song lyrics: Technologic by Daft Punk (By the way, this is just the radio edit of it; the music video was made for that version of it)
This post's cryptic song lyrics: C-c-c-cinnamon lips and candy kisses on my tongue--fu-un.  B-b-b-buttery eyes, if only cries could come from those eyes.  Oh!  Have you landed and if so, would you let me know?  I'm tired of looking up into those starry eyes--

PS. Spellcheck decided to completely peace out this time around.  Sorry!  I've tried to weed out errors best I could.

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

Oh hey, what's up? Just reading some more Jane Austen, this time it's her very first book. Let's be frank: it's good, it's not as good as Pride and Prejudice, but when Mr Darcy isn't in it, is that really a huge surprise? No, but I really did like the book. Except for the parts where Mr Dashwood was involved, because I'd see the 'Mr' and the 'Da...' and immediately be like Fitzwilliam!?? Uh, (ahem). Let's see, let me summarize: There are two sisters, Elinor and Marianne, who are the main characters (You know how Pride and Prejudice is essentially 'Mr Darcy and Elizabeth'? Yeah) who fall in love and have heartbreak and weirdly parallel my senior year of high school. I guess the best description is that of Emma's: the inverse Pride and Prejudice. (Look, if all this mentioning of P&P is bothering you, just be glad that I haven't mentioned a certain Sebastian Melmoth at all yet for the first time in at least ten posts.)

Okay let's go then. First of all, this an Oxford edition, which means there are notes pertaining to Jane Austen's other books in the introduction and afterwards, because all the books were meant to be sold together in one collection. In this case, the introductory note closes on things changed between editions of Austen's books. For example, the change between the penny and twopenny post (pence?) and one sentence on page sixty-six of Mansfield Park that was deleted completely. My God, how interesting! So. Interested. Another thing about this being the Oxford edition, it means that when you take the jacket off it looks like a really well-preserved antique book. You know, like those Reader's Digests Condensed books that look like they're old leatherbounds in fantastic condition until you take a closer look and it's like I HATE YOU SO MUCH READER'S DIGEST GURGHHHH. Like that? Yeah. Hate that.

Due to economic problems early on, the sisters must leave their old home Norland to a cottage. Quoth Marianne (to Norland): "'Oh! happy house, could you know what I suffer in now viewing you from this spot, from whence perhaps I may view you no more!--And you, ye well-known trees!--but you will continue the same.--No leaf will decay because we are removed, nor any branch become motionless although we can observe you no longer!--No; you will continue the same; unconscious of the pleasure or the regret you occasion, and insensible of any change in those who walk under your shade!--But who will remain to enjoy you?'" (27). How Romantic of you! You know, Romanticism... All that love of nature, writings about men's mortality and lack of... effectiveness on nature... Maybe? Romanticism? Sounds like it could be, even though it might not be the right era for that sort of thing... Guys, I'm tired, okay? Also, kudos to Jane for using the word 'ye', even if it was more common back then.

Willoughby, a love interest of the book is first described as having "manly beauty" (43). Excuse me while I laugh my head off for about a million years...

"Marianne began now to perceive that the desperation which had seized her at sixteen and a half, of ever seeing a man who could satisfy her ideas of perfection, had been rash and unjustifiable" (49). This one seems... eh... a little bitter. Writing from experience, Jane? (Perhaps Sense and Sensibility was the story they should have chosen for Becoming Jane, eh, Emma?)

Willoughby... Oh, heck. I'm still mad at him, even if he partially redeems himself later on. Major spoilers following, then. Willoughby and Marianne appear to be tailor-made for each other. They're flirting, they spend all their time together... It's suspected that they're secretly engaged. Willoughby cuts a lock of hair... and also puts it in his pocket-book. Look, I know man-purses were socially acceptable back then, but that doesn't make it any less funny! Anyway, my spoiler is that Willoughby turns out to be a complete gufgggrgffffffghkfgh. Willoughby leaves for a few months and has an affair (which impregnates the poor girl involved) and when he and Marianne see each other at a ball, it turns out he's hitting up a young lady who gets 50,000 a year, because she had the g and Marianne did not. He also is very rude to Marianne, speaks to her maybe four lines and excuses himself to continue hitting on this young lady. Marianne, of course is heartbroken. Mr Darcy is horrified by Willoughby's ungentlemanly and completely disgusting behavior and is about to kick his ass.

Look at that angry scowl. He's going to beat the ever loving God out of you. Can't touch you because you're rich? I don't think so, Willoughby. I gave him permission. And you're even worse than Wickham was. You're done.

"'Shyness is only the effect of a sense of inferiority in some way or other'" (94).

"'Sir John is as stupid as the weather'" (111). Not only is that a great insult, Sir John is being insulted in such a manner because he doesn't have a billiard room. Sir John, watch out. You're tempting Fitzwilliam, now.

Nothing really important here, but Jane Austen uses the adjective 'monstrous' for practically everything. It's kind of hilarious, even if it wasn't intended to be. It's a great adjective.

"'A man who has nothing to do with his own time has no conscience in his intrusion on that of others'" (204).

Willoughby has a confession and semi-redeeming speech, directed toward Elinor with the request that she pass it along to Marianne. I won't go into details, but it builds a small amount of sympathy, since he pretty much realizes that sure, he got the dolla billz (poundz?) but his life is going to be miserable because his wife is pretty much a shrew. There's more, but that's probably the most important point. It made me feel bad enough to revoke my certificate to Mr Darcy to beat him up, at least. Lucky for Willoughby--I've seen that guy break jaws.

Willoughby also confesses to watching them leave their house all the time--"'You would be surprised to hear how often I watched you'" (326). Jane Austen's first and only horror novel?

"'If I could but know his heart, everything would become easy'" (347). Oh really? Perhaps you and I should buy some cats together, because clearly both of us are out of luck (oh wait except you're not).

Ummm. Sorry this is a little sparse. Like I said, I enjoyed the book. It wasn't her best, but it's her first. Give her some credit! Heck, I think even Emma would enjoy this. The ending is satisfying, moreso with Elinor, but things work out for Marianne too. And the villain gets his, too. Like I said, the lack of Fitzwilliam is a little disheartening, but since apparently I can summon him whenever I want to beat people up that's not such a problem. (Darcy--meet me in drawing room. Leave your cravat on.)

Fun fact regarding the book: Because of receipt left in the book for the last 40+ years, I know that this edition was bought in 1978 on the day before my birthday! Cool, huh? I thought it was cool. Don't judge me!

My attempt at MLA citation: Austen, Jane. Sense and Sensibilty. Great Britain: University Press, 1978. Print.

Answer to last post's cryptic song lyrics for Emma: Little Sister by Queens of the Stone Age

This post's cryptic song lyrics for Emma: Loving your illusion, staring at a crooked crown--You always let me down

PS. Always remember to act gentlemanly, or you're going to get your butt kicked by a certain British nobleman.

Don't think for a second this guy couldn't kill you. Look at that scowl. He's already mad that he's not allowed to beat up Willoughby. (Rule #6: No suit coat, no cravat.)

The Collected Oscar Wilde

Well, I decided I wouldn't do this because I try to shy away from writing about collections of shorts stories and poetry and stuff because it's mainly summary, it's really disjointed, it usually has about .0001% of the original work imbued into it, and really would only mean the most to someone who's read the stuff for sure instead of just a casual observer. (This is not meant as a shot against you, Emma.) But, then my brain said OSCAR WILDE. And I was all, yeah, I AM going to talk about him for forty megabytes. I am.


Anyway, this is a Barnes & Noble collection of his randomly selected works, possibly all of his short stories, possibly all of his poetry, and all of his essays/lectures (maybe), and the three-act version of The Importance of Being Earnest. It also has a brief history of his life, as these books are wont to do, and a brief history of the note-taker of the volume, which no one reads.


I have a pretty clear idea idea of Oscar Wilde's life, though not an intimate idea, as I have never read this introduction, nor a biography of any sort on the man (which may seem kind of surprising). I skimmed the introduction included with the Barnes & Noble edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray, and that was enough. His history is not a pleasant one, at the end, and it does quite well to upset me, right down to my marrow. For those of you who don't know, Oscar Wilde was put on trial for homosexuality charges, and supposedly they couldn't reach a clear verdict (depending on the source, some say it was very cut-and-dry for guilty)--so they sent him to two years in jail with hard labor anyway. Actually, I lie when I say I never read the introduction in this book; I have skimmed the very end. I got so upset--so stomach sick, I get stomach sick just thinking about it here--I had to put the book down. The jail was a grimy place, naturally, dank and damp, the only toilet a bucket, and Wilde's health suffered greatly because of that, he was constantly ill, he had to perform hard labor that tore up his hands and fingernails (I have a thing about fingernails). And more, and more. You can see the difference in 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol' in him from his other works, and then compare it to his earlier works (I'll touch upon this later)... it's wrenching, for me at least. You remember how when I write about the Russian Revolution, specifically about the Romanovs, I get upset? This is one of those. It's just... so twisted, so wrong, and it strikes a painful note in me that there's no avoidance of at all or possibility of being fixed because it has passed, it has passed.




Well, on that depressing note, let's get started. My first note regards 'The Portrait of Mr WH', a story which seems to be more of an intention to get Wilde's theory of Shankspeare's sonnets being written for a male lover, or just a male in general, across. I don't think it's entirely Wilde's theory alone--he was just one of the first. (When I happened to bring this up to Heidi, she asked me, "Now what would Mr Wilde know about that sort of thing, hm?") I believe his theory was that they written for a handsome young actor, though in reality no historical basis exists for the boy. Anyway... the quote, very eloquent indeed: "To him... [the sonnets] were poems of serious and tragic import, wrung out of the bitterness of Shakespeare's heart, and made sweet by the honey of his lips" (13).

"'You forget that a thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it'" (20). "'After all, what do [the sonnets] tell us about Shakespeare? Simply that he was the slave of beauty.' 'Well, that is the condition of being an artist!'" (21). (These aren't related; this simply saves room.)


Another example of Wilde's brilliant eloquence: "Later on there came to Sidney's house in London, one--some day to be burned at Rome, for the sin of seeing God in all things--Giordana Bruno" (42).

"What does it matter? It is only acting, only a comedy in real life" (57). "Consciousness, indeed, is quite inadequate to explain the contents of personality. It is Art, and Art only, that reveals us to ourselves" (68). (This he fervently believes in and it will come up more frequently later on.)

"How curiously it had all been revealed to me! A book of Sonnets, published nearly three hundred years ago, written by a dead hand and in honour of a dead youth, had suddenly explained to me the whole story of my soul's romance... Strange, that we knew so little about ourselves, and that our most intimate personality was concealed from us!'" (70). This is beautiful, I love that phrase, "the whole story of my soul's romance". It's just... so lovely. This a fantastic passage, including that what the ellipses have hidden. But it was very touching, something about it touches me, it breaks my heart and makes me love it all the more fervently at the same time.

"Martyrdom was to me merely a tragic form of scepticism, an attempt to realise by fire what one had failed to do by faith. No man dies for what he knows to be true. Men die for what they want to be true, for what some terror in their heart tells them is not true" (77).

The next story is 'Lord Arthur Savile's Crime', a sort of comedy about murder, with an ending that always sort of surprises me and I understand, but kind of dislike because it is not where I would have taken it at all. (Though, with its humorous roots, my ending would have made it very awkward and much like Castor oil.) It's about Lord Arthur, a few months before his marriage, who gets his palm read at Lady Windmere's (I see what you did there!) home. The palm reader is quite frightened, and eventually tells Arthur he is destined to murder someone, so Arthur steels himself to kill before he gets married for his wife's sake. It's a comedy, because he just can't get it down--his attempt at exploding a relation falls flat, his attempt at poisoning an old family acquaintance falls flat... well, in humorous ways, I guess you kind of have to read it to see the humor really well.

"Actors are so fortunate. They can choose whether they will appear in tragedy or in comedy, whether they will suffer or make merry, laugh or shed tears. But real life is different. Most men and women are forced to perform parts for which they have no qualifications... the world is a stage, but the play is badly cast" (88). "Life to him meant action, rather than thought. He had that rarest of all things, common sense" (94).

From 'The Model Millionaire': "Romance is the privilege of the rich, not the profession of the unemployed" (113).

One of my favorite stories if 'The Canterville Ghost', the story of a ghost who attempts to terrify an American family who has recently moved into his domain. It is, for the most part, a comedy (the end is not, and whether I enjoy the end when I read it depends on my mood) that mocks Americans. For example, there is a bloodstain on the floor--the father is not disturbed, he simply takes special cleaning fluid and blots it out. When the ghost rattles his chains, the father offers him oil for the chains. It is meant to be (in its more comedic portion) a "satire upon American materialism" (Fletcher's note, 119). What I have marked is in its more serious ending, however, mostly of the ghost's interaction with the American family's daughter Virginia.

"'Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no to-morrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace'" (138).

"'You can have your secret as long as I have your heart'" (147). So, Oscar, let me turn that one right back on you. Because I'm pretty sure this is the sweetest thing I've ever read.

'The Young King' is a very clear Jesus metaphor through and through. A young king, before his coronation, has several nightmares, all of them about the works who suffered to find him jewels and gold and to weave his glorious robes and all, and becomes quite disturbed. He decides to go to the coronation wearing a sheepskin coat and held his crook as a scepter and used a crown of briars. Oh, did I mention that he was, at one point, a shepherd? I believe a big point is to be made that he is accused of doing himself up like a beggar and said that he will shame them all, but in reality he is more kingly and unable to shame, since he is following the example of, well, Jesus. It's a pretty cool little package, a pretty concept to write about. I've never seen something quite in this exact vein before.

My other favorite story is 'The Remarkable Rocket'. It's a story about rockets to be set off for the wedding of the king's son. All the rockets are personified, and there is one dreadful rocket who won't shut up about himself and how--well--remarkable he is.

"'Any place you love is the world to you'" (216).

"'...Love is not fashionable any more, the poets have killed it. They wrote so much about it that nobody believed them, and I am not surprised. True love suffers, and is silent'" (216). This kind of reminds me of the scene in Pride and Prejudice where Mr Darcy and Elizabeth are talking about poetry--Elizabeth says something like, how many loves have been destroyed poetry, Mr Darcy appears surprised, saying he always thought it to be the "food of love" (CH 9), but she responds with that it helps nourish a strong love, but will kill a fragile love (sonnets in particular).

"'Why, anybody can have common sense, provided that they have no imagination'" (218). "'It is a very dangerous thing to know one's friends'" (219).

There is a 'poem in prose' entitled 'The Master'. It is hardly half a page, it is about a beautiful young man who is starved and distraught and had wounded his body with thorns. He is weeping, presumably after Christ's death, and when comfort is attempted to be given to him, he says he is not crying for Christ, but for himself, because he has committed miracles the same as Jesus, but he was not crucified. I think it's interesting because of the quote I put up earlier, about martyrs, the one from page 77 (ctrl+f it.) He desperately wanted to believe, and wanted to die for it, but he wasn't tortured and so had to live with his disbelief? Or, from Bob Dylan's Tarantula: "you have no answers! you have just found a way to pass your time! without this thing, you would shrivel up & be nothing--you are afraid of being nothing--you are caught up in it--it's got you!' i am so Sick of Biblical people--they are like castor oil--like rabies & now i wish for Your eyes..." (84).

All of his poems are fairly interesting and very pleasant, but my favorite is the most disheartening, 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol', his poem written while imprisoned. (Reading is a place, and Gaol is another name for jail.) The poem is interesting, as much as it is depressing. I can't help but wonder--and most likely guess correctly--that it's sort of a slash at Lord Alfred Douglas as well, his alleged lover. I believe this for many reasons, the first being the fact that the refrain of the poem is "Each man kills the thing he loves" (249) and later he adds, "Yet each man does not die" (249). Perhaps a direct jab at Alfred? Obviously, Wilde was not hung, but many of the observations are directed at other inmates who were hung. And he could mean, die as in suffer in a way that is like death, or you deserve death because this is what you have brought upon me... And in the refrain, Wilde has "The coward does it with a kiss, the brave man with a sword!" (249). Of course, the kiss could be a reference to Judas's kiss, but again, it works for Lord Alfred Douglas as well. And then the sword--perhaps saying, it would have been better if you had just flat out killed me than to leave me to suffer this fate? And later, he cries out: "Alas! It is a fearful thing to feel another's guilt!" (257). Who knows, this speculation could be as foundless as the Willie Hughes theory ('The Portrait of Mr WH'.)


As for the rest of the poem, it is obviously very dark and depressing. Bitter, sad, fearful--it's upsetting--"Something was dead in each of us, and what was dead was Hope" (260), "What word of grace in such a place could help a brother's soul?" (255), "It eats the flesh and bone by turns, But it eats the heart away" (264), and yet--somewhat sort of optimistic towards the end, on the very last stanza on 268 that carries over to 269, it reads as follows: "Ah! happy they whose hearts can break And peace of pardon win! How else may man make straight his plan And cleanse his soul from Sin? How else but through a broken heart May Lord Christ enter in?"


"...Beauty is the only thing that time cannot harm. Philosophies fall away like sand, creeds follow one another, but what is beautiful is a joy for all seasons, a possession for eternity" (279). (From 'Where Morality is not in Question', a lecture.)

From his lecture, 'Decorative Art in America: "When I was at Leadville and reflected that all the shining silver I saw coming from the mines would be made into ugly dollars, it made me sad" (287). First of all, this sounded really cute. Very personal, but in a cute way.* If that makes sense? Second of all, the case he is making is that beautiful resources are being wasted on ugly things: he complains about gaudy golden jewelry earlier, and right after his statement about the silver being turned to dollars, he says it "should be made into something more permanent" (287), like a monument, say (his example), the golden gates at Florence, which have been around since Michael Angelo's time and are just as beautiful as they were then.

*He also complains a little while later of the cups he was served drinks in in a hotel. He complains that they are plain and non-delicate, an "inch and a quarter thick" (288), and that he cannot fathom that because the hotels spend so much on gaudy and ugly fixtures and details, why not spend some of that on a nice teacup? His final comment on that is, "I think I have deserved something nicer" (288). Very cute, again, in a pouty little boy way.

"Beauty is justified by all her children, and cares nothing for explanations" (318). "Where there is loveliness in dress, there is no dressing up" (319). (These both, and those following until I say so, come from 'The Relations of Dress to Art'.)

"For Art is not to be taught in Academies. It is what one looks at, not what one listens to, that makes the artist. The real schools should be the streets" (319). THIS IS WHY I'M NOT GOING TO ART SCHOOL! Thank you, Oscar, and remind me to quote this next time someone asks me that damned question.

From 'The Decay of Lying', an essay in the form of a dialogue that advocates lies, or, fiction. (In its very basest explanation. It's rather long, and you would do better just to read it yourself, as with any other thing quoted here.) "The only real people are the people who never existed" (367). Because they are more interesting, deeper, more has been put into them, they are certainly subjected to more curious, interesting, and exciting events. About facts, which he so hates, and our love and need for them in our more modern times (even then!): "Certainly we are a degraded race, and have sold our birthright for a mess of facts" (371).

"But you don't seriously believe that Life imitates Art, that Life in fact is the mirror, and Art the reality?" (378). I'm not so sure if Wilde seriously believed this (though considering how often and passionately he wrote about it, I think I'd have trouble believing he didn't) or just enjoyed thinking about it and toying with it; either way, he writes about it quite often.

"One does not see anything until one sees its beauty. Then, and then only, does it come into existence" (383). "When people talk to us about others they are usually dull. When they talk about themselves they are nearly always interesting, and if one could shut them up, when they become wearisome, as easily as one can shut up a book... they would be perfect absolutely" (395).

"...We used to canonize our heroes. The modern method is to vulgarize them" (395). Of course, this remains true today. One only has to look at a magazine rack... well, anywhere. And then, this line turns out to be eerily prophetic for Wilde himself, of course--as it was at the height of his popularity and his most productive stage (or damned near close) that he was accused and put through his trials. (Kind of along with this, from 'The Critic as an Artist': "By carefully chronicling the current events of contemporary life, it shows us of what very little importance such events really are" [449]. Again, prophetic in that sense that people today don't care for Wilde's trial and would not be alarmed--that the trial is even called the Most Useless Trial of the Century--though the author of that book apparently was never told that the 1800's and 1900's are two different centuries...)

"I can fancy a man who had led a perfectly commonplace life, hearing by some chance some curious piece of music, and suddenly discovering that his soul, without his being conscious of it, had passed through terrible experiences, and known fearful joys, or wild romantic loves, or great renunciations" (396). This reminds me of page 68 and 70, from 'The Portrait of Mr WH'. Shortly before this statement, Gilbert (one half of the dialogue) talks about how certain music makes him feel a certain way; Chopin makes him feel as if he is "weeping over sins I have never committed" (396). Well, of course, it's simple enough to imagine, it's harder to imagine a man that has never been struck in the same way by a piece of music or a section of written word or a piece of art. The way I think of it is--well--the way I feel it is an ache in my heart, painful and sweeter than a ripe peach, and I imagine something is pulling at it, maybe pulling the ghost of it from my body in a way that hurts, but with calming lavender-scented hands, or cool hands, soft as velvet. And your head and chest suddenly become full. You know?

"Why cannot the artist be left alone, to create a new world if he wishes it" (396).

"It is well for his peace that the saint goes to his martyrdom. He is spared the sight of the horror of his harvest" (414). This is an interesting concept too, I think. I mean, the first martyr that comes to mind is Jesus, and his doctrine has raised wars, racial troubles, religious scuffles--certainly what he was trying to avoid. And martyrs hung caused revolution, more deaths piled up, an explosion of violence and rage (the French revolution is at the forefront here). And, even though V for Vendetta isn't real, after he upends society (in the movie), how much do you want to bet that people will crawl around filthy like rodents and fight and burn and destroy until reverting to a government similar to before?

"[The record of one's soul] is more fascinating than history, as it is concerned simply with oneself. It is more delightful than philosophy... It is the only civilized form of autobiography, as it deals with not the events, but with the thoughts of one's life; not with life's physical accidents of deeds or circumstance, but with the spiritual moods and imaginative passions of the mind" (419). "Those who try to lead the people can only do so by following the mob" (441). "Our of ourselves we can never pass, nor can there be in creation what in the creator was not" (444).

"...The more objective a creation appears to be, the more subjective it really is" (444). This just reminds of a theory Marky Mark told us about, that history is really actually subjective completely even though it's meant to be objective--sounds strange, but here's my support for that: If you're American, of course you know about the American revolution. It's the most important war in our history! It made us who we are. However, British text books hardly dedicate more than a few paragraphs to it, and in one of his Horrible History books, Teary Deary refers to the revolution as a "little problem" with the colonies.

"What other people call one's past has... everything to do with them, but has absolutely nothing to do with oneself" (445). That is, people change, grow, the kid who pulled your hair and bullied you at age five won't do so at age fifteen, and probably doesn't even remember doing so, for example. The victim of the hair-pulling still remembers and remains weary, but the ex-bully is thinking, no, I'm different, that was me, but now I'm a new me, pay attention to this me, the real me. Oscar Wilde, stop describing my thoughts and issues that bother me now to the T. It's starting to weird me out.

"Fine expression for a joy, and you intensify its ecstacy. Do you wish to love? Use Love's Litany, and the words will create the yearning from which the world fancies that they spring" (454). This is another intriguing concept, and another one which makes Wilde to be uncomfortably in my brain. He's arguing that reading about or being told about certain emotions makes you feel them--or, yearn for them, that perhaps in this case the yearning is not for your own personal Juliet, but a yearning for that boundless insane love is what causes those intense words, that you're trying to pull them out of yourself and plaster them onto other people, trying to match it--whatever you think 'it' may be.

"People cry out against the sinner, yet it is not the sinful, but the stupid, who are our shame. There is no sin except stupidity" (461). Again, mildly prophetic. Also, got your back, W.

From 'The Soul of Man Under Socialism', in which Wilde advocates a form of it... "...The best among the poor are never grateful... Why should they be grateful for the crumbs that fall from the rich man's table?" (494).

"The true perfection lies, not in what a man has, but in what man is" (496). "What is outside of [man] should be a matter of no importance" (497). And, with socialism: "Nobody will waste his life in accumulating things, and the symbols for things. To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all" (497). While most people see socialism as a surrendering of freedom, Wilde clearly sees it the other way--without the burden and desire of garnering things, you know, they can live, as I've quoted. They are actually set free to develop spiritually and mentally seems to be his argument.

Wilde also works into socialism as being what Jesus advocated for--which doesn't really interest me, not his argument at least, but the fact that CS Lewis may be calling out Wilde for this in The Screwtape Letters. At one point a letter is sent that the people's new interpretations of Christ help drive people away from Christianity, because those interpretations are influenced by current events instead of the historical landscape of the ancient times and thus are wrong. The example of this is saying that Jesus's words were forms of socialism or communism. Wilde's take on it is that Jesus wanted people to be completely self-realized because that's the most important thing in life, in existence, and when one has possessions they are too distracted by those to gain self-realization, and so on--"Your perfection is inside of you" (499).


A section I thought interesting: "After all, even in prison, a man can be quite free. His soul can be free. His personality can be untroubled. He can be at peace" (500). What I believe is worth noting is the fact that this was written in 1891--before Wilde was imprisoned. This, compared to the harsh conditions described in 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol'... The conditions which essentially ruined him, stuck him with depression and destroyed his health completely... Well, I guess that this would show the difference between his--naivete, perhaps?--and what it really was like. If I may, I'd daresay that these words most likely haunted him in jail and he cursed them and himself.


"There is nothing necessarily dignified about manual labour at all, and most of it is absolutely degrading. It is mentally and morally injurious to man to do anything in which he does not find pleasure, and many forms of labour are quite pleasureless activities... To sweep a slushy crossing for eight hours on a day when the east wind is blowing is a disgusting occupation. To sweep it with mental, moral, or physical dignity seems to me to be impossible. To sweep it with joy would be appalling. Man is made for something better than disturbing dirt" (504).


Wilde goes on to talk about how machinery should be enlisted to do man's work, saying "on slavery of the machine, the world depends" (505), again, for self-actualization, because there will be nothing to worry about. And we wouldn't have to worry about the machinery stealing jobs, because drudging jobs wouldn't exist, money wouldn't exist, because it would all be simply communal. Because it's socialism!


"...The artist can fashion a beautiful thing; and if he does not do it solely for his own pleasure, he is not an artist at all" (506).


"In Art, the public accept what has been, because they cannot alter it, not because they appreciate it. They swallow their classics whole, and never taste them. They endure them as the inevitable, and, as they cannot mar them, they mouth about them... this acceptance of classics does a great deal of harm" (508). Oh hey, sounds like my English classes every year. He goes onto say--not only again to parade his fervent love of Shankspeare by comparing his works to the Bible--but to say that in this way, because they just accept it, they can't truly understand its beauty and meaning because they could really care less (Oh hi, sophomore British lit class). However, they do use it as a judge, or, as Wilde puts it, a bludgeon, of other works, or to beat things back into the mold--say, to ask an author "Why don't you write more like X?" or why doesn't Y painter paint more like Z painter? And then criticize those, even though if they did, they would not only "cease to be an artist" (508) but also would be criticized for fraud. (This second bit he did not say, but you know it's the truth.) He goes on to add that when a fresh model of beauty comes into fruition it bewilders those stuck to their misinterprated classics and they harangue it and decide it to be unintelligable and, overall, immoral. I find this interesting, and especially poignant, because the next book I have begun is James Joyce's Ulysses, a new form of writing which would be a perfect example of all Wilde has spoken. Had this essay been written later--had Wilde lived that long, of course, and waited, if many things were different--one would almost certainly guess at that to be the example, I'm sure. Maybe.


"In old days men had the rack. Now they have the press" (512). "The private lives of men and women should not be told to the public" (513).


From 'A Few Maxims for the Instruction of the Over-Educated': "Friendship is far more tragic than love. It lasts longer" (529).
"To be really mediaeval one should have no body. To be really modern one should have no soul. To be really Greek one should have no clothes" (530).
"Those whom the gods love grow young" (530).



From 'Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young': "The first duty in life is to be as artificial as possible" (531). "What the second duty is no one has as yet discovered" (531).
"Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of others" (531).
"Religions die when they are proved to be true. Science is the record of dead religions" (531).
"Nothing that actually occurs is of the smallest importance" (531).
"If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out" (531).
"Time is a waste of money" (532).
"One should always be a little improbable" (532).
"Only the great masters of style ever succeed in being obsure" (533). I concur!
"To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance" (533).



And, from the preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray--a book also available in Barnes and Noble's classics line but does not, in their edition, include the preface, nor the "artist's preface". Oh, okay. That makes sense.

"Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault" (534). I was going to say which characters of the book this could be a direct stab at--namely, Dorian himself, but then I realized how stupid that sounded. Oh, the preface would be about the book it's prefacing? Really?

"There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all" (534). This quote appears in another work--perhaps 'The Decay of Lying'--only 'books' is replaced with 'poems'.

What else? In this edition, there is the three-act version of 'The Importance of Being Earnest', but I'm not going to touch that--I am in posession of the actual five-act play, so when I reread it, well, there you go. So... yeah. There's not much more to say, other than this is probably the longest post I've ever written, beacuse I am in love with Oscar Wilde and, quite frankly, could have written lots more. The one thing that bothers me about this is that this isn't a complete other than his plays and novel work. Yes, there is a book of his plays, but between the three Barnes & Noble Classics books, his works aren't complete. There are still a few stories unpublished, and I believe an essay or two, of course his letters, and then his first play--which okay, was a commercial failure, but actually that's probably what inspired all his rants on the critics and the foolishness of the public. Okay, so maybe it looks like I'm being a little nitpicky, but it's a little obnoxious--it's like having every single Pokemon card and just needing that one Charizard. Is it worth buying all those booster packs of Pokemon cards you already have for the chance of getting the Charizard? Well... yes, if it's a Charizard we're talking about, I mean... No! No, I mean. It's a pain in the neck. So, dear Barnes & Noble publishers, would you be willing to publish a book of all his other works you didn't deem fit to publish with the 'Classics' editions? (Actually, he'd probably be happier about not being in that lump... maybe. Or honoured. I'd get a huge ego, to hell with what a wrote about bludgeoning and such.) But seriously, Barnes & Noble. Get to it. Or not. Give me more reasons to type your name; I don't have nearly enough oppurtunities to include ampersands in my life, and I love ampersands. And I just had to use a semicolon, too! Ah, life is good.


So, yeah, read Oscar Wilde because HE'S AWESOME.


Cryptic song lyrics for Emma: Episodes and parallels, and don’t you want the invitation? Big bright accent, catty smile... (I can imagine anyone who recognizes these lyrics doing a great big face palm right now. LOOK. The rule is, it has to relate.)

I'd walk through hell for you, let it burn right through my shoes, these soles are useless without you

Hey, look! Here I am, writing. What book did I finish... The Four Loves by CS Lewis! What books am I still reading? (That doesn't sound grammatically correct...) Cosmos by Carl Sagan and 1984 by George Orwell! Guess what I'm putting off! Correct! My application to Fordham! Yeaaaaaaah. Look. This time it's not my fault. My parents are both asleep (yes, at 8:30 p.m.) and I haven't exactly memorized my social security number. So. Come on, mom. But I did finally edit my college essay and do a million pages of homework for Marky Mark because he's obviously trying to kill me slowly.




So, I was going to pretend I remembered things from Language & Composition last year and treat The Four Loves like an EPL assignment because it's a nonfiction essay (cough, book, cough) and actually pick out the different EPL things but I can only remember Ethos and part of Logos and good news, that notebook is lost in the dark recesses of my closet. Under my astronomy binder, actually. But trying to get it would be painful and would most likely make me cry, or something. But! I can do Ethos: Extrinsic: CS Lewis? Are you kidding me? Maybe you've heard of something called.... The Chronicles of Narnia? AKA, amazing children's fantasy book series that wipes the floors with Harry Potter? Don't get me wrong, I like Harry Potter, but really, it's no contest. Oh, and if you've only seen the movie version of The Lion the Witch and The Wardrobe and Prince Caspian you are missing out so incredibly much. (Again, I think I just killed the English language). Seriously. Those books are soooo much better! I love them! Except for A Horse and His Boy. And the end of The Last Battle is a little disheartening, but... Look, that's beside the point. But I love CS Lewis.
Intrinsic: He really wants to share his view on what he believes the four loves are?

So, yeah, that's basically it. Being nonfiction, I don't really feel comfortable saying it was 'good' or not, nonfiction seems to me to be either interesting or not. This was interesting.

"We may give our human loves the unconditional allegiance which we owe only to God. Then they become Gods: then they become demons." This I thought was interesting. CS Lewis's Christianity is pretty well known, especially through the obvious parallels between religion and various bits in The Chronicles of Narnia, cough cough, ASLAN. Other parts too, but if you don't get Aslan is supposed to be Jesus, come on guys. But yeah. It's pretty well-documented. Anyway, he was a born-again (kind of) so I was worried he'd be a little... intense. However, when I saw this I got excited. Very few people are willing, or do realize that God, angels, demons, are all the same thing, really. Actually, I first read the idea in an early chapter of Berserk by Kentaro Miura and it knocked me off my feet. ("'But if you look at it a different way, it might be proof that there's something beyond human understanding in this world. For instance, what're called gods... or something...' 'Don'tcha mean devils?' '...Who knows? Aren't they the same thing?'") Since I've literally seen the idea in only one other place, I was incredibly excited to see this. A bad mark on my part, but I was scared he'd be a crazy zealot. But to see that kind of gives a strange air of... level-headedness? Admitting that nothing perfect? Abraxes, Abraxes. I don't know.

(Leading off of the above quote--) "Then they will destroy us, and also destroy themselves. For natural loves that are allowed to become gods do not remain loves. They are still called so, but can become in fact complicated forms of hatred." I was actually going to talk (again) about how love and hate are basically the same exact things only in different minor classifications, but I'll actually just name-drop Berserk again, how about that? Griffith from the series led a band of mercenaries called the Hawks and besides looking literally of unearthly beauty, especially in the manga. Most of these people he led were really kids--orphans found on the battlefield, children who escaped from slavery and so on. They had no one but him and the worshiped him. He was given that God-love. High of power and by his own ambition, he goes a little bit crazy, sacrifices basically all of his followers and his humanity to literally become a member of the Godhand, a demigod, acting out God's Will. (There's an interesting theory on God, but I won't get into that now...) Sooo. Yeahhh. Shout-outs to Miura...

"The human mind is generally far more eager to praise and dispraise than to describe and define." Yeah, I've noticed. We are more likely to make it necessary to call a logical fallacy on ourselves than not. I'm calling logical fallacies, too. With my ninja stars of correct rhetoric.

"There may come an occasion for renouncing this love; pluck out your right eye. But you need to have a right eye first." If you're not familiar with what CS Lewis is referring to: "If thine right eye offends thee, pluck it out." From page who even knows in the Bible. Basically, God I love you so much that if you didn't like my right eye (a metaphor, I'm thinking) I would be totally cool with you just taking that eye right out of my head. That... that's a little intense. But I thought it was interesting because it says... well, I think it's saying... you can reject matronly and natural affections, but there has to have been love there in the first place. I took it to mean love of God (in any form), actually. You can reject this religious being, any religious being, but only if there had been something in the first place. If you've never bothered to understand or take some research in the matter, you can't really say "I reject you", because you don't know exactly what you're rejecting. Does that... does that make sense? Well, if it does, then it applies to other things as well: any idea, really.

"The last thing we would want is to make everything else just like our own home. It would not be home unless it were different." What is it... the saying... "Absence makes the heart grow fonder"? If everything's like home... I'd imagine it would feel fairly oppressive.

OH, and CS Lewis complains about patriotism in a zealous form. Yeah? It's because... IT'S A LOGICAL FALLACY, BABYYYY. 'FLAG-WAVING'.

"Affection has its own criteria. Its objects have to be familiar. We can sometimes point to the very day and hour when we fell in love or began a new friendship, I doubt if we ever catch Affection beginning. To become aware of it is to become aware that it has already been going on for some time." / "Elizabeth's spirits soon rising to playfulness again, she wanted Mr Darcy to account for his ever having fallen in love with her. 'How could you begin?' said she. 'I can comprehend your going on charmingly, when you had made a beginning; but what set you off in the first place?' 'I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.'" (Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, of course. )

"We hear a great deal about the rudeness of the rising generation. I am an oldster myself and might be expected to take the oldsters' side, but in fact I have been far more impressed by the bad manners of parents to children than by those of children to parents." One, oh my God, did he for real just say 'oldster'? Love you! Two, he goes on to say that the way parents more often than not treat their children would be enough to completely sever a relationship with anyone else and it's unfair to assume the younger generation doesn't know anything, because they understand more than the 'oldsters' give them credit for. Then, after all this nastiness and domineering attitudes, adults tend to get agitated at the fact that their children are always out and prefer to be out, especially in other homes. His response to them: "Who does not prefer civility to barbarism?" Being a youngster, I am obviously more inclined to agree with him. It is unfair, and anyone knows their parents can be nasty or whatever. And yeah, at someone else's house, whose parents are going to scream and be nasty to you? Zerooo. So. That's cool. CS Lewis, adopt me? Uh, oh. wait. Damn! (Bring me a gramme!)

"How if the deserter has really entered a new world which the rest of us never suspected? But if so, how unfair! Why us? Why was it never opened to us?" The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Peter and Edmund (Edmond? Can you just be Ed?)? Hm? But the main point he's trying to prove is when people grow up and change we get jealous and reject the new thing, but at the same we sometimes get jealous that they've changed and the change hasn't come into our life.

An interesting bit was when CS Lewis talks about man's need for animals--not only does, say, a dog make you feel like you have family and a loved one, it also gives you a sort of sense of power. This creature is entirely reliant on you because you've babied it. He's not saying beat your animal and starve it, but people make pets (namely dogs) into things unrecognizable from their roots completely. By keeping it from its true potential and 'wild side' (I don't know of a better way to put it) you're kind of "spoiling" its life. I don't know, I just thought it was an interesting albeit unexpected point.

"Two friends delight to be joined by a third, and three by the fourth, if only the newcomer is qualified to become a real friend." I think this is more of a perfect world deal. It's much more likely jealousy will ensue, and so will the feelings of an unfortunate one quick becoming a third wheel. Very rarely will this situation actually arise and exist for any extended period of time. For example, the only friendship in my own life where three isn't a crowd is probably when I hang out with Robby D JR and Emma. There's equality and I don't feel like the third wheel. In pretty much any friendship situation, no matter how good friends I am with one or both, I'm basically always the odd man out. Then again, CS Lewis says "True friendship is the least jealous of loves." Note the true. Feeling the love, Emma? I think it means jealousy in between, though. Not towards the people themselves, just the attention paid, if that makes sense...

"But if Friendship were used for this purpose we might mistake the symbol for the thing symbolized." There's nothing much to say except I wanted to bring up the fact that, while this isn't a deadly sin, it's a dangerous problem (mixing the symbol and thing symbolized). John Milton makes it quite clear in Paradise Lost that Satan cannot tell the difference and often confuses the two, hence why he starts his 'backward' campaign and hence why, or part of the reason why, he is a pitiable character, at least in that context.

"Love you? I am you"--Charles Williams. I liked that quote. It was in a really weird context, though. He was thinking about what it means when lovers say they... 'eat'... each other... Which was just weird. He meant that the intensity of their feelings completely enveloped each other in a roaring, almost violent way, but still. I was like... CS Lewis... you're making me a little uncomfortable. I know the slang has probably changed a little but yeah, I'm just gonna skip a few paragraphs...

"William Morris wrote a poem called 'Love Is Enough' and someone is said to have reviewed it briefly in the words 'It isn't'."

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to be sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal." And he goes on to say that basically a life denying love completely and wholly (which I believe is completely impossible, even, say, for sociopath) you're basically in hell. Like, you don't automatically get damned (gramme?) but you literally live in hell while alive. You dig? I mean... you're basically isolated of your own decision. Actually, it's kind of funny because of that saying, you know, "hell is other people." Ironic, maybe. Irony!

"Neither of you now plays conkers." What... what the hell is 'conkers'? They most definitely didn't have N64's of Xboxes back then, so there's no way bad fur days could be involved. Anybody... Anybody laughing? Oh okay, cool.

"To know that one is dreaming is to be no longer perfectly asleep." Yeah, but it's nice when your dream is about an English teacher who has trained dinosaurs to kill you for a chance at a million dollars. Yes, it was Big Mikey. What a weird dream. But in all seriousness, yeah, it's true. But when you're having a nightmare--it helps.

In other news, Cronkilicious lost a book of mine and offered to buy me a new copy... I feel really bad... but I can't remember the title, so maybe I don't have to worry. If he buys me a book in return I'm going to feel like a jerk... I AM A TERRIBLE PERSON!

And Robby D finished Survivor... Yeah, he said the near-the-end scene in the porn landfill was a little strange. Totally forgot about that. Completely. Uh... maybe I shouldn't lend you his other books, because it only gets more awkward from here in.

And even though the date is whatever, we dressed up for Halloween... best outfit, aside from the Pacman group and Quailman? Marky Mark was Montressor. (From 'The Cask of Amontillado'.) As in, "For the love of God, Marky Mark!" "Yes, for the love of God!" Remind me not mess with him. Robby D shaved his beard and left the 'stache for Halloween... Oh God, I don't even want to talk about it. You know how I feel about moustaches. UGH. I don't even like thinking about the... HE LOOKED LIKE BURT FREAKING REYNOLDS. GAHHH. Man, you know who has a really gross moustache? Bob Dylan. This isn't the worst, but I'm taking pity on your virgin eyes. I HATE EVEN THINKING ABOUT MOUSTACHES. It just makes me want to wipe my upper lip. JMHFFLTYDSNJRSZJMFH.

Anyways... As for me? Well, I've written a few plays... and a book or two... perhaps you've heard of me... Oscar Wilde.


(And regarding the title... CS Lewis actually mocks that dramatic love... like... of intense self-sacrifice and all that. But it felt appropriate, you know...)

Other half of my soul, roots of my tree

Hi! Back from New Hampshire and Vermont! (We ended up skipping over Boston, though...) Checking out colleges, of course. And we went to the pumpkin festival in Keene. It was fun, but hick pride: corn and potato festival, guys! Though my mom still found three or four people she knew, which is crazy. We also found a really cool CD shop in the area. It's called Turn It Up! and according to the bag, the website is turnitup.com... Not that I've checked it out yet. But, the thing is, why they're so cool... They buy used CDs and sell them, and they had some movies and tapes too. But, instead of re wrapping the used discs up and letting you risk a potentially scratched-up disc (FYE, I'm looking at you) they keep them out of the plastic and they even have little stereos hooked up to headphones so you can actually listen to before you buy them. I didn't do that, but hey. Considering the most expensive CD I bought was $8 (and that CD was actually a new, never-been-opened one) I figured I could deal. Anyway, it's not like I was going out-and-out: I bought Barenaked Ladies, Gorillaz, and Matisyahu.


There was also a used books store which was not nearly as cool as the one in Salem (not only was it not a threat to my health, a lot of the books' prices were ridiculous) which I bought a book about the French Revolution from. I almost bought my brother Don Quixote, but the original book price had been $1.78, and they had it penciled in for fifteen. Okay, guys, I know the price is from thirty years ago, but come on. Really? It was kind of a shame. They had a lot of old books, but nothing... good. You know, nothing that you'd be like "Oh, what a classic!" more like "Oh, there's a reason why this was forgotten by the times."


Oh, and you know that new clause that says if you promote something, you have to say if you're getting paid by the company or whatever? For the record, I'm not. But Turn It Up! was so cool.




Okay, so, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. My feelings are basically the same, except stronger: This is a great book, no matter what Emma says! Of course, the problem with rereading a book that you know and love so much is the fact that you get excited for everything before you even pick the book back up. Those first, you know, twelve pages before Mr Darcy appears I could hardly sit still. And before Mr Darcy confesses love... and later when Elizabeth is staring at him the whole time really awkwardly (if I was in her place at that scene you better believe I would have slung him over my shoulder and carried him out of there like a sack of potatoes. Somehow.)... and the end, of course... GAH I LOVE THIS BOOK. I believe this book has done more damage to my already over-romanticized view of love than Aladdin has. Or Disney in general, but Aladdin definitely is the most romantic of them. Only the first one though. I never saw the second one, and because Aladdin's father looks like Sean Connery, it makes it difficult to really enjoy the third one. The show was pretty cool, even though I remember .2 episodes. Uh, where was I?


Oh, right, Pride and Prejudice. Because it got about a paragraph last time I've decided to write more about it. Also, if you have the film version (and I do mean the Colin Firth film version) stop holding out on me!

Oh, and a note: Even though I saw the movie at least five years before I read the book, I don't automatically picture Mr Darcy to be Colin Firth or Elizabeth to be whoever played Elizabeth. Usually that is the case, so I thought it odd that it didn't coincide in my brain. I picture Mr Darcy to be a combination of Colin Firth, Snape, and Oscar Wilde. An attractive combination. Elizabeth doesn't really get a celebrity lookalike bit. She just kind of looks... how I picture her. As for the other characters, I like pretending Collins looks like Scrooge, or some other nasty Dickens character. Collins is a creepy fellow. But I just thought it was kind of interesting... IE, no one else cares.

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." One of the best introductions ever. Maybe I should just go about kissing Jane Austen's boots. Maybe...

"To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love..." Thank you, Jane Austen. Talk about a kick below the belt. Hey, but how many other girls can do a Charlie Brown like me? Not many. Heck, I don't even know if that's what the youngens call it nowadays.

"'A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony, in a moment.'" Yeah, this sounds like something Oscar Wilde would say, doesn't it? I guess I can't tease Jackii too heavily for thinking they were buddies. Not knowing their ages or birth and death dates, it does sound like Austen collaborated with Wilde. She does have Oscar Wilde moments quite often.

"'I cannot comprehend the neglect of a family library in such days as these.'" Mr Darcy, if you could sing 'A Whole New World' I think you'd be perfect for me. Pony express me sometime, bro. Or whatever you British do. Hook that hansom up!

Hahaha, oh, this bit will give me carpal tunnel for writing, but it's worth it. This is basically where Darcy gets his imagined Snape-ness from... You know, maybe I sort of imagined him as Colin for the first bit, but as it went on his image changed. I never really thought about it till later, when I actually realized I was picturing him as somebody different. But, he's so Snape in this. Darcy (His first name is Fitzwilliam! Can you believe that?) is writing a letter to his sister and a girl who wants to be his ball and chain is basically looking over his shoulder is being giggly and annoying: "'How delighted Miss Darcy will be to receive such a letter!' He made no answer. 'You write uncommonly fast.' 'You are mistaken. I write rather slowly.' 'How many letters you must have occasion to write in the course of a year! Letters of business, too! How odious I should think them!' 'It is fortunate, then, that they fall to my lot instead of to yours.' 'Pray tell your sister that I long to see her.' 'I have already told her once, by your desire.' 'I am afraid you do not like your pen. Let me mend it for you. I mend pens remarkably well.' 'Thank you--but I always mend my own.' 'How can you contrive to write so even?' He was silent. 'Tell your sister I am delighted to hear of her improvement on the harp; and pray let her know that I am quite in raptures with her beautiful little design for a table, and I think it infinitely superior to Miss Grantley's.' 'Will you give me leave to defer your raptures till I write again?'" Really, with every response can't you just hear that droll 'Mr Potter' voice? I certainly can. Don't let the girls wear you down, Mr Rickman!

"'It is from my cousin, Mr Collins, who, when I am dead, may turn you all out of this house as soon as he pleases.'" Uh... Thanks for bringing that up. You kind of just ruined our day. Cool. Did you even discuss this with your wife? Why bring up death on such a nice day!? Talk about a buzz kill.

Aha, there's a scene where Elizabeth accidentally accepts Mr Darcy's hand to dance and while she is upset and mulling over it, Charlotte tries to console her by saying Mr Darcy is quite "agreeable". Elizabeth basically responds with no, he's horrible and I hope I never consider him to be a good person. Irony!

"'Your sister is in love, I find. I congratulate her. Next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed in love a little now and then.'" Maybe Oscar Wilde had a Ouija board....

"'We do not suffer by accident.'" Amen to that, sister. Jane Austen, I wish you weren't dead or I could have been born in right era so we could have been friends. Actually, if I'm going to suddenly believe in past lives... Maybe we were! And maybe Jane Austen was reborn as Oscar Wilde... See, he couldn't help it! He just happened to truly be a woman deep down. So--sorry I divorced you...

I love Mr Darcy: "'In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.'" "'But your family owe me nothing. Much as I respect them, I believe I thought only of you.'" "'My affections and wishes are unchanged; but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever.'"
And last, but certainly not least: "Elizabeth's spirits soon rising to playfulness again, she wanted Mr Darcy to account for his ever having fallen in love with her. 'How could you begin?' said she. 'I can comprehend your going on charmingly, when you had made a beginning; but what set you off in the first place?' 'I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.'"

Guys out there! Take a lesson from Mr Darcy!

Well, what else really quickly? I saw the Carrie movie a few days ago. Have I written about it already? Well, it was actually pretty good. It was a lot easier to sympathize with Carrie, for sure. Instead of being dull and, to be honest, 'bovine-ish' as I imagined her, she was a pretty girl. Not exactly gorgeous, but not ugly. I didn't recognize the actress from anything else, but she was a perfect fit for the title role. The mother was much less intimidating in the film rendition. She first appears as a soft-spoken sweet-looking woman with a mellow Southern accent. I thought this was so she would really freak you out when she snapped at Carrie, but she wasn't nearly as scary as I feared she'd be. Freaky, but my imagined version of her scared me much more. I pictured her nothing like she is in the movie, and of course she's much more intense in the book.

One bit that confused me was that statuette of 'Jesus' in Carrie's closet. There's a saint who was killed in that manner, but it wasn't Jesus. Not that I can remember which saint, but let's be fair, there's at least one thousand. And if not one thousand, a huge lot in any case.

The scene where she's covered in pig blood isn't too scary either. My dad's a liar!