A passage from Herman Melville’s Pierre: the Mysterious Isabel says “I comprehend nothing, Pierre; there is nothing these eyes have ever looked upon, Pierre, that this soul comprehended. Ever, as now, do I go all a-grope amid the wide mysteriousness of things.”
I think this is what I sound like to my advisor
What do we think Mystery of Isabel sounds like
the Melville fans (Dick heads?) won, I’m reading Pierre, it’s ridiculous, I love it
Need a Yuletide treat? Check out this new episode of Historical Friction (@historicalfriction.bsky.social) on The Muppet Christmas Carol! Hosted by me, @aaprocter.bsky.social, and @helenvmurray.bsky.social!
This is how the ending felt to me personally
Look on my works, ye mighty, and get really annoyed about the decision to quote Ozymandias instead of Mutability
I have a broad tolerance for anachronism but I think it should be intentional, not purely aesthetic, and I’m not convinced that there’s a good enough case for moving this story forward in time.
the time shift in particular felt more reflective of the popular association of gothic literature with the Victorian era than anything else, which is sooooooooo interesting to me.
is there any good reason for it or is it just the basic assumption that historical/gothic = victorian
Why is William a full sized adult! Why are we getting all this Charles Dance backstory! Why would you cast a 46 year old man as ratbag university student failure Victor!
I will probably finish watching it because it is pretty and I want to see the large Australian but I might need some weed to help me not take myself so seriously
We watched the first half hour of Frankenstein and turned it off because Flo is too sleepy and I am TOO MAD that this ROMANTIC! ENLIGHTENMENT! GEORGIAN!! story has been made VICTORIAN
A photo of a page from “The Female Robinson Crusoe”, published 1837 “At that moment, I remembered the incident in the narrative of the celebrated Robinson Crusoe, which with the greatest delight imaginable to my childish faculties, I had heard my elder brother read to me, of his procuring fire, from the lightning's stroke upon a tree.”
I hate to be researchposting but I going insane or does this not actually happen in Robinson Crusoe?
“At that moment, I remembered the incident in the narrative of the celebrated Robinson Crusoe […] of his procuring fire, from the lightning's stroke upon a tree”
A photo of a page of the Ladies Companion from 1836, with the aphorism “there are many men belonging to the Faculty, to whom the faculty does not belong”
Many!
This is my backup plan!! I am paying an insane amount to try and get a copy from a second hand bookshop in Melbourne and I guess we’ll see if it comes? If I have to pay tariffs on this piece of shit I will be fuming
So now I’m hoping that there is someone with a shitty racist relative who is willing and able to steal/appropriate a copy for me? I will absolutely pay money because unfortunately this is necessary for my work. Help me??
I cannot find it on any secondhand book sites (which is a good thing!!) or in any libraries outside of Australia (which makes sense!!). I’ve read reviews but I need to see the real thing.
I’m reading and watching a lot of vile stuff at the moment, because my PhD project is about settler colonial violence and fear narratives in popular culture, and it seems like I need to read this book from 1997, called “Pauline Hanson-The Truth” (which is a batshit screed attributed to her) BUT
fellas is it gay to unwittingly squeeze your co-labourers’ hands, mistaking them for the gentle globules
One thing I'll say about DC not only canceling Red Hood, but recalling the first issue and refunding stores for buying it, is that you can still get Neil Gaiman's work through them. They still work with Otto Schmidt. Eddie Berganza worked there for years AFTER the formation of a policy that no women
every time there's political violence discourse i think about how jo cox was assassinated in broad daylight by a fascist who shouted "britain first" as he shot her, and now nine years later her party is dedicating every moment in power to placating the ideology of her murderer
How many other people at the Ethel Cain show are doing phds about cannibalism do we reckon
a reworking of the Calvin & Hobbes strip in which Calvin is giving a report alleging that bats are bugs (to which his classmates respond with “BATS AREN’T BUGS!!”) only instead it’s “Herman”—as in Melville—talking about whales & alleging they’re fish, & his classmates are correcting him with “WHALES AREN’T FISH!!”
my friend @flyingghoti.bsky.social made this & if you’re in the middle of the very specific venn diagram necessary to appreciate it, it’s the funniest thing
TCTAP is a flawlessly stupid and delightful film, Peter Weir is one of the greats when it comes to filming sweat.
Flo is at work and I have had a weed gummy time to do a double feature of The Last Wave and The Cars That Ate Paris
L’Enfant Sauvage was a beautiful sad little meditation on isolation and humanity. This is an R-rated Brooke Shields vehicle about cousin incest. I love cinema.
doing this as a double feature with The Blue Lagoon (1980), what is wrong with me
I was prompted to watch this by Audrey Wollen’s review of The Forbidden Experiment by Roger Shattuck, about the real wild boy “Victor” and his teachers, in the latest Bookforum
accidentally watched the first ten minutes of L’Enfant Sauvage (1970), about the “wild boy of Aveyron”, before I realized the subtitles were turned off, I’m doing feral child immersion research
Also it made Flo vicariously seasick lol