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Oct. 14th, 2009 06:48 pmI'm noting this for myself for later, so I don't lose it, but you can have it too:
"A girl and a house: the gothic novel" by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
papersky.
"A girl and a house: the gothic novel" by
papersky.
It could be you. It could be me.
Mar. 16th, 2009 11:46 pmMarch 16, 2009 Progress Notes:
"Testimony"
Words today: 550.
Words total: 550.
Reason for stopping: Bedtime for writers.
Books in progress: Vera Brittain, Testament of Youth.
The glamour: Some house chores, copious revising, some Ideo slushreading.
The Brittain is one of my The Enchanted Generation research books, and I appear to have hit gold. It's what's now termed creative nonfiction, I guess? The author's recounting, with help from her diaries and other sources, her WWI experiences, but in a style which admits that it's omitted or smoothed things to make them more accessible to a reader.
I've got to say it works. I meant to read a chapter before bed last night and got almost 100 rather dense pages in. I like Vera Brittain, or at least her self-presentation. She's rather hard on herself as a teenager -- unnecessarily so, I think -- and occasionally quite snobby, and she's decidedly a product of her era, but there's a core of intellect and compassion there which is really admirable.
Example, for the commonplace book, from an anecdote about her brother: "At sixteen he was inclined to be rather priggish and self-righteous -- not such bad qualities in adolescence after all, since most of us have to be self-righteous before we can be righteous." Testament of Youth, pg. 40.
That's more...patient, I think, than most people would be. Or are.
"Testimony"
Words today: 550.
Words total: 550.
Reason for stopping: Bedtime for writers.
Books in progress: Vera Brittain, Testament of Youth.
The glamour: Some house chores, copious revising, some Ideo slushreading.
The Brittain is one of my The Enchanted Generation research books, and I appear to have hit gold. It's what's now termed creative nonfiction, I guess? The author's recounting, with help from her diaries and other sources, her WWI experiences, but in a style which admits that it's omitted or smoothed things to make them more accessible to a reader.
I've got to say it works. I meant to read a chapter before bed last night and got almost 100 rather dense pages in. I like Vera Brittain, or at least her self-presentation. She's rather hard on herself as a teenager -- unnecessarily so, I think -- and occasionally quite snobby, and she's decidedly a product of her era, but there's a core of intellect and compassion there which is really admirable.
Example, for the commonplace book, from an anecdote about her brother: "At sixteen he was inclined to be rather priggish and self-righteous -- not such bad qualities in adolescence after all, since most of us have to be self-righteous before we can be righteous." Testament of Youth, pg. 40.
That's more...patient, I think, than most people would be. Or are.
Generally pertinent.
Mar. 9th, 2009 07:57 pm--and thus to be saved for reference. From an article on accidental deaths of children left in cars in the Washington Post:
This is something I sort of keep touching on in terms of Hitler Syndrome (aka: "We must find out as much as we can about Hilter so we can prove we would never do that!") but unsurprisingly, Mr. Hickling up there says it better than I've generally been able to.
In other news, I have had a sinus headache so bad that I have been dizzy since about ten last night. Public approval for this action on my head's part is at an all-time low. I'm hoping it's just a really...really big pressure change. :p
Ed Hickling believes he knows why. Hickling is a clinical psychologist from Albany, N.Y., who has studied the effects of fatal auto accidents on the drivers who survive them. He says these people are often judged with disproportionate harshness by the public, even when it was clearly an accident, and even when it was indisputably not their fault.
Humans, Hickling said, have a fundamental need to create and maintain a narrative for their lives in which the universe is not implacable and heartless, that terrible things do not happen at random, and that catastrophe can be avoided if you are vigilant and responsible.
In hyperthermia cases, he believes, the parents are demonized for much the same reasons. "We are vulnerable, but we don't want to be reminded of that. We want to believe that the world is understandable and controllable and unthreatening, that if we follow the rules, we'll be okay. So, when this kind of thing happens to other people, we need to put them in a different category from us. We don't want to resemble them, and the fact that we might is too terrifying to deal with. So, they have to be monsters."
This is something I sort of keep touching on in terms of Hitler Syndrome (aka: "We must find out as much as we can about Hilter so we can prove we would never do that!") but unsurprisingly, Mr. Hickling up there says it better than I've generally been able to.
In other news, I have had a sinus headache so bad that I have been dizzy since about ten last night. Public approval for this action on my head's part is at an all-time low. I'm hoping it's just a really...really big pressure change. :p
Mostly for my own information...
Jul. 15th, 2008 02:48 pm(This is in the spirit of delta_november's occasional Proust updates. And because I like it, and want to keep it somewhere I can see it. LJ-as-commonplace book appeals to me.)
This isn't quite how I run myself in the world -- the stuff about priesthood and Christ clearly doesn't apply -- but it gets close.
delta_november's occasional Proust updates. And because I like it, and want to keep it somewhere I can see it. LJ-as-commonplace book appeals to me.)"That kind of love. You have to because you're a priest. Like God, it's your metier."
"You don't know anything about priests. I know we are supposed to love mankind indiscriminately, but I don't. That's why I gave up practical priesthood and became a professor. My faith charges me to love my neighbour but I can't and I won't fake it, in the greasy way professional lovers-of-mankind do -- the professionally charitable, the newspaper sob-sisters, the politicians. I'm not Christ, Arthur, and I can't love like Him, so I settle for courtesy, consideration, decent manners, and whatever I can do for the people I really do love..."
--Robertson Davies, The Lyre of Orpheus, pg. 227
This isn't quite how I run myself in the world -- the stuff about priesthood and Christ clearly doesn't apply -- but it gets close.
