tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post3966970894536618204..comments2024-03-17T05:07:13.710-05:00Comments on Wuthering <br>Expectations: Last Lines of the 19th CenturyAmateur Reader (Tom)http://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-42449889502084748282008-03-13T15:43:00.000-05:002008-03-13T15:43:00.000-05:00Humiliatin', ain't it? Well, not really. I'll get ...Humiliatin', ain't it? Well, not really. I'll get to it soon.<BR/><BR/>As for the end of that book about the readin' rat, it's seems so self-contained as to the make the novel itself unnecessary.<BR/><BR/>Savage seems to have literalized the books-as-food metaphor that I use all the time (chewing through a book, etc). I looked up your post on the book, and you convinced me to AITML.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-34555586619218198232008-03-13T13:54:00.000-05:002008-03-13T13:54:00.000-05:00I rally temporarily to offer this last bit from a ...I rally temporarily to offer this last bit from a notable novel, Sam Savages <I>Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Life</I>, which I last read was creating excitement in Spain.<BR/><BR/><I>I turned around once in my nest. I unfolded the wad, unfolding it all the way out till it was once more a piece from a page, a page from a book, a book from a man. I unfolded it all the way out and I read: “But I’m loothing them that’s here and all I lothe. Loonely in me loneness. For all their faults. I am passing out. O bitter ending! They’ll never see. Nor know. Nor miss me. And it’s old and old it’s sad and old it’s sad and weary.” I stared at the words and they did not swim or blur. Rats have no tears. Dry and cold was the world and beautiful the words. Words of good-bye and farewell, farewell and so long, from the little one and the Big One. I folded the passage up again and I ate it.</I>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-55266792206516802242008-03-13T13:52:00.000-05:002008-03-13T13:52:00.000-05:00Don't say you've never read Jane Eyre? O-Oh,I feel...Don't say you've never read <I>Jane Eyre</I>? O-Oh,I feel faintish.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-13553892980433192352008-03-12T18:38:00.000-05:002008-03-12T18:38:00.000-05:00It's great idea, isn't it - I was tearing through ...It's great idea, isn't it - I was tearing through my shelves, looking at everything. I barely even addressed the short stories - Welty, Chekhov, Grace Paley. That Dickens quote is a good one, too.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-6286714015898404632008-03-12T13:41:00.000-05:002008-03-12T13:41:00.000-05:00Now that I'm looking, I see great endings everywhe...Now that I'm looking, I see great endings everywhere...here's another one, also 19thC:<BR/><BR/>"They went quietly down into the roaring streets, inseparable and blessed; and as they passed along in sunshine and shade, the noisy and the eager, and the arrogant and the froward and the vain, fretted and chafed, and made their usual uproar."<BR/><BR/>(It's the last sentence of Dickens's <I>Little Dorrit</I>.)<BR/><BR/>OK, I'll stop now.Rohan Maitzenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12111722115617352412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-84306005272105501312008-03-12T12:07:00.000-05:002008-03-12T12:07:00.000-05:00What passage would not be improved by imagining it...What passage would not be improved by imagining it in the voice of Judi Dench? For example, try out that John Hawkes ending in verbivore's comment above - fantastic.<BR/><BR/>As for Eliot, I gladly defer. She is at the top of my David Lodge-style Humiliation list, with "The Scarlet Letter", "Jane Eyre", "Walden", and "Green Henry".Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-19903001982055754802008-03-12T10:58:00.000-05:002008-03-12T10:58:00.000-05:00But the ending of Middlemarch is lovely--wistful, ...But the ending of <I>Middlemarch</I> is lovely--wistful, poetic, philosophical, and (perhaps most important) just right, formally and thematically, for concluding what has gone before:<BR/><BR/>"Her finely-touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely visible. Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unheroic acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs."<BR/><BR/>It helps, perhaps, to imagine it in the voice of Judi Dench, who provides the voice-overs in the BBC adaptation.Rohan Maitzenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12111722115617352412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-69979970337522333752008-03-12T09:49:00.000-05:002008-03-12T09:49:00.000-05:00I know what you mean about the Russell Banks quote...I know what you mean about the Russell Banks quote. These modernist writers put a lot of work into their final lines.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-32272959783917255782008-03-12T07:18:00.000-05:002008-03-12T07:18:00.000-05:00I choose a few favorites from the DPF:"Go, my book...I choose a few favorites from the DPF:<BR/>"Go, my book, and help destroy the world as it is." Russell Banks (whom I've never read but think I must now).<BR/><BR/>Also love this one: That’s it. The sun in the evening. The moon at dawn. The still voice. –John Hawkes, Second Skin (1964)<BR/><BR/>For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate. –Albert Camus, The Stranger (1942; trans. Matthew Ward)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com