tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post5363915559414230790..comments2024-03-29T03:04:00.853-05:00Comments on Wuthering <br>Expectations: excited thumbs now fleshless in the grave - the winter day emerged like a dead-born child - Hardy describes thingsAmateur Reader (Tom)http://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-81902366903122246562016-12-15T23:51:00.198-06:002016-12-15T23:51:00.198-06:00"the conflict that being out of joint creates..."the conflict that being out of joint creates" - yes, that's good, that's helpful.<br /><br />Hardy, at the sentence level, makes me say "wow" a lot. Sometimes "wow, that's great," sometimes "wow, that's terrible." My experience with Lawrence has been similar, although Lawrence is I guess more willing to risk wretchedly bad lines in his poetry.<br /><br />I need to spend more time with Lawrence too, and not just his poems.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-13844651449824285952016-12-15T23:30:10.441-06:002016-12-15T23:30:10.441-06:00You have moved on; I'm still working on The Wo...You have moved on; I'm still working on The Woodlanders, following it up with Lady Chatterly's Lover and then Lawrence's essay on Hardy (waiting for it from Interlibrary Loan). Lawrence reminds me of Dostoyevsky--a terrible writer of sentences, but a great writer of ideas, even when they're hamfistedly presented. So far Lady Chatterley is taking a great deal of time to work up speed, but it's Hardyesque in that characters that are out of place in their landscape are always in trouble in some way; those that are grounded in place are also less interesting, since they lack the conflict that being out of joint creates. When my Hardy seminar is over I intend to read more Lawrence to see whether his uneven genius spreads across his other novels.<br />cwilson284https://www.blogger.com/profile/01095943424268993611noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-65185490336137981192016-11-23T17:02:17.842-06:002016-11-23T17:02:17.842-06:00A shocking simile - it sure is. A surprise in con...A shocking simile - it sure is. A surprise in context, too, right at the beginning of an early chapter. Nothing in the novel so far has been <i>that</i> grim. A glimpse of some horror behind the story.<br /><br />Hardy's sense of good taste is quite different than mine, but I think he is doing just what Scott says - avoiding cliches and conventional language, even at the risk of the comical verbosity Simon mentions.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-62910123459552454532016-11-23T15:42:56.389-06:002016-11-23T15:42:56.389-06:00Vera Nabokov once said that the truly great litera...Vera Nabokov once said that the truly great literary accomplishment Vladimir Nabokov made was to never use a cliche nor to repeat himself.scott g.f.baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05726743149139510832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-84738813397216024252016-11-23T14:27:23.835-06:002016-11-23T14:27:23.835-06:00The winter/dead baby simile just might be the most...The winter/dead baby simile just might be the most shocking/effective I've ever read. I recall writer's advice: never use a figure of speech that has been previously used by someone else. I suspect no one will ever coopt the unforgettable and imitable winter/dead baby trope. Horrible! I might never again think of winter in the same way. Thanks. RTDhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17113953356514605424noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-4364512224809280542016-11-23T13:21:18.383-06:002016-11-23T13:21:18.383-06:00Yeah, look at what tremendous effort he makes to a...Yeah, look at what tremendous effort he makes to avoid cliche. It's anything but lazy and quick.scott g.f.baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05726743149139510832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-8278522158800569312016-11-23T12:23:01.208-06:002016-11-23T12:23:01.208-06:00Oh, I never thought Hardy's sentences were &qu...Oh, I never thought Hardy's sentences were "cranked out," even the worst of them. I think he worked hard at them. I think he liked them that way, trying to do in prose what he would have rather done in verse.<br /><br />Maybe we all mean something different by "cranked out." "She burst into tears" is more what I think of as cranked out - written fast for money - but "lacrhymose twitches" looks hand-crafted to me.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-28767177431556214982016-11-23T11:51:32.513-06:002016-11-23T11:51:32.513-06:00Fascinating quotations: that 'dead baby' i...Fascinating quotations: that 'dead baby' image is extraordinary. It's so long since I read this I'd need to go back to it. You're unerring in your putting your finger on TH's style and methods - excellent stuff. Maybe you're right to query his being a hack; but at the level of sentences - some of these do look 'cranked out', as you've suggested in Tess, and to some extent here. He often seems at pains to display his erudition and vocabulary, and this presents as verbosity.Simon Laveryhttp://tredynasdays.co.uknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-80905084564597107712016-11-23T09:24:05.196-06:002016-11-23T09:24:05.196-06:00Your vote is that Hardy was a hack. All right. T...Your vote is that Hardy was a hack. All right. That is not an explanation I remember seeing. Or are you just referring to specific novels? I don't know anything about how most of them were written. <i>Tess</i>, though, "cranked out" is not how I would describe the process on that one.<br /><br />Nor this one, just based on the text. Maybe the argument is that Hardy was not a <i>good</i> hack. Too much art. He could have just said that character burst into tears and zipped on.<br /><br />Honestly, 14 short-to-medium novels in 25 years does not seem, in Victorian terms, or today's, like such vigorous cranking.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-77644226857882179812016-11-23T09:00:38.558-06:002016-11-23T09:00:38.558-06:00Back in graduate school I was quite the Hardy fan....Back in graduate school I was quite the Hardy fan. I read all the top-tier books and then dabbled in the second-tier books. The truth is Hardy cranked them out. He had to make a living. But as second-tier work goes, I thought it was pretty good overall. james b chesterhttp://jamesreadsbooks.comnoreply@blogger.com