tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post652201029953379685..comments2024-03-27T16:48:21.039-05:00Comments on Wuthering <br>Expectations: Nothing but sane and moonshot water - what is it like to be Grandfather Trout?Amateur Reader (Tom)http://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-72690785551411945202015-06-06T22:02:25.443-05:002015-06-06T22:02:25.443-05:00I suppose this is why August is given a choice of ...I suppose this is why August is given a choice of worlds at the end. As the gateway, he his spent all of that time between worlds.<br /><br />His first appearance is the first leak of the fairy world into the real or vice versa, when the unprepared reader says, wait, Grandfather Trout is not just a name, but a fish?<br /><br />I figure "gateway" was there, once you pointed it out, maybe even before. I have wondered that about Darger myself, although more prosaically - I wonder how good he really was, so I need something more conventional by which to judge him. But an artist like that, if he is more conventional he no longer exists.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-19215011148722578422015-06-06T18:08:15.844-05:002015-06-06T18:08:15.844-05:00(And I could see, so clearly in my mind, the place...(And I could see, so clearly in my mind, the place where the Trout was described like that, even the size of the paragraph and the position on the screen, but when I look afterwards it isn't there. I don't know where it was.)<br /><br />Eddison uses meaning-shifting magic names as well -- his "Mercury" is Mercury even though it isn't -- though in his case he was (so I read somewhere) drawing on characters and places he'd invented for his private stories when he was a child. So the conflation might have been a little boy's conflation, and the adult brought it back again and put it to work, which makes me wonder what the <i>Vivian Girls</i> prose book would have been if Henry Darger had somehow woken out of his reclusiveness and constructed a version that was not over fifteen thousand pages long. Umbagollahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14556344092820711893noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-51780391130243130882015-06-06T12:00:03.532-05:002015-06-06T12:00:03.532-05:00("Within," and also outside the world of...("Within," and also <i>outside</i> the world of the book, are book-worlds, so that he, and everything, is a corridor leading out of <i>Little, Big</i> into some other volume, a two-way leakage.)Umbagollahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14556344092820711893noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-77420609610659965942015-06-06T11:57:52.785-05:002015-06-06T11:57:52.785-05:00"Different states of the world" in that ..."Different states of the world" in that the worlds within the world of the book are book-worlds, and the presence of the fish is an introduction from one to the other; he's also conducting the reader from the fictional-mimicked-real world of houses by forests into the fictional-mimicked-magical world of spells and curses, and re-making the point that they are next to and on top of one another, and intersecting, and indivisible: he is entirely a gate because everything is. Umbagollahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14556344092820711893noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-20237048089814150342015-06-05T14:04:12.020-05:002015-06-05T14:04:12.020-05:00The Rackham is one I caught, although perhaps beca...The Rackham is one I caught, although perhaps because Crowley mentions it specifically somewhere. That picture sure does fit the novel. I suspect there are more Rackham images hidden in the book.<br /><br />RT - yes, that seems reasonable, to the extent that I understand you. Art ought to move a person outside of himself sometimes. Into an imaginary fish or what have you. Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-68137710133431754672015-06-05T12:59:42.191-05:002015-06-05T12:59:42.191-05:00Here is my simple-minded reaction to everything yo...Here is my simple-minded reaction to everything you have written here: Writers worth their salt allow us to imagine different realities (truths), even those of the fish, but we are sobered in our realization that we are probably unable to understand our own realities (truths), so our reading -- if we are alert -- reminds of the many ironies involved in realities and truths, and our smug self-satisfaction with ourselves is shocked into different realities (truths). Too simple? Yeah, that's what I thought.R.T.https://www.blogger.com/profile/13220814349193561823noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-43605267782316385472015-06-05T12:50:26.422-05:002015-06-05T12:50:26.422-05:00I didn’t catch many references to images I recogni...I didn’t catch many references to images I recognized, but do remember a description of this, from <i>Arthur Rackham’s Book of Pictures</i>:<br /><a href="http://vintagephotoprints.com/ArthurRackhamCollection/bookofpictures1913/Arthur%20Rackhams%20Book%20Of%20Pictures%201913%20x44/Arthur%20Rackham%27s%20Book%20of%20Pictures%201913%20-%205,%20By%20the%20Way.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://vintagephotoprints.com/ArthurRackhamCollection/bookofpictures1913/Arthur%20Rackhams%20Book%20Of%20Pictures%201913%20x44/Arthur%20Rackham%27s%20Book%20of%20Pictures%201913%20-%205,%20By%20the%20Way.jpg</a><br />Bill from PAnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-26424907333446790902015-06-05T08:07:32.880-05:002015-06-05T08:07:32.880-05:00The book has a number of images hidden in it. Or ...The book has a number of images hidden in it. Or just a few and I caught them all, but I bet many and I missed them.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-52320805798909499402015-06-05T06:13:38.779-05:002015-06-05T06:13:38.779-05:00That's a great throwaway reference to Alice; I...That's a great throwaway reference to Alice; I wouldn't have noticed it but would have loved the idea nevertheless.LMRhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08538873868140070018noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-13774520597845261612015-06-04T22:33:32.085-05:002015-06-04T22:33:32.085-05:00I have only - merely - read The Worm Ourobouros, b...I have only - merely - read <i>The Worm Ourobouros</i>, but Pykk, linked above, has read the Zimiamvia books. How funny that you mention them. Yes, far out, that's how they sound.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-40233580978137285742015-06-04T17:55:06.302-05:002015-06-04T17:55:06.302-05:00i've never read LITTLE,BIG, but it sounds like...i've never read LITTLE,BIG, but it sounds like a hoot from the under side perspective. meaning, as i do, looking at the situation from the other side of the reality wall. or just playing with same to the greatest extreme possible. have you ever read the zimiamvia trilogy by eddison? that's about as far out as i've ever traveled, except for my own creations. looking at what i just wrote, i don't think it means anything; oh well...Mudpuddlehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17194891656971454279noreply@blogger.com