tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post8484873827522009701..comments2024-03-27T16:48:21.039-05:00Comments on Wuthering <br>Expectations: Yellow cocktail music - Nick Carraway is a great writerAmateur Reader (Tom)http://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-57879219944060125962010-09-24T13:03:44.108-05:002010-09-24T13:03:44.108-05:00Thanks, Jane - dense of me. The reference to Curr...Thanks, Jane - dense of me. The reference to Currer should have been a good enough signal, but no, right over my head.<br /><br />How's the Gaskell book? She doesn't come up with my idea, does she, that we need to read <i>Jane Eyre</i> etc. as fictional non-fiction? I suppose I had better look for myself. I'm so suspicious of biographical interpretations, maybe too much so.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-11208017181784024082010-09-24T12:45:15.010-05:002010-09-24T12:45:15.010-05:00>I personally think Jane Eyre is pretty much wi...>I personally think Jane Eyre is pretty much wish fulfillment on the part of Currer Bell :)<br /><br />:) means I made a joke and that's me smiling at it.<br /><br />I'm reading The Life of Charlotte Bronte, and Gaskell tries to keep the distinction between Charlotte Bronte, the woman, and Currer Bell, the author, though they inhabit the same body. I was just trying to be funny by suggesting that Currer Bell, not Charlotte Bronte, identified with her heroine, Jane Eyre.JaneGShttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11094501834387622997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-76339698463138905822010-09-24T10:54:01.785-05:002010-09-24T10:54:01.785-05:00Yes, do, Rebecca. You won't believe it's ...Yes, do, Rebecca. You won't believe it's the same book. In some sense, it won't be.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-83980819351071117122010-09-24T06:19:54.600-05:002010-09-24T06:19:54.600-05:00I read GREAT GATSBY in high school and I remember ...I read GREAT GATSBY in high school and I remember I was fascinated by Nick Carraway. He was my paper subject. I don't remember much else (i.e., why I was so fascinated). I should reread the book.Rebecca Reidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06062252252301802298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-49969256437960952052010-09-22T15:47:37.422-05:002010-09-22T15:47:37.422-05:00I've never read Morrison, either. I love tric...I've never read Morrison, either. I love tricky narrators, perhaps a bit too much.<br /><br />It is peculiar. Fitzgerald (who was real) wrote a book called <i>The Great Gatsby</i> which is fiction, and Carraway (who is not real) wrote a book of the same title that is non-fiction, and the two books have <i>the same words in the same order</i>, yet are not the same book.<br /><br />That Capote-wrote-<i>Mockingbird</i> business seems so belittling. Is there any actual evidence for it? Why wouldn't the reverse be just as likely - that Capote's assistant, Lee, wrote some of his stuff?Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-26584165924036640582010-09-22T14:31:00.742-05:002010-09-22T14:31:00.742-05:00Not just you, looking at Carroway and half-wonderi...Not just you, looking at Carroway and half-wondering, but not bothering to check.<br /><br />Only noting here that I was reading about Capote last night, a George Plimpton oral history of sorts, and some one was talking about the question of whether Capote did substantial work helping out Lee in writing Mockingbird (her only book). Ironically enough, for this comment thread and post, the statement was about the possibility that he was able to adopt the narrative voice of the book.zhivhttp://zhiv.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-618827836216356852010-09-22T05:08:56.836-05:002010-09-22T05:08:56.836-05:00Peculiar how one person's memoir so much resem...Peculiar how one person's memoir so much resembles another's novel... hmmm! <br /><br />Brings to mind many of Toni Morrison's books -- especially <i>Love</i>. One of the trickiest, weirdest narrators I can think of. (I won't give it away.)Mariekehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13251172733432029106noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-82024115733210603362010-09-21T22:35:43.320-05:002010-09-21T22:35:43.320-05:00I've never read Powers, but its Modernists lik...I've never read Powers, but its Modernists like him - much earlier than him, actually - who trained me to keep an eye on the narrator. Although they didn't invent any of this.<br /><br />Jane, what does that sideways smiley face mean? I don't know how to read those. I only know Currer as a writer.<br /><br />Is the Haddon book meant to be written? Meaning, is the kid writing? Talking? Just thinking?<br /><br />Roger - what have I done? Do you know how many times I have looked at that name in the past two days? Pathetic! Thanks much.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-16351107686968653652010-09-21T22:21:30.295-05:002010-09-21T22:21:30.295-05:00Isn't it Nick Carraway actually- or is that an...Isn't it Nick Carraway actually- or is that another instance of his unreliability as a narrator?Rogernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-8050696488891309432010-09-21T21:01:42.770-05:002010-09-21T21:01:42.770-05:00Reading The Gold Bug Variations, I spent a great d...Reading The Gold Bug Variations, I spent a great deal of time wondering what I was reading. I'm not sure I've read anything else that I didn't find out whose story I was reading until the last page. A combination of Jan O'Deigh's unemployment self-improvement notes and Franklin Todd's dissertation-- who'd have guessed? Both Franklin and Jan have some writing issues, never thought to try and determine if they were there's alone or shared with Robert Powers (the novel's author).Sparkling Squirrelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10899640164757220074noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-65321476874499656862010-09-21T18:29:38.085-05:002010-09-21T18:29:38.085-05:00I really like this post--thought provoking. One o...I really like this post--thought provoking. One of the thing I really liked about Incident of the Dog in the Night (or whatever it's called) is that the narrator is so distinctive and not the author, which is a rare feat. I personally think Jane Eyre is pretty much wish fulfillment on the part of Currer Bell :)<br /><br />I have always loved Nick Carroway, though Fitzgerald I have issues with...JaneGShttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11094501834387622997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-24596492298676239362010-09-21T16:43:54.030-05:002010-09-21T16:43:54.030-05:00Jenny - That's right! First step, at least. ...Jenny - That's right! First step, at least. Jane Eyre (and Lucy Snowe, author of <i>Villette</i>) are themselves extraordinarily talented writers. If I try to figure about what <i>they</i> are doing with their writing, does that get me anywhere? I think it does.<br /><br />Just as it does with <i>Gatsby</i>. I hope. There are plenty of other good books where the idea is just a curiosity that gets us nowhere. So, nicole, yes, please, add to the list.<br /><br />Now, I have not read Harper Lee. I know that many of her readers truly love the narrator's voice. How does Lee frame the story - is it meant to be a real memoir, a book? Or something more vague? Most first-person narrations are deliberately vague about exactly what the text is supposed to be.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-38981552899977291822010-09-21T14:25:16.383-05:002010-09-21T14:25:16.383-05:00Charlotte Bronte: Jane, the great writer (though a...Charlotte Bronte: Jane, the great writer (though a mere governess, educated to Lowood standards) writing her book Jane Eyre? Reader, I mochaed him?<br /><br />Nah, knowing you, it's probably something completely different.<br /><br />My favorite bit in The Great Gatsby is that wonderful drunken modernist portrait of Gatsby: not Singer but Picasso. His shoes, his pants, an ear, an eye. Lovely.Jennyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00251983804060081813noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-8987702069815027432010-09-21T12:35:03.608-05:002010-09-21T12:35:03.608-05:00I always like Scout Finch as author/storyteller/na...I always like Scout Finch as author/storyteller/narrator--and how she is the eyes and voice of a child as well as the eyes and voice of an adult. Of course, I'm not sure how Harper Lee would write it since she didn't write anything else...Hannahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09543197858284977937noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-4582397861775220492010-09-21T12:13:06.656-05:002010-09-21T12:13:06.656-05:00Aren’t the two things different, shouldn’t they lo...<em>Aren’t the two things different, shouldn’t they look different?</em><br /><br />Ooh, ooh. When I start writing again, I'm going to have something to write about this too, about Scott, and Melville, and that passage I discovered ages ago in <em>Benito Cereno</em>, and other stuff. Soon.nicolehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17532641082944082516noreply@blogger.com