tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post5939706191197403588..comments2024-03-29T03:04:00.853-05:00Comments on Wuthering <br>Expectations: "We don't mean that sort. We hate 'em too'" - some Rudyard Kipling fairy storiesAmateur Reader (Tom)http://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-32250415113160327812015-05-12T16:41:44.145-05:002015-05-12T16:41:44.145-05:00Me too, I look forward to it, too. The obstacle, ...Me too, I look forward to it, too. The obstacle, perhaps ridiculous, is not having an actual book. But at some point I will just read <i>T&D</i> electronically, in a scanned copy.<br /><br />The family tree in <i>Little, Big</i> is worth some study. I had not notices that joke last time, either. Nor, from the page I am on now, "the five hundred milligrams of Pellucidar he had taken" - and I knew as well back then what, or where, Pellucidar was, but I guess I did not really see the word then. Too much else going on in the book.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-72663885624363457852015-05-12T12:34:53.126-05:002015-05-12T12:34:53.126-05:00AR(T), I look forward to the day you read Traffics...AR(T), I look forward to the day you read Traffics and Discoveries because I'd love to read your take on those endlessly meaning-shifting tales, specially Below the Mill Dam, Wireless, Mrs. Bathurst and Them (sic).<br /><br />As for Little, Big, thanks to the French edition including the family tree of the main characters at the very start, I enjoyed catching the 'tall drink of water' secret joke (for first time readers).Cleanthesshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15363416290397892659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-25474441821889994722015-05-11T08:13:42.054-05:002015-05-11T08:13:42.054-05:00So there's some other argument at work, too. ...So there's some other argument at work, too. Curious. "as though explaining" is the kind of phrase commonly encountered in <i>Little, Big</i>.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-10733566620590343802015-05-11T01:14:28.388-05:002015-05-11T01:14:28.388-05:00Those explanations are superficially right, until ...Those explanations are superficially right, until you dig a little below the surface. The blind lady has not lost or birthed any children either, and she can hear them. What she has (and this is my own crude guess) is psychic powers, and the narrator seems to share her gifts since he understands the details of her extra-sensory perception and because when he finally 'understands' she 'senses' his understanding and he 'senses' her sensing it. <br /><br />Also, no parent in the world being granted access to their dead children will stop visiting them once they realize the extraordinary mercy they've been given (as the associated poem tells), and, as is repeated in the story, 'it's not a matter of favor but of right', i.e. salvation not by grace but by works.<br /><br />Why does the middle of the story deals with the narrator trying to save a child only to have the child die two days later? And what does this passage mean: <br /><br />"I looked on either side of the deep fireplace, and found but a half-charred hedge-stake with which I punched a black log into flame.<br /><br /> ``It never goes out, day or night,'' she said, as though explaining"<br /><br /> Why is 'it' wrong only for the narrator and why he must never come back?<br /><br />To me, Mrs. Bathurst seems clear as water when compared to 'They'.Cleanthesshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15363416290397892659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-12000968968301370102015-05-10T23:06:26.193-05:002015-05-10T23:06:26.193-05:00I haven't read "'They'" - aa...I haven't read "'They'" - aargh, Kipling and his quotation marks in titles. The <a href="http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/bookmart_fra.htm" rel="nofollow">Kipling Society website</a> (which is screwy, so you have to click around to find this) takes it that the narrator did lose one, his daughter.<br /><br />What a sad story.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-54670180542263136272015-05-10T19:51:36.425-05:002015-05-10T19:51:36.425-05:00Arguably Kipling's best fairy story is Them, b...Arguably Kipling's best fairy story is Them, but it's not my favorite because I don't feel like I understand it. Even worse, I haven't read any satisfactory explanation of Them. The premise of Them is simple: in order to see them you must have given birth to and/or lost one of them. So how come the male narrator sees them? Cleanthesshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15363416290397892659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-85354576712295726232015-05-10T15:57:50.519-05:002015-05-10T15:57:50.519-05:00Not dreadful; pretty close to prime Kipling, actua...Not dreadful; pretty close to prime Kipling, actually. If you are looking for stories that stand up to "The Man Who Would Be King," Kipling wrote plenty of them.<br /><br />If Kipling was arguing about fairies, he was arguing against them. He wasn't totally gullible, like Doyle. But I think it is more accurate to say that he is writing about the impulse that leads people to argue about fairies.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-57271714518274693492015-05-10T10:50:35.459-05:002015-05-10T10:50:35.459-05:00See this is the main reason why I read your blog. ...See this is the main reason why I read your blog. I'd no idea of this story's existence. It sounds both dreadful and fascinating. It also makes me wonder if writers of the time were really arguing about fairies through their stories. At the time there was much speculation about whether fairies really existed. It could make for an interesting paper if I were still writing papers like that. <br /><br />But I'll probably stick with Kim, The Jungle Books and The Man Who Would Be King.james b chesterhttp://jamesreadsbooks.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-89091613523446892592015-05-06T16:46:59.932-05:002015-05-06T16:46:59.932-05:00Machen is a perfect fit for the E. R. Dodds book I...Machen is a perfect fit for the E. R. Dodds book I may write about today, if I dare. The extension to UFOs is only logical.<br /><br />I have read that Drayton poem! Or some of it. I will have to check my Drayton collection to see if - probably how - the editor chopped it up. Heavy hand with the scissors, that editor. I certainly did not <i>remember</i> it until you mentioned it.<br /><br />Kipling People is good people, says me. Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-73057531849013849902015-05-06T12:49:11.957-05:002015-05-06T12:49:11.957-05:00My people are Kipling People, so I had this, and R...My people are Kipling People, so I had this, and Rewards and Fairies, and Kim, and all the rest (as well as 1066 and All That, incidentally.) It *was* baffling, as were a great many other books I read at the time. Also terrific.Jennyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00251983804060081813noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-39066450630370230622015-05-06T08:42:07.010-05:002015-05-06T08:42:07.010-05:00I've enjoyed Arthur Machen's stories, in w...I've enjoyed Arthur Machen's stories, in which fairies are horrible things indeed. On the non-fiction shelf, Margaret Murray's influential but serenely unscholarly "God of the Witches" argues that fairies were a reclusive tribe of dwarfish pagans; Jacques Vallee's "Passport to Magonia" points out the similarities between fairy lore and UFO abductions.<br /><br />Oh, and if you haven't read Michael Drayton's "Nymphidia," it's worth a shot. (It's not long.) And there's always Yeats! Doug Skinnerhttp://www.dougskinner.netnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-47868884242895854442015-05-06T08:23:12.290-05:002015-05-06T08:23:12.290-05:00I wish I had read this book as a child. If I had ...I wish I had read this book as a child. If I had been too young, much of the book would have been baffling, but, eh, bafflement is healthy.<br /><br /><a href="https://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/2014/05/30/recent-reads-puck-of-pooks-hill-by-rudyard-kipling/" rel="nofollow">Here is Kaggy's review</a>. We both need to read <i>Rewards and Fairies</i>!Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-73254757363122060292015-05-06T04:16:14.563-05:002015-05-06T04:16:14.563-05:00Lovely review! I don't know how I would have r...Lovely review! I don't know how I would have responded to this as a child, but I only discovered it last year and was charmed - a lovely and evocative and surprisingly informative book! <br /><br />kaggsysbookishramblingsAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-1112359158327667452015-05-05T22:56:28.890-05:002015-05-05T22:56:28.890-05:00Pedantic in the most useful way - thank you. I th...Pedantic in the most useful way - thank you. I think of the cutoff as more like 1917. 11 am, Nov. 11, 1917, maybe. That cutoff is in ever-increasing danger. Thanks for the pointer to Warner's book, too - interesting.<br /><br />I obviously need to read <i>Rewards and Fairies</i>, as well. But I had guessed that.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-39899154798984705892015-05-05T22:20:58.099-05:002015-05-05T22:20:58.099-05:00Oops - and pedantic as ever - it's a gold hoar...Oops - and pedantic as ever - it's a gold hoard, not a horde. The Mongols didn't make it as far as Kent.Roger Allenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11012987757094423896noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-3072866262774660602015-05-05T22:06:18.531-05:002015-05-05T22:06:18.531-05:00More interesting and unconventional fairies appear...More interesting and unconventional fairies appear in Sylvia Townsend Warner's Kingdoms of Elfin. I'll read Little, Big too: anything which can make you abandon your 1914 [?] cut-off point should be worth having a look at.Roger Allenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11012987757094423896noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-22928862700127522312015-05-05T21:39:26.394-05:002015-05-05T21:39:26.394-05:00My favorite of Kipling's fairy stories is Mark...My favorite of Kipling's fairy stories is Marklake Witches, a tale in which we the readers realize something that poor little Una, being a child, cannot. Not to mention these lines, which Kipling wrote for a little girl afraid of the woods and their little people:<br /><br />Yet, if you enter the woods<br /> Of a summer evening late,<br /> When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools<br /> Where the otter whistles his mate<br /> (They fear not men in the woods<br /> Because they see so few),<br /> You will hear the beat of a horse's feet<br /> And the swish of a skirt in the dew,<br /> Steadily cantering through<br /> The misty solitudes,<br /> As though they perfectly knew<br /> The old lost road through the woods...<br /> But there is no road through the woods!Cleanthesshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15363416290397892659noreply@blogger.com