tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post7495264811167559952..comments2024-03-27T16:48:21.039-05:00Comments on Wuthering <br>Expectations: The Best Books of 1813 - who am I kidding, the Best Book - I cannot prate in puling strainAmateur Reader (Tom)http://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-35212748542895911832014-01-06T08:45:53.113-06:002014-01-06T08:45:53.113-06:00That stuff about the parakeets is wonderful. Chat...That stuff about the parakeets is wonderful. Chateaubriand seems to have invented magical realism.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-75733958554728928472014-01-06T08:31:42.021-06:002014-01-06T08:31:42.021-06:00OK. First half.
And you find in it funny sentences...OK. First half.<br />And you find in it funny sentences as "Marie-Antoinette, in smiling, shaped her mouth so positively, that the memory of that smile (what an appalling thing!) allowed me to recognise that jaw-bone of that daughter of kings when the head of that unfortunate woman was discovered during the exhumations of 1815" (book V, chapter 8). <br />Or, if you aren't sensible to old royalties, but only in old America, this note from the real linguist Chateaubriand was: "The small tribes of the Orinoco no longer exist; of their dialect there only remain a dozen or so words uttered in the tree-tops by parakeets that have been freed, like Agrippina’s thrush that chirped Greek words from the balustrades of the Roman palaces. Such will be, sooner or later, the fate of our modern tongues, the ruins of Greek and Latin. What raven, freed from a cage, belonging to the last Franco-Gallic priest, will croak, to a foreign people, our successors, from the heights of some ruined bell-tower: ‘Hear the accents of a voice once known to you: you will bring an end to all such speech.’"catherine darleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05693132012083884186noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-69359699807433824082013-12-26T10:34:09.475-06:002013-12-26T10:34:09.475-06:00No, in answer to your Goya question, no, you can n...No, in answer to your Goya question, no, you can never go wrong.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-10836563441899859352013-12-22T17:32:41.325-06:002013-12-22T17:32:41.325-06:00I always do enjoy these year-end posts of yours. C...I always do enjoy these year-end posts of yours. Can one ever go wrong in turning to Goya? Although, as my first exposure to what one might call art history was in Spanish class, I may be biased. <br /><br />I am not surprised that Austen's rabid fame is more recent (1995 as you say), but I guess I didn't realize that even academic interest appears to have been more recent. Although, perhaps I shouldn't be surprised.amanda @ simplerpastimeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14127945915013121105noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-47370662291733913132013-12-20T16:26:05.811-06:002013-12-20T16:26:05.811-06:00Hugo, Balzac, Musset and so on? You mean them? Y...Hugo, Balzac, Musset and so on? You mean them? Yes, I have heard that they are good.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-62486974415411637682013-12-20T15:32:56.383-06:002013-12-20T15:32:56.383-06:00At the time, the future geniuses still have acne a...At the time, the future geniuses still have acne and high-pitched voices. Wait another 15 years and they're there. (This last sentence is terribly difficult to pronounce for my French tongue) Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-32647411368021347642013-12-19T16:38:28.099-06:002013-12-19T16:38:28.099-06:00That's all in the first third! Amazing.That's all in the first third! Amazing.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-91619978662178135142013-12-19T16:30:45.551-06:002013-12-19T16:30:45.551-06:00The first third of Les Mémoires d'outre-tombe ...The first third of Les Mémoires d'outre-tombe can be such a funny reading, especially the chapters about the French revolution, the Emigration and about the Restoration.<br />Mme de Staël and Benjamin Constant are the last of the great writers of the 18th century, they use the peculiar and beautiful French of this time.catherine darleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05693132012083884186noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-4351046580417298132013-12-19T15:13:26.125-06:002013-12-19T15:13:26.125-06:00This whole period, it seems that only the French e...This whole period, it seems that only the French exiles - Chateaubriand, Mme de Staël, Constant - remembered how to write.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-32892132321839016762013-12-19T14:51:53.752-06:002013-12-19T14:51:53.752-06:00That year Madame de Stael wrote Reflexions sur le ...That year Madame de Stael wrote Reflexions sur le suicide. I'm not sure it's a cheerful thing to read. <br />Very interesting statistics about Pride and Prejudice. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-4921972644449556232013-12-17T23:12:39.941-06:002013-12-17T23:12:39.941-06:00I have never put together a music chronology like ...I have never put together a music chronology like I have with literature or to some degree with art. It is a difficult task. If I put a piece in the proper half-century I feel like I have gotten close. There must be a long stretch where Beethoven composed at least one stupendous work each year.<br /><br />I should read that Chateaubriand book sometime, an abridgment I mean. I have read <i>The Genius of Christianity</i>, for pity's sake, so I ought to read the memoir, too.<br /><br />I want to be careful knocking that study, since I in fact believe that these quantitative methods can be valuable. For example, quantifying the most important historical figures is absurd, but measuring who people at different times have <i>believed</i> to be the most important figures could be quite interesting. As with any statistical argument, you should be as precise as possible about what you are measuring, and report the results as clearly as possible.<br /><br />Those lovely swirly organic things seem designed to obscure.<br /><br />In a letter, Austen once wrote that her favorite novel was <i>Sir Charles Grandison</i> by Samuel Richardson, a fine but tedious and nearly endless novel that I have read myself. She must have read Fanny Burney. Books of improving sermons. <i>Rasselas</i>. William Cowper. Maria Edgeworth. For some reason most of the references to specific books are in <i>Mansfield Park</i>.<br /><br />The issue with Scott is that his great influence was not linguistic but conceptual. If he can write a novel about 18th century Scotland, I can write a novel about the 18th century New York forest, or medieval Paris. If the clothes and customs of historical Scotland are so interesting when put into fiction, maybe the clothes and customs of today could also be used in fiction, rather than just assumed.<br /><br />So the whole thing baffles me.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-91812432504264769452013-12-17T16:27:56.118-06:002013-12-17T16:27:56.118-06:00If you'd stretched your survey to cover music ...If you'd stretched your survey to cover music as well as literature and the visual arts, you could have included, I'm sure. a clutch of works by Beethoven. (I've just looked it up: you could have had Beethoven's 7th symphony.) Pride and Prejudice, Goya's Disasters of War, and Beethoven's 7th symphony ... not a bad year really!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-10415367812715456602013-12-17T14:25:04.821-06:002013-12-17T14:25:04.821-06:00Thank you for the pointer to that Figure 2 (and 3 ...Thank you for the pointer to that Figure 2 (and 3 is not so shabby either).<br />Since we're dealing with books written during the age of Napoleon, perhaps a couple of facts about him may not be too out of order.<br /><br />First, according to another statistical study (similarly faulty), the three most important human beings who ever lived are: Jesus, Napoleon, Mohammed, in that order.<br />http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115669/ranking-historical-figures-skiena-and-wards-whos-bigger-reviewed<br />Napoleon seems to have been a very charismatic man, this first hand account of what it was like to meet him in person comes from book xiv of Chateaubriand's Memoirs from beyond the grave:<br /><br />Bonaparte saw me and recognised me, I have no idea how. When he made his way towards me, no one knew whom he was seeking; the ranks opened successively; everyone was hoping that the Consul would stop in front of them; he had the look of a man experiencing some impatience with those misapprehensions. Bonaparte suddenly raised his voice and said: ‘Monsieur de Chateaubriand!’ I was left standing alone there, in front, since the crowd stepped back and then quickly reformed a circle around the speakers. Bonaparte addressed me simply: without complimenting me, without idle questions, without preamble, he spoke to me immediately about Egypt and the Arabs, as if I had always been in his confidence, and as if we were merely continuing a conversation we had already begun. ‘I was always struck,’ he said, ‘when I saw the sheikhs fall to their knees in the midst of the desert, turn towards the east and touch the sand with their foreheads. What was that unknown thing they were worshipping in the east?’<br /><br />Bonaparte interrupted himself, and passed on to another idea without transition: ‘Christianity? Haven’t the ideologists tried to make an astronomical system out of it? If that should be the case, do they think to persuade me that Christianity is therefore trivial? If Christianity is an allegory of the movement of spheres, the geometry of stars, the free thinkers have done well, since despite themselves they have still left sufficient grandeur to l’infame.’<br /><br />Bonaparte suddenly moved away. Like Job, in my darkness, ‘a spirit passed before me; the hair of my flesh stood up; it stood still: but I could not discern the form thereof: an image was before mine eyes, there was silence, and I heard a voice…’<br /><br />My days have been only a series of visions; Hell and Heaven have continually opened beneath my feet and above my head, without granting me the time to explore their darkness and light. On the shore of two worlds, and on only one occasion in each case, I have encountered the great man of the last century and the great man of the new, Washington and Napoleon.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-31098821462060460522013-12-17T13:41:42.648-06:002013-12-17T13:41:42.648-06:00Wow, that Figure 2 is one potent image, like a Ral...Wow, that Figure 2 is one potent image, like a Ralph Steadman drawing of a weeping, wailing Edward Gorey heroine. <br /><br />Anyway, a great end of year post, as usual. seraillonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17654593356535433945noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-67120232281457889402013-12-17T13:29:51.075-06:002013-12-17T13:29:51.075-06:00"All network layouts employ Gephi’s built-in ..."All network layouts employ Gephi’s built-in Force Atlas 2 algorithm" is my favorite footnote to the linked abstract. I have no idea what it means. It is however so beautiful that I intend to put a version of it into the novel I'm currently writing.<br /><br />So even though I have, disappointingly, not learned about any new books from 1813 via your post, it ends up having been immensely satisfying. Also, it's always nice to see a Turner.<br /><br />But I was going to say, of course, the big question is: Who was Austen reading? Maybe that's the real influence that flowed through and past Austen (and Scott, I guess) into the 19th century?scott g.f.baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05726743149139510832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-69165349154131926742013-12-17T12:48:31.865-06:002013-12-17T12:48:31.865-06:00Well, there's more than one way to read a stud...Well, there's more than one way to read a study. I urge <i>extreme skepticism</i>. <br /><br />I would have to read the book, which is unlikely, to make a serious argument, but if I go by the author's <a href="http://winedarksea.org/?p=1629" rel="nofollow">comment here</a>, two gigantic logical errors leap out, one from the definition of "influence," which is pure bluster that leads to the second, an elementary confusion of correlation and causation. Also, as he admits at the end, the outcome of the experiment is likely caused by the design of the experiment.<br /><br />Having said that, do not miss <a href="http://www.dh2012.uni-hamburg.de/conference/programme/abstracts/computing-and-visualizing-the-19th-century-literary-genome/" rel="nofollow">Figure 2 from this abstract</a>. Most helpful. Literature is saved!<br /><br />On the other hand, you have got me reading about Jane Austen's influence on the "silver fork" novels of the 1820s and 1830s. I am reminded that I have my own prejudices about what influence means. I am weighting by quality.<br /><br />If this post comes up before Byron himself, it only reinforces my suspicion that his once-famous adventure poems have become antiquarian pieces read only by researchers and nuts like me.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-31252209262108731962013-12-17T11:50:39.450-06:002013-12-17T11:50:39.450-06:00I'm a little disturbed that you come up before...I'm a little disturbed that you come up before Lord Byron in a Google search of "I cannot prate in puling strain". Of course Google knows context, so maybe it's not so disturbing. Tom's brothernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-14778258991999423672013-12-17T11:33:01.979-06:002013-12-17T11:33:01.979-06:00Hey, I didn't write the study, I just read it....Hey, I didn't write the study, I just read it. But here's some more details:<br />http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21528775.000-software-reveals-the-most-influential-victorian-novelists.html#.UrCCUuLvY3s<br /><br />"The era's most influential authors are Jane Austen and Walter Scott.<br />The finding is based on a study of digitised copies of over 3500 novels published in English between 1780 and 1900. To gauge influence within this set software [is used which] categorizes novels according to the frequencies with which certain words appear, as well as how the words are grouped to form themes. The result is a series of 'fingerprints', each made up of 600 data points, which characterise the novels." And Austen's and Scott's fingerprints are all over 19th. Century fiction. They are "the literary equivalent of [...] Adam and Eve".Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-82393239563459942772013-12-17T10:11:36.330-06:002013-12-17T10:11:36.330-06:00No, really, the study found Austen was that influe...No, really, the study found Austen was that influential in the <i>19th</i> century? I don't believe it. Later, sure. But there was nothing like Austen domination in the 19th century. Austen was, as we would say today, a mid-list writer.<br /><br />As for Scott, of course Scott. No question. I do not think the <i>Waverley</i> centennial will get a tenth of the attention of <i>P&P</i>. <i>Mansfield Park</i> will get more coverage.<br /><br />I should clarify the conceit of a post like this. The 1810s were not actually lean. They just look thin to us. There were piles of books, presumably good ones. But books die. Two hundred years kills off almost every book. The secret purpose of these posts is to mourn the dead books.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-44523147544797417192013-12-17T09:50:20.379-06:002013-12-17T09:50:20.379-06:00Those were lean years. Austen and Scott dominated ...Those were lean years. Austen and Scott dominated English fiction (someone did some statistical study and found out that they were indeed the most influential English novelists of the 19th Century).<br />The next year, 1814, would be the year of Hoffmann's first collection of tales: Fantasias in two volumes, which included The Golden Pot and his versions of Don Juan and Peter Schlemihl.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-16102097914035709012013-12-17T09:00:18.238-06:002013-12-17T09:00:18.238-06:00Yes, a standard classic, best 100 novels of the 19...Yes, a standard classic, best 100 novels of the 19th century, that sort of thing. But not what it is now.<br /><br />I suspect the turning point was not academic at all, but rather the 1995 BBC mini-series.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-53197837673046270522013-12-17T08:43:09.438-06:002013-12-17T08:43:09.438-06:00Interesting numbers with P&P, though it had to...Interesting numbers with P&P, though it had to have still been thought pretty well of as I read it in my high school advanced placement English in 1985. <br /><br />Love the Byron excerpt. It sounds so beautiful it makes me not really care what it means so much.Stefaniehttp://somanybooksblog.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-25010135763713440232013-12-17T08:25:52.359-06:002013-12-17T08:25:52.359-06:00Good question. I will use Shakespeare as a standa...Good question. I will use Shakespeare as a standard. 35,531 total references.<br /><br />1947-63: 4,866 - 13% of the total<br />1964-73: 4,435 - 12%<br />1974-83: 5,032 - 13%<br />1984-93: 5,884 - 17%<br />1994-04: 7,736 - 22%<br />2004-13: 7,578 - 21%<br /><br />Wow, look at that dip, is it possible that people are running out of things to say about Shakespeare?<br /><br />I also suspect that the database's coverage of the earlier years is more inconsistent. Who knows, it might systematically miss little journals that were the home for notes on <i>P&P</i>.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-27032938534130035392013-12-17T07:58:15.807-06:002013-12-17T07:58:15.807-06:00Are you sure your data for Austen doesn't just...Are you sure your data for Austen doesn't just show the growth in literary scholarship during the same period?obookihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03885121629202810216noreply@blogger.com