tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post915363115559113100..comments2024-03-27T16:48:21.039-05:00Comments on Wuthering <br>Expectations: So enormously mild were his judgments - Jens Peter Jaobsen's Niels LyhneAmateur Reader (Tom)http://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-29959984709627848492014-04-07T20:55:19.833-05:002014-04-07T20:55:19.833-05:00Miguel, the book was easily worth reading, whateve...Miguel, the book was easily worth reading, whatever my frustrations with certain - many - passages. The good was awfully good. I will have to find out what Rilke did with it. And by then maybe someone will translate Brandão' for me.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-34124513417661877652014-04-07T16:38:15.973-05:002014-04-07T16:38:15.973-05:00This has been under my radar since I discovered Ra...This has been under my radar since I discovered Raul Brandão's <i>Húmus</i> was apparently based on Rilkes' <i>Notebooks,</i> which in turn was apparently inspired by this novel.LMRhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08538873868140070018noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-52321464671999255742014-03-28T08:33:09.713-05:002014-03-28T08:33:09.713-05:00I now have a theory that passages like these are t...I now have a theory that passages like these are the character's godawful poetry, otherwise never seen, leaking into the text.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-89841266580954053832014-03-28T01:01:44.419-05:002014-03-28T01:01:44.419-05:00He's trying hard to hit the high standards of ...He's trying hard to hit the high standards of McKittrick Ros but I'm afraid his articulate fluency is letting him down. Umbagollahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14556344092820711893noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-77099772066034562322014-03-26T22:06:20.361-05:002014-03-26T22:06:20.361-05:00The writer of the afterword seems to think Jacobse...The writer of the afterword seems to think Jacobsen is sincere. Or at least that his readers thought so - "reflecting as it clearly did the vital concerns of a generation of sensitive spirits who shared the hero's feelings of living in an age of transition" (210) etc., but as I type that out I wonder if the editor is drily skewering those readers. You can't say "generation of sensitive spirits" without a smirk, right? Dang Millenials.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-83207923663907423782014-03-26T18:47:48.591-05:002014-03-26T18:47:48.591-05:00That's right; Tolstoy's serfs didn't t...That's right; Tolstoy's serfs didn't trust him enough to believe in freedom. <br /><br />It's hard to tell, 134 years later, if someone's poking fun. I'm reading Augustine right now, and he and I are laughing at different parts of his narrative.scott g.f.baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05726743149139510832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-75315879500927837142014-03-26T14:46:21.744-05:002014-03-26T14:46:21.744-05:00Turgenev, it's Turgenev who freed the serfs.
...Turgenev, it's Turgenev who freed the serfs.<br /><br />All right, this has to be ironic, just open mockery by the narrator of a bunch of young artists, including poet Niels:<br /><br />"There was a stormy rejoicing in these young souls, and there was faith in the starry light of great thoughts, and there was hope just as there are seas; enthusiasm bore them on the wings of eagles, and their hearts swelled with courage a thousandfold." (63)<br /><br />The eagles and so on - bad writing or acid parody? I don't know.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-25367602235416015662014-03-26T12:11:27.664-05:002014-03-26T12:11:27.664-05:00“They were currents in the great ocean of love, si...“They were currents in the great ocean of love, single reflections of its full light, splinters of love, just as meteors that race through the air are splinters of a planet, because that’s what love was," she thought wildly, madly. Suddenly, Niels enfolded her in his powerful, muscular arms and crushed his hot body against her heaving bosom.<br /><br />You mean these <i>aren't</i> the good parts?seraillonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17654593356535433945noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-63581322589407871382014-03-26T12:04:03.573-05:002014-03-26T12:04:03.573-05:00I have another Pontoppidan on the way. I think it ...I have another Pontoppidan on the way. I think it will be less like a Bildungsroman and more like Gogol. Or maybe like Tolstoy, since it's about the freeing of serfs. We'll see.scott g.f.baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05726743149139510832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-69504295433415813542014-03-26T11:54:57.524-05:002014-03-26T11:54:57.524-05:00The same line goes to Pelle the Conqueror. Is tha...The same line goes to <i>Pelle the Conqueror</i>. Is that all Danes knew how to write, <i>Bildungsromans</i>?<br /><br />I will try to write about the irony. The passages I quote above are not ironic in a sense that I recognize. I had trouble finding Jacobsen's distance. But other parts certainly are ironic.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-27199539220726693702014-03-26T11:23:19.632-05:002014-03-26T11:23:19.632-05:00You're right: you can draw a line from this bo...You're right: you can draw a line from this book to (or through, maybe) <i>Lucky Per</i>, which was also praised by Mann and other German writers. <i>Per</i> lacks the wingspans of tenderness, but fills that gap with heaps of irony. Maybe <i>Niels Lyhn</i> is ironic, too?scott g.f.baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05726743149139510832noreply@blogger.com