Reading Notes on Phineas Finn

Reading Notes: Anthony Trollope, Phineas Finn
December 24-31, 2008. Transcribed from Twitter

Lady Laura Standish is the real politician, but as a woman she must operate through men -- in this case the impulsive, improvident Phineas. 11:02 AM Dec 24th, 2008 from txt

Lady Laura finds Finn a seat in the House and advises him how to make use of those he despises: "I mean you to be very intimate with Mr Kennedy, to shoot his grouse and to stalk his deer and to be helpful to his progress as a Liberal member of Parliament." 11:08 AM Dec 24th, 2008 from txt

Laura's friend Violet Effingham also drawn to male activity: sports. "It is strange what a propensity I have for the wrong side of the post" 12:11 PM Dec 24th, 2008 from txt

Laura arranges men's lives: urges her father into Cabinet and Phineas into a PM; tries to arrange her "beastly" brother's marriage to Violet 1:17 PM Dec 24th, 2008 from txt

Chiltern's ill reputation: "We all know how the man well spoken of may steal a horse, while he of evil repute may not look over a hedge." 1:40 PM Dec 24th, 2008 from txt

Phineas's political (and romantic) talent is being agreeable and, at least in early stage of his career, he is all ambition, no substance. 9:34 AM Dec 25th, 2008 from txt

Of radical MP's, Monk is modest, self-doubting while Turnbull is "leveler of forests" without care for how to cultivate the land so cleared. 9:41 AM Dec 25th, 2008 from txt

The "pleasant" Phineas occupies a safe middle ground between the absolute dullness of Laura's Kennedy and the wildness of Violet's Chiltern. 5:25 PM Dec 25th, 2008 from txt

Trollope lauds mediocrity (common sense) in romance as well as politics. Laura tallies that for "999 of 1000" life is business not romance 5:27 PM Dec 25th, 2008 from txt

Chiltern calls Kennedy "a log of wood ... such men drive me out of the pale of decent life. If that is decency, I'd sooner be indecent" 5:41 PM Dec 25th, 2008 from txt

Bunce deflates prestiege of Phineas's going into the government: "a man gets so thick in the muck that he don't know if he's dirty or clean" 12:10 PM Dec 27th, 2008 from txt

Not suprisingly, Violet chooses Chiltern, and so Phineas rejected first for a dull prig and then a wildman -- each, however, men of status. 8:33 PM Dec 27th, 2008 from txt

For all the talk of romance, the clear priority of suitors, both male and female, is social status: "grasping the top brick of the chimney" 8:38 PM Dec 27th, 2008 from txt

Appearance of the "European" Madame Max Goesler who flirts with Phineas but then trains her sights on the unreachably regal Lord Omnium. 10:12 AM Dec 28th, 2008 from txt

Seeing a threat to the coronet she intends for her "blond, bold faced son," Glencora challenges Madame Goesler to "duel" of reputation. 10:19 AM Dec 28th, 2008 from txt

Glencora's liberal mask slips as she seethes at the "black browed, yellow skinned, half monkey baby" of a liaison of Mdm Goesler with Omnium 10:29 AM Dec 28th, 2008 from txt

Glencora seethes further: "it might be that Madam Goesler would win the coronet; but she would find there were sharp thorns in the lining" 10:47 AM Dec 28th, 2008 from txt

Reconciliation of Madame Goesler and Glencora after their "duel" similar to mutual respect of Chiltern and Phineas following their exchange. 8:14 PM Dec 28th, 2008 from txt

Mdm Goesler sees Phineas as a rushing train that may jump the tracks; Omnium as a majestic snowy peak vulnerable only to a major earthquake. 8:20 PM Dec 29th, 2008 from txt

Mdm Goesler: "you see me in society and look upon me as a member of a gregarious herd, but I am an animal that feeds alone and lives alone." 8:23 PM Dec 29th, 2008 from txt

Phineas now in position of choosing "suitor" between Mary, the romantic love of his childhood, and the wealth and status of Madame Goesler. 4:16 PM Dec 30th, 2008 from txt

Laura advises Phineas to wed Madame Goesler for her money: "You have had your romance and must now put up with reality." 4:30 PM Dec 30th, 2008 from txt

At end of story, Phineas has acted principled in both love and politics -- meaning, for Trollope, that he has conformed to his social status 12:24 PM Dec 31st, 2008 from web

Reading Notes on The Beetle

Reading Notes: Richard Marsh, The Beetle
December 20-21, 2008. Transcribed from Twitter

Up a bit before dawn. Very snowy landscape with sky a cold blue. Got fire going. Reading Richard Marsh's Edwardian thriller "The Beetle." 7:27 AM Dec 20th, 2008 from txt

The Beetle's victim Robert Holt dehumanized on several registers: becoming an "automaton," an "invertibrate" and without will or volition. 8:11 AM Dec 20th, 2008 from txt

Holt also a sex object as The Beetle forces him to strip naked, admires his white skin, and implants a "blubbery" kiss that steals his soul 8:12 AM Dec 20th, 2008 from txt

Modern society represented by Lessingham, smooth politician with a secret in his past, and Atherton, blithe inventor of chemical weapons. 11:56 AM Dec 20th, 2008 from txt

Atherton displaces his murderousness from humans, killing his rival's cat and planning large scale test of nerve gas on Amazonian fauna. 12:50 PM Dec 20th, 2008 from txt

Rivalry of two kinds of magic: the Beetle's "survivor" arts of transmigration and mesmerism against Atherton's electrochemical science. 12:56 PM Dec 20th, 2008 from txt

Lessingham's cloudy past: "the man's a mushroom, a toadstool sprung up in the course of a single night, apparently out of some dirty ditch" 1:22 PM Dec 20th, 2008 from txt

"The Beetle": Faced with overwhelming evidence of the ineffible, it is so much the British way to densely cling to common sense. 9:33 AM Dec 21st, 2008 from txt

Debate in "The Beetle" on how much of his past a man must reveal; Atherton does not argue Lessingham's statement that "in all our lives there are episodes which we keep to ourselves." Both Holt and Lessingham pay for indiscretion of looking in a window. 11:08 AM Dec 21st, 2008 from txt

Detective as confessor. Lessingham opens up his sexual misadventure in Cairo: "I am altogether incapable of even hinting to you the nauseating nature of that woman's kisses ... I lay there like a log. She did with me as she would and in dumb agony I endured." 11:26 AM Dec 21st, 2008 from txt

Lessingham defines a Confidential Agent (Detective): "an experienced man of the world who has been endowed by nature with phenomenal perceptive abilities and in whose capacity and honor I can place the completest confidence." 12:39 PM Dec 21st, 2008 from txt

On ride-in from Hayward, H suggests Beetle's messy end in railway accident can be read as fate of ancient magic in face of modern technology 10:57 AM Dec 22nd, 2008 from web

At end of "The Beetle," Lessingham + Marjorie suffering from kind of proto-PTSD; strangely like the contemporary symptoms of child sex abuse 10:33 AM Dec 22nd, 2008 from web

Remarkably overt sexual tone of "The Beetle"; Marsh lacivious in insistence on nakedness and sadism as opposed to more allusive Stoker. 10:45 AM Dec 22nd, 2008 from web

In summing-up, suggestion that Egyptian den of the perversion cult is wiped out in British military raid; so Atherton's violence triumphs. 10:51 AM Dec 22nd, 2008 from web

"The Beetle" presages Anglo-American tendency to see sexuality as threatening and harmful (even evil) while violence is fun and patriotic 10:54 AM Dec 22nd, 2008 from web

Reading Notes on Driftless

Reading Notes: David Rhodes, Driftless
December 7-10, 2008. Transcribed from Twitter

Rhodes' metaphor of WI's unglaciated "Driftless Zone" reveals lives resistant, through will or inertia, to flows of hypercapitalist America 10:25 AM Dec 7th, 2008 from web

Olivia on need to be skeptical: "In this age of profiteering, all a person had to do was watch a half hour of television to understand how life's most treasured moments could be ransomed to sell underwear." 10:31 AM Dec 7th, 2008 from web

"But those are old and this is new" complained Winnie. "Foolishness," said Olivia. "New is only old rearranged." 10:46 AM Dec 7th, 2008 from web

Graham: "We shouldn't need a lawyer. We've done nothing wrong. This is the United States." July: "No country is immune to human nature" 12:12 PM Dec 7th, 2008 from web

Rusty: "Everyone had money now and sitting around, loitering, had become a way of life. His grandchildren were being methodically instructed in how to enjoy living while doing nothing." 2:13 PM Dec 7th, 2008 from web

Horror of Rusty and Maxine's family that they still live in farmhouse w/ long flight of stairs, no microwave. Relief farm animals are gone. 2:16 PM Dec 7th, 2008 from web

"Driftless" has wonderful chapter on the natural and social experience of snow in Wisc. Turns scary when Rhodes picks-up narrative again. 2:18 PM Dec 7th, 2008 from web

Gail thinks her dutiful brother has always been in a "voluntary prison" but can't imagine him in a real, physical one: "built to hold those who refused to accept the voluntary one." 11:10 AM Dec 9th, 2008 from txt

Jacob trepidatious about love: "he had stood on the bottom rung of this ladder before and understood the implications of climbing higher." 11:15 AM Dec 9th, 2008 from txt

Finished "Driftless." As if every character has small piece of revelation. In joining them - in community - they merge into understanding. 10:53 AM Dec 10th, 2008 from txt

The "drifter" July at center of community. Winifred's Whitmanesque sermon at funeral subconsciously reflects July's redefinition of family. 11:51 AM Dec 10th, 2008 from txt