Reading Notes on Uncle Silas

Reading Notes: Sheridan LeFanu, Uncle Silas
January 2-4, 2009. Transcribed from Twitter.

Set-up of "Uncle Silas" surrounds young Maude with malign cast of characters, notably the comically devious governess Mdm de la Rougiere. 11:25 AM Jan 2nd from txt

Mdm Rougiere persuades Maud: "come, come, tell me little obstinate or I will break your little finger. Tell me everything." 1:26 PM Jan 2nd from txt

Maud's widowed father a Swedenborgian. He paces in and out of darkness -- and their house situated between visible and spirit worlds. 1:30 PM Jan 2nd from txt

The two portraits of Uncle Silas: the oval of golden-haired boy and full-length of the young rake: "a most expensive and vicious young man" 8:47 AM Jan 3rd from txt

Looking at the childhood portrait, Maud ponders from "what a small seed the hemlock or the wallflower grows." Her shy father the wallflower 8:59 AM Jan 3rd from txt

Cousin Monica speaks of Silas as a "sphinx" and Maud finds his expression unreadable: "derision, or anguish, or cruelty, or patience?" 9:51 AM Jan 3rd from txt

Silas, caustic, on his daughter Milly: "a very rustic Miranda and fitted rather for the society of Caliban, than of a sick old Prospero." 9:56 AM Jan 3rd from txt

LeFanu compares the reluctance of a sleepy child to go to bed with the struggle of the elderly to resist "the great sleep of death" 10:06 AM Jan 3rd from txt

Silas on Maud's report of beating of miller's daughter: "What a romantic little child, people of that rank think nothing of a broken head." 1:29 PM Jan 3rd from txt

Monica on Silas' ancient butler: "I won't wait for your butler, who would give me cakes baked by King Alfred and Danish beer in a skull." 3:33 PM Jan 3rd from txt

Silas subject to catatonic fits -- "queer spells" -- as well as selective quotation from the Bible, thus creating a new reputation for piety 3:37 PM Jan 3rd from txt

Monica sees Silas for the 1st time in 20 yrs: "Angels and ministers of grace! Such a specter! That odious smile makes me feel half insane." 3:59 PM Jan 3rd from txt

The bitter Silas to Monica: "We are very like turkeys, we have so much sense and generosity. Fortune wounded me, and the whole brood were upon me pecking and gobbling, gobbling and pecking, and you among them dear Monica. It wasn't your fault only instinct" 4:07 PM Jan 3rd from txt

Silas' fits: "hoverings between life and death, between intellect and insanity -- a dubious marsh fire existence, horrible to look on!" 5:09 PM Jan 3rd from txt

Silas' inner life a "systematic blasphemy" hidden beneath a deceptive surface that takes on rainments of humanity in order to lure others. 9:13 AM Jan 4th from txt

Silas akin to "goblin of the desert who appear in friendly shapes to stragglers from the caravan, lead them to where they're found no more" 9:18 AM Jan 4th from txt

"How marvelously lie our anxieties, in filmy layers one over the other! Take away that on the surface and straight you find a new stratum." 9:57 AM Jan 4th from txt

Toward end of "Uncle Silas," Mdm Rougiere asks Maud if she is cruel or just stupid. 450 pages spent in her dismal company confirm the latter 8:38 PM Jan 4th from txt

"Uncle Silas" fully partakes of British convention of centering a novel on an insipid figure, with real interest lying in subsidiary figures 8:42 PM Jan 4th from txt

Maud consistently ignores broad hints from other characters as to the plots against her: Christian charity taken to extreme of idiocy. 8:45 PM Jan 4th from txt

Supernatural in "Uncle Silas" just so much Gothic decor. Silas' demonism explained by opium addiction. Swedenborgian veil goes unlifted. 8:49 PM Jan 4th from txt

Reading Notes on The Chrysalids

Reading Notes: John Wyndham, The Chrysalids
Jan 1, 2009. Transcribed from Twitter.

Reading John Wyndham's post-apocalyptic "The Chryaslids," in which religious orthodoxy takes the form of absolute genetic purity. 11:12 AM Jan 1st from txt

Post-apocalyptic environment creates a new "Age of Wonders." Knowledge and tolerance become heretical. People hide "sins" of deviation. 11:22 AM Jan 1st from txt

The sailor Uncle Axel's account of peoples beyond the radiation-scarred "badlands" suggests that all one finds are different orthodoxies. 11:33 AM Jan 1st from txt

Axel "most of them whether they have seven fingers or four arms or hair all over or whatever is wrong, think their type is the true pattern" 11:39 AM Jan 1st from txt

Thought in reading "The Chryaslids" that it is nature's way to be various and in man's way to restrict variety, both moral and biological. 12:04 PM Jan 1st from txt

In parallel events of normal and mutant births to two sisters (David's mother & aunt), reality that all have mutation, deviance inside them. 12:48 PM Jan 1st from txt

Minister: "Accursed is the mutant, the seed of the devil within, trying unflaggingly, eternally to come to fruition, to destroy divine order” 12:54 PM Jan 1st from txt

David's prayer: "Oh God, please, please God let me be like other people. Won't you make it so when I wake up I'll be like everyone else?" 1:21 PM Jan 1st from txt

The eight Chrysalids, who communicate by ESP, are a step forward in evolution and thus abomination to religion which only looks backwards. 2:08 PM Jan 1st from txt

Living in secret, the Chrysalids envy the "norms": "the stupidest norm was happier; he could feel that he belonged." 5:32 PM Jan 1st from txt

"We had no positive -- we were condemned to negatives, to not revealing ourselves, to not speaking when we would, to not using what we knew, to not being found out -- to a life of perpetual deception, concealment, and lying." 5:37 PM Jan 1st from txt

Discovered, David, Rosalind, Petra are declared "deviants," "non-human and therefore not entitled to rights or protections of human society" 7:51 PM Jan 1st from txt

David explains hatred to Petra: "the more stupid [people] are the more like everyone else they think everyone ought to be. And once they get afraid they become cruel and want to hurt people who are different." "I don't see why," insisted Petra. 8:12 PM Jan 1st from txt

Chryaslids and the "Sealand" people precursors of network society and hive mind in their ability to have "think-togethers" 8:37 PM Jan 1st from txt

Proto-internet: Chrysalids and the "Sealand" people also communicate using a kind of graphic (rather than lingual) interface. 8:43 PM Jan 1st from txt

Inability to think collectively doomed the "Old People": "the more complex they made their world, the less capable of dealing with it" 8:47 PM Jan 1st from txt

Sealand woman explains that the oppressed are confused by their social ties and upbringing but that the oppressors are *not* so confused. 10:00 PM Jan 1st from txt

The oppressors recognize the danger of the "superior variant" and wish to suppress the change that it will bring -- to preserve stasis. 10:03 PM Jan 1st from txt

As David + Rosalind descend toward Sealand (New Zealand) they hear a sound like "the buzzing of a hive of bees." David: "our kind of people" 10:13 PM Jan 1st from txt

Seeing killing as part of the natural order, the Sealanders have no particular sympathy for "lower" creatures or less-evolved humanoids. 10:26 PM Jan 1st from txt

"The Chrysalids" interestingly predictive of not just network society -- even the problem of individuation -- but also posthuman philosophy. 10:31 PM Jan 1st from txt

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 The Monk

Reading Notes: Matthew Lewis, The Monk
Nov 27-30, 2008. Transcribed from Twitter

Began M.G. Lewis's relentlessly sacreligious "The Monk," set in Spain which is to the British mind the site of religious excess in same way that France stands for the excess of irreligion. Difficult to say which the British fear and abhor more. 11:28 AM Nov 27th, 2008 from txt

The spurned Baroness: "my love is become hatred and my wounded pride shall not be unatoned. Go where you will, my vengeance will follow." 11:46 AM Nov 28th, 2008 from txt

Denoument of Nun with the Bleeding Hands episode has Melmothian figure, revealed to be the Wandering Jew (fiery cross on forehead and all). 9:01 AM Nov 29th, 2008 from txt

Lewis places age of sexual urgency at 30 rather than adolescence; in some ways, the travail of the monk Ambrosio is a midlife crisis. 9:11 AM Nov 29th, 2008 from txt

Forgiving sister's rape: "strict honor would oblige me to wash off in your blood the stain thrown upon my family; but the (cont'd) "circumstances of your case forbid me to consider you an enemy." The honorable solution is a Papal Bull and, of course, marriage. 9:34 AM Nov 29th, 2008 from txt

In cases of both Ambrosio and "bleeding hands" nun (Beatrice) artificiality of convent system accentuates licentiousness. 9:46 AM Nov 29th, 2008 from txt

Matilda/Rosario's seduction of Ambrosio involves secret gift: a painting of the Madonna with her own features for him to adore in his cell. 11:44 AM Nov 29th, 2008 from txt

Matilda to Ambrosio post-coitis: "unnatural were your vows of celibacy; man was not created for such a state; were love a crime God would not have made it so sweet, so irresistible!" Her tempting of Ambrosio comes after she sucks poison from his blood. 11:53 AM Nov 29th, 2008 from txt

Elvira, mother of virginal Antonia, edits the bible used by her daughter, sees clearly the snares used by both noble and clerical seducers. 2:04 PM Nov 29th, 2008 from txt

Bible a reference book of sin: "every thing called by its name . . . the annals of a brothel would scarcely furnish a greater choice of indecency" 2:10 PM Nov 29th, 2008 from txt

Elvira warning Antonia of the monk's urges is careful "lest in removing the bandage of ignorance, the veil of innocence should rent away" 2:19 PM Nov 29th, 2008 from txt

Matilda, adept of natural philosophy, advocate of unrestrained passion. The image she conjures of Antonia shows a playful bird at her breast 2:36 PM Nov 29th, 2008 from txt

His attempts to seduce Antonia with religion foiled by Elvira, Ambrosio, with temptress Matilda's aid, tries again with Satanic methods. 2:52 PM Nov 29th, 2008 from txt

Ambrosio precursor of Raskolnikov: "The murdered Elvira was constantly before his eyes, his guilt already punished by agonies of conscience" 3:54 PM Nov 29th, 2008 from txt

Ambrosio is only character drawn in 3 dimensions, so for all his perfidy he demands sympathy for his quick descent from virtue and status. 9:18 AM Nov 30th, 2008 from txt

Satan appears first to Ambrosio as naked youth then, at time for surrender of soul, as snake-crowned, sable-winged monster, iron pen in hand 10:06 AM Nov 30th, 2008 from txt

Satan gloats over Ambrosio: "Know vain man that I have long marked you for my prey: I watched the movements of your heart; I saw you were virtuous from vanity not principle, and I seized the fit moment of seduction." S thus reveals he plotted A's doom from outset 11:11 AM Nov 30th, 2008 from txt

Lewis ends "The Monk" in moral fashion, but without abandoning his critique of convent system or of nobility's relative insularity. 11:48 AM Nov 30th, 2008 from txt

Reading Notes on Can You Forgive Her?

Reading Notes: Anthony Trollope, Can You Forgive Her?
October 25-November 6, 2008. Transcribed from Twitter.

In "CYFH?," Alice Vavasor's choice between the "worthy" "milk-and-honey" John Grey and the "brandy" of her "wild man" cousin George Vavasor 2:25 PM Oct 25th, 2008 from txt

Plantangenet Palliser an avatar of dullness; proud to be dull. "If he was dull as a statesman, he was even more dull in private life." 12:48 PM Oct 26th, 2008 from txt

Trollope creates no win situations for Alice and Glencora: the worthy men are dull and gray, the romantic men are schemers or wastrels. 8:24 PM Oct 31st, 2008 from txt

"Can You Forgive Her" shifts from genteel parlour drama to near-Gothic as George Vavasor's rage spills over, his threats barely contained. 1:35 AM Nov 2nd, 2008 from txt

George Vavasor's thoughts increasingly turn to murder, but he doesn't plot murder (and suicide) so much as he dreams it. 7:46 AM Nov 2nd, 2008 from txt

George Vavasor's campaign manager, the lawyer Scruby: "the man was like a rat, and knew a falling house by the instinct that was in him." 8:05 AM Nov 2nd, 2008 from txt

Stymied in raising funds:"George Vavasor cursed the City and made his calculation about murdering it. Might not a river of strychnine ..." 8:20 AM Nov 2nd, 2008 from txt

Back to "Can You Forgive Her?" George Vavasor so disruptive a presence in the Trollope universe that he has to be despatched to America. 7:59 PM Nov 5th, 2008 from web

In Dickens, George's fate would have been part of the cresendo. In Balzac, the plot would have centered on such a remarkable villain. 8:02 PM Nov 5th, 2008 from web

Trollope always trying to be fair to characters. George is such a monster, he needs to be sent offstage, spoken about only in hushed tones. 8:05 PM Nov 5th, 2008 from web

Up early to finish Trollope; per his stultifying conservative vision dullness, social order must prevail over even the most trivial revolts 8:52 AM Nov 6th, 2008 from web

Reading Notes on A Laodicean

Reading Notes: Thomas Hardy, A Laodicean
September 27-28, 2008. Transcribed from Twitter.

Hardy's "A Laodicean" sends one immediately to a dictionary. Laodicean, from "Revelations," is one who is lukewarm and thus to be "spat out" 6:11 PM Sep 27th, 2008 from txt

In "A Laodicean": strange character of the prankster and sneak Dare, whose age, nationality, profession, and gender are indeterminate, n ... 8:35 PM Sep 27th, 2008 from txt

Dare in "A Laodicean" first appears as a photographer and is said by another character to be "undeveloped." 8:38 PM Sep 27th, 2008 from txt

Undercurrents: Dare hears rumor of lesbian relations of Paula + Charlotte. Later states: "the woman that interests my heart has yet to ... 8:54 PM Sep 27th, 2008 from txt

Dare comments on DeStancy's spying on Paula: "a fermentation is beginning in him; a purely chemical process." 10:51 PM Sep 27th, 2008 from txt

Opposition of faith and chance in "A Laodicean": Dare's book of chances and Woodwell's bible and the alternate congregations at the casino ... 12:36 PM Sep 28th, 2008 from txt

Will Dare as prototype of Steerpike, a resemblance all the more pronounced with his casual, almost comic arson of Destancy Castle. 10:21 PM Sep 28th, 2008 from txt