Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
I saw where David asked me the other day at how my book is coming, and I didn't answer because it's been slow and sloggy lately, I've been behind on my schedule, and the topic has been depressing to consider.
Anyway, with mounting frustration at how dry my book has been thus far (and, hell, I don't even want to read it at this point), I decided to start rewriting it today with a faux-pompous tongue-in-cheek approach that I hope other people (such as, say, my editor, publisher, comrades, and player-haters) might also find fun. Continuum has been pretty lenient with the other writers, and I hope to enjoy some of that leniency. At the very least, I hope they don't sue me for smart-assery. What's your take, David?
Yeah, I've seen that one. It's fun.
Did I post Bob Bob's take on that here some years ago? He adds "people person" to the sentence (a "buffalo buffalo buffalo").
I read JE three times because it was the Academic Decathlon book.
Whoa! You were AD the year before me, I guess. I came in with Siddhartha and Remains of the Day my sophomore year. (Then My Antonia junior year, and Frankenstein senior year. Frankenstein is one of those books that should never, ever be read more than once or twice in a year, as I went from enjoying it to absolutely hating it.)
I read Jane Eyre when I was 12, as the only person who actually read in the middle school elective class called Reading for Pleasure. I loved it quite a lot, and just started re-reading it myself, actually. I also love Wuthering Heights, for very different reasons.
You were AD the year before me, I guess. I came in with Siddhartha and Remains of the Day my sophomore year.
I did that year too.
The Remains of the Day
is my default favorite book. I read that one three times too and discovered something new each time. I medaled in Essay a few times, I think, both years. And I've got some good anecdotes about them, too. For my
Jane Eyre
essay, I don't even remember what my thesis was, but I made up the ending to this book called
Pest Control
that I'd picked up in a supermarket one time (I must have been comparing modern storytelling to old-time storytelling for some reason). I figured the judges wouldn't have read the book anyway.
The best, though, is that one afternoon, my AD advisor and I struck up a conversation about the different meanings of the title of
The Remains of the Day.
We were just talking after school; I don't remember why the topic came up. I'd never really thought about it, but we came up with some interesting ways to interpret the title.
Guess what one of the essay prompts at Regionals was?
I read Jane Eyre when I was 12, as the only person who actually read in the middle school elective class called Reading for Pleasure. I loved it quite a lot, and just started re-reading it myself, actually.
I forgot we were having this conversation. I adore Jane Eyre. I read it the first time at 12 or so, too -- my mom had gorgeous oversized hardcovers with woodcut illiustrations from childhood, of both Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, which was one of the draws. (I didn't read Wuthering Heights until later, though.)
I never found Jane whiny. Given her circumstances, I loved the fact that she stood up to Aunt Georgina, and to the horrible teacher at Lowood. I think she was surprised by her feelings for Rochester, which would have been distressing at that time, again given their very different circumstances and the things that had been said about her all her life. Her arc may have been melodramatic (and yeah, I wanted to smack St. John, and thought that section of the book could have been cut by a lot) but she learned to love and respect herself by the end of the book.
I also read crit about it years ago that theorized Helen was the super ego, Jane the ego, and Bertha the id. It was in a book called Madwoman in the Attic, I believe. Really interesting.
I read Jane Eyre, but it's been so long, I disremember anything but that she was a governess, and Mr. Rochester. I think it was beyond my understanding, when I read it.
The Remains of the Day is my default favorite book.
Oh, gorgeous, gorgeous book. I was afraid to see the movie after I read it, because I loved the book, so.
The Remains of the Day is my default favorite book.
I loved the movie, and I've been meaning to read the book because of it.
Cindy, I liked the movie, but I cannot love it because it changes something in the book that I just cannot fathom. You know that scene when
Ms. Kensington is crying in her room because she's going to leave to get married? And Stevens stands outside her door and listens to her crying, but he doesn't go in? Because that is prime Stevens: inactive, unable to do anything? He just listens.
Well, in the movie,
HE GOES IN THE FUCKING ROOM.
There's so much good about the movie, and of course Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson are fab, but gah, I can't get over a change where they make the character do the
exact opposite
of what he does in the book. Sort of like the people who don't like Faramir's characterization in the LOTR movies.
Also, there are stupid symbolic doves at the end.
