We had a fun little 'parlour game' in our Bibliography class the other day (yes, parlour game, not doing much to disabuse people of the Oxford-students-are-upper-class myth, is it...) - we were discussing, amongst other things, the idea of intrinsic literary merit. Were certain books valued above others because they were, simply, better - and did this superiority reveal itself throughout every sentence of the work?
And so we were set a little test. We had 10 quotations - some are from Nobel Prize winner Ernest Hemingway, some are from Mickey Spillane. If, like me, you've never heard of Mr. Spillane, he is a fairly critically savaged American crime writer - 'sex and slaughter for a quarter'. I.e. a great writer and a poor writer - supposedly. Can you identify (WITHOUT doing a Google search or similar) which of the following are by EH and which by MS? More to the point, dare you put your answers in the comments? If it's a comfort, I only g
ot 4 out of 10. Having never read a word of either.
It's not half-half (I made that mistake) but I won't tell you which way it leans. Go! Have a go, it'll be fun. I'll post a doughnut to anybody who gets all 10 without cheating.
1. 'She was builty with curves like the hull of a racing yacht, and you missed none of it with that wool jersey.'
2. ' "You bitch," he said. "You rich bitch. That's poetry." '
3. 'In there was my best friend lying on the floor dead. The body. Now I could call it that. Yesterday it was Jack Williams, the guy that shared the same mud bed with me through two years of warfare in the stinking slime of the jungle.'
4. ' "Love is a dunghill," said Harry. "And I'm the cock that gets on it to crow." '
5. 'The majoy did not marry her in the spring, or any other time. Luz never got an answer to the letter to Chicago about it. A short time after he contract gonorrhea from a sales girl in a Loop department store while riding in a taxicab through Lincoln Park.'
6. '"They're a funny fish,' I told him. 'They aren't here until they come."'
7. 'He started to walk down the dock looking longer than a day without breakfast.'
8. ' "How c-could you?" she gasped.
'I only had a moment before talking to a corpse, but I got it in.
' "It was easy," I said.'
9. 'I got him forward onto his knees and had both thumbs well in behind his talk-box, and I bent the whole thing back until she cracked. Don't think you can't hear it crack either.'
10. 'My hand smashed into bone and flesh and with the meaty impact I could smell the blood and hear the gagging intake of his breath. He grabbed, his arms like great claws. He just held on and I knew if I couldn't break him loose he could kill me.'
Well done everyone, lots of good guesses, and mostly right.
Starting in the top left...
Epiphany (though Egypt was a good guess... OV and OVW have an Epiphany party every year)
Envelopes - not the most exciting things in the world, perhaps, but the restriction of Es made me think outside the box, and I realised how much I like tissue-lined envelopes. Well, I do have a catalogue from the gloriously named World of Envelopes somewhere.
Enid Blyton - I read little else for years
Eeyore - Shepard's drawings just enhance this wonderful character. The meeting of Milne and Shepard make him the finest gloomy character in all of fiction.
Emperor Penguin - and ain't this baby one adorable?
E.M. Delafield - looking remarkably like a pilot
Easter - Hallelujah!
Escalier - yes, French, but I love staircases too much to miss them out.
Eckington - this photograph is from www.eckington.info - the village I grew up in, and a very beautiful place, as well as one which will always be dear to me
Elizabeth II - I managed to offend my housemate the other day by saying I'd save the Queen's life over hers. I am her subject...
That was quite difficult. Hopefully those I hand over to will have an easier task! Do ask for a letter if you haven't already - here are letters picked from my Scrabble bag for those who've asked already. Do put a link to your blog in the comments when you've accepted the challenge!
Evie - you have T
Bookishnyc - D for you
OhSoVintage - joining me in the realm of vowels, with A
Overdue - so are you, as you get O
Rosie - have fun with G
Enjoy!
I spotted a fun-looking task on Harriet's blog; come up with 10 favourite things beginning with a certain randomly selected letter. She got the quiz from Cornflower, who got it from someone else etc. etc., I don't know where it all started. But the idea is you ask for a letter in the blog comments, and then go and do it on your blog - and I got E. Which is quite tricky! But it gave me the chance to play with Picasa 3 again (I've just discovered the Sepia function; be warned)
But I think I've managed it. I had to delve into French once. With that knowledge in hand, points for whoever can work out my 10 things beginning with E... You might have to click on the image to make it bigger, and one of them will be very tricky for non-Thomas family members. Have fun!
If you'd like to join in, ask for a letter in the comments - I'll get my Scrabble tiles and let you know...
I've spent one of those days thinking about working and not really doing anything... other than demonstrate how slowly a man can walk along a road. I was much laughed at by sympathetic housemate Mel.
I haven't been to Booking Through Thursday for a while, not for any particular reason, so I was surprised and pleased to see that this week's question was suggested by me! I put it in the suggestion area of their website last April, and rather thought that it had been passed over - however, they must keep these things boiling under for many months, as this week's question is: Have you ever been put off an author’s books after reading a biography of them? Or the reverse - a biography has made you love an author more?I never know whether an author's life and personality *should* influence a reading of their work or not, but I know for a fact that it does. Not wholly, but I can't quite keep it out of my mind.
Having said that - Katherine Mansfield (Claire Tomalin) and Virginia Woolf (Hermione Lee) remain two of my favourite authors, despite coming across as less than pleasant in their respective biographies. I've forced myself to ignore their meanness (see anything KM wrote to Ida Baker) or selfishness or whatever, because their writing is amongst the best I've ever read. Daphne du Maurier has rather suffered after I read her Letters from Menabilly, which made her seem arrogant and callous, but I'm pre-determined to love anything I might ever read by Oriel Malet, who came across so much nicer in that book. Whatever my objective reasoning tells me, it always helps when an author turns out to be a lovely or courageous or notable person - I admire Beatrix Potter after discovering more about her; Richmal Crompton and AA Milne seem increasingly good people to invite to dinner.
So I'm all confused, basically. All Round Good Eggs benefit in my eyes - but I'll blind myself to the nasty traits in authors I already love. It's a case of warming to them or feeling quiet (and usually irrational) disappointment... do any of you have anything more sensible to contribute? Or, of course, any response, sensible or not...
My little spread of book titles from the other day will give me the opportunity to spend the next while talking my way through them... first up is Vita Sackville-West's The Heir, which was first published in 1922 and was reprinted by the wonderful Hesperus. I can't find it on Amazon, nor is the Hesperus website working at the moment, but do look out for their copy (I found mine in Blackwells) as it's beautiful even by the standard of Hesperus' beautiful covers.
The Heir is only 90 pages long - which, as we discussed a while ago, is greatly in its favour as far as I am concerned - and originally came with the subtitle 'A Love Story'. The love story in question is between the heir (Chase) and the house he inherits. Flicking through, I can't find the name of the house, so perhaps it doesn't have one - but Vita's son believed the novel to be written as an act of catharsis at not being able to inherit Knole, the house she loved and is incorporated into Orlando.
I've now read three books by Vita Sackville-West - No Signposts in the Sea, which wasn't exceptionally good; All Passion Spent which was great, and now The Heir. VSW's writing, especially when on a topic she clearly cares about, is beautiful - and the gradual realisation on Chase's part that he loves the house and the villagers... why do my descriptions of books always seem to become schmaltzy? The Heir isn't at all - it's honest and witty and touching and good.
Sorry I've been absent for a while - don't say I didn't warn you!
I had a weekend away with my church, Oxford Community Church, which was a great time of getting to know God better and being bowled over once more by His love and grace. This was coupled with sleeping on a very hard, very cold floor... still, can't have everything.
Thought I'd keep you in the loop - have been re-reading primary texts for my dissertation, and noticed that they were all rather co-ordinated, not to say beautiful in their own right. I daresay I'll be writing more eloquently about their contents in time to come (those which haven't already appeared on Stuck-in-a-Book, anyway) but here is more playing with Picasa 3 to give you a glimpse of what's going on!
Do comment away on the books in the picture, if you have eyesight that good...
ot 4 out of 10. Having never read a word of either.
