#Literary Imagination

[batgovernor]

Brooke Clark, 'Still Waiting'

You say your memoirs offer pointed re-evaluations of countless authors’ puffed-up reputations so you’ve arranged to have them published once you’re safely dead. Nestor, it’s time your memoirs were read. ***** Brooke Clark writes: “The original for this is by Martial: Epigrams IV.33; it’s a good example of the alternating 7-stress, 5-stress lines I finally settled on as the best way to capture…

[mereinkling]

Brilliant New Course on C.S. Lewis

Fans of C.S. Lewis who would relish a month-long journey through his work must consider a brand new course designed by Dr. Brenton Dickieson of Signum University.  Ink Spots and Tea Stains offers the very best of combinations: “academically serious but . . .  focused purely on the love of learning and the joy of studying the material.” And what an amazing subject you will explore – a unique…

[nondelphic]

This draft is fantastic, it just needs work on pacing, character development, plot cohesion, emotional depth, world-building, scene transitions, tone consistency, theme integration, conflict resolution, dialogue realism, and staying focused for more than 2 chapters.

[franzthemeerkat]

I think Louis would have been more successful if he got into poetry instead of photography.

[rivetgoth]

This is the most cartoonishly pretentiouspost I’ve seen on this site in ages. People don’t engage with art CORRECTLY like ME they just watch things they think are fun and they enjoy. like some philistine ignoramus.

[waitineedaname]

binghe is of course qing jing's star student, but even the protagonist can't be good at everything, so what do you guys think his best/worst classes were?

[vikdec4i]

did anyone else ever catch this??? he treats a beverage like a finger food. not only is he picking out ice to munch on it like a snack, he's also savoring the lemon garnish.

allow me to reach peak insanity at 3 am type beat here– this actually reflects a lot about asa's character, especially regarding how he treats those around him.

don't go too crazy on me now he might just like to munch on ice and lemon slices–

BUT it fits the atmosphere of the scene since the guy is quite literally consuming mitzi, or what is left of her. which takes form in either taunting her with the remnants of atlas' death or taking jabs at her character.

there's some aspect of gluttony here. as in, despite what he claims to believe, he still sees mitzi as a hurdle to be dealt with. which is why he's been trying to convince, or let's say weed her out of the industry.

we can reflect this back on the 20s in general and how history tends to write women off their very pivotal role in the bootlegging business.

or i mean maybe im just entertaining my past in literature class because... as mitzi says herself: only asa can explain asa

[mortalityplays]

Hi! I really liked and agreed with your post on purple prose, and I was curious what books if any you'd describe as having purple prose. Not even necessarily as shorthand for calling it bad! just examples of it, especially from non-classic literature. Unless the term is entirely subjective lol. Feel free to reply to this ask publicly or privately; I don't mind either way

Have some Conan the Barbarian (sorry about! the racism):

TORCHES flared murkily on the revels in the Maul, where the thieves of the east held carnival by night. In the Maul they could carouse and roar as they liked, for honest people shunned the quarters, and watchmen, well paid with stained coins, did not interfere with their sport. Along the crooked, unpaved streets with their heaps of refuse and sloppy puddles, drunken roisterers staggered, roaring. Steel glinted in the shadows where wolf preyed on wolf, and from the darkness rose the shrill laughter of women, and the sounds of scufflings and strugglings. Torchlight licked luridly from broken windows and wide-thrown doors, and out of those doors, stale smells of wine and rank sweaty bodies, clamor of drinking-jacks and fists hammered on rough tables, snatches of obscene songs, rushed like a blow in the face. In one of these dens merriment thundered to the low smoke- stained roof, where rascals gathered in every stage of rags and tatters—furtive cut-purses, leering kidnappers, quick- fingered thieves, swaggering bravoes with their wenches, strident-voiced women clad in tawdry finery. Native rogues were the dominant element—dark-skinned, dark-eyed Zamorians, with daggers at their girdles and guile in their hearts. But there were wolves of half a dozen outland nations there as well. There was a giant Hyperborean renegade, taciturn, dangerous, with a broadsword strapped to his great gaunt frame—for men wore steel openly in the Maul. There was a Shemitish counterfeiter, with his hook nose and curled blue-black beard. There was a bold- eyed Brythunian wench, sitting on the knee of a tawny-haired Gunderman—a wandering mercenary soldier, a deserter from some defeated army. And the fat gross rogue whose bawdy jests were causing all the shouts of mirth was a professional kidnapper come up from distant Koth to teach woman-stealing to Zamorians who were born with more knowledge of the art than he could ever attain.

Conan is an interesting example imo because it displays a lot of the highs and lows of pulp. Robert E. Howard could also write very punchy, straightforward action, and often did - but part of the selling point for the emerging genre fiction of the era was that it was lurid and lascivious. While the extract above is. Well. Bad. It is worth recognising that within its context it was also kind of experimental.

Howard wrote these drooling, sort of bewildering, sensory passages for the same reason Marvel movies punch you in the face with saturated colours and rapid cuts and a billion VFX. You see it in the work of H.P. Lovecraft too, and I will grudgingly acknowledge that that's something worth recognising about his literary impact. I also think Lovecraft was a pretty bad technical writer, personally, but that's a whole other soapbox.

My point is that a lot of truly purple prose today (in the sense that it is extraneous, distracting, undermines its own function) traces its legacy to this era of pulp where there was a distinct secondary purpose to overwhelming the reader with ornamentation. It was self-consciously indulgent, and strikingly distinct from the more genteel floridity of equally bad literary novelists. For instance, compare the above with the even purpler prose of the famously awful Irene Iddesleigh:

On being introduced to all those outside his present circle of acquaintance on this evening, and viewing the dazzling glow of splendour which shone, through spectacles of wonder, in all its glory, Sir John felt his past life but a dismal dream, brightened here and there with a crystal speck of sunshine that had partly hidden its gladdening rays of bright futurity until compelled to glitter with the daring effect they soon should produce. But there awaited his view another beam of life’s bright rays, who, on entering, last of all, commanded the minute attention of every one present—this was the beautiful Irene Iddesleigh. How the look of jealousy, combined with sarcasm, substituted those of love and bashfulness! How the titter of tainted mockery rang throughout the entire apartment, and could hardly fail to catch the ear of her whose queenly appearance occasioned it! These looks and taunts serving to convince Sir John of Nature’s fragile cloak which covers too often the image of indignation and false show, and seals within the breasts of honour and equality resolutions of an iron mould. On being introduced to Irene, Sir John concluded instantly, without instituting further inquiry, that this must be the original of the portrait so warmly admired by him. There she stood, an image of perfection and divine beauty, attired in a robe of richest snowy tint, relieved here and there by a few tiny sprigs of the most dainty maidenhair fern, without any ornaments whatever, save a diamond necklet of famous sparkling lustre and priceless value.

Christ. Hopefully you can see the depth of the scale here - the Conan extract is muddy and difficult to read, but this is near incomprehensible. Part of the reason this passage is so much worse is that there is even less intent behind the author's use of language. Here, she is working overtime to evoke a kind of dramatic-intellectual style borrowed from writers like the Brontë sisters (imo at least - not an expert, that's just the sense I get as a reader). The further these flourishes get from lending purpose to the meaning of the prose, the harder they are to parse.

BUT my other point is: far fewer writers these days set out to emulate Irene Iddesleigh's arch, roundabout, society conscious voice than they do the hallmarks of classic pulp. We're inured to sex and violence, sin and debauchery in fiction today, so extracts like the Conan example feel even more bloated than they did in their time. And that creates a real pitfall for amateur genre writers: the instinct to pay homage to the stylistic choices of the classics can lead them right into Irene Iddesleigh territory.

Too often, the purpose of these overwrought, leering descriptions isn't calculated to thrill the audience, but to establish a piece in the company of older works the writer admires. And that's what leads to truly purple prose in contemporary genre writing, which makes readers scoff and laugh, which makes authors self-conscious and timid, which leads us here to a point where wordy description is inaccurately identified as the problem. It's not. The problem is excess - and when something has purpose, by definition, it's not excessive.

[asgoodeasgold]

Matthew Goode & sleepwear / lounging wear Part 1/4

I am continuing my exploration of Matthew's roles with a sartorial focus, this time on what he has been wearing in bed and lounging about.

For those sniggering at the back of the class (you know who you are), the emphasis is on 'wearing' 😉.

Today we have Bob's flamboyant red silk pyjamas (oof), Sidney's classy smoking jacket and tie, Heck's relaxed style with a bonus cheeky smile, Gerald's being wistful and looking like a marble sculpture or Matthew in real life being a hoot on The Wine Show. It's very difficult to chose but I'll go for Sydney, he is too adorable lounging in his shirt and tie 💙.

Here is a bonus pic of Matthew behind the scenes in his red silk PJs (ParamountPlus/Nicole Wilder). Stop working Bob, Ali is losing patience!

On the subject of sleepwear, Matthew once said

"In bed I wear pyjamas and the warmth of my fiancée. Or sometimes the scent of a big night out."

🤣

I also love what he says about mannera being more important than clothes. What a gem he is, truly.

(nterview for Another Man online mag, 2011, courtesy of matthew-goode.net.)

📷 My edits from The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (2018), Al Sur de Granada (2003), Imagine Me & You (2005), The Offer (2022) and The Wine Show (2018) s2:06

[readtrovert]

"Where does it hurt?"

"Everywhere, but it hurts the most in my heart."

[day1dream]

unpopular opinion: I love you a thousand yellow daisies

[gennsoup]

Do you know what it's like to be bewitched? Your mind bends. Your entire life shrinks to the size of a small room. The imagination is a fever. You can't stand it. Nobody can stand it--that's the point of falling in love.

Sarah Cypher, The Skin and Its Girl

[aliusfrater]

adi's fics feel like an ingmar bergman film, ap's writing feels like a cross between a wong kar wai and a david conenberg film, and m&b's writing feels like a cross between a john hughes and gregg araki film

[passions-and-pupils]

Sun Wukong’s Point of view

Thinking about how Sun Wukong declared himself “Great Sage Equal To Heaven”. Not above heaven, equal. He wasn’t claiming to be better than the gods, just equal. He was asking to be seen as a peer and from his point of view he probably couldn’t see why that was so offensive. He was certainly as strong as the gods, (he proved that later on when he beat Li Jing, and Li Nezha) he was well versed in Taoist philosophy, and he was made from the heavens so why was he seen as less than!

In his eyes all he had done was know his worth and not know the proper etiquette due to his upbringing (He was literally raised by animals).

Imagine his hope when he was excepted as an equal. He thought he had finally proved himself, that now he would be taken seriously.

But it was all a lie. A ruse made to truck him into complacency. They didn’t see him as an equal, and they never would! he could win a fistfight with the emperor and still be seen as of lower status. So he decided to make them regret thinking Sun Wukong could be pushed aside and forgotten. he caused as much mischief as he could while also racking up immortality. That way even if they tried to get rid of him they couldn’t. This later worked against him as Bhuddha himself found a way to get rid of him without death.

I imagine him thinking over his life in his head wondering where he went wrong and sure, he would redo a few things if he could but he still didn’t understand why he wasn’t worthy of being an equal before he went of his rampage. and it would take 500 years for someone to show him why and tell him how to be better.

[ldpdlexisting]

something something louis' single act of goodness to daniel being just as devastating. something something toni morrison saying evil is constant and goodness is complicated. altruism being deviant and abnormal. toni morrsion talking about the acquisition of knowledge and self-knowledge as virtue in the literary journey. something something

[chickenwaffles17]

new child unlocked (they/it)

Its name is Sigma Alpha 2 but their friends call it Bunny

I used this tutorial