#but the reason i like it narratively is it's so like farcical and tragic like

[nulfaga]

maybe foundation explains this, my 1 p*rate site didn't have it and i cbf to shop around bc the art style is ugly but it baffles me that thane's first kill in 2158 was a human. you know for his training as part of the compact. right. so what human pissed off the hanar so badly (within A YEAR of first contact) that they wanted him dead. was he just a holdover from the war w/ the turians that no one knew what to do with. who was this guy. did he make it to kahje somehow or was thane carrying out interplanetary hits from day 1. so many questions

[theorynexus]

Funerary Rites: 92

A secondary casket, huh? Well, that provides a very interesting spectacle. It is very ironic that the character who is (arguably) most responsible for his death other than himself is given such a prime position in the procession. I am sure this is just how Dirk would have wanted it. The weather business is interesting, insofar as this provides insight into the general culture of the world: it seems as if this could be an allusion to the idea that, given their unpreparedness in such a relatively simple and avoidable situation, they are on the whole quite in danger, should an actual crisis rear its head. This reminds me of the notion that every utopia is also a dystopia. The flaws in the system that the Kids+Trolls created were already shown to us to some extent in the Meat Epilogue (where Dirk and Jane bet heavily on the fact that the populace was so ripe for manipulation and the general sensitivity of everyone to the dangers seriously motivated political operators [or corrupt gods, influenced by an imperfect world] posed to the sanctity and stability of the system was so meager that they could set up an eternal dictatorship), though I am quite appreciating the prospect of this realism being extended further in its depiction in this version of the supposed Paradise Planet’s history.

Don’t you disparage sword-based historically inspired funerary rites, Hussie!  I was going to make a joke about John being dead to me, but then I realized that even though this was to some extent told from John’s perspective, he is not in control of the narrative, as of now--- at least assuming that there is not a twist suggesting that the new narrative is not being actively “controlled” by anyone, but is presently influenced by the collective will of those relevant to the local situation/timeline. But yes, inclusion of treasures (and especially swords) in the burials of important figures is awesome and reasonable, not only because it shows much respect on the part of those left behind, but also because it is very useful for future archaeologists.    So shoosh! 

Valiant Effort to Escape strikes me as very nice, thematically, given it feels like a representation of the nature of Dirk--- and what are Anime Swords, if not a symbol of the owner/wielder’s soul?   I mean, this is why Dirk uses Bladekind in the first place. Gamzee is a piece of garbage who doesn’t deserve to be there, but this also falls under the flag of “tragic, and possibly also [a bit too] predictable.”   Jesters being there to derail the seriousness of events and point out the farcical and tragic is to be expected in the greatest works of literature.

Having two instead of one, yet again, makes it seem like Gamzee is insincere in the depiction of his “Redemption,” which continues to be undetected, because he is far too good at inspiring Rage through his shenanigans. Especially the sort closely related to Void.

Today and/or that particular moment especially, yes.  Jane’s actions there are curious,but I am not sure what to make of them. Violet mourning clothes are an interesting choice.  John kissing Roxy’s cheek continues their expected romance arc, which I had actually somehow forgotten was a thing at this point, during my hiatus (probably because it had just started in earnest). Interesting use of the word “Nave.”  I wonder also if the “barrier” of reporters was formed intentionally. Probably not.

To be expected of reporters. They seem to always try their darndest to find the most inappropriate moments for pictures (which is to say, the moments they will be most valuable), these days, without concern for the emotions of those concerned/pictured.   The snot bit feels very “Hussie.”   Also sortof gross. ewe

Indeed, forming some sort of enlightened and respectful reflection upon the departure of a dearly beloved companion is difficult even under the best of circumstances.  I dare say that in these terrible ones, her trouble is very relatable. The said:  I am unfortunately out of time.  I’ll try to continue in the evening.

[aviewfromtheclouds25]

Why do you like the lodge scenes so much?

Because it was compelling, romantic, high-risk drama fuelled by so much emotion and which actually served character as well as the plot… But I’m guessing you were expecting a longer answer than that? Haha. 

There are various reasons… Partly from a Robert perspective, partly from a Robron perspective… Both were equally amazing… (And also a lot from a because Ryan and Danny were just out of this world and the whole world (of Emmerdale viewers) were on the edge of their seats for two whole days perspective, naturally.)

Robert

What it did for Robert’s character is probably the main reason for me personally. I’ve mentioned in the past that I had some issues with the way his character was written during some of the affair era, particularly around the whole Katie saga. For me, it felt like Robert’s character had been watered down a lot and reduced to somewhat of a superficial caricature of his “bad” traits in order to fit the role of “villain”. Which wasn’t the character I’d watched and loved for years. Robert was a character with a long-standing history onscreen and established fans. We’d watched what he’d been through as a child; how that had affected him growing up; his relationship with Jack; we knew who Robert was even though the scripted version didn’t resemble him at times. Because it wasn’t continuous throughout the whole affair but there were definite phases. Kind of like a lot of the characters nowadays being written out-of-character to fit the plot. But with the plotty writing, I also didn’t feel like we got enough of his point of view to address his emotional reaction around the silly farcical stunts they were making him pull. A lot of the narrative basically neglected the fact that he really had any personal feelings about it at all, which obviously was absolutely not the case. To this day, Robert still hasn’t forgiven himself for anything he did back then. And the show just didn’t explore that enough for me back then because they needed him to be the big panto villain up at Home Farm, and it was just kind of frustrating that they chose to do that with a deeply complex character who already had such a rich legacy in the show which they chose to neglect or negate at times.

There were two standout moments to me where I felt like we actually got a real insight into how everything with Katie had affected him; the first was the scene where Robert told Diane about Andy going to the quarry and there was that shot which just focused on his reflection and you could see the conflict in his face (and I will always be so grateful to Ryan for his understanding of Robert’s character and for keeping that substance in his portrayal of Robert throughout, regardless of the scripts, because Robert is such a complex and three-dimensional character and Ryan’s acting ensured those layers were always there), and the second was the fight with Aaron in the lay-by when he goaded Aaron into hitting him. (Another amazing couple of episodes, just saying.) Those were the times when it felt like we got a true glimpse into the pain and the guilt that Robert was actually feeling. I just feel like it’s something which should have been explored more during that time, but it didn’t fit the narrative which was focused on the affair (which obviously as a shipper I loved so I can’t really complain about that haha) and how Aaron was coping. So you know, it’s what we call #plot. It was just disappointing that the integrity of such a big character with that rich heritage kept being sacrificed for it.

But it was the lodge where we finally got the breakdown. The lodge, for me, was the pivotal moment where everything which had frustrated me about the writing and the treatment of Robert began to change. I’ve always felt like when they were storylining this era, it was always with the mind to limit the cardboard / two-dimensional villain act and build that redemption arc. And the lodge to me absolutely represented the start of that…

So then the epicness of the lodge comes down to how this development of the writing for Robert’s character combines with the tragic messed up love story of Robron at that stage and the insanely powerful performances of Ryan and Danny…

Because love or hate the lodge (I get the sense it’s like Marmite? Haha. Although I’m not sure why anyone who hates it would be reading this post!), no one can deny the incredible acting… The tears, the angry flushing, popping veins, shaking… It’s all so intense, how could we not feel like we’re right there in the moment with them? And like I always say, the reason I admire Ryan and Danny so much as actors is because of just how real they make it all feel. I try to imagine other duos pulling off the lodge scenes and I just…can’t? And it was these scenes which really made me believe in the potential longevity that their partnership could have, whatever direction the show took the characters’ relationship in. Which brings me to how the lodge played into that longevity of Robron itself…

The Lodge

So I’m mostly going to focus on all the drama from when the proverbial hit the fan haha.

The Proverbial: Then what happened? Throw her through the floor and make it look like an accident? WHAT DID YOU DO, ROBERT?

The Fan: I PUSHED HER, THAT’S ALL… I pushed her.

The thing with the lodge scenes is that it’s all about the layers in them… There is so so much more going on than the plotty chaos on the surface. And what’s interesting (maybe haha) is that when Aaron loses control initially, it’s because of Paddy and the love there is between them. When Robert finally loses control, it once again boils down to Jack and the love he wished there’d been between them. It is utterly fascinating and captivating to watch because so much of the drama actually stems from the pain of their respective childhoods, but the drama becomes so intense because of how those similarities between the two of them and those very obvious differences actually clash…

Because, bearing in mind that notion of this being a pivotal moment for the direction of Robert’s character, so much of the action (actually what action there is doesn’t require much focus, it’s soapy drama, because all the poignant and key moments are in the dialogue when Robert sits on the floor with Aaron) actually stems from the fact that this is one of those crucial moments in which Robert’s worlds collide again. The life he had before with the family who always expected the worst of him; the life he’d built to show Jack that he was worth something and that he could have made him proud; and the life with Aaron in which he could truly be happy and himself but had never imagined could be a reality. But he’d risked losing everything he’d worked for by having an affair. By doing reckless things. By falling in love with Aaron. None of which Jack would have approved of. And then he’d risked losing Aaron by doing whatever he could to salvage that life that he’d built for himself. And so we get this line, which is what this whole thing ultimately is all about;

“If this comes out… I lose everything. All I’ve worked for…”

But Aaron actually doesn’t know what Robert means. He thinks Robert’s just talking about money and status, and he tells Robert that’s all he cares about. And this is perhaps the point of no return for Robert losing his control altogether. Because up until that point, Robert’s control began to waiver initially as soon as Aaron made his accusations about Katie. That moment (right before the proverbial hit the fan) was when we finally started to see a glimmer of that guilt that he’d been trying to ignore, to “bury”. He starts to lose his resolve the moment he visibly recoils from Aaron’s anger. Because he’d remained calm and composed up until that moment. Even when Aaron threw that line at him, “I thought I knew you.” (Which just makes the far more recent “I know you” of reunion 2.0 even more poignant and precious, to be honest.) But the moment Aaron turns it onto Katie, you can see the switch in Robert’s face.

But when the proverbial does hit the fan, it’s Aaron’s turn to recoil. Because it goes back to what he said a few moments prior; he thought he knew Robert. And he loved him. Remember what he later said the night that Robert was shot? “What sort of a person does that make me? That I can’t stop loving someone like him?” This is when that thought process began. And it’s absolutely key to how Robert unravels from this moment on. Because the fact is, he didn’t mean for Katie to die but he does carry far more guilt than Aaron realises. The difference is he’s shut it down, he’s refused to acknowledge it. But everything Aaron says in this moment brings it all to the surface and he can’t bear it. And he can’t bear that it’s all coming from Aaron.

Which brings us back to that line, about Robert losing everything if the truth comes out. (I mean, some other stuff happened in between and we had to wait 23.5 hours to find out what would happen next..! :O) And Aaron assuming he means material things because they’re all that matter to Robert, they’re “everything”. (Note that when Robert first arrived at the lodge, his comments were along the lines of "You know what, I like it. Good shout." and then there's that moment when he's looking outside and there's this childlike wonder on his face as he says, "I love that car. It's the best thing I've ever owned." So we are very much reminded that Robert is from far more modest beginnings than his current lifestyle, and he recognises that fact and how hard he's worked over the years to get there.) And the reason I suggest that this comment is the point of no return to the complete unravelling of Robert is because like Aaron now sees Robert in a new light, Robert’s also seeing Aaron differently too. Because like Aaron said he thought he knew Robert, Robert believed Aaron did as well. And suddenly he now sees that the man he risked “everything” for doesn’t actually seem to understand him at all. That the one person he let in, who he thought knew him, truly knew the real him - not the enigma he created to mask his insecurities or the black sheep of his family, but himself - and could see the good in him, didn’t after all. So at this stage he’s barely containing his emotions and is very much on the edge when he tells Aaron, “I wish that was all I cared about… I mean, don’t you see? It’s you. You’re the worst mistake I’ve ever made. Falling in love with you ruined everything.” Cue “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.” “I met you and you changed everything.” Because the fact is Robert is terrified, everything he’s done has been acting out of fear. Because it does all come down to Aaron, and how deeply Robert fell in love with him (“at first sight” *not emotional*). But Robert isn't only scared of admitting his sexuality, he’s scared of losing that life he’d fought for to make himself worthy in Jack’s eyes, and he’s scared that he’s risked it all for a man who doesn’t even know him or want him anymore. He’s petrified by his depth of feelings, so he lashes out at Aaron and a lot of it is projecting because he hates himself for screwing it all up.

Which, of course, only provokes Aaron into lashing out in return. Because he’s disgusted at this man he’d fallen in love with and disgusted with himself for falling in love with him. So he challenges Robert to see if he really is capable of intentionally ending someone’s life, to test exactly what “sort of a person” he’d fallen for… And, to me, Robert’s intentions are pretty damn clear by the way he instantly puts the gun on the table and sits on the floor like that lost, anxious little boy again. The one he always returns to when he feels vulnerable and exposed.

And that is the moment we start to get into what’s really happening here, and a proper insight into Robert’s psyche when they start talking about Katie. And we truly start to see him crumble before our eyes. Because when it comes down to it, Robert has been carrying so much guilt over Katie. But he has buried it. Obviously because he’s scared and wants to protect himself. But it runs so much deeper than that. Because he ruined Andy’s life, and “That’s when I promised myself I would devote my life to supporting him. Stop him suffering any more pain.” Andy truly did need Robert to help him through his grief, so Robert had to stay strong for Andy as well as himself. And you know what? He never stopped carrying that promise with him. Fast forward a year and it was Robert getting Andy safely out of the country. And he didn’t stop there, he waged a war on the Whites so he could clear Andy’s name and bring his brother home. He risked the new life he’d built for himself to try to help Andy have the best one he could. It really is heartbreaking.

But the other thing with Robert’s guilt is it’s intricately linked to his own grief. He even says it to Aaron here, that he loved Katie once. And this is again where those striking differences between them come into play. Because Robert had always had a tendency to suppress his emotions and, in a way, it’s almost like Robert doesn’t actually know how to process his grief. He was obviously a baby when Pat died; when Sarah died, it was such a unique situation and Jack didn’t really support him through his grief as he was first suspected to be responsible for her death and then his focus was on helping Andy when he found out he was - and Robert later found out for himself that his brother was responsible and his father had hid it from him; when Max died, all the blame was put on Robert and he was sent away; and when Jack died, Robert stood at the sidelines of his funeral, an outcast to his own family. So every time Robert has had to grieve someone he loved, he’s never truly been able to. And to me, that grief he feels for Katie and for Andy has firmly attached itself to the guilt he feels, and he doesn’t know how to process either. So he’s just been trying to ignore them, to bury things the way he always does.

But what always strikes me when he’s talking about Andy and Katie is the way that as Robert is gradually falling apart, Aaron is watching him and crying. Because as much as he doesn’t want to, he does still care about (and love) Robert. (Because he “never stopped.”) And he genuinely doesn’t believe he’s “a monster”. But then Aaron’s own defences go back up, because what sort of a person does it make him if he can’t stop loving someone like Robert? So he pushes and goads Robert some more, all the while Robert gets more and more on edge because he is well and truly losing that control. He doesn’t want to go to prison *sob*, he doesn’t want to lose everything he’s fought for, but he loves Aaron and doesn’t want to lose him either. And that’s when we reach another turning point.

When Aaron tells Robert to “Do it.” Which fundamentally is about Aaron’s guilt and his need to punish himself far more than it’s about Robert. And that is the turning point, the moment the last thread of control Robert was holding onto is wrenched from him. Because Robert asks Aaron if he’d lied when he told him he loved him and Aaron’s response? “Of course I don’t love you. How could I? Just look at you. You disgust me. I wish I’d never met you.” And you can pretty much pinpoint the exact moment Robert’s heart breaks. His face is absolutely crestfallen. And stunned. Because the last bit of hope he’d been clinging on to was that Aaron had seen the real him and loved him. So maybe he hadn’t actually lost everything. (Because “He’s everything.” :’) ) But in this moment, Aaron convinces him otherwise and basically tells him he is just as unworthy of love as everyone else had always made him believe. And that is the moment Robert fully loses control because just like Aaron, all he ever really wanted was someone to love him for himself, unconditionally. And the one person he believed did is now telling him it was all a lie. That it wasn’t real. It wasn’t a love story. That he’d risked everything for nothing.

Now, what really gets me about this particular moment is how quick Robert is to believe Aaron. To believe that he’s worthless and unlovable. And this is all the more fascinating in retrospect. Because think back to Christmas 2014 and those scenes outside The Woolie, where Robert says “Yeah, I listened to you. You make a lot of sense.” So at this stage of their relationship, Robert very much listens to Aaron’s words. Now consider the juxtaposition of that when Aaron told Robert not to come to Gordon’s hearing early 2016 but of course he went anyway and said that line, “Since when did I ever listen to anything you say?” Since when did he stop? Because in that scene, we can see the progress in Robert and their relationship, because Robert now listens to everything Aaron doesn’t say. That was also the time that the whole “You know…” / “I know.” began. And we saw throughout that storyline and the way Robert supported Aaron, that he was very much listening to everything that Aaron wasn’t saying. So when did it change? When did Robert start recognising all the things Aaron wasn’t being forthcoming with? Definitely Robert’s shooting storyline played a big role, but I’d argue that the journey began earlier and a pivotal moment was these lodge episodes. How? I’m getting there…

So then we get Robert taking Aaron at his word again, pointing the gun at Aaron while they’re both crying and he’s just violently shaking because he has absolutely no control over his emotions right then, hence the words “I MEANT IT… I LOVE YOU.” (in which his voice absolutely breaks my heart) were literally wrenched from his very soul because he absolutely has no control over himself - because this is Robert; shrewd, calculating, manipulative, 100% in control, but in this moment he is completely exposed, his feelings laid bare in his absolute vulnerability, reducing him to his most authentic and raw self which is why we see that lost little boy who is just desperate to feel loved and to finally prove to his father that he isn’t the disappointment he wrote him off as. That he doesn’t “ruin everything [he touches]”. And that’s the crux of this moment, that’s what drove Robert to this, that’s why he’s in this state. Because there are two options: lose the person he’d believed until only a few moments before was the one person who could genuinely see the good in him and love him for who he is, or lose everything he’d worked for and the life he had created to try to be the son Jack wished he could have been. Because if Aaron told the truth about Katie, how could Jack ever be proud of his son if he went to prison for “murder”? Which is all the more poignant when you consider how it was Jack’s forgiving and helping Andy for his own accidental murder which instigated so many of Robert’s issues… *Trying not to think about Rob’s current predicament… Holding back the tears as Simply Red would say… Actually, check out those lyrics: “Strangled by the wishes of pater / Hoping for the arms of mater” - some random on the I.O.W. needs to go find him and give him a hug please.* And that’s what it boils down to in this moment; his unexpected but all-consuming love for Aaron, or the love he fought for and so desperately craved from Jack. And you know what? His decision is right there in his words, when he can’t stop himself from telling Aaron that his love for him was real. That everything they had was real. That the Robert he was when he was with Aaron was real. (“I just want to be myself now. With you.” *help*) Because in this moment, whether consciously or not, he knew that all of that meant more to him than the life plan Jack would never be able to give his blessing to anyway.

And all of this is why this may possibly have been one of the most heartfelt ILY’s in the history of soap. The circumstances may not be typically romantic, granted haha, but the sentiment…

But then pesky Paddy walks in of course. And Robert loses control of the gun and Paddy gets shot. Now, if we want to read into the fact that this all began with Aaron’s relationship with Paddy and Robert’s attempts to desperately cling on to the life he’d created to prove his own father wrong, then there is an argument in the significance and symbolism of it being Paddy who hunted them down and got shot. We could read it almost as though in shooting Paddy, it was like Robert shot his own memory of Jack. Because Paddy walked in on that crucial moment - when Robert told Aaron he loved him. Because even putting aside the SSW retconning of Jack finding Robert with a lad when he was younger because that obviously happened later, the fact is that Jack always disapproved of Robert’s actions and choices. He made him believe that he wasn’t good enough, that he was a disappointment, that he ruined everything he touched. That he wasn’t worthy of love. So Paddy walking in on that key moment in which, consciously or not, Robert’s only focus is that he loves Aaron is effectively like Jack trying to shut it down once more. That brutal reminder that he doesn’t deserve love or happiness.

Because remember, this is all about Robert’s worlds colliding. And this is how Robert totally falls apart and goes into meltdown. Because Aaron’s goading him, Paddy’s bleeding in front of him, and Robert just keeps asking himself “What the hell am I supposed to do now?” But it isn’t just that he doesn’t know what to do next, it’s that he doesn’t even know how he got here, how he messed everything up so badly, how he came to do any of these things. Because he isn’t “a bad person”. And as he finally falls to pieces against those kitchen cabinets, it is himself more than anyone else that he’s trying to convince of this. Because for so much of his life, people made him believe he was. And as per that self-fulfilling prophecy of his, when people expected the worst, that’s what he gave them. (You know who didn’t always expect the worst? Aaron. That’s why he got to fall in love with the man underneath all those layers.) So in this moment, he’s questioning if maybe they were right all along. He’s not only having a breakdown, he’s having a full-on identity crisis. He hasn’t a clue what his life - or what he - has become. Which is why he crumbles again the moment Paddy starts reassuring him that it “doesn’t have to get any worse”. Because Robert can’t handle hearing that reassurance, because in this moment he knows he doesn’t deserve it.

So after all of that, Paddy states he and Aaron won’t say anything. But it is only when Aaron speaks, his words again - “I’ve got nothing on you.” - that he believes it. And when it’s all over, Robert returns to Home Farm and seeks comfort and reassurance in Chrissie - there’s that hug where it’s almost like a child hugging his mother. Because that’s what it comes down to; Robert is still that scared little boy and he’s seeking comfort from the one person who still loves him.

And then Aaron decides to take that from Robert and blow the affair… - And this is actually perhaps when Robert stopped listening to Aaron’s words alone…

“All that you’ve worked for…IS GONE.”

And that’s what all of this really does come down to… Not only the deconstruction of Robert’s character, but also his life… Because with Aaron no longer loving him, in this moment, Robert really has lost everything for nothing…

He doesn’t have Aaron.

He doesn’t have the life he’d built.

He is right back to square one. The screw up. The black sheep. The disappointment.

But by breaking down Robert’s character, to get to the core and the heart of this long-standing character, and his relationship with Aaron, it marked the start of the very long journey to rebuilding them. And all of that, and the extraordinary acting from Danny and Ryan, is why I enjoyed the lodge so much.

The layers...

I MEAN IT… I LOVED IT!

(And this was one heck of a ramble, I’m sorry!)

[bakechochin]

The Book Ramblings of January 2019

In place of book reviews, I will be writing these ‘book ramblings’. A lot of the texts I’ve been reading (or plan to read) in recent times are well-known classics, meaning I can’t really write book reviews as I’m used to. I’m reading books that either have already been read by everyone else (and so any attempt to give novel or insightful criticisms would be a tad pointless), or are so convoluted and odd that they defy being analysed as I would do a simpler text. These ramblings are pretty unorganised and hardly anything revolutionary, but I felt the need to write something review-related this year. I’ll upload a rambling compiling all my read books on a monthly basis.

Wise Blood - Flannery O’Connor I haven’t read much American literature, but far be it from me to state that the sole reason for this is my position as a staunch Englishman. In truth, I genuinely just don’t have much of an interest for the great American texts; the enforced reading of such literature during GCSEs and A-Level taught me that even the American texts with the best prose were not on the most interesting of subject matters, concerned with social progress or supposedly deserving of merit because of relevant historical context, as opposed to actually just being, well, enjoyable. Yes, I am obviously over-simplifying to a ludicrous extent, but these were the thoughts that I had way back in the halcyon days of school, and subsequently these are the thoughts that I’ve carried with me since, simply because I haven’t been arsed to actively try to challenge them. However, my infatuation with the grotesque was bound to bring me to the realms of American literature at some point, and so asking my American friend to procure me a copy of this book with a decent cover, I started on this Southern Gothic classic. I love the idea of transposing the gothic genre to a setting different than one would conjure up from the word ‘gothic’, and the fictional deep South town of Taulkinham does a bloody good job at capturing what I want; there’s madness and isolation and a sense of oddity in the air, and the town is populated by a gallery of fantastic and memorable grotesques. The fantastic and evocative prose, almost comical at points, belies how fucking odd the story’s events are, and breathes life into this setting in a similar way to Hammett’s Red Harvest; this is perhaps one of my favourite techniques in literature, simply because I’ve never thought of envisioning America in this fantastical way. The story is rather fragmented, with many of its major scenes basically being some of O’Connor’s short stories stitched together (and the Frankensteined nature of the story does result in a few chapters having noticeably different writing styles to the rest, or some characters’ decisions that would develop into these slotted-in short stories seeming odd and poorly explained). With this awareness, I remain unconvinced with critics’ dogmatic statements along the lines of ‘O’Connor evokes an individual voice/style, unburdened by the rules or conventions of story writing’; if she had that in mind, as a deliberate means of creating a fragmentary narrative in the name of the genre or in reflection of the characters or what have you, she came up with that shit after she started writing. It is a view that I could subscribe to, on account of the fact that this is not a stereotypical narrative. Characters don’t do much or evolve much, with the decisions made by the characters seemingly motivated more by manic episodes than actual rational thought; Hazel, for instance, is depicted as basically coming up with the teachings and philosophies of his Church without Christ as he goes along, repeating his new discoveries to himself and to anyone who will listen as soon as he formulates them, and it is this improvisational drifting (motivated by his own warped thinking) that defines his story’s progression. What separates gothic stories set in recognisably recent times to gothic stories set in the distant histories of castles and deep dark woods, is the changed understanding of madness, and I’ve talked about this a lot in my rambles on Le Fanu but I’ll delve into this book’s treatment of it. In the words of Bakhtin, ‘in Romantic grotesque, … madness acquires a somber, tragic aspect of individual isolation’, but before the advancement of scientific knowledge as to what actually constituted ‘madness’, it often took the form of histrionics and melodrama. This is all fine and dandy when you’re writing a story about tormented murderers hearing hearts beating under the floorboards, or masked men with skeletal faces scuttling around opera houses, but when you’ve got to transpose this madness to a recent-ish society, with said madness being expressed or brought out via recognisable themes such as religion, you’ve got to tone it down a bit. As such, Hazel and Enoch are manic, not mad, and this is excellently conveyed through their individual speech styles and the ways that other characters interact or interpret the two; my favourite example of this is Enoch running down his day’s activities to himself as a strict and sacrosanct ritual of undeniable importance, swiftly followed by the reveal of the actions’ trivial nature (and his co-workers negative opinions of him as a result). WOULD I RECOMMEND?: HELL YES

The Crock of Gold - James Stephens Trying to ascertain the seriousness of this text boggles my brain. Let it first be said that I rather like this book, despite the shoddy John Murray publication that I have it in; I was prompted to purchase it on account of its place in the great ‘Irish comic tradition’, basically expecting something along the lines of The Unfortunate Fursey, but I instead was greeted with a much more thoughtful and interesting read that I advise everyone to pick up at some point, with the caveat that you have to be in a very specific mindset to read it. It’s a funny story, but it is quietly funny; the humour comes from little quirks in the writing, in the speech and actions of its characters, in the ultimate charm of the story. The dialogue is deliberately circumlocutive and often rather meaningless, pondering incessantly on philosophical matters big and small, and ofttimes the narrative itself reflects these rambling trains of thought, most notably a long aimless pilgrimage wherein the Philosopher stumbles across snippets of other peoples’ lives, experiencing quibbles and learning folk wisdom and ruminating on the head and heart. The book’s world is charming, all made up of storybook character archetypes and Irish folklore (described matter-of-factly and easily accepted as truth); ofttimes, the information that we are given is ultimately unimportant and has no bearing on the overall story, and this is a statement that can, truthfully, be applied to much of the text, but it is all the same delicately written and rather pleasant. The book does perhaps toe the line on this point with its rambling philosophical paragraphs from the Gods, with its grand allegories and metaphysical nonsense getting a tad wanky and mind-numbing, but it’s not the most egregious thing in the world. In any case, the philosophising of the Philosopher is entertaining enough to make up for the rather more dense philosophising of the Gods, being much more like the aforementioned circumlocution, going off on unrelating tangents and eventually bringing the rambling back around to the initial point that catalysed said rambling. I bring this up not only as a point of comparison, but because it ties in nicely with the commonly-utilised storytelling method of basically going off on a tangent, following one person off on their quest before jumping back to where the narrative left off to see how things are doing then. This can perhaps be attributed to this book’s lack of urgency or real danger, and thus lack of a need for hastiness and rapid jumping from one person’s story to another. This extends even to the final resolution of the humans’ storyline, which basically amounts to one sentence saying that what they set out to do was done and dusted; there isn’t even a scene to show everyone happy again, because it is simply implied that things will go back to the jolly equilibrium. Hell, when the book incorporates wistful or thoughtful or even flat-out sad tales, no resolution is offered for them. The story just goes on, and we are presumably meant to just assume that all will end up alright in the end, or at the very least, all will just end, and then it’s not worth worrying about any more. Reading what I thought would just be another fucking The Unfortunate Fursey type of fantasy book has really evoked some unexpected feelings in me. So that’s nice. WOULD I RECOMMEND?: YES, IF YOU’RE IN THE RIGHT MOOD

Gulliver’s Travels - Jonathan Swift I’ll level, I went into this book expecting a low-brow adventure story about little dudes and fucking massive units. It is, in fact, a tad more complex than this. This book is a lot of things; it can be read as a storybook adventure novel, but it is also a satirical piece, both of Swift’s society in general and of the travel writings form, and it is this satire that I am not too fond of. But we’ll get to that. The main technique utilised in this novel (yeah I’m just going to call it a novel for simplicity's sake) is optical conceit, and the idea of viewing familiar things from different perspectives or in different ways, presenting them in a new light as ridiculous or laughable and perhaps to make us reevaluate the workings of society so farcically presented. This technique is noticeable mainly in the first and second travels, coincidentally the two travels that are most widely known, and this optical conceit is a concept that I like a lot more in theory than in practise. The first travel takes us to Lilliput, the island of the small blokes, and here the small size of the people links in with their small-mindedness and melodramatic quibbling over minor matters, but in the second travel to Brobdingnag, land of the big dudes, the size of the folk is seemingly unrelated from the satire. With the possible exception of the pompous Prince, none of the natives have any sort of comical largesse or egotism that might have related to the satire. And then when I had this in my mind, I began scrabbling around to try and find some other snippets of how the native people tie in with the satire, to little to no avail. The Lilliputians put great faith in long and formal written legislations and diatribes (related in full in Gulliver’s account), suggestive of shrewd ink-nosed clerks hiding behind their papers, and much of the Brobdingnagian report is one long rambling philosophical back-and-forth between Gulliver and the Prince, suggesting these large people have large mouths and loud opinions, but the satire, in my opinion, is a) tenuous and b) not what I’d consider engaging reading. And that’s not even considering the specific basis of the satire: contemporary politics! This book is striking an interesting balance between being entertaining in its own right, and ostensibly being entertaining because of its significance as satire, that every character or event in the story is comically reflecting some real-life event in English politics. To this, I have to compare it to Calvino’s story Invisible Cities, and it’s varying depictions of Venice through different disguises; it doesn’t matter how you tart up your source material, or how colourful your new layer of paint is, because if I’m not interested in the original source material then I probably won’t give too much of a toss about how it is newly presented. And contemporary English politics really could not appeal to me less, even if Swift does dress them up as Lilliputian acrobatic displays or thinly veiled warring kingdom allegories. That’s not to say that there is nothing funny to be found in this text; the details in the stories that are not intended to serve any satirical purpose, and instead merely to emphasise the differences between worlds, are always great fun. My favourites are the Lilliputian’s alien descriptions of the gigantic contents of Gulliver’s pockets, and two great instances of humungous monstrosities in Brobdingnag, namely the huge lice on the giant beggars and the scene of a Brobdingnagian mother breastfeeding; the sheer revulsion that Gulliver has to this spectacle is fucking hysterical. The travel to Laputa has got a good grasp on linking the fun content with the satirical aspect (not only is the flying island a great pisstake of science-minded learned folk, but is also like something out of a fucking Lem story), but the overall story is generally rather boring and without much in the way of obstacle or threat. The Land of the Houyhnhnms doesn’t really have the optical conceit, being more of an abstract switcharoo of horses and people, with not much relationship between the two races and a lot of obvious satire about man’s bestial nature. There are occasions of overt physical comedy, again tied in with these changes in size; Gulliver is in one story dousing great fires with his almighty piss stream, and in another being dressed up like a doll or dunked in a bowl of cream by a mendacious dwarf (or rather, a dwarf by Brobdingnagian standards). I am fully in accord with the former sort of comedy, not only because such imagery of dousing fires with a slash puts me in mind of Gargantua and Pantagruel, but because it reflects this book’s fun indulgence in crude toilet humour. Crude toilet humour is fun to begin with, but Swift uses scatalogical humour to demean the noble form of travel writings, taking a moment from seriously discussing the learned folk and their cultures and customs to describe his shitting habits. The latter sort of comedy, however, that serves to emasculate Gulliver by having him toyed with by giant folk or entrapped by tiny folk, only highlights to me the lack of character that Gulliver has, beyond being our narrator. I’m sure that critics will argue for his supposed egotism or pomposity or whatnot, but such details in the text are thin on the ground, and if Gulliver is not characterised as being a dick, why should the reader find it entertaining or cathartic when he gets his shit handed to him? These problems perhaps originate with Swift’s worries of the character of Gulliver being a reflection of himself; he is willing to put the character through light slapstick shenanigans, but he hasn’t got the balls to go too far lest it tarnish his own reputation. Apparently in one early publication of this text, Gulliver partakes in the custom of eating shit with the ape people, but oh no no, Swift couldn’t possibly have something that funny in the story in case anyone thought that he himself might truly be a coprophagous ninny! There is a strange bequeathment of snooty scholarly worth unto this book, considering that it does have talking horses and ape men who shit everywhere, as illustrated by the study done around this book (handily referenced in the editor’s annotations). Let me briefly give some examples. This book uses a lot of nonsense ‘little language’ for its place names and whatnot, and as you can tell by the fact that I’ve taken every opportunity to use the word ‘Brobdingnagian’ in this ramble, I’m rather fond of it all. However, amidst all the daft place names (all bizarre anagrams of existing places), the editor makes sure to highlight some as being ‘obvious, and therefore uncharacteristic’, as though there is a scholarly level of obfuscation or stupidity to adhere to in order to be respectable. This sense of superiority continues to the demeaning of one particularly transparent and obvious satirical paragraph, which is described as being ‘artistically weaker’ than the rest of the text; not that I’m defending the aforementioned insulted paragraph, because it isn’t that good, but the implication that the text deserves artistic merit because of the obfuscation of its satire rubs me up the wrong way a bit. WOULD I RECOMMEND?: PROBABLY NOT

The Nightwatches of Bonaventura - Bonaventura The new introduction to this text, written by the uppity translator Gerald Gillespie, is rather dogmatic in its excessive insistences of all of the things that this text is, or takes inspiration from. As much as I like to portray myself as a learned man and top-quality dude, I’m not so invested in contextualising this book’s composition that I’m willing to engross myself in Napoleonic war history or the works of Kant. What I am interested in, however, is the Romantic grotesque, for whilst Bakhtin’s infatuation with Rabelais’ grotesque completes eclipses any appreciation he might have of any writer who deviates from Rabelais, Bakhtin manages to spare a brief word of praise for this text amidst all the wanking over Rabelais, so I was intrigued enough to get myself a copy. This a book densely populated with great grotesque imagery and content, and as such it is a book that probably warrants re-reading with a certain subject in mind so as to allow for further unpacking, but within the framework of the grotesque, Bakhtin was right to say that this book basically epitomises the Romantic grotesque, because it’s all here in amazing detail. The story is a rambling introspective on dark topics, either prompted by the morbid and corrupt sights of the world around our narrator or plucked from the memories of our narrator’s own dark past. Said narrator, Kruezgang, brilliantly speaks on such subjects with amazing and colourful prose, with literary allusions and warped rumination galore. The other characters in the watches seem more like marionettes or shadow puppets, necessary to tell separate stories or fill a hole where there should be an aspect of Kruezgang’s past, but their purpose as such is fascinating enough and so excellently done that it doesn’t warrant criticism. The world is grim and grotesque, but depicted out as a joke via Kruezgang’s own view of it, described with poetical allegories and bitterly laughing at awful events by portraying them as black comedy farces. This book’s infatuation and idolisation of the mad and the strange and the grim is something fantastic, it really is. Now, having prefaced this ramble with such positivity, I can delve into a truth that looms over this text like a storm cloud; it is so incredibly fucking dense that I could not imagine rereading this book for any reason other than literary analysis. There is so much content, rich bloody content, in this book that it is easy to equate the feeling of numbness in one’s mind with an overload of such fantastic stuff, from the prose to the ideas to the fascinating storytelling, but this process of thought precludes the very important contributing factor to said mind-numbness, which is that the book seemingly just rambles about nothing at all! Am I to assume that such rich prose in the name of maddening circumlocutive (is that a word?) nothingness actually does have a purpose, and my mind just slides over it because it can’t comprehend the information, or perhaps just can’t contain so much information? Am I an uncomprehending fool for glossing over chunks of text, or am I just inadequately prepared to cram so much prose into my bonce at any one time? Such thoughts bounced around in my head as I was reading, and the only conclusion that I could come to was that I would be hard-pressed to recommend this book to anyone, for what if they encountered the same problems, and asked me to elucidate on such matters, when I have no answers to give them? Wouldn’t I look a fool then! But I digress. The introduction snootily says that to break down the narrative’s events chronologically would only ‘contravene the spirit… of the work’, which I believe insofar as a fragmented narrative obviously reflects the fragmented mind of the narrator (real in-depth analysis going on here), but that doesn’t mean that I won’t say that the narrative isn’t all over the shop, generally rather confusing, and interspersed with fragments of other stories of seeming tangential relation to Kruezgang’s storyline, all described with Bonaventura's same grandiose verbosity but often nowhere near as interesting as Kruezgang. Sure, I could have read into the exact (and no doubt important) purpose(s) of these segments, but a) just reading this book and revelling in its dark prose is an enriching enough experience without having to learn all the context clues that contributed to such nonsense being formulated, and b) most of the research writing about this book by Gillespie is just trying to figure out who Bonaventura is, a mystery to which I honestly could not give any semblance of a fuck about. WOULD I RECOMMEND?: NO, UNLESS YOU WANT TO READ IT FOR ACADEMIC PURPOSES

Shit I read this month that I couldn’t be arsed to ramble about: Shakespeare and Co. by Stanley Wells (absolutely amazing, incredibly informative, would absolutely recommend if it’s your thing), and City of Sin by Catharine Arnold (generally fun and informative, Arnold’s voice can get annoying at times, overall would recommend just for the chapters about sex in the medieval/early modern period and the chapter on Victorian pornography).