Maureen’s Comments (group member since Mar 02, 2009)

Maureen’s comments from the fiction files redux group.

patty and i talked about this a bit today: there was some discussion as to whether the actual characterization of the character would make them memorable? for me, it seems that the archetypal characters would be memorable but that the actual characterization of them might be hazy. for example, when i think of odysseus, while i'm very fond of him, i think of him in the same vein as loki, or fox from first nations myth: the trickster who manages to find a way to turn the tables.

but then i think of books i've loved, and characters that peopled them, like my favourite shirley jackson, The Sundial, and i think all of those characters are very real and vivid, and memorable even though they're mostly deplorable, and function in the same way. i feel they have distinct qualities and character traits. if we go to a mutual favourite writer of kerry's and mine, i find austen's protagonists memorable and well-defined. anne eliot, elizabeth bennet, emma woodhouse are all very different women even though they are all "gentlewomen" and i find them to be very memorable. so i think that they might be favourites, as well. though i suppose it could go the other way as well... i certainly remember mr. collins very well, and mrs. bennet, and they make my skin crawl. :P

i think the key for me as to whether a character is memorable, is not whether they are successful, it's whether i believe the character, whether they come up off the page, and walk around in my head, and i think of what they've said, and it's as if they might've said it to me. sometimes they are the perfect mix of archetype and characterization: chandler's philip marlowe, and mcdonald's lew archer feel real to me, and memorable. not sure if at bottom of all this is that i believe in characters that are witty because that entertains me, and thus engages me. :P

here's where i wish some of our theory specialists posted more. maybe somebody should harass danielle to come back and give us her two cents. it would be great if goodreads would add @functionality a la twitter and goodreads to ping those people because i'd be doing that right about now.:)

hello! yes, i'm in nyc! jwj, i noticed you added the color purple just before this: had you read it before, or did you just read it now? am wondering if you were at all influenced by the character based on hurston when reading their eyes were watching god.

as for janie, i don't know if you can say she's "a strong woman" but i do think she evolves and grows over the course of the novel, and that's part of the reason i'm so attracted to her as a character, and why i love the book so much. she seems to learn, and to dust herself off, and try again which makes her very real to me, and i do admire that strength but i won't assign it any gender significance. there are some of us who are broken, and then are too afraid to start again, who don't ever want to risk anything because they feel so lost, and out of place, and sync, so unnecessary and unworthy of love. janie always seems to keep her eyes on the horizon, or god, or what have you. :)

of course, this is all from the memory of repeated readings -- i haven't read it in a couple of years. i'll go over the vultures when i'm home again and get back to you. :)

hello hello: i found this cool link and wanted to share it: http://everypageofmobydick.blogspot.com/

art for every page of moby dick. also, i'm just starting chapter 21 so i'm almost caught up to you, and will go back and re-read everything you've said once i've met ahab. i expect i should be ready to start discussing by the weekend. :)

i just got my copy yesterday! i will try to catch up this weekend, and i'm looking forward to reading through all the discussion up to this point. :)

hi hi! well, i'm not sure if i'll make it yet but if i can, the best week in august for me would be the first week, because they've blacked out the other three at this new job. and the first two weeks of september. boo.

whether or not i'll be able to fit in with your plans, i'm really glad you guys are planning something -- i was worried it wouldn't happen this year! :)

i just posted this on facebook but remembered this thread and decided to post it here too: a canadian sci-fi/comic lit show in 1993 discusses "the cyberbook". :)

http://archive.tvo.org/video/119721

Adrian wrote: "P.S. Hey, Mo! I bought you a cyber-bunny for your profile on FriendBurst. You can feed it to the whale."

thanks, my darling harold! i still have to come over and thoroughly investigate friendburst land but you know i can't resist your siren song. even though i'm sure that bunny is floating in a pot. :)

there was a vignette in the short-lived animated series the critic that featured a parody of the famous orson welles frozen food commercial. he's doing the commercial and he expounds, "rose bud peas. full of country goodness and green pea-ness" is horrified by the statement and ostensibly what he's become, gets up and storms off, all the while still shoving frozen peas down his gullet. you hear him chewing, and then he says, "what luck! there's a french fry in my beard".

this parody never fails to please me whenever i think of it. :)

elizabeth! exciting reading material is no doubt unfolding before you. please keep us posted on what you're reading by those two adored gentlemen, pkd and borges. what are the titles?

and now, how to bring this back to moby dick. hrm.

???

scully's dog was named queequeg. i'll finally know who the hell that is. :)

Chris wrote: "Mo--just got the Tony Millionaire poster for my classroom. I know, I'm hot.

And we are so pwning Moby Dick."

Yes! totally hot! is it as pretty in real life? how big is it? there seemed to be two different sets of measurements on the link i posted... i've been thinking of ordering a copy to post in my office -- which i still haven't decorated.

school the whale and us all, swanny! :) mo/xo

Adrian wrote: "You slackers couldn't even deal with a silly woman like Madame Bovary. How are you gonna handle a vindictive whale?

Big Dick will kick your asses!

"

while i will never deny my slackerdom, i feel i can pwn the big white whale. this is because i think he is just a large lump of ambergris when all is said and done. :)

i hope you pop in on the discussion now and then to mock us -- it will add a certain piquance to my reading. :)

hey kids: amazingly, though we have discussed him time and time again, there isn't a folder for f. scott fitzgerald. so in his honour, i have created one even though i'm not reading anything by him right now.

however, i am playing this video game for free online:
greatgatsby by NES

there are also some interesting passages about him in
"bring on the empty horses" the david niven book i always talk about which i will transcribe soon. :)
wheeeeee!

i just ordered it yesterday -- looking forward to it, skipper. :) mo/xo

ah. bobby darin. you can see how easy it would be for me to confuse him and JACK KEROUAC. :P

thanks skipper! :)

kind of says it all -- i asked martyn this question the other day...

and if you do listen to music when you write, what kind of music do you listen to? is it instrumental, or are there words? if there are words, are they distinguishable?

they were raised together as siblings but later it turned out she had got pregnant as a teenager and he just thought she was his sister.

and i can't remember who it was but i believe the same scenario played out for at least (one) famous writer, if not more. was it kerouac? am i out of my mind? (that's kind of a moot point).

do you guys have any idea what i'm talking about?

p.s. oro, i went back to your last comment, and agree: poe could be bitchy and resentful when it came to the other writers of his day-- whether his assessment was based on artistic principle and unbiased critique, or bitterness at their success and his lack thereof, i suspect is up to our own opinions of those writers, and their works. for myself, i feel sorry for him. he was a tremendous talent but nobody really got it while he was alive (except the french)and it seems to me that he had just had trouble accepting the train of losses in his life.

i read this biography back in the day: Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. If anybody has an interest, i think it's worth reading.

Chris wrote: I so want that Tony Millionaire cover as a poster for my classroom."

!!!! http://us.penguingroup.com/nf/Book/Bo...

only 7.95 (sans tats, but hey! pretty awesome, no? i wonder if i get a 60 percent discount on posters too? :P)

robert: at first i thought, "of course we should talk." then i thought, "i don't know what inherent vice is at all". then i looked it up and realized you want to use me for my discount. :P

we can definitely talk about that but i expect the shipping charges from canada would probably offset any retail price savings. if i do make it to the west coast again in the future, it might make it worthwhile. a local friend of mine is getting a good discount on a mac though -- and i am looking forward to using the company museum memberships when i eventually get to new york, and to london again. :)

it looks like i can get it here:
http://www.amazon.ca/Moby-Dick-Barnes...

i think i would like to be on a level playing field with swanny's students. :)

but! now i am coveting the Penguin edition with the Tony Millionaire cover just for its pretty: http://www.amazon.ca/Deluxe-Classics-...

so I may get both -- at my new job i get 60% off all penguin books, so i may as well take advantage of it.

thanks for the advice ry and robert. i'm not sure if i can get a barnes & noble edition in canada but i'll see what there is to see. i do like footnotes so i will definitely try to track down an annotated edition. :)

p.s. welcome les!

Shel wrote: "I find it interesting that we think we can "know" anything about Poe's personality. Personality is a construct, and we can't "know" Poe in that way any more than we can stand outside our selves and..."

i'm not sure we can't "know anything" about poe's personality: being an avid fan of his, at one point i read a lot of his letters, and criticism, and i think those words in addition to his literature can give insight into one's literary motivations-- and yes, i concede that these are constructs. and yet, i think even in constructs there are clues to personality -- we may just have to agree to disagree on this, but i think that's why i respond with antipathy to some writers' voices -- who they are comes up off the page, and i don't particularly like who they are. of course, i'm assuming you're responding to my comments but i'm not sure if i'm right about that, shel -- if it was what i said, you'll note i never definitively asserted anything. i am just theorizing based on my experience of his text, essays, criticism and letters.

keith: i think you're probably right that the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. if you have a chance at some point, please give "william wilson" a read, and let me know what you think of it in the context of vengeance and guilt. it's always been one of my favourites of his shorts, being obsessed with doppelgangers as i am. :)

oh oro. just because borges answered this question doesn't mean we can't toss it around ourselves. :P

and yeah, i was thinking about coleridge and poe yesterday too. i was all set up to think about poe because i've been trying to read the rime of the ancient mariner in italian. :)