Smile and the world smiles with you, Hardy

When I was at home over Christmas, I found my copy of Tess of the d'Urbervilles. What I'd forgotten was what was done to the cover:

I was in some college class, and a friend said "She looks too sad" and stuck that on there. So I promptly secured it with Scotch tape and it is never coming off. Because it's the best part of the book.

When I was going through my Meryl Streep stage, I very very much wanted to watch The French Lieutenant's Woman, because it looked like it would have all kinds of delightful shippy things in it, and oh what fun. But obvs I had to read the book first, so I got it, read it, was none too into it, BUT Fowles quotes quite a bit of Hardy's poetry in it.

So I decided to finally read Tess because of that. And then I found out that Hardy was a big Mr. SadPants, which is not so much my thing. So he's all "And then Tess made yet another accidental bad decision which took two seconds but had a monstrous and terrible impact on the rest of her life" and I'm over here being like

The only Hardy I know I like is Under the Greenwood Tree, and I don't even like the book -- I just like the movie with Keeley Hawes because it is super-adorable and you should watch it because I am not kidding she plays a character named Fancy Day and everyone is in love with her but she only loves the simple farm boy and they have heated words and then KISS (spoilers).

Stupid late Victorians. Why couldn't they all have been fun like Oscar Wilde?...wait, they did what to him? DAMNIT, Victorian England. Get your shit together.

Comments

Minithon: The Mini Readathon, January 11th, 2020

The minithon is upon us once more! Minithons are for the lazy. Minithons are for the uncommitted. Minithons are for us. The minithon lasts 6 hours (10 AM to 4 PM CST), therefore making it a mini readathon, as opposed to the lovely Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon and 24in48, both of which you should participate in, but both of which are a longer commitment than this, the Busy Watching Netflix person's readathon. By 'read for six hours' what's really meant in the minithon is "read a little bit and eat a lot of snacks and post pictures of your books and your snacks, but mostly your snacks." We like to keep it a mini theme here, which mainly means justifying your books and your snacks to fit that theme. Does your book have children in it? Mini people! Does it have a dog! Mini wolf! Does it have pencils? Mini versions of graphite mines! or however you get graphite, I don't really know. I just picture toiling miners. The point is, justify it or don't...

Book Blogger Hop, Pt II

All right. The question for this week is: "Do you read only one book at a time, or do you have several going at once?" Oh-ho my. I have an issue with book commitment. I start a new book, and it's exciting and fresh, and I get really jazzed about it, and then 20% of the way through, almost without fail, I start getting bored and want to start another book. I once had seven books going at the same time, because I kept getting bored and starting new ones. It's a sickness. Right now I'm being pretty good and working on The Monk , Northanger Abbey , Kissing the Witch , and I'm about to start Waiting for the Barbarians since my friend lent it to me. But The Monk and NA are basically books I only read when I'm at work, so I don't see it so much as working on four books, as having books in different locales. Yes. This entry wasn't as good as some of the others, but I shall rally on the morrow. Yes I shall.

Harry Potter 2013 Readalong Signup Post of Amazingness and Jollity

Okay, people. Here it is. Where you sign up to read the entire Harry Potter series (or to reminisce fondly), starting January 2013, assuming we all survive the Mayan apocalypse. I don't think I'm even going to get to Tina and Bette's reunion on The L Word until after Christmas, so here's hopin'. You guys know how this works. Sign up if you want to. If you're new to the blog, know that we are mostly not going to take this seriously. And when we do take it seriously, it's going to be all Monty Python quotes when we disagree on something like the other person's opinion on Draco Malfoy. So be prepared for your parents being likened to hamsters. If you want to write lengthy, heartfelt essays, that is SWELL. But this is maybe not the readalong for you. It's gonna be more posts with this sort of thing: We're starting Sorceror's/Philosopher's Stone January 4th. Posts will be on Fridays. The first post will be some sort of hilar...

Reading Rambo

Search This Blog