Knight of the Old Cart

Arthur ♞ 30s 🕛 any pronouns 🛒 Star Wars comics project: dswcp.tumblr.com ♞ Star Wars fanfic/fanart: zargsnake.tumblr.com 🕒 Letterboxd: ArthurRose 🛒 GOG: ArthurRose ♞ Storygraph: arthurrose 🕕 icon from Pots and Pans (1932) 🛒 header from Lancelot du Lac (1974)

[knightotoc]

[knightotoc]

One afternoon, sitting on the terrasse of the Cafe Tortoni, General D’Hubert learned from the conversation of two strangers occupying a table near his own, that General Feraud, included in the batch of superior officers arrested after the second return of the king, was in danger of passing before the Special Commission. Living all his spare moments, as is frequently the case with expectant lovers, a day in advance of reality, and in a state of bestarred hallucination, it required nothing less than the name of his perpetual antagonist pronounced in a loud voice to call the youngest of Napoleon’s generals away from the mental contemplation of his betrothed.

He looked round. The strangers wore civilian clothes. Lean and weather-beaten, lolling back in their chairs, they scowled at people with moody and defiant abstraction from under their hats pulled low over their eyes. It was not difficult to recognize them for two of the compulsorily retired officers of the Old Guard. As from bravado or carelessness they chose to speak in loud tones, General D’Hubert, who saw no reason why he should change his seat, heard every word.

They did not seem to be the personal friends of General Feraud. His name came up amongst others. Hearing it repeated, General D’Hubert’s tender anticipations of a domestic future adorned with a woman’s grace were traversed by the harsh regret of his warlike past, of that one long, intoxicating clash of arms, unique in the magnitude of its glory and disaster—the marvellous work and the special possession of his own generation. He felt an irrational tenderness towards his old adversary and appreciated emotionally the murderous absurdity their encounter had introduced into his life. It was like an additional pinch of spice in a hot dish. He remembered the flavour with sudden melancholy. He would never taste it again. It was all over.

“I fancy it was being left lying in the garden that had exasperated him so against me from the first,” he thought, indulgently.

-- The Duel, Joseph Conrad

[knightotoc]

"And indeed he loved all his men with as much affection as a father of a large family can feel for every individual member of it. If human beings, by an oversight of Providence, came into the world as mere civilians, they were born again into a regiment as infants are born into a family, and it was that military birth alone which counted."

-- The Duel, Joseph Conrad

[loopnoid]

happy tvl day here's some hedwigstat

ref:

[knightotoc]

the slayage of this sea captain on the Wikipedia page for rubber cement

[spacerockband]

first night together :)

[knightotoc]

So far in Hannibal (the 1999 novel) I've noticed three mistakes, and I'm wondering whether they are intentional. The book has this off-putting tone that occasionally switches to second person, which feels like a sign that we've got an unreliable/unhinged narrator. Or, perhaps this is a sci-fi move to establish that the books take place in an alternate universe.

A policeman recognizes that a serial killer is recreating Botticelli's Primavera with the corpses because he remembers this lady's exposed left breast. But in the real painting, her arm covers her boobs, and the diaphanous dress kinda does too. The left boob is just not particularly distinguishable (sorry).

One of the chapters begins with a quote from The Squire's Tale (she who sups with the devil needs a long spoon), but the book attributes that quote to The Merchant's Tale.

The policeman are playing Super Mario Bros on Hannibal's computer, but you can't play Nintendo games on PC. (They might be playing a fan port from that era called Mario Forever.)

There might be more mistakes; I haven't been looking for them. There are a ton of references and details in this book, and I don't look them all up.

My favorite theory is that the mistakes are similar to David's mistake in Alien: Covenant (misattributing Shelley's Ozymandias to Byron). David's mistake shows that he is flawed/insane and his confidence in himself is misplaced. It would be cool if this was also true of Hannibal... though I'm not sure it is (I still have a bit of this book left, and then there's one more in the series).

[brideofdilbert]

look I love the Hannibal books but I think these are down to a) Thomas Harris being kinda a hack who’s writing this book primarily so it can immediately be adapted into a movie, he’s not Umberto Eco

b) and in the latter case he just doesn’t understand video games because he’s an old man lol

[knightotoc]

Hahaha you're probably right! It would be cool if it was tho!

[knightotoc]

So far in Hannibal (the 1999 novel) I've noticed three mistakes, and I'm wondering whether they are intentional. The book has this off-putting tone that occasionally switches to second person, which feels like a sign that we've got an unreliable/unhinged narrator. Or, perhaps this is a sci-fi move to establish that the books take place in an alternate universe.

A policeman recognizes that a serial killer is recreating Botticelli's Primavera with the corpses because he remembers this lady's exposed left breast. But in the real painting, her arm covers her boobs, and the diaphanous dress kinda does too. The left boob is just not particularly distinguishable (sorry).

One of the chapters begins with a quote from The Squire's Tale (she who sups with the devil needs a long spoon), but the book attributes that quote to The Merchant's Tale.

The policeman are playing Super Mario Bros on Hannibal's computer, but you can't play Nintendo games on PC. (They might be playing a fan port from that era called Mario Forever.)

There might be more mistakes; I haven't been looking for them. There are a ton of references and details in this book, and I don't look them all up.

My favorite theory is that the mistakes are similar to David's mistake in Alien: Covenant (misattributing Shelley's Ozymandias to Byron). David's mistake shows that he is flawed/insane and his confidence in himself is misplaced. It would be cool if this was also true of Hannibal... though I'm not sure it is (I still have a bit of this book left, and then there's one more in the series).

[knightotoc]

"Good evening, Clarise," he said when he could see her.

"Can you walk? Are your legs working?"

"Yes."

"Can you see alright?"

"Yes."

"I'm gonna cut you loose. With all due respect, doctor, if you fuck with me I'll shoot you dead here and now. Do you understand that?"

"Perfectly."

"Do right and you'll live through this."

"Spoken like a Protestant."

-- Hannibal, Thomas Harris

[knightotoc]

Old movies used to linger on documents to let you read them along with the characters, and at some point they stopped doing that.

I noticed this when I watched Manhunter (1986) and Red Dragon (2002), which adapt the same book. The characters have to closely read multiple letters, either to decode them or under duress. In the 80s movie, you get to feel the same intrigue/confusion/fear the characters feel as we read these creepy letters together. And the letters are not too long, and the characters read them out loud anyway, so it's not like it's a big reading challenge. In the 00s movie, you get to see some bits of the letters under microscopes, but not much more than that.

This form of interaction has not been lost; it's just been transferred to video games, where the onscreen reading homework is absolutely crazy. Even games I love just have way too much of it.

[mythsandmonaidhean]

my mythological bookmarks, all together :D

[writingdose]

[mandolare]

Anakin v Dooku Early Test

[didanagy]

MARILYN MONROE as SUGAR KANE

SOME LIKE IT HOT (1959) dir. billy wilder

[quasi-normalcy]

Vulcan characters seem like they'd be easy to play, but there actually seem to be only a small number of actors who can really pull it off

[millionsknives]

one of my coworkers has this sticker on his water bottle and it sends me into hysterics every time i see it

[tatooineknights]

The Ludwig Göransson score for The Mandalorian and Grogu is so good. It feels so anti-Star Wars that it has a special unique quality. Perhaps we should have more Star Wars with techno beats..