Literature

aroundtheworldinalibrary’s Literature sideblog

[currentlycryingaboutlancelot]

thinking about emma (2020)

[trans-pickles]

you don't need to write a dark deconstruction of Peter Pan where he's willing to kill people and his state of eternal childhood makes him morally ambiguous, JM Barrie already wrote one and it's called Peter Pan

[thinkingisadangerouspastime]

my students are really harshing on the romance in jane eyre and yeah whatever age gap but something is just not clicking for them that jane eyre is a sexual power fantasy FOR THE YOUNG WOMAN in the relationship. jane eyre shows us this young woman who has an older man so wrapped around her finger that he SOBS for hours when she rejects his love, that raises up a panicked storm when she chooses to leave him. and while you shouldn't get me and my crip studies self started on the ableism of the ending, i.e. that jane's mastering of rochester is complete only when he becomes disabled, the fact remains that jane eyre is about a young woman mastering an older man in every sense of the word. it is a sexual power fantasy in which a young woman is so desirable and so loved by an older man that he drives himself into (emotional) ruin when (for a while) he cannot have her—that the young woman has the upper hand to choose when and how and on what terms their relationship happens. so whatever, age gap blah blah blah (it's literally a victorian novel, come on), but they're truly just missing that the novel is not endorsing an older man preying on a young woman—jane always has some degree of agency (and eventually total control) over rochester. the sexual power fantasy is about and for (and told by) the young woman!!!

[literatureinalibrary]

World Book Day

‘Sir Percy Blakney’ from The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy

[asturlavi]

[eternalrocksbeneath27]

Some Scattered Wuthering Heights Hot Takes

- Wuthering Heights is a great novel. It is not flawless, it kind of drags in its third quarter, but its greatness so outweighs its minor flaws that if you seriously dislike this book, I don’t trust your taste in books.

- Wuthering Heights is best appreciated if you read it in English. It is a book that loses some of its power in translation. I do sympathize if you were underwhelmed by it while reading a translation.

- Heathcliff, Catherine Earnshaw and Nelly Dean are great literary achievements. The rest of the characters are well-written as well.

- Having Lockwood and Nelly narrate this was one of the best decisions made by a writer. You might be frustrated by it, but trust me, this wouldn’t be as great in third person.

- This is not a cautionary tale. It doesn’t try to teach you anything.

- But neither does it romanticize abuse. It depicts it realistically.

- Aside from some stuff about gender and inheritance in the second half, this is not a “social novel”. Its point is not to critique specific societal ills of its time. It was not written for that.

- But it is still a political work. Heathcliff is inherently a politically controversial character in a way that transcends his time period.

- Heathcliff is probably not white. It is technically possible that Emily Bronte imagined someone like Colin Farrell while writing him, but this is not an excuse for casting Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff in 2026.

- Wuthering Heights is racist by our standards. It was anti-racist by Victorian standards.

- Wuthering Heights is funny and its humor was intentional.

- Wuthering Heights is a love story. Its emotional core is Catherine and Heathcliff’s love. It is messed-up and very unhealthy, definitely, but it is still about love.

- It is emotionally a love story and structurally a revenge story. The adaptations’ failure is in thinking that it must be a love story structurally too. But it is also wrong to dismiss the love story aspect in trying to overcorrect this.

- I mentioned it before, but this book has one (1) flaw that I sympathize with when people complain about it: It does lose steam and has pacing issues in the Linton Heathcliff chapters. I completely understand why the author spent so much time on it, it is essential to the symmetry of the two halves in length, but yeah we would cut a couple of chapters in the middle if we were a modern editor working on this.

It is not an outrageous flaw in the context of 19th century though.

- The book is not completely asexual, but neither is it a sexy work.

- Hareton and Cathy Jr. is a well written “enemies to lovers” romance in its own right.

[yourdeaddoll]

take me to:

> abandoned mansions

> forbidden libraries

> cursed antique shops

> lonely graveyards

> haunted forest

[firawren]

[charlemane]

it's actually incredible how much of Hareton's character Brontë manages to pack into just his first introduction (chapter 2). Lockwood immediately forms SUCH an unfavorable opinion of him - he calls him a bear, a boor, AND a clown. through his eyes, we immediately see that this is someone uncivilized, someone laughable, someone so far beneath him that he worries Hareton's presumed wife will immediately hate her life when she realizes there are other men out there (you know, like Lockwood.)

but for all that Hareton can't fit in, can't get anyone's respect, and seems constantly, angrily aware of this — he's also the one who tries hardest to be kind to Lockwood. he's the only one willing to let him in when he's locked outside; he's the only one who offers to walk him home (in a blizzard!)

but then when Heathcliff says no, he immediately falls in line. Heathcliff, the guy who seemed offended that Lockwood thought even for a moment that Hareton could be his son. that guy. Hareton's wrapped around his finger. he even snipes at Cath2 for suggesting that Lockwood's life is worth more than Heathcliff's drudge work ("not at your command,"* he tells her - foreshadowing him choosing to obey Cath2 over Heathcliff to make her a garden near the end of the book), even though he was the one who offered to walk Lockwood home. bc Heathcliff's word is law to him, and he values it over his own generous nature.

and all of that in one short chapter! people call Brontë's writing wordy or overlong, but she was a master at packing a lot into a little when she wanted to.

*emphasis mine

[h20baby]

[boltlightning]

admiral croft guy of all time. he thinks there's too many names for girls and they should all be named sophy, his wife's name, which is the best name, because it's his wife's. he likes to drive fast and almost crashes his horse-drawn carriage into a post. he's so distracted by a drawing of a boat being unseaworthy he completely disconnects from reality. he loves a drafty house because it reminds him of his first lodgings with his wife when they were poor. i love him so much no one is doing it like him

[thebluemallet]

Happy 250th Birthday to Jane Austen (16 December 1775)

Austen + Reductress Headlines

sense and sensibility

pride and prejudice

mansfield park

emma

persuasion

[mrsfurley]

U have to be in love with at least one besutiful dead guy. To live a full life

[playwrongs]

- Wendy Cope

[literatureinalibrary]

This might explain why I like Wendy Cope so much

[literatureinalibrary]

Wessex Tales

Thomas Hardy

Wessex Tales are six stories that are, for the most part, as bleakly ironic and unforgiving as the darkest of Hardy’s novels

[mysharona1987]

[bethanydelleman]

Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy being like, "I am 100% committed to respecting your 'no', but I heard you wouldn't promise my aunt not to marry me so I had to come and check just one (1) more time."

[bethanydelleman]

[aquilacalvitium]

[bethanydelleman]

I do think it's fairly important to Mr. Darcy's character that he's insanely wealthy and he inherited it. Like he talks about it when explaining how he went wrong. He was for many years the only spoiled child of very rich parents. He takes noblesse oblige seriously, which is why he's fundamentally a good person, but he's also a prideful snob and that is all tangled together. On top of everything, he's tall, handsome, and smart. Of course he's full of himself! If he was born as a second son, he'd be very different. If he was born to poor, he'd be very different.

Which is why a lot of modernizations and even "where is my Darcy?" posts don't feel like they understand Darcy. He isn't just an introvert hidden in the library (also, he attends parties, he very much does not hide in the library as suggested by Bingley), he's not at parties that the average person can attend. He met Elizabeth at an assembly ball that was still paid entry, it was just slightly more egalitarian. You will not meet Darcy. There are like 6 Darcys on earth total at any given moment, maybe.