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❣ Chile in a Photography ❣
shark vs the universe
Cosimo Galluzzi
h
Keni
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
Sade Olutola
Game of Thrones Daily
almost home
🩵 avery cochrane 🩵
PR's Tumblrdome
The Stonewall Inn
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One Nice Bug Per Day
noise dept.
titsay
Monterey Bay Aquarium
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
#extradirty
seen from United States
seen from Argentina
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seen from Türkiye
seen from Bangladesh
seen from Germany
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seen from Philippines
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@literatureinalibrary
Edith Nesbit's second installation in the quite-familiar Five Children and It series titled The Phoenix and the Carpet deserves more readers and more appreciators! I'm biased because it featured an endearing bird that helps dreams come true but it honestly is a cozy comedic little treasure.
Vines and Carrot arguing about democracy vs monarchy.
“But that’s not right, see? One man with the power of life and death.”
“But if he’s a good man—” Carrot began.
“What? What? OK. OK. Let’s believe he’s a good man. But his second-in-command—is he a good man too? You’d better hope so. Because he’s the supreme ruler, too, in the name of the king. And the rest of the court…they’ve got to be good men. Because if just one of them’s a bad man the result is bribery and patronage.”
Men at Arms, Terry Pratchett
Something I don’t think enough people realized is that candy serves as more than just a red herring to distract people from the foreshadowing of Lennie’s death, as he IS what foreshadows Lennie’s death (or rather, the death of his dog.)
Infact, he is the reason why George chooses to kill Lennie in the first place.
To explain, candy and his dog are a direct parallel to George and Lennie. Lennie is frequently seen as a burden, someone that can be pushed around and that won’t benefit anyone in the long run. This reflects candy’s dog, who is seen in the same exact light. For candy and George, their similarities are that of their fear of being alone, their defensiveness of those they feel closest to, and the lengths they’d go to to protect that being.
When Carlson takes candy’s dog out to shoot it, that’s the first bit of foreshadowing to Lennie’s fate. Just like the dog, Lennie would die by Carlson’s gun.
Additionally, on my point of candy inspiring George’s plan to kill Lennie, we can look at a few things that candy says following the death of his dog, most importantly when he declares that “I ought to of shot that dog myself, George. I shouldn't ought to of let no stranger shoot my dog”. For the longest time, I was confused by this quote, I didn’t understand *why* it was there, and why it was so important that he had to throw it in when the chapter would’ve been the exact same without it— until I reread the story with the knowledge of Lennie’s death, and that is when I realized that that quote was imperative to understanding George and candy as a reflection of one another, and candy seeing all his ambitions of when he was a young man in the other. Candy’s biggest, final regret in the story was not being able to be with his dog, his only companion, in its last moments. He knew it was scared, he knew it was confused, and he hated himself for letting it die in such a fashion. George internalizing this information in that moment is why Lennie got the death he did, comfortable and quick and with the one he loved the most.
Additionally, another thing that candy says is likely alluding to Lennie’s death is when he vents to George, saying that: “You seen what they done to my dog tonight? They says he wasn't no good to himself nor nobody else. When they can me here I wisht somebody'd shoot me. But they won't do nothing like that”. While it’s a bit debatable of a statement in regards to Lennie’s death, to me it holds a very important statement, not that of candy wishing he could be put down when he was no longer useful, but that candy believes the other men wouldn’t murder someone upon the realization when they were more trouble than they were worth. It’s a pretty common fact by now that, while yes instigated by the death of Curley’s wife, the men had several ulterior motives for wanting to lynch Lennie. It’s a cruel bit of irony, candy’s almost miserable statement that the other men on the ranch wouldn’t shoot him even if he wanted it only a few chapters before they set out to shoot a man who never wanted any part of the situation he found himself in.
All in all, this is just my analysis that I haven’t even seen anyone else share, so I supposed it would be good to share :)
“What a place! What a situation! What kind of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter.”
— Terry Pratchett, Going Postal
Next up someone is going to claim that the Narnia series isn't kids books.
Kids books is probably not the best way to word it, you can enjoy them at every age, including your childhood, as you get older you may find new truths in them, but they're still good for any age.
I want you to understand this. I NEED you to understand this. My mother read me the hobbit as bedtime story, and I started pushing myself to read before pre-school so I could in fact read the hobbit for myself instead of having to wait for bedtime.
I didn't do so right away but jesus wept I PUSHED myself to learn to read SPECIFICALLY so I could read The Hobbit! It is, in fact, a children's story! And children only see page count as 'there is a lot of this fun story to read!'
As an English teacher,
a) books with appropriate but challenging language and themes are really important for children’s language and social development
b) I teach loads of 11 year olds who have read and loved The Hobbit
Not only is it a children’s book, it’s an excellent children’s book. You know it’s an excellent children’s book, because people’s love for and enjoyment of it persists well into adulthood.
(Also, you know why the language is dated? Because it was written seventy odd years ago. Please build your grasp of chronology.)
Carrot and Angua in the Dwarven diner
“I come in here quite a lot,” said Carrot. “The food’s good and, of course, it pays to keep your ear to the ground.”
“That’d certainly be easy here,” said Angua, and laughed.
“Pardon?”
“Well, I mean, the ground is…so much…closer…”
She felt a pit opening wider with every word. The noise level had suddenly dropped again
“Er,” said Carrot, staring fixedly at her. “How can I put this? People are talking in Dwarfish…but they’re listening in Human.”
Men at Arms, Terry Pratchett
As one of eight kids, I don't think I can describe just how it comes across when you play the shocked-and-judgemental "she had HOW many kids??" card. There's this weird calculation to it that I don't think anyone intends, but reads emotionally as an intrinsic threat. Like, okay, hi I'm number five. Am I too many? Do you want me to Not Exist?
‘I have often noticed that it is the worst of our being six—people think six a great many, when it’s children. That sentence looks wrong somehow. I mean they don’t mind six pairs of boots, or six pounds of apples, or six oranges, especially in equations, but they seem to think you ought not to have five brothers and sisters.’
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers by Edith Nesbit
#HowDoTheyRiseUp #Glorious25thMay #Discworld
It is important to understand that Pterry did not mean by this "don't fight". Just that it's much, much easier to destroy than it is to create, and "destroy it all" will not make "create something better" any easier to accomplish.
Harder, possibly, since if you destroy everything first you've already expended a lot of your energy to no real good.
Captain and Mrs Croft really are the Austen couple of all time. What do you mean they drive around recklessly in their carriage cackling as they capsize? What do you mean they stroll around Bath all day endlessly chatting and laughing and joking and gossiping? What do you mean Sophy loves a ship’s quarters over a grand hall because “as long as we could be together, nothing ever ailed me, and I never met with the smallest inconvenience”? What do you mean what do you meaaaaan?
I was thinking about how Stronginthearm is a common dwarf surname in Discworld, and then I thought "it's as common as 'Smith' in the real world" and then I realised...
Dwarves in Discworld are very literal. A smith would be strong in the arm. Stronginthearm is literally the dwarf equivalent to having the surname Smith.
Cultural osmosis: Lucy is the socialite, the extroverted one, a ditzy blonde who won't stop flirting with everyone and can't stay in one place or not strike up conversations without a care. An adventuress. Mina is the introverted bookworm whose eyes are lowered shyly and has one friend. Her quiet, pure nature steals Dracula's heart.
Mina in the book: "If I won't immediately explore the entirety of this town, climb 199 steps to document every ominous and morbid nook and cranny of the necropolis, and talk to the locals there to befriend them so they'll tell me everything I want to know, from barghests to whaling, I will EXPLODE."
Night Watch on the mind
Especially after what’s gone down in Minneapolis…and now several other cities…
What would run through the streets soon enough wouldn’t be a revolution or a riot. It’d be people who were frightened and panicking. It was what happened when the machinery of city life faltered, the wheels stopped turning and all the little rules broke down. And when that happened, humans were worse than sheep. Sheep just ran; they didn’t try to bite the sheep next to them. ~*~ Coppers were always outnumbered, so being a copper only worked when people let it work. If they refocused and realized you were just another standard idiot with a pennyworth of metal for a badge, you could end up as a smear on the pavement. ~*~ Everyone was guilty of something. Vimes knew that. Every copper knew it. That was how you maintained your authority—everyone, talking to a copper, was secretly afraid you could see their guilty secret written on their forehead. You couldn’t, of course. But neither were you supposed to drag someone off the street and smash their fingers with a hammer until they told you what it was. ~*~ And he saw plots and spies everywhere throughout his waking hours, and had men root them out, and the thing about rooting out plots and spies everywhere is that, even if there are no real plots to begin with, there are plots and spies galore very soon. ~*~ Against the dark screen of night, Vimes had a vision of Ankh-Morpork. It wasn’t a city, it was a process, a weight on the world that distorted the land for hundreds of miles around. People who’d never see it in their whole life nevertheless spent that life working for it. Thousands and thousands of green acres were part of it, forests were part of it. It drew in and consumed…and gave back the dung from its pens, and the soot from its chimneys, and steel, and saucepans, and all the tools by which its food was made. And also clothes, and fashions, and ideas, and interesting vices, songs, and knowledge, and something which, if looked at in the right light, was called civilization. That was what civilization meant. It meant the city.
Was anyone else out there thinking about this?
A lot of the stuff came in through the Onion Gate and the Shambling Gate, both now Republican and solidly locked. There’d be a military picket on them, surely. Right now, there were carts on the way that’d find those gates closed to them. Yet, no matter what the politics, eggs hatch, and milk sours, and herds of driven animals need penning and watering, and where was that going to happen? Would the military sort it out? Well, would they? While the carts rumbled up, and then were hemmed in by the carts behind, and the pigs escaped, and the cattle herds wandered off?
Was anyone important thinking about this? Suddenly the machine was wobbling, but Winder and his cronies didn’t think about the machine, they thought about money. Meat and drink came from servants. They happened. Vetinari, Vimes realized, thought about this sort of thing all the time. The Ankh-Morpork back home was twice as big and four times as vulnerable. He wouldn’t have let something like this happen. Little wheels must spin so that the machine can turn, he’d say. But now, in the dark, it all spun on Vimes.
If the man breaks down, it all breaks down, he thought. The whole machine breaks down. And it goes on breaking down. And it breaks down the people. ~*~ The Beast screamed inside Vimes. It screamed that no one would blame him for doing the hangman out of ten dollars and a free breakfast. Yeah, and you could say a swift stab now was the merciful solution, because every hangman knew you could go the easy way or the hard way and there wasn’t one in the country that’d let something like Carcer go the easy way. The gods knew the man deserved it…
…but young Sam was watching him, across thirty years. When we break down, it all breaks down. That’s just how it works. You can bend it, and if you make it hot enough you can bend it in a circle, but you can’t break it. When you break it, it all breaks down until there’s nothing unbroken. It starts here and now.
He lowered the sword.
Carcer looked up, grinning, and said, “Never tastes right, does it, haha, an egg without salt…” Vimes felt his hand begin to move of its own accord— And stopped. Red rage froze. There was The Beast, all around him. And that’s all it was. A beast. Useful, but still a beast. You could hold it on a chain, and make it dance, and juggle balls. It didn’t think. It was dumb. What you were, what you were, was not The Beast. You didn’t have to do what it wanted. If you did, Carcer won.
He dropped the sword.
Carcer stared at him, the gleam of Vimes’s sudden smile more worrying than the rictus of his rage. Then metal gleamed in his hand. But Vimes was already on him, grabbing the hand, slamming it again and again on John Keel’s headstone until the hidden knife dropped from bleeding fingers. He dragged the man upright with both hands forced up behind his back and rammed him hard against the stone. “See that up in the sky, Carcer?” he said, his mouth by the man’s ear. “That’s the sunset, that is. That’s the stars. And they’ll shine all the better on my lad Sam tomorrow night ’cos they won’t be shining down on you, Carcer, by reason of the fact that before the dew’s off the leaves in the morning I’ll drag you in front of Vetinari, and we’ll have the witnesses there, lots of ’em, and maybe even a lawyer for you if there’s any of ’em who could plead for you with a straight face, and then, Carcer, we’ll take you to the Tanty, one gallows, no waiting, and you can dance the hemp fandango. And then I’ll bleedin’ well go home and maybe I’ll even have a hard-boiled egg.”
“You’re hurting!”
“You know, you’re right there, Carcer!” Vimes managed to get both the man’s wrists in a steel grip, and ripped the sleeve off his own shirt. “I’m hurting and I’m still doing it all by the book.” He wrapped the linen around the wrists a couple of times and knotted it firmly. “I’ll make sure there’s water in your cell, Carcer. I’ll make sure you get breakfast, anything you like. I’ll make sure the hangman doesn’t get sloppy and let you choke to death. I’ll even make sure the trapdoor is greased.” He released the pressure. Carcer stumbled, and Vimes kicked his legs from under him. “The machine ain’t broken, Carcer. The machine is waiting for you,” he said, tearing a sleeve off the man’s own shirt and fashioning it into a crude binding for his ankles. “The city will kill you dead. The proper wheels’ll turn. It’ll be fair, I’ll make sure of that. Afterward you won’t be able to say you didn’t have a fair trial. Won’t be able to say a thing, haha. I’ll see to that, too…”
The most amazing thing to me about Jane Austen is that she staunchly refuses to leave any woman behind. It doesn't matter if a woman is an antagonist, a side character, or what, the reader is assured that they will be okay. This is so different from fiction at the time or even now.
Marianne Dashwood, living a plot perfect for a tragic death by illness to preserve the beauty of her first attachment and disappointment? Nope, she lives and loves with her whole heart again. Maria Rushworth, the fallen woman who cheated on her husband does not die for her crimes or even fall into poverty or prostitution, her father and Aunt Norris will provide for her. She is punished, but she's protected. Lydia Bennet? Her two sisters will provide for her for the rest of her life. Her husband's debt will not destroy her. Miss Bates? There is an entire community around her no matter what happens and her newly rich niece will provide. No woman is even left as a governess, Miss Taylor is Mrs. Weston, Jane Fairfax becomes Mrs. Churchill instead. Mrs. Smith is pulled out of her indigent state by Anne and Wentworth.
The only woman Jane Austen allows to suffer a terrible fate is off-page and dead long before the novel begins: Eliza Brandon. Eliza Williams, her mother's affair baby, is ruined by Willoughby. Colonel Brandon could easily have washed his hands of her and her affair child, but he doesn't. Eliza Williams is going to be okay. Her child will be okay.
Antagonist women never fall into poverty or die for their crimes, most of them are even in loving marriages. Fanny Dashwood is cruel to her mother and sisters-in-law, one could imagine her falling low in karmic retribution, but no, she's fine. Lady Susan, the delightful anti-heroine, marries a baronet at the end of her novel. No punishment looms on the horizon for her promiscuity and deception. Caroline Bingley has a loving family that will never turn her away and an independent fortune. Mary Crawford has a loving sister. Isabella Thorpe may have lost the big prize, but she has her mother. Never is a woman thrown to abuse or poverty, even when they have attacked other women. The only punishment would come from their own conscience or regret for the goodness they have thrown away.
Jane Austen somehow imagines a world where even the worst women are safe.
#jane austen#is truly a better woman than me#because idk if I could ever be so charitable to women I find hateful at worst or annoying at best#and yet the sentiment lying therein is something more women could adopt#we *should* want women to be safe#even if we don't get along with them#because women are already at the mercy of a merciless society#women should be able to have a safety net *somewhere*#and Jane gave that to pretty much every woman in her stories#that's a lovely thing to do#for real tho#my history people#19th century (via @elizabeth-karenina)
For people who don't read a lot of literature from that period, I cannot overstate how many of Austen's characters would have died/been forced into a life of prostitution for their "sins". That was the literary expectation because you didn't want to risk the impressionable young women reading the novels to think it was okay to enjoy sex or otherwise not be a paragon. Jane Austen made the intentional choice not to write that kind of outcome for her stories ("let other pens dwell on guilt and misery") and she was going against the tide big time by doing so. The balls ovaries on that woman. She knew the world could be cruel to women, but she also knew the world could be kind to them, and she chose kindness every single time.
Reread Equal Rites recently. I used to think it was about feminism and little girls getting the same opportunities as little boys. Which, it isn't not about that. But ALSO.
It's about an intersex kid.
It's about a little girl born with a staff.
And that's Not Right.
The adults in the room- her father, the 'medical professional'- attempt to remove the staff, by blade and by fire. The fresh little baby SCREAMS. So they agree to pretend it doesn't exist. She'll probably grow up just a regular little girl.
right?
But just around the onset of puberty..... it becomes apparent, not to her, but to the adults, that she's not going to be Regular.
The medical professional tries again to rectify matters. She tries to destroy the staff while the girl is unconscious. The girl screams. The adults give in. They aren't monsters.... but life will be so much harder, so much less foreseen, for this strange little girl....
They try to raise her 'right'.
If she won't be a conventional woman... maybe an unconventional woman. A Powerful woman- in the way that women can be powerful. Are permitted to be powerful.
But she's not a woman- she's a child. What will she be, when she's grown? A Witch. A Wizard. She can't be either. She can't be neither.
(The term 'warlock' is repeatedly invoked and scoffed. The etymology of 'warlock' is 'breaker of oaths'. Counter to the covenant. Rulebreaker.)
Right.
I think that's because he got it right on the one level where it counts:
"...And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.’
‘It’s a lot more complicated than that -’
‘No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts." -Granny Weatherwax in Carpe Jugulum.
“To-morrow I will begin," thought Katy, as she dropped asleep that night. How often we all do so! And what a pity it is that when morning comes and to-morrow is to-day, we so frequently wake up feeling quite differently; careless or impatient, and not a bit inclined to do the fine things we planned overnight.”
~ What Katy Did, Susan Coolidge
is there even a fandom for this
The funny thing is that Benedick is canonically a good soldier but he’s (depending on the director’s interpretation, could be joking or dead serious) also written to be bothered by Beatrice
I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on / I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch of Asia / bring you the length of Prester John's foot / fetch you a hair off the Great Cham's beard / do you any embassage to the Pygmies, rather than hold three words' conference with this harpy.
Bro just came back from winning a war btw and his greatest concern is being called a jester by his ex
Also, the messenger specifically says that he’s a great soldier, and Beatrice’s first response is, ‘Ah, only when he’s showing off!’
Like yeah, you can quote Sam Vimes or Granny Weatherwax all you want but the Truth is another of my favourite underrated discworld books
Like the running ----ing joke with Mr Tulip is genuinely one of the funniest jokes in discworld and the one about his antique identification skills is a close second
I think about "The truth will make you fret" typo on a daily basis, and the fact that people only want olds and that the lie has gone round the world while the truth is still getting it's boots on. All the themes about journalistic integrity and the truth have only got more relevant as we've ventured further into the hellscape of social media.
This book was written in the year 2000! Facebook wasn't even a glint in the milkman's eye! You still needed to get your lies from the Daily Mail!
And we get another underrated female pratchett character in Sacharissa Cripslock, who remains normal looking and angry and flawed in a very human way. (most underrated casting from going postal is her as tamsin grieg imo)
I first read this book when I was about 12 and it's still sitting there rearranging my brain chemistry fifteen years later. It's always informed how I relate to the media.
That's the act of a genius. If I could write something even half as good as it; I'd die happy
