#p. 6

[returntomytilene]

‘As a lonely and alienated six-year-old child, [Renée] Vivien began writing stories to entertain herself, and at the age of nine she created some love poems for a childhood friend, Blanche. When she was fourteen, her first serious verse was inspired by a trip to Fontainbleau [sic]. She was about to destroy the poem when a female friend (probably Violet [Shillito]) persuaded her to keep it and to continue writing.’

— Karla Jay, The Amazon and the Page

[returntomytilene]

‘What devil had made you speak to me of marriage? . . . My mother, who has had sad enough experience with it, has told me that she would rather see me buried than married. . . .  She is the only person around me who has good sense. Love and marriage, all that is good for people who have nothing else to do or who deserve some extremely harsh punishment.’

— Renée Vivien, in a letter to Amédée Moullé after his proposal to Vivien, dated 8 August 1894, as quoted in The Amazon and the Page by Karla Jay

[returntomytilene]

‘Everything that is ugly, unjust, fierce, base, emanates from the Male Principle. Everything unbearably lovely and desirable emanates from the Female Principle. The two principles are equally powerful, and hate one another incurably. In the end one will exterminate the other, but which will be the final victor? That riddle is the perpetual anguish of all souls. We hope in silence for the decisive triumph of the Female Principle, the Good and the Beautiful, over the Male, that is, over Bestial Force and Cruelty.’

— Renée Vivien, A Woman Appeared to Me, 1904, translated by Jeannette H. Foster

[livrolatra]

“A construção era de pedra - pedras de um tom cinza retiradas das montanhas impiedosas. Era uma casa destinada aos que não sabiam se cuidar sozinhos, aos que ouviam vozes, tinham pensamentos estranhos e tomavam atitudes estranhas. A função da casa era mantê-los lá dentro. Os que ali entravam jamais saíam”.

- Asylum

[firstreadbooks]

I tried my best to get out of Support Group while sitting on the couch with my mom in the third leg of a twelve-hour marathon of the previous season’s America’s Next Top Model, which admittedly I had already seen, but still.

Chapter, p.6 (TFiOS)

I know she’s being written by Green as a Hipster Babe [TM] so far, but… why does she like ANTM? Oh, wait, is this the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope in play? I bet this is emerging evidence of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl story in the POV of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Damn it, Green.

[firstreadbooks]

So Support Group blew, and after a few weeks, I grew to be rather kicking-and-screaming about the whole affair.

Chapter 1, p.6 (TFiOS)

So, are you an intellectual, mature, teen-adult aged by adversity, or are you an immature teen sheltered by a young life of hospitals and medical teams? If you’re going to be an archetype, pick one!

[firstreadbooks]

Isaac and I communicated almost exclusively through sighs.

Chapter 1, p.6 (TFiOS)

So you and Isaac sit and, communicating exclusively through patronising sighs over the audacity of sheeple teens with cancer to go out and ‘try everything’ to stay alive and preserve hope, basically ridicule people who have yet to lose hope? It’s okay to lose hope, but damn, where is your empathy gland? Seriously, I know by now they’ll be involved later, so why aren’t they friends already? More to the point, why should I like them at all?

[firstreadbooks]

This Isaac guy seems okay. A little above it all, but I bet she thinks that’s right up her alley. If that’s the case, why hasn’t she reached out and made friends with him, already? Is this because of her depression, or because she likes the solitude? Does she find Solitude makes her deep? Or is she just too good for the bastards she has to outlast? The reader needs to know!

--Chapter 1, p.6 (TFiOS)