Tell-tale Angelina

Just a blog for whatever I'm interested in at any given time.

[lilliankillthisman]

"The word pandemonium was coined by John Milton as the name for the Parliament of Hell" is an all-timer etymology. Oh yeah did you hear that Mrs Higgins's dogs got loose at the village fête? It was like a vast golden edifice in which fallen angels debate their strategies for vengeance against god, yeah.

[deathtofun]

I told a guy his total was 13.21 and he said “wish it were that year, could actually get some good music on the radio”

[regularlesbian]

breaking news from the AP, our boys on the front have just sacked constantinople. take that, heretics. coming up next are the soothing lute dirges of bing crosby

[havingapoemwithyou]

Marriage by Lawrence Raab

[teaboot]

I’m not Christian, I don’t go to church anymore, and my pastor died, but when he was alive I’d sometimes go to his sermons and I remember one time he said “it feels good to hate, but we know that it isn’t allowed, so when we’re told that we’re allowed to hate someone we get so excited that we forget we’re supposed to love”, and if my humble atheist ass might borrow some church talk I’d like to perhaps submit that

[teaboot]

Anyhow sometimes on the day to day I feel disgust or revulsion and I have to ask myself “is this a danger to anyone at all or am I just looking for something I’m allowed to hate” and a solid 98/100 times it’s the latter so once again thank you pastor D

[thatscarletflycatcher]

[theodysseyofhomer]

athena: i sent telemachus on a journey to find out if you were alive

odysseus, who has never once just told someone anything if it was possible to confuse the issue: why didn't you just tell him??

[apocryphics]

A. R. Ammons

[telltaleangelina]

"For what is life, if measured by the space,

Not by the act?

Or maskèd man, if valued by his face,

Above his fact?"

(To the Immortal Memory and Friendship of That Noble Pair, Sir Lucius Cary and Sir Henry Morrison by Ben Jonson)

[telltaleangelina]

"When he told me it was much more than that, I felt—I don’t know a better way of expressing this—as if I’d had an anonymous letter. I got one once, after my Board. It is like something from another world, but it has touched you, and the touch is real." (Chapter 15)

"As he went up the main corridor he thought that he had been living in an enclosed and tiny personal world. These were the real people: this porter propped on an idle trolley...this stout, anxious woman hurrying to someone sick enough to be visited out of hours...these were the people for whom, after all, he had been fighting. They were the people for whom Andrew was fighting too. He would be one of them from now on." (Chapter 16)

These lines aren't directly connected, but the second reminded me of the first when I read it. It seemed as if the expression Andrew used rubbed off on Laurie.

[telltaleangelina]

Just lately I have been happier than I ever had the right to expect, and as one goes round the world one sees that happiness is hard to come by and seldom lasts for long. Good luck to you, Spud. We always agreed that right, left, or center, it is still necessary to make out as a human being. I haven’t done it but you will. Goodbye.

Ralph

[tordenvejr]

me seeing purple flowers on a lawn: that’s the prettiest thing i’ve ever seen

me seeing sunlight hit the waves of the sea: that’s the prettiest thing i’ve ever seen

me seeing raindrops sparkle colorfully on a bus stop bench at night: that’s the

[telltaleangelina]

have got to Andrew's letter...pain

[churail]

Republic by Plato

[girlfictions]

Elif Batuman, from Either/Or

[telltaleangelina]

The pre-Ralph parts of the story are quaint, nice, sweet, but they also almost feel directionless...they kind of make me feel that the best thing that ever happened to Laurie was meeting Ralph again. I mean, what would his post-army life have looked like otherwise? He never thinks about it before Ralph; only then does some semblance of a plan begin to form. Prior to that, we see him spend the whole time panicking at the mere thought of being discharged, and his mother is getting married so she's obviously not going to be around so much anymore, and he has no idea what to do; he doesn't like to think of it at the hospital. I really think things kinda would've sucked for him.

Maybe it's just bias because I like the fact that Ralph and Laurie end up together, but it hardly feels like there's a real choice when you compare Ralph and Andrew. Not because Andrew isn't good, but just because there was never any plan, never any goal. They were just there at the hospital, Laurie didn't want to leave, they talked a lot...but afterwards, what was the aim? What about the future? Who knows? Definitely not Laurie 😭

[renaultphile]

This is so interesting! But something that has really struck me over the last couple of re-reads looking at Andrew and Laurie's scenes is how much tension there is, almost right from the beginning. Laurie seems desperate to romanticise Andrew but Andrew is not having it. I think it is poignant because you can see a genuine connection between them, but Andrew is challenging. I imagine he would not be easy to live with for Laurie even if they decided to get physical (which Andrew seems pretty up for IMHO).

[telltaleangelina]

This is very interesting @renaultphile and I think you're on the money for the most part! The whole idea of Laurie living with Andrew would've been a nightmare, even if he weren't challenging to Laurie 😭 I don't know, maybe I've taken in Ralph's perspective a little too much, because I really can't even fathom it: 'we'll just read and talk and laugh and be madly in love with each other, but no one will admit it and we'll never be together really, all we'll do is pine from 10 feet apart and gawk at each other and that's all' yeah okay Laurie sure😭 but beyond that, I do really think that the challenging notion you're talking about is proven during the scene with Charlot where it's shown that Andrew's morals can become a kind of obstacle to Laurie which he will take personally; Andrew's refusal to participate in lying is interpreted by Laurie as having deeper implications which hurt him badly.

Of course, all my ramblings hinges on the idea that Andrew doesn't know about Laurie's feelings or his own, but you also mentioned the possibility of a physical relationship which I don't know that I can see as being acceptable to Andrew (maybe I'm forgetting some later part?)

[theodysseyofhomer]

love a reading of odysseus that understands war will still traumatize you when you're not morally opposed to it, when you're good at it, when you desire it, whether what you desire is violence or the glory and profit that come with it, and when you win it

[telltaleangelina]

The pre-Ralph parts of the story are quaint, nice, sweet, but they also almost feel directionless...they kind of make me feel that the best thing that ever happened to Laurie was meeting Ralph again. I mean, what would his post-army life have looked like otherwise? He never thinks about it before Ralph; only then does some semblance of a plan begin to form. Prior to that, we see him spend the whole time panicking at the mere thought of being discharged, and his mother is getting married so she's obviously not going to be around so much anymore, and he has no idea what to do; he doesn't like to think of it at the hospital. I really think things kinda would've sucked for him.

Maybe it's just bias because I like the fact that Ralph and Laurie end up together, but it hardly feels like there's a real choice when you compare Ralph and Andrew. Not because Andrew isn't good, but just because there was never any plan, never any goal. They were just there at the hospital, Laurie didn't want to leave, they talked a lot...but afterwards, what was the aim? What about the future? Who knows? Definitely not Laurie 😭