Meme! Baaaaa!

[wordinista]

Taken from merith:

The problem with LJ: We all think we are so close, but really we know nothing about each other. So I want you to ask me something you think you should know about me. Something that should be obvious, but you have no idea about. Ask away.

Then post this in your LJ and find out what people don't know about you.


Proper post later.  Not much going on lately, but ...  *is distracted by teh s00per kyoot Bronte antics* 

...

Anyway.  Right.  Not much going on lately, but somehow I feel uber-busy.  I don't understand why that is.  Going to try and get some more stuff done.

Oh!  squeakyinuears!  We got your card!  Thank you very much.  ^__^

Comments

[w0rdinista.livejournal.com]

The title is: "The Devil Makes Work for Idle Hands: 19th Century Ennui in Melmoth the Wanderer."

*Niamh attempts to boil 63 pages of thesis down into a few sentences*

Basically, during the 19th century, particularly in France, there was a whole... movement, I guess you'd say, of ennui. It was the fashion to be bored with everything. And, because people were so bored, they'd go out of their way to find amusement, so it becomes a whole... cycle of stimulation (and desensitization).

Now, gothic fiction's basic goal was to inspire terror, so during this phase of fashionable ennui, it likewise became fashionable (in France, mostly) to read these books as one way to avoid boredom.

In Melmoth the Wanderer (which, by the way, enjoyed great success in France in the 19th century, and even spawned a novella-length sequel written by a French writer whose name I cannot recall at the moment), Maturin creates these terrifying scenarios where ennui becomes the object of terror. People are locked away, or otherwise separated from society, and left with nothing to stimulate the senses.

So, I took the phase of 19th century ennui, the French obsession with Melmoth the Wanderer, and that novel's use of ennui as something to fear, and ran with it. :D

[hyanan.livejournal.com]

Hmm...sounds interesting. Can you read French?

[w0rdinista.livejournal.com]

I can, but only with a lot of patience and armed with my trusty dictionary. I can read French better than I can speak it, though. I've got a good accent -- I can say the words; I just have a hard time knowing them off the top of my head. But when I read something, I can see it and even if I don't recognize the word itself, I can usually make an educated guess based on the Latin root. (I don't know Latin, but learned a lot about linguistics and etymology in school. But, man, I wish I had taken Latin...)

Actually, I had to pass a translation exam to get my MA. *rolls eyes* I did really poorly, until I broke down and got a tutor who worked with me to prepare -- and after, I think, the third try, I passed with flying colors. French, I think, is one of those things I could be good at if I practiced with it, and sometimes I wonder why I don't. (My tutor actually invited me to be a part of an advanced private class she taught, but I never took advantage of it.)