Wasting time

[malsperanza]

Gacked from coffee_and_ink:


What's the best thing about NYC?

Its intelligence, its magnanimity, its generosity.




What's your favorite fairy tale?
Impossible to pick one. But some favorites are "The Seven Swans," "East of the Sun, West of the Moon," "The White Snake," "Godfather Death,""Toads and Diamonds," and "The Twelve Dancing Princesses."

But I must give a special nod to Andrew Lang's version of Sleeping Beauty, in The Blue Fairy Book, for this amusing touch:

The Prince has at this point rescued and wed Beauty, and has two children, named Morning and Day. "But he never dared to trust [his mother]; he feared her, though he loved her, for she was of the race of the Ogres, [...] had Ogreish inclinations, and [...] whenever she saw little children passing by, she had all the difficulty in the world to avoid falling upon them. [...]

[Then] the Queen-mother sent her daughter-in-law to a country house among the woods, that she might with the more ease gratify her horrible longing. Some few days afterward she [...] said to her clerk of the kitchen:

'I have a mind to eat little Morning for my dinner to- morrow.'

'Ah! madam,' cried the clerk of the kitchen.

'I will have it so,' replied the Queen (and this she spoke in the tone of an Ogress who had a strong desire to eat fresh meat), 'and will eat her with a sauce Robert.' " [etc.]

Sauce Robert is a bottled steak sauce, like A-1 or Worcester sauce. My parents, who thought this fairy tale was hilarious, kept a bottle of the stuff on the kitchen counter and were very fond of putting it on the dinner table as a Dire Warning to Children Who Fight at Supper.



Who is your favorite Sayers character?

Meh. With the exception of Gaudy Night, I don't think Sayers did that well with characters. Most of them are only a little less cliché than Agatha Christie et al., but what she excelled at was prose style and wit. But In Gaudy Night I like Peter Wimsey very much, and some of the dons quite well.



What's your favorite anime to show people who don't think they're anime people?

Spirited Away.




Do you eat breakfast? What do you eat? Is it what you'd ideally want or a compromise?

Yes, coffee and coffee. Coffee. Yes and yes.

Comments

[sienamystic.livejournal.com]

*fights temptation to clutch at chest* Sayers not good at characterization? Sometimes, that's all that held together - some of her plots didn't stand up to poking at, but her characters - from the ones who appear in every book to those not even given a walk-on part - are finely drawn with an amazing economy. She had characters from the nobility, the white-collar working class, the blue-collars, the bohemians. She had lesbians and celibate dons, femme fatales and wholesome working girls.

On the other hand, I'm with you on Spirited Away. I loathe most anime, but love that movie.

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

Ah, I am going to be mean and disagree with you, though I see that you love Sayers, and I certainly don't intend to ruin that for you. If my sniping is likely to deflate your pleasure, no need to read further. ;-) After all, there is indeed much to love in her books. Well, in a couple of them, anyway.

She wrote a lot better than most other mystery writers, but really: the pompous duke brother, the wealthy blithering idiot stockbroker friend, the various decadent flappers and scheming badguys, the pitiful and contemptible middleaged female hangers-on at spas--these are all utter cliches. Not to mention the abject, big-nosed, lisping Jew jeweler who features in several stories. The Umble reformed burgler. Dickens could make such stock figures lively through their distinctive behavior and unique speech patterns. Sayers rarely does more than have the blue-collar people drop their aitches.

The sister who falls in love with a Cad but marries a Decent Fellow of the Wrong Class (yawn): Parker is nothing more than a generic Decent Fellow, is he? Just a slice of white bread. The precise, finicky wine-salesman--named, god help us, Montague Egg. Oh, the priggish houseguest, the down-at-luck but jolly-decent war veteran suffering from traumatic stress, the braying vulgar American Woman, the scholarly but innocent vicar (a sort of watered-down though less bigoted Father Brown). Bunter the slavishly Faithful Servant with No Inner Affective Life but a Fondness for Photographic Magazines (a.k.a.: Using Objects to Define Character Features).

To me, this is not economy of means, but comfortable shortcuts: mac and cheese.

I mean, *everyone* who ever wrote an English country-house murder mystery includes nobility and working-class people, bohemians and servants and a couple of wholesome working girls. That's not in itself good characterization unless each one is done with individuality and 3-dimensionality and substance; otherwise it's stock characterization. A couple of lesbians doesn't really move me to a standing ovation if they are generic lesbians. Consider how much richer and more intriguing is the character of Leslie Searle in Josephine Tey's "To Love and Be Wise" from the same era.

I enjoy Wimsey's ditsy mother, but she too is straight out of Central Casting. I've seen versions of her in a million movies from the 1930s (usually played by Elsa Lanchester).

What really works in Sayers is her fine language, her witty dialogue, her erudition, and her beautiful descriptions: the tidal marshes of East Anglia, the history of change-ringing, daily life in an advertising agency. East Anglia comes alive as a place in The Nine Tailors, in its isolation, poverty and inwardness. Murder Must Advertise is diverting and funny.

Gaudy Night is a book of a different order: in it the mystery is merely a pretext for the love story, and the resolution of the latter is finely integrated with the solution of the former. Oxford the place comes alive, and there are numerous small, vivid character sketches (the various women Harriet meets at her college reunion, frex, and the foolish ducal nephew). Sayers has Harriet say to Wimsey at one point that she is for the first time really trying to make her detective-hero into a real person. This is clearly self-referential--charmingly so.

The perp in Gaudy Night is also more interesting than most of the badguys. And the perp's reasons for carrying out the crimes is interestingly integrated into the issues that Harriet and Wimsey are grappling with--and with a nice twist. One scarcely notices that the whole mystery hinges on a pun gimmick, because that's not what matters.

As you can tell, I have read the whole oeuvre often enough to remember many details... which may perhaps tell you that I quite like the series, though the only one I'll likely reread in future is Gaudy Night.

[mahoni.livejournal.com]

This is dead-on how I feel about Sayers. I think the only difference is that I do reread more than just Gaudy Night, even though it's the most often reread, because I frequently love mac-and-cheese books. Comfort food for the brain.

But Sayers' characters really are such a typical set, and written in a very standard way. In my mind I get them mixed up with Christie's and Ngaio Marsh's. What makes Sayers' books stand out for me is, as you say, her language, dialogue, and especially her descriptions of place and atmosphere. You even pegged my favorites and *why* they're my favorites - The Nine Tailors for the setting, Murder Must Advertise for the cleverness and humor, and Gaudy Night for the rare shining moment the characters and plot are given. Those elements offset the blandness of the characters, and allow me to enjoy the characters much more than I do when handled by a different author.

It sounds like you've read a lot more of this genre, maybe from this period, than I have, and I wonder if you have recommendations for this sort of novel featuring stronger characters? I'd be very interested, if you don't mind my asking.

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

Hi there, Mahoni, speech after long silence--where've you been at lately?

I read mysteries in high school, and then completely lost interest in the genre--so my recs aren't likely to be very up-to-date. But first and foremost is Josephine Tey. A writer of her time--occasionally tosses an offhand classist or racist remark that grates on the ear. But overall, very good characters and problems (rather than crimes per se) within an essentially lite mystery-novel form, and beautiful writing. "To Love and Be Wise," "Brat Farrar," "The Singing Sands" and "Daughter of Time"--all classics.

Most of Madeleine L'Engle's adult novels bore me, but one that I loved, sort of a mystery, is "The Other Side of the Sun."

I love Martin Cruz Smith's Russian mysteries--Gorky Park and Polar Star, and Red Square.

I liked a couple of Martha Grimes mysteries, before they began to really irritate me. They are a sort of pale imitation of the Tey/Ngaio Marsh/Sayers style, and the earlier ones are fun, though most of the characters escape being stock only by virtue of being ever-so-wacky. And Sayers can write rings around Grimes.

Some people like the mysteries of Dorothy Dunnett--me, I loathe them, even though her historical are among my favorites in the multiple-rereads category.

Really, the only mysteries I read over and over are Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. My mac-and-cheese of choice is historical novels: Dunnett, Mary Renault, Thomas Flanagan, A.S. Byatt, Marguerite Yourcenar.

[mahoni.livejournal.com]

Hello there! I've been around. Not commenting much in general, but as always, admiring your posts from afar. You write good brain food. :P

Thank you for the recs. I have read Grimes, Chandler and Hammett. I agree with you about Grimes. I really liked The Man With a Load of Mischief, and the next couple were okay, but I think the only reason I kept reading was because I was convinced that at *some* point she'd write another as good as that first. Hasn't happened yet, unfortunately. Chandler and Hammett, on the other hand - fantastic stuff.

I'll definitely look up the others you recommended. I may check out the historical novels, too - I like historical fiction, but I've never really gone in search of it. Up to now, I've only read what I've stumbled across. Yay, recs!

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

I agree with you pretty much completely, including your carefully qualified exceptions. Still there should be a kind of honorable mention for such polished and amusing stock characters. And I think that Miss Climpson in Unnatural Death (though not elsewhere) should be singled out above the mass. Is her character in that book the only sustained second POV in the series? Probably there are Parker scenes too but they don't stick in the mind.

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

Always happy to be agreed with, but perhaps I did come on a bit strong--after all, I adored Sayers in high school and still think well of her overall. Miss Climpson: yes, OK, though she gets on my nerves a bit.

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

perhaps I did come on a bit strong

Meh, says the guy who came into your LJ to make fun of your poet of the day. I think you and I both relate to the world through argument, like a dog relates through chewing on things. It is our nature. Soft chewy things, beware!

As for Sayers, I read and reread until the paperbacks fell apart.

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

I think you and I both relate to the world through argument, like a dog relates through chewing on things. It is our nature.

No question. It's the way I learn, and you know what they say about dogs who are past a certain age. For me it's the best entertainment there is.

I do sometimes think, though, that it's a bit hard on the soft chewy things. ;-)

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

it's a bit hard on the soft chewy things.

Free-assocition moment: I was about to say, OK, you win, you were weally, weally, mean in your reply. And then I suddenly remembered why the phrase, "weally, weally mean" had struck in my mind. Did you see Terri Castle's memoir of Susan Sontag in the LRB a few weeks back. If not, you must, must, must go read it like right now. Not that you or I are anything like Sontag, of course, Mal!

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

You are the third person to tell me to read that. So I did: and yes, very funny indeed!

At its best, our relationship was rather like the one between Dame Edna and her feeble sidekick Madge – or possibly Stalin and Malenkov.

*snerk*

The comic lampoon of Sontag has already been written, and not by Dickens. It is DH Lawrence's portrait of Hermione (not *that* Hermione: the Lady Ottoline Morell one, in "Sons and Lovers"). It is Sontag to the last detail. Eleanor Bron, in the movie role, did quite a brilliant Sontag imitation--I have always wondered if if it could possibly have been intentional.

BTW, on the subject of her pretensions to war-victim status, her son seems to have stepped into her shoes as Freelance War Expert without Portfolio. Cast your mind back to November 22, 2003... what were you doing then? No, not remembering where you were when JFK was killed. You were engaging me in an epic Luttwak Smackdown. As you may recall, the other person besides Luttwak who said horrible, offensive, ill-informed things about Iraq on the occasion of this (http://www.progressivetrail.org/articles/031202Burleigh.shtml) event was David Rieff. Feh, ptui.

Has anyone read The Volcano Lover? I made it to p. 10.

Not that you or I are anything like Sontag, of course, Mal!

No, but we are almost as pretty.

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

...broaden my horizons

Likewise, for I have never heard of Bruce Duffy or his novel on Wittegenstein, and am similarly intrigued, intrigued.

I would hazard a guess that Castle's text, though undoubtedly accurate (and certainly hilarious), was written in a spirit of gleeful payback. In her better moments (all of which occurred before 1980, IMO), Sontag would probably have been greatly amused by the portrait.

Don't we all decorate our homes, to some extent, to impress an idol? In my case, I think my home is designed to thrill and astonish an ex-lover from when I was 18. Or else I might be trying to impress Martin Luther King, Jr. Not sure which.

How disastrous, then, if the idol should actually appear on the threshold and fail to notice any of the stuff. This is the danger of believing our own myths about the people we admire, no? In this case, Sontag herself was probably most harmed of all, for she believed the myths other people constructed about her.

(I have been thinking about this lately in another context: about the way we invent the people we fall in love with. I think, these days, that this is the very definition of "in love": to be able to construct a fictional version of a person and then actually believe it.)

I was once at an event--probably an arts or political fundraiser, I don't recall--at which Sontag and Liebovitz appeared. AFAIK there was no secret about them, but I will say that they both behaved much as described by Castle, swanning about in best diva mode and ensuring that the little people knew to the inch how small they were. Ugh.

And a friend who lived in her building said she was rude to the doormen, which is the ne plus ultra of scumness in NYC apartment culture.

None of which diminishes the intelligence and interest of "On Photography" or "Against Interpretation," though I reserve my opinion on "The Pain of Others." But more influential than Simone de Beauvoir? Only a disappointed romantic could say so.

I am pretty sure I know curator Klaus too--though if he's who I think he is, he isn't bald at present. And he's smart, thoughtful and no starfucker. FWIW.

I have to say, too, that Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed, who are frequently seen on the NY social/arts/politics circuit, have not in my limited experience behaved with that kind of vulgarity. Maybe Reed had a toothache that night.

To complete my appalling namedropping I will add that Jacqueline Onassis was the classiest celebrity I've ever seen in action--showed up at the dreariest fundraisers and book parties and was invariably courteous, quietly charming, and accessible.

And I bet she knew all the early Handel operas too. Well, 20 or 30 of them anyway.

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

Well now I have mucked up the aesthetics of our lovely thread by deleting the original version of my comment and reposting a correction, while you were replying to the original. Sorry abut that!

The Duffy book is late 80's, "The World as I Found It" a historical novel about Wittgenstein's entry into the world of Russell and Morrell, his recoiling from it and them during and after WWI, his ambivalent relation to his own family's wealth and position and downfall, the general difficulty of his character. It preceded Ray Monk's biography and I don't know how accurate it is. Haven't read it in ages or I could review it better, so I will avoid trying to say anything profound.

Interesting point about the people we decorate our homes for -- both Castle's confession and your extension of it. I experience something similar though more in maybe personal neurotic terms -- there are people I carry around in my head who, in some sense, approve or disapprove of me, and whom I sometimes feel I am performing for in day to day life, with varying consequences. It's not confined to the decoration of my apartment (which in my case is very definitely bachelor-in-trouble-with-the-Health-Department) though I wish it were so limited.

Your definition of love is suggestive and stimulating, as always. Sometimes I've thought about physical beauty as the perfect realization of a fantasy, so that you look at a person's features and there is no disconnect between the reality and the ideal that they suggest, no falling short at all. As for being in love -- well, I would call the state of infatuation one in which we feel each action by the other person is one we would have predicted and wanted to happen, so that there seems to be a mysterious and powerful common process joining one's interior life and theirs. Necessarily an unstable state, but an exhilarating one while it lasts!

Oh feel free to namedrop, I'm enjoying the dirt and the anti-dirt. And after all, like I said in my Ten Things Meme, I once urinated next to Robin Williams, so, you know, I've been around! ;)

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

As for being in love -- well, I would call the state of infatuation one in which we feel each action by the other person is one we would have predicted and wanted to happen, so that there seems to be a mysterious and powerful common process joining one's interior life and theirs. Necessarily an unstable state, but an exhilarating one while it lasts!

I note your careful distinction between infatuation and love. :-)
I buy it: $50-->Blackdog.

That is, what I think you are describing is the egoism of the lover, who sees the beloved as a part of him- or herself, or at any rate a blurring of the borders between self and other. But how do you account for the infatuation in which the object of desire does not return the sentiment? That is, surely, not an action we would have wanted to happen.

And since talk of RL love is always tricksy stuff, I merely note that the reader's passionate infatuation with the book meets your definition of beauty perfectly, for it is "the perfect realization of a fantasy, so that you look at its features and there is no disconnect between the reality and the ideal that they suggest, no falling short." ;-)

And the reader's desire for the hero (or the book), unrequited and eternally frustrated though it is, is one in which each action is one we at least imagine we could have predicted and wanted to happen (yes, even if the hero dies), so that there seems to be a mysterious and powerful common process joining one's interior life and the book's. Necessarily an unstable state.

So infatuation is amenable to definition; but I suppose love is not. For indeed, who knows what love is?

Not I, said the bird, the word's absurd. I don't know what love is.
Not I, said the bee, nothing stings me. I don't know what love is.
Not I, said the hound, I go round and round, but I don't know what love is.
Not I, said the hawk, it's just so much talk. I don't know what love is.
Not I, said the fly, with my compound eye. I don't know what love is.
I do, said the cat, sitting in the sun. I know what love is.


Soundtrack: Billie: I'd rather be lonely than happy with somebody else...

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

Lucky cat.

how do you account for the infatuation in which the object of desire does not return the sentiment?

Oh well, the boundaries between reality and fantasy can be very porous when it comes to the emotional life, don't you think? I am thinking back to specific infatuations, and in each case there was an indication -- perhaps the spark of the infatuation -- that the feeling was, amazingly, reciprocated to at least some degree. And yet I admit that, over time, the degree of disappointment with actual developments is proportionate to the degree of energy invested in fantasy, and while one tries to remain clear-headed about How Things Are in actual day-to-day transactions, there is still a certain charge from the proximity of the person . . . I can't say that I've ever been infatuated with a person who was totally oblivious and indifferent, whatever the disproprotion of interest may have been. Maybe this is the luck of the draw, or an instinct for health. And I am not, of course, counting as infatuation the indulgence in recreational daydreams about stunning strangers.

I react to your reader/book metaphor with my usual combination of interest and wariness. I don't honestly see the emotional connections as commensurate. Still, there is a feeling you get when you encounter an intelligence behind a work of art that surprises you and makes sense of things (including the work itself) that might not have made sense before. I do like the sense of "inevitability" in a book, but I like to feel it has not been obvious or effortless, that discovering it has been about solving a problem, becoming receptive to another sensibility. If that is not too hopelessly abstract to make sense.

[Pause] Mmmm, chinese food at the door. Don't usually indulge at lunchtime. Do you suppose "Full House" as the name of a chef special means anything but bad menu copywriting? I was assured of fried wontons as part of the mix, and misread that as fried dumplings. Offsetting that disappointment, the meats and veggies do, per the description, appear to be swimming in "delightful sauce."

Until next time, then!

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

Sontag as Lady Ottoline Morrell -- you continue to broaden my horizons and make dense my web of cultural connections! I confess to not having read Sons and Lovers since high school and my only knowledge of Lady O is via Bruce Duffy's novel on Wittegenstein, but I am intrigued, intrigued. The pile of books on the medium-burner begins to totter.

I think "novelistic," though, is definitely the word for Castle's description of Sontag. I scored a coup one time with some obscure Busoni arrangements she’d not heard of (though she assured me that ‘she had, of course, known the pianist’ – the late Paul Jacobs – ‘very well’) The "very well" is brilliant.

As amused as I was, and as utterly as I believed in the portrait, I have not quite precisely calibrated the levels of good- or bad-faith in that piece. I think the sentence that begins "If I wanted to be catty . . . " is Exhibit 1. Though on the whole I was charmed and seduced by the way Castle presented herself.

I followed your link to the writeup on the dreary Luttwak-Rieff circlejerk. Has it been that long since our epic smackdown? I liked Leslie Gelb's casual disclaimer about his own proposal for dismembering the country -- when asked about massive persecution of displaced minorities, he said: "No question, and that's the weakest part of what I'm proposing." Gotta admire those responsible, hard-headed intellecutals, left, right, and center.

Has anyone read The Volcano Lover?

Not me, but I think I have it in a box . . .

[sienamystic.livejournal.com]

Eee, too long to reply in comments, but I'll see if I can get myself together to respond in my own journal. As a Sayers fan since I was about twelve, and a member of a long-running Yahoogroup devoted to the books, I've been through them many times myself. Your disagreement with my opinion isn't going to ruin my love for them. If anything could do so, it would be the endless argument as to whether or not Peter could have survived a dive off the fountain described in Murder Must Advertise. I will just say that I find very little stock about Sayers' characters, and even the ones that may have started out that way end up living and breathing on their own.