(no subject)

This is what the disillusioned lit student does when she's supposed to be reading Foucault.

Revelling in daytime television (I suspect Norwegian daytime tv is worse even than American, an accomplishment in itself); contemplating what paper to send a rundown of why Norwegian schools have failed and will continue to fail; singing along to The National, likely scaring the neighbours. Longing for a signed copy of McEwan's Solar, it seems I can order a signed copy from Hatchards. Who am I to resist a signed first edition? Also looking half-heartedly at flights to Venice. November next year seems so far off, but perhaps.

To keep liinen well-informed, I am reading Proust. The first book of the first volume, namely 'Combray'. Not voluntarily as such, but for a lit class on 'Western literature, 1900-present'. Which is fine and dandy, I suppose. The group teacher is a mess, I could teach her a thing or two about modernism. She also got it in her head that we need to form study groups. You can imagine the uncurbed enthusiasm that elicited, I'm sure. At the end of class that she would make study groups and mail us about it.

I am stuck with four girls taking a one-year course in basic literary history and comparative method. Among a lot of 'Oh, that reminds me of the other Pound poem we read last year. Remember, the course with Pellicer?', and 'Of course! He was such a darling. The one with all that assonance?' I try not to snicker. One of them takes the introductory theory course with me, and was sweetly perplexed about the linguistics we encountered: 'Hi, erm, well, this is a bit embarrassing. But I've not really heard about this before. Do you think you could just go over it with me? In the break, or should I stop by your office?' Unless you're striking, talking to a teaching assistant, who is bored and inexperienced, that is not the way the world works. I file them away to use when I write my great university novel (along the lines of Tartt and Easton Ellis).

Tangent aside, Proust is interesting. I'm reading the Moncrieff and Kilmartin translation, in the hopes that English translators are better than Norwegian. My French is not up to this kind of exertion. 60 pages left. It is very, very modernist: Tangents and digressions, which the narrator justifies explicitly in the text; angst about lost time, thoughts on its fabric, its fragility and fragmented nature; stream-of-consciousness recounting of thoughts over several pages without much punctuation. I will return with a more thorough examination when I've finished 'Combray'.

So far I admire Proust's subtle characterisation, he also has an intriguing way of describing relationships: the Verdurin family sees Swann as a character entirely of their own making, their 'Swann'. The narrator refers to his later version of 'Swann', as a truer one, more complete. It would be interesting to research the high modernists' relationship with time, it is certainly ambiguous. And he has the most gorgeous descriptions:

'A little tap on the window-pane, as though something had struck it, followed by a plentiful light falling sound, as of grains of sand being sprinkled from a window overhead, gradually spreading, intensifying, acquiring a regular rhythm, becoming fluid, sonorous, musical, immeasurable, universal: it was the rain.'

Shklovsky (Шкловский, I think, in cyrillic lettering) would I imagine hail this as a prime example of defamiliarization ('остранение').

(no subject)

This is what the disillusioned lit student does when she's supposed to be reading Foucault.

Revelling in daytime television (I suspect Norwegian daytime tv is worse even than American, an accomplishment in itself); contemplating what paper to send a rundown of why Norwegian schools have failed and will continue to fail; singing along to The National, likely scaring the neighbours. Longing for a signed copy of McEwan's Solar, it seems I can order a signed copy from Hatchards. Who am I to resist a signed first edition? Also looking half-heartedly at flights to Venice. November next year seems so far off, but perhaps.

To keep liinen well-informed, I am reading Proust. The first book of the first volume, namely 'Combray'. Not voluntarily as such, but for a lit class on 'Western literature, 1900-present'. Which is fine and dandy, I suppose. The group teacher is a mess, I could teach her a thing or two about modernism. She also got it in her head that we need to form study groups. You can imagine the uncurbed enthusiasm that elicited, I'm sure. At the end of class that she would make study groups and mail us about it.

I am stuck with four girls taking a one-year course in basic literary history and comparative method. Among a lot of 'Oh, that reminds me of the other Pound poem we read last year. Remember, the course with Pellicer?', and 'Of course! He was such a darling. The one with all that assonance?' I try not to snicker. One of them takes the introductory theory course with me, and was sweetly perplexed about the linguistics we encountered: 'Hi, erm, well, this is a bit embarrassing. But I've not really heard about this before. Do you think you could just go over it with me? In the break, or should I stop by your office?' Unless you're striking, talking to a teaching assistant, who is bored and inexperienced, that is not the way the world works. I file them away to use when I write my great university novel (along the lines of Tartt and Easton Ellis).

Tangent aside, Proust is interesting. I'm reading the Moncrieff and Kilmartin translation, in the hopes that English translators are better than Norwegian. My French is not up to this kind of exertion. 60 pages left. It is very, very modernist: Tangents and digressions, which the narrator justifies explicitly in the text; angst about lost time, thoughts on its fabric, its fragility and fragmented nature; stream-of-consciousness recounting of thoughts over several pages without much punctuation. I will return with a more thorough examination when I've finished 'Combray'.

So far I admire Proust's subtle characterisation, he also has an intriguing way of describing relationships: the Verdurin family sees Swann as a character entirely of their own making, their 'Swann'. The narrator refers to his later version of 'Swann', as a truer one, more complete. It would be interesting to research the high modernists' relationship with time, it is certainly ambiguous. And he has the most gorgeous descriptions:

'A little tap on the window-pane, as though something had struck it, followed by a plentiful light falling sound, as of grains of sand being sprinkled from a window overhead, gradually spreading, intensifying, acquiring a regular rhythm, becoming fluid, sonorous, musical, immeasurable, universal: it was the rain.'

Shklovsky (Шкловский, I think, in cyrillic lettering) would I imagine hail this as a prime example of defamiliarization ('остранение').