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shadydaveSorry if you were waiting with bated breath for some more EPIC FAIL. The internet decided to get into the spirit of the thing and thus the screencaps site was down, followed soon after by our router.
Normally it would be of tragical sadness that I don't have internet at home, but as we're leaving for the Folk Fest WHOOOO this afternoon that won't actually be a problem. However, tragical sadness does apply to last Friday, where I had to leave work early on account of being violently ill, and then fell down Po's driveway and killed my ankles just so I could see Natasha. Of course I spent all of Saturday carefully recuperating, if the new definition of "recuperating" includes "walking around all day at the Ren Faire". My left one still hurts, but fortunately I will be able to recuperate by walking around the Folk Fest instead. WOE.
On the plus side, Tempest is playing! I think everyone could use more Celtic hair bands in their lives.
To counteract the literary leprosy from reading four chapters of Twilight (apparently the sparkly vampires drive a Volvo; remind me again how people take these books seriously?) I read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by the lesser Brontë, Anne. Marge and Mal made fun of me, but that is because they are uncivilized heathens.
ToWH is about Gilbert Markham, a slightly hysterical farmer dude who falls in love with the eponymous tenant, his mysterious new neighbor, the "widow" Helen "Graham." She supports herself and her son by painting and being awesome. However, though she also loves Gilbert, they can't be together on account of Volume 2 of the novel, which reveals that she is still married to the debauched jerkface Arthur Huntington, though she ran away from him to save her son from growing up into a huge drunken douchebag. Fortunately it all works out in the end, while imparting the strict moral that you should avoid being a huge drunken douchebag or a homewrecker, or else Helen will skewer you with her firm morality and fearsome rhetoric.
Amazingly, I didn't want to slap a single character (except the ones you're supposed to want to slap), which immediately elevates this book above Wuthering Heights. Anne Brontë doesn't have quite the technical skill of Emily or Charlotte, but I found her characters to be the most well-drawn and realistic. I also quite liked how her two main characters, Gilbert and Helen, had inverted gender roles, so that Helen was the Byronic hero with mysterious awesomeness and a dark past, and Gilbert is the bitchy heroine who pines for her. Anne also avoided the extreme level of autobiography that Charlotte tended to indulge in, so while the novel was probably inspired by her brother's descent into sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll (well, mainly the drugs and lots of alcohol), it wasn't like reading the entire plot in the required "Life o' the Brontës" section of the introduction.
Apparently Brontë got majorly flamed not only for her detailed portrayal of drunken douchebaggery but also for Helen, who was simply too awesome for Victorian audiences. They probably did not appreciate the expose on the myth that pious wives could reform their drunken douchebag husbands, not to mention the implication that women had both the moral and physical capacity to move out and manage their own lives. Amusingly, most critics were convinced the book had to be written by a man, or else by a woman being helped by a man, because how would delicate flowers know about all the shenanigans everyone tried to pretend didn't exist? Basically, Helen is made of win, and Anne Brontë likewise for creating a strong female character who does not have upsetting imperialist overtones or is, you know, BATSHIT INSANE, unlike those of other Brontës I could name.
In conclusion: Anne Brontë wins.
Finally, I have an important announcement to make: I HAVE A DESK. AT WORK. WITH A COMPUTER! Oh, the luxury. It's almost like I'm a real employee!
I should probably go eat my lunch now.
Normally it would be of tragical sadness that I don't have internet at home, but as we're leaving for the Folk Fest WHOOOO this afternoon that won't actually be a problem. However, tragical sadness does apply to last Friday, where I had to leave work early on account of being violently ill, and then fell down Po's driveway and killed my ankles just so I could see Natasha. Of course I spent all of Saturday carefully recuperating, if the new definition of "recuperating" includes "walking around all day at the Ren Faire". My left one still hurts, but fortunately I will be able to recuperate by walking around the Folk Fest instead. WOE.
On the plus side, Tempest is playing! I think everyone could use more Celtic hair bands in their lives.
To counteract the literary leprosy from reading four chapters of Twilight (apparently the sparkly vampires drive a Volvo; remind me again how people take these books seriously?) I read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by the lesser Brontë, Anne. Marge and Mal made fun of me, but that is because they are uncivilized heathens.
ToWH is about Gilbert Markham, a slightly hysterical farmer dude who falls in love with the eponymous tenant, his mysterious new neighbor, the "widow" Helen "Graham." She supports herself and her son by painting and being awesome. However, though she also loves Gilbert, they can't be together on account of Volume 2 of the novel, which reveals that she is still married to the debauched jerkface Arthur Huntington, though she ran away from him to save her son from growing up into a huge drunken douchebag. Fortunately it all works out in the end, while imparting the strict moral that you should avoid being a huge drunken douchebag or a homewrecker, or else Helen will skewer you with her firm morality and fearsome rhetoric.
Amazingly, I didn't want to slap a single character (except the ones you're supposed to want to slap), which immediately elevates this book above Wuthering Heights. Anne Brontë doesn't have quite the technical skill of Emily or Charlotte, but I found her characters to be the most well-drawn and realistic. I also quite liked how her two main characters, Gilbert and Helen, had inverted gender roles, so that Helen was the Byronic hero with mysterious awesomeness and a dark past, and Gilbert is the bitchy heroine who pines for her. Anne also avoided the extreme level of autobiography that Charlotte tended to indulge in, so while the novel was probably inspired by her brother's descent into sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll (well, mainly the drugs and lots of alcohol), it wasn't like reading the entire plot in the required "Life o' the Brontës" section of the introduction.
Apparently Brontë got majorly flamed not only for her detailed portrayal of drunken douchebaggery but also for Helen, who was simply too awesome for Victorian audiences. They probably did not appreciate the expose on the myth that pious wives could reform their drunken douchebag husbands, not to mention the implication that women had both the moral and physical capacity to move out and manage their own lives. Amusingly, most critics were convinced the book had to be written by a man, or else by a woman being helped by a man, because how would delicate flowers know about all the shenanigans everyone tried to pretend didn't exist? Basically, Helen is made of win, and Anne Brontë likewise for creating a strong female character who does not have upsetting imperialist overtones or is, you know, BATSHIT INSANE, unlike those of other Brontës I could name.
In conclusion: Anne Brontë wins.
Finally, I have an important announcement to make: I HAVE A DESK. AT WORK. WITH A COMPUTER! Oh, the luxury. It's almost like I'm a real employee!
I should probably go eat my lunch now.