The Great Gatsby (book)

Now two days overdue, which is what happens when you stay in your room all Sunday. Read this book incredibly slow, occasionally because I was tired and had to re-read parts, but mostly because I was determined to sink this book into my head (fourth times the charm).

Maybe fourth time is too generous... the way I was re-reading lines so meticulously I've practically gone through the book two more times.

Page numbers:

P.38- "Mr. McKee was asleep on a chair with his fists clenched in his lap, like a photograph of a man of action. Taking out my handkerchief I wiped from his cheek the spot of dried lather that had worried me all the afternoon."

I really hope this passage gets played up in the movie, like when we get to the scene the camera will keep quick cutting, close up to the spot of lather on the guys neck with an intense look of concern from Tobey Maguire staring at it. Tobey has the eyes to make that hilarious. You know the kind of look I mean.

P. 77- "A phrase began to beat in my ears with a sort of heady excitement: 'There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired.'"

Liked the phrase, recorded it.

P.85- "...so I stared at it, like Kant at his church steeple..."

Just recording the lack of reference I have for that one. Need to look up Kant in this context. Likely still Kantian philosopher guy.

P. 129- After the big confrontation between Gatsby and Tom, really the turning point where Gatsby is defeated, things get awkward for outsiders Nick Carraway (narrator) and Jordan Baker (professional golfer, flake, and Nick's girlfriend throughout the book. Nick says:
"'No... I just remembered that today's my birthday.'
"I was thirty. Before me stretched the portentous, menacing road of a new decade.
It was seven o'clock when we got into the coupe with him and started for Long Island. Tom talked incessantly, exulting and laughing, but his voice was as remote from Jordan and me as the foriegn clamour on the sidewalk or the tumult of the elevated overhead. Human sympathy has its limits, and we were content to let all their tragic arguments fade with the city lights behind. Thirty - the promise of a decade of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know, a thinning brief-case of enthusiasm, thinning hair. But there was Jordan beside me, who, unlike Daisy, was too wise ever to carry well-forgotten dreams from age to age. As we passed over the dark bridge her wan face fell lazily against my coat's shoulder and the formidable stroke of thirty died away with the reassuring pressure of her hand.
So we drove on toward death through the cooling twilight."

Checking the birth and release dates, Fitzgerald was 30 when this book was made. Reminds me of T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock",  which was itself, according to wikipedia, published in the Chicago area in 1915, and was certainly read by Fitzgerald (Gatsby was written in 1926). All together, it's more evidence for Nick as author avator of Fitzgerald, not that that's too surprising. I'm sure the argument can be made for Gatsby as author as well... though I doubt Fitzgerald himself would agree with that statement!

P. 154- "It was after we started with Gatsby toward the house that the gardener saw Wilson's body a little way off in the grass, and the holocaust was complete."

Can't help but be interested in that passage, use of "holocaust" before advent of THE holocaust.

Long list of words to look up for this book. As ever, in my defence, most of them I know partially or get the gist from context, but if I were point blank asked "define THIS" I'd be in trouble. So it goes. Oh, though some are clearly names or somesuch, the historical context would of course be outside my grasp.

Adventitious associated with something by chance rather than as an integral part; extrinsic.

Trimalchio is a character in the 1st century AD Roman work of fiction Satyricon by Petronius. Trimalchio is a freedman who through hard work and perseverance has attained power and wealth. The fundamental meaning of the root is "King," and the name Trimalchio would thus mean "Thrice King," "greatest King."^[Trimalchio is known for throwing lavish dinner parties. He seeks to impress his guests—the Roman nouveau riche, mostly freedmen—with the ubiquitous excesses seen throughout his dwelling. By the end of the banquet, Trimalchio's drunken showiness leads to the entire household acting out his funeral, all for his own amusement and egotism. So he's "Ancient Gatsby".

nonolfactory of or pertaining to the sense of smell

abtrusive seems to just be a corruption of obtrusive. No dictionary results.

dilatory 

1.

tending to delay or procrastinate; slow; tardy.

2.

intended to cause delay, gain time, or defer decision

punctilious  strict or exact in the observance of the formalities or amenities of conduct or actions.

modish in the current fashion; stylish.

echolalia 1. Psychiatry. the uncontrollable and immediate repetition of words spoken by another person.

2. the imitation by a baby of the vocal sounds produced by others, occurring as a natural phase of childhood development.

vinous of, resembling, or containing wine.

meretricious 1. alluring by a show of flashy or vulgar attractions; tawdry.

2. based on pretense, deception, or insincerity.

3. pertaining to or characteristic of a prostitute.

(dude, I was way off on this one...)

sharper 1. a shrewd swindler.

2. a professional gambler.

El Greco born Doménikos Theotokópoulos, (1541 – 7 April 1614) was a painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. "El Greco" (The Greek) was a nickname,^[a][b] a reference to his national Greek origin, and the artist normally signed his paintings with his full birth name in Greek letters. El Greco has been characterized by modern scholars as an artist so individual that he belongs to no conventional school.

pasquinade a satire or lampoon, especially one posted in a public place.

extemporize

to perform, speak, or compose (an act, speech, piece of music, etc) without planning or preparation

contiguous

1.	touching along the side or boundary; in contact
2.	physically adjacent; neighbouring
3.	preceding or following in time

peremptory  leaving no opportunity for denial or refusal; imperative

hauteur haughty manner or spirit; arrogance.

supercilious haughtily disdainful or contemptuous, as a person or a facial expression.

mincing  (of the gait, speech, behavior, etc.) affectedly dainty, nice, or elegant.

Kaiser Wilhelm ruler of Germany, 1871-1918

Belasco David Belasco (1853-1931); U.S. theatrical producer, playwright, and actor.

Frisco looks like this is just short for San Francisco

tortuously 1. full of twists, turns, or bends; twisting, winding, or crooked: a tortuous path.

2. not direct or straightforward, as in procedure or speech; intricate; circuitous: tortuous negotiations lasting for months. 

3. deceitfully indirect or morally crooked, as proceedings, methods, or policy; devious.

 

FINALLY THAT'S ALL OF THEM!

 

All right, that should be everything I need the book for. I'll post this, return the book to the library, and then talk a bit about the book when I get back.

The Ides of March (how much you want to bet I said the exact same thing last year?)

I'm back working security at a Michael Kors store to earn my money. And yes, that's as depressing as it sounds. 8 hours of just standing around being useless, with two half hour breaks.

The first hour and a half of yesterdays shift, however, evaporated as if it were nothing. WHILE STILL DOING MY JOB (emphasis very much needed here) I withdrew completely into myself, thinking, rolling along a stream of consciousness, striving to recall, to be my own wikipedia to sound crass about it.

And all the while all I wanted was to be locked up in a room somewhere, laptop in hand, and writing stuff down. Yes, that thought was another I specifically wanted recorded yesterday, and now I have done so.

I was completely obsessed with a dream, again, yesterday, that I wanted to get down, but I've forgotten it. At least, that was true until I got half way through that sentence.

I was at a school. In the auditorium a girl I know was wheeled to the front (she doesn't usually use a wheel chair..) but she walks out of it and stands at the podium to give an introduction to a movie she made. The movie, a violent cartoon of giant creatures on a rampage, all cut up with no clear narrative. The audience laughs at it for not making sense, and I want them to stop for the girls sake, but I can't help but feel they have a point. She's uncomfortable with the response she's gotten. She leaves, and I follow, trying to talk with her, but I keep following farther and farther behind her. No, it's not like those nightmares you had when you were little- my legs worked fine, I wasn't trapped in sand. I could have run, but that would have meant admitting that I wanted to keep up. All the while I was carrying a flag that had a burnt edge to it, still glowing like it could burst into flame at any time. Which has GOT to be symbolic of something, but I have zero idea.

In the cafeteria I found the group of people I played VS. cards with back in the day. Of course "back in the day" was still well after high school, and this wasn't any cafeteria I'd ever been in as far as I could tell, so who knows where that came from. They were discussing the merits of having random cards in to deal with whatever situation might come up (basically, how I often played) which is something they'd NEVER be in favour of, so this dream is crazier than you'd think.

Walking home, and this was along Pharmacy Avenue there were multiple houses with radio station/pizza places. As in you walked up the steps to the door, go in, and get a brand pizza right from the DJ while he's broadcasting live on-air. I think the two houses were Pizza Pizza and Domines chains... no idea which radio station they were. It was weird, not a bad idea though.

"Not a bad idea though" As in, maybe a good idea. I'm referring to "Litotes" understatement, especially that in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of its contrary, as in “not bad at all.”

It's one of those things I learned lately that has really stuck in my head- because people keep using examples of it. Not sure if the word is different for when you say "not bad" and specifically don't mean "it's good". The case for "it's neutral".

A friend of mine used the word "mansplaining". It's a pretty ugly portmanteau. It sounds like something Lucy should throw back at Desi Arnaz's face when he says "you've got some 'splaining to do!"

Thinking about stereotypes and prejudice. The first time you encounter X, you expect it to always be X, until you meet an instance of Y. Now it can be X or Y, until Z. The fact that you shouldn't be surprised by A-Z doesn't discount the realities of how often you seen X X's numerically greater than Y Y's. If you're a fan of Criminal Minds (I'm not, but I'm sure it's a legitimate thing to be a fan of. The math checks out) then you see the effectiveness of "fitting a profile". Well, it's a fictional show, but you get my point. There are real world criminal profilers. Okay, NOW you get my point.

You can't take anything for granted. Except that we do. All the time. We take for granted that the next step we take will land on solid ground, that the chair will hold up. That what we see is real. That was the other thing I took a while to remember yesterday, but it still came to me surprisingly quickly "cogito ergo sum". The only thing I know for certain, which is CRAZY.

I like how I had to dictionary.com "litotes" but am totally confident that I've got "cogito ergo sum" that I don't need to check if I've indeed got it right. I did have litotes wrong, in fact. I had first written "litote".

Today I woke up tired from a nightmare where I was fighting these killers in a sort of super speed zone, so that even if they got killed it would be a long while before they actually fell down dead, and could do whatever they wanted to you in the meantime. Terrifying. Similarly, some nigh invulnerable zombie dudes had it out for me, and had infected someone on my team with a virus carrying golf ball hours earlier that was a revelation I couldn't handle and had to wake up. Two hours later I safely went back to sleep, good thing too, I've an overnight shift to work. 9pm-9am, wish me luck, I'll be fine.

What is this, first post of March? Most of it sounds crazy, and is therefore awesome. Here's the info dictionary.com has on the "Ides of March" (haven't read it yet myself)

"March 15th marks a very inauspicious anniversary. Like a black cat crossing your path, the Ides of March has become a metaphor for impending doom. How did a day that was once celebrated by the Romans become so heavily cloaked in superstition?
The Ides of March is a phrase derived from the Latin idus, a term marking the 15th day of March, July and October as well as the 13th day of other months in the Roman calendar year, and the Latin martii, “March,” which is derived from the Latin Mars, the Roman god of war. The “ide”marks the halfway point of the month—most likely alluding to the day of the full moon. Apparently, devised by Romulus, the mythical founder of Rome, the early Roman calendar cited other dates of the month by counting backwards from the kalends (1st day of the month), kones (the 7th day of March, May, July and October; the 13th day in other months) and of course, the ides.
Once a celebratory day dedicated to the Roman god, Mars (complete with a military parade) the backstabbing of Julius Caesar in 44 B.C. cast a dark cloud. Shakespeare’s “The Tragedy of Julius Caesar” immortalized this dark moment.
Written by William Shakespeare around 1599, “Julius Caesar“ portrays the assassination of the Roman dictator by a group of conspirators. After ignoring the warnings of a soothsayer, a person who professes to foretell events, who uttered the phrase “Beware the Ides of March,” Caesar is stabbed 23 times in the back.
Thus, the same man who brought us the month of July involuntarily inaugurated the phrase “backstabbing.”"

Icon

Happy birthday Cool Geoff! Now that the surprise is done and over with, you've opened your gift of the first volume of "Icon" (there is at least one more that I saw!) and we can "unpack" why DID I go with Icon?

Let it be SUPER known that I passed it by because I thought it'd be too weird. You know why. And when I went back and picked it up, I put it back down. Again, because of weirdness.

But then I was all: Listen, am I REALLY just going to pass on buying this book just because of the characters racial appearance?? (if you've read the first bit, you know why just saying 'race' wouldn't have quite made sense) That's messed up!

I've read the first issue of Icon before, if not the first trade (can't remember for sure), and it's a unique book for the reluctance to get this hero into the game. The origin, powers wise, was easy. Getting him into "the never ending battle" was hard. It's usually the reverse for characters; more often then not at the very least.

Take the Fantastic Four as the prime example I could think of (Spider-Man actually works against my argument, so forget I said Spider-Man. Spider-Man!): they go up in a rocket, get bombarded by space rays, crash land on Earth, get horribly mutated (some FAR more horrible than others), and what's the first thing they do after freaking out about their new powers? Collectively decide to pull together and use their powers for good. Getting the powers was the tough part, using the power for good? Everyone was assumed to be onboard with this, and they were!

There's also the cultural appeal in seeing what Dwayne McDuffie was aiming for with his Milestone books. He wanted to see more people of colour in his comics, and so he made it so. Have to admire him on that one.

Ah, but, naturally, had the first volume of Static been around, I'd have gone with that one for sure.

Hope you like it and it's not too weird a present for you! Becaese that'd be bad!

That's it, I've typed alls I can writes and can now writes no mores.

My Dinner With Andre

No, I haven't seen "My Dinner With Andre"... and now if I do see it I'll be rather hung up on blog post titles... but I had a friend over and we had dinner and watched Psych, because I figured it's a show he'd like, and he did! I did it! I'm a hero!

To commemorate the occasion we had chips and strawberries and pasta and alfredo sauce and mint chocolate chip ice cream!

Talk about your calories over here. But it was worth it. Plus, calories basically burn themselves off.

I don't generally invite people over to my place, like, ever, but as far as houseguests go, this was a mighty obliging one. "My way is Isaac's way" was repeated several times when asking about whether or not certain customs were deemed weird or off-putting. Ex: It's cool to rinse the strawberries? (this was a relative no-brainer) Separate bowl for the things? I just washed my hands, but you may not be comfortable with me handling this fruit preparation, is it okay for me to do this?

A highly careful manoeuvre that seemed completely unnecessary. Glad it was done though, after the fact I feel like maybe I was a pretty good host.

I almost said "host guest" because that would have made sense.

Interesting the perspective that comes from adding a new element to ones environment. I'm already WELL aware of my tendency to over explain things. Mostly jokes because I think it's funny, but just simple everyday stuff too. It's not necessarily bad, but it happens, and my brothers get in on the act too.

I probably shouldn't call it "over explaining"- I think it's generally useful to define terms and get everyone on even ground, a tactic that negates most of all fights. Intellectual arguments at least. Physical brou-hahas may be a different animal altogether.

My ability to focus my vision isn't doing so hot, so I'll cross my fingers there aren't any spelling problems, post this, another, and then bed.

Daria

I've currently substituted my Kamen Rider watching with the catching up on a cultural milestone, MTV's "Daria".

I'm not sure if you'll be surprised or not when I say I really REALLY like this show. Some people know me as this really upbeat guy (I feel like the number who believe that to be the whole of who I am has been over taking the other group), and the other group that thinks "why wouldn't you like Daria? It's basically you on screen there."

I was quite surprised by the emotional nature of the character. Despite the monotone voice, the extra helping of intelligence, the rigid expectations (hmm, perhaps BECAUSE of the rigid expectations..)- she is very often an insecure girl that is just lashing out. Oh, not all the time. No, don't worry fans, Daria most assuredly strikes a blow against the inane for the sake of itself, but she also does it because she's angry or scared or whatever. Sometimes she even realizes it too. She may even realize it once an episode (okay, that's taking things too far).

Regardless, though I'd have enjoyed her as a mouthpiece for cynical outbursts, I'm quite glad to see her as a sympathetic role model that offers something to her audience beyond caustic wit.

I've gone through over 3/5's of the series, with special note going to the season finales. Burning through so many episodes so fast, I'm not sure if this is the second or third finale, but the episode where she engages in writing a "roman à clef " (a concept I have introduced to the blog before, but wikipedia it if you forget. Or if you need a handy copy paste source so you can get the accent over the 'a' easier) was really great as far as I'm concerned. Daria can't figure out what to write because nothing she comes up with says anything about anything. Her mother ends up giving a speech about how Daria cuts people off from her true thoughts with a glib joke, that maybe instead of using her talent for pointing out how things are wrong, that she actually sits down and writes what she'd like things to be like. What would be right? Show us that! And she proceeds to write a story about herself, an adult now, visiting her parents, her sister shows up and has matured into a caring mother herself, and it's really sweet to get this from Daria. We cut to the "real" world as the mother reads this story and cries with joy at it.

It was really great, if nothing else, watch that episode. I'm almost positive it stands up on it's own, no previous familiarity required. Though it surely helps, emphasis wise.

I'll be sad when this show is over, but hey, there's always more Kamen Rider to get back to. (A lot more!)

Spare parts for a 'Lord of the Flies' stage show...

What is this preturnatural ability to summon forth storms just before I'm scheduled to go off to some strange new work place. Granted, I didn't have flying daggers of ice striking my face (ala my trip to Vaughn Mills Mall) , but today has to be the soggiest we've been in months. Rain, snow, slush. Wet feet in consequence.

All to accompany me on my adventure to the pig slaughter business factory place! Yay!

So, it was pretty horrible, mostly just for the smell. It won't go away! Why did I wear my jacket that I've worn for years? Oh, well, that may be why. But either my brain has broken such that I am stuck imagining the ephemeral smell of the place, or it has soaked into me a bit. Yes, yes I did shower when I got home.

I hope my jacket is okay, with some airing out. Nobody let me wear that when I head back tomorrow! Ah, but then I may ruin TWO jackets... this is a problem.

So why have I journeyed to a place where live pigs walk and squeal into one end then come out in separate parts, forever silenced? For money, silly!

A terribly, terribly, inadequate amount of money.

Interesting that I haven't been struck a vegetarian at the sight. It's severely grossed me out, but I'm not morally upset about eating animals. Is this odd since I do my best to literally live up to the axiom of "wouldn't hurt a fly". I've WANTED to kill some annoying flies, but I've let them off. Spiders have long since won me over, though I'll still sometimes take them outside (more often than not I'll see one crawl by, think "Cool!", and then go about my business. I've even spared those ultimate in creepy scary grossness, the, you know, many legged-hairy looking thing.

This seems like a paradox. Thinking it over, I believe the principle difference is that an animal I eat, well, I'm eating it. If nothing else, were I a hunter in the forest (riiight) I'd be killing to live, to stave off the ghoul of hunger. Considering a live or dead bug means little to me (obviously disease carriers matter to me), why indulge in the extinction of life? The operative word I'd want focused on here is "indulge".

And the guy training me kept talking about how much he loves pork chops! Dude! Not cool man.

I really hope I don't go back there after these next two shifts. I'm an outcast enough withought having to constantly worry about whether I smell of dismembered pig.

So messed up.

A Tale of Two Cities

It took a while, but I finished this one.

Okay, hold on, if I start this now I'll never get out the door. I'll be back in a few hours, alright?

*A few hours later*

What a series of adventures! I sloughed off my external layer of filth in the shower, and bought creamed corn! Oh, boy, creamed corn!

Right, right, Dickens, A Tale, right.

So I watched Star Trek II with Simon a month or so ago, and the ending funeral uses a famous quote from A Tale of Two Cities "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known."

Not only that, but the latest Batman movie Dark Knight Rises featured the exact same quote as read by Gordon for Bruce Wayne's funeral!

I have got to read this book!

The last few times I've met up with a particular group of friends, toting this particular tome with me, I've been met with (mock?) derision. Seems Dickens isn't that well liked a figure with this group. Well, I like him just fine!

That said, the opening chapters were ROUGH to get through. Yes, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." is about as famous a line of literature as there is, however the doubling and the perhaps paradoxical language continues on for quite some time afterwards "... it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness..." etc. etc. It keeps going on like this!

(Brief aside on the notes in this volume: much as the notes were so often useful at providing informative context, did note the 1st REALLY need to happen after "It was the best of times"? You couldn't even let me finish that most famous line in one piece before you ask me to jump to the back of the book and break the flow of the line.)

For a nearly 400 page novel, it feels like there's a lot of room for compression. I guess that's why they could have this story as the basis for an episode of Wishbone (now I wish I'd watched the thing. I guess I just really am not that interested in dogs telling stories. Or just dogs. Or, at that age, t.v. shows that didn't star Batman or Spider-Man. Or Turtles or Power Rangers. Moving on.)

The language is needlessly circuitous, mostly just at the first few chapters, giving us a slow start. The consequent effect is rather neat then, that you get so absorbed in the activity at the very end, you get a fast end.

Of the various characters, my favourite (a word used in place of "the most important" just to be safe) is Sydney Carton. It is, perhaps, his last words we hear recorded by the omniscient narrator at novels end after he switches places with the much more reputable but doomed ex-French aristocrat Charles Darnay, and gets la Guillotine where it would have come to Darnay otherwise.

What a convoluted, but at least slightly nice sounding, few sentences there. As ever, I mimic the last work read.

Sydney thinks he's no good, that he's wasted his life. A pivotal moment has him sequestered with the lovely Lucie Manette, to whom he confesses his love, but with a twist. He's so sure that there's no chance that she could love him back, and he's right (!), but the interview does inspire a new respect for him, and more importantly, Sydney pledges to do anything in the world in the service of Lucie. Years later, taking the place of her husband Darnay, he makes good on his word, and in so doing is forever uplifted in each of their hearts and minds. (This confessional love scene rather reminds me of the one between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy (Oh, Mr. Darcy!) where he confesses his love, with the interview ending rather worse for Darcy than with Carton, though Darcy's situation eventually improved drastically in that matter. Timing wise, seems Pride and Prejudice was printed in 1813, almost 50 years before A Tale got out of the gate. I wonder if Dickens read Pride and Prejudice...)

To make this bit of high sounding rhetoric more crass and in keeping with my usual tone and topics... he's basically Batman. He hates himself because he's no good (say, because he couldn't save his parents) and sacrifices himself for the happiness of others. There were parallels enough in The Dark Knight, but MAN Dark Knight Rises IS basically A Tale of Two Cities. They've even got a snooty business guy named Stryver hanging around in the movie- yup, that's a character in the book!

The "power to the people" Occupy Wall Street motifs, which I think most people realized were coincidental as the film was at least scripted before those happened, were actually just a modern day re-enactment of the French Revolution. Bane breaks the prisoners out of Blackgate prison, rather, the Bastille. Bane and Talia are the new Defarges, with Madame Defarge once again emerging as the really terrifying threat.

I say Bruce Wayne/Batman is actually pulling double duty as both Darnay AND Carton. Bruce Wayne is the embodiment of the high society extravagance the League of Shadows fought against, but still a sympathetic figure for his good works, and more importantly it is Bruce Wayne's survival that is ensured by the sacrifice of Batman at the movies end. I think that may actually be why there was no way for the time to work out for Batman to save the city and himself- he DID die with that action, leaving Bruce able to continue with his life, or maybe to just start it.

That is a more symbolic reading for the finale of the Batman trilogy, but I wouldn't put it past Nolan to be making that move. Of course, with people expecting a "realistic" Batman from him, do to his own words (probably, again, not meant literally. Perhaps "real" in this context meant "has feelings about stuff" which is in itself another problem, since that means Nolan is disregarding the longstanding tradition of Bat comics with feeling.)

Back to the book itself, right at the end there's a wicked sweet fight between Ms. Pross, who speaks only english and is a friend to the Evremonde's (okay, that's the secret french aristocrat name that Darnay descends from, so Pross probably isn't familiar with it, but it's a cool name and I wanted to leave it somewhere) against the ruthless Madame Defarge, who only speaks french, and has a personal score against the Evremonde's and is thus the enemy of Darnay and his wife and child.

Taking a moment to consider Madame Defarge's motivation, it's easy to sympathise with her. Her brother and sister were ultimately killed by the Evremonde family, though Charles was just an innocent boy at the time, and she swore revenge.

In summary, cool book, I'm tired. (Boy, I sure am great at conclusions)