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12-27-2017, 07:46 AM | #46 |
Bah, humbug!
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Book Club December 2017 Discussion: Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll (spoilers)
These two books appear to be part genius, part muddleheaded meandering, and part cranky old man complaining about all that's wrong with the world. And what's up with his unsuccessful attempt to convince English writers to add an extra apostrophe to contractions such as "can't"? My mind sees "ca'n't" and wants to divide it into two syllables. What really is the point of shortening a word if you don't really shorten it but simply replace each and every missing letter by a symbol?
Last edited by WT Sharpe; 12-28-2017 at 07:42 AM. |
12-27-2017, 08:19 AM | #47 |
cacoethes scribendi
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Ah-ha! The "cranky old man" thing even explains his problem with clergymen having the occasional giggle: having rejected becoming a priest himself, but coming so close to it, I can just imagine he might - in his later years - have turned all the more judgemental of those that did.
And yes, "ca'n't" makes me see two syllables too. |
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12-27-2017, 08:34 AM | #48 | |
o saeclum infacetum
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I suspected things were going to go badly when I read the introduction to the second book, where not only did Carroll explain the dream mechanism for moving between worlds, he identified in exhaustive detail each time it happened. This was unnecessary, insulting to the reader, and showed a lack of faith in his own story-telling ability. One of the fun parts of the first book was figuring it out and seeing how it worked. I had that thought, too. And as with Carroll's making Uggug the butt, it wasn't very nice of Rowling (who prides herself on her sensitivity) to fat-shame a character, especially a child. I'm quite sure this point has been made. A pig-tail, really? That's lovely. Were there any fat kids at Hogwarts other than Crabbe? Were there any good fat kids? Rowling is someone else who feels compelled to explain what she really meant, too. |
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12-27-2017, 05:49 PM | #49 |
cacoethes scribendi
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The more I think about it, the more I think that the real villain of the (Outlander) piece was the Warden (soon to be king of Elfland, and Sylvie and Bruno's father). He demonstrated early that he knew what was going on, but he knowingly left the people he was responsible for, and even his own children, in the hands of the Vice Warden and his wife. Why? Because he got a better job offer! I wonder if the Elfanders know what they're getting for a king.
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12-27-2017, 05:55 PM | #50 |
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I think the real villain of the book is Lewis Carroll and we (the readers) are the victims.
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12-27-2017, 08:03 PM | #51 | |
o saeclum infacetum
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12-27-2017, 08:43 PM | #52 |
Snoozing in the sun
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I love this! I think we are getting more fun out of a bad book than we would have done with a good one.
And I do like Tom's "cranky old man" theory too. Mind you, he was 57 when Part 1 was published and 61 when the conclusion was published, but died at 65 in 1898, so he was certainly getting to the end of his life. |
12-28-2017, 09:59 AM | #53 | |
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This reminds me, obviously tangentially, of Hollywood's penchant for remaking classic films. It has been suggested it would be much more productive if they picked interesting failures and tried to address what went wrong. Sylvie and Bruno has that quality of being an interesting failure. The discussion has certainly more than redeemed the occasional tedium of reading the book for me. |
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12-28-2017, 02:43 PM | #54 | |
cacoethes scribendi
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Did he narrate the preface? If not, maybe he skipped reading it too. If you never read the explanation it would be easy to think that a distorted pronunciation was the intention. (A little bit of Bruno in all of them ... shudder.) |
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12-29-2017, 02:06 PM | #55 |
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I share many of the reservations others have expressed about this novel. I particularly dislike the “little boy language” Carroll seems to find necessary for Bruno.
It is worth pointing out that there is an opinion that Sylvie and Bruno is an astonishing masterpiece far ahead of its time. While clearly one doesn’t have to accept this position it is worth reading an apologia for the book. Here is one such: http://popculturephilosopher.com/sylvie-and-bruno/ |
12-29-2017, 03:06 PM | #56 |
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This reads like it's written by someone heavily on mind altering drugs.
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12-29-2017, 03:43 PM | #57 | ||
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12-29-2017, 04:55 PM | #58 | |
cacoethes scribendi
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I am wary of a phrase like "ahead of its time", but there are elements of Sylvie and Bruno that do seem that way to me - though I don't think the author of that article means the same thing I do. My examples would include things like the disapproval of hunting sports, which would - I expect - have been unusual for the time but would find much wider support now. The article also brings out the overused phrase "obeys its own logic and rules". For this to be true it is necessary to demonstrate that there is a logic or set of rules, and then to demonstrate that the book obeys them. That article, just like me, fails to find any examples. (The proposed examples in the article are all examples of inconsistency, which demonstrates neither rules nor their compliance.) The article suggests there are poems in Sylvie and Bruno to rival the more famous examples from the Alice books. I don't see that. I think this is one area where Carroll failed in his stated objective to be different to Alice, and that similarity in an unfamiliar context (a context that, for me, doesn't suit the style as well) makes them yet another aspect of Sylvie and Bruno that is disappointing. |
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12-29-2017, 06:31 PM | #59 |
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If this is "ahead of its time", its time has not yet come.
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12-29-2017, 06:47 PM | #60 | |
Wizard
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Last edited by fantasyfan; 12-29-2017 at 06:49 PM. |
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