Miscellaneous Feminism Thread

luka

Well-known member
I don't think I was really reading it properly, just turning the pages if you know what I mean
 

luka

Well-known member
I've been doing some Ulysses, bits I've read before more than once, and it's like I've never read it before, again, I was just turning the pages. Waste of time. I hope I'm past that stage of my life now,
 

catalog

Well-known member
my present theory on the big books is that it's a matter of luck as to whether you get it or it speaks to you.

there's a few hundred pages of ulysses where i was just turning the pages and it made no sense whatsoever.

somehow in lockdown i've discovered some reading discipline for the first time in ages and basically force myself to read 30 pages or so every day, whether it's good or bad.
 

luka

Well-known member
I think it's a matter of picking your moment and recognising when you've got an opening and correspondingly, not wasting your time beating your head against a brick wall when the opening isn't there

whats happened is that i have, for a short time only, been granted an ability to interface with aspects of the text which i am usually blocked from.
the continual opening up and shutting down of these opportunities to interface with different aspects of the Face of God is very interesting to me but have nothing to do with tangents.
 

luka

Well-known member
Being honest with yourself. This isn't working. I'm not really reading this. And putting it down and picking up something you can read. Trying again a year down the line or whatever.
 

jenks

thread death
Being honest with yourself. This isn't working. I'm not really reading this. And putting it down and picking up something you can read. Trying again a year down the line or whatever.
Absolutely- it’s why I have so many on the go and recognising what’s going to fit. I totally get that ‘just turning the pages’ idea especially when reading stuff in the past. I now think I’m more honest about it because, after all, no one gives a shit about whether you’ve read Proust or not, except possibly yourself.
 

luka

Well-known member
There's also the question of what's good enough for instance the newspaper office, for me, too many names, can't handle it, have to get a piece of paper, draw on it, circle for bloom, one for Steve, one for JJ, who are these people? Look it up.
 

jenks

thread death
There's also the question of what's good enough for instance the newspaper office, for me, too many names, can't handle it, have to get a piece of paper, draw on it, circle for bloom, one for Steve, one for JJ, who are these people? Look it up.
I’ve taken to having a Wikipedia page for Little Dorrit for those times when I can’t quite remember how a minor character came into the story. Just so I can retrace and pick up their thread.
 

luka

Well-known member
A genius like Prynne not only remembers all these people but knows exactly where they are standing in relation to one another and the room etc. We don't have the brain power but we can replicate the effect by drawing it out on paper if we find we've got the energy for it.

That kind of modelling Prynne says is absolutely non negotiable for adequate reading
 

poetix

we murder to dissect
I think absorbing, or half-absorbing, stuff you can't really schematise or represent clearly to yourself, is a valid way of reading, for a first pass over a text anyway. Just attuning yourself to the vibe, getting used to the way it goes. Eventually the mists will part and solid objects will start to assemble themselves in front of you; or they won't. You can bounce off a text, or you can splash about in it shallowly for a bit. It's OK, there's no exam at the end.

Later on, when you've got the hang of things, you can experience the world of the text as a model universe, full of things that hang together in some way, such that the things that don't seem to hang together with the other things stand out as puzzles: given that it seems to work like this, what's that doing there? And sometimes the answer is that the author thought they were building an extension to their mansion of sense, but it sort of collapsed in on itself or became a tunnel to nowhere; or the answer is that they were going through a divorce and certain rancours and long-suppressed libidinal stirrings were having their way with the writing process, or whatever. Few authors are total masters of their own domain. But it's typically more illuminating to assume that something is part of the way the text is meant to be than to write it off as a pure aberration. It's just that the entity doing the meaning may not be identical with the person the author is trying to tell you they are.
 

WashYourHands

Cat Malogen
A senior female colleague who doesn’t give a fuck about language around the people she knows, described her nether regions as a “walrus mouth, it’ll fuckin bite you and appall you when I ride your face” with complete confidence today

You can take the girl out of Manchester etc
 

version

Well-known member
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