Noted in passing

We already knew that German Emo has deep roots*. But did you know that there is an equally powerful French strain?

—What! he said. Do you not realize that there are souls in endless torment? They are craving for dreams and action, the purest passions, the wildest pleasures, and thus they cast us into all kinds of fantasies, and foolishness.

Then she looked at him just as you gaze upon a traveller come from a far-away land.

—We don't even have that consolation, we poor women!

—Sad consolation, for it brings no happiness.

Rodolphe has also recently professed a sometime desire, of a melancholy night, to join the happy in the churchyard. True, he's certainly not being sincere and is just attempting to get into Emma's skirts, but the mere fact that such methods work constitute an indictment. (Rodolphe himself is more likely to gild a tortoise than to black his eyes, I suspect. It's Emma one must look out for. And I don't know, at this point, if his methods will turn out to have worked. But they seem to be working, progressive aspect.)

Did you know that "emo drama baby" is very nearly an anagram of "Madame Bovary"? FACT.

* The last line is translated as "will you grind your organ to my songs?". (a) Five'll get you ten it's really a hurdy-gurdy. (b) Heh.

Comments

[Jonathan]

But will your dissertation be the monster of erudition that Helen DeWitt's is?

[ben wolfson]

Somehow I had the idea that DeWitt dropped out of grad school. At any rate, my first novel will certainly out-erudite The Last Samurai.