Oh boy, I almost didn't make it.
SO: Lucy Snowe is a teacher extraordinaire who sometimes THROWS HER STUDENTS BODILY INTO CLOSETS, because that is how you handle the French (or the Catalan, as the case may be), who are, in Lucy Snowe's estimation, full of "marsh-phlegm", whatever that means. I am consistently baffled by late 19th century schooling, and how it was entirely insane. I am comparing Madame Beck to Mr Squeers in my head, so I kind of love her, until I ask myself how I would feel with that sort of person being in charge of me and OH BOY, would I ever hate it. She rifles through Lucy Snowe's stuff!! What is your DEAL, Beck? On a related note, what kind of a French name is "Beck"?
Speaking of French, I have a confession to make. Although I am Canadian, I have the misfortune to not speak French beyond "boun jour" and "oui". It's my everlasting shame. But then, if I had learned French, I would speak Quebecois French and not Parisian French and would be driven batty by what, I assume, is Parisian French in this book so I suppose it is fine to make do with the translations in the back of my book or the muddling-out-the-meaning-through-context-and-the-few-French-words-I-know method that I've employed so far. My excuse is that I am WESTERN Canadian, we finance the nation but we don't speak French.
I totally called the Isidore = Dr John thing. Also: cool it on the ogling and effusive descriptions of people's looks, Lucy Snowe. We get it.
Here is a summary of every conversation Lucy and Ginevra have:
Is "antipathy" CB's favorite word? OMGosh she never stops using it. Using "antipathy" and speaking degradingly about Catholicism: CB's two favourite literary devices.
I feel like I should have more to say besides "you go girl" about CB's feminist attitudes, but I am currently writing essays on things like "the effects of feminism in the former USSR and post-apartheid South Africa, compared" and all my real intellectual thought it going towards that.
I apologize that this post is so gif-lite. Here's a good one to make up for it:
Lucy locking that student in the closet...man she can be a hardass.
ReplyDeleteI didn't even mention how much of this section was in French and therefore required me to sort of guess what was going on at any given moment because my high school French classes are far behind me.
Sooooo half my major was French and therefore this is all fiiine, but I assumed y'all were reading editions that had fancy translated footnotes. No?
DeleteI am reading the "This version is freeeeeeeeeeeee and also full of typos and no translations" version. But FREE so I'm dealing with it.
DeleteI've got fancy translated end notes, so I just have to do some flipping back and forth. They're also helpful for cultural allusions I don't get, which is nice.
Delete"My excuse is that I am WESTERN Canadian, we finance the nation but we don't speak French."
ReplyDeleteAhahahaha It is a Canadian economy/geography joke! And it is APPRECIATED.
Yeeeah, we all probably could've gotten more in depth about stuff, but there was SO MUCH I DID NOT REALIZE THERE WAS SO MUCH but maybe next week it'll be more manageable. Hopefully. It's only five chapters. So. Should be ok.
Haha, after re-reading my post I realized that I talked more about French and Canada than I did about the actual book, so no worries on how long the section was. NEXT WEEK I WILL DO BETTER.
DeleteOH MY GOD is that Harmony Kendall playing the fourteen-year-old version of her exact same character in Buffy? The word is so small and weird.
ReplyDeleteI did not even realize that (100% focused on Wednesday Addams) but you are definitely right and that is definitely hilarious/so weird.
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