Literary analysis has no off button
Aug. 11th, 2009 10:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolorosa_12Following through with my Michael Ende kick, I read The Neverending Story. (You might be surprised that I hadn't read it before now, but my childhood reading was very, very Australian.) I was considering posting a review-type post over on Wordpress, but my thoughts were too incoherent and scattered to really do the book justice.
However, while I was reading, something odd struck me. A few days ago, I'd been having a conversation in #btts about Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, and made a throwaway remark along the lines of 'Sorry I can't switch off the literary analysis. I'm such a literature student, it's wired in me.' One of my friends said, 'Well, that's excellent that your studies *encourage* your literary analysis impulses. When I was a student, I couldn't bear to think about books that way.'
I thought I was exaggerating. Then I looked at my notebook (well, two small squares of my journal), which, by the end of the three hours it took for me to read The Neverending Story, were filled with tiny, cramped writing in green pen. Clearly, the urge to analyse texts is inescapable for me.
So, I thought I'd treat you to the raw product - what my mind spews out as I'm reading a new book. It's probably gibberish. Oh well, I'll put it behind a cut. Also, I should warn that there are spoilers.
(Direct quotes in bold. My notes in regular type.)
'I wonder what's in a book when it's closed. Oh, I know it's full of letters printed on paper, but all the same, something must be happening.'
Childlike Empress=Earth? Life? Thought? Imagination. In any case, she's an anthropomorphic personification.
She needs a new name! :)
'Only the right name gives beings and things their reality. A wrong name makes everything unreal. That's what lies do.'
C.E.=LIFE. Confirmed by Old Man of Wandering Mountain.
And Shakespeare visited, of course.
C.E. and Old Man=Huginn and Muninn? B. even calls her 'Moon Child', which evokes Muninn in sound at least. And Thought does eat Memory.
Saving the Otherworld=saving the 'real' world because both need one another. cf Sophie Masson.
Dame Eyola---->Triple Goddess ie Woman as Change.
'Every real story is a Neverending Story. [...] There are many doors to Fantastica. [...] There are other such magic books. A lot of people read them without noticing. It all depends on who gets his hands on such books.'
However, while I was reading, something odd struck me. A few days ago, I'd been having a conversation in #btts about Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, and made a throwaway remark along the lines of 'Sorry I can't switch off the literary analysis. I'm such a literature student, it's wired in me.' One of my friends said, 'Well, that's excellent that your studies *encourage* your literary analysis impulses. When I was a student, I couldn't bear to think about books that way.'
I thought I was exaggerating. Then I looked at my notebook (well, two small squares of my journal), which, by the end of the three hours it took for me to read The Neverending Story, were filled with tiny, cramped writing in green pen. Clearly, the urge to analyse texts is inescapable for me.
So, I thought I'd treat you to the raw product - what my mind spews out as I'm reading a new book. It's probably gibberish. Oh well, I'll put it behind a cut. Also, I should warn that there are spoilers.
(Direct quotes in bold. My notes in regular type.)
'I wonder what's in a book when it's closed. Oh, I know it's full of letters printed on paper, but all the same, something must be happening.'
Childlike Empress=Earth? Life? Thought? Imagination. In any case, she's an anthropomorphic personification.
She needs a new name! :)
'Only the right name gives beings and things their reality. A wrong name makes everything unreal. That's what lies do.'
C.E.=LIFE. Confirmed by Old Man of Wandering Mountain.
And Shakespeare visited, of course.
C.E. and Old Man=Huginn and Muninn? B. even calls her 'Moon Child', which evokes Muninn in sound at least. And Thought does eat Memory.
Saving the Otherworld=saving the 'real' world because both need one another. cf Sophie Masson.
Dame Eyola---->Triple Goddess ie Woman as Change.
'Every real story is a Neverending Story. [...] There are many doors to Fantastica. [...] There are other such magic books. A lot of people read them without noticing. It all depends on who gets his hands on such books.'
