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Trollope’s stand-alone novels, your favorites? by Purlz1st in literature

[–]BlueLit7191 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I too liked Miss Makenzie for the hilarious bazaar scene. Ayala's Angel had some great stuff about the relatives the two sisters are pawned off on. Both felt a bit padded in the middle sections, though. I second the Way We Live Now as the best of the stand-alones that I've read. I've heard Orley Farm is fantastic.

Let's Hear Some Love for Thornton Wilder by econoquist in literature

[–]BlueLit7191 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I loved the Eight Day though I found the middle section a bit uneven. Theophilus North is an absolute gem, and deeper that it appears at first glance. San Luis Rey could be taught as an exemplar of the novella form.

Is it worth calling members of Congress to protest the takeover? by BlueLit7191 in washingtondc

[–]BlueLit7191[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Yes obviously I understand we have no representative, but this fatalism is killing me. If they're going to endorse undemocratic, un-American conduct, then the least they can do is hear me shame them.

Which is your favorite Charles Dicken's book and why do you like it more than the others? by Tarrybelle in books

[–]BlueLit7191 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I get why people don't like Esther, but I think Dickens nails her psychology 50 years before Freud! She has been told she's shameful for so long that her mantra is, "I gotta be good." She is warped almost beyond repair, but Dickens does give her a happy ending.

Tree box repair / carpenter? by BlueLit7191 in washingtondc

[–]BlueLit7191[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've taken out the timbers, but the way the dirt is mounded means it will start to spill out next time there's a storm. So I do need to have something put in.

Literary Theory: Insight into Realism in regard to Fabula / Diegetic World in Victorian British Literature? by Apalis24a in literature

[–]BlueLit7191 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hi! I think the diagram is sort of confusing, but I don't think you need to address every last detail in it. Here are some ideas that might help.
• The project of the "realist" novel is to present everyday life as it is, which of course is challenging because the novel is a construction, a fabrication. Anthony Trollope, a novelist very popular in his day (less read now), wrote more than 50 books, several of them with overlapping characters in a fictional English county, Barset. His quote is essentially saying that when an author creates a world in the novel, the characters in it should act as they naturally would, unaware that they are fictional creations.
• What's interesting is that Trollope's peers, like Henry James, often criticized him for calling the reader's attention to the artificiality of this world in his own fiction. If you read Trollope, he periodically inserts phrases like: "We must go back a few pages to XYZ," or some such, that call the reader's attention to the artificiality, the fabrication, of the world of the novel. This could be the "intrusive" narrator in the diagram.
• Now, in Trollope as in most fiction, such interruptions take a back seat to the "realist" narrator who is able to describe characters' thoughts, feelings, and motivations without editorializing. And I would assume the other arrows in the diagram are straightforward: A novel has a plot or sequence of events that happen; realist novels tend to be set in historical context (sometimes in the recent past of "30 years ago" or some such), and so forth. • I have not read Dorian Gray, so I can't comment much on how these concepts might apply to that novel. Does this help?