This isn’t something that happens to me very often. I’m a reader; I generally like the books offered to me. But there are some books that hit me violently within the first few pages, and I know I’m falling in love. Such is the case with Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. I’m too jittery to do my statistics homework (imagine that). I don’t particularly want to be writing this post, to be perfectly honest, because I’d much rather be finding out what exactly is going on with Basil Hallward than staring at my own letters strung together on a screen. Wilde’s, as well as his words and sentences and paragraphs and thoughts, are so much fuller and wittier and more beautiful.
Until we meet again, AP Lit blog. Perhaps by then my crush on a book will have subsided a bit. It’s looking doubtful, though.
a good egg
I know I’m supposed to be annoyed by the arrogant, oblivious Emma Woodhouse, but she’s such a charismatic young woman that I can’t help but be drawn in by her naive charm. She’s that girl who everyone wants as their friend: pretty, clever, able to carry a party singlehandedly. She needs someone to bring her down to earth at some point, that’s for sure. But while she invests her heart and soul in her endeavors entirely for the sake of a friend, how can I hate her? Her heart is good, if slightly insane. I just hope she doesn’t wreck poor Harriet’s life too badly.
cleanliness is godliness
If you handed Shakespeare a Rubik’s cube, chances are he’d be the guy who could untwist it in thirty seconds flat. He presents a muddled tale of long-lost identical siblings (neither of whom realizes that the other is alive) questionable lusting of varied intensity, and externally imposed madness. Just reading about these strange entanglements is a vaguely stressful experience, but of course everything manages to right itself in the end. Though one could argue that the conflicts are resolved in too simplistic a manner to leave the reader thoroughly satisfied, in this case my love of tidiness overpowers my need for detail. And the ongoing wordplay doesn’t hurt at all.
on geometry
Okay. Let me just sort through what we have so far.
Orsino loves Olivia. When Viola hears this, for some inexplicable reason, she decides it would be in her best interest to disguise herself as a young man in order to help Orsino gain the object of his desire. In the process, she falls in love with him. Meanwhile, Olivia’s icy heart begins to warm upon meeting Viola, disguised as young Cesario.
I usually find that the only truth in the phrase “love triangle” is that three parties are generally involved, but here is an example of romantic entanglements in true triangle formation. This is exactly my brand of tidy and preposterous, and I can’t wait to read the rest.
