Skip to main content

Yesterday, Polidori; today, Maturin

I can't believe I'm finally reading Maturin's Melmoth at the ripe age of 26. I remember reading about it when I did my thesis on gothic romance in high school, but I could not locate a copy. Thanks to Gutenberg and the wonders of technology I have all the books at my disposal I have sought.

Anyway, those two stories were written in the same era-- the 1810's; they could not be more different. Polidori was immensely effusive in his writing style and his characters were possessed of inconquerable sensibility. Maturin, on the other hand, is as unadorned as a Victorian writer. It's remarkable to think he wrote this way at a time when no one else did.

Polidori's Vampyre was a great disappointment to me. It seems Polidori must have gotten tired of writing it and ceased to take it seriously-- the last bit seems entirely a joke. I am only in the first of Melmoth, but the characters are entirely different, very hard and straightforward. I think I will like it. From what I have read, it expands to the madhouse and the death chamber, and I would like to know how that was two hundred years ago.

Popular posts from this blog

The secret to a happy home

I finished Marion Harland's guide tonight and I wonder ceaselessly at two things. 1. She is so down on America! Even more than I am. She complains of things in which I am so well-steeped I could not see them for what they were. In particular, American style and cookery. It is true that our food, which we count as so much more generous in portion than the overseas counterpart, is as coarse and indecorous as it is plentiful, but as an American woman I cast up my hands and declare I would rather spend my time on something else. She makes an interesting point about American women's fashions. In France women wear what looks good on them, and in America women wears what comes off the manufacturing line in the latest style. It is very conformist, and I have to admit I feel it in myself, for I would be embarrassed to wear something that is "out" even if it flattered me better. 2. Harland's other point I feel clearly from last night's experiences. I looked in my journ...

Helen Keller

Reading this Women of Influence book is causing me to remember another of my great childhood loves -- "The Miracle Worker," the story of Anne Sullivan and Helen Keller. It was Anne Sullivan I really loved, and still love -- it always made me heartsick to think of her sacrifice, devoting every waking minute to another human being, with almost no life left to herself, until she died in old age, and Helen Keller required another translator. But God -- she must have known it -- that's the best way to live -- it is to have every moment of your life swallowed in supreme goodness and satisfaction. No wonder I loved her, and no longer do I feel sorry for her -- I envy her. I thought of her today perhaps because when I was around eight or nine I grew aware that she and I shared the same initials "AS." Today is the first day that I am Amanda Monteleone at work, and I have written my initials "AM" dozens of times already. It's strange, but the satisfaction of...

Sprouts

Sprouts Originally uploaded by ladyhildegarde . I am getting sprouts. Hopefully they are carnations. It is such a beautiful spring day. It's good I'm taking the chance to come outside: I have craved a moment to reflect on something beautiful.