Etiqueta: quote
-
What is the Mabinogion?
The Mabinogion is the collective name now given to eleven medieval Welsh tales found mainly in two manuscripts, the White Book of Rhydderch (Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, MS Peniarth 4–5), dated c.1350, and the Red Book of Hergest (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Jesus College 111), dated between 1382 and c.1410. The term is a scribal error for mabinogi, derived from the Welsh word mab meaning…
-
Why do stories need luck to survive?
[…] in 1936, when she was twenty-nine, the firm of Willett Clark published the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogion by Evangeline Walton under the title The Virgin and the Swine. An America just climbing out of a worldclass Depression was notably uninterested in fantastic legend, still the stuff of children’s books. Next, three loosely linked short stories appeared, based on the Breton legend…
-
What are books?
PLACE, PRACTICE, AND KNOWLEDGEBooks are a load of crap. PHILIP LARKIN, «A Study of Reading Habits,» Collected Poems, 131 I read that in THE NATURE OF THE BOOK. Print and Knowledge in the making. ADRIAN JOHNS. THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS. CHICAGO AND LONDON. Considering books are not necessarily THE truth, this thought [coming from a poet] is a bold declaration from the perspective of…
-
Does your fiction begin with death?
Perhaps a Hero has no romantic partner, and is looking for the «missing piece» to complete her life. Thisis often symbolized in fairy tales by having the Hero experience a loss or a death in the family. Many fairy tales begin with the death of a parent or the kidnapping of a brother or sister.…
-
Is fiction proper?
Yet, despite drawing on much older material, the author of the ‘Four Branches’ attempts to make the tales relevant to his own time, and indeed to any period, by using them to convey his views regarding appropriate moral behaviour, doing so by implication rather than by any direct commentary. THE MABINOGION. Translated with an Introduction and Notes by SIONED…
-
Is communication overrated?
When communication nonetheless breaks down (as it sometimes does) we can pinpoint the error and make our language more specific: Yet another dark, oven-hot morning in yet another hotel bedroom, packing, dressing… and now I couldn’t find my sock. I opened the door of the wardrobe and said, ‘Have you seen my sock?’ ‘Shut it,’ she said. ‘I was…
-
Do you think too much? Just do it!
Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something— anything—down on paper. A friend of mine says that the first draft is the down draft—you just get it down. The second draft is the up draft—you fix it up. You try to say what you have…
-
How are food fantasies and famine related to fiction writing?
Daniel’s chapter on food fantasies and fetishes is most widely applicable to the food-as-temptation story. In British literature, food fantasies typically depict “rich foods” in “vast quantities as well as foods that contemporary discourses on health condemn as fat-laden” (62). Daniel notes that because of Europe’s history of famine (in England, France, and Ireland), food…
-
¿Cómo influye la piratería y la tecnología en la ficción?
Para bien o para mal, innumerable autores y editoriales se han encontrado con cierto grado de descontrol inducido por la piratería. Lo que significa que las experiencias asociadas con la prensa son, sin duda, diferentes de las familiares a muchos lectores occidentales. Y cualquier sugerencia acerca de las consecuencias culturales intrínsecas de la tecnología se…
-
¿Sobrevaloramos la comunicación?
Cuando la comunicación se rompe (como lo hace en ocasiones) podemos señalar el error y hacer nuestro lenguaje más específico. Sin duda otra oscura mañana, caliente como un horno en algún otra habitación de hotel, empacando, vistiéndose… y no encuentro mi calcetín. Abrí la puerta del armario y dije <<Has visto mi calcetín?>> <<Cierra>> dijo ella. <<Me estaba peinando con eso>>. Examiné ambas oraciones en su totalidad. No saqué…