hello

It has been another unexpected hiatus and I have neglected this spot again. A quick update..

I was recently done with Frankenstein. There was a lot of reading on buses, between classes, before bed but it was really worth it. One of the things that astounds me about the text is the complex layering of the narration; it's a subtle (or not so much, depending on how important you feel the layering contributes to the text) experimentation in consistency. Imagine, for those of you who have read it, hearing a story that has passed through many lips before you even begun reading it. In the microcosmic framework - limited here specifically to the world of Frankenstein -, there is the author, Mary Shelly (1) who writes about Walton's (2) publication of a series of letters he wrote to his sister, Margaret (3) about his journeys. He meets Victor Frankenstein (4) who takes over the narration by way of telling a story about his monstrous creation (5), who, in some part of the tale tells a story. I am sure that upon returning to the text, I will be able to find more examples but I should suppose these will suffice for now. An early metafictional novel? I won't pretend to know much about the gothic genre or theories about metafiction, although I do know a little but unfortunately not enough to speak intelligently about them. Alas, the only things I can speak coherently about are but my intriguings that come to me separate from theories or philosophies. And so - interesting, isn't it, that such a compelling tale can come through at least 5 narrators; and more amazing is that this happens all so carefully and quietly so that it is unnoticed; the text is conscious of bearing the weight of at least four other people - and this is what I like most about it.

This morning in the bus to school, I delightedly read Anton Chekov's The Upheaval. Unable to conflate my feelings about the story into a neat package, I ended up concluding that it was one half funny-outrageous and the other half, for the lack of a better word, sad. It captured a tiny moment in time when a man, overcome by embarrassment and surprise, confesses as though at a Catholic church, to his governess, flushing at his crime even while the words pour out, as though forcibly, through his lips. His manner and speech are almost comical if we don't remember the governess' intense feelings of betrayal from earlier on. Needless to say, it was wonderful and I loved it.