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Dorrit
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“I'm chasing after that Holy Shit Effect.”
― I Can't Make This Up: Life Lessons
― I Can't Make This Up: Life Lessons
“Whatever appeals to the white working class is ennobled. What appeals to black workers, and all others outside the tribe, is dastardly identitarianism. All politics are identity politics - except the politics of white people, the politics of the blood heirloom.”
― We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy
― We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy
“Oh, here’s something fun—I don’t care what diet you’re on or what herbal supplements you take. If they work for you, I’m happy. I don’t know if it’s something about me, or if people walk around just dispensing unfounded medical advice to everyone they’ve ever met with a health issue, but more often than I’m comfortable with, some asshole with a high school diploma wants to sit me down and talk at me about how they can cure my wretched-gut disease.”
― We Are Never Meeting in Real Life.
― We Are Never Meeting in Real Life.
“Gervex's painting had a lurid and well-known literary source: it was based on Alfred de Musset's poem "Rolla," published in 1833 and 1840. The poem, a paradigm of July Monarchy romanticism, chronicles the disgrace that befalls Jacques Rolla, a son of the bourgeoisie, in the big city. The narrative of his decline — he squandered his fortune and committed suicide — is interleaved with lamentations over the moral and spiritual decadence of contemporary life. Thenineteen-year-old Rolla becomes the "most debauched man" in Paris, "where vice is the cheapest, the oldest and the most fertile in the world."
The poem tells a second story as well, that of Marie (or Maria or Marion), a pure young girl who becomes a degraded urban prostitute. Her story amplifies the poet's theme — a world in moral disarray - and provides the instrument of, and a sympathetic companion for, Rolla's climactic self-destruction. Musset is clear about his young prostitute's status: she was forced into a prostitution de la misère by economic circumstances ("what had debased her was, alas, poverty /And not love of gold"), and he frequently distinguishes her situation from that of the venal women of the courtesan rank ("Your loves are golden, lively and poetic; . . . you are not for sale at all"). He is also insistent about the tawdry circumstances in which the young woman had to practice her miserable profession ("the shameful curtains of that foul retreat," "in a hovel," "the walls of this gloomy and ramshackle room").
The segments of the poem from which Gervex drew his story — and which were published in press reviews of the painting — are these:
With a melancholy eye Rolla gazed on
The beautiful Marion asleep in her wide bed;
In spite of himself, an unnameable and diabolical horror
Made him tremble to the bone.
Marion had cost dearly. — To pay for his night
He had spent his last coins.
His friends knew it. And he, on arriving,
Had taken their hand and given his word that
In the morning no one would see him alive.
When Rolla saw the sun appear on the roofs,
He went and leaned out the window.
Rolla turned to look at Marie.
She felt exhausted, and had fallen asleep.
And thus both fled the cruelties of fate,
The child in sleep, and the man in death!
It was a moment of inaction, then, that Gervex chose to paint - that of weary repose for her and melancholic contemplation for Rolla, following the night of paid sex and just prior to his suicide.”
― Painted Love: Prostitution and French Art of the Impressionist Era
The poem tells a second story as well, that of Marie (or Maria or Marion), a pure young girl who becomes a degraded urban prostitute. Her story amplifies the poet's theme — a world in moral disarray - and provides the instrument of, and a sympathetic companion for, Rolla's climactic self-destruction. Musset is clear about his young prostitute's status: she was forced into a prostitution de la misère by economic circumstances ("what had debased her was, alas, poverty /And not love of gold"), and he frequently distinguishes her situation from that of the venal women of the courtesan rank ("Your loves are golden, lively and poetic; . . . you are not for sale at all"). He is also insistent about the tawdry circumstances in which the young woman had to practice her miserable profession ("the shameful curtains of that foul retreat," "in a hovel," "the walls of this gloomy and ramshackle room").
The segments of the poem from which Gervex drew his story — and which were published in press reviews of the painting — are these:
With a melancholy eye Rolla gazed on
The beautiful Marion asleep in her wide bed;
In spite of himself, an unnameable and diabolical horror
Made him tremble to the bone.
Marion had cost dearly. — To pay for his night
He had spent his last coins.
His friends knew it. And he, on arriving,
Had taken their hand and given his word that
In the morning no one would see him alive.
When Rolla saw the sun appear on the roofs,
He went and leaned out the window.
Rolla turned to look at Marie.
She felt exhausted, and had fallen asleep.
And thus both fled the cruelties of fate,
The child in sleep, and the man in death!
It was a moment of inaction, then, that Gervex chose to paint - that of weary repose for her and melancholic contemplation for Rolla, following the night of paid sex and just prior to his suicide.”
― Painted Love: Prostitution and French Art of the Impressionist Era
“what does 'functioning normally' mean?" I asked.
"Being able to face the past. Having a normal sex life. Not lying awake all night in fits of anxiety."
"Oh. Are most people able to face the past and have normal sex lives?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact, I think they are," she said. "Anyway, if anyone is, it should be me. Deep down I have a talent for well-being. I can feel it."
I nodded. I thought she had it, too, a talent for well-being.”
― The Idiot
"Being able to face the past. Having a normal sex life. Not lying awake all night in fits of anxiety."
"Oh. Are most people able to face the past and have normal sex lives?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact, I think they are," she said. "Anyway, if anyone is, it should be me. Deep down I have a talent for well-being. I can feel it."
I nodded. I thought she had it, too, a talent for well-being.”
― The Idiot
Our Shared Shelf
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OUR SHARED SHELF IS CURRENTLY DORMANT AND NOT MANAGED BY EMMA AND HER TEAM. Dear Readers, As part of my work with UN Women, I have started reading ...more
OUR SHARED SHELF IS CURRENTLY DORMANT AND NOT MANAGED BY EMMA AND HER TEAM. Dear Readers, As part of my work with UN Women, I have started reading ...more
Bloggers Unite™
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For those who blog, love books and love to read them both! Let’s open up the world of blogging and have lots of fun doing it; please join our Group. E ...more
For those who blog, love books and love to read them both! Let’s open up the world of blogging and have lots of fun doing it; please join our Group. E ...more
Top 5 Wednesday
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Welcome to the official group page of the T5W! This weekly book meme officiated in November 2013 and is still going strong! Join the group to become a ...more
Welcome to the official group page of the T5W! This weekly book meme officiated in November 2013 and is still going strong! Join the group to become a ...more
The Book Basilisks
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— last activity Mar 27, 2017 07:51AM
Welcome to the Book Basilisks... like bookworms, but deadlier! This is a book club for bookworms to read various books from different genres together ...more
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Welcome to the Book Basilisks... like bookworms, but deadlier! This is a book club for bookworms to read various books from different genres together ...more
Dorrit’s 2023 Year in Books
Take a look at Dorrit’s Year in Books. The good, the bad, the long, the short—it’s all here.
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