The excitement for Emma’s video essay on “Why I Read the Classics” (i.e., the first preview of her Charles Eliot Norton lecture which she will give one day!!!!!) is UNREAL! Emma we cannot wait! ❤
Write all over your hardbacks, you only YOLO once. And yes, bad prose in modern books annoys me too. YOUR BOOKS ARE LITERALLY WORDS ON A PAGE, MAKE THOSE WORDS GOOD. Two thumbs up, lovely vid.
Congratulations to your mum!! I'm so excited for the video about the classics, as a student doing a masters in Classical studies and English I always get asked why I read so many classics. And it's at times a very hard question 🫠😅
Anaïs nin is soo good tho. She just understood trying to find your identity as a woman, sexually as well as emotionally and the psychology behind that. Not just her fiction, her diaries are so good to (her personal life raises some eyebrows to say the least), I've been meaning to read more of her works so this is a good reminder😊
oh my gosh yes she's a wild one i love that for her, there's so many people we like to reveeer as writers with their stunning prose and intellectualism and then you step back and realise hang on you're just a hot mess like i am, you just word it better hahahah (Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller and their whole Anaïs / Henry / June stuff is faaascinating tho)
Our snowmen souls remember Valley Forge. Our breath the canon smoke of winter’s past. Our frozen fingers bend the taffy torn and share the pieces on this frigid path. Were poorer humans really meant to freeze? Thy cheeks inspired macarons to pink; thy face reminds the rich we need some heat! but pleads for fire’s chatter on the bricks. We all deserve a palace fireplace, a hall to dance beneath their chandeliers. Our snowflake faces blizzard at their gates, the guiIIotine in the distance blurs. Oh but for now you’re pretty in thy rags because there's plenty more thy face can ask. - a sonnet that i wrote
I feel like a handful of years ago I would have said 1960s Paris to answer your question about a setting that resonates with me and my soul- SO many of my favorite films are French or from the 1960s or both! But early last year I got really into the early 1900s, like late 1890s and even into the 1930s if I widened the period more. And still Paris. I'm trying to think of where the interest stemmed from specifically but I'm not certain. I know part of it had to do with films I was watching from around the time as well as period pieces set then. But I'm sure the chain was started with venturing into learning about the art movements and artistry. I've become obsessed with Art Nouveau! ...honestly, looking at my letterboxd, watching Colette (2018) could have been an influence!
now that you've mentioned it, i'm not sure i believe in past lives or not, but it's nice to think there was a version of me who lived in new york in the late 60s/early 70s. i've had an intense obsession with that place in time since i can remember. or maybe that's just a consequence of watching the movie 'across the universe' when i was way too young for it.
yeeeeees this is such a vibe tho, like it's so funny how a movie or book can just hook itself onto your soul and then be like 'this is our comfort place now, give me more of this and only this'
as an academic who is researching handwritten annotations in books.. keep writing all over them! you're the type of reader we love lol. on grief, i went through it for the first time in my mid 20s and there's nothing in the world that can prepare you for it even though it's one of those certainties of life. i'm still not at a place where i can read about it much, even after a couple years.. i thought about reading rilke's letters on the subject but it was still too much. also it took me forever to finish nin's delta of venus this year but i adored house of incest and i really want to read her nonfiction now. prose rant > SO REAL
I can't handle myself buying more books, I I bought one for example my daughter tell me that there is a series, so I returned ordering them and the list really didn't finish, I am totally broken yesterday I bought books with the sum of 216 USD but it's ok for a yearly purchase and I am over the sky because they make me happy.
You would love Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. You can tell the author has a passion for books. I am currently reading The Labyrinth of the Spirits by him. It is amazing. The Book Thief is one of my favorites!!!
Decided to watch some of your mum's lectures after this video. You are so alike - beautiful and smart❤ It's amazing to finally have you back on RU-vid.
Your mom's book sounds absolutely wonderful! I can't wait to get into it. Honestly, I think it's a worthwhile topic to take a deeper look at. This will probably become my next obsession lol
Regarding your mother's book, Palgrave Macmillan/Springer Nature does some pretty nice flash sales. Once or twice a year, it'll even slash prices down to 20 USD/GBP/Euro each.
It's amazing to find someone that is also slightly obsessed with the 18th century. In my case it's the art, but that means history and philosophy and all the rest as well. I agree that context is everything, I'm serious considering getting that tattooed on myself somewhere.
