Here we are at the end of November, and here you are wondering why I have put you through this experience of reading a Victorian epic poem about a complainy poet and a saintly poor person and a snooty philanthropist and a sneaky posh lady. I don’t really have a moral to tell you. I just like Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s writing a lot. I think that underneath all that waffling on about the nobility of poetry, and all that Manichean stuff about virtue and evil (ugh okay it’s not Manichean BUT KINDA), she can be a shockingly modern writer, and…
5 CommentsTag: Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Aurora Leigh Readalong, Part Three
Published 16 Nov 2017
by
Gin Jenny
I enjoy that the consensus of this Aurora Leigh readalong immediately and spontaneously coalesced into the following: This is very hard and requires slow, careful reading. But so many good lines! Also, Romney is a butthead. Those three main bullet points do sum up with extreme accuracy the main three things I remember from reading Aurora Leigh for the first time in 2010 or whatever it was. For those reading along at home, I do not remember softening towards Romney as time went on. Maybe this reread will surprise me (but I don’t think so). How can I ever like…
4 CommentsAurora Leigh Readalong: Part Two
Published 9 Nov 2017
by
Gin Jenny
We commence Book Three with Aurora telling us a little of her career after her aunt’s death. There’s some wonderfully bitchy lines that make me wish EBB had lived in the age of Twitter (or, I mean, at least the age of online criticism, right?). He’s ‘forced to marry where his heart is not, Because the purse lacks where he lost his heart.’ Ah!–lost it because no one picked it up! That’s really loss! HARSH. Mostly, though, she’s writing about writing, and it’s a good time to mention that L.M. Montgomery, author most famously of Emily of New Moon and…
4 CommentsAurora Leigh Readalong: Part One
Published 2 Nov 2017
by
Gin Jenny
AT LAST I HAVE TRIUMPHED. Many years have I been badgering my good friend Alice to do a readalong of Aurora Leigh; many years has she responded with limited enthusiasm to the prospect of reading a Victorian epic poem about a cranky lady poet. BUT I HAVE WORN HER DOWN. Thanks, Wonder Woman! I am proud! So we are duly launching into the Aurora Leigh readalong, and I hope nobody hates it, since the fact that we’re doing it is absolutely my fault. The first book introduces us to little Aurora, whose mother dies when she is quite young and…
8 CommentsBrowning Letters Readalong, Part 2 (June 1845 to October 1845)
Published 8 Jul 2013
by
Gin Jenny
Well, the major event of this portion of the Browning letters is, of course, the mutual declaration (ish — Elizabeth’s still being a little cautious about it) of love. They stop playing games where Robert doesn’t talk about being in love with Elizabeth and Elizabeth doesn’t talk about being in love with Robert. Those games could be really sweet, but it’s even sweeter for them to be able to say, I love you and that will always be true. Thematically, what interests me about this section is Elizabeth’s falling in love with Robert. I feel like you see it first…
11 CommentsAnyone care to read the Browning letters with me?
Published 9 Apr 2013
by
Gin Jenny
I’ve been wanting to reread their letters for a while now anyway, and it would be more fun if other people read them with me! I’ve just downloaded an epub copy of the whole set of them from the New York Public Library (thanks, library!). Gutenberg only has the first volume available for epub, so if you can’t find the full version with both volumes, please say so in the comments and I’ll email you the epub file. (I’ll do that regardless of whether or not you want to join me in this readalong, of course. I am not holding…
12 CommentsLady’s Maid, Margaret Forster
Published 4 Dec 2008
by
Gin Jenny
Hmph. One quick method to make me not finish your book: Talk shit about Robert Browning. I was reading this book Lady’s Maid, which is a story about Elizabeth Barrett Browning from the point of view of her maid, Wilson, and for a while I was only bothered by how little Robert Browning there was in the book. I kept reading, expecting to see more of dear, sweet, lovely Robert Browning (born on my birthday!), and very little was forthcoming. And I was only half paying attention to it while I was reading it, because in my mind I kept…
4 CommentsGeek Love and True Love
Published 20 Jul 2008
by
Gin Jenny
The past few days have been a bit weird, reading-wise. I was reading Geek Love – recommended to me by Toryssa as an antidote to the trite blahness of Water for Elephants (Water to Elephants? I can never remember) – and then when I wasn’t reading that, I was reading the Brownings’ letters to each other when they were a-courting. It’s been strange. Geek Love is two stories running consecutively: the main character, Olympia, is a hunchback dwarf from a family that deliberately bred freaks in order to make their circus all interesting, and she’s telling the story of her…
6 Comments