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Nov. 13th, 2011 07:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatPleasant day. Did a little meditation. Road a very odd bus - it has the weird bendable device in the middle of it. Reminding me of why I don't like buses, possibly the most dangerous mode of travel known. The things that can go wrong. And far too dependent on the driver's expertise. Really hate bus travel. Always have convinced I'm going to get killed. The only buses I ever enjoyed are in England and Wales. In Wales, ( back in the 1980s, I don't know if they still exist haven't been there since 1988) they had these nifty double decker green buses, you could sit on the top, at the very front and it was bit like riding a rollercoaster up and down those hills. London buses are fun too, but nothing like those old Welsh double deckers...also oddly safer than the US long distance buses. My dad drove a bus in a former life - not in Wales, in Yellowstone and Glacier National Park.
Have been re-reading bits of Checkmate by Dorothy Dunnett (this is the last book in the Chronicles of Lymond historical novels. Granted, I've been reading George RR Martin lately, but she still an odd writer. Dunnet writes around things. She doesn't write directly about something or describes it directly, she eludes to it.
Here's an example of a sex scene or love scene between her two main characters:
And so, incontinently, the striding flame that consumed them, without words, without courtship became, instead of the echo of lust, the cauterizing fire which expelled it for ever. For in the total extremity of need, with the fine mind overturned and subjugated for once by the overwhelming desires of the body, there still remained, drowned and helpless but there, the shadows of grace, and care, and courtesy, caught fast like stars in the deluge.
In short, they had wild passionate sex, which as described, oddly, inspires me to giggles. (Possibly a sign that I've read far too much erotic fanfic on the internet for my own good?) Flowery writer, Dunnett. Although the scene is relatively short and points for an economic use of language. She also has the oddest tendency to insert words that I don't know and foreign languages in the middle of the text, along with Gallic 16th Century Poetry - which is admittedly fitting, I think the story takes place in the 16th Century or thereabouts. Although I'm not sure someone would be reciting Gallic poetry during it...but who knows?
So that he had the felicity of wakening her; and the first thing she knew was the exquisite drift of his hands, and his voice saying, "Qedeshet, Mistress of the Gods, Eye of Ra, who has none like her...Come and let us beget all kinds of living things.'
And then his true courtship of her had its beginning; and to the worship of his body, he joined the fairest garlands from the treasure house of his mind, and made a bower for her.
Adored; caressed into delight; conducted by delicate paths into ravishing labyrinths where pleasure, like carillions on glass, played upon pleasure, she leaned on his voice, and sometimes answered it.
...You meee embrace; in bosom soft you mee
Cherished, as I your onely chylde had bee...
Quen I wes hungry, ye me fed
Quen I was naikit, ye me cled
Oftymes ye game me herberye
And giaf me drynk, quen, I was drye
And vesyit me with myndis meik
Quen I was presonar, and seik...
We've basically switched to a version of Gallic or Scottish Gallic intermingled with English. I can't help but wonder if Dunnett was channeling Joyce, James Joyce liked to do the same things in Ulysses. Personally I can't quite envision someone quoting poetry while they are in the throws of sexual passion, but I guess it's possible. Does make me want to giggle though, which I'm guessing isn't the correct response?
There's another reason I always want to laugh during these pages of the book, they come at the very end...that reason is:
Friend A: Did you know that when the book was first published people were very upset, the writer had set them up to believe she'd killed the hero. He looks like he has been tragically killed. How dare she! They said. They were quite upset. And wrote angry letters to the writer. Also they threw the book away in a fury.
Me (bewildered): Did they read this in snatches online or in a book?
Friend: in a book like how you read it.
Me: But all they had to do was turn the page. He's clearly alive on the next page.
Friend: Not everyone likes to be spoiled like you do or reads ahead, or ...
Me: But it's on the very next page! Not even a chapter away, just five or six paragraphs.
Friend: yeah, well...
Sigh. People bewilder me.
Have been re-reading bits of Checkmate by Dorothy Dunnett (this is the last book in the Chronicles of Lymond historical novels. Granted, I've been reading George RR Martin lately, but she still an odd writer. Dunnet writes around things. She doesn't write directly about something or describes it directly, she eludes to it.
Here's an example of a sex scene or love scene between her two main characters:
And so, incontinently, the striding flame that consumed them, without words, without courtship became, instead of the echo of lust, the cauterizing fire which expelled it for ever. For in the total extremity of need, with the fine mind overturned and subjugated for once by the overwhelming desires of the body, there still remained, drowned and helpless but there, the shadows of grace, and care, and courtesy, caught fast like stars in the deluge.
In short, they had wild passionate sex, which as described, oddly, inspires me to giggles. (Possibly a sign that I've read far too much erotic fanfic on the internet for my own good?) Flowery writer, Dunnett. Although the scene is relatively short and points for an economic use of language. She also has the oddest tendency to insert words that I don't know and foreign languages in the middle of the text, along with Gallic 16th Century Poetry - which is admittedly fitting, I think the story takes place in the 16th Century or thereabouts. Although I'm not sure someone would be reciting Gallic poetry during it...but who knows?
So that he had the felicity of wakening her; and the first thing she knew was the exquisite drift of his hands, and his voice saying, "Qedeshet, Mistress of the Gods, Eye of Ra, who has none like her...Come and let us beget all kinds of living things.'
And then his true courtship of her had its beginning; and to the worship of his body, he joined the fairest garlands from the treasure house of his mind, and made a bower for her.
Adored; caressed into delight; conducted by delicate paths into ravishing labyrinths where pleasure, like carillions on glass, played upon pleasure, she leaned on his voice, and sometimes answered it.
...You meee embrace; in bosom soft you mee
Cherished, as I your onely chylde had bee...
Quen I wes hungry, ye me fed
Quen I was naikit, ye me cled
Oftymes ye game me herberye
And giaf me drynk, quen, I was drye
And vesyit me with myndis meik
Quen I was presonar, and seik...
We've basically switched to a version of Gallic or Scottish Gallic intermingled with English. I can't help but wonder if Dunnett was channeling Joyce, James Joyce liked to do the same things in Ulysses. Personally I can't quite envision someone quoting poetry while they are in the throws of sexual passion, but I guess it's possible. Does make me want to giggle though, which I'm guessing isn't the correct response?
There's another reason I always want to laugh during these pages of the book, they come at the very end...that reason is:
Friend A: Did you know that when the book was first published people were very upset, the writer had set them up to believe she'd killed the hero. He looks like he has been tragically killed. How dare she! They said. They were quite upset. And wrote angry letters to the writer. Also they threw the book away in a fury.
Me (bewildered): Did they read this in snatches online or in a book?
Friend: in a book like how you read it.
Me: But all they had to do was turn the page. He's clearly alive on the next page.
Friend: Not everyone likes to be spoiled like you do or reads ahead, or ...
Me: But it's on the very next page! Not even a chapter away, just five or six paragraphs.
Friend: yeah, well...
Sigh. People bewilder me.