Sub Rosa

When I did my Victorian modules last year, I really wanted to tackle Dracula and compare it with the earlier Frankenstein and use other comparatives. I was persuaded to study either/or A Dolls House/The Yellow Wallpaper and compare it with The Bell Jar.  Basically, because of prolonged absences re Hubby's illness, it was better to tackle something I had read and use the feminist theory module to work on.  I did it pretty well, but felt sad that I couldn't put my reading of Dracula to good use.

( Books for Monsters/Madness major dissertation )

I can see another psychoanalytical/feminist theory stance here, possibly even post colonial - there is also something called 'Queer Theory' too - though I haven't really got any knowledge of it.

Onward to tomorrow - am not going to uni as I have been a bit poorly over the weekend and need to catch up :-/

The skies have darkened and the rain has come - yup, it's definitely bank holiday weekend again. Tomorrow it will be four weeks until I start back at college; thankfully, I am already in the groove of reading the books recommended.  I am struggling a bit with Dracula: to begin with, it was a very linear story with the central character cataloging his imprisonment and the Weird Sisters' plan to bear their teeth and drain his blood like a 'Just Juice' box - then cut to his fiance's domestic letters to her best friend.  Like - wtf?

I thin I need to swap the books around and read the aforementioned book when I am more awake and Moby Dick just before I go to bed.  I love the descriptions in Melville's book.  He mentions that the seaman come in with icicles on vast beards and likens them to bears.  One complains of a head cold and is handed "a pitch-like potion of gin and molasses." Could you imagine it? You'd either get well damn quick or die - It would certainly cure your problems one way or another...

I finished my last classic 2 days ago and I look at the others and think "Meh." I have lost all incentive and am just not interested in reading at the moment.  Nor writing anything much, hence posting lots of videos.  Call it the doldrums, but I can't get excited about Little Dorrit/Oliver Twist/Brideshead Revisited et al. Yet they sit on my table and my conscience ratchets up the guilt.  Have picked up H.G Wells' Time Machine instead as it is meant to be a dystopic classic.That and Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Think part of my inertia is that I know the registration day for year 2 now and also that I will be at college on Mondays/Thursdays, a change from last years Wednesday/Friday.  I kinda liked the 4 days off, to be frank.  Not a good attitude, I know - I just think I will feel a whole lot better when I touch base with my lecturer.  I just don't want to think about it just yet.