Thy Mind Is A Very Opal

Auden, W. H. Not familiar with his poetry, but his translations contain deplorable blunders.

Austen, Jane. Great.

Balzac, Honoré de. Mediocre. Fakes realism with easy platitudes.

Barbusse, Henri. Second-rate. A tense-looking but really very loose type of writing.

Barth, John.

“Lost in the Funhouse.” A particular favorite. Lovely swift speckled imagery.

Beckett, Samuel. Author of lovely novellas and wretched plays.

Molloy. Favorite work by Beckett.

Malone Dies. A favorite work by Beckett.

The Unnamable. A favorite work by Beckett.

Bely, Andrei.

Petersburg. Third-greatest masterpiece of 20th century prose. A splendid fantasy.

Bergson, Henri. A favorite between the ages of 20 and 40, and thereafter.

Blok, Alexander. A favorite between the ages of 10 and 15, and thereafter. Passionately fond of his lyrics, but his long pieces are weak.

The Twelve. Dreadful. Self-consciously couched in a phony “primitive” tone, with a pink cardboard Jesus Christ glued on at the end.

Borges, Jorge Luis. A favorite. How freely one breathes in his marvelous labyrinths! Lucidity of thought, purity of poetry. A man of infinite talent.

Brecht, Bertolt. A nonentity, means absolutely nothing to me.

Brooke, Rupert. A favorite between the ages of 20 and 40, but no longer.

Browning, Robert. A favorite between the ages of 10 and 15, and thereafter.

Bryusov, Valery. Indifferent to his works.

Camus, Albert. Dislike him. Second-rate, ephemeral, puffed-up. A nonentity, means absolutely nothing to me. Awful.

Carroll, Lewis. Have always been fond of him. One would like to have filmed his picnics. The greatest children’s story writer of all time.

Céline, Louis-Ferdinand. Second-rate. A tense-looking but really very loose type of writing.

Cervantes, Miguel de.

Don Quixote. A cruel and crude old book.

Cheever, John.

“The Country Husband.” A particular favorite. Satisfying coherence.

Chekhov, Anton. A favorite between the ages of 10 and 15, and thereafter. Talent, but not genius. Love him dearly, but cannot rationalize that feeling.

Chernyshevsky, Nikolai. His fate is moving, but his works are risible.

Chesterton, G. K. A favorite between the ages of 8 and 14. Essentially a writer for very young people. Romantic in the large sense.

Conan Doyle, Arthur. A favorite between the ages of 8 and 14, but no longer. Essentially a writer for very young people. Romantic in the large sense.

Conrad, Joseph. A favorite between the ages of 8 and 14. Essentially a writer for very young people. Certainly inferior to Hemingway and Wells. Intolerable souvenir-shop style, romanticist clichés. Nothing I would care to have written myself. In mentality and emotion, hopelessly juvenile. Romantic in the large sense. Slightly bogus.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Dislike him. A cheap sensationalist, clumsy and vulgar. A prophet, a claptrap journalist and a slapdash comedian. Some of his scenes are extraordinarily amusing. Nobody takes his reactionary journalism seriously.

The Double. His best work, though an obvious and shameless imitation of Gogol’s “Nose.”

The Brothers Karamazov. Dislike it intensely.

Crime and Punishment. Dislike it intensely. Ghastly rigmarole.

Douglas, Norman. A favorite between the ages of 20 and 40, and thereafter.

Dreiser, Theodore. Dislike him. A formidable mediocrity.

Eliot, T. S. Not quite first-rate.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. His poetry is delightful.

Faulkner, William. Dislike him. Writer of corncobby chronicles. To consider them masterpieces is an absurd delusion. A nonentity, means absolutely nothing to me.

Flaubert, Gustave. A favorite between the ages of 10 and 15, and thereafter. Read complete works between 14 and 15.

Forster, E. M. Only read one of his novels (possibly A Passage to India?) and disliked it.

Freud, Sigmund. A figure of fun. Loathe him. Vile deceit. Freudian interpretation of dreams is charlatanic, and satanic, nonsense.

Galsworthy, John. A formidable mediocrity.

García Lorca, Federico. Second-rate, ephemeral, puffed-up.

Gogol, Nikolai. Nobody takes his mystical didacticism seriously. At his worst, as in his Ukrainian stuff, he is a worthless writer; at his best, he is incomparable and inimitable. Loathe his moralistic slant, am depressed and puzzled by his inability to describe young women, deplore his obsession with religion.

Gold, Herbert.

“Death in Miami Beach.” A particular favorite.

Gorky, Maxim. A formidable mediocrity.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. A splendid writer.

Hellens, Franz. Very important.

La femme partagee. Like it particularly.

Hemingway, Ernest. A writer of books for boys. Certainly better than Conrad. Has at least a voice of his own. Nothing I would care to have written myself. In mentality and emotion, hopelessly juvenile. Loathe his works about bells, balls, and bulls.

The Killers. Delightful, highly artistic. Admirable.

The Old Man and the Sea. Wonderful. The description of the iridescent fish and rhythmic urination is superb.

Housman, A. E. A favorite between the ages of 20 and 40, and thereafter.

Ilf and Petrov. Two wonderfully gifted writers. Absolutely first-rate fiction.

Ivanov, Georgy. A good poet but a scurrilous critic.

James, Henry. Dislike him rather intensely, but now and then his wording causes a kind of electric tingle. Certainly not a genius.

Joyce, James. Great. A favorite between the ages of 20 and 40, and thereafter. Let people compare me to Joyce by all means, but my English is patball to Joyce’s champion game. A genius.

Ulysses. A divine work of art. Greatest masterpiece of 20th century prose. Towers above the rest of Joyce’s writing. Noble originality, unique lucidity of thought and style. Molly’s monologue is the weakest chapter in the book. Love it for its lucidity and precision.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Never liked it. A feeble and garrulous book.

Finnegans Wake. A formless and dull mass of phony folklore, a cold pudding of a book. Conventional and drab, redeemed from utter insipidity only by infrequent snatches of heavenly intonations. Detest it. A cancerous growth of fancy word-tissue hardly redeems the dreadful joviality of the folklore and the easy, too easy, allegory. Indifferent to it, as to all regional literature written in dialect. A tragic failure and a frightful bore.

Kafka, Franz.

The Metamorphosis. Second-greatest masterpiece of 20th century prose.

Kazantzakis, Nikos. Second-rate, ephemeral, puffed-up.

Keats, John. A favorite between the ages of 10 and 15, and thereafter.

Khodasevich, Vladislav. The greatest Russian poet of his time.

Kipling, Rudyard. A favorite between the ages of 8 and 14. Essentially a writer for very young people. Romantic in the large sense.

Lawrence, D. H. Second-rate, ephemeral, puffed-up. Mediocre. Fakes realism with easy platitudes. Execrable.

Lowell, Robert. Not a good translator. A greater offender than Auden.

Mandelshtam, Osip. A wonderful poet, the greatest in Soviet Russia. His poems are admirable specimens of the human mind at its deepest and highest. Not as good as Blok. His tragic fate makes his poetry seem greater than it actually is.

Mann, Thomas. Dislike him. Second-rate, ephemeral, puffed-up.

Death in Venice. Asinine. To consider it a masterpiece is an absurd delusion. Poshlost. Mediocre, but anyway plausible.

Maupassant, Guy de. Certainly not a genius.

Maugham, W. Somerset. Mediocre. Fakes realism with easy platitudes. Certainly not a genius.

Melville, Herman. Love him. One would like to have filmed him at breakfast, feeding a sardine to his cat.

Marx, Karl. Loathe him.

Milton, John. A genius.

Odoevsky, Vladimir. Indifferent to his works.

Yury Olesha. Some absolutely first-rate fiction.

Orczy, Baroness Emmuska.

The Scarlet Pimpernel. A favorite between the ages of 10 and 15, but no longer.

Pasternak, Boris. An excellent poet, but a poor novelist.

Doctor Zhivago. Detest it. Melodramatic and vilely written. To consider it a masterpiece is an absurd delusion. Pro-Bolshevist, historically false. A sorry thing, clumsy, trivial, melodramatic, with stock situations and trite coincidences.

Pirandello, Luigi. Never cared for him.

Plato. Not particularly fond of him.

Poe, Edgar Allan. A favorite between the ages of 10 and 15, but no longer. One would like to have filmed his wedding.

Pound, Ezra. Definitely second-rate. A total fake. A venerable fraud.

Proust, Marcel. A favorite between the ages of 20 and 40, and thereafter.

In Search of Lost Time. The first half is the fourth-greatest masterpiece of 20th-century prose.

Pushkin, Alexander. A favorite between the ages of 20 and 40, and thereafter. A genius.

Eugene Onegin. A great poem. Walter Arndt’s translation is abominable.

Queneau, Raymond.

Exercises de style. A thrilling masterpiece, one of the greatest stories in French literature.

Zazie. Very fond of it.

Ransom, John Crowe.

Captain Carpenter. Admire this poem.

Rimbaud, Arthur. A favorite between the ages of 10 and 15, and thereafter.

Robbe-Grillet, Alain. Great. A favorite. How freely one breathes in his marvelous labyrinths! Lucidity of thought, purity of poetry. Magnificently poetical and original.

Rolland, Romain. A formidable mediocrity.

Salinger, J. D. By far one of the finest artists in recent years.

“A Perfect Day for Bananafish.” A great story. A particular favorite.

Sartre, Jean-Paul. Even more awful than Camus.

Nausea. Second-rate. A tense-looking but really very loose type of writing.

Schwartz, Delmore.

“In Dreams Begin Responsibilities.” A particular favorite.

Schweitzer, Albert. Detest him.

Shakespeare, William. Read complete works between 14 and 15. One would like to have filmed him in the role of the King’s Ghost. His verbal poetic texture is the greatest the world has ever known, and immensely superior to the structure of his plays as plays. It is the metaphor that is the thing, not the play. A genius.

Sterne, Laurence. Love him.

Sue, Eugène. Melodramatic, second-rate.

Tagore, Rabindranath. A formidable mediocrity.

Tolstoy, Aleksey. A writer of some talent with two or three science fiction stories or novels which are memorable.

Tolstoy, Leo. A favorite between the ages of 10 and 15, and thereafter. Read complete works between 14 and 15. Nobody takes his utilitarian moralism seriously. A genius.

Anna Karenina. Incomparable prose artistry. The supreme masterpiece of 19th-century literature.

The Death of Ivan Ilyich. A close second to Anna Karenina.

Resurrection. Detest it.

The Kreutzer Sonata. Detest it.

War and Peace. A little too long. A rollicking historical novel written for the general reader, specifically for the young. Artistically unsatisfying. Cumbersome messages, didactic interludes, artificial coincidences. Uncritical of its historical sources.

Turgenev, Ivan. Talent, but not genius.

Tyutchev, Fyodor. A great lyrical poet.

Updike, John. By far one of the finest artists in recent years. Like so many of his stories that it is difficult to choose one.

“The Happiest I’ve Been.” A particular favorite.

Verlaine, Paul. A favorite between the ages of 10 and 15, and thereafter.

Verne, Jules.

Around the World in Eighty Days. A favorite between the ages of 10 and 15, but no longer.

Wells, H. G. A favorite between the ages of 10 and 15, and thereafter. A great artist, my favorite writer when I was a boy. His sociological cogitations can be safely ignored, but his romances and fantasies are superb. A far greater artist than Conrad. A writer for whom I have the deepest admiration.

The Passionate Friends. Better than anything any of Wells’ contemporaries would produce.

Ann Veronica. Better than anything any of Wells’ contemporaries would produce.

The Time Machine. Better than anything any of Wells’ contemporaries would produce. Especially good.

The Country of the Blind. Better than anything any of Wells’ contemporaries would produce. Especially good.

The Invisible Man. Especially good.

The War of the Worlds. Especially good.

The First Men on the Moon. Especially good.

Wilbur, Richard.

“Complaint.” A piece of great poetry.

Wilde, Oscar. Rank moralist and didacticist. A favorite between the ages of 8 and 14. Essentially a writer for very young people. Romantic in the large sense.

Wolfe, Thomas. Second-rate, ephemeral, puffed-up.

Zabolotsky, Nikolai. Enormously gifted.

Zamyatin, Yevgeny. Indifferent to his works.

all RIGHT:

Why You're Writing Medieval (and Medieval-Coded) Women Wrong: A RANT

(Or, For the Love of God, People, Stop Pretending Victorian Style Gender Roles Applied to All of History)

This is a problem I see alllll over the place - I'll be reading a medieval-coded book and the women will be told they aren't allowed to fight or learn or work, that they are only supposed to get married, keep house and have babies, &c &c.

If I point this out ppl will be like "yes but there was misogyny back then! women were treated terribly!" and OK. Stop right there.

By & large, what we as a culture think of as misogyny & patriarchy is the expression prevalent in Victorian times - not medieval. (And NO, this is not me blaming Victorians for their theme park version of "medieval history". This is me blaming 21st century people for being ignorant & refusing to do their homework).

Yes, there was misogyny in medieval times, but 1) in many ways it was actually markedly less severe than Victorian misogyny, tyvm - and 2) it was of a quite different type. (Disclaimer: I am speaking specifically of Frankish, Western European medieval women rather than those in other parts of the world. This applies to a lesser extent in Byzantium and I am still learning about women in the medieval Islamic world.)

So, here are the 2 vital things to remember about women when writing medieval or medieval-coded societies

FIRST. Where in Victorian times the primary axes of prejudice were gender and race - so that a male labourer had more rights than a female of the higher classes, and a middle class white man would be treated with more respect than an African or Indian dignitary - In medieval times, the primary axis of prejudice was, overwhelmingly, class. Thus, Frankish crusader knights arguably felt more solidarity with their Muslim opponents of knightly status, than they did their own peasants. Faith and age were also medieval axes of prejudice - children and young people were exploited ruthlessly, sent into war or marriage at 15 (boys) or 12 (girls). Gender was less important.

What this meant was that a medieval woman could expect - indeed demand - to be treated more or less the same way the men of her class were. Where no ancient legal obstacle existed, such as Salic law, a king's daughter could and did expect to rule, even after marriage.

Women of the knightly class could & did arm & fight - something that required a MASSIVE outlay of money, which was obviously at their discretion & disposal. See: Sichelgaita, Isabel de Conches, the unnamed women fighting in armour as knights during the Third Crusade, as recorded by Muslim chroniclers.

Tolkien's Eowyn is a great example of this medieval attitude to class trumping race: complaining that she's being told not to fight, she stresses her class: "I am of the house of Eorl & not a serving woman". She claims her rights, not as a woman, but as a member of the warrior class and the ruling family. Similarly in Renaissance Venice a doge protested the practice which saw 80% of noble women locked into convents for life: if these had been men they would have been "born to command & govern the world". Their class ought to have exempted them from discrimination on the basis of sex.

So, tip #1 for writing medieval women: remember that their class always outweighed their gender. They might be subordinate to the men within their own class, but not to those below.

SECOND. Whereas Victorians saw women's highest calling as marriage & children - the "angel in the house" ennobling & improving their men on a spiritual but rarely practical level - Medievals by contrast prized virginity/celibacy above marriage, seeing it as a way for women to transcend their sex. Often as nuns, saints, mystics; sometimes as warriors, queens, & ladies; always as businesswomen & merchants, women could & did forge their own paths in life

When Elizabeth I claimed to have "the heart & stomach of a king" & adopted the persona of the virgin queen, this was the norm she appealed to. Women could do things; they just had to prove they were Not Like Other Girls. By Elizabeth's time things were already changing: it was the Reformation that switched the ideal to marriage, & the Enlightenment that divorced femininity from reason, aggression & public life.

For more on this topic, read Katherine Hager's article "Endowed With Manly Courage: Medieval Perceptions of Women in Combat" on women who transcended gender to occupy a liminal space as warrior/virgin/saint.

So, tip #2: remember that for medieval women, wife and mother wasn't the ideal, virgin saint was the ideal. By proving yourself "not like other girls" you could gain significant autonomy & freedom.

Finally a bonus tip: if writing about medieval women, be sure to read writing on women's issues from the time so as to understand the terms in which these women spoke about & defended their ambitions. Start with Christine de Pisan.

-Byzantium was a civilization that spanned a millenia and a huge geographical area. The treatment and experience of women was not constant at all times in all places.

-Women had different levels of autonomy at different periods of their lives. Many women gained great autonomy after their husband's death (and he usually died much before her), and could be registered as the head of household.

-There are basically two career options for Byzantine women: wife/mother or nun. Sometimes both, but never at the same time.

-Just as in the Latin West, class mattered a lot, and basically determined a person's entire life. Peasant women worked in agriculture and trades, while noble women had a much softer life.

-the idea that noble women were confined to the house is likely an exaggeration. (A byproduct of Byzantium's "distorting mirror") Furthermore, the women's quarters were nowhere near as closed off and restricted as the later Ottoman harems. In many places, women could move freely between their own quarters and the rest of the house. However, if a non-related male was visiting it was customary that the women would not be seen. This seems to be a mainly noble/middle class practice, and not an elite or peasant practice.

-Women played important ceremonial functions at the royal court. The Augusta (one of three titles for an empress) received the wives of visiting nobles, and was so important that, even if the emperor was unmarried, he might crown his daughter for the role. (See Leo the Wise) Additionally, there was an office reserved just for a woman, she was called "the lady with the sash" and she was placed very close to the emperor, and thus highly influential.

-Imperial women were highly influential, and could be incredibly masterful politicians.

-Women weren't forced to have endless babies until they died in childbirth. Byzantine women had access to both contraception and abortion, and there was some amount of recognition of a woman's right to choose. Furthermore, if a woman already had kids, but decided she didn't want to be a mom anymore, joining a convent was always an option. (For wealthy women)

yes there is so much - but have fun with it and embrace how silly and crazy it is and you will be fine :)

some easier stand alone medieval arthurian texts that are pretty straightforward and don't pull in an additional like 15 storylines that never come up again confusing one to no end (cough cough malory) would be

Lanval by Marie France (super short!)

sad overlooked knight finally gets beautiful (magical?) girlfriend. but unfortunately not everyone is happy about this. ends up getting in a legal battle with the queen.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (anonymous)

magical horrifying green monstrous knight rolls up to arthur's court and says one of the knights here can deal me any blow, as long as i can repay the exact same blow. arthur's nephew, sir gawain, goes count me in and cuts the guy's head right off. unfortunately the green guy survives this and now gawain has a problem

Knight of the Cart by Chrétien de Troyes

the queen is kidnapped. a nameless knight goes to retrieve her and faces all sorts of mysterious and strange trials such as bed that lights on fire and bridge made out of sword. turns out this nameless knight, as you will find out midway through the poem, is not just any ordinary knight but quite a well known one. and he is unfortunately very in love with the queen

Tristan by Gottfried von Strassburg

born out of a tragic love story between his own parents, young sir tristan's life is not exactly looking great either, seeing as he ends up getting poisoned by an enemy he kills and the only one with the cure is his enemy's sister. yikes. who has a super hot daughter. yikes. a daughter who ends up, by complicated circumstances, marrying tristan's uncle. yikes. and who also ends up accidentally sharing a love potion with tristan on the way to her wedding. YIKES.

I also happen to think all of these texts are pretty fun and not like obscure or hard to understand. good starting points! if you want to know more about like arthurian lit generally:

the english speaking arthurian world is largely informed by Le Morte d'Arthur by Thomas Malory (15th century) which has kind of the grand arthurian arcs that we often associate with legend of king arthur now - sword in the stone, holy grail, lancelot/guinevere, fall of arthur's kingdom, etc. but the narrative tbh i find pretty hard to read so if you're like omg what's going on that's just what it's like. it's totally fine to skip around that text. it doesn't necessarily need to be read in order. Gareth's story in le morte is a fun one and again pretty straightforward and can be read without the context of the rest of le morte. also john steinbeck adapted a few chapters of malory's work which i really loved and it might be a good intro if you're having trouble getting into the original.

the arthurian vulgate cycle is kind of the main source that Malory draws from - it's an incredibly long and complicated french work (13th century) that combines a lot of arthurian works before it. full disclosure it's like 1000 or more pages. but it's fun to hop around because there is some crazy stuff in there (including guinevere's imposter sister who kicks her off the throne, lancelot getting trapped in a magical dance, sir gawain finding out merlin is magically trapped and just kind of abandoning him because what is gawain going to do about it, etc). if you want to browse the first two volumes it's here on archive.org. you probably don't want to spend 45 dollars on a summary text of the vulgate cycle that includes select passages to give you an idea of what's all in it without having to read 1000 pages, but if for any reason you did, amazon sells this book that i think is very clutch

vulgate and le morte i explained for context, but give those texts at the beginning of my post a shot as intro texts and see how you like them! i know @queer-ragnelle also has like a ton of med lit/arthurian lit resources on her blog and more links than i have so her stuff is for sure worth checking out if you want more options.

You see, for most of history and in current cultures that do not have this psychological disorder, you do not sing because you’re a singer, you sing because you’re a person—it’s fucking singing! Religious institutions are one of the last places that we still understand that singing is an innately human participatory social act, not the exclusive domain of fuckin’…Ariana Grande.

The result of removing this stigma and arbitrary qualification required to do something as simple as draw or dance isn’t just less self-hatred, less insecurity, less anxiety, better community, better connection to your body, more holistic communion with others and the world around you, and simple indulgence in your fundamental humanity—it also results in categorically better artists.”

Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), dir. Chantal Akerman

A Treasured Treasury of Beloved Characters (2024).

Wool felt, cotton lawn, strawboard, embroidery & poly cotton thread, recycled PET stuffing, armature wire, plastic eyes.

Here is a collection of characters I met when I was small, all of whom have stayed with me every day since. They are housed, stitched and squished in this felt book, akin to their arrangement in my brain.