We're drawing near to the end of King Lear, and I am excited to start something new. Don't get me wrong, I love the acting in King Lear, but now that we have read it, I am upset that we didn't read Hamlet. As was said in class, "Reading King Lear will give you an advantage on the exam because everyone will be writing on Hamlet." Okay, sure that might give us an edge, but where does that leave the student? Great, we will be the only ones who haven't read Hamlet. But I shouldn't be complaining; I'm sure both plays are equally as interesting and integral to our education.
That being said, I am wondering when this creative writing will begin again, or if that was just talk. Not sure, but I am super excited for my directed study on fairy tales this semester. I just finished a fairy tale called "The Selfish Giant" by Oscar Wilde (did anyone else know that Oscar Wilde wrote fairy tales?) and I actually really liked it for its simplicity. It's funny-- now that I'm reading into it, fairy tales are a creepy way for writers to regress into their childhoods. I can't decide if that's a good thing or not. Either way, I will be writing, narrating, and accompanying my own fairy tale :D
And it is also great seeing the progression of fairy tales. The earliest version of Snow White included a poisonous comb, which moved on to a very tight corset, and then a poisonous apple, which is cured by Prince Charming's love (also something about cats who turn into princes). In fact, the story goes that the prince found Snow White and bought her off the dwarves, and then Prince Charming dropped her casket so as to dislodge the poisonous apple from her throat (the Disney version is so much more romantic!) And also the violence which befalls the evil queen-- boots full of hot coals or simply a burning. What surprised me the most is that this Snow White does not reflect a mother's jealousy of a daughter's youth, as the stories might suggest, but rather a young girl imagining being abused by her mother/step-mother because she is jealous of the attention her father gives her mother. Freud is everywhere!
Anyways, I went to see 127 Hours this weekend and wound up sitting way too close to the screen. Suffice it to say, later that night I suffered from an uncomfortable bout of vertigo, which reminded about this chapter I read in If on a Winter's Night a Traveler ages ago (if anyone was curious about the title of this post). If you are into stream of consciousness or just plain scatter-brainedness, then maybe you should read it.
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