Can we have a Wanker's Corner?

[onebatmother]

Hello.

It's been noted in the past that there are some pretentious wankers amongst us who like to discuss some general subjects (eg.Porn, Religion) in a fairly, erm.. academic manner, and that this sometimes seems to intimidate and/or infuriate other posters.

There doesn't seem to be an easy solution to this problem: there's no doubt that people really do feel intimidated and that it might prevent them from posting on a subject that concerns them. It also must feel hijack-y at times.

At the same time, it's hard for the Wanker's to be told that they mustn't post anything that might intimidate.

Would it be possible to have a special place, with very hard chairs to keep us awake, that we may call our own?

Oh God. I wish I hadn't opened that.

Hello threadwworm. Hope your sleeping comes right soon.

Onebat - How about selling your house by raffle to mumsnetters? £10 a ticket - you need to sell to thirty thousand (or £20 a ticket to 15,000) mumsnetters. No estate agent fees and the winner and seller each to settle their own conveyancing fees. Standard conditions of sale to apply.

I can't see anything wrong with that idea.

Oh fabulous, fabul- DAMN! I forgot there are under 100 MNers! So that idea will never work.

You must know that the number of 'real' MNers matches the number of universal archetypes - all others are sub-archetypes and don't count.

Although Jung allows for an unlimited number of archetypes ("There are as many archetypes as there are typical situations in life."), I can think of only 20-odd, myself.

I very much doubt those 20 will stump up 15K each. Well maybe Xenia would - she's remarkably without resentment, I've noticed.

"Celerity should be contempered with cunctation" (Daniel Deronda, chapter 15, epigraph)

Discuss, with special relation to the internalisation of the good object and a psychological account of Feuerbachian humantism.

Up for a wank, anyone?

But seriously, Iorek, Swedes, and anyone else that I've bludgeoned into re-reading Daniel D., I'd be interested to know what you thought abaout it.

For years now I have been calling it my favourite novel. (There was an embarrassing period when DS1 misremembered this piece of info and went around saying in public hearing that my favourite novel was The Da Vinci Code.)

On re-reading, I was disappointed by the extreme turgidity of the long Victorian sentences packed with simile and allusion. But I am still very interested by its themes and by the puzzling decision to write a novel about a central character who like a therapist is a blank page for others' projections.

I fear I may have projected my interests a little onto the novel. I'm not sure that it sustains my reading of it as a humanist evolution of religion. I had misremembered the book as involving a use by Mordechai of the term 'messiah' to describe Deronda. It doesn't, so the relation between his saviour role for Gwendolen and Mirah, and Mordechai's intellectual positioning of him within Judaism is not what I thought.

But it is a good read? Worth talking about?

No-one wants to talk Daniel?

My mind's eye Daniel Deronda is a hunk but rather short. Black curly Byronic hair, anachronistic Georgian costume and definitely no beard.

I'm going to have to this on my own, aren't I.

Still, I suppose that's the nature of the beast.
The beast with one back.

Threadwworm you're back!! I'm so happy. It's been awful here.

By strange coincidence I was in a small garden centre this afternoon buying compost when I saw a rather beautiful blue clematis whose name, the label told me, was DANIEL DERONDA. I thought of you and wondered with a half melancholy air whether you would ever come back to discuss the book. I should have liked to have had it but it needs a lot of sun.

Anyway, I love the book and I very much want to talk about it. But unfortunately I'm still only half way through. Gwendolen, I regret to report, has just accepted Mr Grandcourt. I think she is the most exquisitely drawn character. I am amazed at the skill with which GE conveys the complexity of her motives, her quick wittedness and her lack of emotional centre. And I love the way she knows when to give a direct explanation of what drives her characters, and when to indicate their states of mind through tiny details of the way they stand or sit or what they do with their eyes or lips.

GE's sentences are rather long for a feeble modern brain like mine. I have had to read a number of them twice. But they are none the less satisfying for it.

I thought that I did pick up some messiah-like allusions in the descriptions of Daniel (although I doubt whether I would have done so if you hadn't mentioned it). The Meyrick girls certainly talk about him in Christ-like terms. But really I'm not far enough into the book yet. Will go to bed now and read more.

DD short? Maybe. Slight certainly, curly haired, and quite lovely looking of course. A darker version of Will Ladislaw from Middlemarch.

Am embarrassed and frustrated to only be half way through. Will get a move on so we can discuss it properly.

Ach, ladies! How are you both?
I went to the library (broke, and live in v small house (have I already mentioned this? ) where there is no room for paperbacks)) and SOMEONE had borrowed Daniel Deronda!

Perhaps there is a wanker in Walthamstow?

I'm going to buy it before my hol (lastminute.com have excellent bb&d deals at the Spa Angst, with car hire) if poss. Might take me a few weeks given the state of things. So I'll join you in Sept.

How lovely to have you both back.

I had the (very vague) impression that DD was more than just short - actively unattractive, I thought?

No! How lovely to have you back. I'm sorry to say I haven't really been away and have been getting involved in all manner of sordid discussions for no good reason. When are you going away? Abebooks is good for cheap paperbacks.

So glad you are enjoying the book. Agree about the depiction of Gwendolen, especially in the first half of the book. Won't say too much now as I'm not sure whether or not you have read the story before and I don't want to be guilty of a spoiler.

I have just started a collection of Angela Carter. It was meant to be part of my holiday reading but Daniel Deronda took too long to finish. Perhaps we can talk about Carter one day too.

I just noticed on another thread that you are a singer. How completely wonderful. That must add another layer of interest to the book for you. Do you sing in private drawing rooms? Do you know any Herr Klesmers? He is so lovely.

Oh lots of x-posts!

Hello onebat! No, not unattractive. Meltingly gorgeous, despite being a conscience on a stick.

Threadwworm. Welcome home.
I'm so pleased you're back. Like Iorek, I have been posting absolute guff on some of the guffiest threads. I'm staying away from politics threads where I feel entirely alone and tepid. I can just make out Xenia through the heathaze of her cauldron, a way off to the right and Polly Toynbee and her readership continually freeze me out from the left. I feel more comfortable wanking.

I've not yet finished DD (I'm enjoying it immensely). I'm going down to the Kent coast on Saturday and I hope to get some reading time there.

How was Greece?

Hello Swedes. We had a fabulous time in Crete. Very relaxing first week on beaches and hotel loungers. And more challenging second week with various trips and a walk along the lovely Samaria Gorge. Really lovely, We are all burnt to a crisp beautifully tanned.

I hope that you had a lovely time in your bit of Greece?

I put some snaps on my profile by the way.

Threadwworm Lovely pictures of your sons. What is the plural of Adonis?

How lovely, and what wonderful pictures. Which bit of Crete were you in?

I suppose being a singer does add another layer of interest to the novel in a slightly excruciating way. Gwendolen's singing is all about her monstrous need for admiration after all. I wish I knew a Herr Klesmer. He reminds me of how I imagine Hugo Wolf to have been (and I have long been obsessed with Wolf). I certainly recognise many of his sentiments though, particularly the burning indignation at lack of respect for the craft. I remember a class with Graham Johnson (v great accompanist) which he started with a long stern lecture on how none of us were worthy to even come near the great songs in the repertoire until we had given years of study to every note and even then we wouldn't even come close to the composer's intentions etc etc.

Angela Carter was meant to be part of my holiday reading too (The Bloody Chamber) but I am v v behind... dp reading it now. He has an hour on the tube every day which makes all the difference.

I'm sure you would be a Miss Arrowpoint/Mrs Klesmer, though, Iorek. Quietly kind and cultured. Not a Gwendolen singing for admiration.

One of the things that I really dislike about the novel is the depiction of Mirah. She should be so admirable in her artistic and religious sensitivity. But instead Eliot sentimentally makes her like the worst kind of Dickens heroine. Childlike and sickly sweet, naive and idiotically innocent. I dislike Daniel for admiring her.

Oh, right in the south. Plakias.

Thank you. What a nice thing to say. But I fear there is a reason why Miss Arrowpoint is an instrumentalist and not a singer.

I agree Mirah is not shaping up well so far.

Thank you, Swedes. Just noticed your compliment of my DSs. The plural of Adonis is Secretaries of State for Higher Education, btw.

Is Plakias still full of German hippies tw?