A parlour game for big readers & academics

[Bink]

(Poss not exactly the logical home for this, but I thought putting it here would in some magical way catch the eye of the right people ahem)

It's called I've Got an Idea for a Seminar

and what you do is bounce about ideas for reading & scope & spin-offs -

SO this morning I noticed someone reading this book of short stories about the City and I thought: that would go nicely with Liar's Poker, and how about one of those late 19th c. American robber baron novels ... but we also need something about how doing three-dimensional chess with money is actually rather quietly dull most of the time, and if I can't find that I'd better write it myself. And the seminar will be called "Finance Red in Tooth and Claw(?)" (- although the question mark is a bit trivialising).

I've got another one, which is about those books about How Engagement With a Specific Plot of Ground Has Changed Your Life and Your Entire Perspective on Everything - such as Elizabeth and her German Garden, and the drippy strain of stuff which is A Year in Provence. And of course you would start off with On Walden Pond - I think, unless anyone can think of anything earlier. (Interesting if you can, because of course Thoreau's schtick is that he is so original.) I don't have a snappy title for that one, so suggestions welcome.

So, is this anyone else's idea of fun? Or am I going to be playing all by myself in a corner? (PS you don't have to do my ideas, you can do your own - hope that goes without saying.)

(It would be quite a fun concept for a book group, too, wouldn't it? One that had a bit of a developing curve instead of one misc. book after another ...?)

[TheDevilWearsPrimark]

My DH would love to play, sounds exactly like his idea of fun.

[Bink]

Thank you Primark ... I do seem to be in a mini clique all by myself

However. I've now got another one, which is called Pleased to Meet You; and starts with Faust (maybe? again I might see what there is which is earlier), and then does Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown" and ends up with the recent Testament of Gideon Mack. And for our first gathering, I will do a paper on Framing.

[RosaIsRed]

I love it, Bink. It is late and I am a bit, erm, tiddly, or I would play now, but will join in soon. Brilliant concept.

[Bink]

Just bumping my own private Idaho thread to say the thread about Turn of the Screw reminded me of another one I have - which is called Thrawn (a lovely Scots word) Governesses

and is about, well, governesses (and everything that governessing connotes), and takes in Jane Eyre, Villette if you can bear it, The Turn of the Screw and bits of My Brilliant Career, plus anything else anyone suggest. Plus maybe some Trollope for non-thrawn governess contrast (Lucy Grey) and some James (that story about the conflictedly exploited tutor) for the masculine experience.

[frogs]

Bink, I do love you, but I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

Books is always good, but could you simplify the concept? Or maybe I'm just feeling a bit Saturday eveningish?

[marina]

Well, in the non-Thrawn corner you'd need to include Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, plus Mary Poppins, and in the men's corner add a favourite of mine, Woodbrook

[marina]

Oh, and Turgenev's A Month in the Country for a male tutor who thinks he is well in but is ultimately the more deceived

[Bink]

ah. Saturday eveningish here too. We went roller-blading today, so I suspect we are overtired (if not also emotional)

The idea is totally simple: you like a book (or something), it reminds you of a bit in another book, which is the same but different; you realise there's a common, er, endeavour, or fascination, or something, underlying them - then you find somebody else who thinks it's equally fun to spot correlations/thematic progression, and you're off. Basically.

Then of course you all read all the books and argue about whether the ideas were in fact comparable or not. (That's the book club bit.) I am of course expecting many people to appear and say You Are A Dire Ponce, but that's why this is in pedant's corner

I do think that the characteristic warpedness of literary governesses is genuinely interesting, btw

[ahundredtimes]

Oh there's a lovely book about Governesses by Kathryn Hughes - you could throw that in too, right at the end.

Ok. I want to play but I have to eat.

I have started so far with Cat's Eye, The Return on the Native and The Homecoming.

My theme is 'the return' or 'The Prodigal' even?

Does it work like that?

[Bink]

Marina - brilliant!

[Bink]

This will be one of those threads with loong gaps while people cogitate.

I think The Prodigal is a marvellous theme.

Necessarily you have to have the parable as your anchoring reading, I think.

Then, hmm. The fact that I can't think of any children's books that fit = theory of its being inherently an adults-only, or indeed a rite-of-passage (ie, specifically about growing up) theme. Does that work? For Shakespeare there is Henry IV Part II, which fits that theory.

[marina]

The Long Way Home, by Paul Berna, is about two boys having to make their way back to their father across post-War France. But that's more of a teen book, as you say, bink
Ian Seraillier's The Silver Sword, ditto

[Bink]

Odysseus comes to mind, of course ... but is he Prodigal? I think not. I think he is a Claimant & thus (possibly?) the polar opposite of a Prodigal.

I would put in that farcically sad anecdote about the Ottoman prince who farted once, at a feast, a thing so taboo he had to go into exile at once. After 20 years he felt it might have blown over, so was on his way home. He fell into a conversation with a fellow-traveller, and asked his age: "Around 20," was the reply. "I know I was born the year the Prince farted."

[marina]

And, related, either Walter Raleigh or Francis Drake was at court to receive a royal blessing on his latest voyage and farted long and loud in the Queen's presence.
Many arduous months later, he returned to court in triumph and ER's first words were, "We had forgot the fart"

[Booboobedoo]

Re: The Prodigal theme, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe would fit: Edward! Bit too obvious, though, perhaps, as it's almost the gospels re-hashed.

[frogs]

Governesses, you'd want The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, surely? Possibly insufficiently highbrow?

There's a Martin Luther fart anecdote, as well, I think, tho' it might be a calumny dreamt up by the German catholic tradition.

[Bink]

Martin Luther PLEASE, now; thank you.

WofWG, YES, utterly - complete archetype of it - and those drawings, too, how she looms ... Makes you completely realise how related it is, as trope, to Wicked Step Mother.

Also - I believe that there is rather a nice (ie, anomalous) exemplar in Mistress Masham's Repose, is there not? Must be time for me to read that again.

Have spent last half-hour mulling why the Underestimated Third Child Who Proves Worthy trope in fairy tales (eg, Cordelia; goose girl; Puss in Boots) isn't the same as The Prodigal. But I think the key thing is that the prodigal is, originally, actually truly a waste of space - whereas Cordelia - eg - isn't.

[frogs]

Well I've just googled the Martin Luther quote, and am pleased to report that it wasn't an artefact of my anti-protestant upbringing, though it may be apocryphal:

Warum furzet und rülpset ihr nicht? Hat es euch nicht geschmecket?

Translation: Martin Luther to his guests -- Why are you not farting and burping? Did you not enjoy the food?

For good governesses, you could look at Eva Ibbotson's Journey to the River Sea.