QOTD

[randy_byers]

You should regard each meeting with a friend as a sitting he is unwittingly giving you for a portrait -- a portrait that, probably, when you or he die, will still be unfinished. And, though this is an absorbing pursuit, nevertheless, the painters are apt to end pessimists. For however handsome and merry may be the face, however rich may be the background, in the first rough sketch of each portrait, yet with every added stroke of the brush, with every tiny readjustment of the "values," with every modification of the chiaroscuro, the eyes looking out at you grow more disquieting. And, finally, it is your own face that you are staring at in terror, as in a mirror by candle-light, when all the house is still.

-- Hope Mirrlees, Lud-in-the-Mist (1926)

Comments

[mlamprey.livejournal.com]

It's a meme now practically: "Have you read Lud-in-the-Mist?" Still haven't read it. My copy is buried somewhere in the basement. I think its revival started with Neil Gaiman's blurb on the back of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I was aware of it from the Ballantine edition of the '70s, but yeah, a wave has hit. What pushed me over was Paul Witcover's review of the new Swanwick biography of Mirrlees, which I'd also like to track down. When I heard that Mirrlees had been a friend of Virginia Woolf and a companion (lover?) of Jane Harrison, the camel's back was broken.

[mlamprey.livejournal.com]

I met Swanwick at WFC and pretty much his first words to me were, "Have you read Lud-in-the-Mist?"

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Book pimp!

[kim-huett.livejournal.com]

Not surprisingly I read this quote and my reaction was 'articulate gibberish'. I assume the author was addicted to some powerful narcotic given this sample.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

It doesn't seem impossible, since it sounds as though she came from money (although maybe new money). Perhaps I'll know for sure if I can get my hands on the Swanwick biography.

Although I myself wouldn't call it gibberish. It's a gothic riff on solipsism.

[kim-huett.livejournal.com]

A gothic riff on solipsism sounds to me like an arty description for articulate gibberish, that is stuff that's meant to appear deep than actually mean anything. I bet Chuck Norris won't be asked to star in the film version. They'll get Sean Penn instead and dose him on ice during the shooting.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Well, I guess now we know why this is still a book beloved only by other writers.