Cavy Core

@laudablearches.bsky.social

She has to fall back on something. She probably takes orders from someone.

I'd like to sentence them to an eternity in chancery with their little reticules of papers.

XII: ON THE WATCH • 12 OF 20 Dedlock with much gravity, after dinner, that he really does not see to what the present age is tending. A debate is not what a debate used to be; the House is not what the House used to be; even a Cabinet is not what it formerly was. He perceives with astonishment that supposing the present government to be overthrown, the limited choice of the Crown, in the formation of a new ministry, would lie between Lord Coodle and Sir Thomas Doodle-supposing it to be impossible for the Duke of Foodle to act with Goodle, which may be assumed to be the case in consequence of the breach arising out of that affair with Hoodle. Then, giving the Home Department and the leadership of the House of Commons to Joodle, the Exchequer to Koodle, the Colonies to Loodle, and the Foreign Office to Moodle, what are you to do with Noodle? You can't offer him the Presidency of the Council; that is reserved for Poodle. You can't put him in the Woods and Forests; that is hardly good enough for Quoodle. What follows? That the country is shipwrecked, lost, and gone to pieces (as is made manifest to the patriotism of Sir Leicester Dedlock) because you can't provide for Noodle! On the other hand, the Right Honourable William Buffy, M.P., contends across the table with someone else that the shipwreck of the country-about which there is no doubt; it is only the manner of it that is in question-is attributable to Cuffy. If you had done with Cuffy what you ought to have done when he first came into Parliament, and had prevented him from going over to Duffy, you would have got him into alliance with Fuffy, you would have had with you the weight attaching as a smart debater to Guffy, you would have brought to bear upon the elections the wealth of Huffy, you would have got in for BLEAK HOUSE • 224 OF 1196

Dickens’ dismissal of political talk reminds me how I hear programming debates sometimes 🔒

Of course. Pointless reps. Ugh.

A Victorian pen-and-ink illustration from Bleak House. Mr. Guppy stands at left with his arms folded and looking positively desolate among an audience smiling and having a good time.

Caption: Mr. Guppy explains, for the third time, why Esther Summerson's rejection was actually, actually, a compliment to him. 🔒

No means no, sir.

I also find Mr. Boythorn delightful. 🔒

A passage from Bleak House by Charles Dickens, with the opening sentences highlighted in teal. The highlighted text reads: "'How much of this indecision of character,' Mr Jarndyce said to me, 'is chargeable on that incomprehensible heap of uncertainty and procrastination on which he has been thrown from his birth, I don't pretend to say; but that Chancery, among its other sins, is responsible for some of it, I can plainly see.'" The unhighlighted remainder continues: "It has engendered or confirmed in him a habit of putting off – and trusting to this, that, and the other chance, without knowing what chance – and dismissing everything as unsettled, uncertain, and confused. The character of much older and steadier people may be even changed by the circumstances surrounding them. It would be too much to expect that a boy's, in its formation, should be the subject of such influences, and escape them.'"

Chancery damages people structurally by making irresolution the only rational response to an interminable system. 🔒

What's going to happen to Richard?

I love it, too. I don't like the back and forth. Let's just stay on daylight savings.

Bored to death! I almost swooned from the boredom.

Just wanted to chime in and say that these are all fantastic questions! (Bulkington!)

An Edward Gorey drawing showing a morose looking black bird on a branch. He (and this feels very much like a he) is pointing downwards with one scraggly wing, and looking straight ahead with debt-filled eyes. His beak is long and sharp, like winter on the Great Plains. He is pointing with his right wing, but this means he is pointing to your left. Your wicked, sinister side. This is no accident. The Bird makes no such mistakes. But he is talking, and the text tells us that he is saying, "Beware of this and that." Honestly, you feel his message in your bones.

Some days I just feel like this Edward Gorey bird gets it.

Captain Nemo: Do you know the meaning of love, professor?
Professor Pierre Aronnax: I believe I do.
Captain Nemo: What you fail to understand is the power of hate. It can fill the heart as surely as love can.
Professor Pierre Aronnax: I'm sorry for you. That's a bitter substitute.
📓

White italic title text reads "The Night Migrations" with the author name "Louise Glück" in smaller italic text beneath it, followed by the poem in black serif type, all on a sky-blue background: "This is the moment when you see again / the red berries of the mountain ash / and in the dark sky / the birds' night migrations. // It grieves me to think / the dead won't see them— / these things we depend on, / they disappear. // What will the soul do for solace then? / I tell myself maybe it won't need / these pleasures anymore; / maybe just not being is simply enough, / hard as that is to imagine." The poets.org logo appears in bold black type in the lower right corner.

📓

It was 2.5 hours plus half an hour of follow up.

...in the desolation of Boredom and the clutch of Giant Despair, on my way to the office for a two-hour meeting (that will most assuredly run to two-and-a-half or three hours) the day after going on DST. 🔒

I think it's a lot hard to write. You were talking about that earlier, I think.

The "I" makes me much more aware I am reading a story. It's less immersive.

We might feel differently about her parts then (maybe...). She's suppressing herself in a way the third-person narrator doesn't have to. The frustration at what she seems to be hiding is real - intended? I don't know.

I know exactly what you mean. I try to cut her a break, I guess. She's an orphan who was subjected to sustained cruelty. I suspect if she gave a full account of her childhood w/ the same unflinching detail Dickens gives to the brickmaker or Nemo's death, it would be every bit as harrowing.

"We have frequently printed the word Democracy. Yet I cannot too often repeat that it is a word the real gist of which still sleeps." Walt Whitman, Democratic Vistas, 1871

All this is to say, I agree with you! It's a very different experience reading BH.

Esther is very different from Pip. She spends her time downplaying and discounting any of her virtues. Her defining character trait is suppressing all her wants and desires. Pip and David (if I remember correctly) are self-aggrandizing and their desires drive plot in a way Esther will not/cannot.

Ooooh!

Love the micro-obsession!

"Presenting Mr and Mrs Guppy."

Helpful!

I love this Shakespeare sculpture.

I suppose I could have googled the artist. My search results are all self-referential AI, even when I turn off the AI summary function. It's distressing.

Yes! I am obsessed.

Daylight Savings Time is when we hide an hour from ourselves, and dig it back up half a year later, when it's all slimy and gross. Kids, don't touch that until it's been washed off!

The link to the schedule is the same one but now the thumbnail shows the correct image preview. The other schedule had an outdated thumbnail.