Where am I today? re-shaping routs for literary work & pleasure

Dear friends and readers,

11/24: tomorrow Acadian Diaspora and From Prada to Nada. I've been reading Arnaud on Radcliffe and Goubert on Austen.  Today Arnaud on Radcliffe, Goubert on Austen (reversing the order I've been doing). Reveries blog: letters 87/8;then blog on Arnaud/ Ellen & Jim Kierner's Margaret Jefferson Randolph, then comparing 2 mini-series, Forsyte Saga or some new central take on Bella -- ah some summing up in a new way?

11/21: A week later: diary entry brief, 11/21:

Finished Bella. Must make up mind how to write about Bella -- do you want to put these summaries on line. Would anyone read them?  Very impressed with character of Valentine. Well I could try for a blog.  For writing on line or minutely better to turn to reading Celestina and then do edition of Ethelinde bit by bit.  Just read Pamela Regis, Natural history of Romance Novel as part of historical fiction project (then Ford Madox Ford). After that I'll try Suzanne Keen, Romances of the Archive. I hope it will be about historical fiction as romance, or perhaps the impulse to write romances out of the archive (what Scott to Graham to Byatt do).

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11/14:

Another of these periodic attempts to get something done! by seeing where I am and attempting to not waste time, be efficient.

1) I just sent off my proposal for a paper on the illustrations to Trollope's novels, to which I've added a section on film adaptations. I took a new perspective which fit into the conference: Geographies of Books. I'm going to look at the maps that are drawn from Trollope's books. Title:  Maps, Pictures, Films: Walking Round Trollope.  I will blog about it after I've finished the second of two blogs on the EC/ASECS on JimandEllen.org

2) Finished Bellos's There's a Fish in Your Ear. Must blog about that too. I've started books in French and thus (from the French tradition) and in Italian ((from Italian tradition) on Jane Austen in French and in Italian: Pierre Goubert, Jane Austen, etude psychologique de romanciere; Arnaud on Radcliffe et le fantastique, essai de psychobiographie; Beatrice Battaglie, La Zitella illetterata: Parodia et ironi nei romanzi di Austen.

a) Follow up with reading Radcliffe in French and Chastenay's three volume memoir. So next ought to be either that or Arnaud's Les mysteries de la foret. Lidia Conetti's I misteri di Udolpho. Have sent away for Sicilian Romance in French (think, not sure). When into project there's an argument for one of Montolieu's translation of Austen into French (as another control and example). I really have no feel for what is the Italian mindset when it comes to these texts either. Alternative control for Stael (problem: I just don't have as many). Books translated into Italian not as common as into French.

3) Interest in secondary studies might come after reading Acadian Disapora by Hodson. These are:  Copley and Garside, Politics of Picturesque, Frail: A Singular Duality (?), Staves: A Literary History of Women writing 1660-1789. Have begun Acadian Diaspora.

a) Some add-ons: Miller, Illustration (if I can read it), Gordon on Scott & historical fiction, using illustration); Amy Tucker: Illustration of the Master: Henry James and illustrations

4) the textual edition of Ethelinde for Valancourt. have now read and blogged on Emmeline and Young Philosopher. Celestina next. It's really not easy to read Smith at night. Ditto on Prevost. If I could, I would.

Two days a week:

Outlining Graham and moving on with historical fiction. I should first do Bella (time to get to Bella and then return to translation studies/Acadiam Diaspora) after the Trollope. A Natural History of the Novel next. Then FMFord's Fifth Queen, then Graham's own historical book on the Armada and his historical fiction set in the 16th century. this is historical fiction time too. As part of journey, ought to read some other good 18th century historical fiction, especially of same era, e.g., Sandra Gulland, The Many lives and sorrows of Josephine B. Margaret Kennedy, Troy Chimneys

For fun at night and because I find I can watch Amy Goodman (!); read Kierney's Martha Jefferson Randolph (sent away for Gordon-Reed's Hemingses of Monticello); Trollope's Castle Richmond (for friends on Trollope19thCStudes), Little Dorrit, book and film (Inimitable Boz). Now on 2002 Forsyte Saga. Upcoming: Stoppard's Parade's End. Toibin's
Love in a Dark Time; Homage to Barcelona.

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It does seem as if Tuesdays in Austen's Emma is being sidelined for now. Am I right to do this? I admit I'm a little bored and it takes such excruciating time and work. I've decided to cool it on Jane Austen's letters: I'll keep up at my own pace. For now do Foremother Poets only when spirit takes me.

Come January I am committed to studying and writing a paper about I Have Found It, the Tamil version of a Sense and Sensibility. I am keeping up watching film adaptations. I have half a book, A Place of Refuge: JA or S&S Films, "cooking."

Backburner: a life and works of Henrietta St John Knight, Lady Luxborough - she wrote 5 marvelous poems.


Sylvia