tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5424364424049242300.post1229232442263073052..comments2023-06-21T18:53:11.897+10:00Comments on Pykk: weigh’dUmbagollahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14556344092820711893noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5424364424049242300.post-62309930430117097202016-09-09T01:43:21.203+10:002016-09-09T01:43:21.203+10:00Richardson's characters are very much like tha...Richardson's characters are very much like that. (Even Grandison, I'd say, although these biographers Eaves and Kimpel wouldn't agree with me: they think he's pure, stiff abstract concept.) It's interesting to see him explaining to people in private that he was trying to edit the works down but it was difficult because so many of the small touches were necessary. And then he would say that he wanted his books to be moral. But you look at those necessary touches and if a moral lesson was truly all he'd wanted then he would have knocked out a tonne of them. Umbagollahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14556344092820711893noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5424364424049242300.post-36425115288609436202016-09-07T04:05:57.024+10:002016-09-07T04:05:57.024+10:00That's a very detailed and thoughtful answer, ...That's a very detailed and thoughtful answer, thanks!<br /><br />I have been thinking a lot lately about characters who are not mere representations of abstract ideas, but who are themselves, who push against the abstraction upon which they were maybe first conceived. I was thinking this weekend about Ishmael, and Jane Eyre, whom many readers try to simplify into types, the types not being adequately supported by the texts.scott g.f.baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05726743149139510832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5424364424049242300.post-47986112185888059432016-09-04T10:22:06.065+10:002016-09-04T10:22:06.065+10:00(Also, it can't be emphasised enough that &quo...(Also, it can't be emphasised enough that "the world" in his books is always the world of human society. There is no other world.)Umbagollahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14556344092820711893noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5424364424049242300.post-2064115268456428422016-09-04T09:32:52.174+10:002016-09-04T09:32:52.174+10:00I think he saw women as captives of the world, or ...I think he saw women as captives of the world, or at least <i>as an author</i> he saw them that way because that's how they are in his fiction. I don't think it follows that the conscious, public Richardson would ever have described them in the same way, even to himself.<br /><br />If I tried to call his characters abstracts or emblems then I think I'd come across an immediate problem -- they're densely detailed, and they behave in ways that propel them out of abstraction. (Harriet's sudden panic when she's about to get married doesn't serve any emblematic purpose that I can see.) Umbagollahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14556344092820711893noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5424364424049242300.post-82246640972659833862016-09-01T07:24:24.886+10:002016-09-01T07:24:24.886+10:00I vote "subconsciously identified."I vote "subconsciously identified."Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5424364424049242300.post-22287906575464037052016-09-01T04:17:07.678+10:002016-09-01T04:17:07.678+10:00Do you think Richardson consciously identified wit...Do you think Richardson consciously identified with inactive, captive and speechless women, or that he simply saw women as captives of the world? Or are all the characters more like abstractions, ideal men and women, emblematic supporting characters and villains, etc? <br /><br />I meant to ask this in a more prolix yet elegant manner, but unfortunately I'm very busy just now so I'm rushing--even through this stupid digression.scott g.f.baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05726743149139510832noreply@blogger.com