"It’s some crude animal thing I was born without. (And I’m glad I was, if more people were like me, in my opinion, the world would be better.)"
"That was the day I first gave myself the dream that came true."
I like the way he writes this "gave myself" as if he is allowing himself to dream, as if it was a bad thing, or too much of it would be destructive.
"It stopped being a dream, it began to be what I pretended was really going to happen (of course, I thought it was only pretending)"
You can make yourself believe anything if you try hard enough.
"Guest"- i love that. He makes it sound so normal.
"It finally ten days later happened as it sometimes does with butterflies. I mean you go to a place where you know you may see something rare and you don’t, but the next time not looking for it you see it on a flower right in front of you, handed to you on a plate, as they say."
"I took a risk, perhaps I wanted to give fate a chance to stop me."
It's nice of him to invent a story that he's following someone's orders, because it doesn't seem AS creepy.
Ah now I see. Because he's a collector he's used to catching things, beautiful specimens: "It was like not having a net and catching a specimen you wanted in your first and second fingers (I was always very clever at that), coming up slowly behind and you had it, but you had to nip the thorax, and it would be quivering there. "
"You’re like a miser, you hoard up all the beauty in these drawers."
"There were just all those evenings we sat together and it doesn’t seem possible that it will never be again. It was like we were the only two people in the world."
“What I fear in you is something you don’t know is in you.”
"It was no good, she had killed all the romance, she had made herself like any other woman, I didn’t respect her any more, there was nothing left to respect."
I don't know whether I like this G.P. character. He seems like a selfish bastard- and very sexist. What is it with men that want women to be "a certain way" and to "be themselves" as if they have the right to expect things, and if they don't get them, then they blame the woman. Just like Ferdinand- he puts impossible expectations on her, and then becomes angry when she cannot fulfill them. This whole "female nobility" business. It's stupid and I don't believe in it. These type of men just want women to be their savior, a muse- to exist as a decoration for their own existence.
I think Fowles understands my frustration:
"He said, men are vile.
I said, the vilest thing about them is that they can say that with a smile on their faces."
As if saying that justifies them.
At first I didn't like the style of the book, with both characters narrating... but I like it now. He set up a general "events" and adds the details with Miranda's diary. As if filling the spaces in. Because among all the facts, she also has a whole different world/experience going on.
I like her- at first I also didn't. But she's more than meets the eye- she's more than just a pretty girl. She's not extremely smart, but she has a great sense of intuition. She's very deep and she's attracted to sadness.
"I felt sorry for Caliban this evening. He will suffer when I am gone. There will be nothing left. He’ll be alone with all his sex neurosis and his class neurosis and his uselessness and his emptiness. He’s asked for it. I’m not really sorry. But I’m not absolutely unsorry."
"I am one in a row of specimens. It’s when I try to flutter out of line that he hates me. I’m meant to be dead, pinned, always the same, always beautiful. He knows that part of my beauty is being alive, but it’s the dead me he wants. He wants me living-but-dead."
What keeps her going is that she thinks she's special: "Why should we tolerate their beastly Calibanity? Why should every vital and creative and good person be martyred by the great universal stodge around? In this situation I’m a representative." Because I would have killed myself by now.
What makes her so special?? She's beautiful but smart (which is rare) but anyone becomes a "specimen" if they would be trapped in a room...
"Then there’s his weakness. The feeling that he would probably betray me. And I’ve always thought of marriage as a sort of young adventure, two people of the same age setting out together, discovering together, growing together. But I would have nothing to tell him, nothing to show him. All the helping would be on his side."
"He’s not human; he’s an empty space disguised as a human."
" Deep down in him, side by side with the beastliness, the sourness, there is a tremendous innocence. It rules him. He must protect it."
"A strange thought: I would not want this not to have happened. Because if I escape I shall be a completely different and I think better person. Because if I don’t escape, if something dreadful happened, I shall still know that the person I was and would have stayed if this hadn’t happened was not the person I now want to be."
That's insane!
"I’ve not only never felt like this before, I never imagined it possible. More than hatred, more than despair. You can’t hate what you cannot touch, I can’t even feel what most people think of as despair. It’s beyond despair. It’s as if I can’t feel any more. I see, but I can’t feel."
It's so weird how Ferdinand uses "well" when he's describing her death. Like "well you know, what can you do"... as if she was a hamster...
"I found her diary which shows she never loved me, she only thought of herself and the other man all the time."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wow! No I am shocked out of my mind! No!! What a horrible man. It's so sad because Miranda actually wanted to "cure" him and find out what he actually IS. What he's made up of- and she had all of these horrible mood changes- but she still came to pity him in the end. Even though he wanted to play "creator". The worst thing is that he loved her from afar. He was never "involved" with her- not sexually, but wanted to get to know her. He curiously looked at her from behind the glass- everything she said/did was beautiful. Except her wanting to be independent from him. She was exactly what she said, a "fey".
She debased herself completely- went against all her principles just so she can be free. She kept on wanting to live until the end.
In the end I do like her. She was noble, she was trapped but her goodness came out in the end. She even dreamed about defending him in court.
Great author. Very very skilled. I mean we delved into the world of a kidnapper-kidnapee... and he is so sympathetic to the whole situation, trying to give both their "justifications" and even showing this creepy/absurd relationship they had. But in the end, I think he despises this Ferdinand, because although he makes it sound like an "idea" or a "dream" we can see how realistically/easily it can come true...
It's creepy how real this movie becomes- SO NOT OKAY.
"That was the day I first gave myself the dream that came true."
I like the way he writes this "gave myself" as if he is allowing himself to dream, as if it was a bad thing, or too much of it would be destructive.
"It stopped being a dream, it began to be what I pretended was really going to happen (of course, I thought it was only pretending)"
You can make yourself believe anything if you try hard enough.
"Guest"- i love that. He makes it sound so normal.
"It finally ten days later happened as it sometimes does with butterflies. I mean you go to a place where you know you may see something rare and you don’t, but the next time not looking for it you see it on a flower right in front of you, handed to you on a plate, as they say."
"I took a risk, perhaps I wanted to give fate a chance to stop me."
It's nice of him to invent a story that he's following someone's orders, because it doesn't seem AS creepy.
Ah now I see. Because he's a collector he's used to catching things, beautiful specimens: "It was like not having a net and catching a specimen you wanted in your first and second fingers (I was always very clever at that), coming up slowly behind and you had it, but you had to nip the thorax, and it would be quivering there. "
"You’re like a miser, you hoard up all the beauty in these drawers."
"There were just all those evenings we sat together and it doesn’t seem possible that it will never be again. It was like we were the only two people in the world."
“What I fear in you is something you don’t know is in you.”
"It was no good, she had killed all the romance, she had made herself like any other woman, I didn’t respect her any more, there was nothing left to respect."
I don't know whether I like this G.P. character. He seems like a selfish bastard- and very sexist. What is it with men that want women to be "a certain way" and to "be themselves" as if they have the right to expect things, and if they don't get them, then they blame the woman. Just like Ferdinand- he puts impossible expectations on her, and then becomes angry when she cannot fulfill them. This whole "female nobility" business. It's stupid and I don't believe in it. These type of men just want women to be their savior, a muse- to exist as a decoration for their own existence.
I think Fowles understands my frustration:
"He said, men are vile.
I said, the vilest thing about them is that they can say that with a smile on their faces."
As if saying that justifies them.
At first I didn't like the style of the book, with both characters narrating... but I like it now. He set up a general "events" and adds the details with Miranda's diary. As if filling the spaces in. Because among all the facts, she also has a whole different world/experience going on.
I like her- at first I also didn't. But she's more than meets the eye- she's more than just a pretty girl. She's not extremely smart, but she has a great sense of intuition. She's very deep and she's attracted to sadness.
"I felt sorry for Caliban this evening. He will suffer when I am gone. There will be nothing left. He’ll be alone with all his sex neurosis and his class neurosis and his uselessness and his emptiness. He’s asked for it. I’m not really sorry. But I’m not absolutely unsorry."
"I am one in a row of specimens. It’s when I try to flutter out of line that he hates me. I’m meant to be dead, pinned, always the same, always beautiful. He knows that part of my beauty is being alive, but it’s the dead me he wants. He wants me living-but-dead."
What keeps her going is that she thinks she's special: "Why should we tolerate their beastly Calibanity? Why should every vital and creative and good person be martyred by the great universal stodge around? In this situation I’m a representative." Because I would have killed myself by now.
What makes her so special?? She's beautiful but smart (which is rare) but anyone becomes a "specimen" if they would be trapped in a room...
"Then there’s his weakness. The feeling that he would probably betray me. And I’ve always thought of marriage as a sort of young adventure, two people of the same age setting out together, discovering together, growing together. But I would have nothing to tell him, nothing to show him. All the helping would be on his side."
"He’s not human; he’s an empty space disguised as a human."
" Deep down in him, side by side with the beastliness, the sourness, there is a tremendous innocence. It rules him. He must protect it."
"A strange thought: I would not want this not to have happened. Because if I escape I shall be a completely different and I think better person. Because if I don’t escape, if something dreadful happened, I shall still know that the person I was and would have stayed if this hadn’t happened was not the person I now want to be."
That's insane!
"I’ve not only never felt like this before, I never imagined it possible. More than hatred, more than despair. You can’t hate what you cannot touch, I can’t even feel what most people think of as despair. It’s beyond despair. It’s as if I can’t feel any more. I see, but I can’t feel."
It's so weird how Ferdinand uses "well" when he's describing her death. Like "well you know, what can you do"... as if she was a hamster...
"I found her diary which shows she never loved me, she only thought of herself and the other man all the time."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wow! No I am shocked out of my mind! No!! What a horrible man. It's so sad because Miranda actually wanted to "cure" him and find out what he actually IS. What he's made up of- and she had all of these horrible mood changes- but she still came to pity him in the end. Even though he wanted to play "creator". The worst thing is that he loved her from afar. He was never "involved" with her- not sexually, but wanted to get to know her. He curiously looked at her from behind the glass- everything she said/did was beautiful. Except her wanting to be independent from him. She was exactly what she said, a "fey".
She debased herself completely- went against all her principles just so she can be free. She kept on wanting to live until the end.
In the end I do like her. She was noble, she was trapped but her goodness came out in the end. She even dreamed about defending him in court.
Great author. Very very skilled. I mean we delved into the world of a kidnapper-kidnapee... and he is so sympathetic to the whole situation, trying to give both their "justifications" and even showing this creepy/absurd relationship they had. But in the end, I think he despises this Ferdinand, because although he makes it sound like an "idea" or a "dream" we can see how realistically/easily it can come true...
It's creepy how real this movie becomes- SO NOT OKAY.
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