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nicklloydnow · 9 months

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“Vincent died July 6 at a clinic in Switzerland. She was 53. Her death, which was not reported at the time, was confirmed Thursday by Justine Hardy, a friend. The death, she said, was medically assisted, or what is known as a voluntary assisted death.

Vincent was a lesbian. She was not transgender or gender-fluid. She was, however, interested in gender and identity. As a freelance contributor to The Los Angeles Times, The Village Voice and The Advocate, she had written essays on those topics that inflamed some readers.

(…)

She was suffering, she wrote, for the same reason that many of the men she met were suffering: Their assigned gender roles, she found, were suffocating them and alienating them from themselves.

(…)

She studied philosophy at Williams College in Massachusetts, where at 21 she realized she was a lesbian, she told the Times in 2001, when her contrarian freelance columns began drawing fire. She spent 11 years as a graduate student in philosophy at Boston College and worked as an assistant editor at the Free Press, a publishing house that before it folded in 2012 put out books on religion and social science and had, in the 1980s, a neoconservative bent. Vincent's first work of fiction was "Thy Neighbor" (2012), a dark, comic thriller about an unemployed alcoholic writer who begins spying on his neighbors while trying to solve the mystery of his parents' murder-suicide: voyeurism as a means to self-knowledge.”

“There is no time. That is what I tell everyone who asks, and sooner or later everyone asks (it was my psychiatrist’s first question); why I didn’t call them, or someone, anyone for help on that March evening in 2014 before I took the largest carving knife from the kitchen drawer, locked myself in the bathroom, climbed in the tub, ran the water, and set about slicing my radial and femoral arteries. I soon saw that the knife would not accomplish this quickly—it had been dulled by overuse—and so I turned my attention elsewhere. Near the front rim of the tub, there was a large rectangular chrome plate that operated the drainstop. When sitting, you could see your face in it clearly. It was in this close and unexpected mirror that I fixed myself, eye to eye, scried the throb of the right carotid, and drew the blade across my throat.

I say that ‘I’ did these things, because I must use the first person pronoun if I am to take full responsibility both for what happened that night, and for the toll it took on those around me. But ‘I’ is not quite the right word, because the person who did these things, mechanically and without pause, and with a calm determination, was not me. Or at least that is not how it felt at the time. Someone—‘she,’ call her—took over—and this is the crucial detail—she did so in an instant without my knowledge or consent. She simply acted, without feeling, without judgment, and without thought.

Before I fully understood this, I used to say that she did what she did because I wasn’t trying to commit suicide. I was merely trying to get myself out of a situation I couldn’t handle. This is not altogether untrue. Actions almost always have more than one cause, and that night, mine were no exception. Some part of me knew that doing something so drastic while another person was at home, and doing the most indicative part of it—the march from the kitchen to the bathroom with a knife—in that person’s full view, would bring the police in a matter of minutes. They would then take me away and lock me away for a significant period of time. This is precisely what happened.

But, now that I am on the other side of the event, with the insight of afterthought, I realize that the way I once explained my behavior leaves out a large portion of the truth. It would be more accurate to say that ‘she’ did what she did because she was not thinking, and because there was no time. And though suicidal events are far too personal and varied to epitomize, this suspension of time and thought does, I believe, lie at the heart of the particular type of self-harm that I and so many other writers and creative people throughout history have felt driven to commit. It is also the main reason why those, like myself, who survive an attempt, often do so only out of what is so appositely called dumb luck.

My attempt to kill myself did not happen when it did by coincidence. It was a direct result of a process and a mindset that I had been steeping in for months. I began to understand this only when a close friend, who read the manuscript I’d been working on before I tried to kill myself said: “Whenever someone commits suicide, we always ask: Why? In Adeline, you’ve given us an answer.” She said ‘an’ answer, not ‘the’ answer, because there is not one answer. But there is, I believe, one answer to the more particular question that has pervaded the lives and legacies of so many artists, especially Virginia Woolf: Why has there always been such a close and obstreperous association between creativity and mental illness? A clash that too often results in death.

The previous summer I had been through an obliterating depression. After months of dementing torpor, I accepted the need for new medication, took it, and by late September I began climbing out of hell. By October I had begun writing a novel about the mental illness, artistry and suicide of Virginia Woolf. The reason I did so has become as obvious to me as it must now be to you. I was not only writing but enacting what I knew: suicidal depression and its seemingly inextricable entanglement with making art. I called it Adeline, which, though it was never used, had been Virginia Woolf’s, or Virginia Stephen’s, as she was then known, given name.

(…)

The novel begins with Woolf (in the bathtub) conceiving of To the Lighthouse in the summer of 1925, and proceeds through the next 16 years of her life. It explores other themes, but it focuses throughout on this nexus of creativity and suicide, both as Woolf discussed it with others; notably Dora Carrington, on the day before Carrington killed herself, and years later, with her friend and personal physician, Octavia Wilberforce, again, on the day before Woolf drowned herself in the River Ouse. All of this—except for the meetings themselves, and some of the stranger details surrounding them, which are documented both by Woolf and her best biographer, Hermione Lee—I created out of whole cloth. Out of myself.

Though I did not know it then, Adeline was not just a work of fiction, or an act of literary ventriloquism. It was my suicide note. Had I succeeded in taking my life, this would have been clear.

My first hint of this came from a friend who knows me well and never prevaricates or hyperbolizes about my work. He read the manuscript one weekend in early March, and said: “It’s astonishing, truly, but, I have to ask: You’re not of Virginia’s persuasion are you?” “No,” I scoffed. Yet even then, though I understood little else of what was happening to me, I knew this was a lie.

Or, I knew and I didn’t want to know—and there is a very good reason for this. When you have spent the better part of your adult life vigorously entertaining and just as vociferously disavowing thoughts of self-harm, because you know that acknowledging them can be used as a pretext for committing you to a locked psychiatric facility against your will, over time, something very odd happens to those thoughts. In your mind they constitute a substantial portion of the decor, like well-worn wallpaper, so familiar as to be invisible. They are always there, and you never talk about them with anyone—not honestly.

(…)

Albert Camus once said that a novel is never anything but a philosophy put into images. Virginia Woolf fulfilled and exceeded this dictum. Her most difficult and arguably greatest novels, To the Lighthouse and The Waves, are autobiographical, versions of her lived experience. But because so much of that experience was phantasmagorical, so beyond the norm, her fiction became, to use Camus’s terms, not just philosophy, but metaphysics put into images. To the Lighthouse is a memoir of the childhood summers Woolf spent with her family in St. Ives, but rendered in the dream language of what her friend Aldous Huxley would later call psychedelic apperception. Huxley achieved and described this condition more than a decade after Woolf’s death, but he did so by taking mescaline and LSD. Woolf did so naturally. It was simply how she perceived the world.

As I learned while channeling Adeline, this hallucinatory frame of mind is often both the essence and the compulsion of artistic experience; the chief reason why creativity and madness are so often treacherously intertwined.

The real world, as some philosophers have observed, is not what it seems, and though mystics have taught this for thousands of years, now even physicists are bolstering this view with hard data. Our world is the version of reality that our limited brains, bodies and capacities can assimilate. We can only take it, if we take it at all, in very small doses. Otherwise, we are liable, as we so often say of the mentally ill, to lose touch with reality; to go mad with overstimulation in the transport.

The artist, however, sees through the veil of illusion, beyond the mirage that constitutes the so-called real world, and entertains the wondrous, yet terrifying spectacle that lies beneath, and it is this liminal consciousness that the artist must induce and cultivate if he is to practice his art. Yet, doing so, as became so abundantly clear in the life and work of Virginia Woolf, means balancing on the high wire of sanity. Many fall; many jump, and this is not only because the practice is inherently decompensating to human beings, but also because, harrowing and intoxicating by turns as this awareness so often is, once you have partaken of something that feels so meaningful and so real, the everyday world just can’t compare. It becomes harder and harder to come back to drudgery, and at some point many decide that they either won’t or can’t.

Woolf differentiated these two types of consciousness when she wrote of what she called ‘moments of being’ and ‘moments of non-being.’ Moments of non-being were everyday events, the humdrum duties and chores you performed to get through the day (think of Mrs. Dalloway); your share of the collective agreement that all human beings make with each other and the world we inhabit to live by the rules, because we understand that abiding on this planet means staying in bounds—or else. Moments of being, by contrast, were the visionary, mystical, heightened flights of perspicuity that Woolf experienced and transcribed in her novels, or, as she once put it, the eternity she saw peeking through skirts and waistcoats.

* * * *

But—and this is a critical addendum—courting this domain need not always be fatal. Not by a long stretch. There are many artists, philosophers, mystics, seekers and other visionaries who have lived long, productive, contented lives well into old age, and died of natural causes. Samuel Beckett, for instance, who contemplated some of the grimmest visions of the human condition since Dante, and who withstood the ravages of debilitating depression and anxiety all his life, died of emphysema and a degenerative neurological disorder at the age of 83. Many of Beckett’s characters express some version of what for him had become a personal conviction: “You must go on. I can’t go on. I’ll go on.”

And yet, living so long and not dying by his own hand does not in and of itself make Beckett or anyone else a hero or a success, any more than succumbing to suicide makes Woolf or anyone else a failure. It bears remembering something that Robin Williams mentioned in an interview that he had given years before he committed suicide in August, 2014. He was discussing addiction, but the import of what he said, which was wisely cautionary and profound, applies equally to depression and suicidal intent. It never goes away. It lies in wait for the moments when we are weakest. Managing it is a constant battle. We must be ever vigilant. Even so, we do not always prevail.”

““I suspect people will go into this thinking oh, it’s written by a lesbian, she’s going to be male-bashing all the way down the line,” Vincent says by phone from Manhattan. “But my experience was one that made me feel very vulnerable and made me feel a lot of pain and difficulty. While all of us in the post-feminist movement are convinced that women have always had it worse and men have always had it better, it took me stepping into their shoes to realize that that’s not true at all.”

(…)

“You find yourself suddenly in a situation where all the social rules are different,” Vincent says by phone from Manhattan. “I likened it to suddenly hearing sounds that only dogs can hear.” Case in point: when Norah would walk through her neighborhood, the guys hanging outside the bodegas would ogle her; when Ned walked by, they would completely ignore him.

“It was really astounding the difference when I walked by those same places as a man and nobody would look me in the eye; it was a concerted looking-away. Even if you were a good-looking guy, women would check you out in a very surreptitious way that isn’t confrontational. There was a relief in that invisibility,” she says.

(…)

The rejection that Ned experiences in the dating scene had a powerful impact on Norah. “It’s awful. I think most women don’t have any idea how much guts it takes, how much emotional energy and confidence it takes to approach a woman,” she says. “Men need ego because they don’t get to show weakness and they don’t get to show need, they have to compensate for it by a sense of, I can do this, I’m entitled, because that’s all they have.”

While guys may appear brutish, undemonstrative and unfeeling on the surface, Vincent found that inside they’re as victimized as women by their gender socialization, the “straitjacket of the male role.” What’s more, although it won’t please many feminists, Vincent concludes that women, not men, actually call the shots, at least where hooking up is concerned.

“When you see it from a guy’s point of view, you really realize that, if nothing else, at the most basic sexual level, women can really take it or leave it most of the time,” she says. “Just that aspect alone already gives us a leg up because we get to choose; we get to say, I’ll take you but I won’t take you. That’s a lot of power.”

(…)

But the daily commute between man and woman eventually took its psychological toll on Vincent, and it took her months to recover from the ordeal.

“That was hard. I had learned to present myself in a more male way mentally—not just in how I looked—and I needed to step away from that, to slowly undo that. I had to reclaim myself.”

Vincent admits she didn’t particularly care for Ned: “I wish I’d been a cooler guy, which maybe was a great thing because it was a typical male experience. I felt a little bit geeky and inadequate. I wish I’d been more of a stud.”

That said, did she hold on to any part of Ned’s character?

“Yeah. I don’t know if you can print this, but I certainly held on to a piece of his balls (laughs). As Hamlet would say, probably the strongest remaining male advantage is ‘thinking makes it so.’ It’s that feeling that, when I’m feeling afraid of something I have to do or I’m feeling unequal to it, I say to myself, just do it. Don’t think about it, just get up and do it. There is a way in which that is a gift that men have that compensates for all the things they don’t have.””

“Transsexuality, it seems, is fast becoming emblematic of our age, and this is not a good thing. It is to the new millennium what homosexuality was to the previous two. Sodomy did, after all, round out the Anno Domini rather nicely when you think about it, having come to poetical apotheosis before its beginning, in the classical age of Greece and Rome, and having come to political fruition after its end, in the postmodern age. Yes, you heard right, its end. For the years of our Lord are well and truly over, and have been for some time. Remember? Nietzsche declared God dead more than a century ago.

But it has taken the likes of Foucault, Derrida, and their imitators to kill something that is, arguably, far more precious. Namely, the self. And that, I submit, is what the rise of transsexuality indicates, or—to use the thoroughly fashionable term—”signifies.” It signifies the death of the self, the soul, that good old-fashioned indubitable “I” so beloved of Descartes, whose great adage “I think, therefore I am” has become an ontological joke on the order of “I tinker and there I am.”

(…)

Now, this is an enormous leap. It changes entirely what we mean when we say “Just be yourself.” Being yourself used to be metaphysical. It had nothing to do with what you wore or which set of genitals you had. It was sexless, and genderless, and classless. It just was, and always had been since the day you were born. What’s more, medical insurance didn’t cover it. But if you consider the implications of San Francisco’s new policy—that is, medical coverage being part and parcel of becoming a person—then metaphysics is thrown to the winds. If you take seriously the idea that a person cannot be himself without the intervention of modern technology, then you have lost the notion of a self altogether. What you are left with is a literally constructed self—a thoroughly superficial identity that someone has built with a scalpel.

And this is a notion that has its roots in philosophies that are all too trendy in academia today, those very Foucaldian and Derridian philosophies I just mentioned. The ones that would have us believe that there is no such thing as objective reality, facts, or real people. Instead, there are just constructions, perceptions, and cultural norms that have nothing to do with such quaint anachronisms as God or the soul.

The Board of Supervisors’ decision to insure transsexuals means not only that dubious and pernicious postmodern conceits have seeped out of the academy and into the minds of public officials and other average folk, but that they have translated themselves into unfair fiscal policies. As a consequence, the unfavored “normal” majority is financing the self-proclaimed entitlements of the newest ordained minority—transsexuals.

This is not fair, and should not be allowed to happen. Because there is a big difference between an equal-opportunity society in which people of all persuasions are allowed to pursue their own happiness—at their own expense—and an ideologically skewed culture in which special-interest groups are merely piggybacking on the latest trendy philosophies. And getting special treatment.”

#norah vincent #suicide #gender #depression #virginia woolf #adeline #camus #albert camus #foucault #derrida #art

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daughterofhecata · 1 year

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I did both @batmanisagatewaydrug‘s and @macrolit‘s Reading Bingos this year - was aiming for blackouts on both, didn‘t manage it for macrolit’s, but I did get a couple bingos.

Titles for each under the cut, full reading list here.

batmanisagatewaydrug:

translated book: Jonathan L. Howard: Johannes Cabal #1. Seelenfänger. [org. title: Johannes Cabal the Necromancer]

graphic novel: Vincent Burmeister, David Schraven: Unter Krähen. Aus dem Inneren der Republik. [no english title]

nonfiction: Anna Mirga-Kruszelnicka, Jekatyerina Dunajeva: Re-Thinking Roma Resistance throughout History: Recounting Stories of Strength and Bravery.

sequel: Luke Arnold: Fetch Phillips Archives #3. One Foot in the Fade.

poetry collection: Rainer Maria Rilke: Gedichte [herausgegeben vom Hamburger Lesehefte Verlag]

published before 2010: Faye Kellerman: Die Schwingen des Todes [org. title: Stone Kiss]

memoir: Theodor Michael: Deutsch Sein und Schwarz Dazu. Erinnerungen eines Afro-Deutschen. [engl. title: Black German. An Afro-German Life in the Twentieth Century.]

oldest on TBR: Anne Frank: Tagebuch der Anne Frank. 14. Juni 1942 bis 1. August 1944. [org. title: Het Achterhuis/engl. title: The Diary of a Young Girl]

author from a different country: Alexander Wolkow: Zauberland-Reihe #1. Der Zauberer der Smaragdenstadt. [org. title: Волшебник изумрудного города/engl. title: The Wizard of the Emerald City]

romance: Iny Lorentz: Die Feuerbraut [no english title i could find]

essay collection: Scaachi Koul: One Day We‘ll All Be Dead And None Of This Will Matter.

fantasy: Austin Chant: Peter Darling

novella: Maria Konopnicka: Der Danziger Mendel [org. title: Mendel Gdański/no english title]

debut author: Xiran Jay Zhao: Iron Widow

ghosts or monsters: Jennifer Giesbrecht: The Monster of Elendhaven

short stories: Hendrik Buchna, Marco Sonnleitner, u.a.: Die Drei ??? und der Zeitgeist [no english title; collection of short stories in the german continuation of Robert Arthur’s Three Investigators stories]

banned book: Harper Lee: To Kill a Mockingbird

one word title: K. Ancrum: Darling

published before 2000: Josef Bor: Theresienstädter Requiem [org. title: Terezínské Rekviem/engl. title: The Terezín Requiem]

2022 release: Jonathan Kellerman: City of the Dead. An Alex Delaware Novel.

literary fiction: Sylvia Plath: The Bell Jar / Jack Kerouac: On The Road (I’m pretty sure at least one of them qualifies)

YA: Jonathan Stroud: Bartimäus #1. Das Amulett von Samarkand. [org. title: The Bartimaeus Trilogy #1. The Amulet of Samarkand.]

reread: Franz Kafka: Das Urteil [engl. title: The Judgement]

400+ pages: James Ellroy: L.A. Confidential. Stadt der Teufel. [org. title: L.A. Confidential]

macrolit:

Classic Author A/B/C: -

Gothic Fiction: -

Fan Fiction: [no specific work]

published between 1960-1990: Václav Havel: Vernissage [org. title: Vernisáž/engl. title: Unveilling]

Classic Author P/Q/R: Sylvia Plath: The Bell Jar

Biography or Non-Fiction: Justin Fenton: We Own This City. A True Story of Crime, Cops, and Corruption.

Classic Author S/T/U: -

Young Adult: Christina Henry: Lost Boy

Classic Author G/H/I: -

Detective, Horror or Suspense: Tess Gerritsen: Die Chirurgin. [org. title: The Surgeon]

Philosophy or Literary Criticism: Judith Butler: Gender Trouble. Feminism and the Subversion of Identity.

Classic Author M/N/O: -

Harlem Renaissance: -

Published between 1990-2022: Ocean Vuong: On Earth We‘re Briefly Gorgeous

Book of Short Stories: Don Winslow: Broken

published between 1920-1960: Jerzy Andrzejewski: Warschauer Karwoche [org. title: Wielki tydzień/engl. title: Holy Week]

Classic Author D/E/F: Leslie Feinberg: Stone Butch Blues

Children‘s Literature: [any one of the twenty Three Investigator‘s books I read this year]

Poetry or Play: Bożena Keff: Ein Stück über Mutter und Vaterland [org. title: Utwór o Matce i Ojczyźnie/engl. title: A Piece about Mother and Fatherland]

Graphic Novel: Elfriede Jelinek, Nicolas Mahler: Der fremde! störenfried der ruhe eines sommerabends der ruhe eines friedhofs. [no english title]

Classic Author J/K/L: Jack Kerouac: On The Road

Essays or Satire: Scaachi Koul: One Day We‘ll All Be Dead And None Of This Will Matter.

Published before 1920: Maria Konopnicka: Der Danziger Mendel [org. title: Mendel Gdański/no english title]

Classic Author V/W/X/Y/Z: Jiří Weil: Leben mit dem Stern [org. title: Život s hvězdou/engl. title: Life With A Star]

#end of 2022 #reading list #2022 reading bingo #i tried to use as few titles twice as possible #was very much fun to do these bingos #made me more consciously broaden my range #read my first essay collection this year!#read more poetry!#more fantasy again!#a few more 'classics'#not quite as many as i had hoped to but more #also yes @batmanisagatewaydrug i took quite some inspiration from various monthly reading updates and enjoyed most of them!#many of the czech and polish works were for my slavic studies classes but i also enjoyed most of them

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elfilibusterismo · 2 years

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Hi po~! Mayroon po ba kayo article, essays, paper recommendations, on any subject (^_^)? thank you~

hi, anon! may nasagot na akong mga related asks tungkol dito: essays on ph culture and history, books and pdfs on martial law specifically, and list of filipino authors

other articles, essays, etc i read recently that i liked:

historical influences on gender preference in the philippines by marie lou frias bautista

women in the philippine revolution by christine doran

revisiting the 'aquino magic': extending neoliberal interests and foreshadowing communicative capitalism in the philippines by mae urtal caralde

race, sex, aids: the construction of 'other' by evelynn hammonds

western mathematics: the secret weapon of cultural imperialism by alan j. bishop

architects of networked disinformation: behind the scenes of troll accounts and fake news production in the philippines by jonathan corpus ong and jason vincent a. cabañes

american-soviet cultural diplomacy: the bolshoi ballet's american premiere by cadra peterson mcdaniel

the last one is a book but i just read through it and liked it a lot. if you can't find these online feel free to dm me and i'll give you a copy!

#i need a tag for my recs #jam's recs #<- nice #anonymous #answered

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trafalgarenjoyer3000 · 4 months

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Get to know you/tag game

thanks @thirstydiglett for tagging me!（✿＾▿＾)

Last song i listened to: Awake by Ok Goodnight. (if you like metal/rock/alt music you should check them out)

Currently reading: NOBODY PASSES Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity, and The Letters of Vincent can Gogh. (and several small readings for my classes lol)

Currently watching: One Piece! I’m at Wano/Onigashima now; Trigun Stampede and Hermitcraft (does hermitcraft even count it’s a not a show but it’s still a series so???)

Currently Obsessed with: One Piece. one piece…. Eustass Kid is on my mind way too much, video essays and making small little doodles on anything and everything.

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panvani · 4 years

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Rereading the official translation and coming across this line made me remember a particular nuance I think Kimura’s translation erases in the use of a gendered pronoun in Oswald’s line here.

To clarify, the original line was “このような形になってしまうのか” (kono you na katachi ni natteshimau no ka, literally closer to “this is the kind of form that has come to be taken”), which does not specify an object. The line was definitely about Miranda in context, but no female subject is mentioned until Vincent’s following line “あの女だ…悪いのはぜんぶあの女なんだ…” (ano onna da... warui no wa zenbu ano onna nanda..., official translation is basically literal) “This is how she was transformed.” is not an inaccurate translation of このような形になってしまうのか, definitely, but I don’t think it carries the full nuance of the original line.

Oswald’s lack of specificity regarding subject in Japanese was, based on framing, probably intentional, at least from the narrative’s perspective. If you were to show a Japanese speaker that panel out of context, they’d immediately assume the person being talked about was Vincent. If Oswald’s line, which originally does not specifically reference any single subject, was only intended to be about Miranda, why put it against Vincent, with Demios notably out of view? Why follow it with a panel of Vincent as a child, asserting it had to have been Miranda?

The thing about this line about Miranda being implicitly about Vincent is it sheds a lot of light on how I think the two are meant to be read-- not as two, completely separate, narratively distinct characters, but with Miranda as a reflection of Vincent’s own character.

I’m not saying that Miranda isn’t “real” within the context of the story, exactly. Multiple characters interact with her and acknowledge her existence, even those who presumably had no idea who Vincent was. Her narrative role, however, cannot be separated from Vincent’s, and her arc is intended as a supplement to his. There are a number of reasons why I believe Miranda is a reflection of Vincent, as opposed to simply someone who traumatized him, however. A good part is how Vincent refers to her.

(chapter 39)

There’s one other instance of a character claiming to have been spoken to by the Devil.

(chapter 32)

Break, in reference to his illegally contracted Chain, claims to have been spoken to by the devil. Break and Vincent’s characters parallel one another in a number of ways- both are manipulative, deliberately offputting, living in anticipation of their death (as was Lacie... that’s another post, though). Both, out of a hope to save their loved ones, begin to sacrifice others while believing their actions would eventually be undone.

The reason this particular line is important though is because of who precisely Break’s illegal Chain was and what he represented-- that is, the White Knight. Just for absolute clarity, to “white knight” means to put yourself in positions of conflict out of the egotistical desire to be viewed as a savior. The word generally has different connotations when used for women vs. men, but that’s what it is at its core. This is also what both Break and Vincent do, as a consequence of having been influenced by their respective “devils.”

Immediately following the conversation from chapter 32 screencapped above, Break says “So people become stronger by living ‘for somebody else.’ Then how to go about it rightly? What should one keep in mind...? It must be... Never using ‘for somebody else’ as an ‘excuse.’ I hope he too... comes to realize that sooner rather than later, hmm?” Clearly referring to Vincent in context.

How that ties into Vincent’s encounters with Miranda is in the specific phrasing she uses to convince him to open the Door to Abyss. Vincent immediately recognizes Miranda as something hostile. He’s always afraid of her, believing the moment he sees her that she is something that seeks to harm him.

(chapter 39)

Yet he believes her, because Vincent does not only want Gil to be safe for Gil’s sake. He wants to save Gil to be the one to save him. This isn’t to say Vincent was selfish for wanting Gil safe- I know there’s a massive discourse about how selfish Vincent is or isn’t, so I’m not going to go into it here, but it’s explicitly canon that Vincent was an abused child in an extremely unsafe environment who in this scene believed his guardian intended to kill his brother. But his subsequent course of action was definitely influenced by his specific desire to white knight.

Other than Miranda as a representation of Vincent’s desire to white knight, another major reason I see her specifically as an extension of Vincent himself and not simply a good manipulator has to do with what Vincent says in the second panel of that first screenshot. He claims his actions are Miranda’s fault, that he can’t be held accountable, since everything bad was only because of her.

The thing is, Vincent thinks what happened is his fault. He does. He insists it isn’t, because he wants to believe that, the same way you might insist it couldn’t have been you who ran over your cat when you find her body crushed in your driveway. No one wants to believe they’re responsible for suffering, especially not on the scale Vincent saw. It’s evident in Vincent’s actions that he blames himself, though. Why represent her as an abstract monster with no human traits whatsoever while Vincent goes at length about his own weaknesses? Why connect the color of blood and his eye? If he truly blamed Miranda, why not kill her instead of himself?

He also admits that he thinks it’s his fault, though only once. (chapter 31)

The last part of why I think Miranda should be understood mostly as an extension of Vincent is the most obvious one: Demios is a representation of mental illness. I’m sure other people have gone far more in depth about this in the past, but the Chain Demios and Vincent’s relationship to her is strongly tied to Vincent’s character and feelings towards his own death. She kills those he loathes, attacks those he loves (but is never able to kill them), manifests at his worst to destroy his mind and is kept in submission when he finally accepts support.

So, going back to the translation I wanted to complain about: in translating Oswald’s line as “This is how she was transformed,” Kimura’s localization specifies a subject that was likely deliberately ambiguous in the original text. In the chapter titled Vincent, where Vincent as an adult and child appear in the same space, his line about having changed into something different (something regrettable, as the しまう conjugation implies) is juxtaposed with an image of an adult Vincent. In the original text, the line highlights Miranda’s role as an extension of Vincent’s own character, while the translation erases this. The fan translation actually does a better job of representing this nuance in using a pronoun that does not specify gender.

Obviously this isn’t a dig at Tomo Kimura’s translation as a whole, just an analysis of a particular line as it relates to a particular character dynamic. Vincent is one of my favorite characters in Anything so I have a lot to say about him.

"Ohhhh but my beloved what is the point of Miranda being a reflection of Vincent's internal monologue as opposed to a completely separate character?" Well. You ever hear of a gender?

#logxx #pandora hearts #Vincent Nightray #meta #logam #animal death ment #vincent gender essays

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npr · 6 years

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There is the image: a woman with a guitar, eyes wild with color, hair flared out behind her, playing. Ordinarily, that would be enough. But then there is the sound: a world of deep, percussive gurgles; high, piercing leads; bright, spongey chords and a roar that can only be described as sounding like a chainsaw. Like this is not an axe St. Vincent has picked up, not a heavy tool swung around and around, but something mechanized, lightning-fast, deadly.

For more than 10 years, since the release of 2007's Marry Me, Annie Clark has inhabited her musical persona with a ferocious curiosity, a keen hunger for the unheard. She has said that she picked up the guitar because of her love for grunge bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, all acts that forged newly abject masculinities at the dawn of the '90s, in contrast to the polished bombast of '80s hair metal. A 2014 video of Clark performing with Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic, for Nirvana's induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, connects the dots between Kurt Cobain's loose, rough guitar stylings and Clark's adventurous technique. They do not sound alike, but they share a yen for destabilization and a fundamental suspicion about the way gender boundaries tend to cage in expression.

Though it was gospel guitarist Sister Rosetta Tharpe who pioneered many of rock music's electric guitar techniques, the instrument inevitably became phallicized, bound up with the masculinity of popular rock musicians through the second half of the 20th century. It's a loud machine, ripe with power, and any woman who picks it up must negotiate in her own way with its baggage. Most artists who have undermined the electric guitar's chauvinistic appeal so far have been men: Mick Ronson, playing in sequined pants while David Bowie simulated a blow job on his guitar; Cobain, who would rather slough off blasé solos than aim for masculinist virtuosity. But of course, these subversions succeeded because the subverters, to begin with, were men. They arrived insulated from any doubt that the instrument was for them.

To repurpose the guitar to her own expression, a woman must usually start from a place of advanced skill, though she need not end there. She needs to prove herself worthy of the instrument, and so she must play it better than the majority of men, for whom worthiness is an untested given. It is awe-inducing to watch Clark's hands dance fluidly across her instrument, navigating dense, complicated riffs while singing the chorus to "Surgeon" or painting neon rainbow cursive across "Bring Me Your Loves." Often she'll include choreography in her live performances, and then she's a wonder of full-body precision, sharp and unassailably poised. She has a rare skill, and yet the skill is not the point; it is the means. With it, she has undercut the stubborn assumption that rock music is an arena for men to express their power: to be louder, faster, more sexual and blunter than everyone who doesn't share their stage. She has crept onto that stage and interrogated that very power: by playing fast solos through thick, strange distortion, by contorting her voice into a disarming shriek, by shredding her guitar against the ultimate rockist taboo: a prerecorded backing track.

St. Vincent Is The 21st Century's Guitar Vanguard

Image: Photo Illustration: Michael Loccisano/Getty Images and Angela Hsieh/NPR

#NPR Music #St. Vincent #Annie Clark #music #essay #NPR Turning The Tables #gender #guitar

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hafanforever · 3 years

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It’s Good to Be Bad

I’ve described in previous analyses that I have a strong affinity for villains in fiction, including those by Disney. But like any fan of Disney, there are villains that I love and ones that I deeply detest with every bone in my body. So for my last analysis of the year, I will discuss my five most favorite and five least favorite Disney animated villains, though I also want to list a couple of other characters as honorable mentions to explain why I like or hate them.

The reasons I have for liking my favorite villains are simple, if not somewhat shallow, because I don’t exactly have deep reasons for liking them. Regardless of how evil, sadistic, cruel, and ruthless they are, I like them primarily because they are funny or charismatic. But it’s so much easier for me to list why I hate my least favorite villains, which is largely attributed the kinds of traits they display (most of which I cannot stand in people), their motives for being evil, and how they carry out their evil deeds while showing their evil natures.

This essay has turned into a longer one than I anticipated, so I am adding the “Keep reading” feature. Before I begin, I want to thank my dear buddy and soul sis @minervadeannabond for coming up with this title. Here is yet again another analysis of mine for you to enjoy, sis! 😁😄😉❤️

Most Favorites

Scar - Since The Lion King was the very first Disney film I ever saw in theaters as a child, and the first one I remember well from my childhood, many of my favorites Disney things come from it, including Scar being my #1 favorite Disney villain. Yes, he is a sadistic, tyrannical, narcissistic, cold-blooded murderer, but I think it is because of his cunning, smooth, elegant, charismatic nature and how pivotal he is to the story, particularly with how much he turns out to be a dark reflection of Simba, is why I love him so much. Furthermore, his song “Be Prepared” is my favorite villain song and among my favorite Disney songs of all, further showing how much The Lion King has given me Disney favorites since I was a child. 😁

Hades - Another one I remember well from my childhood, Hades is undoubtedly one of the funniest villains from the Disney animated canon. Although he is as cruel, evil, ruthless, and sadistic as any Disney villain, Hades is also so fast-talking, sleazy, sarcastic, cheeky, and hilarious that it makes it hard for me to take him seriously as a menacing villain. And while he constantly goes into fiery rages and blows his hot-headed top when furious, these help make Hades far more a comical, rather than scary, figure. Heck, when I was a kid, I always laughed, rather than got scared, whenever he unleashed one of his temper tantrums (except when he blows up at Meg with “I OWN YOU!!!”). And James Woods’s performance, especially since he ad-libbed many lines, helps make Hades such an unforgettable and memorable, if not lovable, character. So yeah, Hades’s wisecracking, talkative personality made him a memorable villain for me as a child, and I’ve loved him for it ever since. 😆😂

Ursula - Much like Hades, Ursula is sleazy, scheming, and cunning, yet wisecracking and comical at the same time. Besides her dry sense of humor, Ursula’s eccentricity, flamboyance, and elegance have always been the traits that drew me to her, and Pat Carrolll’s performance of the character is pure excellence. 😉

Maleficent - Despite being an incarnation of pure evil, including with her self-proclaimed title as The Mistress of All Evil, to me, Maleficent is by far the coolest, most badass Disney animated villain of all! 😆👍🏻 Yes, she curses Aurora with no true motive whatsoever, and she’s sadistic, ruthless, blasphemous, and murderous, but her display of her ill temper and dark magic just makes her totally awesome, most especially when she zaps her minions for their stupidity and incompetence upon learning they were only looking for a baby during their 16-year search for Aurora. 😁

Ratigan - Again, Disney has an evil, murderous, sadistic villain in Ratigan, but I love him because he is very collected, calculating, sophisticated, and charismatic, not to mention Vincent Price delivers such a great vocal performance as the character. 😉 What I also love about Ratigan is the moment when he undergoes what is known as a villainous breakdown, which is when a villain snaps and goes utterly crazy. During the film, Ratigan has some moments of losing his cool, but just as quickly manages to become calm and regain his composure. However, upon seeing Basil and Olivia escape from him inside Big Ben, along with Basil having having foiled his earlier scheme to kill the queen and take over England, Ratigan finally snaps, turning from a formal, sophisticated, composed rat to a highly feral, aggressive, savage one. It is the moment when Ratigan reveals the monster within and looks like a true rat, with an aggressive expression, hunched back, elongated claws, and running on all fours. The fact that Ratigan’s breakdown juxtaposes what kind of rat he was for the majority of the film is why his villainous breakdown is my favorite of any Disney villain.

Most Hated

Gaston - I have stated this before in “Bride and Prejudice”, but I pick Gaston as my #1 choice as my least favorite Disney animated villain. And it’s not just because of his extreme vanity, egotism, chauvinism, and arrogance, which are the very traits I hate in people, but because of his inferior, sexist, misogynistic views of women. Gaston is THE walking definition of toxic masculinity, the fictional example of the worst kind of man, the epitome of what men should NEVER be! 😡😡😡 He thinks men are the superior gender and that women are inferior to men, with their only purposes being to serve men and be their sex objects. And since I am a feminist who believes in gender equality, I dislike men who have low, sexist opinions of women, and Gaston fits the profile of what I think is the worst example of such a man. I could go on and on explaining just why I loathe this monster of a man with all my heart, but you can just read the aforementioned analysis to find out more.

Lady Tremaine - If it weren’t for Gaston being my #1 pick because of his extreme sexism and misogyny, I would pick Lady Tremaine. She comes such a close second because her motivations for abusing, oppressing, and being so cruel to Cinderella are petty and stupid, ESPECIALLY because Cinderella never even did anything to deserve such treatment from her in the first place! 😠😡 Lady Tremaine hates Cinderella and is very jealous of her purely because Cinderella so much better-looking and kinder than her own daughters and herself. So they abuse her and make her their servant to make her miserable and unattractive so that they can look better than her instead. Additionally, Lady Tremaine has a deep-rooted obsession to be above Cinderella at all costs that she resorts to lying, manipulation, trickery, and cheating in order to stay above. I particularly loathe it when she manipulates her daughters into tearing up Cinderella’s dress just so that she can appear fair and keep her word regarding her side of the bargain (she says ”if you can find something suitable to wear”, and once it’s wrecked, it’s no longer suitable) while simultaneously making sure she doesn’t have to keep her promise since she never wants Cinderella to go in the first place. All that being said, do these sound like justifiable excuses for hating a completely innocent woman? I DON’T THINK SO!!! 😡😡😡

Claude Frollo - Now if weren’t for BOTH Gaston and Lady Tremaine coming first, Claude Frollo would come on top as well! 😡😡😡 Frollo is without a doubt in my mind the most evil villain in the Disney animated canon. Unlike most Disney villains, he is COMPLETELY devoid of any likable or redeemable traits, making me have nothing but feelings of pure hatred for him. Ruthless, cruel, blasphemous, racist, and evil to his core, Frollo holds a deep-seated hatred for the gypsies and seeks to eradicate them from Paris, making him not only murderous, but genocidal, especially since he seeks to kill them simply out of his own racism, supremacy, and superiority. Throughout the years in his quest to eliminate the gypsies, Frollo murders Quasimodo’s mother by violently kicking her, causing her to fall and hit her head on the stone steps of Notre Dame, then tries to burn Esmeralda at the stake, declaring that she must be killed because she has been practicing witchcraft. After killing the mother, Frollo even attempts to drown baby Quasimodo simply because of his deformity. What makes Frollo even more evil besides doing his deeds is that he is a judge with control over the city, yet he proves himself to be corrupt and hypocritical by violating the laws to accomplish his dark, sinister deeds. Perhaps what makes Frollo the most evil villain of all is that he is in complete denial about how evil he really is. He has a delusional belief that he is a good, religious man doing God’s work by trying to purge the world of evil, when all he really does is twist his “faith” and hypocritically use it for his own evil purposes. What’s worse is that Frollo never once takes an ounce of responsibility for his crimes; he makes excuses to justify his actions, painting himself as guiltless and his victims as the only ones at fault. So with Frollo being such a blasphemous, hypocritical, racist, genocidal, murderous, corrupt judge who never believes he is doing anything wrong and always lays blame on the victims of his misdeeds, I can’t say there is a single thing about him that I like, and I’m happy he met his death in a fiery blaze! 😡🔥

Mother Gothel - A character I see as being an amalgam of Gaston, Lady Tremaine, and Frollo, the reasons why I hate all three of these villains are also found in Gothel: vanity, narcissism, oppression, mental abuse, trickery, manipulation, dishonesty, hypocrisy, and flat-out cruelty. First of all, Gothel’s vanity, narcissism, and obsession with her own beauty makes her extremely insufferable and annoying, not to mention the fact that she hoarded the flower to herself for hundreds of years just to stay alive shows how incredibly selfish and possessive she is. And due to her selfishness, she kidnaps Rapunzel, hides her in a tower, lies to her about the outside world, and continually mentally abuses, manipulates, oppresses, mocks, and belittles her just to ensure that Rapunzel will never leave the tower and the flower’s magic in her hair will keep her (Gothel) alive and young forever. On par with her narcissism, Gothel is shown to be a very spoiled, childish, immature woman who seeks to always have things her way and throws tantrums or other emotional outbursts when she doesn’t get her way or what she wants, especially the very moment she wants it. Furthermore, Gothel possesses a martyr, or victim, complex, which is shown perfectly when victimizes herself and places all the blame on Rapunzel whenever any sort of conflict befalls their lives and relationship, especially when they argue. So with all these flaws in mind, like Gaston, Lady Tremaine, and Frollo, I can’t find any good reason to like Gothel at all. “Mother Knows Best”? More like “Gothel Knows Worst”! 😠😡

Governor Ratcliffe - I said above that I hate Gaston because of his bigoted, low views of women, and prejudice is the main reason why I hate Governor Ratcliffe. However, his prejudice is in the form of racism, the kind of bigotry that I hate the most. Ratcliffe displays this attitude towards the Native Americans, considering them savages and seeing himself as better than them all because of his race, which makes him a white supremacist. Besides his supremacy and superiority regarding his race, Ratcliffe is intensely greedy and selfish since he wants to keep any riches found for himself and believes that the Virginia land and anything he finds on it is his for the taking. In relation to his bigotry, he is also quite delusional and self-righteous, which makes him believe that any theory he has is right and he refuses to believe otherwise or listen to reason. For example, Ratcliffe dismisses Wiggins’ correct assumptions on why the Indians attacked the settlers and John’s claim that there is no gold in the lands after Pocahontas tells him this. The hatred I hold for Ratcliffe is significantly less than the other four listed here, but the reasons I gave are virtually like those I gave for Frollo, so I’m confident with Ratcliffe and his place on my list.

Bonus Mentions

Hans - Hans is a villain that I place in the middle between my most loved and most hated villains, because I love him for WHAT he is as a villain while I simultaneously hate him for WHO he is as a character. I have said it to friends and some of my other analyses before, but one of the reasons why I love Frozen is because it took many of the traditional fairy tale elements and tropes used in their preceding films, and turned them upside down. So rather than having another prince as the heroic male lead in this film, Frozen twisted that trope around by making him the villain instead. And when Hans finally reveals his true nature, you realize that he has fooled not only Anna and the other characters who interacted with him, but first-time viewers as well! So while I love Hans for being a villain who keeps his true nature under wraps for the majority of the film and almost gets away with his crimes because of it, I also hate him because of how cold, cruel, callous, ruthless, and sadistic he really is. When he reveals his true nature and explains his plan to Anna, he mocks her intelligence, naïveté, and desperation for love while explaining just how easy it was for him to deceive and manipulate her into being a pawn in his plan to take over Arendelle. Throughout the whole scene, Hans smiles wickedly and sadistically, clearly showing the delight he is getting from tormenting Anna and watching her suffer while he explains his scheme and extinguishes all light sources to accelerate her death. It’s also easy to see his sadism when he announces his plan to murder Elsa, and that he will get even greater joy out of carrying out the act itself (which we see when Hans smiles widely while swinging his sword over Elsa’s head as he tries to kill her on the fjord).

Chi-Fu - While he is not a true villain, and not even evil at all, Chi-Fu is a very detestable character, one whose guts I hate completely because he has the same traits that make me hate Gaston: arrogance, conceit, egotism, bigotry, superiority, and misogyny. Prejudice against women is a main theme in Mulan, and Chi-Fu is the one man whose prejudiced opinions never change. While Shang and Mulan’s fellow soldiers initially hold views that women are beneath men, they learn to change them after Mulan proves herself a capable warrior in the army (even after her disguise is revealed), most especially when she helps save China from Shan Yu’s reign of terror. Despite the majority of his bigotry being aimed at women, Chi-Fu is also detestable because he shows it towards nearly everyone else, except the Emperor. As the second-in-command to the Emperor, Chi-Fu sees himself superior to almost everyone else around him, which enhances his pompous, elitist, arrogant attitude. Because of all these antagonistic traits, I loathe Chi-Fu while I don’t hate Shan Yu at all, even though the latter is truly pure evil and genocidal! 😠😡 It just goes to show that some people who are neither necessarily good nor bad can be even more contemptible that the most malevolent, murderous people.

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insomniacinserts · 3 years

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The confessor AU

Words - 4711 🥰🤤

AU - Father Clemens(c slater) is a professor at a religious school. Y/n is 18

A/N - I really pooped my blood, sweat and tears into this one. You kids are gonna eat well tonight 😘 sorry if it says michael Vincent anywhere it’s the name I used for y/n cause I wrote part of it in class. I’ll put a cut in it when I get to my pc I can’t open tumblr on my school computer

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“Mr. Y/N L/N.” Father Ortega stopped suddenly that I had bumped into him. He turned sharply and glared evilly before straightening out his attire and folding his hands neatly in front of him “I suggest you straighten yourself out before you step into your administrator's office. Father Clemens will decide a punishment fit for your sin.” I took a deep breath, I was pretty calm, way more so than I should be considering my situation. But Father Clemens was a pretty understanding holy figure, it’s what made him the most popular of the staff for confessions and counseling, so I had a pretty good feeling that Father Clemens would understand and not be too cruel.

“Y/N L/N, good to see you son. step in and have a seat.” Father Ortega nodded to Father Clemens then turned to leave and shut the door, once the lock clicked behind Father Ortega the room had fallen into an increasingly awkward silence, and the sheer embarrassment of my current situation snuck up on me and slapped me right in the face, the embarrassing shame had prompted a certain uneasy restlessness to settle in my limbs, I couldn't help but to slide down in my seat or keep my leg from bouncing rapidly and my fingers from picking at seemingly nothing on my hand “what is the problem that brought you in here today, Y/N?” Once Father Clemens had finished his paperwork he ended the uneasy silence that Father Ortega had left behind him. He sat with his hands folded sternly in front of him, he had tried to meet my gaze but quit when I continued to avoid him.

“If I am correct Father. Father Ortega had sent you an email before escorting me down here.”

Father Clemens sucked in a deep breath and unfolded his hands to look something up on his laptop “you are correct, Y/N” he turned away from his laptop to look back at me “but I want to hear it from you.” Father Clemens leaned back in his chair and ran his palms on his pants then he stood and made his way around his desk and stood behind the chair. I sat in “sit in your chair the correct way Y/N.” his hands came around the chair to grip my biceps firmly and followed stiffly pulling me up in the chair “back straight.” his hands ran up from my biceps and stopped on my shoulders to straighten out my back on the chair. “If you think I'm going to go easy on you and let you off with a slap on the wrist, you're wrong Y/N L/N.” he made his way to the side of the chair and sat in the one next to mine “do you understand that lust is a big thing? It's not something the board wants to be treated lightly.” I nod and look down at my hands in my lap, Father Clemens’s warm hand came up to grip my jaw and turned my face to him “I'm messing with you, kiddo. Loosen up, ok?” Father Clemens chuckled and sat back in his chair with his arms settled neatly on the armrests.

“In my opinion, kid. The bord and the teachers here are all way too uptight. You're a teenage boy, you're going to get those urges, you've got mass amounts of testosterone flowing through you. I couldn't help myself when I was younger.” I tried to bite back the flush on my cheeks at the thought of teenage Father Clemens touching himself so intimately but I was unsuccessful, the warmth of blood rushed through my cheeks coloring them a light pink then to a darker red when I glanced over at Father Clemens to see him staring straight at me with a smirk on his face. “A man thinking of another man in such a way as you are now is also a sin, young Y/N L/N.” Father Clemens shifted his chair closer to me then leaned forward bracing his elbows onto his knees “but you would know that already. Correct?” a sharp chill ran up my spine and the hairs on my neck stood. Father Clemens was not only the senior’s head administrator but he was the school's psyche counselor, and if I were to say he was a bad counselor I would be punished for untruthful accusations.

Even then, the way the school is run is purely based on academic achievements. So if Father Clemens was a bad counselor and it was reported by multiple students or student's legal guardians they would be dismissed, Due to Father Clemens’s charming academic records, his degrees, and his essays. Though when I say the complaints would be dismissed I only mean for the legal guardians, the students don't get off as lucky.

So him suggesting that I am romantically and sexually attracted to the same gender is terrifying on its own, even if what he was suggesting was wrong. “Anyway.” Father Clemens’ voice was like a gunshot, even louder accompanied by the loud clap he made when he stood up. It all made me jump and Father Clemens’s chuckle did nothing for my rapidly beating heart “relax kiddo. I didn't mean to scare you like that.” Father Clemens had stopped making his way back to his chair behind his desk and stood calmly behind my chair. “There's nothing wrong with thinking of sleeping with a man when you're alone, son.” His big warm hands settled to rub small sharp circles into my shoulders massaging out the tense knots “the church board and the school aren't very good at getting with the program.” his hands took to rubbing softly on my shoulders very melodically back and forth as if he were trying to calm me down. His hands stilled and he leaned down to whisper in my ear “you don't gotta worry about that kiddo. Ok?” he paused to watch me nod, his hands came up to my collarbone and ran his thumb over the nape of my neck “I’ll take care of you, kiddo. They won't bother you because of who you are.”

Father Clemens backed away from my chair suddenly and walked around to sit in his chair behind his desk. “You finished with your classes?” he turned to his laptop and began to type “no, um it should be around lunchtime now. Someone told Father Ortega that I was committing a sin and he came to get me to take me down here.” Father Clemens stopped typing and looked at me over his laptop “someone told him? He didn't catch you in the act?” Father Clemens’ stern gaze shot straight down my spine and sent me to a full-body shiver “no. he didn’t Father.” Father Clemens took a deep breath then closed his laptop to set it off to the side “who told him? Were they telling the truth?” Father Clemens leaned forward in his chair and folded his hands back nicely in his lap “it was one of the nuns students. She had begun propositioning me for a relationship and something more, back around October so a few months, and considering the circumstances every time she propositioned me I had respectfully declined.” Father Clemens pursed his lips and nodded rocking slightly in his chair.

“What was so different this time? Why did she lie about something like that?” I slid back down in the chair but quickly sat back up and corrected my posture after Father Clemens gave me a disapproving look “I had told her that if she kept propositioning me like that I would tell her administrator about her inappropriate behavior but she took it a lot worse than I thought and after she told Father Ortega she went around telling her classmates and my classmates as well as my friends that I was gay.” Father Clemens sighed and let his head fall forward slightly “have you eaten, son?” Father Clemens reached under his desk and brought out a bag that he stuffed his laptop in and set ti back down onto the floor “no, I have not Father” Father Clemens nodded and stood from his seat “I’m going to take you down to the detention hall and have you sit in there for a few of your lectures while I speak to Sister Mary. Father Young will get you lunch. What was the girl's name?” I shook my head and looked down at my lap “I'm not going to tell you.”

Father Clemens signed “are your peers saying anything to you?” I blinked rapidly to stop tears from coming and I pinched the inside of my hand “Mr. Y/N L/N. You look at me when I talk to you and you answer when you are asked a question.” Father Clemens' voice had lowered and out of the corner of my eye I could see his shined shoes move around his desk and stop to the side of me “look at me, son.” I shook my head and kept my eyes on the ground. “Son. I need to know these things.” his big hand had found its way under my chin and he gently lifted my face to him “are your teachers saying anything.” I averted my eyes and looked at the front of his button-down; it was in pristine shape, it was ironed, cleaned, it didn't have lint or hair on it and pretty soon I found myself wondering what human could keep something that clean “what are they saying, Y/N L/N.” Father Clemens’ voice was sharp and stern and it cut me from my daydream, but before I could say anything there was a soft knock on the door.

Father Clemens pulled back and straightened himself out before going over and opening the door “hello dear Grace Butler. I'm with a student at this moment but I'll have you sit in one of those chairs over there.” my blood ran cold at the mention of her name and my hands gripped the armrests “is the student in there Y/N L/N?” her voice made bile rise in my throat and the hair on the back of my neck stand “did you need something with him?” I could hear the cogs in Father Clemens' head-turning and figuring out what she was doing here “yes actually. It's very important and you two have been in there for an hour and a half, I’ve been waiting for him out here. It will only take a second and then you can get back to whatever you're doing.” I turned around to look out the door and see Grace standing there with her hands folded in front of her and an innocent smile on her face that turned to a sinister one when she caught my gaze and at that moment I could tell that Father Clemens had figured it out.

Father Clemens stood to the side and motioned for her to come in “it shouldn't be too important to not talk about it in front of me Ms. Grace Butler.” her smile faltered a little but she shook it off and stepped into Father Clemens office. She unfolded her hands and sat down beside me. I tried my hardest to scoot away from her but I couldn't go any further than the chair allowed. I heard Father Clemens shut the door, I didn't want to look behind me in case grace would try something but when Father Clemens passed me going back to his desk he gave a soft squeeze to my bicep. “Now. don’t let me bother you, kay?” Father Clemens picked his bag up from the floor and pulled out his laptop “I’m going to do some work, and when your done Ms. Grace if you would let yourself out Mr. Y/N L/N and I are still in the middle of a conversation so don’t beat around the bush, keep things to the point.” Father Clemens looked pointedly at me before opening up his laptop and getting to work.

“Y/N I have something very important to tell you.” grace began to fiddle with the ends of her blouse, I looked over and caught Father Clemens suspicious gaze “I’ve gotten expelled.” my brows shot up to my hairline and I snapped my head over to look at Father Clemens who in turn looked back at me with the same amount of confusion and surprise written on his face that I’m feeling “and why would you get expelled, Ms. Grace?” grace, still facing me, rolls her eyes at Father Clemens before putting on a sad innocent look and looking over at Father Clemens “they found out I was pregnant. I haven’t told them who the father was,” grace looks at me and scoots closer “because I didn’t want you to get expelled, Y/N.” I flinch at the obvious lie “alright, thank you very much for your time, Ms. Grace. Please see yourself out now. Mr. Y/N L/N and I have business that needs to be discussed. You, dear lady shout be with your headmistress.” grace holds eye contact and the smug look returns to her face before dropping when she gets up to leave the room “ill send Sister Mary to fetch you.” grace nods and leaves the room with a bounce in her step.

“Father- I- let me explain. Please.” Father Clemens holds his hand out to stop me from talking further “kiddo.” he locks his eyes with mine “I have a bachelor’s in psychology. Even then it doesn’t take a bachelor’s degree to see she’s lying. Your a good student, and a very good boy. even The head would doubt you’d do anything of the sort.” the light praise had sent a shiver down my spine that I prayed Father Clemens overlooked, then as suddenly as it came his soft look was replaced with a stern one “Grace Butler.” cold dread settled back into my skin I had thought we were going to move past this “Father. Please can we drop it? I can handle the things people are saying myself and you heard grace. Shes being expelled that’s one of my problems gone.” during my frustrating speech Father Clemens had walked around and sat on his desk in front of me “kiddo. This is our problem. I’m your administrator, I’m in charge of you and I care about you. I’m not going to let you handle this yourself. Your such a good kid, you focus on your classwork, and ill focus on this. Ok?” Father Clemens didn’t give me any time to answer before he picked up his office phone and dialed what I think Sister Mary’s phone number was.

I sighed and tuned out of the conversation in favor of studying a painting of what looked to be a nun in a forest at dawn or dusk on Father Clemens wall “hey. Kiddo.” I flinched and snapped my yead to Father Clemens backing my head away from his fingers snapping in front of my face “yeah? Sorry. I wasn’t listening.” Father Clemens smiled and let his hands fall to grip his desk “I asked if you lived on campus, I wanted to walk you back to your dorm.” I looked down at my watch “it’s five already? I’ve been in here the whole school day and I haven’t realized it. It felt like an hour the most.” Father Clemens chuckled and smiled amused by my current situation. He cleared his throat before standing up and going over to the coat rack by his door “do you live off-campus, son?” I rub the back of my neck “yeah actually.” I stood and walked through the door that Father Clemens opened for me “do you have a car?” he put on his jacket and slung his bag over his shoulder “no Father I don’t. Usually, I catch the bus.” Father Clemens turns away from me to lock his door “it’s too late for you to catch the bus now. I’ll drive you, kiddo.” Father Clemens turns back to me with a sincere smile and shoves his keys back into his pocket “no. Father I cant ask you to do that. It’s too far out of your way.” Father Clemens puts his hand on the small of my back and leads me further away from the way I came earlier and down a smaller hall to a door that led out to the staff parking lot

“I’m not letting you walk in this weather, not with that light hoodie. You’ll catch a cold then I won’t be able to see your pretty face tomorrow during the sermon.” my face flushes but it’s not because of the wether, Father Clemens hand had started to rub small circles into the small of my back as he was leading me to his car. “If it’s out of my way. Invite me in for a drink.” we get to his car and he opens the door for me “all I have is coffee Father.” Father Clemens gives me a look that he knows I’m a teenager and that I’m lying “you’d be watching me sin father.” the statement sounded a lot dirtier out loud than it did in my head and it seemed to sound dirty to Father Clemens because he chuckles and shakes his head before straightening out and leaning closer to my face “son. You’d be surprised how many sins id watch you commit.” my breath catches in my throat and my cheeks turn a darker red “get in the car. Son.” Father Clemens’s voice had taken on a darker tone and turned rough like he was thinking about me doing what he was mentioning. Suddenly I remember something that Father Clemens said earlier and a graphic image of Father Clemens touching himself flashed through my mind but instead of his face and body being younger it was how he looked now.

I nod and hastily get in the car, I go to buckle the seatbelt but Father Clemens stops me by leaning down into the car and grabbing my wrist “looks like you’ve got a problem there, son.” Father Clemens splayed one of his hands out on my thigh, the simple action, forcing me to be painfully aware of my hard cock straining against my jeans “sorry Father.” Father Clemens finished buckling the seatbelt and got into the car on the drivers’ side “as I said earlier, kiddo. A man thinking of another man in such a way is a great sin. If you don’t confess, ill have to deal with you as your administrator.” the current reality of what was happening sent chills down my spine and more blood down to my cock. “You won’t have to punish me, Father. I’ll confess.” I put on my best innocent pupil voice “even with your confession ill still have to deal with you as your administrator. We weren’t off the school grounds when you sinned.” I ran my hands up and down my thighs trying to keep them busy to avoid touching myself “what are you wanting to do kid?” Father Clemens’s tone changed and he got more serious, my cock was hard and straining the fabric of my jeans painfully “it hurts father.” his car slows to a stop in front of my apartment building let’s go inside kiddoI’llll deal with you where no one can see you. I want everything I’m about to see to be reserved for only me. I want to be the only man to see your cock hard like that and your nipples so purt and pretty.” I had to bite back a gasp when Father Clemens finger came up to circle my nipple “I want to be the only one to hear the pretty noises you make.” he leans over the center console to lick and nip over my addams apple, the action sending a jolt to my cock making it twitch and a breathy noise come out of my mouth “I want to be the only one to feel how tight you wrap around my cock and how pretty your face looks when you get my dick down your throat.” his hand falls from my nipple to run his palm lightly and playfully over my bulge “I want to be the only one to see you cum.” his palm ground down harder on my cock and forced a guttural moan out of the back of my throat.

Father Clemens growls in my ear and takes his hand from my pants “get inside boy.” the Fathers voice was rough and his pupils were blown wide “yes Father.” he unbuckled both of our seatbelts and waited for me to move around the car on the sidewalk “just call me daniel, son.” once on the sidewalk I pause to fish the keys from my pocket and flip through them to get the apartments front door key “you got it kiddo?” Father Clemens comes up behind me and settles his hand on the small of my back “yeah.” he nudges me forward and stays beside me with his hand on my back the whole way to the elevator.

“Comere kiddo.” Fathe Clemens voice was rough and he tugged me forward by my belt loops once the elevator doors closed “you know how long I’ve wanted to do this?” his voice got quieter with each word as his face lowered to mark hickies on my neck “tell me how long Father.” Father Clemens huffs against my neck and pulls back when the elevator dings, I wait for an answer but his hand finds its way to my back and he playfully pushes me forward “I thought I told you to drop the Father.” I smile and walk toward the end of the hall to my apartment door “you still have your collar on Father, I wouldn’t want to disrespect a man of God.” I playfully sway my hips in front of him and open the door, but before I could fully get in Father Clemens takes me by the scruff of my hoodie and swiftly moves both of us into my apartment, I don’t get a chance to flip on the lights before Father Clemens body is pinning my body against the door “stay.” he nips playfully at my earlobe and slowly backs away giving me room to turn around.

Father Clemens has his jacket off and tossed to the side and he’s taking his collar off with a hungry look, once-off he tosses his things to the side and pins my body back against the door, but this time instead of his clothed cock against the curve of my ass he’s pushing his hips into mine “no more father.” he presses a cheeky kiss to my lips and reaches between us to unbutton the first few buttons on his white shirt “fine. Would sir be better?” a smug smirk makes its way on my face when his breath catches in his throat and I take the short moment of surprise to flip us around, this time pressing his back against the door “your gonna kill me kid.” his voice sounded even more wrecked, I shake my head with a small smile on my face and lock eyes with him “actually I’m going to suck your dick first. Sir.” I draw the word out and slowly sink to my knees keeping eye contact.

“Kid-” his voice shakes and he fists a hand in my hair and tugs gently “what’s wrong sir?” he moans and bucks his hips, his clothed bulge nearly comes in contact with my chin but I settle my hand on his him and mouth hotly at his bulge “god that’s good kiddo.” he tugs my head back with his grip in my hair and undoes his belt “common kiddo lemme see your pretty lips wrapped around my dick.” I nod swiftly and shakily undo his pants so I can free his cock from his boxers. when it’s free I thank god that I got on my knees cause his cock looked so good; it was flushed at the tip, not small at all, and on top of that his cock was thick so thick my own twitched in my pants and I couldn’t help grinding the heel of my palm onto it “sir, I don’t think its gonna fit.” I hear a dull thud and look up to see he’s let his head fall back against the door “kiddo if you keep talking like that you’re not going to get a taste before I cum” Father Clemens foot nudged my hand away from my dick and took its place pressing down teasingly “I’m gonna put it in my mouth now Father.” Father Clemens’s foot pulled away from my cock “what did I say about calling me faAH” Father Clemens couldn’t finish his sentence before his cock was in my mouth, I tried taking all of his cock in my throat but gaged “oh, fuck kiddo. It feels so good when you gag around me like that.” I hummed and tried again, this time breathing through my nose. I took him a little further than before but still gagged “god. Common kiddo you can take it.” Father Clemens hands fisted in my hair and mine came up to wrap around what part of his cock I couldn’t fit in my mouth “let me fuck your face kid. Please.” I took a deep ragged breath in through my nose and let my hands fall to Father Clemens’ thighs. I looked up through my lashes when I heard a soft sigh, he was looking down at me with a look on his face that I didn’t recognize, and as if he could sense I was distracted he delivered a particularly deep thrust,

When he pulled back I could feel spit dribble down my chin “I wish you could see yourself son, god, you’re so beautiful.” Father Clemens started with a slow and deep pace lightly scratching his fingertips on my scalp “taking my cock so well baby. So good.” he pets the side of my jaw with his thumb then pushes my head down on his cock slowly until my nose was buried in his pubes “that’s it sweetheart. Breathe in through your nose. I wanna see how well your ass takes my cock.” with that he lets me pull off, I couldn’t help taking deep gulps of air and fuck I could already tell how wrecked my voice would be. “Get up son, let’s go to your room.”

#the confessor #the confession #christian slater #Father Clemens x male reader #Christian slater x male reader

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literarypilgrim · 4 years

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Read Like a Gilmore

All 339 Books Referenced In “Gilmore Girls”

Not my original list, but thought it’d be fun to go through and see which one’s I’ve actually read :P If it’s in bold, I’ve got it, and if it’s struck through, I’ve read it. I’ve put a ‘read more’ because it ended up being an insanely long post, and I’m now very sad at how many of these I haven’t read. (I’ve spaced them into groups of ten to make it easier to read)

1. 1984 by George Orwell 2. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain 3. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll 4. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon 5. An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser 6. Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt 7. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy 8. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank 9. The Archidamian War by Donald Kagan 10. The Art of Fiction by Henry James

11. The Art of War by Sun Tzu 12. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner 13. Atonement by Ian McEwan 14. Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy 15. The Awakening by Kate Chopin 16. Babe by Dick King-Smith 17. Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi 18. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie 19. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett 20. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath 21. Beloved by Toni Morrison 22. Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney 23. The Bhagava Gita 24. The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews by Peter Duffy 25. Bitch in Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel 26. A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays by Mary McCarthy 27. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley 28. Brick Lane by Monica Ali 29. Bridgadoon by Alan Jay Lerner 30. Candide by Voltaire 31. The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer 32. Carrie by Stephen King 33. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller 34. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger 35. Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White 36. The Children’s Hour by Lillian Hellman 37. Christine by Stephen King 38. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens 39. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess 40. The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse 41. The Collected Stories by Eudora Welty 42. A Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare 43. Complete Novels by Dawn Powell 44. The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton 45. Complete Stories by Dorothy Parker 46. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole 47. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas 48. Cousin Bette by Honore de Balzac 49. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky 50. The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber 51. The Crucible by Arthur Miller 52. Cujo by Stephen King 53. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon 54. Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende 55. David and Lisa by Dr Theodore Issac Rubin M.D 56. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens 57. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown 58. Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol 59. Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 60. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller 61. Deenie by Judy Blume 62. The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson 63. The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band by Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx 64. The Divine Comedy by Dante 65. The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells 66. Don Quixote by Cervantes 67. Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhrv 68. Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson 69. Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe 70. Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Wiesen Cook 71. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe 72. Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn 73. Eloise by Kay Thompson 74. Emily the Strange by Roger Reger 75. Emma by Jane Austen 76. Empire Falls by Richard Russo 77. Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol 78. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton 79. Ethics by Spinoza 80. Europe through the Back Door, 2003 by Rick Steves

81. Eva Luna by Isabel Allende 82. Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer 83. Extravagance by Gary Krist 84. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury 85. Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore 86. The Fall of the Athenian Empire by Donald Kagan 87. Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser 88. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson 89. The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien 90. Fiddler on the Roof by Joseph Stein 91. The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom 92. Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce 93. Fletch by Gregory McDonald 94. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes 95. The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem 96. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand 97. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley 98. Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger 99. Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers 100. Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut 101. Gender Trouble by Judith Butler 102. George W. Bushism: The Slate Book of the Accidental Wit and Wisdom of our 43rd President by Jacob Weisberg 103. Gidget by Fredrick Kohner 104. Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen 105. The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels 106. The Godfather: Book 1 by Mario Puzo 107. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy 108. Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Alvin Granowsky 109. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell 110. The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford

111. The Gospel According to Judy Bloom 112. The Graduate by Charles Webb 113. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck 114. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald 115. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens 116. The Group by Mary McCarthy 117. Hamlet by William Shakespeare 118. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling 119. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling 120. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers 121. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad 122. Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry 123. Henry IV, part I by William Shakespeare 124. Henry IV, part II by William Shakespeare 125. Henry V by William Shakespeare 126. High Fidelity by Nick Hornby 127. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon 128. Holidays on Ice: Stories by David Sedaris 129. The Holy Barbarians by Lawrence Lipton 130. House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III 131. The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende 132. How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer 133. How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss 134. How the Light Gets In by M. J. Hyland 135. Howl by Allen Ginsberg 136. The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo 137. The Iliad by Homer 138. I’m With the Band by Pamela des Barres 139. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote 140. Inferno by Dante

141. Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee 142. Iron Weed by William J. Kennedy 143. It Takes a Village by Hillary Rodham Clinton 144. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte 145. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan 146. Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare 147. The Jumping Frog by Mark Twain 148. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair 149. Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito 150. The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar by Robert Alexander 151. Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain 152. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini 153. Lady Chatterleys’ Lover by D. H. Lawrence 154. The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 by Gore Vidal 155. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman 156. The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield 157. Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis 158. Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke 159. Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken 160. Life of Pi by Yann Martel

161. Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens 162. The Little Locksmith by Katharine Butler Hathaway 163. The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen 164. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott 165. Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton 166. Lord of the Flies by William Golding 167. The Lottery: And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson 168. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold 169. The Love Story by Erich Segal 170. Macbeth by William Shakespeare 171. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert 172. The Manticore by Robertson Davies 173. Marathon Man by William Goldman 174. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov 175. Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir 176. Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman by William Tecumseh Sherman 177. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris 178. The Meaning of Consuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer 179. Mencken’s Chrestomathy by H. R. Mencken 180. The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare 181. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka 182. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides 183. The Miracle Worker by William Gibson 184. Moby Dick by Herman Melville 185. The Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion by Jim Irvin 186. Moliere: A Biography by Hobart Chatfield Taylor 187. A Monetary History of the United States by Milton Friedman 188. Monsieur Proust by Celeste Albaret 189. A Month Of Sundays: Searching For The Spirit And My Sister by Julie Mars 190. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

191. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf 192. Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall 193. My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and It’s Aftermath by Seymour M. Hersh 194. My Life as Author and Editor by H. R. Mencken 195. My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru by Tim Guest 196. Myra Waldo’s Travel and Motoring Guide to Europe, 1978 by Myra Waldo 197. My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult 198. The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer 199. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco 200. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri 201. The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin 202. Nervous System: Or, Losing My Mind in Literature by Jan Lars Jensen 203. New Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson 204. The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay 205. Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich 206. Night by Elie Wiesel 207. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen 208. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism by William E. Cain, Laurie A. Finke, Barbara E. Johnson, John P. McGowan 209. Novels 1930-1942: Dance Night/Come Back to Sorrento, Turn, Magic Wheel/Angels on Toast/A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell 210. Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski

211. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (will NEVER read again) 212. Old School by Tobias Wolff 213. On the Road by Jack Kerouac 214. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey 215. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez 216. The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life by Amy Tan 217. Oracle Night by Paul Auster 218. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood 219. Othello by Shakespeare 220. Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens 221. The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan 222. Out of Africa by Isac Dineson 223. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton 224. A Passage to India by E.M. Forster 225. The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition by Donald Kagan 226. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky 227. Peyton Place by Grace Metalious 228. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde 229. Pigs at the Trough by Arianna Huffington 230. Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi 231. Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain 232. The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby 233. The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker 234. The Portable Nietzche by Fredrich Nietzche 235. The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill by Ron Suskind 236. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen 237. Property by Valerie Martin 238. Pushkin: A Biography by T. J. Binyon 239. Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw 240. Quattrocento by James Mckean

241. A Quiet Storm by Rachel Howzell Hall 242. Rapunzel by Grimm Brothers 243. The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe 244. The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham 245. Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi 246. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier 247. Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin 248. The Red Tent by Anita Diamant 249. Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad by Virginia Holman 250. The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien 251. R Is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton 252. Rita Hayworth by Stephen King 253. Robert’s Rules of Order by Henry Robert 254. Roman Holiday by Edith Wharton 255. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare 256. A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf 257. A Room with a View by E. M. Forster 258. Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin 259. The Rough Guide to Europe, 2003 Edition 260. Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi 261. Sanctuary by William Faulkner 262. Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford 263. Say Goodbye to Daisy Miller by Henry James 264. The Scarecrow of Oz by Frank L. Baum 265. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne 266. Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand 267. The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir 268. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd 269. Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman 270. Selected Hotels of Europe

271. Selected Letters of Dawn Powell: 1913-1965 by Dawn Powell 272. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen 273. A Separate Peace by John Knowles 274. Several Biographies of Winston Churchill 275. Sexus by Henry Miller 276. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon 277. Shane by Jack Shaefer 278. The Shining by Stephen King 279. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse 280. S Is for Silence by Sue Grafton 281. Slaughter-house Five by Kurt Vonnegut 282. Small Island by Andrea Levy 283. Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway 284. Snow White and Rose Red by Grimm Brothers 285. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World by Barrington Moore 286. The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht 287. Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos by Julia de Burgos 288. The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker 289. Songbook by Nick Hornby 290. The Sonnets by William Shakespeare 291. Sonnets from the Portuegese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning 292. Sophie’s Choice by William Styron 293. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner 294. Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov 295. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach 296. The Story of My Life by Helen Keller 297. A Streetcar Named Desiree by Tennessee Williams 298. Stuart Little by E. B. White 299. Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway 300. Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust

301. Swimming with Giants: My Encounters with Whales, Dolphins and Seals by Anne Collett 302. Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber 303. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens 304. Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald 305. Term of Endearment by Larry McMurtry 306. Time and Again by Jack Finney 307. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger 308. To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway 309. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee 310. The Tragedy of Richard III by William Shakespeare 311. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith 312. The Trial by Franz Kafka 313. The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson 314. Truth & Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett 315. Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom 316. Ulysses by James Joyce 317. The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962 by Sylvia Plath 318. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe 319. Unless by Carol Shields 320. Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann

321. The Vanishing Newspaper by Philip Meyers 322. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray 323. Velvet Underground’s The Velvet Underground and Nico (Thirty Three and a Third series) by Joe Harvard 324. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides 325. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett 326. Walden by Henry David Thoreau 327. Walt Disney’s Bambi by Felix Salten 328. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy 329. We Owe You Nothing – Punk Planet: The Collected Interviews edited by Daniel Sinker 330. What Colour is Your Parachute? 2005 by Richard Nelson Bolles 331. What Happened to Baby Jane by Henry Farrell 332. When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka 333. Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson 334. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee 335. Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire 336. The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum 337. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte 338. The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings 339. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

#books in Gilmore Girls #reading list #booklr #have you read?

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