godsgayearth's reviews
1619 reviews

I only gave it three stars because the epistolary format threw me off and moderately diminished my enjoyment of it.

Some messy thoughts:

The decisive passion of Agatha for Saint-Almont. Religion and gender play, my two favourite topics. Interesting to see how Agatha exists as a product of her times, both religious and into the crossdressing “deviancy” popular in France during the 18th century. The historical background of the Introduction attests to that.

I am basically Sylvain Maréchal. A classics-loving atheist. It is perhaps to discredit him by saying, “he wrote such a pious character!” Agatha’s complex character and conditions for love breaks the boundaries of patriarchy by situating herself within it, and that’s what I liked the most. Maybe it’s some way of breaking it down, in a minute way?

The terms with which she fell for Saint-Almont more so. Pity, a small step, and then love. I wonder if this is true? Or if so, how true is it?

The descension of Agatha’s moral character reflected a form of toxicity in unrequited love. The fervour of her affection seemed to mutate into something unholy despite her near-constant reassurances to Zoé that no, this is the purest, most edifying love! But near the end, it showed far from it. Maybe it was the constancy of her nearness to him that made her greedy. But how pure can it be? This is not equating romantic notions with carnality, but the lack of boundary Agatha possesses, her sado-masochistic ways of dealing with her feelings, perhaps is what propelled her to the end of the novella.

Breakfast at Tiffany's is the first novel where I watched the film first prior to reading it. I used to be so stiff about reading books first before watching films because I was afraid of the liberties directors take when making novels into film. I thought it would inform my reception of the text too much, and it does. But not in a bad way. If anything, seeing the scenes omitted from the film in the text makes me wonder and critique it instead.

All in all, the novel interests me far more than the film does. The oblique references to not-Fred/Buster/Paul Varjak's possible non-heterosexuality makes it more compelling than the film's direct hetero-ness. The discrepancies in the ending also made the novel infinitely better for me. It may be the 1960s, but dear Hollywood, not every film needs to end with a damn kiss.

As an aside, the film's implication that Paul has a sugar mommy confuses me. Is it possibly to parallel Holly and her stream of sugar daddies? At this point, who knows. But that would be interesting to explore at a later date.

—I love you, I whispered to all, to none.
—Love not lightly, I heard him say.

A synthesis of Just Kids and Woolgathering, M Train echoes the life and constant journey of the artist-writer paired with Patti Smith's introspection, mythical language, and spiritual imagination. The importance she places on artifacts, the books she read, the malaise of the writer that is all too familiar to me. Like Just Kids, Smith mourns more of her losses, and I sympathize, if only for the imminence of my loss, yet to come.

I lost myself in the purview of her language. I believed the existence of everything she wrote about. In some moments, I wanted to dream like Smith does, but instantly regretted it. I love how I dream. I will never relinquish the image of the love of my life, in a print dress spattered with yellow flowers, bursting into my room to tell me, in my delirious, sleeping state, that it is snowing outside. Not even for a prophetic cowpoke.