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Draco Malfoy: Toilet, Supremo by Who-La-Hoop
Harry/Draco
Oh, HP fandom, I love you. All else waxes and wanes, but my regard for you remains eternal. Thank you for bringing me Draco Malfoy, Toilet Saleman Extraordinaire.
Critical Studies by Ouida
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This collection of essays mostly consists of reviews of poetry and novels that I haven't read, so I can't comment on the strength or weakness of Ouida's literary analyses (although I will say that her unironic and constant use of limpid to describe writing she finds beautiful does give me pause).
What I find of value is her discussion of writing in general, her comments on science and technology, her characterization of the fin de siecle American and European, and her prescient ecological arguments.
Some of what Ouida has to say about the nature of writing is absurd--she tends to highlight flaws in others' work that abound in her own (this is not a woman who can point fingers at anyone for ridiculous character names, for example), but she makes some interesting arguments about the role of art and the artist in society and what's necessary to achieve good writing (spoiler alert: it's an innate gift and nothing which can be learned, a position with which I fundamentally disagree).
Ouida is anti-science, anti-technology, and anti-Progress in the Carlylean sense. She sees scientists as cruel monsters and technological innovations as dangerous, both in terms of the destruction of the natural world and the destruction of the human soul. It's hard to disagree with her about the effects of smog, for example, but she takes her antipathy too far in her complaints about the bicycle. For someone who spends a significant number of pages of this collection lamenting automobile and railway pollution alongside laments about the terrible treatment of horses, I have to wonder at her hatred of the bike which seems to me a natural solution to both problems.
She is concerned about the destruction of ancient architecture and green spaces in cities. She worries about the lack of regard for non-human creatures. She sees her world poised on a precipice of ecological disaster from which it may never recover. This is Ouida at her best--sometimes silly, sometimes disturbing (she is racist and sexist at times), but always deeply concerned about the world she lives in and making arguments that would not be out of place in a 21st-century discussion of those issues.
View all my reviews
Harry/Draco
Oh, HP fandom, I love you. All else waxes and wanes, but my regard for you remains eternal. Thank you for bringing me Draco Malfoy, Toilet Saleman Extraordinaire.
Critical Studies by OuidaMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This collection of essays mostly consists of reviews of poetry and novels that I haven't read, so I can't comment on the strength or weakness of Ouida's literary analyses (although I will say that her unironic and constant use of limpid to describe writing she finds beautiful does give me pause).
What I find of value is her discussion of writing in general, her comments on science and technology, her characterization of the fin de siecle American and European, and her prescient ecological arguments.
Some of what Ouida has to say about the nature of writing is absurd--she tends to highlight flaws in others' work that abound in her own (this is not a woman who can point fingers at anyone for ridiculous character names, for example), but she makes some interesting arguments about the role of art and the artist in society and what's necessary to achieve good writing (spoiler alert: it's an innate gift and nothing which can be learned, a position with which I fundamentally disagree).
Ouida is anti-science, anti-technology, and anti-Progress in the Carlylean sense. She sees scientists as cruel monsters and technological innovations as dangerous, both in terms of the destruction of the natural world and the destruction of the human soul. It's hard to disagree with her about the effects of smog, for example, but she takes her antipathy too far in her complaints about the bicycle. For someone who spends a significant number of pages of this collection lamenting automobile and railway pollution alongside laments about the terrible treatment of horses, I have to wonder at her hatred of the bike which seems to me a natural solution to both problems.
She is concerned about the destruction of ancient architecture and green spaces in cities. She worries about the lack of regard for non-human creatures. She sees her world poised on a precipice of ecological disaster from which it may never recover. This is Ouida at her best--sometimes silly, sometimes disturbing (she is racist and sexist at times), but always deeply concerned about the world she lives in and making arguments that would not be out of place in a 21st-century discussion of those issues.
View all my reviews
