A Ramble through Smilie Land

Suddenly finishing uni has left a massive vacume in my life... Im amazed i had realised how much intellectual type thinking Id been doing this year and now Im sitting around doing nothing but packing and watching tv and plotting prague Im going mad. So onwards with litnet challenge I think.
and I thought I might as well write this up and keep up with myself.
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so first author Ive read for the challenge is *drum roll* number 139 Henry James and the work was The Beast in the Jungle. Written in 1903 in case you didnt know

Now I know I meant to read all of these in eltronic format online but Ill say straight up I cheated I read my own paper copy..because frankly its easier..plus I can exactly work a computer upside down. Anyway the beast in the Jungle.

Id read it before and I woke up a while ago with a hankering to reread which is why I chos it. Since its been about 7 years since I last read it I can say with some certinty Ive tqaken a completly differnet view on it than I had taken the first time I read it, which was that the point was he wasted his life waiting for something to happen and that in itself was the beast.
This time I thought the beast is rather his self his ego, the fact that all his life he deluded himself into thinking he was somenoble unselfish being when in fact his complete self absorbtion was the reason catastrophy befell him, the catestrophy being his missing out on a possibly great thing with May.

It was she who had been, he seemed to see as he looked at her--she who had been made so by the graceless fact of his lapse of fidelity. To tell her what he had told her--what had it been but to ask something of her? something that she had given, in her charity, without his having, by a remembrance, by a return of the spirit, failing another encounter, so much as thanked her. What he had asked of her had been simply at first not to laugh at him. She had beautifully not done so for ten years, and she was not doing so now. So he had endless gratitude to make up.

This reminded me of a sentiment that appears in quite a few of the works of the era the noble sacrificing woman who in reality 'saves' the man who being a blundering fool thinks himself great and takes her for granted. two of my favourite examples being Barries What every Woman Knows and george MacDonald's Day boy and Night girl. ( read both of them they are good. )

The other thing I have to say is John is an idiot, which I suppose is the point but it makes it no less annoying. I mean really

. His conviction, his apprehension, his obsession, in short, wasn't a privilege he could invite a woman to share; and that consequence of it was precisely what was the matter with him.

err wasmnt she already sharing the burden with him...idiot!

Last time I thought the greatest tradgedy was that she loved him and he didnt realis ehe loved her until she was dead, but the truth is the tradgy was that he never cared about anyone isnt it?

The first time I read this story I was what 12 or 13 and it kept me up all night with the fear that I would be just like him Id waste my whole life frightened or anticipating something so that Id be so caught up in the waiting Id actually miss what happens, of course like said Im not reading the same thing into it now as I did them , but that fear still sort of lingers, who doesnt feel that life has some big thing waiting for them around the corner and somehow Ive always been haunted by the thought that when it happens I wont be ready.. I guess that might be aleft over of having a 'war box' in our house, and actually living through one ... but also the whole the idea of not being prepared just freaks me out, too much watching eergency rescue programs as a child; what happens when you are not prepared- people you love die in horrible painful ways. Which is sort of wondering off the point which is reading the story the first time made me think and I think it was a result of that particular thinking spree that got me to stop trying to force my family to do emergency drills, and stop filling
folders with " what to do in the event of...." plans and hiding stashes of emergency supplies. I gues it made me consiously put an effort into making sure I did less concious planning for catsrephoies and disasters.
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I had thought of othert tyhings but Ive forgotten them now, it seems if I go on with this challenge I might have to invest in the subscription thing ..although that will have to wait till post prague after Im working 2 jobs to pay of my debts..*sigh*