Tag: #classic literature

Books, Music

Top 3 Funniest Quotes From The Importance of Being Earnest

Aubrey Leaman

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(Plus a comparison to a Flight of the Conchords song…)

1. “How you can sit there, calmly eating muffins when we are in this horrible trouble, I can’t make out. You seem to me to be perfectly heartless.”

“Well, I can’t eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs. One should always eat muffins quite calmly. It is the only way to eat them.”

“I say it’s perfectly heartless your eating muffins at all, under the circumstances.”

2. “You have filled my tea with lumps of sugar, and though I asked most distinctly for bread and butter, you have given me cake. I am known for the gentleness of my disposition, and the extraordinary sweetness of my nature, but I warn you, Miss Cardew, you may go too far.”

3. “Ever since I met you I have admired you more than any girl…I have ever met since…I met you.”

(This last quote is a lot like a line in the hilarious song, “Jenny,” by Flight of the Conchords:

“I meant it was nice to meet you that time that I met you…When was it that we met that time that I met you when I met you?”)

Songs For Every Book

Songs For Every Book: Wuthering Heights

Aubrey Leaman

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E.T. by Katy Perry = Heathcliff and Catherine’s relationship

Both are filled with a lot of passion and otherworldliness.  Heathcliff is also someone to be afraid of, like the song suggests.

Heathcliff’s desire to be haunted also has parallels with Perry’s language:

Heathcliff: “Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!”

Perry: “Infect me with your love and fill me with your poison”…
“Wanna be a victim, ready for abduction”

 

 

Classical Music Stories

Classical Music Stories: Wuthering Heights

Aubrey Leaman

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Divertimento for Strings No. 4 by Antonio Salieri

Quartetto Amati

Young Catherine Linton is wandering out on the moors, basking in the beauty of nature and birdsong. The music becomes mixed with some darkness as she catches sight of Heathcliff, though…but she doesn’t know the danger she’s in and keeps rejoicing and just being her bubbly self. Besides, Heathcliff is acting the perfect gentleman! Nelly, who is with her, tries to interject a few timid worries and warnings, but she is basically unaffected. After all, what’s the worst that could happen??

 

The Other Stuff

Rapscallions, Norway, and More

Aubrey Leaman

Rapscallion

Thanks to NapoleonSplit for nominating me for the Sunshine Blogger Award! If you want to follow a personal experience of the Fifty Books challenge and find some great books while you’re at it, go check it out!

1) What is one of your favorite words? Why?

This is an easy one! Rapscallion.  Because it makes me think of a rapping scallion.

2) What is the third book on your bookshelf (from the left)?

A Theory of Musical Narrative by Byron Almén

3) What was your favorite childhood series?

Hmmm…probably the Laura Ingalls Wilder books.  Classic!

4) What book would you recommend to everyone to read?

Let’s say 1984 by George Orwell, because it made my brain hurt as I questioned everything I’ve ever known.  In a good way.

5) If you could see any band in the world in concert, who would you see?  Continue reading “Rapscallions, Norway, and More” →

Books

GPS Literary Characters

Aubrey Leaman

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What if your favorite literary characters could be the voice on your GPS?

George Wickham (Pride and Prejudice) would give directions that seemed to make perfect sense but would end up taking you to the wrong place.

Peter Pan would give you false directions and then change them at the last minute while laughing hysterically.

Jane Eyre would be the best because her directions would be to the point and practical.

Bilbo Baggins (The Hobbit) would be a close second. Although, come to think of it, he Continue reading “GPS Literary Characters” →

Books

Vronsky and Wickham: BFFs

Aubrey Leaman

tin-soldiers-208581_1920I bet Vronsky and Wickham would have been friends.

They’re both ladies’ men.

They’ve both gone after high-society women (Anna and Georgianna—hey, their names are even similar).

They’re both soldiers.

They both end up in not the happiest of situations (married to Lydia and trying to get himself killed in the Servian war, respectively).

I can just picture them both sitting in a bar, good-naturedly arguing over whose woman is better while simultaneously complaining about said woman and swapping war stories. Two peas in a pod.

What other literary characters do you think would get along well?

Books

Top 5 Literary Mash-Ups That Totally Need to Happen

Aubrey Leaman

Alice 1984

Classic literature is great.  But have you ever wondered what would happen if two of history’s greatest stories were combined into one like some incredible atomic fusion?

Well, I have! Here are some of the ones I’m dying to read:

Alice’s Adventures in 1984 (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland + 1984)

To Kill a Frankenstein (To Kill a Mockingbird + Frankenstein)

The Great Jane (The Great Gatsby + Jane Eyre)

The Secret Women (The Secret Garden + Little Women)

Sense and a Mockingbird (Sense and Sensibility + To Kill a Mockingbird)

 
What book mash-ups would you read?

 

Classical Music Stories

Classical Music Stories: Peter Pan

Aubrey Leaman

Schoenberg’s Suite for Piano, Op 25: IV. Intermezzo

This is like the ticking of the clock inside the crocodile. It seems unthreatening, and to most of the pirates it is—but not to Hook. He is terrified because he recognizes that crocodile as an overhanging and absolutely terrifying threat to him. In return, the creature plays with his fear by pretending to leave or feigning harmlessness, but Hook knows better and feels only an increase in terror. Though it finally leaves, Hook is still nervous as he never knows how far it’s gone, or when it will return, or if it will lose the clock inside of it that warns him of the impending danger…

 

Can you hear Hook’s fear? Do you hear something else?

You can also discover Classical Music Stories about The Great Gatsby, Wuthering Heights, and more.