Monthly Literature Challenge

[Carrau]

On 2/8/2023 at 3:46 PM, TSherbs said:

 

You must have already known the outline of the plot, then. The plot of Two Cities is dense and nearly inscrutable for several chapters as it jumps among character groups. Here is a paragraph from chapter three: 

Haha! What?

 

Now, from the opening page of Hard Times (a decidedly different novel, for sure):

 

I will say this: the plot conclusion to Two Cities is one of the best that I have ever read. Wow! And it really helps NOT to know what is going to happen. You just have to slog through a lot of dense metaphor and allegory to get there....

Apologies for being late on posting to this commentary on A Tale of Two Cities, but discussions of it always brings to mind something from my professional life.  For years I had a patient who, whenever she was seated in my waiting room, would be seen busily knitting as she observed the others seated in the room.  Shades of Madame DeFarge!  Whenever I saw her name on my appointment list, I made a point of looking into the waiting room to see if she was knitting, which she invariably was.  I asked her once if she had ever read the book, and she just smiled and chuckled, with no reply, as she put away her work.  I didn’t dare ask her again!

[InesF]

To our faithful readers, friends and fans.

 

Unforeseeable circumstances of almost global dimension have delayed the preparatory ink mixing until Sunday February 26^th. As we take our tasks with serious honesty, we will never release hastily finalised works containing bugs, termites and what not. We are sure that our captive readers and esteemed fans will understand and support our primary mission: quality first!

 

Not before March 1^st, all four fountain pens were filled with these newly generated inks and marks were made with all of them on an A3 size paper sheet. That's something new in size and, unfortunately, in effort. Without making unnecessary excuses, we can only reassure our appreciative audience that this unexpected extra effort will lead to an equally unexpectedly extraordinary literary-visual experience!

 

Our estimated release date will be Saturday, March 4^th, most probably. Put the bottle of sparkling grape juice into the cooler and stay tuned!

 

Your one-woman team from the Monthly Literature Challenge. 🧑‍🔧

 

PS: Please don't believe the somehow leaked information about the appearance of Antique Turquoise in the March ink set. We will find the traitor and bring him to justice! March is still winter and the colours are all muddy brown, grey and black! 😶

[LizEF]

Looking forward to Sunday -ish.

[essayfaire]

Anticipation is part of the enjoyment.  I shall check back on Sunday!  I don't think I've ever used size A3.  Must be a long quote!

[TSherbs]

On 3/1/2023 at 8:19 PM, Carrau said:

Apologies for being late on posting to this commentary on A Tale of Two Cities, but discussions of it always brings to mind something from my professional life.  For years I had a patient who, whenever she was seated in my waiting room, would be seen busily knitting as she observed the others seated in the room.  Shades of Madame DeFarge!  Whenever I saw her name on my appointment list, I made a point of looking into the waiting room to see if she was knitting, which she invariably was.  I asked her once if she had ever read the book, and she just smiled and chuckled, with no reply, as she put away her work.  I didn’t dare ask her again!

 

Kinda creepy, for sure 😊. Reminds me also of the two women knitting outside of the trader's office at the beginning of Marlow's journey in Heart of Darkness

[inkstainedruth]

On 3/1/2023 at 8:19 PM, Carrau said:

Apologies for being late on posting to this commentary on A Tale of Two Cities, but discussions of it always brings to mind something from my professional life.  For years I had a patient who, whenever she was seated in my waiting room, would be seen busily knitting as she observed the others seated in the room.  Shades of Madame DeFarge!  Whenever I saw her name on my appointment list, I made a point of looking into the waiting room to see if she was knitting, which she invariably was.  I asked her once if she had ever read the book, and she just smiled and chuckled, with no reply, as she put away her work.  I didn’t dare ask her again!

Yes, but question is *what* she was knitting....  And if there were names knitted into it....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[essayfaire]

1 hour ago, inkstainedruth said:

Yes, but question is *what* she was knitting....  And if there were names knitted into it....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[InesF]

The Monthly Literature Challenge for March is ready!

 

Selection, production and adjustment of inks was a bit more effort than thought. The first paragraph of the selected book is very long, not unexpected for me as I had selected it already one month ago. The sheer amount of text required a completely different design of the writing example.

In prospect to the upcoming April Literature Challenge I had to bend my own rule about the use of fountain pens. While I continue to use the Egyptomania pen, I discontinued the Sailor ink and, instead, re-filled it with Sunspot which was before used in the Waterman pen. Finally, I had to fulfil my promise in making this Challenge as hard as possible.

All these circumstances delayed the release date.

 

 

Here we go:

Colorverse Sunspot used in Montblanc Egyptomania EF

Rohrer & Klingner Alt-Goldgrün (=Old Golden Green) used in Waterman Exclusive F

InesF Antique Turquoise used in Lamy CP1 EF *

deAtramentis Altrosa +++ (= Vintage Rose) used in Lamy Dialog cc M-stub

 

*) Antique Turquoise is a mixture composed of: 10 mL Waterman Inspired Blue (Turquoise) + 1.5 mL Waterman Brown.

"+++“ stands for three additions to the original ink: 1) some Gum Arabic to tame it useful for such a broad nib, 2) 0.1 mL of deAtramentis Vienna (=brown) and 3) 0.05 mL of deAtramentis Turquoise Green were added per 1 mL of the tamed Altrosa ink. While now a bit muted, the ink is still very close to the original.

 

Here are the ink writing samples for a better comparison:

 

And here is the handwritten first paragraph (or most of it) on a sheet of A3 paper, this time in full resolution with the Lamy CP1 for scale:

 

It was necessary to write with reduced letter size and reduced line spacing – and still not all of paragraph one could be fitted on the page. The paper is from an A4 sized no-name mixed media book which is made from A3 paper sheets, it has an ivory tone, has roughly 120 gsm and is great for pencil and coloured pencil drawings, but its structure doesn’t allow crisp sharp ink lines. (However, the immense shading of Antique Turquoise held its own against the paper)

 

 

The author is:

Spoiler

George Eliot = Mary Anne Evans

Not more than a few handwritten documents could be found on the internet! While never sure about the originality of colours of such scans, there had been two options: black or a dark purple. The second was the reason why I chose Sailor Ink Studio 935 for the February Challenge, intending to forward it to March. However, that left me with the need to forward both, the Waterman Perspective (with black ink) and the MB Egyptomania (with purple ink) and reduced my ink options for this March set but also made the transition into the April set impossible without breaking my own rules.

The Colorverse Sunspot black is now the only colour representing Mary Ann Evans.

 

Here is some handwriting of Mary Ann, signed as Mary Anne Cross, short before her death (https://www.manuscripts.co.uk/stock/20592.HTM):

 

 

The book is:

Spoiler

Middlemarch

All of the four March inks represent something old, vintage or even antique. Old Golden Green, Antique Turquoise and Vintage Rose have it in the name and in the colour appearance. Sunspot is not that obvious, but if you consider the time period sunspots exists in our sun, it may be called Old Black for good reason.

Dorothea wears a Vintage Rose coloured dress in the drawing presented at the Wikipedia page and an Antique Turquoise coloured dress in the cover page of one of the movies (moviepilot.com). Old Golden Green fits as a complementary colour and is a colour to be seen in nature, maybe, towards end of March?

Here is the photo of the page without black bars (in lower resolution):

 

There is some subjective note about the book selection. I read it first time comparably late in my life: only two years ago. I was already hooked after reading the first page and could not stop reading until the end. Besides the many wonderful, almost ironic descriptions of the human society in 1830, the careful and detailed description of the characters impressed me, especially when I recognised that such character types still exist in parts or in majority in real persons of my surroundings. And to a certain degree, the fate of those real persons has some similarities with the fictional fate of the book characters created by Mary Anne before 1871.

 

 

Despite the extra effort with this Literature Challenge, I had a lot of fun creating the colour set and designing the book page!

However, it may stay a one of its kind.

 

Happy guessing & good luck!

I‘m looking forward to your handwritten rest of the book … 

 

 

[TSherbs]

14 hours ago, inkstainedruth said:

Yes, but question is *what* she was knitting....  And if there were names knitted into it....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

Sounds like you are familiar with the dark powers of knitting 

[LizEF]

5 hours ago, InesF said:

It was necessary to write with reduced letter size and reduced line spacing – and still not all of paragraph one could be fitted on the page.

Holy paragraph, Batman!  Guess they had different rules back (whenever - replying before I've even read the paragraph in question).  These days, I won't read online posts by people who reject paragraphs (they usually reject capitalization and punctuation, too).  But now I'll go read this author's insanely long paragraph...

 

5 hours ago, InesF said:

Despite the extra effort with this Literature Challenge, I had a lot of fun creating the colour set and designing the book page!

 

I'm glad because, holy lots-of-work, @InesF!  And it's gorgeous! - the flourishes, the silhouettes, the little flowers, the script, the color-combo - just gorgeous!

[TSherbs]

I can't read this entry on my phone, but later I will give it a shot on my laptop....

[LizEF]

[redacted]

[inkstainedruth]

5 hours ago, TSherbs said:

Sounds like you are familiar with the dark powers of knitting 

The second sweater I ever knit was from a Lopi pattern pamphlet of Icelandic sweaters.  I had NEVER done stranded color work before....  But managed to pull it off anyway.  (my first self-knitted sweater accidentally through the wash, and ended up shrinking to to the point that it was effectively a felted jacket for a little kid ).  

Sadly, I think the Lopi sweater got attacked by moths, so don't know if it's worth even trying to save at this point.  (I had wanted one since a emergency layover in Reykjavik, after a trip to Denmark, the last "family" trip I was ever on with my parents and brother, in 1982; saw one on display in the airport and was going, "OOOH - I like that sweater!" and my mother was going "I am NOT buying you a wool sweater!"  So I got the pattern booklet and after learning to knit a few years later, eventually made my own (only swapping out the colors a bit because I liked dark brown better than the grey of the main color).

Of course, these days, knitting socks take up a lot less time and space....  Although I hate doing test swatches....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[essayfaire]

I couldn't pick an ink!!! Looked for moss green, but it seems to have gone missing. So I went with a classic.

[essayfaire]

2 hours ago, essayfaire said:

I couldn't pick an ink!!! Looked for moss green, but it seems to have gone missing. So I went with a classic.

Oh, and @InesF it is gorgeous and was worth waiting for. I wrote with a vintage Conway Stewart as that seemed the most à propos.

 

[TSherbs]

Ha, I am having trouble reading both of your handwriten submissions above, even on my laptop if I blow them up. Anyway, that which I can read I don't recognize, and I won't use google to figure it out for at least a week. 

[Misfit]

I looked at the hints late last night, after trying to read the quote. Unfortunately I’ve never read the book.  

[inkstainedruth]

I seem to recall that they made a miniseries of the book a number of years ago, which ran on PBS (I cheated and looked at the hints, because I didn't recognize the passage -- and admittedly also had more than a little trouble reading it, even after enlarging it as much as possible).

I read another book by the same author years ago (possibly, again,  after seeing part of it made into a series and possibly reading an excerpt from an early part of the book).  But the novel itself was, overall, incredibly depressing.  And did NOT make me overly keen to read anything else by the same author....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[LizEF]

For those who are having difficulty reading the handwriting, here's a spoiler, redacted the way @InesF redacted the handwritten version.  Also, I recommend getting a German (or Austrian) pen-pal - that helped me to be able to read all but a handful of words.  (Sorry, Ines, if you didn't want this, I just thought that after 3 Americans in a row struggled, more of us might need help, and this lets them get it without "cheating". )

 

Spoiler

[redacted] had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress. Her hand and wrist were so finely formed that she could wear sleeves not less bare of style than those in which the Blessed Virgin appeared to Italian painters; and her profile as well as her stature and bearing seemed to gain the more dignity from her plain garments, which by the side of provincial fashion gave her the impressiveness of a fine quotation from the Bible—or from one of our elder poets—in a paragraph of today’s newspaper. She was usually spoken of as being remarkably clever, but with the addition that her sister [redacted] had more common sense. Nevertheless, [redacted] wore scarcely more trimmings; and it was only to close observers that her dress differed from her sister’s, and had a shade of coquetry in its arrangements; for [redacted] plain dressing was due to mixed conditions, in most of which her sister shared. The pride of being ladies had something to do with it: the [redacted] connections, though not exactly aristocratic, were unquestionably “good:” if you inquired backward for a generation or two, you would not find any yard-measuring or parcel-tying forefathers—anything lower than an admiral or a clergyman; and there was even an ancestor discernible as a Puritan gentleman who served under Cromwell, but afterwards conformed, and managed to come out of all political troubles as the proprietor of a respectable family estate. Young women of such birth, living in a quiet country-house, and attending a village church hardly larger than a parlor, naturally regarded frippery as the ambition of a huckster’s daughter. Then there was well-bred economy, which in those days made show in dress the first item to be deducted from, when any margin was required for expenses more distinctive of rank. Such reasons would have been enough to account for plain dress, quite apart from religious feeling; but in [redacted] case, religion alone would have determined it; and [redacted] mildly acquiesced in all her sister’s sentiments, only infusing them with that common sense which is able to accept momentous doctrines without any eccentric agitation. [redacted] knew many passages of Pascal’s Pensees and of Jeremy Taylor by heart; and to her the destinies of mankind, seen by the light of Christianity, made the solicitudes of feminine fashion appear an occupation for Bedlam. She could not reconcile the anxieties of a spiritual life involving eternal consequences, with a keen interest in gimp and artificial protrusions of drapery. Her mind was theoretic, and yearned by its nature after some lofty conception of the world which might frankly include the parish of Tipton and her own rule of conduct there; she was enamoured of intensity and greatness, and rash in embracing whatever seemed to her to

 

[Misfit]

I think if I could have made the image larger, I could have read it better. @InesF has lovely handwriting, and attractive drawings. I did take German in college to get a BA degree. Not that I can speak or read it. I did learn some of the writing differences versus English.