User Profile

ghostbetweenpages

ghostbetweenpages@bookwyrm.social

Joined 3Β years, 4Β months ago

I don't read very much, and 80% of what I do read is somehow related to Frankenstein (often rather tangentially).

Profile picture is by Bernie Wrightson

This link opens in a pop-up window

2025 Reading Goal

50% complete! ghostbetweenpages has read 1 of 2 books.

John Milton: Paradise Lost (Norton Critical Editions) (2004)

Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John …

AAAAAAAAAAAH

I have gone from "I would die for Eve" to "I would kill for Eve". Specifically, I would kill God for Eve. The problem was misogyny all along!!! Eve gets this!!!!! Among unequals what society can sort, what harmony or true delight, which must be mutual in proportion due given and received?

β˜™πŸ΅β§

Round the tree All other beasts that saw [the Tree] with like desire Longing and envying stood but could not reach.

Maybe God did put bird netting on the tree... Is it monkey-proofed besides? Lemur-proofed? Maybe a caterpillar was the first (besides God and the angels) to truly know Good and Evil.

β˜™πŸ΅β§

Why then was this forbid? Why but to awe, Why but to keep ye low and ignorant, His worshippers? He knows that in the day Ye eat thereof your eyes, that seem so clear Yet are but dim, shall perfectly be then Opened …

Tom Lancaster: Quantum field theory for the gifted amateur (2014, Oxford University Press) No rating

Finally finished Ch. 3! I got very lazy with the exercises (did one, couldn't do two; got bored near the finish line with the last) so I should come back to that at some point. I did not really follow any of it, which is probably partly because I started it something like 9 months ago and kept taking multi-month breaks. Another reason I did not follow it is that I am not very good at physics :(

Anyway, onwards!

John Milton: Paradise Lost (Norton Critical Editions) (2004)

Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John …

As ever, this book keeps making me think about how awful it must have been to be a woman in Milton's era (and before, and for much time after...!) :(

My browser crashed at some point, so I lost some highlighted parts. Alas.

β˜™πŸ΅β§

But of the tree whose operation brings Knowledge of good and ill (which I have set The pledge of thy obedience and thy faith Amid the garden by the Tree of Life) Remember what I warn thee: shun to taste And shun the bitter consequence! For know, The day thou eat'st thereof, my sole command Transgressed, inevitably thou shalt die, From that day mortal and this happy state Shalt lose, expelled from hence into a world Of woe and sorrow.

Mostly sticking this bit here as a reminder to myself that God did indeed give Dire Warnings from the start (to Adam, at least). I don't …

John Milton: Paradise Lost (Norton Critical Editions) (2004)

Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John …

I really like the start of the chapter - I mean, I like all the parts where Milton invokes his muse!

β˜™πŸ΅β§

IMPORTANT: ode to an ant spotted!!!

The parsimonious emmet, provident Of future, in small room large heart enclosed, Pattern of just equality perhaps Hereafter, joined in her popular tribes Of commonalty

In small room large heart enclosed... Wikipedia has no information on whether this is How Ants Were Thought Of in Milton's era or whether Milton just really loved ants πŸ’–πŸœ

β˜™πŸ΅β§

The serpent, subtlest beast of all the field, Of huge extent sometimes with brazen eyes And hairy mane terrific

...Hairy-maned snake? Milton, what. The footnotes do say "See Aeneid 2.206-7", which is "Two serpents, rank'd abreast, the seas divide, / And smoothly sweep along the swelling tide." (trans. John Dryden). This doesn't help with the hairy mane?!

β˜™πŸ΅β§

Does the Bible say why God didn't …

John Milton: Paradise Lost (Norton Critical Editions) (2004)

Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John …

Content warning Very mild spoilers for Ch. 6 of Paradise Lost

finished reading Frankissstein by Jeanette Winterson

Content warning Extremely minor spoilers for the plot following Mary

John Milton: Paradise Lost (Norton Critical Editions) (2004)

Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John …

Content warning Mild spoilers for Ch. 5 of Paradise Lost

John Milton: Paradise Lost (Norton Critical Editions) (2004)

Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John …

Content warning Homophobia mention (no actual homophobia though, it just reads like it in an amusing way). Also, PL book 4 spoilers.