freckles_and_doubt: (Default)
Freckles & Doubt ([personal profile] freckles_and_doubt) wrote2005-02-23 10:59 am

confused but approving

Well. That was ... lateral. Have just finished Kafka on the Shore, and have to confess myself a somewhat bewildered Murakami fan. He nearly lost me around the disembowelling cats bit, which I still think was a bit gratuitous, but I got over it. I can't actually work out how much of the off-the-wall surreality is Murakami, and how much of it is simply inscrutable orientalism - I am eternally fascinated by the extent to which Eastern assumptions about narrative are madly, madly different to Western. Have been trying to find the right word to describe his storytelling. Occlusive? oblique? also adumbrated, implicit, abstruse, recondite and elisive. Anyway. Colour me scouring Cape Town for more of his writing.

Positive vibes on the book-revision front. Nicest Ex-Supervisor in the World came round yesterday to collect the revised Carter chapter in order to check it for hopeless incoherence. She seems to think that the airy wave of the hand with which I am dismissing semiotic narrative criticism and all its horrible ilk, is legit. Am currently struggling with how to implement the changes required in the Thurber discussion, since currently reading through the chapter is causing me to wail "but I do that already!" at intervals,in response to the examiner and editor suggestions. Woe. But the acquisitions editor approves the Ursula Vernon cover, yay!

Cape Town continues hot. Sigh.

Um?

(Anonymous) 2005-02-23 02:12 pm (UTC)(link)
"Occlusive? oblique? also adumbrated, implicit, abstruse, recondite and elisive" Three of those I know. I am writing them down and shall look them up in the trusty COD at home....

wolverine_nun

Re: Um?

(Anonymous) 2005-02-23 02:13 pm (UTC)(link)
er... by "them" I mean the one's that I *don't* know...

w_n

Re: Um?

(Anonymous) 2005-02-23 02:14 pm (UTC)(link)
And I don't know where that apostrophe came from. Too many maths tuts, must go home...

w_n

Re: Um?

[identity profile] extemporanea.livejournal.com 2005-02-23 05:56 pm (UTC)(link)
We forgive you your trespasses...

words not long but twisty

[identity profile] strawberryfrog.livejournal.com 2005-02-23 03:24 pm (UTC)(link)
"elisive" only gets 393 hits on google, and most seem to by typos for "elusive". This could be a form of the word "elide"

The others can be looked up, if you try hard enough. "Occlusive" is not in Webster 1913, but google will tell you, naturally, that it means "Occluding or tending to occlude" - so clearly, this story blocks one's view of stuff.

Google knows all.

Re: words not long but twisty

[identity profile] extemporanea.livejournal.com 2005-02-23 05:52 pm (UTC)(link)
I have to admit that I more or less invented "elisive", from, indeed, "elide". Murakami's writing seemed to require such a coinage, mere everyday English being inadequate, and all. And, yes, it definitely obscures stuff. Mostly itself.

Re: words not long but twisty

(Anonymous) 2005-02-24 05:45 am (UTC)(link)
Google? pah! I turn to the OED.

Elisive: not recognised by OED. Elide: (variously) to destroy, to annul, to suppress.
Occlusive: having the property of occluding something (well, yes). Occlude: to block so as to prevent anything passing in or out.
Adumbrated: "shadowed forth; represented faintly or in outline". Like that one.
Abstruse: concealed, hidden, secret. Also, "remote from apprehension or conception, difficult,recondite". hmmm
Recondite: "removed or hidden from view; kept out of sight" Rare, it says.
Now you, Marie of Roumania, clearly know what all these words mean, so this glossary is presented merely for the interest of your more ignorant witterers.

I have to think of a way of using "adumbrated" in casual conversation...

wolverine_nun