There's also terrific arctic stuff in Frankenstein! I didn't really understand that the place the arctic holds in the English literary imagination until I read the Phillip Pullman books -- but it's a huge element of Shelley's exploration of the sublime in Frankenstein. Rebecca Solnit writes a lot about this in The Faraway Nearby and then does a residency in Iceland.
And condolences on Chicago February -- I grew up there, and upon feeling blue sky sunshine on the top of a Colorado mountain in January decades ago, vowwed never to go back east of Denver again to live! Hang in there -- you'll have daffodils soon-ish.
Oooh, I haven't read Frankenstein since I was a wee teen, it's probably time for a revisit!!! I also realized on this reading journey that like half of Pullman's character names are just...arctic explorer names. I thought I knew what I was getting into here, winter-wise--I'm originally from New England, but it really is worse here! So grateful it is in the 40s today
I was always confused about the arctic section in Frankenstien, until I read Pullman and Solnit kind of at the same time -- the arctic was a site of the sublime in a lot of the English literary imagination? Which I guess I get, but I live in the Rockies (after growing up in Chicago) so the best I can feel it is as a sort of "oh, I feel this way about mountains and they feel the same about the arctic."
Also, Lopez was so lovely. I only met him once, but his arctic writing is some of my favorite ...
There's also terrific arctic stuff in Frankenstein! I didn't really understand that the place the arctic holds in the English literary imagination until I read the Phillip Pullman books -- but it's a huge element of Shelley's exploration of the sublime in Frankenstein. Rebecca Solnit writes a lot about this in The Faraway Nearby and then does a residency in Iceland.
And condolences on Chicago February -- I grew up there, and upon feeling blue sky sunshine on the top of a Colorado mountain in January decades ago, vowwed never to go back east of Denver again to live! Hang in there -- you'll have daffodils soon-ish.
Oooh, I haven't read Frankenstein since I was a wee teen, it's probably time for a revisit!!! I also realized on this reading journey that like half of Pullman's character names are just...arctic explorer names. I thought I knew what I was getting into here, winter-wise--I'm originally from New England, but it really is worse here! So grateful it is in the 40s today
I was always confused about the arctic section in Frankenstien, until I read Pullman and Solnit kind of at the same time -- the arctic was a site of the sublime in a lot of the English literary imagination? Which I guess I get, but I live in the Rockies (after growing up in Chicago) so the best I can feel it is as a sort of "oh, I feel this way about mountains and they feel the same about the arctic."
Also, Lopez was so lovely. I only met him once, but his arctic writing is some of my favorite ...