Dr Mariadele Boccardi

@[email protected]
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14 Posts
Senior Lecturer in English Lit at UWE Bristol. Contemporary historical fiction, Neo-Victorianism, ecocriticism.
Agatha Christie fan.
Dr Mariadele BoccardiDec 29, 2022

I started this before Christmas, so not part of the haul, but rather something I felt I had to read as a contemporary lit academic. A Booker winner by an author with a lot of recent academic interest...

Alas, it hasn't changed my view of Murdoch from reading & teaching other novels by her: none of the characters or situations or conversations are believable and I just don't care what happens to the characters. I assume this is an authorial choice, but it gets tiresome after a while, as do the contrived settings and narrow social milieu.

I have now read 5 of her novels and my response remains the same: I just don't see the point of the over the top approach to everything.

Show threadDr Mariadele BoccardiDec 29, 2022
@carnage4life This is similar to what Waterstones did in the UK a few years ago (greater independence for branches and more localised stock choices), with good success.
Dr Mariadele BoccardiDec 26, 2022
First book of my Christmas haul! I LOVE Agatha Christie so was looking forward to this. It's very readable and I enjoyed it overall, but the stories are a bit uneven - e.g. the ones where Miss Marple found herself quite far from England felt contrived and more akin to Murder She Wrote than Marple. (Though I can obviously see how Jessica Fletcher is meant to be a version of Marple.)
Dr Mariadele BoccardiDec 18, 2022
Show threadAnother Angry WomanDec 17, 2022
festive political compass
Dr Mariadele BoccardiNov 13, 2022
@Sime0nStylites
Academic conferences are great. Congratulations and enjoy the experience!
Show threadDr Mariadele BoccardiNov 13, 2022
@benjaminmorgan
Persuasion
A Sentimental Education
For the most and least reliable men in 19th c literature, respectively.
(Also I Promessi Sposi but that might just be a hangover from school.)
Show threadDr Mariadele BoccardiNov 13, 2022
@ecmille1
The book sounds really interesting! I work Neo-Victorian ecologies (v slowly...) and am just writing the chapters on extraction.
Show threadDr Mariadele BoccardiNov 12, 2022
@phdhurtbrain
Semi-serious question: why is the phrase "have your cake and eat it too" in that order? It doesn't make logical or chronological sense: you CAN have your cake and eat it - but you can't eat your cake and have it too.
Show threadDr Mariadele BoccardiNov 12, 2022

@doctorwaffle @litstudies
Preview:

1. There is no jeopardy in Hardy's novels (you know his characters are inevitably going to make the wrong choices regardless of circumstances) so what's the point of reading them?
2. Every novel by Virginia Woolf is basically the same novel with the characters' names changed.
3. John Thornton is the most marriageable man in Victorian lit (he has an actual job! A man after my bourgeois heart). If we extend the criteria to 19th c. fiction I'd add Frederick Wentworth for the same reason.

Unfortunately I don't have a survey course.

Show threadDr Mariadele BoccardiNov 12, 2022

@doctorwaffle @litstudies
Also, Sir James is a genuinely nice man and there's a lot to be said for those (see also, Richard Dalloway - much misunderstood).

When I retire I'm going to start a blog of all my heretical literary opinions so I can vent.