Sherry Chandler » No! I am not Prince Hamlet
No! I am not Prince Hamlet
nor was meant to be. I am Prufrock who has
heard the mermaids singing each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
So here’s What Book I Am: a plain brown wrapper with a transformative interior.
You’re Prufrock and Other Observations!
by T.S. Eliot
Though you are very short and often overshadowed, your voice is poetic and lyrical. Dark and brooding, you see the world as a hopeless effort of people trying to impress other people. Though you make reference to almost everything, you’ve really heard enough about Michelangelo. You measure out your life with coffee spoons.
Somehow I suppose Elizabeth Bishop is not one of the options and so I am satisfied.
I found this quiz at Lance Mannion’s place, where poetic justice has given him Great Expectations. It’s justice not because Lance has forgotten his roots but because he loves Dickens.
Most grateful I am for the diversion, Lance, after a fraught night. We did have some wind here, and rain blowing white and black, to mark Super Tuesday and Mardi Gras.
Added: Well, actually it all happened on Ash Wednesday, but that’s a different Eliot collection and not a religious holiday in my tradition. So I refer you to Tom Watson for a little bit of that face of Eliot.
Glad to report that all in my household are well and the four cats slept blissfully through it all, though the humans spent some wee hours in the basement.
Hope your household weathered the night well.
You, too, can take the Book Quiz. Just be warned that there may be dire consequences to saying you don’t like Oprah Winfrey.
As for the politicians:
…I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life in coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
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5 Comments
1. Tommy replies at 6th February 2008, 9:33 am :
Je m’appelle
You’re Watership Down!
by Richard Adams
Though many think of you as a bit young, even childish, you’re
actually incredibly deep and complex. You show people the need to rethink their
assumptions, and confront them on everything from how they think to where they
build their houses. You might be one of the greatest people of all time. You’d
be recognized as such if you weren’t always talking about talking rabbits.
Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.
Hah, what do they know? The only time I’ve turned people off with talking animals was when I was teaching a unit on Animal Farm and I think those serious-minded sophomores were balking at the whole concept of allegory. Well, that and when I was into the whole Redwall series. And The Wind in the Willows. And …
Oh. my. GOD!!!!
2. Tommy replies at 7th February 2008, 9:19 am :
This result, come to think of it, is odd because I only just read Watership Down last spring.
You’d think a book I had only read a year ago would not have influenced my personality from its formative years.
I guess that just demonstrates the power of books. The novel was so powerful that it retroactively altered my personality! zomg11!!!11
3. sherry replies at 7th February 2008, 9:37 am :
Seems to me,Tommy, that your 24 hours of brooding about an internet personality test might indicate that you’re incredibly deep and complex. I don’t understand what part of the Watership Down assessment of your personality you think is off the mark?
4. Tommy replies at 7th February 2008, 11:46 am :
I’m sorry, I guess I missed Teh Funneh in that first post, there.
I was just running off at the mouth in regards to their statement that I would probably have more friends if I shut up about talking rabbits.
That just made me think of one of my Bourbon Co. students refusing to answer a quiz I once administered on Animal Farm. He wrote “animals don’t talk” in answer to all five questions I posed.
And the second post was just a little five-minute joke that occurred to me this morning.
But I wasn’t really expecting to be categorized as Watership Down. I thought I’d get Dickens or Faulkner or something.
::shrugs:: Not really important, I know. I’m far more sorry that my attempts at humor came across as ill humor, instead.
5. sherry replies at 7th February 2008, 12:38 pm :
We are talking at cross purposes, Tom. I had my tongue in my cheek, too. And I did think you were teh fenneh in the first post! Shoulda said, I reckon. Anyway, nothing wrong with being Watership Down. It’s a powerful novel, even if it is about talking animals.
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