Allow me, again, to indulge my weakness for Vladimir Nabokov. In this passage, he perfectly describes that type of girl. You know the one:
Books mean nothing to a woman of her kind; her own life seems to her to contain the thrills of a hundred novels. Had she been condemned to spend a whole day shut up in a library, she would have been found dead about noon. I am quite sure that Sebastian [a novelist] never alluded to his work in her presence: it would have been like discussing sundials with a bat. So let us leave that bat to quiver and wheel in the deepening dusk: the clumsy mimic of a swallow.
How much do I love that last sentence! But now, back to the books.
I also love the last bit, especially thinking of all of things that undergrads are clumsy mimics of, such as:
actual human beings;
thinking, breathing individuals;
and people who actually give a shit.
Perhaps a bit harsh. You too, SuomiChris, though I “definately” appreciate the sentiment.
The ones I’ve known, had they been locked up in a library, would have _pretended_ to like it, knowing that they _should_ like it, until they in fact _believed_ that they _did_ like it.
And that’s a whole other dimension that Nabakov seems to have missed (or purposely ignored) here. C. S. Lewis did not.
Just my $0.02, worth less now than when I began to type :(
Albert
Ha! Presumably Lenny Lower was thinking along similar lines when he wrote -
“I talked with her in a kind, fatherly way for a while, but it was obviously a strain for her to talk without dancing, and she gave a little sigh of relief when Stanley entered the room with a heavy masterful tread.”
Albert: Did you just say that C.S. Lewis was a more deeply nuanced writer than Nabakov? I’m not really into ‘litrrechurr’, but I am very sure that that is complete and total nonsense.
@SuomiChris: No, I did not mean that. What I was trying to say was that Lewis covered the case where the (deluded) individual in question (locked in a library for a day) would not die, but would adapt by convincing (her)self that she enjoyed the library.
On reflection, the “complete and total nonsense” was probably mine. :)