As a writer, one quote I particularly identify with is: "How can I know what I think till I see what I say?" This is so true: my thoughts don't make sense to me until I write them down.
Here are some of my favourite bits of dialogue, from Howards End and Room with a view:
One wouldn't want to keep bumping into Wilcoxes.
Yes, he likes to travel, but he does see through foreigners.
It's in pencil. Pencil never counts!
Margaret, are we concealing a Mr. Bast?
She's got some sort of madness...as if she's mad!
A young English girl transfigured by Florence. And why should she not be transfigured? It happened to the Goths!
Hello! Come and have a bathe.
He asked me if I wasn't off my head with joy, and I said no, no I wasn't!
I shall never be able to forgive myself. - You always say that, but you always do!
I've been on a Merchant Ivory kick lately, and now I must go back and visit the books, which will probably lead me to Wilde, eventually taking me back to Austen. I seem to always reunite with Austen. All my roads lead to Austen...except for the ones that take me to Tolkien, though they do sometimes converge. Is that odd? I wonder if Austen and Tolkien would have found common ground in their interests, passions and pursuits? (That too, is a quotation. Do you recognize the source?)
Merchant Ivory have been making films for decades now, and not all of them have been lush period pieces. But the lush period pieces I have seen bring on a deep longing to live in Edwardian England. I like the idea of clearly defined manners, morals, expectations and etiquette. I like lace curtains in the windows; I like the poofy hairdos of the women, the long skirts and brooches. I like the reserve which prevented people from saying the word 'stomach' in mixed company or discussing personal matters in public. Yes, I do realize that it was also clausterphobic (especially for women) and very repressed. I also realize that life was pleasant for the fortunates who had money and leisure while full of toil and drudgery for those without money and leisure... so I'll take good care to be a woman of the upper middle class who had a comfortable income!
It was also a time of refinement, elegance, and steamer trunks. It is the latter which leads me to choose the days of Lucy Honeychurch over Elizabeth Bennet (though I'd rather be Lizzy and marry Darcy than be Lucy and marry George) because Lucy was able to travel - her world was broader. She could visit Florence with no Baedecker whereas Lizzy was hampered by bad roads, slow horses and no train service. Even the elderly Miss Allans went off to Athens, with the possibility of Constantinople beckoning in their future. Darcy may have had 10,000 Pounds a year, but still he could go no further or faster than his horses could take him in a day.
Oh yes..."but what are his tastes, his passions and pursuits?" Marianne to Sir John in Sense and Sensibility.
ReplyDeleteBut P&P has got to be my favourite too. Nothing like it.