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jacktellsliesDo you remember the sections of The Picture of Dorian Gray in which Dorian goes about having aesthetic experiences? He collects exotic instruments, and he learns about jewels and gems and about fine tapestries. And it is so rich, and so thick, and, worst and best of all, it knows exactly what it is doing to you, so it finds a centre in you instantly, without even trying, and it fills you, so that you choke on it. And you let it choke you. And you adore it.
This is the section on perfumes.
(If you read the scent descriptions to me aloud, I'd almost certainly try to bite your neck.)
Although I've never suffered enough pain to warrant it, I feel like The Broken Column a good deal of the time. They say that humans started walking upright too soon. I believe it, and I feel it. But I am few things if I am not an upstart child, and so I rather like us for it. Rather than cursing a too swift evolution, in fact, I feel, as I often do, that the human mind was made so that we might improve upon our own natures. We should build for ourselves flying buttresses. Corsetry is a start, a stab in the right direction, but it is not enough. No: we must become the high and delicate cathedrals at the centre of architecture of our own design. (Despite the fact that corsets are lacking in this, and only this, respect, if you were to sneak into my room at night while I slept, take my measurements, and build for me something boyshaped and boyshaping, like the sort that soldiers used to wear, in black leather with thick buckles and medical-style lacing, you would own me.)
In discussing scents, Firinel implied that I should be more like a slightly foppish Victorian rent boy than like a man. Although her intentions, I am sure, were pure, were someone to write a tutorial explaining how one should flirt with me, this example would probably appear at least thrice in the text.
This is the section on perfumes.
(If you read the scent descriptions to me aloud, I'd almost certainly try to bite your neck.)
Although I've never suffered enough pain to warrant it, I feel like The Broken Column a good deal of the time. They say that humans started walking upright too soon. I believe it, and I feel it. But I am few things if I am not an upstart child, and so I rather like us for it. Rather than cursing a too swift evolution, in fact, I feel, as I often do, that the human mind was made so that we might improve upon our own natures. We should build for ourselves flying buttresses. Corsetry is a start, a stab in the right direction, but it is not enough. No: we must become the high and delicate cathedrals at the centre of architecture of our own design. (Despite the fact that corsets are lacking in this, and only this, respect, if you were to sneak into my room at night while I slept, take my measurements, and build for me something boyshaped and boyshaping, like the sort that soldiers used to wear, in black leather with thick buckles and medical-style lacing, you would own me.)
In discussing scents, Firinel implied that I should be more like a slightly foppish Victorian rent boy than like a man. Although her intentions, I am sure, were pure, were someone to write a tutorial explaining how one should flirt with me, this example would probably appear at least thrice in the text.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-22 01:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-22 02:43 am (UTC)I'm getting Iago for myself, which has been described as making people want to lick boots
Excellent choice, then!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-22 01:56 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-22 02:01 am (UTC)Hrm. Actually, I am not sure. I'd forgotten that there were two editions. I believe, however, that the version that is commercially sold/available on the internet and in libraries these days is fairly standardized, and that that is the version with which I am familiar. One might have to do some looking for the other one.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-22 03:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-22 04:13 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-22 04:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-22 06:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-24 04:50 pm (UTC)I studied Dorian last semester at the university (I'm French ^^) and, yes, this passage is particularly choking. It made me think about Proust and his 5 to 10-line sentences. One or two sentences by page. Awfully long, yet, so exquisitely written, and I'm talking about Wilde here. Pleasure for the senses :P..
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-25 06:56 am (UTC)