I ended up seeing The Prestige last weekend and thoroughly enjoyed it. (No spoilers here, just general comments.) It’s a big movie in some ways, grandiose, and still not quite as good as Memento — it’s not as sharp or strange or haunting, less disturbingly possible — but mean, tight, and clever. It mostly made up for the awfulness of Batman Begins.

I’ve seen some comments about the movie feeling hollow, or failing to earn its emotional resolution. If someone could point out to me what emotional resolution Nolan was trying to earn, I’d be intrigued. It’s a story about life-warping obsession; it’s hollow for a reason.

I wanted one more turn in the story, though. Or, rather, I wanted the movie itself to pull a final sly trick on me, something I’d only realize later. Did anybody else want that, too?

My life-warping obsession, these days, is the eighteenth century. Here’s what I’m working on now:

1. Charlotte Charke project.
2. Project for Lit. of Maritime Empire class — possibly Henry Neville, possibly Samuel Foote?
3. Teaching, as always. Lots of essays coming in tomorrow morning.
4. Label for small class-designed exhibit in the HRC: ellipses in Evelina.
5. Kelly Link’s upcoming reading! (November 6, 7:30 pm, the Joynes Reading Room at UT. More details very soon.) Wheee.
6. C18 interest group for the department? First idea: reading Clarissa in real time.

I’m writing this post from the courtyard in between the HRC and the English buildings, via the HRC’s wireless connection. Oddly enough, there’s no reliable wireless in the English building. This courtyard is one of my favorite places to sit on campus, though, so I don’t mind.

It’s been a crazy week. I had a presentation Monday, a class observation Tuesday, and a short paper due today, and I feel drowsy and slow. I’m looking forward to a relatively restful weekend full of sushi, reading for my paper project on Charlotte Charke and grading some short assignments — probably with my apartment windows open, as it’s finally cooled off. Perhaps we’ll go see a movie. Any opinions to offer on The Science of Sleep, The Prestige, or Marie Antoinette?

To the lovely Elizabeth Scott, whose latest story, Stairs, is now up at Mytholog — and whose wonderful first novel, Bloom, now has a release date and a shiny official Amazon page. Go forth and pre-order!

Someday, this blog will contain regularly-updated content. And by “someday” I meant “possibly in December, when I have a moment to think.” Right now, I have rather too much grading and reading to allow for original thought. So: here are a few lists. Some are hierarchical; some are not.

My favorite book-ogling experiences in the HRC thus far:

1. Chaucer, Cardigan manuscript of the Canterbury Tales.
2. Two of Oscar Wilde’s letters, which I transcribed for class earlier this week — both were just a sheet front and back, written from France, before his trial. In the first he asks a friend for a loan of ten pounds; in the second, to a different friend, he explains that he’s switched hotels because the previous one kept sending his bill up every morning with his coffee. Poor Oscar. He had lovely big messy handwriting, only a few words to a line.
3. Shakespeare, First Folio, Norton facsimile (as previously explained).
4. Emily Dickinson, Poems, 1891. Like a cracked whip on the page. One of the editions had a facsimile of a poem in the first few pages — and, shockingly, her dashes are just little dots! She had a big sprawly script, too — for some reason I’d always thought of her as someone who would’ve written in little cramped letters. I’m glad I was wrong.
5. Defoe, Colonel Jack: married FIVE TIMES to FOUR WHORES, says the long title, the capital letters rubricated. I think Defoe had some kind of rule for himself: the last phrase in a long title must contain a complete falsehood. (Crusoe does this, too — “rescued by pyrates,” my ass.)
6. Taylor’s Workes, with a triple dedication, and each dedicatee given his own delightfully obsequious epigram.
7. Hooke’s Micrographia — the illustrations!
8. Johnson’s Dictionary — the heft!

Noteworthy events of the last month or so:

• Having my first conference paper proposal — on the romance plot and Charlotte Lennox’s The Female Quixote — accepted for the ASECS conference in March. There was much rejoicing.
• Finding an excellent space (the Joynes Reading Room) for Kelly Link’s upcoming reading at UT. More on this as it approaches.
• Having another dissertation idea pop into my head. Er, hello.
• Follett opening their first new flagship bookstore, Intellectual Property, right next to campus. They have literary criticism in their clearance section! And they gave me a free tote bag. I’m easily won.

The best things I’ve bought at the farmer’s market recently:

• squash blossoms (which I cooked this way, with the addition of a bit of cornmeal to the batter — they were excellent over rice with teriyaki sauce)
• banana and cinnamon empanada baked by a local Brazilian restaurant
• local spinach — I was in spinach withdrawal
• blueberry bran muffin

With T.’s encouragement, I bought okra today — at the co-op rather than the farmer’s market, but it’s local stuff. I’ve only eaten it twice in my life. This must mean something about my level of Texas acculturation, but I’m not quite sure what.