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True Confessions of a Ricochetti
On another thread, one of our members admitted something:
I always confuse Horace Greeley with William Jennings Bryan.
I’ve seen a few other comments like this over the years I have been here. When Ricochetti go wild and make their true confessions, it usually isn’t the sort of thing you would see on Facebook or Jeff Bezos’ diary. How many people on your Facebook feed even know who Horace Greeley and William Jennings Bryant are? This is a high-class joint with high-class true confessions.
My true confession: the older I get, the more trouble I have with homonyms. I tend to write out loud. I once found an error in one of my books where I had used the word “clamber” instead of “clamor,” for instance.
What’s your most Ricochet-style true confession?
Published in Humor
It’s the 19th century, not just the Russians. Most authors from that century expand their narratives further than moderns. It’s not so much wordiness but scenes are more detailed and there are more cumulative events.
I just started Steven Pressfield’s No One Wants To Read Your Sh*t.
Pressfield is the author of Gates of Fire, the best novel I’ve ever read.
I’m waiting for the inevitable mashup where the crew and passengers of the S.S. Minnow get picked up by a whaling ship with a maniacal female captain obsessed with a whale whose coloring is a representation of the oppression of the pigment-challenged patriarchy.
Christina Ahab’s problems are exacerbated by her brooding and depressed all-Russian crew, most of whom are under indictment by the Special Counsel for bad Tweets and misleading Facebook posts.
By the time the ship reaches America they are blocked from entering by a massive wall, where a singular figure is charging it with a lance from the back of an old donkey. When he takes off his helmet it’s revealed that it’s really Gomer Pyle, USMC who then proceeds to sing “The Impossible Dream.”
At the end, Thurston Howell III turns to “Lovey” and says, “Well, it’s been the best of times and the worst of times…” She puts a finger to his lips and she whispers, “It’s OK, darling, let’s go back to the cabin and you can draw me like one of your little French girls.”
The final shot is a pullback on the crane that reveals a giant iceberg on the horizon…
Our true areas of expertise and bottomless volumes of knowledge are revealed in the True Confessions of Ricochetti.
I never read Don Quixote, but I’m pretty sure I am living his life.
I blame my older sister, who claimed control of the TV and made me watch every episode of Gilligan’s Island and the Brady Bunch, rather than Bugs Bunny & McHale’s Navy like I wanted.
Outside of those topics I’m generally useless in Polite Society
I’m not sure if that’s true or not. In Crime and Punishment, I think, Satan went on for about an hour (listening time) on something totally tangential to the story line, as far as I could tell.
I’m definitely not an expert, but my understanding is that while Western lit is story centered, Russian lit is character centered. That hour was probably meant to explain the character, regardless of the story line.
It may just be that it was too subtle for me.
I think you’re just tilting at windmills.
My co-workers used to give me a hard time about my tendency to challenge the corporate hierarchy. One in particular called it “tilting at windmills”. When I retired, I was given this as a “career epitaph”.
—no burden for his shoulders, nor subject for his frozen wit: whom, if perchance thou shouldst come to know him, thou shalt warn to leave at rest where they lie the weary mouldering bones of Don Quixote, and not to attempt to carry him off, in opposition to all the privileges of death, to Old Castile, making him rise from the grave where in reality and truth he lies stretched at full length, powerless to make any third expedition or new sally; for the two that he has already made, so much to the enjoyment and approval of everybody to whom they have become known, in this as well as in foreign countries, are quite sufficient for the purpose of turning into ridicule the whole of those made by the whole set of the knights-errant; and so doing shalt thou discharge thy goat calling, giving good counsel to one that bears ill-will to thee. And we shall remain satisfied, and proud to have been the first who has ever enjoyed the fruit of his rantings as fully as he could desire; for our desire has been no other than to deliver over to the detestation of mankind the false and foolish tales of the books of chivalry, which, thanks to that of our true Don Quixote, are even now tottering, and doubtless doomed to fall for ever. Farewell.
I think that was The Brothers Karamzov, but yes, 19th century novels can have digressions. I’m currently reading Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables and it’s full of digressions. The modern novel has eliminated that. You’ll have to get used to them unfortunately.
Please keep off digress.
I liked Les Miserables better than any of the Russians.
Yeah, you’re right. It was The Brothers Karamazov.
I have similar areas of expertise (ie: Leave it to Beaver, Flintstones, Speed Racer, etc. …or should I say the Professor and MaryAnne).
I don’t mind if a student thinks he can spite me that way. “Have fun,” I’d say.
Students recoiled when I revealed that I found the Harry Potter books unreadable. But then, I like Lord of the Rings, and Beowulf.
I don’t find liking LOTR and Harry Potter irreconcilable. It’s been a long time since I read Beowulf, so I can’t say about it. I probably didn’t read it in the original language anyway.
So… How do you pronounce it?
KARamazov?
KaRAMazov?
KaraMAZov?
KaramaZOV?
I only listened to it, and he used #3.
The Skipper & Gilligan when they heard the Skipper was on Trial (in absentia) for the loss of the Minnow,
Did a newspaper wash up or something? Otherwise shouldn’t whoever told them have helped them off?
I think it was over the radio. They had radio reception but no transmission.
And good batteries.
I don’t really know. I read it as #1 but I’m probably wrong.
The Professor did something with coconuts to create battery juice…lol.
The third one.
Okay. I couldn’t leave it alone. For some reason, I was inspired to open The Lord of the Rings on page one and start reading again. :)
I also thought a little about my many decades long relationship with this book and wrote about that if anyone is interested or has had a similar relationship.
There are so many books I want to read, I can’t hardly imagine re-reading anything. I’d make an exception for Donna Tartt’s novels, but that’s it.