iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I really want to love Adam Johnson's The Wayfinder but I am finding it so hard to get into! I trust him enough to persist, though: I thought The Orphan Master's Son and Fortune Smiles were both astonishing.

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I’m still making my way through Phineas Finn and the weirdly magical thing about Trollope’s novels is that they are rarely exciting but also never boring. Once you settle into his pace it’s like you could just read along indefinitely. Plus he always makes you care about his people. 🙂📚

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I guess I'm happy just to still be hanging out on Wordpress doing my thing while The Discourse happens elsewhere, though I do miss the energy of Ye Olde Booke Blogosphere.

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Also why tf is the message app trying to write my replies now, how do I make that stop?

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

It sure would be nice if Outlook would allow me to either preview or download the EXTREMELY important attachments that just landed in my inbox. I mean, no rush, I get that 'something went wrong' and I will be happy to 'try again [AGAIN and AGAIN] in a little while' but FFS.

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

The Bayers Lake clinic is pretty nice but it's so hard to get here from downtown!

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I think Joan Barfoot's 'Gaining Ground' is a very good novel, but it also struck me as somewhat of a period piece: it seems very much a book of the 1970s. Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with that!

rohanmaitzen.com

“What Happened”: Joan Barfoot, Gaining Ground

(I feel nothing of that person now. But from the pictures, I can say that I was not unhappy then. I was relatively comfortable and, I thought, a success at what I had set out to do, which was to ra…

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

The thing about rewatching Greys Anatomy is that it turns out I am no longer at all interested in who a bunch of gorgeous stick-thin 20-somethings have sex with. 😆

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I've been idly re-watching some early Greys Anatomy and I've just reached the one where they send Kyle Chandler in to defuse a bomb. 😍😬😢

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Continuing my Good Reading streak with Joan Barfoot's Gaining Ground. As good as everyone says - though I'm thinking through some things about it for my pending blog post. The nice new Faber edition rightly includes comparisons to The Wall but I'm not sure GG is as good.

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Since my marriage ended and I have been on my own again, I have done a lot of experimenting and put a lot of effort in to see what activities I enjoy and how I want to spend my time and $. Turns out, it was reading books all along. Or, it is *still* reading books. 🙃 📚

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I got my first senior's discount today - turns out it's 55+ on Thursdays at Shoppers - and I was at first confused and then just happy because 20% off is 20% off!

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

This is a wonderfully measured and non-polemical and sometimes surprisingly moving discussion of "the point of literary criticism" by way of a review of Helen Vendler's "Inhabit the Poem".

podcasts.apple.com

What’s the point of literary criticism?

Podcast Episode · The LRB Podcast · September 18 · 37m

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

The "Romeo and Juliet in Old English" discourse reminds of the West Wing scene where President Bartlet asks Donna's English teacher if she made her students read Beowulf in the original 'Middle English.' If you create a pedantic character you need to do your homework. 🙃

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I bought some low-sugar yogurt trying to be healthier and it turns out to be sweetened with stevia and is way *too* sweet. Ugh.

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I’ve moved on to Phineas Finn in my Pallisers reread and I’m not enjoying it as much as Can You Forgive Her - too much hunting, TMI on the politics. Yet it still chugs along easily enough.

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Wait, what? Do none of these bozos actually know how anything works? I have never filed a claim on my car insurance; that's a GOOD thing (for me and the insurer)!

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Rose Tremain’s The Housekeeper begins with a bold echo of the famous opening line of Rebecca, telling us that Tremain is unafraid to take on both this beloved classic and its celebrated and complicated author. My review of The Housekeeper is in the new issue of @thetls.bsky.social.

the-tls.com

The road to Manderley

An origin story of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Dramatic clouds over Gorsebrook Park this evening.

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Freddie has invented a new game. She meows at me until I get up from whatever I'm doing, find her favourite fuzzy mouse, and throw it across the apartment for her to scramble madly after. The mouse ends up underneath something so she can't reach it. She meows at me . . . 😂

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

I really wish the Cecilia concert series in Halifax were held in a different venue. The church is lovely but the pews upstairs are hell on my back and the floor seats mean you basically can't see the performers. Last time I went I swore never again. ☹️

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

I won't spoil it for anyone else by giving specifics but the ending is in fact very satisfying and also quite moving.

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Went to the Tides game this afternoon! (The stands filled up a lot more by game time.) Gorgeous day; tied TO 1 -1. I'm very not sporty but I had fun.

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

You can listen to me on this week's episode of the TLS podcast, discussing "Rose Tremain’s reimagining of Rebecca, and a new way of seeing the terrifying Mrs Danvers."

the-tls.com

Manderley Revisited

Rohan Maitzen on Rose Tremain’s reimagining of Rebecca, and a new way of seeing the terrifying Mrs Danvers; Jamie McKendrick reads his poem, ‘The Importance of Time’

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

I have about 100 pages left of The Remembered Soldier and a bit to my own surprise I am still engrossed in its dreamlike (often nightmarish) cadences and accumulating layers of confusion and doubt. I am afraid, though, that it is going to be open-ended and leave me wondering. (Don't tell me!)

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

the-tls.com

The road to Manderley

An origin story of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I think it's fine! I try so hard not to fill pauses with "um" or "like" that instead there are actual pauses, but I hope that's not annoying. And for once I don't think I talked too fast. 😅

podcasts.apple.com

Manderley Revisited

Podcast Episode · The TLS Podcast · September 17 · 35m

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Yvette d’Entremont @dentremy.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

"For us, choosing you, Canada and Mr. Carney, is quite easy...You have green hydrogen to keep us warm, you have maple syrup to keep us happy, and Heated Rivalry to keep us entertained...We know that Canada will never be the 51st state," said EU MP Damian Boeselager.

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

I'm thrilled that there's a women's health initiative but all I really want to know is how any of the pieces of it will reduce wait times. I guess "hire more specialists" doesn't count as a strategy? 🙃

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

What is it about Thursdays? That's the evening I volunteer at the library and it's also the evening practically every event I'm getting notices about takes place - plus it's the night the Symphony always plays and the AGNS is free, meaning there's a high opportunity cost for the volunteering!

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Ahh it's stressful wrapping up a podcast interview and hoping you made sense! Anyway you can tune in Thursday to hear me talk (hopefully intelligibly) eith the lovely hosts of the TLS podcast about Rose Tremain's The Housekeeper.

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Good thing I bought a six month supply of that expensive preventive medication from my vet so I could get the manufacturer's rebate! 😆

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

The Remembered Soldier is amazingly good so far.

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

I popped into Bookmark "just to look around" and came out with The Remembered Soldier and The Wayfinder - because apparently I think I'll have *more* time to read now that classes have started? 😆📚

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

The graduate seminar descriptions in the university calendar are a veritable graveyard of past expertise, abandoned as retirees and departures have not been replaced over decades. True, there are areas of new growth, but it's still disheartening.

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Hello I'm a professor of Victorian literature and my job is email and wrangling terrible institutional software.

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Biscuit maker putting in a late shift. 😍🐈‍⬛

Grey tabby with bright green eyes kneading her favorite soft blanket on the back of the sofa.

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

How am I at inbox zero the day after my classes started? Is Outlook down or something? (Or am I just very effectively procrastinating on other work by being way too prompt with my emails? 😆 )

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

"If the greedy little Gradgrinds grasped at more than this, what was it for good gracious goodness' sake, that the greedy little Gradgrinds grasped at?" 😆 I know a lot of folks don't think much of Hard Times, but I have come to really appreciate it as a sort of Dickens reduction sauce,

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

I do love a cool rainy morning when I get to work from home and enjoy being cozy with Fred.

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

OK, well, fall term has been exhausting, good thing it's ov.... oh dear.

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Back to class today - always a bit bumpy after months of talking mostly to myself (and Fred!) but also exciting.

static.klipy.com

Nemo's First Day of School Meme

ALT: Nemo's First Day of School Meme

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Some exciting news: I have signed a contract to write 'Reading George Eliot: An Introduction' for the Routledge series Reading Literature Today. It seems like the book I have been preparing to write my whole career.

rohanmaitzen.com

Reading George Eliot

In my last post I noted that I had been looking up passages in The Mill on the Floss for reasons I would say more about in another post. This is that other post! It’s about some exciting news…

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Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Nothing says "first day of the new term" like buying three new pens that are absolutely surplus to requirements but still very nice to have. 😀

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