Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 7h"...her spirit seemed hastening to live within a very brief span as much as many live during a protracted existence." #Brontefest 010
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 7h#Brontefest "Left to myself I abandoned myself..." --- Caught up after being away for a wedding. 010
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 01/10/2026#Brontefest "'Come, Miss Jane, don't cry,' said Bessie, as she finished. She might as well have said to the fire, 'Don't burn!'" 🔥 061
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 01/10/2026#Brontefest "I was not heroic enough to purchase liberty at the price of caste." 040
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 01/10/2026I made a failed attempt at it in my 30s, but I was totally blind to how exquisite the writing is and how radical the novel was. Also very glad to be restarting it. 120
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 01/10/2026My edition's notes point out that the association is not just as a rebel, but that Guy Fawkes is also "associated with incendiarism (a running theme in JANE EYRE) and the 'enemy within'". #Brontefest 261
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 30/09/2026#Brontefest "This reproach of my dependence had become a vague sing-song in my ear; very painful and crushing, but only half intelligible." "Superstition was with me at that moment; but it was not yet her hour for complete victory." So good! 172
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 30/09/2026#TheShrew2026 Tranio: Ay, mistress, and Petruchio is the master, That teacheth tricks eleven and twenty long To tame a shrew and charm her chattering tongue. (IV.2.62-64) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty-...en.wikipedia.orgThirty-one (card game) - Wikipedia 041
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 29/09/2026#Brontefest "I knew he would soon strike, and while dreading the blow, I mused on the disgusting and ugly appearance of him that would presently deal it." "...he was not quick either of vision or conception..." 😂 050
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 29/09/2026#Brontefest "Mr Miles...affirmed that he would do very well if he had fewer cakes and sweetmeats sent from home; but the mother's heart turned from an opinion so harsh, and inclined rather to the more refined idea that John's sallowness was owing to over-application..." Horrifying and funny 150
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 29/09/2026Just saved it for later. I think this might be good in audio format. 220
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 28/09/2026#TheShrew2026 Grumio: But thou knowest winter tames man, woman and beast (IV.1.19-20) --- Curtis: By this reck'ning he is more shrew than she. (IV.1.74) Curtis, Grumio and the crew. 041
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 26/09/2026#TheShrew2026 Baptista: First were we sad, fearing you would not come, Now sadder that you come so unprovided. Fie, doff this habit, shame to your estate, An eyesore to our solemn festival. (III.2.96-99) 040
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 24/09/2026#Brontefest "...the novel's language is richly allusive and self-consciously literary. The range of textual allusions is prodigious: Jane Eyre is one of the most densely allusive and intertextual works of the nineteenth century." Dr. Stevie Davies - Introduction to the Penguin Classics edition 151
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 24/09/2026#TheShrew2026 Petruchio: O, you are novices! 'Tis a world to see, How tame, when men and women are alone, A meacock wretch can make the curstest shrew. (II.1.322-324) 041
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 24/09/2026#TheShrew2026 Joseph Arkley as Katherine and Claire Price as Petrucia in the 2019 production. 131
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 22/09/2026Thank you for organizing the read and welcoming me to the group. Such a powerful little book; it left me breathless. @lizoksbooks.bsky.social describes it perfectly. "It is a beautiful composition, filled with visceral pain and ugly truths." And thank you, Lisa, for the exquisite translation. 240
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 20/09/2026#TheShrew2026 Baptista: When did she cross thee with a bitter word? Katherine: Her silence flouts me, and I’ll be revenged. (II.2.29-30) 040
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 20/09/2026#Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody "Stars winked at one another, conveying entire poems in Morse code to local residents but remaining undeciphered." 071
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 20/09/2026#Brontefest #CharlotteBrontë Jane Eyre Introduction to the Penguin Classics edition - Dr. Stevie Davies 172
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 20/09/2026The anxiety expressed by the conservative press about the novel's demands for personal freedom, its assertions of famished hunger, not only physical, but also intellectual and emotional, and its disputatious protagonist's serial defiance of authority, was a response by an elite under threat. 030
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 20/09/2026#Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody "Just like in the hospital wards, where bodies are simply bodies, a form of existence and empathy, a conversation without a conversation." 051
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 20/09/2026#Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody "By condemning the bodies of strangers, they consoled their own bodies." "Seeing the bodies of others means seeing one's own as it actually is." 052
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 19/09/2026#TheShrew2026 Grumio: Why, give him gold enough and marry him to a puppet or an aglet-baby, or an old trot with ne'er a tooth in her head, though she have as many diseases as two-and-fifty horses. (The 2019 RSC production swaps genders. "Petruchia" is the suitor, here with Grumio) 040
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 19/09/2026#Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody "...this was my pain, my narrative, which I didn't want to share with anyone." 051
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 19/09/2026#Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody "Years passed and his rage strengthened like fine cognac and hardened like the bark of an old tree..." 061
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 18/09/2026As I understand it, The Taming of the Shrew is the play within the play, being performed for Christopher Sly, so there's that little conceit. 130
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 18/09/2026#TheShrew2026 Gremio: I cannot tell. But I had as lief take her dowry with this condition: to be whipped at the high cross every morning. (I.1.133-135) 030
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 18/09/2026The RSC production I'm watching skipped the Induction altogether. 120
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 18/09/2026#Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody "...the tongue is a muscle not unlike a pagan dancing around a campfire." 161
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 18/09/2026#Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody "...conversation was filtered through a fine screen that held back the most important, large, brave, lavish, and truthful words." (I love the choice of the word 'lavish' in this sentence.) 041
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 18/09/2026I relate to this; growing up, my family called me "Bookworm". 120
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 17/09/2026#TheShrew2026 Katherine: I pray you, sir, is it your will To make a stale of me amongst these mates? (I.1.57-58) 030
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 17/09/2026#Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody "Children became more than their own childish bodies..." "...life adds all kinds of people into its soup, tossing in spices without asking who likes what." (I love this line.) 042
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 16/09/2026#TheShrew2026 Sly: Or do I dream? Or have I dreamed till now? I do not sleep: I see, I hear, I speak. I smell sweet savors and I feel soft things. (Induction.2.68-70) 041
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 16/09/2026#Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody "...the teacher's face crumpled like the quizzes we tossed in the wastebasket." The similes in this book are 💯 293
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 16/09/2026#Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody "All the words that were ever said to her had turned into huge, dry stones." "My body forgives no misdeeds. The only thing it can easily forget is pain." 053
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 16/09/2026Wow! This is such exciting news, Lisa. Huge Congrats to you and Egana! 130
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 15/09/2026#TheShrew2026 Lord: What think you: if he were conveyed to bed, Wrapped in sweet clothes, rings put upon his fingers, A most delicious banquet by his bed, And brave attendants near him when he wakes, Would not the beggar then forget himself? (Induction.1.34-38) 040
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 15/09/2026The money is being preserved across generations, almost as if Timothy is trying to make the Forsyte property line immortal. 130
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 15/09/2026Finally got back to it. Sell everything I own, pay all debts and expenses, then hold the remaining money in trust for as long as English law allows, so that it accumulates for the benefit of some future male Forsyte descendant. “nursed to the extreme limit permitted by the laws of England” 120
Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 15/09/2026#Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody "...all her words were turned into deeds, into the food she cooked, the laundry, the sewing." 3. 193
