Today I’m not going to look at Yiyun Li’s commentary until writing my own.
Chapter 7 focuses on a dinner in which we meet four grown sisters: Mesdames Tulliver, Glegg, Pullet, and Deane. I’m sure that I have behaved in a manner similar to at least one of them when in company with my own sisters. I fear it is the opinionated, dreadful Mrs. Clagg.
Speaking of the author, George Elliot is the pseudonym of Mary Anne Evans. I wonder what “his” Victorian audience thought about the lavish descriptions of fabrics, frillings, bonnets, curls, and hair here. Elliot is clearly writing in a woman’s narrative voice.
Oh, and the traumatic hair-cutting event!
When I read classic literature in print peppered with French phrases, I skip them, reasoning that it won’t interfere with the gist of plot and character. Thanks to Kindle’s built-in dictionary/translator. I didn’t miss the wit this time:
“For the same reason she wore a small sable tippet, which reached just to her shoulders, and was very far from meeting across her well-formed chest, while her long neck was protected by a chevaux-de-frise of miscellaneous frilling.”
Tomorrow I’ll attempt to more closely model Yiyun Li’s economy of words.