"He had heard that women often fell in love with unattractive and quite ordinary men, but he did not believe it because he judged by himself and he could fall in love only with beautiful, mysterious, and exceptional women." Anna Karenina, page 30

Worth it's "wait" in Gold

Sometimes I think I'm really arrogant and that's why I read really long, old books. And that would be correct. But that's not the only reason. I am in the last hundred pages of the 1000 page tome that is War and Peace. I find myself laughing aloud on almost every page at Tolstoy's ironic sense of humour and subtle wording. I want to quote lines from it but then I realize that giving context would mean the whole book. I am so affectionate towards characters that I remember fiercely hating 2 months ago. My mind is blown by the fact that each character has a unique journey and totally different personality and level of intelligence and ambition. Each marriage functions in a different way and is good or bad for different reasons. And each death is poignant and devastating or jubilantly satisfying in its own way. All the characters change in the 14 years the book covers, but each remains themselves. I am completely convinced of Tolstoy's opinion on wars and history, which I'll never write about because I would have to rewrite that already written book to explain.
So I don't just read it so I can say I did. Although that's what I was doing for the first 68%. To form an allegory in the Tolstoyan way: [I worked on this for a long time but his allegories are really inimitable.]

Every page was worth it. I'm glad of every page I have left.

Brand of Awesome

Elisa came up with this concept and I think it meshes nicely with Sup Theory.

The idea is that each person has their Brand of Awesome and everyone's is unique. To explain this I came up with an analogy:
My favourite thing for a treat is PC brand raspberry sherbet. I could eat a whole litre but I try to spread it out because it's hard to find in stores. So imagine that I bought a different brand because it was cheaper but not as good. I wouldn't be enjoying it that much, and in that case what's the point? On the other hand, say I have some sacred sherbet in the freezer and I come home from work and find my lactose-intolerant-room-mate eating it (would never happen). I would be incensed.
In the same way human beings are like products of differing values that one can possess.
Just kidding. In a somewhat similar way people have a host of traits and proclivities that make up who they are. Some they like, some they dislike, but there are normally a few characteristics that we hold in the centre of ourselves as our identifiers - when we think of ourselves the first things that come to mind. One would hope to meet a person who immediately saw through one's superficial qualities right down to one's raspberry sherbet core. And if they see the sherbet and decide, 'I prefer chocolate ice cream', respecting the Brand means passing that person by because they deserve to be eaten by me.
It's not about liking every single thing about the person, it is just seeing who they are and saying "that's awesome!" or maybe you don't think it is, so do us both a favour and don't waste their time.

I'm just upset because I ate the last of my PC raspberry sherbet just now.

What's the difference between elopement and kidnapping?

A study in disgust, by rachael

Russian culture in the 19 century has again repulsed me. I can read for pages and chapters, but then suddenly in about two sentences Tolstoy destroys a character. I speak of war and peace, which I've been struggling through for the past couple months. The characters are absurdly simple minded and throw out the most amazing opportunities in exchange for an obvious sham.
What has sparked this most recent bout of vehemence is a ridiculous plot twist involving one of my favourite characters. She decides instantly to refuse her incredible fiancé and "elope" with a well known philandering party boy whom she thinks is the bees's knees. We then look at an excerpt from the text:
"'I have heard what elopements are like,' continued Dolokhov with a wink. 'Why, she'll run out more dead than alive just in the things she is wearing; if you delay at all, there will be tears and "papa" and "mama", and she's frozen in a minute and must go back - but you must wrap the fur cloak around her first thing and carry her to the sledge.'"

And thus I found myself asking the question which titles this post.