#readingthestone by ReadingTheStone
Thanks for listening! Find us at readingthestone.com or @ReadingTheStone on Twitter.
The grapes return for another episode of 'Stories for Kate.' This time we do a deep dive into Martha Coolidge's 1983 indie classic Valley Girl, starring a young Deborah Foreman and Nicholas Cage. We talked about aspects of the film that we still love (eileen: still the way NC kisses, swoon; Jen: the storytelling; Yaz: the character of Julie), and aspects that make us cringe now; and, a surprising revelation from Eily. Plus the music! the music! Still one of my all-time favorite soundtracks, from The Plimsouls to Modern English to Josie Cotton to Psychedelic Furs.
#ReadingTheStone Season 3: We have ventured a bit far afield from Story of the Stone and 18th century Chinese mansions for now, as Season 3 will be stories for (and about) Kate - in which we talk about her favorite books and films and men - and eagerly await her emendations and rebuttals.
[Originally recorded on March 25, 2023]
[Originally recorded on 3-11-2023]
[Originally recorded on 3-4-23]
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[Originally recorded on 2-11-2023]
[Originally recorded on July 2, 2022]
[Originally recorded on 2-4-23]
[Originally recorded on 6-11-2022]
[Conversation originally recorded on 6/4/22]
[Conversation originally recorded on 5/28/22]
In last week's episode we agreed that the last 40 "Story of the Stone" chapters were giving final season wrap-up-all-the-loose-threads vibes, but perhaps our #ReadingTheStone chats now do that too.
The #ReadingTheStone community forged ahead into Chapters 81-85 today, and we encountered so many callbacks to earlier moments to the point that some of us felt that they were giving final-season wrap-up vibes. Many threads and characters' fates are resurfaced, in anticipation of all coming to a head: Baoyu's return to studying for examinations, further mentions of the Jia family's financial excesses and the precarity of their fortunes being wrapped up in Yuanchun's place in court, and of course, the Baoyu-Daiyu-Baochai love triangle. Thanks to Elena, we spent some time pondering the details of Daiyu's dream - prognosticatory and Freudian avant la lettre.
#ReadingTheStone had our first Saturday chat of the new year, on January 14, 2023.
#ReadingTheStone Episode 7 was supposed to be a continuation of our discussion of the education of Baoyu, the young scion of the Jia family - but Waiyee, Ann, and Eileen were diverted by questions about the 'creation' of the extraordinary Jia daughter-in-law Wang Xifeng. From her keen knowledge of maths and household economy, to her minimal literacy (certainly in comparison to the other high-status young women in HLM), to her casual cruelty – Xifeng properly stole the show this week.
#ReadingTheStone Saturday live chats are back after a week's hiatus, and in this episode Waiyee and Eileen discuss the history of interlinear & eyebrow commentary in Chinese fiction and possible resonances with 21st century online fanfiction community practices; crossover fic potential with Pride and Prejudice; fiction as pedagogy - what is a bad reading? who is a misguided reader?; sexual transgression in the private schoolrooms and in the family mansion; and whether the hapless Jia Rui and his fatal obsession with the mirror is the ultimate stand-in for the hopelessly addicted HLM reader.
Our fifth Saturday chat continues the past week's conversation on Baoyu's sexual initiation - both in dreamland at the end of Chapter 5, and in the 'real world' at the beginning of the following chapter. Waiyee, Ann, and Eileen chat about Granny Liu 劉姥姥, narrative spaces as seen by outsiders and interlopers, and reader/writerly identifications.
Eileen, Waiyee, and Ann dive into Chapter 5 of Hongloumeng - and respond to #ReadingTheStone questions about the role of dreams in Chinese literature, translating xian as immortal or fairy, the author's invention of a supernatural pantheon, the illusion of knowledge and the novelistic form, and musical structure as a way of thinking about Chapter 5's revelations.
Thanks for listening! Find us at readingthestone.com or @ReadingTheStone on Twitter.
In this third round of Saturday chats on #ReadingTheStone, Eileen and Waiyee and special guest Ann Waltner talk about the introduction of key characters in the open four chapters of the Story Of The Stone.
