From: mdhangton@gmail.com   
      
   On Wednesday, July 16, 2014 7:14:26 PM UTC-4, J.Pascal wrote:   
   > On Wednesday, July 16, 2014 11:04:43 AM UTC-6, William Vetter wrote:   
   > > > > For that matter, when am I ever trying to do anything that could be   
   > > > > > misunderstood?  Not only do I not know how to answer the question, I   
   > > > > > don't seem to even understand it.  ::rueful::   
   > > > > The following passage is from a literary fiction novel _Tending to   
   > > > > Virginia_, by Jill McCorkle.  Virginia is the POV character.  She is   
   > > > > pregnant.   
   > > > > And she hates yellow.  She wishes there was absolutely nothing yellow   
   in   
   > > > > the entire world.  "Yellow is perfect for a nursery because it can go   
   > > > > either way--boy or girl, yellow," the tennis guy's wife had said.    
   Screw   
   > > > > her, impregnate her, paint her life yellow.   
   > > > > Did you understand that?   
   >    
   > > > As a general rule I don't understand literary novels.  That is, they   
   > > > don't confuse me, they just seem like an utterly pointless waste of   
   > > > time.   
   > > > I can tell that the character here is emotionally overwrought.  I   
   > > > suspect it has to do with her pregnancy.     
   > > > But why do I need to "understand" that she is in a state because of her   
   > > > pregnancy?  How does that move the plot along?   
   >    
   > > I got this excerpt from a book with maybe 130 excerpts like that, meant as   
   examples.  This example seemed the most clear to me.  It took me a while to   
   get a copy of the book where it originated...it was a novel of 1987, written   
   entirely in stream of    
   consciousness from the perspectives of at least 5 female characters in a small   
   town in N. Carolina, one elderly in a nursing home and sometimes confused.  I   
   have read about 1/3rd of it, and I am not sure if it has a plot; it is pretty   
   much about women    
   and their emotions.   
   >    
   > > I did learn the reason she's angry at the Tennis Guy.  She is cheesed off   
   at strangers who take liberties with her because she's pregnant, laying their   
   hands on her extended belly, rubbing it, approaching her crotch, not taking   
   her seriously when she    
   complains.  The lawyer husband, well, let us say I think Virginia has a right   
   to be mad at him too for letting it happen.  He argued that the public has   
   rights to her body while she's pregnant; while she countered that she was   
   renting a house to the    
   fetus, therefore, she still retains ownership of her body.   
   >    
   >    
   >    
   > Oh gawd. A person might argue that she's silly to view the public interest   
   and wanting to touch in a negative way when it's not intended negatively, but   
   that isn't the equivalent of arguing that the public has rights to her body   
   and anyone who thinks    
   it is and can't get up the gumption to pop someone in the nose without her   
   husband's assistance probably really does need a male keeper.  I'm assuming   
   that either the husband's argument *or* the type of argument the author was   
   responding to was similar    
   to what I said because making up cultures and worlds where it makes sense that   
   someone even *thinks* that strangers have a right to your body is what *not*   
   writing in Real World settings is for!   
   >    
   Um, she yelled at the couple and made an incident.   
   Afterward the lawyer argued the Tennis Guy's side.   
      
   Sometime later there is the internal monologue about She Hates Yellow.   
      
   Then the Tennis Guy's Wife shows up at her doorstep with cans of yellow paint   
   and rollers and is such a friendly stranger, she is obligated to paint the   
   nursery yellow and make nice-nice with her.   
      
   >(Remembers why she likes spaceships and 'splody things instead of   
   *literature*.)    
      
   I wonder how the Gray Lensman would deal with "paint the nursery yellow."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)