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korrick 's review for:
Paradise Lost
by John Milton
So farewell hope and, with hope, farewell fear;I never know what kind of shit will go down between the time I finish reading and the time I finish reviewing. There's probably a way of integrating my newly acquired experience of being in an active shooter lockdown with this work, but as of now, I'm too tired to find it. The fact that this morning's events displaced my writing to a café while eating ice cream instead of my apartment while typing away will probably display itself in various ways, and I'll be less interested in touching on this book's battle scene than I was previously. You could draw a connection between subtle infiltration and sudden violation of one narrative to another, but there are enough journalists and politicians and wannabe psychologists putting their spin on things without me distorting events further. My only contribution to a cross examination would be a brief rumination on what Milton may have thought in the after math of today's morning. Better, in the aftermath of having been in the various rooms of barricaded doors and distanced windows, for massacres these days are a dime a dozen. People were disappointed when this wasn't as sensational a mass shooting. Fancy that.
Farewell remorse.
Milton wrote a piece of fanction built on offense and also happened to create a classic. Greek gods? Offended. Catholics? Offended. Beehives constructed around Queens rather than kings? Offended. If it's theology, I don't mind so much, especially when the author's too busy with a Christian sect to mine the usual targets much. However, the closer you get to obfuscating fact and the sort of pride that can be bred only by your parents selling out lavish amounts for your keep well into your able thirties, the less I'm distracted by the knowledge, the thought, and the prose, prose, prose. See, Paradise Lost is worthy enough that I'll fend off both prof and poet in my attempts to get at it, but it's the sort of perfect in what you can pick at, not as in perfection. It helped that the footnotes were surprisingly on my side, riddling through the misogynistic ages (more like that post-Elizabeth Jacobean surge that everyone likes to pretend had been there since creation) in a way that taught without gatekeeping. When considering how little teaching is done these days in favor of telling students how much to pay for telling them how high to jump, it gives me hope that those who come after me will be able to appease their appetites for the really old ENglish shit without being expected to put on KKK meatsuits. Late as Milton is when compared to Chaucer, such a request is not often enforced, but then there's the whole Judaism business to consider. If Milton was fanfiction, Christianity's some insecure settler state complex that likes to perform the abandonment of its origin without ever going through with it. It's made for some interesting reading, paradigms of ethics-wise, but you don't capture the hearts of billions with a system of codes. You do it by telling a story.
Pieces like this remind me why spoilers are such a pointless concept, least so long as triggers are mocked to such a homicidal degree. You go to the Bible, Paradise Lost is there. You go to Blake, Paradise Lost is there. I can't imagine the TV show Supernatural going strong without it, or the fever grip angels and demons and evil and good and just what the fuck is up with Satan anyway has been having on cheap horror flicks and solemnly terrifying paintings for centuries in a few particular corners of the world. Has it built up to something that excuses its amounting little more than stolen goods? Hard to say.
If you're reading the right histories, reading this will piss you off. However, it's not only gorgeous, but also where a lot of other less ivory tower stuff got some of their spark, so read it for them if nothing else. All I know is that I can finally say with credible certainty that I prefer [b:The Canterbury Tales|2696|The Canterbury Tales|Geoffrey Chaucer|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1261208589s/2696.jpg|986234] to [b:Paradise Lost|15997|Paradise Lost|John Milton|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1455618673s/15997.jpg|1031493], and can even tell you why.
They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late their happy seat,
Waved over by that flaming brand, the gate
With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms.
Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon:
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and providence their guide;
They hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way.