Quick and dirty

I totally didn't expect to get anything done today, since I had to stay home with my son. Surprisingly, he was willing to play on his own in his room for a good long stretch, so I was able to sketch out the section on Asbjørnsen's "Reensdyrjagt ved Ronderne." Still lots to do (everywhere in this chapter, actually), but at this point I'm just desperately filling in the major blanks.

This chapter doesn't feel nearly as strong as the one on the seter, which is kind of a bummer. I really think I need another text or two, and I don't really know what that could be. One idea is Bernhard Herre's En Jægers Erindringer from 1849, but I'm afraid that one actually has more to do with the seter chapter (one of the stories is called "Sæterpigen og Jægeren"...). I'll have to go back to my master list of cabin texts. Or maybe check out some of Welhaven's poetry? Gulp... I'm not even half way through the chapter (only onto page 15 out of a planned 40). Of course I haven't referred at all to secondary literature as yet, so I'll have to go in and insert any relevant analyses I can find.

No writing for a while, as I'm going to have to get through 200 more pages of Vinje's Ferdaminni frå Sumaren 1860 first.

WORDS WRITTEN: 1231

Moving right along

Okay, today I got most of the section on Maurits C. Hansen's "Luren" nailed down. It ain't pretty, but it's there. Tomorrow I have to stay home with E, so I won't get much work done I'm afraid. My next task is reading Ferdaminni frå Sumaren 1860...

WORDS WRITTEN: 1165

Minimal

Really struggling to pick up momentum after a "real" Easter break and then overseas conference attendance. Today I squeezed under an hour of working on chapter two in between teaching and administrative duties. It wasn't even real writing, just cut and paste. I took most of the material on Wergeland's Fjeldstuen from my Peer Gynt book to use as a starting point for the new chapter section on that play. I'll need to rework it quite a bit. For starters I added a few sentences about the play's literary historical significance (it's the last long work Wergeland wrote) and I noticed a strong parallel to the class dynamic in Hansen's "Luren," which is probably the most important text for this chapter. So I managed to confirm that it is indeed appropriate to be using this play in the chapter.

There are two more sections (I think) to add before I can start filling out the entire chapter: one on Asbjørnsen's "Reensdyrjagt ved Ronderne" and one on Vinje's Ferdaminni frå sumaren 1860. The Asbjørnsen section should be pretty straightforward, but the problem with the Vinje section is that I haven't even finished reading the text yet, so I'm not even sure it will work!

I forgot to record how many words I added. The document grew from 7 to 10 pages.

Sunday Scholar

I was lucky enough to have about three hours to myself this morning before the rest of the family made its appearance. For some reason I was really determined to see if I could get some writing done, rather than just surfing the internet as I usually do over my leisurely breakfast, and lo and behold it worked (and really, it was equally entertaining).

I pretty much rounded off my analysis of the cabin scene in Camilla Collett's Amtmandens Døttre. There's some more background information to add, including discussions of the various discourses (Enlightenment, Romantic, Victorian) regarding the cabin, but that will have to wait since I don't have the sources lined up. I did spend some time skimming the parts describing Norway in Mary Wollstonecraft's Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (1796). That's such a fascinating book, and the attitude she has parallels much of what one finds in Amtmandens Døttre. I'm now up to 2067 words for the chapter, so around 10,000 (and a ton more research) to go.

WORDS WRITTEN: 1056

Why, hello

I really didn't think I would be posting anything here for a good long while, as I have had a nasty list of non-research, non-writing tasks to get through before the Easter break. But somehow today I found myself with a two-hour block of time and no desire to work on my taxes or grading, and the only thing else I could possibly justify doing was starting in on chapter two of the cabin book. And so I did.

I typed in the title and the chapter sub-headings, pasted in a section on Hansen's "Luren" and started writing new material on the "fisker Anders hytte" sequence in Collett's Amtmandens Døttre. Boy does it feel good to be underway again!

WORDS WRITTEN: 1011 (only 11,000 or so to go...)

Done as dinner

I spent four hours today working on my conference paper on Trolljegeren, and I think I'm calling it done. I actually spent a lot of time on it yesterday, but that was mostly just reading articles and the Asma book, re-watching the film, and taking careful notes. Today, though, I wrote. I had four pages (1086 words) from my writing session last week, and now I've reached the bottom of page eight, which is pretty much the limit for a 20-minute conference paper for me. I think it came together really well, and I'm looking forward to putting together the slide show to accompany the talk. I have tons of still shots to choose from. The film continues to crack me up, and for me at least it functions very well on a bunch of levels. The comedian Otto Jespersen, who can be a total asshole in his satire, is spot-on brilliant in the roll of Hans the troll hunter. He makes the entire film.

I'm sure I'll do a little more tinkering between now and the conference, but it sure is a relief to have this squared away. My next two tasks are US tax returns and my job application, and then it's back to the cabin book and chapter two.

Words written: 1683

ETA: Yikes, that has to be a record: three days of work for a conference paper?! Surely there's something wrong here.

Reading day

I woke up in the middle of the night with some ideas for my conference paper that I jotted down before going back to sleep. Unfortunately they turned out not to be so good when I woke up in the morning.

Instead of writing, I spent the day reading Stephen T. Asma's On Monsters: An Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears. It's a good read, but it's not really helping all that much with the Trolljegeren paper. Sigh.