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Rebecca Mead

Rebecca Mead Books

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“Some very eminent critics writing in the decades immediately after the novel's publication felt that Eliot failed to maintain sufficient critical distance in her depiction of Ladislaw--that she fell in love with her own creation in a way that shows a lack of artistic control and is even unseemly, like a hoary movie director whose lens lingers too long on the young flesh of a favored actress. Lord David Cecil calls Ladislaw 'a schoolgirl's dream, and a vulgar one at that,' while Leslie Stephen complained 'Ladislaw is almost obtrusively a favorite with his creator,' and depreciated him as 'an amiable Bohemian.”

WritingLiterary CriticismArtistic CreativityFictional CharactersLiterary Creation
Book:My Life in Middlemarch
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“But to demand that a work be “relatable” expresses a different expectation: that the work itself be somehow accommodating to, or reflective of, the experience of the reader or viewer. The reader or viewer remains passive in the face of the book or movie or play: she expects the work to be done for her. If the concept of identification suggested that an individual experiences a work as a mirror in which he might recognize himself, the notion of relatability implies that the work in question serves like a selfie: a flattering confirmation of an individual's solipsism.”

IfsBookDifferentDonePlayMightFacesIndividualReaderDemandExpectationsConceptsMirrorsRemainsNotionPassiveViewersRelatableFlatteringIdentificationConfirmationWork To Be DoneSolipsismRelatability
Author:Rebecca Mead
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“While the fashion industry may, at least at the top end, be thriving, the notion of fashion itself is becoming more and more meaningless. Any discipline in fashion has long since evaporated; the idea of a single fashionable skirt length, or heel height, is incomprehensible. The definition of the fashionable has become so skimpy that it refers not to the mode of dress of everyday people--the clothes that have sufficiently caught the popular imagination to be worn in a widespread manner--but only to the styles that momentarily excite members of the fashion caravan.”

PeopleMayLongIdeasEndsImaginationFashionStyleIndustryBecomingDisciplineMembersClothesDressesNotionEverydayCaughtDefinitionsHeightLengthMeaninglessHeelsWornFashionableSkirtsBecoming MoreFashion IndustryCaravans
Author:Rebecca Mead
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“Reading is sometimes thought of as a form of escapism, and it’s a common turn of phrase to speak of getting lost in a book. But a book can also be where one finds oneself; and when a reader is grasped and held by a book, reading does not feel like an escape from life so much as it feels like an urgent, crucial dimension of life itself.”

FeelsDoeBookSometimesFormTurnsReadingLostSpeakCommonReaderOneselfPhrasesDimensionsCrucialUrgentBook ReadingEscapismGetting Lost
Book:My Life in Middlemarch
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“What's your favorite book?' is a question that is usually only asked by children and banking identity-verification services--and favorite isn't, anyway, the right word to describe the relationship a reader has with a particularly cherished book. Most serious readers can point to one book that has a place in their life like the one that 'Middlemarch' has in mine.”

ChildrenBookIdentityMinesSeriousReaderBankingYour FavoriteRight WordsFavorite BookVerificationMiddlemarch
Book:My Life in Middlemarch
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