Waaaahh!

[calime]

My computer up and died on me last night. After a shortlived agony it's not booting up any more. Which, in a computer, tends to be a rather BAD THING. I tentatively blame the webcam driver I installed, because a) this was the last install I did and b) my dear departed's last words were on the line of serious system error and an unknown driver. Though, of course, it can be something else and far more disastrous. Grrr!
Fortunately, there's a laptop that's not quite mine, but mine to use, so at least the connection to the wide world is reestablished and the digital tv is working again. Meaning I can get my translation done before Monday.
*sigh* I'll drag the pc to work with me tomorrow and ask a coworker to look at it. If all goes well, he manages to get it going and won't die of schock because of my screensaver (which is the super pretty one by Killa and Melina *eg*). If all doesn't go well...I may have to take the 'puter to repairs or something. I'm very glad that my bookmarks are backed up on the foxmarks server...and that most of what I have on my hard drive is reproducible. Some unfinished fic stuff is not...but well, nothing's perfect. I just wish that it hadn't happened right at the time when I'd managed a) to get a bit over 100 hours of music conviniently into the 'puter and b) when I've just spent all spare cash on registering for HLWW8 and paying the stable rent.
On the bright side, I have two laptops I can use meanwhile, and *drum roll* most of the books by Mary Renault I'd ordered have arrived. Thank you very much for reccing them, cyberducks and my_cnnr! I consoled myself last night with "Charioteer", and of course could not go to sleep until I was halfway through the book... I find myself liking the writing style very much...

Comments

[cyberducks.livejournal.com]

Your icon - hee! Oh my, the bestest angst is still ahead of you - it's angst city, I'll tell you! Everybody loves Ralph and/or crushes on him - MR put most of her life philosophy into that character.

Your Hazell feelings are pretty unusual, most people loathe him almost as much as Bunny. Ralph/Hazell an inevitable disaster because one of Lanyons flaws is that he has little tolerance for human weakness - in others and himself. The Theban Band did Laurie/Ralph as teens here in my icon.

[calime]

our Hazell feelings are pretty unusual, most people loathe him almost as much as Bunny. Ralph/Hazell an inevitable disaster because one of Lanyons flaws is that he has little tolerance for human weakness - in others and himself.
Well put in a nutshell...see, I never noticed him until the part where Ralph tells Laurie how they broke up. Just...the contempt/intolerance for another not being perfect/not fitting into the ideal Ralph tried to draw...that...absence of compassion ("I'd have liked to see him dead/../" - a pretty awful thing to feel about someone you've been so close to, to the one that feels, also,I'd say) is what got me, I guess. Especially as I do like Ralph and Hazell is so not a likable character..but he's too human, perhaps. And with Ralph's "I'd been trying to work up what I was into a kind of religion. I thought I could make out that way. He made me see it just a part of what he was." ...still, seems the understanding doesn't make him less intolerant towards any shortcomings in either himself or others, does it. One of those characters that are so strong that they are also too fragile, seems to me...

[cyberducks.livejournal.com]

The thing I dislike about Hazell is not his masochism - but that he tattletailed on Ralph and got him expelled.

You are totally on the money about Ralph - he is somebody that's incapable of bending - and people like that tend to break when things get to be too much. He also needs to give, give, give, and needs to be in control at all times - it's like Alec says, he can only be happy with somebody up to his own strength, but with the courage to let Ralph lead.

[calime]

The thing I dislike about Hazell is not his masochism - but that he tattletailed on Ralph and got him expelled.
yes, I agree...but I can totally see what made him do it. The scorn of one who you love/respect is hard enough to take, and if you're already feeling different in not a good sense, imagine being cast out from the favour of one who made one of those differences a good thing or at least was in it with you. Doubly cast out...would be more than enough to drive someone to despicable acts in lashing out to hurt the one that hurt you.

[cyberducks.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, I can see it too - the wrath of a lover scorned...but we only get to see Hazell through Laurie's and Ralph's eyes, and all of the authors sympathies are with them. That's bound to influence the reader.

[calime]

yes; and what I like is that though author's sympathies are with her heroes, her heroes are not always likable nor her non-heroes always unlikable. Makes them all very human.
*8 more slides and I can take a book break...*