Thursday, April 07, 2011

The following is an experimental exquisite corpse writing. To produce it, I searched on the Internet to find "famous opening lines of novels." I chose the second most famous: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife" (Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen, 1813). Then I searched to find what resulted from entering that line into a search. I clicked on each result and read until I felt I had found a sentence (or phrase, section, title, whatever) that was non-essay-like; an impotent phrase (something that could be read as a signifier to fit with any or all-such, so to say). If I felt this did not exist on the page, I moved on to the next. The sentences/phrases that were found to apply are stitched together in the following story.

The Margins of Engagement
(sources follow)

The news that a wealthy young gentleman named Charles Bingley has rented the manor known as Netherfield Park causes a great stir in the neighboring village of Longbourn, especially in the Bennet household. "Today was a very cold and bitter day, as cold and bitter as a cup of hot chocolate, if the cup of hot chocolate had vinegar added to it and were placed in a refrigerator for several hours." Da Da Da Dum.... It's time to choose a BA. Mrs. Bennet, a foolish woman who talks too much and is obsessed with getting her daughters married. This should be smaller than the outer text; the right margin should be wider, but the left margin should be the same. This angers Elizabeth even more, as she feels that it is solely because of her family that he would want to prohibit any sort of engagement between Bingley and Jane or Elizabeth and himself. No, you've not lost your way. Mrs. Bennet sees Mr. Bingley as a potential suitor for her daughters, and attempts to persuade Mr. Bingley to visit him. "It is a truth universally acknowledged that when one part of your life starts going okay, another falls spectacularly to pieces."

sources, in order, searched on 04/06/2011:
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/pride/section1.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony (quote: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Lemony Snicket)
http://www.online-literature.com/austen/prideprejudice/
http://tlonuqbar.typepad.com/phfn/docs/sample.html
http://www.novelguide.com/prideandprejudice/toptenquotes.html
http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/ppv1n01.html
http://www.gradesaver.com/pride-and-prejudice/study-guide/section1/
http://www.myprideandprejudice.com/2009/08/it-is-a-truth-universally-acknowledged-homages-and-parodies/ (quote: Bridget Jones's Diary)

No comments:

Post a Comment