Monthly Literature Challenge

[InesF]

The Monthly Ink Quartett was a lot of fun and, as mentioned there, a lot was learned by stricktly following the main rule of using each fountain pen for at least a full month. However, after rotating through 42 of my 44 pens within a year, it was time to do something new.

 

And here we are:

The Monthly Literature Challenge

 

The season will run for 12 month, starting October 2022, ending September 2023.

This time I will have a minimum of two and a maximum of 4 fountain pens in use, each for a full month. I will keep at least one pen for a second month and I will discontinue at least one other pen. Taking seasons or other examples from nature for composing the set may happen by chance but is not a thing.

 

Season 2 is themed by classical literature (everything free from copyright). I choose one book per month and write one paragraph (most likely the first in the book) with one of my monthly pens. At least one among the fountain pens or inks will have some strong (or not so strong) connection to either the author or to the book theme or to both. Which type of connection is not pre-determined, it can be anything.

 

The challenge is not only on me! I like to involve you as well - therefore CRV (and not the handwriting section)

 

Deciphering my handwriting and guessing which book from which author I cite is the first challenge for you.

I would really love to see either handwritten comments or, much more exciting, a handwritten second paragraph from the same book without calling author or book name. Use either a pen and/or an ink which you think may also have some connection to the book. This is your second challenge!

 

In a hidden text part I will solve the riddle by mentioning author and book and all the connections I had thought about.

[InesF]

October Monthly Literature Challenge

 

Inks and fountain pens are:

Waterman Mysterious Blue (in Waterman Expert III F)

F.Schimpf Gelassenheit + Aurora Purple Mix (in Montblanc Virginia Woolf F)

Pelikan Edelstein Aquamarine (in Aurora Antarctica M)

Rohrer & Klingner Sepia (in Stipula La22 V-flex)

 

All pens and all inks were used to create the handwritten book page:

 

And here the photos of the pens:

 

Good luck guessing. Looking forward reading your handwritten comments.

(Yes, you are allowed to type a comment or copy here a typed next paragraph of the book)

 

Hiden text:

Spoiler

The book is The Waves from Virginia Woolf.

 

The Montblanc fountain pen is the most direct connection to the author.

Searching the internet for handwriting documants from Virginia Woolf resulted in multiple artefacts of which most have black ink on them but some of later dated were written in a type of grey-violet which I tried to mimic with the F.Schimpf + Aurora mix.

Aquamarine has some loose connection to water in general and Sepia to animals living in the sea.

Mysterious Blue may fit the set because it has mystery in the name.

 

[txomsy]

I do not know what to say. Except that it seems to me a great idea and that I have liked very much the excerpt you selected and the choice of colors.

[TSherbs]

I am intrigued. Are we not supposed to use the internet to search the passage?

[TSherbs]

Ok, so you say "guess" so I will guess To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf. 

[Carrau]

I think the title is literally (or littorally, if you like) being described in the passage.

[InesF]

On 10/2/2022 at 8:07 PM, txomsy said:

I do not know what to say. Except that it seems to me a great idea and that I have liked very much the excerpt you selected and the choice of colors.

Thank you!

I'm still undecided about what is more important, the inks selection (they fit together much like in the previous Ink Quartetts) or the literature riddle.

Time will tell, I think.

[InesF]

On 10/3/2022 at 12:00 AM, TSherbs said:

I am intrigued. Are we not supposed to use the internet to search the passage?

😊

On 10/3/2022 at 12:05 AM, TSherbs said:

Ok, so you say "guess" so I will guess To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf. 

Good guess ... almost!

[InesF]

On 10/3/2022 at 3:45 AM, Carrau said:

I think the title is literally (or littorally, if you like) being described in the passage.

Almost.

You are cordially invited to specify your educated guess.

[LizEF]

OK, since no one else is biting...  I confess to cheating.  While I didn't "Reveal hidden contents", I did use google to determine the source of the text in question and find the subsequent lines (the subsequent paragraph was quite long, so I didn't copy all of it).  The pen I used was already inked with Robert Oster Bass Straight, which I assume is a play on words for Bass Strait, which is known for having some serious waves (if you can believe Wikipedia).  The pen itself has some wavy patterns in it...  (The pen is a Visconti Homo Sapiens London Fog, EF nib.)

 

 

(This post brought to you in the middle of the night by a massive headache and two generic copy-cats of Excedrin.  )

[InesF]

59 minutes ago, LizEF said:

The pen I used was already inked with Robert Oster Bass Straight, which I assume is a play on words for Bass Strait, which is known for having some serious waves (if you can believe Wikipedia).  The pen itself has some wavy patterns in it...  (The pen is a Visconti Homo Sapiens London Fog, EF nib.)

Great! Well done! Indeed, the second paragraph is quite long.

@LizEF, your choice of ink and pen is well thought and excellently fitting the overlaying theme of the book. I'm impressed and I highly appreciate the effort you took, especially under the personal conditions you describe! 

 

Get well soon! All the best! 🛏️

[LizEF]

30 minutes ago, InesF said:

Great! Well done! Indeed, the second paragraph is quite long.

 

30 minutes ago, InesF said:

@LizEF, your choice of ink and pen is well thought and excellently fitting the overlaying theme of the book. I'm impressed and I highly appreciate the effort you took

Really, it was a fluke - the pen and ink were already ready, and it just seemed the obvious choice.

 

31 minutes ago, InesF said:

especially under the personal conditions you describe! 

 

Get well soon! All the best! 🛏️

Thank you!   Excedrin-substitute has mostly kicked in, but the caffeine in it is keeping me awake.  3-hours to review-posting.

[InesF]

1 hour ago, LizEF said:

Really, it was a fluke - the pen and ink were already ready, and it just seemed the obvious choice.

I would not have told .... 😇

At the first read I thought you had a sleepless night because of trying to solve the riddle! 😋

[LizEF]

5 minutes ago, InesF said:

I would not have told .... 😇

At the first read I thought you had a sleepless night because of trying to solve the riddle! 😋

[TSherbs]

I can't for the life of me remember other Woolf titles. 

[inkstainedruth]

Me neither.  But then I don't think I ever read much by her.

Nope -- I'm wrong.  I did read Orlando a number of years ago, and thought it was interesting, if weird.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[essayfaire]

On 10/4/2022 at 5:30 AM, InesF said:

Great! Well done! Indeed, the second paragraph is quite long.

@LizEF, your choice of ink and pen is well thought and excellently fitting the overlaying theme of the book. I'm impressed and I highly appreciate the effort you took, especially under the personal conditions you describe! 

 

Get well soon! All the best! 🛏️

I tried to see if my library had an eversion of the book(I don't have a copy at home), but alas, it did not.  Also not on Project Gutenberg, though other of her novels are.  Sorry. I will try again next novel!

[InesF]

8 hours ago, essayfaire said:

I tried to see if my library had an eversion of the book(I don't have a copy at home), but alas, it did not.  Also not on Project Gutenberg, though other of her novels are.  Sorry. I will try again next novel!

I have the German translated version as a paperback and the English directly from Gutenberg (see here, via author search you can find an ebook version).

 

I have to admit, my first try to read the original novel failed, I had to read the German version for adaptation first. Now it's possible for me, and I start to love the fine details in the language (as far as a non-native speaker can).

[InesF]

On 10/4/2022 at 3:44 PM, TSherbs said:

I can't for the life of me remember other Woolf titles. 

To be honest, I had to read all of her novels in German first, except:

On 10/4/2022 at 6:46 PM, inkstainedruth said:

I did read Orlando a number of years ago

except this one! This is such a fine read, way less exhausting to read the English original compared to the other novels, especially from the point of view of a non-native speaker.

 

Orlando is a great story, even a bit weird, which was the basis for a beautiful movie with Tilda Swinton in the main role. I can highly recommend.

 

Thank you both, @TSherbs and @inkstainedruth, for participating in the challenge. Please keep on trying and I'm especially looking forward to see some lines of handwritten text from you. Yes, really! 😋

[essayfaire]

10 hours ago, InesF said:

I have the German translated version as a paperback and the English directly from Gutenberg (see here, via author search you can find an ebook version).

 

I have to admit, my first try to read the original novel failed, I had to read the German version for adaptation first. Now it's possible for me, and I start to love the fine details in the language (as far as a non-native speaker can).

This is very interesting - Project Gutenberg Australia seems to have titles which Project Gutenberg did not:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=virginia+woolf&submit_search=Go!

 

I sometimes read novels in the original language along with an English translation, but I can't imagine trying to get a feel for the English from the German!  At one point I toyed with the idea of learning Russian in order to read  Pushkin but when I realized how much difficulty the expert translators had trying to do justice to the original I decided I was just better off reading multiple translations!