Private Message to Antonin Dolohov
Sep. 14th, 2012 09:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alt_poppyAntonin,
I thought it well to follow up with you about the fact that I have now seen three students who were directed to present me with the quite penetrating questions and concerns they've conceived while completing the (supposed) assignments for your course. (To be fair, all of them have acknowledged it was their own fault they'd given insufficient regard to the discrepancies in author and date of publication between the assigned text and the work they bought instead. Moreover, all of them confess they realised their error quite quickly, yet chose to continue reading.)
While I'm always pleased for the opportunity to educate students about their physical and psychic health, I regret to say that these particular students were rather badly upset by some of the details they've gleaned from Ms Reville's novel.
I've now read it myself, and I must say its mistaken ideas about the human body are lamentable. I doubt even contortionists are capable of certain acts described there, but more than that, I suspect the author has actually had very little in the way of direct experience of the things she attributes to her characters. So, not only are our students having their minds' eyes trained on things they've never before imagined, they are being fed a great load of rubbish about the mechanics, dynamics, sensations, emotions, and consequences of these things.
When you promised you'd do your best to limit the number of casualties you sent me, this was not the sort of damage I imagined.
How are you getting on? I doubt this business was much help with your insomnia. Or is the Pliny's doing for you, after all?
I thought it well to follow up with you about the fact that I have now seen three students who were directed to present me with the quite penetrating questions and concerns they've conceived while completing the (supposed) assignments for your course. (To be fair, all of them have acknowledged it was their own fault they'd given insufficient regard to the discrepancies in author and date of publication between the assigned text and the work they bought instead. Moreover, all of them confess they realised their error quite quickly, yet chose to continue reading.)
While I'm always pleased for the opportunity to educate students about their physical and psychic health, I regret to say that these particular students were rather badly upset by some of the details they've gleaned from Ms Reville's novel.
I've now read it myself, and I must say its mistaken ideas about the human body are lamentable. I doubt even contortionists are capable of certain acts described there, but more than that, I suspect the author has actually had very little in the way of direct experience of the things she attributes to her characters. So, not only are our students having their minds' eyes trained on things they've never before imagined, they are being fed a great load of rubbish about the mechanics, dynamics, sensations, emotions, and consequences of these things.
When you promised you'd do your best to limit the number of casualties you sent me, this was not the sort of damage I imagined.
How are you getting on? I doubt this business was much help with your insomnia. Or is the Pliny's doing for you, after all?
no subject
Date: 2012-09-15 04:18 am (UTC)I do apologise. Profusely. Had I had the slightest notion of the potential for confusion inherent in the booklist, I would have been significantly more clear and provided explicit information regarding acceptable translations and editions rather than leaving it to the bookstore's discretion. I believe I shall spend the summer producing a translation of my own and provide that to next year's students rather than requiring them to obtain their own copies!
I have not read the text in question, but several of my nearest and dearest apparently have, and have delighted in gracing me with enough of a synopsis to allow me to piece together the contents. To say that I am mortified is an understatement, although Aurora and Razzer have spent the evening doing their utmost to help me see the humor in it. I suppose I will be able to laugh at the mixup ... in another year or two. Until that happy day I will only provide my deepest apologies for the additional work it has caused you.
Preserving your discretion, I will not ask whether Miss Lovegood is one of the students who have visited you, but when she consults me for the proper text I will do my best to encourage her to do so if she has not -- I am certainly not an appropriate interlocutor for the topic.
As to my health -- I am, I fear, rapidly approaching the point of convalescence where my mind is more than ready to cast off my body's limitations while my body refuses to oblige. I cannot tell if the Pliny's is helping or if I only think it is (although far be it from me to sneer at a good placebo effect), but I have been keeping a rough journal of my recovery, and comparing this week's sleep with last week's shows that I am sleeping about half an hour more on average when taking it. The largest effect continues to be minimising the amount of time I am staring at the bed-curtains when I wake in the middle of the night. I am still waking every 60 to 90 minutes, but the interval between being able to fall back asleep has shortened to five or ten minutes, at least until morning. I had been hoping to sleep in as much as possible, but apparently my body has decided it wants to be up with the sunrise, despite all prior inclinations.
Still, I do believe it has helped, and thank you again for the suggestion. It has allowed the insomnia to be replaced atop the most-annoying-complications list by the pins-and-needles sensation of slowly-returning nerve function. (Not an unexpected complication, but annoying nonetheless.) My circulation remains poor, and I've had to resort to wearing gloves in quarters despite keeping the fire built up, but Healer Kosta told me that too was to be expected, and could only be endured. I shudder to think what December might bring, but am practising my warming charms.
(I do not mean to imply you should search for a solution to my many ills -- I am simply taking advantage of a listening ear to complain.)
With regard,
Antonin