Fall 2015, the Sabbaticalization: Day Twenty-One

1) Writing: As I said yesterday, no writing--just thinking.  I expect that tomorrow will primarily be devoted to subtraction rather than addition.

2) Reading: Besides Hodd, I've been reading this bizarre Catholic novel, The Beleaguered Hearth (1856). After pondering its components (which, so far, include Italy,  banditti, boxing [with banditti], miraculously floating friars, sex, mysterious hidden castles, and curses), I think that this is an example of Catholic Gothic revisionism, in which the novel uses Gothic tropes to argue in favor of what we would now call an "enchanted" universe.   I mean, it's not what I would call a shining example of Victorian narrative construction, but the author is trying to do something at least reasonably interesting.

3) Miscellaneous: Starting to put together yet another conference paper proposal.