a speech or piece of writing expressing a strongly critical attack on or controversial opinion about someone or something.

Joe seems to be interested in Maria, but she seems to be missing it. Why could that be? What is Joyce saying here?

edit: Oh he's married! Maybe he's the one who got away and she never moved on? But Maria doesn't seem to understand

Disappointed shyness, even though she says outright she doesn't want a man? I don't understand

Polly is such a manipulative genius; I fully respect this

What a descriptive phrase, Joyce is so good at packing tons of meaning into a few words

This is one of my favorite descriptors. Of course the house is blind. I've read this story about a million times now and this always, always strikes me

I think top sampling says a lot, but less about what people are saying and more about what people are reading. A comparison of these different types of datasets I think say a lot too.

A central issue in data analytics, I think. There's this idea that quantitative data = complete fact, ignoring all the others factors of context and use.

I love the personification of Spring here, it becomes almost a character

At this point it's more of a challenge to find an opening that's not in media res

I love this perspective here. For here, this is a massive occasion. For them, it's another Tuesday night.

Implies isolation, and by extension, innocence

Once more, in media res opening

poky? What does that mean?

This is always the generational divide, isn't it. Who has fancy toys and who was entertained with a rock and a stick.

Is this grandfather the one who died? Or am I getting names confused?

I'm struggling to follow the narrative in this section. Which veranda? where?

I feel like this says a lot about their relationship with their father, when he was alive. Their fear of him extends well past his death

How does computational analysis deal with dialects written like this?

This is such an interesting construction; the "She was." in particular says both nothing and a lot. She was asleep? awake?

The week after what? Very powerful hook; pulls us into something traumatic in the past as well as the current time.

Laura trying to hold on to the romantic naivety of the morning before, but she is realizing the juxtaposition of her own attention to materiality with a human person, dead in front of her.

Even after the whole party in spite of a man's death, the grieving family is only given leftovers

Completely ignoring the question of morality; back to hats

Immediate assumption by the wealthy that any working class person who was in an accident only got there by their own fault

This is really bringing into focus how central class difference and perception is in this work. The death of this man doesn't matter to this garden party because the man was of a lower class; his whole community is just "an eyesore" for them

Even in a song about weariness, she is incapable of feeling a negative emotion here, it's baffling.

Eeeverything is so romantic in Laura's eyes. The way she describes the simplest things is so extraordinarily intense, this almost feels like she's under the influence of something.

The workmen seem to be slowly getting less and less romantic in Laura's descriptions of them.

Could a computer tell what season this is? It feels like spring or summer, as a reader, with the perfect weather and flowers, but I wonder how a computer deals with that

In response to our discussion in zulip about specific markers of time or moments, 'o'clock' is coming up a lot in discussions of the night and specific moments of suspicion.

Rosanna is, I think, the most tragic character in this whole novel. She is constantly viewed as suspicious, with a heartbreaking backstory, and dies from unrequited love. It hurts.

I'm fascinated by the footnotes that are showing up in Blake's section, and what these look like in the raw form of the text.

He really hated his wife, huh. He uses her to describe all women as inherently "frail" and "perverse". Oof.

Someone please explain to me the prophetic power of Robinson Crusoe specifically? this is not the first time I've had this thought but it remains confusing for me. Why did Collins pick this book for Betteredge?

Man, again I am wishing that I had paid more attention to Mr. Bruff from the first place! He is the only one that seems aware of these characters and their villainy

As a distant, feminist reading, this is a really interesting description of a woman, as written by a man, in the Victorian period. While not a glowing review of a woman, and one that describes her as wrong and pitiable, she remains a whole person in this description. I would love to see a computational analysis of adjectives in sentences with "she" vs. "he".

The irony of this discussion, especially after finishing the novel and learning of Godfrey's true intentions, becomes more and more clear. It's great to look back and pull together all the hints that Collins was leaving.

I'm super interested in the capitalization of Will by Bruff! i hadn't noticed before, but do other narrators do this when referring to the will? Or is it just Bruff, the ever-professional solicitor?

Her death seems to be very quickly assigned a suicide... Maybe I'm missing something, but a lot seems unaccounted for

It's too early in the novel for this to be true! We're less than a third in; I don't buy it.

This is highly suspicious... I don't think Betteredge wants to suspect her, but Cuff might.

The word choice of "stolen" vs "missing" I think says a lot about Cuff's character; I wonder if there's a way to figure out how often one or the other is sued, computationally

Why is this in quotes?

This is such a fascinating character description. It feels very seasonal; Betteredge uses the phrase "autumn leaf" but so much of this man (black, white, emaciated, elderly) is very winter, very death.

Rosanna seems to be diretly set up by Betteredge as the thief. Is this because she is or because Betteredge already doesn't like her? Seems very red herring to me.

Such clear foreshadowing here, also interesting that Betteredge has his lady, who he loves and respects, giving the warning.

Franklin becomes a savage in comparison with Godfrey when Godfrey says he hold Betteredge in high regard. I love Betteredge, he feels so transparent

This feels very much like descriptions of witchcraft, like the things the witches in Macbeth threw into their cauldron. Is Betteredge associating science with magic because he's just a superstitious Christian or is this relating to the other supernatural things going on?

So far, a lot of the magic has been "from outside" and very very not British, I think it's noteworthy that at this point they're using the existence of this type of "hocus pocus" in England to contradict or invalidate the magic of the jugglers

Why Crusoe specifically, for Betteredge specifically? What does this say about the character? Something about Christianity? Being lost and then found? What themes are connected?

We have yet to learn anything directly about his narrator; from context, though, they are British, Christian, likely male, in the military (attached to the British East India company, historically) and the cousin of John Herncastle.

I always love when first person narratives start off like this. It gears me up for a very very biased account of whatever's going to happen. excited for my untrustworthy narrator(s)

badabing