I'm terribly, terribly sorry for having neglected you for so long. I know I've already made these kinds of apologies before, but I'm hoping that the positively terrible pun in the title of this blog post will make you more receptive to my pleas for forgiveness.
The reason behind my absence is simple: I was kidnapped by the prolific 18th century Russian author, Leo Tolstoy. I unsuspectingly flipped open the cover of a paperback copy of Anna Karenina, and all of a sudden, I was carried off by his words, and held hostage until I reached the very last chapter. Through Dead Week, Finals, and even the holidays, I was held captive by the captivating prose, kept company only by the doomed socialite and her peers, and finally escaped from the prison on the third of this new year.
However, along the way, I'm afraid I developed a little bit of Stockholm Syndrome, because I loved every second of my confinement.
While the book was incredibly long, and a little slow in some parts, the plot was engaging and enthralling. The descriptions were beautiful, and entirely different from what I'm used to in British Literature: instead of focusing simply on forming a complete image of a setting or a character, Tolstoy spoke of movement and action, choosing to describe a dog in pursuit on a hunt, or the hushed whispering in a society ballroom. The characters were realistic and relatable, which only added to the inner turmoil when the rigidity of Russian society refused to bend for a woman in love.
I've never had to deal with a book that is purely translation before, and I must say, that made it a little more difficult to reach the end, because I am not sure if my edition was exactly the most descriptive or explanatory in its efforts to transcribe a great Russian drama into simple English. However, on the whole, emotional turbulence on this kind of a scale is relatively easy to translate, and the most important aspects of the novel came through with incredible clarity The sound of a gun misfired, a horse falling, and, most importantly, a heart breaking, need no translation.
But I'm afraid I'm about to break your hearts, again, my dear readers. Anna Karenina is a novel about the adulterous affair between the titular character, and the debonair military man, Count Vronsky, and in reading it, I soon found myself involved with another, as well. I've been cheating on you, with another blog, and I haven't a single regret for any of it.
It started out on November 14th, when, on the day before the final deadline, I submitted my application for a contributing editor position, for the nationally-written and recognized lifestyle website, College Fashion. It had been a dream of mine, for quite some time, to merge my mutual passions of fashion and reading, and in applying for this position, I submitted the idea of a column demonstrating a fashionable literacy, detailing the confluence of the two areas of my expertise: fashion inspired by literature.
Shortly thereafter, I heard back from the Editor-in-Chief, Zephyr Basine, that I had been accepted into the position. She wanted me to start elaborating on this concept immediately, and before I knew it, on January 2nd, my first post went up. Instead of revolving around character depictions and relatively easy reads, such as past "Looks From Books" posts have done, I delved deeper into the novel, choosing to interpret thematic elements within the writing instead, and centering the article around the very novel displayed at the top of this post.
Out of over 300 highly-qualified applicants, I was one of about sixteen college women selected to write for College Fashion for the next six months. I had been overjoyed simply at the idea of being handed such an honor, but after the introduction of my first post, I soon found myself flattered beyond compare. To date, my article has been "Liked" on Facebook more than 113 times, has been "Retweeted" 40 times - once, by Focus Films (they who made the 2012 Anna Karenina movie) themselves - and garnered "Comments Section" praise, like this:
"I gotta say, not only am I in love with a lot of these outfits, but I am SO freaking impressed with this. It’s not just straight inspiration from illustrations, the movie, and the like- it’s outfits based off of overreaching themes?! Seriously, this is incredible, moving, and what true fashion should be about."Color me bashful. But not bashful enough not to brag when I'm proud of something. Check the article out in its entirety right here: http://www.collegefashion.net/inspiration/looks-from-books-fashion-inspired-by-anna-karenina/
At any rate, though it may result in a little less attention to the needs of THIS blog, my job at College Fashion is just as much of an effort for the love of literature as my posts on here are, and I am incredibly honored and blessed to be writing for them. I can only hope that you might all be happy for me, and, hey, we can still be friends. I'll continue to update this blog as much as possible, and link to College Fashion whenever a new post goes up, but it may just take a little more time than that to which you may have become accustomed.
Sincerely, with much love and excitement,
Savannah.
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